The Life of Romeyn de Hooghe 1645-1708: Prints, Pamphlets, and Politics in the Dutch Golden Age 9789048531035

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The Life of Romeyn de Hooghe

Amsterdam Studies in the Dutch Golden Age Editorial Board: Frans Blom, University of Amsterdam Michiel van Groesen, Leiden University Geert H. Janssen, University of Amsterdam Elmer E.P. Kolfin, University of Amsterdam Nelleke Moser, VU University Amsterdam Henk van Nierop, University of Amsterdam Claartje Rasterhoff, University of Amsterdam Emile Schrijver, University of Amsterdam Thijs Weststeijn, University of Amsterdam Advisory Board: H. Perry Chapman, University of Delaware Harold J. Cook, Brown University Benjamin J. Kaplan, University College London Orsolya Réthelyi, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest Claudia Swan, Northwestern University

The Life of Romeyn de Hooghe 1645–1708 Prints, Pamphlets, and Politics in the Dutch Golden Age

Henk van Nierop

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Ronald Searle after Jacob Houbraken, Portrait of Romeyn de Hooghe (1978). Graphite on paper, 279 x 210 mm. London: British Museum, inv. no. 1983,0625.59. © The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved. Cover design: Kok Korpershoek, Amsterdam Lay-out: Konvertus / Newgen isbn 978 94 6298 138 6 [hard cover] isbn 978 94 6372 510 1 [paperback] e-isbn 978 90 4853 103 5 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789462981386 nur 685 © H.F.K. van Nierop / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2018 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.

Contents List of Figures 9 Acknowledgements17 19 Note on Usage Genealogical Tables 20 Abbreviations25 Introduction27 1. Under the Spire of the Zuiderkerk The Zuiderkerk The Gift of God Ancestors The Learned Son

31 31 33 39 44

2. Ingenious Inventions and Rich Designs Setting Up News prints Paris and Beyond Book Illustrations Critical Appreciation The Art of Etching Inventions and Designs Wrestlers and Jews Commercial Success Marriage Houses Claims to Gentility

51 51 54 56 61 65 67 69 72 77 79 81 85

3. Patriotic Prints The Year of Disaster Orangists and Republicans The Elevation of the Prince of Orange The de Witt Brothers Slain French Tyranny Illustrating the War The Gelderland Affair Satire Publishing his Own Work

89 89 90 94 99 103 110 114 119 123

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THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

Dedications The Wheel of Fortune Competitors

126 130 135

4.

A Wandering Whore and a Talking Dog 139 The Wandering Whore 139 The Talking Dog 141 The Forged Chinese Pictures 144 The Nicked Timepiece and the Lace Jabot 147 The (Not So) Secret Life of Maria Lansman 149 Honour and Shame 151 The Anatomist and the Abbé153 Novels and Drollery 155

5.

A Fresh Start Romeyn Evicted? Uncle Pieter’s Testament Motives for Moving Before the Consistory Settling Down Moving Up A Drawing Academy and a Stately Mansion A Prestigious Map Client of the Stadtholder A Blueberry Diploma

161 161 163 167 169 172 174 177 181 184 187

6.

The Prince Abandoned and Regained The Great Turkish War The Luxembourg Affair The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes The Glorious Revolution Glorifying the Revolution

191 191 196 203 205 208

7. The Harlequin Prints Lampooning the Sun King Arlequin Déodat The Son of a Miller Riding the Hippogryph Frogs and Toads Hypochondriacs

217 217 219 220 222 224 226

Contents

7



Royal Infidelity Three Kings A Royal Enema Royal Cuckolds Driving Home the Message

227 229 231 232 234

8.

Lampooning the Regents The Cows, the Herdsman, and the Wolf The Affair of the Magistrates A New Tune: Toads and Barrel-Riders The French Calendar: The Cock and the Donkey Bigwig and the Privilege-Seeker A Stagecoach Chat The French Blue Shin The Cricket that Spoils the Harvest

241 241 245 249 253 257 259 262 266

9.

The Pamphlet War A Triplet of Rogues The Quack: Govert Bidloo The Hack: Ericus Walten The Orangist Triumvirate at Work Arch-Cuckold de Hooghe Vilifying Romeyn Scaling Mount Parnassus Arch-Cuckold Shareholder

267 267 268 272 274 278 281 284 289

10. The Memorandum of Rights Legal Action Witnesses Romeyn Interrogated Blasphemy A False Libel Embarrassing Letters

295 295 297 302 304 307 310

11.

313 313 315 317 319 320

Honour Defended The Chief Sheriff Fooled More Pamphlets Bribery Exposed Malice and the Spirit of Quarrelling Romeyn Spins a Conspiracy

8



THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

Walten Sacrificed Tying Up Loose Ends

324 330

12. Serving the Stadtholder The Desolate End of Ericus Walten Running a Spy Network Father and Daughter Vassal of Kennemerland

337 337 341 346 354

13. Composing most Pompously Intendant of the King’s Buildings Director of the Lingen Quarries Director of the Triumphal Arches Tampering with the Books Oil Paintings Glasses, Cups, and Medals The World’s First Satirical Periodical Self-Portraits

359 359 361 364 372 374 378 382 387

14. Final Years A Masterless Man A Man of Letters An Invisible Church Death and Legacy

395 395 399 403 409

Appendix: Genealogy of the De Hooghe Family

417

Sources423 Manuscript Sources 423 Pamphlets 424 Published Primary Sources 427 Secondary Sources 434 Index447

List of Figures Fig. 1.1. Pieter Hendricksz Schut, The Zuiderkerk, c. 1652–1660. Rijksmuseum ­Amsterdam, rp-p-1906-2691. Fig. 1.2. Romeyn de Hooghe and Gerard Valck, Map of Amsterdam, 1674–1681 (detail). Stadsarchief Amsterdam, kog-aa-3-02-071. Fig. 1.3. Jacob van der Ulft, View of Dam Square, 1655. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-4576. Fig. 1.4. Coat of Arms of Simon de Hooghe, Alderman of Ghent. Philippe de l’ Espinoy, Recherche des antiquitez et noblesse de Flandres, etc. (1631), p. 642. Bibliotheek Universiteit van Amsterdam, otm og 06 522. Fig. 1.5. Romeyn de Hooghe, Shepherdess witch Cattle, 1662. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-55.011. Fig. 1.6. Romeyn de Hooghe after Willem Schellincks, Raid on the River Medway and the Isle of Sheppey, 1667. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.259. Fig. 1.7. Romeyn de Hooghe, Title Print to ‘Figures à la mode’, c. 1667. ­Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1939-368. Fig. 2.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, Trade card, c. 1674–1693. Private collection. Fig. 2.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, Peace Negotiations at Breda, 1667. ­Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1885-a-9009. Fig. 2.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Baptism of the Dauphin at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1668. Bibliothèque national de France, Paris, of-tol-18002436. Fig. 2.4. Romeyn de Hooghe after Adam Frans van der Meulen, Entry of Louis xiv into Dunkirk, c. 1668. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1911-554. Fig. 2.5. Romeyn de Hooghe after Jan de Bisschop, Frontispiece to Constantijn Huygens, Zee-straet (1667). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ao-11–43. Fig. 2.6. Romeyn de Hooghe, Frontispiece to Hollandse Mercurius (1670). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.263. Fig. 2.7. Romeyn de Hooghe, Bursting of the Dike at Coevorden, 1678. ­Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.280. Fig. 2.8. Romeyn de Hooghe, Plate 61 in Nicolaes Petter, Klare onderrichtinge der voortreffelijcke worstel-konst (1674). Bibliotheek Universiteit van Amsterdam, otm og 63 2229. Fig. 2.9. Romeyn de Hooghe, Circumcision, probably in the Family of Jeronimo Nunes da Costa, c. 1665–1668. Drawing on parchment, ­Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-t-00-381.

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THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

Fig. 2.10. Romeyn de Hooghe, Opening Ceremony of the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, 1675. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ao-1920-445. Fig. 2.11. Romeyn de Hooghe after Jacob Isaacksz van Ruysdael, The ­Portuguese-Jewish Cemetery Beth Haim at Ouderkerk aan de ­Amstel, ca. 1675–1696. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ao-8-16b. Fig. 2.12. Jacob van der Ulft, Dam Square with ‘The Wakeful Dog’ (detail of fig. 1.3). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-4576. Fig. 2.13. Anon., The Print Dealer, Interior of ‘The Wakeful Dog’ at Dam Square, 1717. Illustration in Abraham a Sancta Clara, Iets voor allen (1717), p. 412. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-2015-26-983. Fig. 2.14. Pieter Schenk, View of Binnenkant on Nieuwe Waalseiland, c. 1710. Stadsarchief Amsterdam, 010097003763. Fig. 2.15. Romeyn de Hooghe, Portrait of John iii Sobieski King of Poland on Horseback at the Battle of Chotyn, 1674. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-2003-238. Fig. 2.16. Romeyn de Hooghe, Allegory of the Marriage of Francisco Mollo and Anna Maria Ooms, 1674. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1903-a-23614. Fig. 3.1. Crispijn de Passe the Younger, Allegory on the Position of William iii as the Saviour of the Fatherland, 1665 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-68.282. Fig. 3.2. Romeyn de Hooghe after Crispijn de Passe the Younger, Allegory of the Political Situation, 1672 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-77.036. Fig. 3.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, William iii Sworn in as Supreme Commander of the Army of the Dutch Republic, 1672. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-77.040. Fig. 3.4. Romeyn de Hooghe, Willam iii Triumphant, c. 1672 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-77.044. Fig. 3.5. Equestrian Portrait of William on the Occasion of his Visit to Amsterdam, 1672. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1944-1434. Fig. 3.6. Romeyn de Hooghe after Adam Frans van der Meulen, Louis xiv on Horseback, detail of Entry of Louis xiv into Dunkirk, c. 1668 (fig. 2.4). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1911-554. Fig. 3.7. Romeyn de Hooghe (ascr.), Mutilation of the Bodies of the de Witt Brothers, 1672. Drawing, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-t-00-333. Fig. 3.8. Romeyn de Hooghe, Lynching of the de Witt Brothers, 1672 (detail). ­ Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-77.136. Fig. 3.9. Romeyn de Hooghe, Lynching of the de Witt Brothers, 1672 (detail). ­ Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-55.176.

List of Figures

11

Fig. 3.10. Romeyn de Hooghe, Miraculous Mirror of the de Witt Brothers, 1675. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-77.116. Fig. 3.11. Romeyn de Hooghe, Miraculous Orange Mirror, 1675. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.266. Fig. 3.12. Romeyn de Hooghe, Mirror of the French Tyranny Committed against the Villages of Holland, 1673 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, ­rp-p-ob-77.183. Fig. 3.13. Romeyn de Hooghe, French Cruelties in Bodegraven and Zwammerdam, 1673. Illustration to Abraham de Wicquefort, Avis fidelle aux veritables hollandois (1673), Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-77.198. Fig. 3.14. Romeyn de Hooghe, Siege of Naarden, 1673. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-55.177. Fig. 3.15. Romeyn de Hooghe, Siege of Grave, 1674 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.305. Fig. 3.16. Romeyn de Hooghe, William iii Declines the Office of Duke of Gelderland, 1674 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.433. Fig. 3.17. Romeyn de Hooghe, Battle of Seneffe, 1674 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.303. Fig. 3.18. Romeyn de Hooghe, William iii at the Battle of St Denis, 1678. ­Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1885-a-9006. Fig. 3.19. Romeyn de Hooghe (attr.), Death of the Eternal Edict, 1674 (detail). ­ Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.293. Fig. 3.20. Romeyn de Hooghe (attr.), Anticurius of Loevesteyn, 1674 (detail). ­Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.152. Fig. 3.21. Romeyn de Hooghe, The Failed Popish War, 1674 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-67.711. Fig. 3.22. Romeyn de Hooghe (attr.), The Two Naval Battles off Schoonevelt, 1673 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.275. Fig. 3.23. Romeyn de Hooghe, Allegory on the Events of 1680. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.446. Fig. 3.24. Romeyn de Hooghe, Frontispiece to Schouburgh der Nederlandse veranderingen (1674). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.284. Fig. 3.25. Romeyn de Hooghe, War and Tyranny Ravaging the Netherlands, Plate 4 in Schouburgh der Nederlandse veranderingen (1674). ­Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-55.159. Fig. 3.26. Romeyn de Hooghe, Allegory on the Peace of Nijmegen, 1678 (detail). ­Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.445. Fig. 4.1. Anon., Frontispiece to Het Wonderlijk leeven van ’t Boulonnois Hondtje (1681). National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague, 1771 g 52.

