Statesmen, soldiers, patriots, came forward on all sides to do the work which was to be done, and those who were brought into closest contact with the commonwealth acknowledged in strongest language the signal ability with which, self-guided, she steered her course.

Nevertheless, there was at this moment one Netherlander, the chief of the present mission to England, already the foremost statesman of his country, whose name will not soon be effaced from the record of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

That man was John of Olden-Barneveld.
He was now in his thirty-eighth year, having been born at Amersfoot on the 14th of September, 1547.

He bore an imposing name, for the Olden-Barnevelds of Gelderland were a race of unquestionable and antique nobility.

His enemies, however, questioned his right to the descent which he claimed.