Reinier van Oldenbarnevelt, lord of Groeneveld, (also known as ''Reinier van Groeneveld'') (c. 1588 – 29 March 1623) was a Dutch political figure. He was born in

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

, the son of

Johan van Oldenbarnevelt Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (; 14 September 1547 – 13 May 1619), Lord of the manor, Heer van Berkel en Rodenrijs (1600), Gunterstein (1611) and Bakkum (1613), was a Dutch statesman and revolutionary who played an important role in the Dutch rev ...

. In 1607, he visited

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

with his brother Willem van Oldenbarnevelt as part of their Grand tour, and they were received at the court of king

Henry IV of France Henry IV (; 13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), also known by the epithets Good King Henry (''le Bon Roi Henri'') or Henry the Great (''Henri le Grand''), was King of Navarre (as Henry III) from 1572 and King of France from 1589 to 16 ...

. He married Anna Weytsen, lady of Brandwijk and Gijbeland, in

Delft Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...

in 1608. They had three children; Jacoba Francina (1610), Johan (1612) and Jacob van Oldenbarnevelt (1614). Reinier became forester of Holland and lived in the

Slot Teylingen Teylingen Castle () is a Dutch castle in the municipality of Teylingen, in the town of Voorhout, near the border with Sassenheim. It is presumably the family keep of the noble family , from which the Van Brederode family directly descended. Hi ...

Voorhout Voorhout () is a village and former municipality in the western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The former municipality covered an area of of which is covered by water, and had a population of 14,792 in 2004. Together with Sas ...

.National Archive
/ref> After the execution of his father in 1619, Reinier conspired with his brother Willem van Oldenbarnevelt and amongst others the Remonstrant preacher Hendrick Danielsz Slatius to assassinate

stadtholder In the Low Countries, a stadtholder ( ) was a steward, first appointed as a medieval official and ultimately functioning as a national leader. The ''stadtholder'' was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and ...

Maurice of Orange Maurice of Orange (; 14 November 1567 – 23 April 1625) was ''stadtholder'' of all the provinces of the Dutch Republic except for Friesland from 1585 at the earliest until his death on 23 April 1625. Before he became Prince of Orange upon ...

. The assassination attempt failed however, and Reinier van Oldenbarnevelt was beheaded in 1623 in

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

(as his father had been) for financial complicity in the conspiracy to assassinate prince Maurice. His wife Anna remarried in 1625, to Jacob Westerbaen.

Sources

*Molhuysen, P.C. en P.J. Blok, ''Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek: deel 5''
Oldenbarnevelt, Reinier van

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oldenbarnevelt, Reinier van 1580s births 1623 deaths Dutch people of the Eighty Years' War Executed Dutch people People from Teylingen People executed by the Netherlands by decapitation 17th-century executions by the Netherlands