12 

THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

Fig. 4.2. Romeyn de Hooghe (attr.), Pomp and Circumstance of the ­Mandarins, in Olfert Dapper, Gedenkwaerdig bedryf der ­Nederlandsche Oost-Indische Maetschappye (1670). Bibliotheek Universiteit van Amsterdam, otm kf 61 3979. Fig. 4.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Illustration in Baldassare Castiglione, Den ­volmaakten hooveling (1675). Bibliotheek Universiteit van ­Amsterdam, otm ok 61 2511. Fig. 5.1. Anon., Romeyn de Hooghe Expelled from Amsterdam, c. 1690. ­Drawing, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, 890147. Fig. 5.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, Map of Haarlem, 1688–1689 (detail of fig. 5.5). Noord-Hollands Archief, Haarlem, 51001152 01. Fig. 5.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Nieuwe Gracht, 1688 (detail of fig. 5.5). ­Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1895-a-18786. Fig. 5.4. Anon., Nieuwe Gracht 13, Haarlem, 1930. Photograph, Noord-­Hollands Archief, Haarlem, 54999003-1 42. Fig. 5.5. Romeyn de Hooghe, Map of Haarlem, 1688–1689. Noord-Hollands Archief, Haarlem, 51001152 01. Fig. 6.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, Siege of Vienna, 1683. Atlas van Stolk, ­Rotterdam, 105270. Fig. 6.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, Capture of the Grand Standard and Defeat of the Ottomans, 1683. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-55.141. Fig. 6.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Capture of Buda by the Imperial and Allied Forces, 1686. Noord-Hollands Archief, Haarlem, 53009097 01. Fig. 6.4. Romeyn de Hooghe, Victory of Duke Charles V of Lorraine and Margrave Louis William of Baden-Baden over the Ottomans at Nagyharsány, 1687. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1907-4579. Fig. 6.5. Romeyn de Hooghe, Glorification of John iii of Poland, 1685. Teylers Museum, Haarlem, kg 06593. Fig. 6.6. Romeyn de Hooghe, Allegory on the victories of Emperor Leopold i over the Ottomans, 1686–1687. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1930-231. Fig. 6.7. Romeyn de Hooghe, Ascension of Spanish Soldiers Slain in the Battles against the Ottomans, 1687. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, ­rp-p-ob-79.330. Fig. 6.8. Romeyn de Hooghe, Map of Luxembourg Besieged by the French, 1684. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.324. Fig. 6.9. Romeyn de Hooghe, Repression of the Huguenots after the ­Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1686. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-55.182. Fig. 6.10. Romeyn de Hooghe, Departure of the Invasion Fleet of William iii, 1688 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.447.

List of Figures

13

Fig. 6.11. Romeyn de Hooghe after Hekhuisen, Departure and Arrival of the Invasion Fleet of William iii, 1688. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-67.719. Fig. 6.12. Romeyn de Hooghe after Hekhuisen, Coronation Ceremonies of William and Mary in Westminster, 1688 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.454. Fig. 6.13. Romeyn de Hooghe, Allegory of William iii and the Events of the Glorious Revolution, 1688. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.450. Fig. 6.14. Romeyn de Hooghe, Restitution of the True Religion and ­Fundamental Laws in England, 1688. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.338. Fig. 6.15. Romeyn de Hooghe, Allegory of William iii’s English Enterprise, 1688. Mezzotint, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-77.623. Fig. 7.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, The Fair Constance Dragooned by Harlequin Déodat, 1688. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.346. Fig. 7.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, Europe Alarmed for the Son of a Miller, 1688 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.348. Fig. 7.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Harlequin on the Hippogryph on the Loyolist Crusade, 1688 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.344. Fig. 7.4. Romeyn de Hooghe, Arlequin Furious and Pantagion Triumphant, 1688 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.342. Fig. 7.5. Romeyn de Hooghe, Arlequin Déodat and Pamirge Hypochondriacs, 1689 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-55.185. Fig. 7.6. Romeyn de Hooghe, The Feast of the Three Kings at the Invalides, 1689 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.350. Fig. 7.7. Romeyn de Hooghe, The Epiphany of the New Antichrist, 1689 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.347. Fig. 7.8. Romeyn de Hooghe, The Tumbling Monarchs, 1689 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.352. Fig. 7.9. Romeyn de Hooghe, Panurge Seconded by Arlequin Déodat on the Irish Crusade, 1689 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.353. Fig. 7.10. Anon. after Romeyn de Hooghe, Harlequin on the Hippogryph, 1688. Mezzotint, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-68.287. Fig. 7.11. Christian Wermuth, Silver medal with (obverse) Father Petre mounted on a lobster, holding the Prince of Wales, and (reverse) armorial shield bearing a windmill with Jesuit's cap, rosary, and lobster, 1688. British Museum, London, g3,em.338. Fig. 8.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, The Fable of the Cows, the Herdsman, and the Wolf, 1690. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.423.

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THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

Fig. 8.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, New Tune of the Triple Crusade of Knights and Grandees Descended from Shop Signs, 1690. Rijksmuseum ­Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-55.184. Fig. 8.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Mardi Gras de Cocq à l’Âne or the French ­Calendar, 1690 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-55.189. Fig. 8.4. Anon. (circle of Romeyn de Hooghe), Bigwig and the Privilege ­Seeker, 1690 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1885-a-8725. Fig. 8.5. Romeyn de Hooghe, Frontispiece to Anon., [Romeyn de Hooghe], Postwagen-praetjen, tussen een Hagenaer, Amsterdammer ­ beneficiant, schipper en Frans koopman (1690) (Kn. 13499). ­Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1878-a-1270. Fig. 8.6. Romeyn de Hooghe, The French Blue Shin, 1690 (detail). Atlas van Stolk, Rotterdam, 036919. Fig. 9.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, Frontispiece to Govert Bidoo, Brieven der gemartelde apostelen (1675). Bibliotheek Universiteit van Amsterdam, otm o 63 1010. Fig. 9.2. Bernard Picart after Romeyn de Hooghe, Satire on the Schouwburg Controversy, 1716. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-79.417. Fig. 9.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Discussion on Mt Parnassus, in Traiano ­Boccalini, Pietra del paragone politico (1671), p. 58. Bibliotheek Universiteit van Amsterdam, otm Mini 72. Fig. 11.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, Pantagruel Agonizing, 1689 (detail). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1937-2140. Fig. 11.2. Anonymous letter to Joan Huydecoper, 1690. Het Utrechts Archief, 67 (Familie Huydecoper), no. 33. Fig. 12.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, Map of Hoogheemraadschap Rijnland, second state, 1687. Hoogheemraadschap Rijnland, Leiden, a-9. Fig. 12.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, Attack on Dunkirk, 1695. Teylers Museum, Haarlem, kg 06526. Fig. 12.3. Romeyn de Hooghe after Anon., Queen Mary ii on her Deathbed, 1695. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-67.728. Fig. 13.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, The God of the River IJssel, 1686. Drawing, Atlas van Stolk, Rotterdam, 011314. Fig. 13.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, River Gods at the Cascades behind Het Loo Palace, c. 1695 (detail of fig. 13.3). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-102.033. Fig. 13.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Views of Het Loo Palace, c. 1695. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-102.033. Fig. 13.4. Romeyn de Hooghe, Triumphal Arch on the Market in The Hague, 1691. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-76.301. Fig. 13.5. Romeyn de Hooghe, Triumphal Arch on Plaats in The Hague, 1691. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-76.299.

List of Figures

15

Fig. 13.6. Romeyn de Hooghe, Triumphal Arch on Buitenhof, 1691. ­Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-76.294. Fig. 13.7. Romeyn de Hooghe, Fireworks on Hofvijver, 1691. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-76.302. Fig. 13.8. Romeyn de Hooghe (attr.), Allegory of Coinage, undated. Oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, sk-a-833. Fig. 13.9. Romeyn de Hooghe, The City of Alkmaar Swears Allegiance to the Maiden of Holland, 1694. Oil on panel, Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar, 21032. Fig. 13.10. Romeyn de Hooghe, The Splendour and the Eminent Respect for the Office of Burgomaster, 1707. Oil on canvas, Gemeente ­Enkhuizen, photograph Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische ­Documentatie, The Hague, 96765. Fig. 13.11. Romeyn de Hooghe, Design for The Splendour and the Eminent Respect for the Office of Burgomaster, 1707. Drawing, West-Fries Archief, Hoorn, 7140 008. Fig. 13.12. Romeyn de Hooghe, Design for a glass window in the north gable of the Oosterkerk in Hoorn, 1703. Drawing, Noord-Hollands Archief, Haarlem, 359 004609 g. Fig. 13.13. Anon., Representation of a medal with (obverse) portraits of the de Witt brothers and (reverse) an allegory of their murder, 1672–1677. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-82.250. Fig. 13.14. Romeyn de Hooghe, Title page to Aesopus in Europa (1701). ­ Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, bi-b-fm-037-1. Fig. 13.15. Taco Jelgersma after Romeyn de Hooghe, Portrait of Romeyn de Hooghe, 18th century. Pen in black, brush in water colour, Rijksmuseum ­Amsterdam, rp-t-00-911. Fig. 13.16. Anon., after Romeyn de Hooghe, Portrait of Romeyn de Hooghe, 18th century. Pen in black, brush in water colour, Rijksmuseum ­Amsterdam, rp-t-1940-124. Fig. 13.17. Cornelis van Noorde after Taco Jelgersma, Portrait of Romeyn de Hooghe, 18th century. Woodcut, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-30.216. Fig. 13.18. Jacob Houbraken after Hendrik Bos (after Romeyn de Hooghe?), Portrait of Romeyn de Hooghe, 1733. Engraving, Rijksmuseum ­Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-30.216. Fig. 14.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, Funeral Procession of William iii, 1702 (detail). ­Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-82.976. Fig. 14.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, Frontispiece to Emanuel van der Hoeven, Leeven en dood der doorlugtige heeren gebroeders Cornelis de Witt en Johan de Witt (1705). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1960-345.

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THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

Fig. 14.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Frontispiece to Romeyn de Hooghe, Spiegel van Staat des Vereenigde Nederlands, vol. 1 (1706). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1909-2022. Fig. 14.4. Romeyn de Hooghe, Illustration to Romeyn de Hooghe, ­Hieroglyphica of merkbeelden der oude volkeren (1735). ­Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-1904-1859x. Fig. 14.5. Romeyn de Hooghe, Frontispiece to François van Hoogstraten, Het voorhof der ziele (1668). Bibliotheek Universiteit van Amsterdam, otm o 63 2266. Fig. 14.6. Romeyn de Hooghe, Illustration to Anthoni van Dalen, ­Verhandeling van de oude orakelen der heydenen (1687). ­Bibliotheek Universiteit van Amsterdam, otm ok 65 715. Fig. 14.7. Romeyn de Hooghe, Satire on the Defeat of the Young Pretender at the Battle of Culloden, 1746. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, rp-p-ob-83.846. Fig. 14.8. Alexey Fyodorovich Zubov after Pieter Pickaert after Romeyn de Hooghe, Equestrian Portrait of Tsar Peter the Great, 1704–1726. British Museum, London, 1227997001.

Acknowledgements Two institutions and many individuals have munificently contributed to the completion of this work. The first institution is the interdisciplinary Amsterdam Centre for the Study of the Golden Age, based at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam. Numerous conversations over a number of years with colleagues versed in the History of Art, Literature, Religion, Philosophy, and the History of the Printed Book have helped me clarify my thoughts and hone my argument. The other one is the unsurpassed Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, where during the spring of 2014 I enjoyed time, facilities, and intellectual companionship to work on this book without having to meet any conditions. Jonathan Israel and Annette Munt were charming hosts, lavishing friendship as well as intellectual and other food. Anna de Haas generously put her own files on Romeyn de Hooghe at my disposal, continued to send me all Hoogheana she stumbled across, and finally read and commented upon the entire manuscript. Ilja Veldman and Huigen Leeflang also read the manuscript and aided me liberally with their deep knowledge of the early modern print world. I am grateful for the kind help in the form of comments, criticism, ideas, references, practical assistance, and more from Gerlinde de Beer, Judith Belinfante, Phil Benedict, Marten Jan Bok, Clara Brinkgreve, Tony Claydon, Monique Copper, Joseph B. Dallett, Paul Dijstelberge, Maartje van Gelder, Lia van Gemert, Michiel van Groesen, Meredith Hale, Erik Hinterding, Geert Janssen, Elmer Kolfin, Katarzyna Kuras, Charles-Edouard Levillain, Clé Lesger, Guido Marnef, Jeanine Otten, Maarten van de Poll, Judith Pollmann, Ben Schmidt, Eric Jan Sluyter, Jo Spaans, the late Ab van der Steur, Taco Tichelaar, Jaap van der Veen, Arnoud Visser, Arthur der Weduwen, and Marieke de Winkel. Vivien Collingwood corrected and superbly improved my English text. Inge van der Bijl, Chantal Nicolaes, and their colleagues made working with Amsterdam University Press a pleasure. Finally, my wife Tine, in her own incomparable way, encouraged me to pursue my quest for the elusive Mr de Hooghe.

