ANNEKEN OGIERS, DAUGHTER OF JAN OGIERS, AND WIFE OF ADRIAEN BOOGAERT, DROWNED FOR THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST, AT HAARLEM, A. D. 1570.
The misery of persecution continued, so that almost nowhere liberty could be found for an upright Christian soul. Herein also those of Haarlem, in Holland, incurred guilt; which appeared in the year of our Lord 1570, for then they laid their hands (which they had previously several times imbrued in the blood of the saints) on a godfearing woman named Anneken, the daughter of Jan Ogiers, and wife of Adriaen Boogaert, who thirteen years previously had betaken herself from the darkness of popery to the true light of the Gospel, and, in proof that she desired to be a disciple of Jesus, had been baptized upon her faith, leaving and renouncing the Pope and the Romish church, and, on the other hand, accepting and confessing Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and his church (namely, the cross-bearing church of the Anabaptists) as his beloved bride, wife and own body, by which she was then recognized as a member and fellow-sister.
When she in her imprisonment could by no means be turned from her faith, the rulers of the city of Haarlem concluded her trial, and, on the 17th of June, A. D. 1570, publicly in court, pronounced sentence of death upon her, namely, that she should be drowned and buried under the gallows. The sentence (excepting the title) reads word for word as follows:
Whereas Anneken, Jan Ogiers’ daughter, and wife of Adriaen Boogaert, porcelain-maker, prisoner, has confessed without torture and iron bonds, that about thirteen years ago, she, rejecting the Christian baptism received by her in her infancy, was rebaptized at Amsterdam, contrary to our Catholic faith, and the unity of the holy Roman church, and also in contempt of the decrees of His Royal Majesty, our most gracious lord; and what is still worse, though she has been instructed for the best concerning her error and heresy, she still obstinately persists therein; therefore, the judges, having heard the demand made in conclusion by Jacob Foppens, Bailiff, of this city of Haarlem, in the name of His Majesty, as Count of Holland, against said prisoner, that she should be condemned by their sentence, to be conducted to the scaffold here, and executed with fire, until death should ensue; and all her property confiscated for the benefit of His Royal Majesty, according to the decrees of His Majesty aforesaid; have, by reason of what has been mentioned, condemned said Anneken, Jan Ogiers’ daughter, prisoner, and by these presents do condemn her to be executed with water and drowned here in the city-hall, until death ensues, and the body to be buried under the gallows; and declare all her property forfeited for the benefit of His Majesty. Thus read from the city-hall, by the sound of the bell, on the 17th of June, A. D. 1570, in presence of Jacob Foppens, Bailiff, Mr. Gerrit van Ravensberge, Mr. Lambrecht van Roosvelt, Mr. Huge Bol van Zanen, Aelbrecht van Schagen, Mr. Gijsbrecht van Nesse, Wouter van Rollandt, and Frans Janss Teyng, judges.
Extracted from the first book of penal sentences of the city of Haarlem (beginning A. D. 1539, and concluding the 27th of October, A. D. 1582; preserved in the archives of the city of Haarlem) and, after collation, found to accord with it; by me, the undersigned, secretary of the aforesaid city, the 14th of July, A. D. 1659.
The abovementioned sentence, we obtained, after much trouble, from the hands of the secretary of civil and criminal matters, or clerk of the criminal court of the city of Haarlem, through the instrumentality of one of our good friends, H. V., just as the same was read in court at the hour of the death of the aforesaid woman, and is still at the present day found in the city records of that place; from the particulars of which we have written the account that precedes the sentence.