Hugo Grotius escapes prison by hiding in a book chest - March 22nd, 1621

On this day in 1621, Dutch legal scholar Hugo Grotius escaped his imprisonment by hiding inside a book chest.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a
show that proves there's more than one way to make history.
I'm Gabe Lousier and today we're looking at one of

(00:20):
the most amusing stories in Dutch history, the time when
a studious lawyer escaped an unjust punishment in one of
the nerdiest ways possible. The day was March twenty second,
sixteen twenty one. Dutch legal scholar Hugo Grotius escaped his

(00:46):
imprisonment by hiding inside a book chest. He had been
sentenced to life in prison two years earlier after being
convicted on a trumped up charge of high treason. He
was held under guard at Luvestein Castle in the Netherlands,
which at the time functioned as a state prison. The
story of his improbable escape made Grotius a folk hero

(01:09):
to much of the Dutch public, but he also earned
lasting fame for his accomplishments as a lawyer, and is
widely known today as the father of international law. Hugo
de grot Aka Grotius was born in the city of
Delft in the province of South Holland. Netherlands on April tenth,
fifteen eighty three. His parents were wealthy and well connected,

(01:32):
enabling Grotius to enroll at the University of Leiden when
he was just eleven years old. He earned his degree
in fifteen ninety eight, having shown particular aptitude for the
study of law. After graduation, Grotius's family connection secured him
a position at a Dutch embassy in France. The man
in charge there was Johann van Olden Barnivald, the Grand

(01:56):
Pensionary of Holland and Grotius's mentor and future partner in crime.
During his time in France, the young ambassador met with
the newly installed King Henry the Fourth and was given
an honorary doctorate from the University of Orleans. He returned
to the Netherlands in the early sixteen hundreds and began
pursuing a legal career. He registered as a lawyer in

(02:20):
the Hague and devoted most of his focus to international law,
a timely subject due to the Dutch Empire's recent overseas expansion.
Grotius quickly made a name for himself in the field
and was appointed Attorney General of Holland in sixteen o seven.
One year later, he married Maria von Reiherschbeck, the daughter

(02:41):
of an affluent city official. The couple went on to
have nine children together, though only four are believed to
have outlived their parents. The netherlands Eighty Years War with Spain,
also known as the Dutch Revolt, was in full swing
by the time Grotius was born, but in sixteen o
nine a twelve year truce began and the fighting was

(03:03):
suspended for the first time in his life. However, one
year into the truce, religious disputes and political infighting broke
out inside the Netherlands. Part of the controversy stemmed from
worsening economic and social conditions, which had been ignored during
the war but now were on full display during the truce.

(03:23):
But the biggest source of unrest was a theological conflict
between the strict Calvinists also known as Gormeriists and the
more moderate Remonstrance also called Arminians. Grotius and his mentor
Olden Barnivald became leaders of the Remonstrance, arguing in favor
of religious tolerance. That stance put them in direct opposition

(03:47):
with Prince Maurice of Orange. He had been staunchly opposed
to the Twelve Years Truce and resented Olden Barnivald for
his role in securing that ceasefire. It was no surprise, then,
that Prince Moore Race wound up siding with the Calvinists.
Many historians think he capitalized on the religious conflict largely

(04:07):
as a way to extend his own power and to
ensure that the war with Spain would eventually continue. In
any case, Prince Maurice began arresting his political opponents in
sixteen eighteen on suspicions of treason. Grotius and several other
remonstrants were put on trial the following summer. Old and

(04:27):
Barnivald remained defiant throughout the process, and was consequently found
guilty and publicly beheaded later that year. Grotius fared much
better at trial, possibly because the judges felt sorry for him.
According to some accounts, the scholar was so meek and
timid during questioning that he was ultimately spared the death

(04:48):
penalty and condemned to life in prison instead. Lucky Brake
and so On June fifth, sixteen, nineteen thirty six year
old Hugo Grotius was imprisoned in Luvestein Castle. He was
supposed to spend the rest of his life there, but
thanks to his wife Maria, he would ultimately escape less