Note on Usage There was no uniform spelling in seventeenth-century Dutch, not even for Christian names and family names. Most names could be rendered in a bewildering variety of ways. The most common first name in Holland, ‘Jan’, thus appears in the sources as Johannes, Johan, Joannes, and Joan; ‘Romeyn’ is spelled Romeijn, Romijn, Romein, and Roemein; and ‘de Hooghe’ as de Hooge, de Hoge, de Hooch, or Dhooghe. I have tried to be as consistent as possible by selecting the spelling used most frequently in the sources or the spelling adopted most often in modern reference works, but complete consistency is impossible. Dates are rendered in the ‘new’ or Gregorian year style, which was adopted in Holland in 1583. In Britain (as well as the Dutch provinces of Utrecht and Gelderland) the ‘old’ or Julian year style continued to be in use, with the result that the English calendar lagged ten days behind the calendar in Holland. In most cases, I have rendered the dates of events in England in old style (o.s.), unless indicated otherwise (n.s.). All sums of money are given in guilders, a money of account divided into 20 ­stuivers or stivers. There are various tools for converting seventeenth-century prices into present-day ones, but they are misleading due to the enormous economic and social changes that have taken place over more than three centuries. A master craftsman in seventeenth-century Amsterdam could make roughly 400 guilders a year.

Genealogical Table 1

Willem m. Thaenkin N.N.

Olivier (d. c. 1600) m. N.N.

Jan I (c. 1540-1601) m. (1) Paschina van Ryckeghem (2) Janneken 's Hooghen

Romeyn I (c. 1571-1625) see Table 2

Jan II (c. 1569-1624) m. Sara Stevens

Louis (d. before 1624) unmarried

Lucretia (d. 1635) m. Pieter Willemsz Pos(t)

Maria m. N.N. Telink or van Lingen

2 children, Anna and Klaes Telink or van Lingen

Jan III (1605/06-1674) m. (1) Geertruid Ambrosius (2) Marritje Daniels (3) Grietje Hendrickx (4) Judith Jans

Jan V (b. 1634) m. Judick Levyn

Paulus (b. 1666)

12 children Saertien (1669-1690) d. young d. unmarried

Catalina d. unmarried

Pieter (c. 1616-1681) m. Martijntje van der Hulst

Sara (1642-1666) Romeyn IV (1645-1708) m. m. Maria Lansman Pieter Jansz Crul

Maria Romana (1674-1694) m. Caspar Frederick Henning

Louis I (1624-1664) m. (1) Lijsbet Forré (2) Annetje van den Vroonhoff

Romeyn II (1620-1664) m. Susanna Gerrits

8 children d. young

Romeyn (1696-1699)

Louis II (1663-1699) m. Pieternella van der Sprinckel

Pieter (1699-1745) d. unmarried

2 children, Pieter and François d. young

Pieter Louis (1700-1768) m. (1) Maria Leijdekker (2) Catharina Wagenaar

Genealogical Table 2

Willem m. Thaenkin N.N.

Olivier (d. c. 1600) m. N.N.

Jan I (c. 1540-1601) m. (1) Paschina van Ryckeghem (2) Janneken 's Hooghen

Jan II (c. 1569-1624) see Table 1

Romeyn III (1605-1669) m. Levina van Halewijn

Josina (1649-1684) m. Jacob ten Grootenhuijs

Pelgrom ten Grootenhuijs (b. 1673) d. unmarried

Romeyn V Johannes (1650-1731) (1655-1704) unmarried unmarried

Judith (1606-1641) m. Philip Serrurier

Romeyn I (c. 1571-1625) m. (1) Susanna Felix (2) Judith Bischop

Joannes IV (1608-1682) m. Anna van der Does

2 children, Jan VI 2 children, both named Romeyn and (1634-1657) Romeyn Judith Serrurier unmarried d. young

Judith (1637) d. young

Paulus (1611-1674) m. (1) Helena le Maire (2) Maria Recht

Franck (1640-1665) unmarried

2 children, Jan and Anna

Romeyn VI (1642-1674/75) m. Geertruid Kits

Nicasius (1612-1648) m. Elizabeth Paedts

Anna (1643-1717) m. Ludolf Backhuysen

Joannes Backhuysen (b. 1683) m. Christina Sibilla Moll

Nicasius (1648-1661) unmarried

Maria (1616) d. young

Daniel (1614-1657) unmarried

Romeyn VII (1638-1710) m. Suzanna van Crackouw

Gerard Romeyn Backhuysen (1685) d. young

4 children, Maria, Maximiliaan, Paulus, Isabelle, d. young

Antoni (c. 1641-1672) unmarried

Esther (1617-1646) unmarried

Abbreviations avs  Atlas van Stolk: katalogus der historie-, spot- en zinneprenten betrekkelijk de geschiedenis van Nederland, ed. by G. van Rijn. 10 vols., Amsterdam: Frederik Muller, 1895-1933. b. born bapt. baptized d. died fl. flourished fmh Muller, Frederik, De Nederlandsche geschiedenis in platen, zinneprenten en oude kaarten. Vol. 1: Jaren 100 tot 1702. Amsterdam: Frederik Muller, 1863-1870. h Hollstein, F.W.H., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700, vol. 9 (Amsterdam: Herzberger, 1953), entry Romeyn de Hooghe. hua Het Utrechts Archief Kn. Knuttel, W.P.C., Catalogus van de pamfletten-verzameling berus­ tende in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek, vol. 2-2 (1668-1688). The Hague: Algemeene Landsdrukkerij, 1895. lbi Landwehr, John, Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708) as Book Illustrator: A Bibliography. Amsterdam: Van Gendt & Co./New York: Abner Schram, 1970. le Landwehr, John, Romeyn de Hooghe the Etcher: Contemporary portrayal of Europe 1662-1707. Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff/New York: Oceana Dobbs Ferry, 1973. m. married Catalogus van de tractaten, pamfletten, enz. over de geschiedenis Meulman  van Nederland, aanwezig in de bibliotheek van Isaac Meulman, ed. by J.K. van der Wulp. 3 vols., Amsterdam: Erven H. van Munster & zoon, 1866-1868. na Nationaal Archief, The Hague n.d. no date nha Noord-Hollands Archief, Haarlem Nieuw Nederlands biografisch woordenboek, ed. by P.C. Molhuysen, nnbw  P.J. Blok, F.K.H. Kossmann. 10 vols., Leiden: Sijthoff, 1911-1937. n.p. no place nul, pwa Nottingham University Library, Portland of Welbeck Archive n.s. New Style (Gregorian Calendar) o.s. Old Style (Julian Calendar)

26 

THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

rma Rijksmuseum Amsterdam saa Stadsarchief Amsterdam Thieme-Becker Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, ed. by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, 37 vols., Leipzig: Seemann, 1907-1950. Bibliotheek van Nederlandsche pamfletten: eerste afdeeling, VerTiele  zameling van Frederik Muller te Amsterdam, ed. by P.A. Tiele. ­Amsterdam: Frederik Muller, 1858-1861. unm. unmarried voc Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company) Nationaal Archief, The Hague, 3.03.01.01 (Hof van Holland, Walten Papers  1428-1811), inv. no. 5366, file 14. wro Worcestershire Record Office, Worcester

Introduction Romeyn de Hooghe was the most inventive, prolific, and versatile graphic artist of the Dutch Republic in the late seventeenth century. He led an extraordinary life: one that proceeded from very austere circumstances – though not quite rags – to riches, and was marred by a never-ending stream of scandalmongering. The credit side of his biography shows a vast oeuvre of graphic works, unsurpassed in magnitude and originality. Having enjoyed a sound classical education, he was well-read in ancient and modern literature and history. In middle-age, he obtained a law degree and served as a magistrate in Haarlem, where he established a drawing academy. During the six-year war with France (1672–1678), he glorified Stadtholder William III of Orange in a massive array of patriotic prints. Later, he became the stadtholder-king’s premier propaganda artist, extolling to a reluctant Dutch audience the virtues of William’s invasion of Britain, the Glorious Revolution, and the ensuing Nine Years’ War (1688–1697). He lambasted William’s adversaries, especially Louis xiv and James ii, with acerbic satirical prints of striking originality. During the latter part of his life, he broadened his activities to become an all-round designer of statues, wall and ceiling paintings, triumphal arches, ornamental cups and goblets, and stained-glass windows. He distinguished himself as the author of learned works about the institutions of the United Netherlands, religious iconography, and the genealogy of world religions. He launched the world’s first illustrated satirical journal. He allegedly invented new methods to make stained glass and print cotton, and engineered a sailing bomb to be employed in naval attacks. He set up a sandstone business and ran a spy network. Having begun his career as a simple artisan, he became a universal artist, an uomo universale in the grand Renaissance and Baroque tradition. In spite of de Hooghe’s astonishing and wide-ranging talents, his life was not an unqualified success. There was an unbalanced and roguish streak to his character that drove him to take vast and unwarranted risks, threatening to destroy his career time and again. He and his family were haunted by controversies, calumny, and slander. In a scurrilous novelette and a flood of libels, he was accused of making pornographic prints, lasciviousness, godlessness, blasphemy, fraud, embezzlement, and thievery. These charges, and the recklessness with which he attempted to refute them, make his biography read like a picaresque novel. Shortly after his death, whilst duly recognizing his gifts as a designer and etcher, art critics painted a pitch-black picture of his character, privileging moral righteousness over a dispassionate exploration of the facts.1 Only recently did historians pronounce a more positive verdict. Otto Benesch, for example, regarded Romeyn de Hooghe as 1 Houbraken, Groote schouburgh, vol. 3, pp. 257–265; Campo Weyerman, Levens-beschryvingen, vol. 3, p. 113.

28 

THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

‘the most brilliant Dutch illustrator and one of the most important etchers ever’.2 In a reconsideration of the pornography affair, Inger Leemans gave a positive spin to his involvement, reading it as an enlightened response to bigotry and priestcraft.3 On the basis of de Hooghe’s own writings on politics and his association with the radical philosopher and pamphleteer Ericus Walten, Jonathan Israel enlisted him into the army of the Radical Enlightenment; and Joke Spaans, exploring his religious convictions, came to the same conclusion.4 Whilst it is true that some, though certainly not all, of the charges brought against de Hooghe now appear to be harbingers of a more enlightened age, few historians have taken the trouble to explore the extent to which these accusations were justified. It is somewhat surprising that no book-length study of his life has been written to date. There are several sketches in biographical reference works, such as the useful entry by M.D. Henkel in the Thieme-Becker lexicon.5 More recently, excellent biographical essays by Jeanine Otten and Anna de Haas have appeared, based on original research.6 William Harry Wilson’s dissertation on de Hooghe’s art unfortunately remains unpublished.7 The third centenary of de Hooghe’s death in 2008 brought an exposition in Amsterdam with an accompanying volume that established a status questionis, but also incorporated a considerable amount of fresh research.8 The present biography is in many ways indebted to that volume. This biography does not follow the typical ‘The-Man-And-His-Work’ path. In the absence of a catalogue raisonné, our knowledge of Romeyn de Hooghe’s oeuvre is incomplete and uncertain. In any case, the magnitude of his artistic output is too great to warrant meaningful coverage in a biography. In focusing on de Hooghe’s life, I have discussed his art only when it seems to bear direct relevance to his biography. This has resulted in a somewhat uneven treatment of his works: whereas the largest part of his oeuvre consists of book illustrations, the chapters that follow tend to focus on news prints and satires, works that bear a direct relation to contemporary political events in which de Hooghe was involved. Nevertheless, his vast graphic legacy did form a major source for this biography. His prints are available in two volumes by John Landwehr, one covering the freestanding etchings and the other the book illustrations.9 As they are incomplete and 2 Benesch, Meisterzeichnungen, p. 368; see also the exhibition catalogue Dallett, Romeyn de Hooghe: Virtuoso Etcher. 3 Leemans, Woord. 4 Israel, Radical Enlightenment, passim; Israel, Monarchy; Spaans, ‘Hiëroglyphen’, and Spaans, ‘Art’. 5 Thieme-Becker, vol. 17, pp. 458–461. 6 Otten, ‘Biografie’; de Haas, ‘Commissaris’. 7 Wilson, ‘Art’. 8 Van Nierop, Romeyn de Hooghe. 9 John Landwehr, Romeyn de Hooghe (1645–1708) as Book Illustrator: A Bibliography. Amsterdam: Van Gendt & Co./New York: Abner Schram, 1970 (henceforth cited as lbi) and John Landwehr, Romeyn de Hooghe the

Introduction

29

unreliable, both works should be used with caution.10 Piet Verkruijsse and Garrelt Verhoeven have compiled a useful ‘short title’ catalogue of books containing de Hooghe’s frontispieces and illustrations.11 The prefix ‘short title’ indicates that the list has been assembled from catalogue entries only and that the authors have refrained from ascertaining whether the illustrations are genuinely by de Hooghe’s hand; this is not always the case. The listing in the relevant Hollstein volume is far from complete.12 These sources must be complemented with Ab van der Steur’s catalogue of de Hooghe prints in his collection and Frederik Muller’s invaluable catalogue of Dutch ‘history prints’.13 In the present book, de Hooghe’s prints will be identified, where appropriate, by referring to Landwehr’s catalogues of freestanding etchings (le plus page number) and book illustrations (lbi plus reference number), to vol. 9 of F.W.H. Hollstein’s Dutch and Flemish Engravings and Woordcuts ca. 1450–1700 (h), and to the Frederik Muller catalogue (fmh). The prints themselves are readily available online. The largest collection is held by the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, which has made more than 1,500 de Hooghe prints (mostly free-standing ones) accessible on their website. The Special Collections Library of the University of Amsterdam has digitally published its vast collection of de Hooghe’s book illustrations and frontispieces. Many other museums, print collections, and libraries have made their holdings digitally accessible, whilst an increasing number of books with de Hooghe’s illustrations are being digitized by university libraries, non-profit organizations, and commercial companies such as the Internet Archive and Google Books. In many of the reproductions of news prints and satirical prints, I have cut off the explicatory letterpress under the etching in order to save space; in these cases, the captions specify ‘detail’. The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam website allows interested readers to study these images in their entirety. All artworks reproduced in this volume are etchings, unless specified otherwise. One major source for the life of Romeyn de Hooghe is the pamphlet collection of the National Library of the Netherlands (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) in The Hague. The pamphlets are described in the catalogue by W.P.C. Knuttel and can be accessed digitally.14 The Knuttel catalogue has a section of nineteen pamphlet titles, labelled – not entirely accurately – ‘exchanged between Nicolaes Muys van Holy and Romeyn Etcher: Contemporary portrayal of Europe 1662–1707. Leiden: A.W. Sijthoff/New York: Oceana Dobbs Ferry, 1973 (henceforth la). 10 An extremely critical assessment of their value is to be found in Becker, ‘Review’. 11 Verkruijsse and Verhoeven, ‘Short title-lijst’. 12 Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, vol. 9, pp. 118–132, contains 1,131 entries. 13 Van der Steur, Romeyn de Hooghe; Frederik Muller De Nederlandsche geschiedenis in platen, zinneprenten en oude kaarten. Vol. 1: Jaren 100 tot 1702. Amsterdam: Frederik Muller, 1863–1870 (henceforth cited as fmh). 14 W.P.C. Knuttel, Catalogus van de pamfletten-verzameling berustende in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek, vol. 2-2 (1668–1688). The Hague: Algemeene Landsdrukkerij, 1895 (henceforth cited as Kn.).

30 

THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

de Hooghe’ in 1690.15 In fact, many other pamphlets in the section on ‘The Disputes between William iii and Amsterdam’ contain information about what was known as the Romeyn de Hooghe affair.16 Taken together, they provide a fascinating picture of the mud-slinging campaign in which he became embroiled. One of them, entitled De nyd en twist-sucht nae 't leven afgebeeldt [‘Malice and Spirit of Quarrelling, Drawn after Life’] is his apology and contains a wealth of biographical data. These should not be taken at face value, however, due to the controversial and highly explosive context in which the pamphlet originated.17 Most of the manuscript sources bearing on de Hooghe’s life are kept in the municipal archives of the two cities where he resided, Amsterdam and Haarlem. The notarial archives in particular contain an abundance of detailed information. The private papers of Amsterdam’s burgomaster Joan Huydecoper, kept in the Utrecht Archives, include a rich file with papers relating to the 1690 ‘Pamphlet War’, which contains a good number of autograph letters by de Hooghe.18 The almost daily association, over a number of years, with the subject of this biography has created a certain degree of familiarity. The author hopes that the reader will forgive him for referring to the protagonist by his first name, Romeyn, instead of the more formal and cumbersome ‘Romeyn de Hooghe’.

15 Kn. 13534–13553. 16 Harms, Pamfletten, p. 175; Kn. 13428–13552. 17 Kn. 13551, Nyd. 18 hua 67, inv. no. 97.

1. Under the Spire of the Zuiderkerk The Zuiderkerk The church in Amsterdam known as the Zuiderkerk (‘South Church’) loomed large in the youth of Romeyn de Hooghe. Finished in 1611, it was the city’s first church to be specially constructed for the Reformed Protestant community. The building served the Lastage district, a neighbourhood recently transformed from dockyards into a residential zone to accommodate Amsterdam’s rapidly growing population. The occasion for its construction, prosaic rather than pious, had been the urgent need for burial space for the victims of a plague epidemic (fig. 1.1).1 The Zuiderkerk was the de Hooghe family’s habitual place of worship. Here they would gather to attend Sunday service and had most of their children baptized – and eventually buried. It was where father and mother de Hooghe, on Sunday, 10 September 1645, presented their third child Romeyn at the font.2 The Zuiderkerk’s baptismal register records the father’s name as another Romeyn, and the mother’s as Susanna Gerrits. The infant’s godmother was Marietje Gerrits, surely Susanna’s sister. Four years earlier almost to the day, the young Romeyn’s parents had had their banns of marriage announced (see Genealogical Table 1 on p. 20, and the Appendix on p. 417).3 The groom, Romeyn de Hooghe Senior, stated that he was born in ­Amsterdam, was 22 years old and a button-maker by profession. Both his parents were dead, and he was living on Engelspadt (‘English Path’); his brother Jan de Hooghe was acting as his witness. His fiancée Susanna Gerrits also hailed from Amsterdam, reported the same age as well as the same address as her future husband, and had brought her mother, Annetje Andries, as her witness. The register yields another nugget of information: signing his banns with a shakily scribbled single letter r, the elder Romeyn de Hooghe was clearly illiterate, whereas his bride signed with a meticulously penned Susanna Gerris [sic]. Three weeks later, the couple had their wedding solemnized in Diemen, a small village near Amsterdam. Romeyn Sr had been baptized at Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Kerk on 25 February 1620 as the son of Jan de Hooghe and Sara Stevens.4 At the time of his wedding, this would have made him one year younger than the age he reported. Susanna Gerrits’ origins are rather more obscure. ‘Gerrits’ being a patronymic rather than a surname, it tells us that Susanna’s father’s first name was Gerrit or Gerard. We already know that Susanna’s mother’s name was Annetje Andries and her sister’s name was Marietje. Combining these details 1 2 3 4

Van Swigchem, Huis, pp. 116–117; Abrahams, Grote uitleg, pp. 37–40. saa, 5001, inv. no. 93, p. 97; Kleerkooper and van Stockum, Boekhandel, p. 273. saa, 5001, inv. no. 456, p. 261 (7 September 1641). saa, 5001, inv. no. 40, p. 76.

32 

THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

Fig. 1.1. Pieter Hendricksz Schut, The Zuiderkerk, c. 1652–1660.

reveals that Susanna was a daughter of Gerrit Meijnertsz, a carpenter and shipwright hailing from Bellingwolde in the Province of Groningen, and Annetje Andries from Flensburg in the Duchy of Schleswig. Having married in May 1615, the couple had a daughter, Marietje, in 1620, but the record of Susanna’s baptism is not unequivocal.5 Engelspadt (also known as Simon Rijkenpad), the site of the young couple’s household, was situated in the cluttered industrial suburb that sprawled to the south of Amsterdam’s Reguliers Gate. It was here that Romeyn Sr’s elder brother Jan, a silk braid weaver, owned a house and a yard with three more dwellings.6 Romeyn Sr and Susanna probably lived in one of the small houses on Jan’s property. The site may have housed a small family business for manufacturing silk trimmings and buttons. Two other brothers, Pieter and Louis, also made their living as button-makers and may have been involved in the firm. At some point in time, Romeyn Sr, Susanna, and their rapidly growing family moved into the city, where they rented a house in Nieuwe Hoogstraat in the Lastage district, directly below the Zuiderkerk’s spire. Their new home probably accommodated a 5 Marriage of Gerrit Meijnertsz and Annetje Andries in saa, 5001, inv. no. 419, p. 105. Gerrit Meijnertsz entered his profession as ‘house carpenter’ during the proclamation of his banns and as ‘shipwright’ at the baptism of his youngest son in 1622 (saa, 5001, inv. no. 6, p. 16). Baptism of Marietje in Nieuwe Kerk: saa, 5001, inv. no. 40, p. 85. On 19 April 1616 a child Susanna was baptized, also in the Nieuwe Kerk, the daughter of Gerrit Meijnertsz, but her mother was listed as ‘Jacob Dirxdr’ (saa, 5001, inv. no. 39, p. 420). Was Annetje Andries’ father named Jacob Dirx? Susanna would have been 25 years old when she married, four years older than her groom. On 9 July 1633, Annetje Andries remarried Willem Heijndrixss, widower of Trijn Jans, a map-maker (kaertemaecker) living on Engelspadt (saa, 5001, 441, p. 118). Susanna was probably living with her mother and stepfather on Engelspadt when she married; she and Romeyn de Hooghe Sr had been neighbours. 6 Jan de Hooghe was living on Engelspadt when he married Marritie Daniels on 3 March 1640 (saa, 5001, inv. no. 453, p. 266). On 26 April 1664, he sold a house, yard, and three dwellings located on Engelspadt or Simon Rijckenpad (saa, 5062, inv. no. 54, f. 146 vo).

Under the Spire of the Zuiderkerk

33

workshop where Romeyn Sr turned buttons and a store where Susanna sold them.7 Making a double-pun on the button-maker’s rather uncommon name, the couple baptized it In de Romeyn (‘In the Roman’). As their house was situated in (Nieuwe) Hoogstraat, its name referred both to the elder Romeyn de Hooghe’s first name and his family name. Puns and puzzles must have been popular in the de Hooghe family, and young Romeyn must have learned to enjoy them at a tender age. Romeyn and Susanna had ten children. Sara, the eldest, was baptized in the Nieuwe Kerk in 1642, and her brother Gerard in the Oude Waalse Kerk (Old Walloon Church) in 1644. The future artist Romeyn Jr and all subsequent children were baptized in the Zuiderkerk. This suggests that the move to Nieuwe Hoogstraat took place shortly before Romeyn’s birth in September 1645. The Zuiderkerk’s baptismal registers record the baptisms of another Gerard or Gerrit in 1647, Susanna in 1648, Martijntje in 1651, Pieter in 1652, another Martijntje in 1654, Lodewijck in 1656, and finally another Susanna in 1658. At least three children died in infancy, as testified by the repetitive use of identical first names. The Zuiderkerk served as the final resting place for most of Romeyn’s and Susanna’s children. Only their son Romeyn, the future artist, and the oldest child, Sara, were to reach adulthood.8 The young Romeyn grew up in a simple, lower-middle-class family. As second-­ generation immigrants, neither parent was a poorter or full citizen of Amsterdam. Acquiring poorter status, which would have given access to significant social and legal privileges, was expensive. Crucially, citizenship was required for working as a master-­artisan in one of Amsterdam’s craft guilds. Since there was no guild organization for button-makers, the elder Romeyn could practise his trade, market his products, and train apprentices without having to go to the trouble and expense of becoming a poorter.9

The Gift of God On Friday, 12 August 1664, the button-maker Romeyn de Hooghe left his home on an errand of consequence (fig. 1.2). It was only a short stroll from In de Romeyn to Dam Square, ten minutes at most: he crossed the bridge over Kloveniersburgwal and entered Oude Hoogstraat, walking past the local Dutch East India ­Company (Verenig­ de Oostindische Compagnie, or voc) offices, where the executive board of the voc had their meetings, and where sailors of many nations were bustling to sign up for a berth on one of Amsterdam’s outward-bound East Indiamen. After two more bridges 7 saa, 5004, inv. no. 21, f. 8 vo; Kleerkoper and van Stockum, Boekhandel, p. 273. 8 Unidentified children of Romeyn Sr de Hooghe were buried in the Zuiderkerk on 2 February 1651, 15 July 1651, 17 May 1652, 20 March 1653, 20 January 1657, 29 August 1664, and 15 September 1664 (saa, 5001, inv. nos. 1090, ff. 165, 168, and 191, ff. 8 vo, 21, 53, 88 vo, 89). On 24 September 1664 another unnamed de Hooghe child was buried at Heiligeweg and Leidsche Kerkhof (saa, 5001, inv. no. 1227, p. 67). 9 Wagenaar, Amsterdam, vol. 2, pp. 431–477.

16

2 13 23

17

22

1

15

3

7

5

18

4

10

6 11

14

8

20 19

9

Fig. 1.2. Romeyn de Hooghe and Gerard Valck, Map of Amsterdam, 1674–1681 (detail).