(05:08):
than two years later. As soon as her husband's sentence
was handed down, Maria began petitioning for him to receive
special privileges and better treatment. Eventually, she prevailed and was
granted extended visitation rights. From then on, Maria was allowed
to live at Luvestein Castle for extended periods with Grotius,

(05:30):
their children, and their servants. She also got permission for
Grotius to continue his scholarly pursuits while in prison. Any
books he needed for his research were brought to him
from the nearby city of Horcombe in a book chest.
From time to time, a pair of soldiers would take
the chest across the boven Marvader River into Horcombe, drop

(05:52):
off the books Grotius was finished with, and pick up
a new batch to bring back to Luvestein Castle. During
the first year of those periodic crossings, the soldiers would
meticulously search the book chest that each stop, but as
time went on and their searches turned up nothing, the
guards grew increasingly careless. Maria noticed that change and came

(06:15):
up with a plan to smuggler husband to freedom. For
the next several months, Grotius prepped for his escape by
lying quiet and motionless inside the book chest. Each of
his training sessions lasted two hours, the exact time it
took to cross the Bofen Maravader River into Horcombe. Grotius

(06:36):
eventually perfected his impression of heavy books, and on March
twenty second, sixteen twenty one, he and Maria finally put
their plan into action. They chose that date specifically because
they knew that an annual fair would be held in
Horcombe that same day. Not only would the guards be
distracted by the festivities, the noise of the celebration would

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also provide additional her for Grotius. When the soldiers arrived
to pick up the chest, they noted that it seemed
especially heavy, so heavy that quote there must be an
Arminian in it. Maria kept her cool and without missing
a beat, replied, there are indeed Arminian books in it.

(07:19):
The soldiers had a good laugh and then set out
from the castle, never once looking inside the chest. The
escape went off without a hitch. Grotius was able to
slip away and disguise himself and Horcum. Then he made
his way to Antwerp and eventually on to Paris, where
he was joined by his wife a few weeks later.

(07:40):
She had been briefly jailed herself after Grotius's escape was discovered,
but was eventually released due to lack of concrete evidence.
The couple knew that Grotius could never return to the Netherlands,
so they spent most of the rest of their lives
in Paris, Germany, and Sweden, though Maria did make frequent
trips back to Holland to manage her husband's affairs. Grotius

(08:04):
was largely unemployed for much of his exile in Paris,
but he filled his time productively enough. In sixteen twenty five,
he wrote what's probably his most famous work, De Jure
Belli Acpakis, or on the Law of War and Peace.
In that treatise, Grotius explored the legal justifications, causes, and

(08:26):
rules of war, providing lawyers with guidelines for determining whether
acts of war were lawful or not. That book helped
lay the groundwork for modern international law, as did Grotius's
other seminal work, sixteen o nine's Mary Liberum or the
Free Seas. In that thirteen chapter booklet, Grotius makes the

(08:49):
case that the sea should be considered international territory and
that every nation is therefore free to use it for trade.
It was a controversial position during a time when government
were scrambling to lay claims to various trade routes, but
in the end Grotius's view won out and eventually gave
rise to the principle of international waters that we know today.

(09:11):
Grotius wrote many more pamphlets, treatises, and even some poetry,
and unlike many authors, he was actually celebrated for his
work during his lifetime. In sixteen thirty five, he was
appointed the ambassador of Sweden to the French court, allowing
he and his wife to live in luxury from then on.
Grotius died in the German city of Rostock in sixteen

(09:34):
forty five, and Maria followed him eight years later. They
were both laid to rest in the new kirk Mausoleum
in Grotius's hometown of Delft. In the centuries that followed,
Grotius's fame continued to grow, both for his legal scholarship
and for his daring escape from Luvis Stein castle. Today,

(09:55):
a statue of Grotius still stands in his native city,
and the chest of books he hid inside is on
permanent display at the reichs Museum in Amsterdam. That means
that even if you never read any of Grotius's books,
you can still visit the chest where he kept them,
and for added fun, you can even pretend he's still inside,
doing what he did best, not making any noise and

(10:19):
lying perfectly still. I'm Gabe Louisier, and hopefully you now
know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
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(10:40):
or you can get in touch directly by writing to
This Day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks as always to
Chandler May's for producing the show, and thank you for listening.
I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another day
in history class.