1. Zuiderkerk 2. Botermarkt, approximate location of Engelspadt before town extension 3. Nieuwe Hoogstraat, with Romeyn de Hooghe Sr’s house In de Romeyn 4. Bourse 5. Halsteeg, with Louis de Hooghe’s shop In de Cnoopmaecker 6. Dam Square 7. Chamber of Dutch East India Company (VOC) 8. Damrak 9. River IJ

24

25

26

10. Town Hall

27

11. Nieuwe Kerk

21

12. Haarlemmerdijk, with house of Pieter Janszoon Crul 13. River Amstel 14. Koestraat, with Oudezijds Latin School 15. Portuguese Synagogue 16. Reguliersgracht, with house of Romeyn and Maria 17. Corner of Kalverstraat and Jonge Roelensteeg, location of Romeyn’s workshop 18. Romeyn’s workshop on Dam Square In de Wackeren Hondt 19. Nieuwe Waalseiland 20. Romeyn’s town house on Binnenkant 21. Jordaan district, with Anjelierssstraat and Anjeliersdwarsstraat 22. Timotheus ten Hoorn’s shop in Nes Street, opposite De Brakke Grond

12

23. Jan Bouman’s shop in Kalverstraat, opposite Nieuwezijds Chapel 24. Singel 25. Herengracht 26. Keizersgracht 27. Prinsengracht

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THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

and a walk through Halsteeg (passing the shop of his brother Louis), he came to the vast, open space of Dam Square, the hub of Amsterdam’s economic and political life (fig. 1.3). On his right, behind the stalls of the fish market, he could see Damrak harbour, crowded with barges ferrying ashore all kinds of merchandise from the sturdy ocean-going cargo vessels swinging at their anchors in the River IJ roadstead. Beyond Damrak loomed the municipal weighing house, where officials weighed and ­measured huge barrels filled with grain, beer, peat, and other staple commodities. On his left, behind a block of houses and a small gate, towered the imposing Commodities’ Exchange or Bourse, with its elegant Renaissance campanile and crowds of self-important merchants hurrying in and out. Picking his way between the crowds on the square, Romeyn made for the magnificent new town hall, designed by Jacob van Campen and known locally as the eighth wonder of the world.10 Still unfinished and without its cupola, it had opened its doors to the public nine years before. Its stern classicist façade, executed in bright ochre-­ coloured sandstone and crowned with a sculptured frieze of shining white marble, contrasted oddly with the brick Renaissance gables of the surrounding houses and the steep vertical lines of the gothic Nieuwe Kerk on his right. Without further ado, the button-maker entered the building and requested to have his citizens’ oath administered. Before the burgomaster on duty, he swore in accordance with a prescribed formula to be a good poorter, obedient to the burgomasters and regents of the city, and conduct himself properly while performing his duties in the city’s defence, such as standing guard and the duty of bijten (helping to cut up the ice when the city’s defensive moats froze).11 Perhaps even more importantly, he paid the required fee of 50 guilders. This was a hefty sum, well above the monthly wage of a skilled labourer.12 Why did Romeyn the button-maker wish to become a poorter of Amsterdam? Not in order to become a master-artisan, as he had been working for more than twenty years in a trade that had no guild organization. Only one objective can explain his willingness to come up with the cash for such a significant expense: his ­newly-acquired citizenship, which automatically applied to his offspring as well, would entitle the latter to be received in Amsterdam’s civic orphanage in case they were to lose their parents. Such a precaution was hardly superfluous in August 1664, when Amsterdam was in the grip of one of the most severe plague epidemics in its history.

10 On Amsterdam’s town hall, see Vlaardingerbroek, Paleis. 11 saa, 5033, inv. no. 5, f. 418. On citizenship in Amsterdam, see Kuijpers and Prak, ‘Burger’, pp. 119–124, and Wagenaar, Amsterdam, vol. 3, p. 154. 12 A master craftsman could earn up to 30 stivers or 1 ½ guilders per day in summertime; daily wages were lower in the winter. Nusteling, Welvaart, p. 252; de Vries and van der Woude, First Modern Economy, pp. 609–620.

Fig. 1.3. Jacob van der Ulft, View of Dam Square, 1655.

During the Golden Age, Amsterdam repeatedly suffered from the plague or the ‘Gift of God’, as the more pious among the Dutch called the disease. The densely-­ populated city, a hub of international commerce, with its bustling docksides, unruly streams of immigrants, and overcrowded and filthy living quarters that lodged the poorer part of the population, was particularly susceptible to contagious diseases. Struck 23 times between the beginning of the century and 1666, Amsterdam was worse off than the other cities in Holland, such as Leiden, which suffered fifteen plague years during the same period, and Haarlem, with only five.13 The years 1663 and 1664 were especially catastrophic. Contemporaries anxiously tallied the number of funerals. A pamphlet entitled ‘The Smiting Hand of God’ displayed ‘the great number of dead swept away by the said [plague] in a short time, serving to the survivors as a mirror and a voice crying for atonement and reform of life’. It recorded a weekly number of between 200 and 300 casualties during the first four months of 1664,

13 Noordegraaf and Valk, Gave, Appendix 2.

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THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

mounting to almost 800 by the end of July, and between 900 and 1,000 in August and September.14 Some 24,000 people died during the entire year, in a population that numbered approximately 200,000.15 The pestilence was accompanied by frightening portents, which presaged even more doom to come. In the autumn of 1663, and again in April of the following year, Amsterdammers witnessed ‘a horrible and rapid fire in the shape first of a glowing bullet, which expressed itself in a large and long beam, making a great pale light’.16 In December of that year, the frost fell so rapidly and thickly that the city’s trees split apart. The de Hooghes of Nieuwe Hoogstraat were brutally hit by the plague. Romeyn Sr and Susanna Gerrits had already lost five of their ten children; whether to the plague or other ailments, we do not know. But during that horrendous summer of 1664 it was the plague that ravaged the hapless inhabitants of In de Romeyn. In August and September, three of their children were buried in less than four weeks.17 And on the last day of September, only six weeks after he had acquired his poorter status, father Romeyn himself was carried to his final resting place in the Zuiderkerk.18 He left behind his grieving widow Susanna and two children: Sara, aged 22, and Romeyn, nineteen years old. Nor was this the end of the family’s tribulations. Shortly afterwards, in January 1666, Sara married Pieter Jansz Crul, a barber-surgeon living on Haarlemmerdijk.19 Soon after the wedding she fell ill. On 21 August, her health had deteriorated to such an extent that she had a notary called to her sick-bed.20 At eleven o’clock at night, in the presence of two sleepy neighbours raised from their beds in order to act as witnesses, she made her last will and testament, in which she bequeathed her clothes, linen, trinkets, and other belongings to her mother. She lived on for another year and died in Haarlem in December 1667, probably while staying with her uncle and aunt, Pieter de Hooghe and Martijntje van der Hulst.21 The etcher Romeyn and his mother were the only survivors of the once-sprawling family of the button-maker. The families of young Romeyn’s uncles did not fare any better. An unnamed son of his eldest uncle Jan de Hooghe was buried in September 1664, followed in January 1665 by his son Paulus, aged 28.22 The plague almost completely wiped out the family of Romeyn’s youngest uncle Louis de Hooghe. Louis himself was buried on 30 October, just one month after his elder brother. In November and December, two of his three

14 Anon., Slaende hant, reproduced in Noordegraaf and Valk, Gave, pp. 40–41. 15 Wagenaar, Amsterdam, vol. 2, pp. 605–606; Noordegraaf and Valk, Gave, p. 234. 16 Ibid., p. 108. According to Wagenaar, vol. 2, p. 606, the phenomenon was caused by Northern Lights. 17 Above, fn. 8. 18 saa, 5001, inv. no. 1091, f. 89 vo; saa, 5004, inv. no. 21, p. 8; Kleerkooper and van Stockum, Boekhandel, p. 273. 19 saa, 5001, inv. no. 488, p. 101 (8 January 1666). 20 saa, 5075, inv. no. 2740, p. 135. 21 nha, 2142, inv. no. 76, p. 316. 22 saa, 5001, inv. no. 1227, p. 68, and inv. no. 1091, p. 91.

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children succumbed to the epidemic, one of them a two-year-old, the other an infant of not quite three months.23 The button-maker’s household, blessed with numerous offspring, was not welloff. Yet despite the daily drudgery and their grief over the repeated loss of children, they must have cherished hopes of a better existence, a life of affluence and esteem. Very close by, they had an example to emulate, for there was another branch of the de Hooghe family living in Amsterdam, first cousins of Romeyn Sr and his brothers. They were prosperous merchants who had married into respectable local families. The contrast offered by the vicissitudes of the rich branch of the de Hooghe family was striking. Evidently, they also had their share of infant mortality, but it is remarkable that none of their children perished during the plague years of the 1660s. This was probably due to better living conditions, healthier and more abundant food, and cleaner and more spacious dwellings. Perhaps they had left the infested city and found refuge in their country houses, like many well-to-do Amsterdammers did. Despite their good fortune, they were not insensitive to the misery of the families of their kinsmen. In the first week of October 1664, the West India merchant Paulus de Hooghe, a full cousin of Romeyn Sr, wrote a letter to his 26-year-old son in The Hague, a lawyer also named Romeyn. Paulus anxiously tallied the weekly number of plague victims: 771 deaths, that makes 81 less than last week, praised be the Lord. It has significantly lessened now for three or four weeks. This week, we buried cousin Janneke Le Maire, widow of Nicolaes Spelbergen, and cousin Romeyn de Hooghe in [Nieuwe] Hoogstraat, [both] having died from the plague.24

The next sentence adds another piece of news: ‘His learned son is also suffering from it, but he is on the mend’.25 At the age of nineteen, young Romeyn was a victim of the plague – and one of the few lucky enough to survive.

Ancestors The first name ‘Romeyn’, the Dutch version of Romain in French and Romano in Italian, was very unusual in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. Most parents simply christened their sons with names such as Jan or Pieter. Only thirteen boys in seventeenth-century

23 saa, 5001, inv. nos. 1091, p. 90; 1210, p. 133; 1211, p. 2. 24 Paulus de Hooghe to Romeyn (vii) de Hooghe, Amsterdam, undated (October 1664), rma, rp-d-2017–2296 (=rp-d-2017–2287, no 18). Janneke le Maire was a cousin of Paulus’ wife Helena le Maire. saa, 5001, inv. no. 1047, p. 117. 25 ‘Syn geleerde soon lijtter oock aen, maer is aende better handt’.

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THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

Amsterdam were baptized Romeyn (in various orthographies), as compared to more than 42,000 children named Jan or Jo(h)annes.26 Eight of these thirteen Romeyns bore the family name de Hooghe. Around 1660, there were six individuals living in Amsterdam who answered to the name of Romeyn de Hooghe, all of them related to each other. This makes it necessary to map their family ties accurately.27 Like many other inhabitants of the Dutch Republic, the Amsterdam de Hooghes were descendants of Flemish refugees who fled the violence of war during the Revolt against the King of Spain.28 In a pamphlet written in 1690, Romeyn the artist would boast that his forebears hailed from Ghent, the capital of Flanders, where ‘they had been magistrates from generation to generation for several centuries in succession’ and that they had settled in Amsterdam ‘more than one hundred years ago’.29 In another work, he recorded that he kept in his house a palpable keepsake to remind him of his prominent forebears, ‘the remnants of such sleeves as worn by Romeyn van Ryckeghem, brother-in-law of my great-grandfather Jan de Hooghe, schepen [alderman or magistrate] in Ghent’.30 The source of Romeyn’s knowledge about his magisterial ancestors was a learned and bulky volume on the history of Ghent, which mentions four de Hooghes serving as aldermen in Ghent during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.31 It also shows a handsome coat of arms borne by one of them, featuring a black chevron charged with three roses on a silver background (fig. 1.4). The artist Romeyn and his Amsterdam relatives were to appropriate this appealing mark of distinction and flaunt it for their own purposes. Being descended from a line of Ghent magistrates with their own coat of arms was something to be proud of in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. But how trustworthy was the de Hooghe family lore? It is true that several men with that name had been members of the magisterial elite of Ghent, serving as aldermen, tax collectors, and members of the Collatie or city council.32 Yet the two branches of the de Hooghe

26 Between 1600 and 1699, the baptism registers in saa, 5001, record the name ‘Jan’ 24,475 times, ‘Johannes’ 9,048 times, and ‘Joannes’ 8,833 times. During the same period, 13,929 children were baptized ‘Pieter’. 27 The following genealogical data are mostly based on an eighteenth-century manuscript family tree, rma, rp-d-2017–2295 (=rp-d-2017–2287 no 15). Waller, ‘Familie’, is inaccurate because it omits Romeyn’s grandfather Jan ii de Hooghe. The genealogy of the de Hooghe family is laid out in the Appendix. 28 Briels, Zuid-Nederlandse immigratie, and Gelderblom, Zuid-Nederlandse kooplieden. 29 Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 10. Ericus Walten acted as Romeyn de Hooghe’s ghost-writer in this pamphlet. 30 De Hooghe, Spiegel, vol. 2, p. 99. The sleeves refer to the liveries worn by the followers of the League of the Grandees against Cardinal Granvelle. 31 De l’Espinoy, Recherche, p. 642. Among the de Hooghe family papers kept in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam are several sheets with genealogical and heraldic notes referring to de L’Espinoy’s work; the de Hooghes from Ghent are mentioned in it. rma, rp-d-2017–2277, rp-d-2017–2281, rp-d-2017–2290, and rp-d-2017–2293 (=rp-d-2017–2287, nos. 1, 4, 12, and 15). On de l’Espinoy, see Bibliographie nationale, vol. 5, col. 406–410. 32 Dambruyne, Corporatieve middengroepen, Appendices 22, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33.

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Fig. 1.4. Coat of Arms of Simon de Hooghe, Alderman of Ghent. Philippe de l’ Espinoy, Recherche des antiquitez et noblesse de Flandres, etc. (1631), p. 642.

family that flourished in Amsterdam did not originate in Ghent; they hailed from Tielt, a small provincial town some 30 kilometres to the west of the Flemish capital. The history of the de Hooghes of Tielt goes back to 7 July 1500, when Willem de Hooghe and his wife Thaenkin (Tanneken) bought citizenship and moved into a house in ­Kortrijkstraat (see Genealogical Tables and Appendix).33 It is possible that Willem was related to the eponymous Ghent magistrates, as the surname de Hooghe or d’Hooghe was quite common in Flanders. Willem and Thaenkin had a son, Olivier, the great-great-grandfather of the artist. A man of substance, he served as magistrate, and from 1562 to 1564 as burgomaster.34 In that role, he was responsible for the suppression of heresy, an extremely troublesome issue in the years preceding the outbreak of the Dutch Revolt. The Revolt took a heavy toll on the little town, which was first subjected to occupation by Calvinist troops from Ghent and then by equally ruthless Spanish mercenaries. With commerce and industry grinding to a halt, Tielt became a ghost city. In 1593, the cloth-makers’ hall and the aldermen’s house collapsed; in 1603, plague ravished the town. Only the proclamation in 1609 of a Twelve Years’ Truce between Spain and the fledgling Dutch Republic heralded a modest revival. During these troubled times, Olivier de Hooghe continued to serve his hometown in various official capacities.35 Around 1567, his son Jan (i) de Hooghe married a woman from a prominent local family named Paschina or Pasquijntje van Ryckeghem. The artist Romeyn thought his great-grandmother Pasquijntje van Ryck­eghem had a brother named Romeyn who served as schepen in Ghent. We know of no alderman of that name in Ghent, but the Tielt city accounts do mention a Romeyn van Ryckeghem, presumably Pasquijntje’s brother.36 Remaining loyal to the Catholic 33 34 35 36

Stadsrekeningen Tielt, pp. 2–3. Ibid., p. 236. Ibid., pp. 561, 564. Ibid., p. 407.

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THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

Church, the van Ryckeghems were to rank among the wealthiest families in Tielt in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.37 The couple had two sons, one named Jan (ii) after his father and the other Romeyn (i) after his uncle van Ryckeghem. Like his father, Jan I initially served his hometown during the difficult years of Calvinist rule. But unlike his father, he joined the increasing stream of refugees that left the sorrows of Flanders behind them. Settling in London, he was active as a merchant and became a member of the Dutch Protestant refugee church worshiping in Austin Friars, a former Augustine monastery.38 The consistory records depict him as a quick-tempered and quarrelsome man. He neglected to pay for merchandise delivered, threatened his creditors with a knife, and failed to display the required repentance.39 In June 1593, Jan i made his last will and testament, which was to have a critical impact on subsequent generations.40 While bequeathing all movable and immovable property that he had left behind in Flanders to be shared evenly between his two sons, he explicitly cut out his elder son Jan ii (‘for some certaine good causes’) from his London estate and bequeathed all of it to Romeyn i. The reason for the unequal treatment was that the younger son had joined his father in London, where he and his wife shared a house in Cornhill Ward with his father and his stepmother Janne­ ken ’s Hooghen, and took care of them in their old age.41 There is no evidence attesting to the presence of Jan ii in London. He probably remained in the Low Countries, either in order to keep an eye on the family property, or because he had decided to remain true to the Catholic faith (or both). The younger son Romeyn I, great-uncle of our artist, was the progenitor of the prosperous branch of the de Hooghe family (Genealogical Table 2). He was known in London as a silk weaver and silk braid worker, but he must have been active in the silk trade as well.42 With his second wife Judith Bischop, the daughter of another refugee from the Low Countries, he had eight children. The family resettled in Amsterdam after the conclusion of the Twelve Years’ Truce, in a house near the newly built Commodities’ Exchange. The sons of Romeyn i and Judith were full cousins of the button-maker Romeyn (ii) and his brothers. The eldest son, also named Romeyn (iii), was a silk merchant like his father. The second son, Joannes or Jan (iv), was known as a shopkeeper but probably involved in wholesale trade. Paulus or Paul was a prosperous West India merchant, while Nicasius, the youngest son, was the voc’s chief merchant in Formosa (Taiwan).43 They 37 Cloet, Geschiedenis, pp. 13, 174. 38 On the Dutch refugee church in London, see Boersma, Vluchtig voorbeeld, and Grell, Dutch Calvinists. 39 Acta, nos. 2533, 2536, 3593. 40 ‘Will of John De Hoogh fs. Oliviers, Merchant of City of London’, 26 November 1602. The National Archives of the uk, prob/11, inv. no. 100, ff. 225–225 vo. 41 Returns, vol. 2, p. 464. 42 Ecclesiae Londino-Batavae Archivum, nos. 1490, 1508, 4341. 43 Dagregisters, vol. 2, p. 52, fn. 11. Portraits of Jan and Paulus de Hooghe are in rma, sk-a-2184 and sk-a-2196.

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all married into wealthy and respectable families. Paul, for example, married Helena, daughter of the immensely rich merchant, investor, and speculator Isaac Le Maire.44 The children of these well-to-do merchants were second cousins of the future artist Romeyn (iv). Josina, the only daughter of the silk merchant Romeyn iii, married Jacob ten Grootenhuys, a lawyer who served as alderman and was elected as a member of Amsterdam’s city council or Vroedschap.45 Her younger brother Romeyn (v) remained unmarried. With no occupation, he lived off private means, bequeathed to him by his father. He purchased a country estate known as Dijk en Rijn in Zoeterwoude, near Leiden, and made a pleasure-trip that took him to Italy, Palestine, Turkey, and Egypt. Anna, the daughter of Jan iv, married the highly successful and well-off marine painter Ludolf Backhuysen.46 Her brothers Jan (vi), Franck, and Romeyn (vi) entered the service of the voc.47 Romeyn (vii), son of Paulus, went up to Leiden to read Law, graduating in 1661, and settled as a lawyer in Amsterdam.48 Finally, Antoni, the son of Nicasius, also took up Law at Leiden and entered the bar in Amsterdam, where he died unmarried in 1672.49 The grandfather of the artist Romeyn (iv) was Jan ii, the prodigal elder son of Jan I and Pasquijntje van Ryckeghem, who had forfeited his share in his father’s London estate (Genealogical Table 1). His life is more obscure than that of his more fortunate younger brother. Born around 1570,50 he married Sara Stevens, about whom little is known except that her mother’s name was Louise du Trocq.51 Her father’s name may have been Louis, for this is how Jan II and Sara baptized their eldest son, who died young, as well as the youngest one, who was born after the death of his elder brother. Jan ii and Sara had eight children, only one of whom died in infancy. The scarce evidence suggests a peripatetic existence, perhaps due to the vagaries of war. On the occasion of the calling of his banns in Amsterdam, their eldest surviving son, the silk braid weaver Jan iii, reported that he was born in Cologne in 1605 or 1606.52 The second son, Pieter, 44 Zandvliet, 250 rijksten, no. 55. 45 saa, 5001, inv. no. 498, p. 78; Elias, Vroedschap, no. 31. 46 saa, 5001, inv. no. 507, p. 239. De Beer, Ludolf Backhuysen provides information about Anna de Hooghe, as well as other members of the rich de Hooghe branch. Portraits of Anna by Backhuysen are in rma, rp-t-1905217, sk-a-2187, and sk-a-2188. 47 Romeyn vi became second merchant in Malacca. Generale Missiven, vol. 4, p. 23. 48 Album studiosorum, col. 474; Album advocatorum, p. 172. 49 Album studiosorum, col. 493, ‘civis Amstelodamensis, natione Indus, 20 [years old]’; Album Advocatorum, p. 172. 50 In 1570, Jan i de Hooghe is mentioned as a new citizen of Tielt, ‘with wife and children.’ Stadsrekeningen Tielt, p. 517. 51 On 6 June 1657, Jan and Pieter de Hooghe appeared before a public notary and declared that their mother was the late Sara Stevens, in which capacity they were heirs of Louise du Trock, their grandmother. They authorized their brothers Romeyn (Sr) and Louis to accept the inheritance. De Vries, ‘Biographische aantekeningen’, p. 154. 52 In 1648, Jan iii made his will, in which he bequeathed to his eldest son ‘the fief with the dependent properties around it situated at Roeselare in Flanders on the road to Ypres or elsewhere thereabouts, lately possessed by Lodewijk [Louis] de Hooghe, his brother, and devolved upon him due to the latter’s death’. saa, 5075, inv. no. 1825, p. 273.

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THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

gave Antwerp as his birthplace and 1616 as the year of his birth. Both Jan and Pieter must therefore have been baptized in the Catholic Church. The third son Romeyn ii, the future button-maker, was born in Amsterdam in 1620 and baptized in the (Reformed) Nieuwe Kerk. It follows that Jan ii and Sara and their family made their move to Amsterdam between 1616 and 1620. Romeyn i was probably instrumental in helping his elder brother settle in the city. He and his wife acted as godparents for their nephews Romeyn ii and Louis. The fact that three of Jan ii’s four sons became button-makers suggests that the father had the same occupation.

The Learned Son When reporting to his son the death of his cousin in Nieuwe Hoogstraat and the illness and recovery of young Romeyn, Paulus de Hooghe referred to the latter as ‘his learned son’. Was his remark meant to be ironic, or was he just stating a fact? Romeyn certainly enjoyed the benefits of an excellent education. His later artistic and literary work betrays an intimate knowledge of Roman and Greek literature, mythology, and history. When he was older, he was to obtain an academic degree in law, for which thorough knowledge of Latin was indispensable. Capable of reading, writing, and probably speaking Latin fluently, he must have attended the Latin School.53 Amsterdam boasted two Latin Schools, one for boys living in the Oudezijds district east of the River Amstel, and another for Nieuwezijds boys on the western bank.54 Romeyn, as an inhabitant of the Oudezijds part of town, must have attended the school in Koestraat, only a few minutes’ walk from his home. It has been suggested that Romeyn went to school with Franciscus van den Enden, a renegade Jesuit and radical philosopher who ran a private school on the Singel canal.55 If this were the case, it would be highly significant for his intellectual development, for van den Enden was a notorious atheist and the author of a treatise entitled Vrye politijke stellingen [‘Free Political Proposals’, 1665], in which he pleaded for a radically democratic state that respected the boundary between political authority and religious belief.56 He had been the teacher of Spinoza, who is said to have assisted him as an instructor at his school.57 In 1674, when van den Enden was living in Paris, he became involved in a conspiracy to murder King Louis xiv. The plot was betrayed, and van den Enden was arrested, tried, and hanged in front of the Bastille. Attending 53 Judging by his letter to Nicholas Martyn, Haarlem, 8 January 1701, wro 705:366, parcel 4, no ii. 54 Wagenaar, Amsterdam, vol. 2, pp. 373–378. 55 Nadler, Spinoza, p. 103. The theory that Romeyn was van den Enden’s pupil was floated in Meinsma, Spinoza, p. 144. 56 Kn. 9191, Van den Enden, Vrye politijke stellingen. English translation Van den Enden, Free political propositions. 57 Nadler, Spinoza, p. 114.

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his school would have drawn Romeyn firmly into the orbit of Spinoza and his circle of radical philosophers. Yet the evidence that Romeyn was one of van den Enden’s pupils is flimsy and ultimately unconvincing. It is based on an inaccurate reading of a verse by the ­Collegiant poet and playwright Joachim Oudaen, which in turn was a response to a pamphlet brought out against Romeyn in 1690.58 In this poem, Oudaen rants against van den Enden’s alleged atheism, but he steers clear of mentioning Romeyn by name, let alone tying him to van den Enden’s school. The libel against Romeyn seems merely to have provided the occasion for a moralistic diatribe against van den Enden’s philosophy.59 With a curriculum focusing on Latin and Greek philology and literature, the Latin School primed its pupils for the academic study of divinity, law, or medicine. It was an elite institution, catering for five per cent of the male population, at most.60 Rubbing shoulders with the cream of Amsterdam’s upper class – the sons of regents, lawyers, doctors, merchants, and rentiers – at some point, Romeyn must have realized that their trajectories would part. Sending their learned son to university was beyond the means of the button-maker and his wife. Much later, an anonymous pamphlet purporting to be written by Romeyn himself, but in fact issued by his enemies, would quote him as saying that he was ‘but the son of a common citizen, who lacked the means to advance my studies’.61 He was destined to make his living as an artisan, just like his father and his uncles. He had demonstrated an exceptional gift for drawing at a tender age. It was said that ‘at age thirteen or fourteen, he was so able a draughtsman that he could have earned his living’.62 So Romeyn opted for a career as an artist. Yet having one’s son trained as a painter did not come cheap, either. The basic training took three to four years, and renowned master-painters such as van Honthorst, Dou, and Rembrandt charged as much as 100 guilders a year for tuition. After completing their initial training, they had to work for another five or six years with a m ­ aster-painter – they often chose a different one – before they were allowed to join the local St Luke’s guild and start a studio of their own.63 If Romeyn did receive training as a painter, his parents must have been at least moderately well-off. But was Romeyn actually trained as a painter? Arnold Houbraken allowed him an entry in his biographical survey of Dutch painters because he had ‘sometimes wielded the brush next to the etching-needle’, a reference to several huge wall-covering 58 Kn. 13544, Oudaen, Op de regtsvordering. Cf. De Haas, ‘Commissaris’, pp. 12 and 24–25, fn. 5, and Leemans, ‘Viceroy’, p. 47, fn. 71. 59 The pamphlet occasioning Oudaen’s poem is Kn. 13543 and 13543, Memorie van rechten, which will be discussed in Chapter 10. 60 Frijhoff and Spies, 1650, p. 246. 61 Kn. 13541, Romein de Hooge voor den rechterstoel, p. 31; cf. Het wonderlijk leeven (1681 edn.), p. 226. 62 Ibid., pp. 226–227. 63 Montias, Artists, pp. 160–176; de Jager, 'Meester’, pp. 69–111; Goosens, ‘Schilders’, pp. 69–108; Bok, ‘Vraag’, pp. 177–189; Bok, ‘Nulla dies’, pp. 58–68; Prak, ‘Guilds’, pp. 243–245; Van de Wetering, Rembrandt, pp. 8–17.

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canvases he made in the 1690s and 1700s.64 Yet according to all the documentary evidence that exists on these paintings, Romeyn only made the preparatory sketches and had a professional painter fill in the contours under his supervision. No source ever mentions him as a schilder (‘painter’); he is usually identified as an etser (‘­etcher’), plaatsnijder (literally ‘plate-cutter’, or printmaker), or konstverkoper (print-seller). When he married in 1673, he stated his profession as etser, while the settlement that was drawn up on that occasion specified his household goods as ‘art, drawings, plates, and all that appertains thereunto’, but nothing that betrays a painter’s studio.65 And, finally, all of the artists known to have been his pupils worked as draughtsmen and etchers, rather than painters.66 One must therefore assume that Romeyn served his apprenticeship with one of the many printmakers who were active in Amsterdam in the 1660s. He learned to master the art of etching, but not the much more difficult art of engraving with a burin, since we know of no copper-engravings by his hand. He must have been admitted to the local St Luke’s guild after producing a masterpiece, probably in 1667. Print-sellers were also allowed to join the Booksellers’ guild, but Romeyn’s name does not appear in their registers.67 In the 1660s, presumably when he was serving his apprenticeship, Romeyn etched a number of small bucolic landscapes closely following the style of Nicolaes Berchem. One of these is dated 1662, when he was sixteen or seventeen years old (fig. 1.5).68 This has led to the suggestion that Berchem was his teacher.69 Hailing from Haarlem, Berchem worked in Amsterdam between 1661 and 1670. There is no documentary evidence that attests to a master-apprentice relationship, however, nor does the mere fact that Romeyn made etchings in Berchem’s style offer any reasonable proof. Berchem’s animal series were tremendously popular. The etcher and print-­seller Dancker Danckerts, for example, made a whole series of landscapes after ­Berchem. Reproducing and imitating existing works of art was a normal exercise for anyone training to be a draughtsman and an etcher.70 The style and subject matter of Romeyn’s pastoral prints are very different from anything he was to produce from 1667 onwards. During his apprenticeship, he could not market prints under his own name, as guild regulations stipulated that the work

64 Houbraken, Groote schouburgh, vol. 3, p. 257. 65 saa, 5001, inv. no. 499, p. 92; saa, 5075, inv. no. 2178, ff. 75–77. I am grateful to Jaap van der Veen for pointing this out. 66 Filibert i and Filibert ii Bouttats, Jacobus Harrewijn, Aernout Naghtegael, Laurens Scherm, and Adriaen Schoonebeek. Romeyn’s pupil Frans Decker also worked as a painter, but he received his painter’s training from Bartholomeus Engels. https://rkd.nl/explore/artists/39559, consulted 31 September 2017. 67 saa, 366, inv. no. 65, f. 242. The registers of Amsterdam’s St Luke’s guild no longer exist. 68 le 41, h 346. 69 h 152, 153, 346, 349, 354, 355, 356, 375; le 41–5. Wilson, ’Art’, pp. 22, 102–103; on Berchem, see Van ThielStroman, ‘Biographies’, pp. 102–105, and on his etchings Wuestman, ‘Berchem’, pp. 153–157. 70 Van der Veen, ‘Danckerts’, pp. 70–71; Leeflang, ‘Waarheid’, p. 127.

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Fig. 1.5. Romeyn de Hooghe, Shepherdess witch Cattle, 1662.

of an apprentice belonged to his master. This might suggest that his matriculation took place at an unusually early age, but this is unlikely, since he also attended the Latin School.71 A possible explanation is that Romeyn surreptitiously took the plates from his master’s workshop and published them only much later, when he had made his name as a famous printmaker. In the summer of 1667, when he was 21 years old, Romeyn produced a set of prints under his own name that celebrated the successful Dutch raid against the English navy on the River Medway on 20 June 1667 (fig. 1.6).72 Only then can we state with certainty that he had embarked on his career as an independent master etcher. What qualities did he bring to his studio? A proficient draughtsman and known for his learning, he would fully exploit both qualities in his career. He was good-looking; contemporaries described him as ‘rather tall in stature, and dressed entirely according to the latest fashion’.73 He also profited from certain psychological traits. Various sources testify to his acumen and wit. An anonymous author

71 De Haas, ‘Commissaris’, p. 12, erroneously suggests that Romeyn became a member of St Luke’s guild in The Hague in 1662, when he was 16 or 17 years old. The claim is based on the index to the edition by P.T.A. Swillens of Houbraken’s De groote schouburgh, vol. 3, p. 338, but Houbraken’s original text does not mention such membership. 72 le 55, h 76, fmh 2256; and h 75, fmh 2255. 73 Anon., Wonderlijk leeven (1681 edn.), p. 221.

Fig. 1.6. Romeyn de Hooghe after Willem Schellincks, Raid on the River Medway and the Isle of Sheppey, 1667.

calls him ‘able in various languages and arts [and] of a quick and clever judgement when disputing matters of policy and religion’.74 Another one describes him as a man ‘with a miraculous command over his tongue and capable of speaking about all matters of the world with uncommon gracefulness’.75 A hostile pamphlet states that ‘those well acquainted with him are aware that he is sly and cunning; that he is extremely clever in inventing something on the spot; [and] that he is bold and persistent as a speaker’.76 Romeyn must have been an exceptionally bright young man; tall, handsome, well dressed, and capable of expressing himself with spirit, elegance, and wit. At the start of his career, Romeyn was driven by a keen ambition to improve his lot. He wished to overcome the confined conditions of his childhood and achieve the 74 Anon., Algemeene opvoedinge, p. 26. 75 Anon., Wonderlijk leeven (1681 edn.), p. 222. 76 Kn. 13484, Vindiciae, p. 15.

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Fig. 1.7. Romeyn de Hooghe, Title Print to ‘Figures à la mode’, c. 1667.

cultural, social, and financial level of his well-off de Hooghe relatives and his former class-mates at the Latin School. He desired a lifestyle that matched that of his (supposed) patrician forebears in Ghent. This ambition is captured in the self-portrait that graces the title-print of a twelvepart series of fashion prints entitled Figures à la mode (fig. 1.7).77 The series is undated, but the costumes display the fashion around 1667, the year in which he opened 77 le 379; h 363; Cf. Van Nierop, ‘Se ipse’, p. 28.

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his print shop.78 Idealized and bland, the features of the young artist fail to reveal anything about his physical appearance. Yet it is evident that he chose to depict himself as a gentleman-artist rather than a simple artisan. Displaying a painter’s palette as the symbol of his art, he also shows off a peruke with luxuriant curls, a jaunty fashionable coat, and a dazzling broad-brimmed hat. He has assumed an elegant pose, standing in a shady park near a country mansion, where young ladies with an aristocratic air are taking a stroll, engaged in civilized conversation. This is how he assessed his potential and envisaged his future. During the rest of his life, he was to remain true to the public persona he had invented for himself: a gentleman first, and only then an artist and an artisan.

78 Several ladies in the print wear bodices covered with small loops called nompareilles. The men wear loose, wide breeches with legs resembling skirts called rhingraves, rather narrow bows on their shoes, a short jerkin or a long coat (rock), and a hat with a flat crown. I am grateful to Marieke de Winkel for providing this information. Mariette, Abecedario, vol. 2, p. 381, also dates this print to around 1667.

2. Ingenious Inventions and Rich Designs Setting Up In 1667, Romeyn set up his own studio as an independent master. Barely ten years later, he had become the most sought-after printmaker in Amsterdam, and indeed in the Dutch Republic, the owner of a thriving business, the teacher of a large number of apprentices, and a man of substantial means.1 How did his rise to fame and fortune come about? According to Ericus Walten, who acted as his ghost-writer, in 1690 Romeyn looked back thus on his early career: [He] continually had 36 journeymen working for him in Amsterdam. With so many pupils, it is not surprising that people attribute so many [prints] to him. For when he started etching in Amsterdam, only three etchers and printmakers [plaat­ snijders] were active; when he left [in 1681], the Painters’ Book [i.e., the register of the St Luke’s Guild] recorded 110 of them. Almost all of them had been his pupils and were working after his designs. Similarly, it is difficult in these days to find an artist in any of the neighbouring countries who is not engraving and etching in the manner of Romeyn de Hooghe. Indeed, engravers, etchers, and draughtsmen are in the habit of tearing down [his] prints displayed on the windows and doors of booksellers in order to etch and engrave after the same, and follow his contours, shades, and thoughts. It necessarily follows that many works look like his. When he was living in Amsterdam, he made about 7,000 or 8,000 guilders a year. This was why he had many enemies, who envied and slandered him.2

This account of Romeyn’s early career, written as an apology at a time when he was under attack by his enemies, should be taken with a grain of salt. Evidently, many more than three printmakers would have been active in Amsterdam around 1670, and it was not true that most of the graphic artists working ten years later had been his pupils. But it is a fact that he was by far the most inventive among them, and that other graphic artists often copied or followed his inventions. Like all printmakers, Romeyn would have spent part of his time on rather humble and menial jobs, such as catering for the market for all kinds of printed matter that could not be classified as art, such as blank forms, posters, board games, or playing cards. Most of this utility output has been lost or, if it survives, cannot be attributed to any particular workshop. Exceptionally, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam holds a sheet with several metres of printed frames designed to be cut 1 2

On Amsterdam’s print industry in the seventeenth century, see Kolfin, ‘Amsterdam’. Kn. 13551, Nyd, pp. 22–23.

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Fig. 2.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, Trade card, c. 1674–1693.

out and pasted around all sorts of images, which it attributes to Romeyn’s workshop.3 Another very rare example of cheap printed matter that has withstood the ravages of time is a trade card, signed by Romeyn, for a shop owner dealing in serge and crêpe fabrics (fig. 2.1).4 Yet when one contemplates his enormous output of etchings, produced over a career that spanned 40 years, one is struck by the fact that all his work, consisting of book illustrations, frontispieces, news prints, satirical prints, portraits, and maps, had a utilitarian character. With the exception of the small-scale bucolic landscapes with staffage of cattle à la Berchem that he made during his apprentice years, Romeyn never made any of the konstprenten or ‘art prints’ representing landscapes, still lifes, genres, biblical scenes, and so forth, for which the seventeenth-century Dutch graphic industry was famous. His early Arcadian prints, accomplished and pleasant as they may have been to the contemporary eye, by no means offered a fast track to wealth and fame. By the late 1660s, just as Romeyn was about to start his career, the art market in the Dutch

3 Van der Waals, Prenten, p. 26. 4 The legend reads: ‘Jan van Oosterwijck in Nieuwendijk, “in Schiedam”, sells serge and crêpe from England, France, and Liège’. Jan van Oosterwijck acquired his shop when he married Cornelia Conincx from Schiedam, widow of Jacob Verbeecq in Nieuwendijk (a shopping street north of Dam Square), on 14 July 1674 (banns). He was buried on 28 April 1693. This dates the print to between 1674 and 1693. saa, 5001, inv. no. 689, p. 237, and inv. no. 1069, p. 281.

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Republic was sliding into a protracted slump. With the prices of paintings falling, the number of artists settling in Amsterdam declined steeply. Several painters went bankrupt (Rembrandt being the most famous among them), while others had to look for employment in a different line of business. Contemporaries attributed the economic crisis to the naval wars with England of the 1650s and 1660s, which severely affected trade. Yet more fundamental was a fall in demand, caused by the slow but steady decline of the Dutch economy as well as a structural overproduction of paintings. Due to the longevity of paintings, the number of second-hand works of art available in the market steadily increased, thus making it more and more difficult for artists to sell their work.5 The stagnant market for paintings provided Romeyn with a powerful incentive to specialize in printmaking rather than painting. It also helps to explain why he chose to specialize in prints that served a practical or topical purpose, rather than konstprenten. At times when people have less money to spend on pretty pictures to adorn their houses, there will still be demand for applied art. In addition, graphics are by definition perishables, generating an almost automatic demand for substitution.6 In the course of the seventeenth century, Amsterdam became the principal European centre for the production of books, maps, globes, and freestanding prints.7 The availability of a harder etching varnish (a French invention) from the third quarter of the century onwards made it possible to etch deeper lines in the copper plate and thus achieve larger print-runs of illustrated books. The influx of Huguenot refugees in the 1680s acted as a potent stimulus to the book industry.8 The Anglo-Dutch Wars, and even more so the French invasion of 1672, caused a decline in the publishing industry that was similar to the slump in the market for paintings, but the figures soon picked up, and it seems that the graphic industry weathered the economic storm better than the markets for paintings and other luxury goods.9 Moreover, there were interesting niche-markets that flourished. In the last third of the century, publishers were increasingly marketing complex and lavishly illustrated folios – coffee table books, as they would be called today – on such topics as the geography of exotic foreign continents, world religions, princely palaces and gardens, and military fortresses.10 It was for this high end of the market that Romeyn made his most alluring and prestigious prints.

5 Bok, ‘Vraag’, pp. 120–127. 6 Van der Waals, Prenten, pp. 10–21. 7 Hoftijzer, ‘Metropolis’. 8 Kolfin and Van der Veen, Gedrukt tot Amsterdam, p. 13. 9 Rasterhoff, Painting, p. 127. 10 On the publishing of geographical works, see Schmidt, Inventing Exoticism, Ch. 1.

Fig. 2.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, Peace Negotiations at Breda, 1667.

News prints In 1667, the Dutch Republic was at war with England. A young and ambitious artist hardly could have chosen a more calamitous time to start his business. Yet Romeyn made a virtue of necessity – something that he would do more often during his career – by tapping into the patriotic fervour whipped up by the war and the huge demand for news and, especially, pictures of current events. His first news prints illustrate the spectacular raid by the Dutch navy that destroyed the English war fleet at anchor in the River Medway in June 1667 (fig. 1.5).11 The peace negotiations that were launched in Breda in the following month provided the occasion for more news prints (fig. 2.2).12 News prints were popular in the Dutch Republic. Published in broadsheet or folio format, they depicted an important event such as a siege, battle, coronation, or some 11 le 55, h 76, fmh 2256; and h 75, fmh 2255. 12 le 56, 57; h 77, 78; fmh 2284, 2285.

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other substantial state ceremony, with a title and an explanation of the picture ­added below. The genre became popular in the last third of the sixteenth century, satisfying avid and growing demand for news and pictures.13 Originally combining an image and text etched into a single copperplate, seventeenth-century news prints were often complex and hybrid products. As the person controlling the entire operation, a publisher would commission a picture from a graphic artist and a text from a hack writer, or he might pirate a text from an unillustrated broadsheet. He then engaged a book printer to compose and print the text, leaving a blank space for the illustration. In the second printing run, a plate printer used an intaglio press to add the illustration to the sheets. The publisher provided the initial capital outlay for paper, which might amount to half the costs. Having paid the author, the etcher, and both printers, he marketed the final product for a few stivers apiece. The publisher often remained the owner of the copperplates, which enabled him to issue reprints or to sell the plates to another publisher. Yet news prints also continued to be produced as simple broadsheets with an etching and no printed text at all. Romeyn’s early news prints of 1667 were published without any printed text; only in 1672 did he embrace the hybrid type (fig. 3.3). News prints rarely presented a neutral picture of current events. Artists gave a specific spin to their design, for example by choosing the viewpoint of the victorious army, or emphasizing the cruelties committed by the enemy. They thereby transformed news into opinion-making. Focusing on a single and unique historical event, news prints were by definition ephemeral commodities. Customers might eventually discard them when the news ceased to be topical. But they might also appreciate their intrinsic artistic value, or hold onto them as valued mementos of the extraordinary events that had happened during their lifetime or even longer ago. The catalogue of the Amsterdam print publisher Nicolaes Visscher ii, for example, which was compiled around 1680, contained items depicting the sieges of ’s-Hertogenbosch, Maastricht, and Breda in the 1620s and 1630s; heroic and memorable episodes in the long war against the King of Spain. Similarly, Visscher also kept Romeyn’s news prints of the Medway Raid and the Breda peace negotiations in stock.14 Customers often tacked news prints onto a wall, usually having first removed the explanatory text. The prints thus served as cheap decorations, but also, in many cases, as proud statements of the owner’s patriotism, religious fervour, or political affiliation. A few prints would find their way into the hands of collectors, who sometimes had them coloured by a professional illuminator.15 Makers of news prints did not usually visit the scene of action and draw from life. When the geographical circumstances mattered, as was the case with the 13 On news prints, see Klinkert, Nassau; Veldman, ‘Riskant beroep’; Van Nierop, ‘Profijt’. On propaganda prints during the Dutch Revolt, Horst, Opstand. 14 Van der Waals, Prenten, pp. 221–222. Romeyn’s prints sold at 3 and 4 stivers, respectively. 15 Goedings, ‘Kunst- en kaartafzetters’. Coloured news prints by Romeyn de Hooghe in the Atlas Van der Hagen can be viewed at www.geheugenvannederland.nl.

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representation of sieges and battles, they consulted maps or worked from sketches made by draughtsmen travelling with the army and working on location. Otherwise, they used their imagination. For one of his prints of the Medway Raid, Romeyn worked after a drawing by the landscape painter Willem Schellinks.16 His representation of the Breda negotiations very loosely followed a print by Jonas Suyderhoef, itself after the painting by Gerard Terborch celebrating the conclusion of the Peace of Münster in 1648, but it is much livelier than Terborch’s invention.17 In the course of his career, Romeyn was to produce a huge number of prints illustrating numerous newsworthy events from all over Europe and the rest of the world. With the exception of his 1668 print of the baptism of the Dauphin, for which he made a sketch on location in Paris, he did not leave his workshop. Instead, he relied on sketches and maps supplied by others, lavishly supplemented and embellished them whilst drawing on his own vivid imagination. Despite the success of his prints of the Medway Raid and the Breda negotiations, he realized there was much to be learned; and that is why he soon left his ­newly-opened workshop and set off for Paris.

Paris and Beyond Romeyn’s presence in Paris in 1668 is attested by a magnificent print representing the baptismal ceremony of the crown prince, known as the Dauphin, at the royal residence in Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 28 March of that year, ‘designed on the spot and etched by R. de Hooghe’ (fig. 2.3).18 We do not know exactly when he left for the French capital, nor how much time he spent there. He must have still been in Amsterdam in August 1667, when he designed and etched the plates of the Peace of Breda, concluded on 31 July; and he had probably returned by 1669, when he produced illustrations and frontispieces for three more books.19 It is unlikely that Romeyn sought to round off his education by formally apprenticing himself to a Parisian etcher, as he had been independently established since the summer of 1667, at the least. It is plausible, however, that he wished to broaden his artistic expertise, experience, and network in the city that had become the principal centre for the graphic arts in Europe. This was mostly due to the efforts of King Louis xiv himself. Aided by his minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Louis vigorously promoted the graphic arts as a means to convey the splendour and power of the monarchy to

16 le 55. 17 fmh 1941; van Nierop, ‘Profijt’, pp. 70–71. 18 le 58; h 80; Mathis, Images, cat. 101: ‘Dessigné sur les lieux et gravé par R. de Hooghe avec la permission et privilege du Roy’. 19 Von Fürstenberg, Monumenta; Petronius Arbiter, Satyricon; Rycquoius, De capitolo.

Fig. 2.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Baptism of the Dauphin at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1668.

his subjects in France, as well as to the rest of Europe. Their drive resulted in what became known as the cabinet du roi: a huge collection of prints documenting and celebrating the richness of the royal palaces and monuments, the splendour of the court parties, the victories of the French armies, the output of the royal manufactories, and the progress of the sciences. The royal collection received a boost when, just one year before Romeyn’s arrival, Colbert bought the abbé Michel de Marolles’ gigantic collection of 123,000 prints for 28,000 livres, thereby marking the founding of the print cabinet in the royal library.20 Romeyn’s print of the royal baptismal ceremony gives rise to a number of questions.21 The legend states that it was made ‘with [the] permission and privilege of the King’. This was no empty formula. A few months earlier, in December 1667, the 20 Préaud, ‘Estampe’. 21 Mathis, Images, cat. no 101, p. 280.

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French Council of State had issued a decree explicitly forbidding all graphic artists and printers other than those chosen by Colbert himself to etch or engrave and print ‘the ground plans and elevations of the royal houses, the ornaments of paintings and sculpture therein, the paintings and pictures in the Cabinet of His Majesty or elsewhere, as well as the pictures of plants and animals of all species and other rare and singular matters’.22 The baptismal ceremony was one of the key dynastic events in the reign of Louis xiv, which no artist could have depicted without the king’s explicit consent. How did Romeyn – barely 22 years old, a foreigner and a temporary resident of Paris – secure permission to document this momentous event? Does it suggest he planned to settle permanently in the city? Did he make the acquaintance of Charles Le Brun, the king’s favourite court painter and the organizer of the festivities? Had Adam Frans van der Meulen, the principal painter of the king’s wars, introduced him to Le Brun? The text above the print states that copies were for sale at the shop of the distinguished graphic artist, publisher, and print merchant François Lapointe, sieur of Lépine, on Quay de l’horloge on the north bank of the Île de la Cité. A royal engineer and geographer, Lapointe was an excellent draughtsman, charged with following the king’s armies to the battlefield and tracing the position of the units.23 Did Lapointe merely supervise the retail sale of Romeyn’s prints, or was he in fact the publisher behind his name? And if so, why does the print state that Romeyn was the holder of the privilege (a form of copyright)? Printmaking in France during the Ancien Regime was a free profession, unbound by the constraints of guild regulations. Anybody could call himself an engraver or an etcher and set up a workshop – which is why Romeyn was able to work in Paris without being apprenticed to a local artist or registering with a guild. The Parisian printmakers were clustered along the Rue Saint Jacques, then the main street of the Quartier Latin near the Sorbonne, connecting the centre with the Porte Saint Jacques and the road to Orléans and beyond, and this may have been where he found his lodgings. He may have used the equipment in Lapointe’s workshop in ‘Les Trois Couronnes’ on Quay de l’horloge when working on the baptism print, and perhaps for other works as well. One of the influential artists working for the Sun King that Romeyn met in Paris was Sébastien Pontault, seigneur de Beaulieu. Like Lapointe, Pontault was a military engineer and geographer. He is regarded as the creator of military topography: the art of systematically mapping battles, sieges, and other military exploits. Romeyn etched frontispieces and illustrations for the four volumes of his work Les plans et profils des principales villes et lieux considerables [‘Maps and Profiles of the Principal Cities and Towns’], a collection of maps and views of the fortified cities of the Spanish Netherlands. These were of key strategic and tactical value for the French army. 22 Quoted ibid., p. 11. 23 Ibid., p. 24.

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Whilst at war with Spain, France conquered large swathes of territory in the Southern Netherlands between May 1667 and May 1668. Romeyn’s contribution to the volumes thus directly assisted the French war effort against Spain, a key ally of the Dutch Republic. He also worked for and became acquainted with Adam Frans van der Meulen, Louis’ expert artist for the depiction of battle scenes.24 After a drawing by van der Meulen, Romeyn etched a large print showing the glorious entry of Louis xiv into Dunkirk in 1662, following the purchase of the city from England (fig. 2.4).25 This print became part of the royal collection. It is ironic that Romeyn made several of his earliest etchings for the propaganda-arsenal of the king that he would go on to c­ hallenge for the rest of his life. Romeyn’s contacts with Lapointe, Pontault, and van der ­Meulen would only fully bear fruit after 1672 during the Guerre de Hollande, when he became the principal artist celebrating the victories of the Dutch under William iii, Prince of Orange. As far as we know, all of the works that Romeyn made in 1668 originated in Paris. Did he undertake any further travels during his year abroad, before returning to Amsterdam? There are a few indications, although they are tantalizingly elusive. Shortly before his death, Romeyn finished the manuscript of a bulky volume entitled Hieroglyphica, a learned manual for artists on the representation of religious symbols, which remained unpublished until 1735.26 The editor, Arnoldus Henricus Westerhovius, a theologian and the rector of the Latin School at Gouda, stated in his introduction that the author, ‘according to his own testimony’, had visited Italy and Spain. Although not a single passage in this work points to a visit to the Iberian Peninsula, a few lines do suggest an Italian journey. Regarding the subject of Lent, Romeyn comments that in most places one can buy a dispensation, ‘for which I have paid one or two crowns in France, Italy, and Germany’.27 Elsewhere he describes certain representations of holy relics that ‘I saw in Milan and Bologna’, and he writes about a curious three-headed statue of the Trinity that he supposedly witnessed in Siena.28 There is no evidence of a visit to Florence, however, which he would have passed when travelling from Bologna to Siena, nor is there any indication of a trip to Rome, the nec plus ultra for lovers of antiquities. The Hieroglyphica does not mention when this supposed Italian journey took place, but it can hardly have been after 1668, since the tremendous output of his studio simply would not have allowed for his prolonged absence.

24 On van der Meulen, see Richefort, Adam-François van der Meulen. 25 h 203; Landwehr (le 190–191) implausibly dates this print to 1700. Cf. Mariette, Abecedario, vol. 2, p. 380. Houbraken, De grote schouburgh, vol. 2, p. 331 mentions that Romeyn made etchings of Louis xiv’s conquests after van der Meulen. 26 De Hooghe, Hieroglyphica of merkbeelden; lbi 108. See below, Ch. 14. 27 Ibid., p. 381. 28 Ibid., pp. 391, 388.

Fig. 2.4. Romeyn de Hooghe after Adam Frans van der Meulen, Entry of Louis xiv into Dunkirk, c. 1668.

It is likely that Romeyn was just bragging. One would expect a learned artist such as himself, keen on classical art and literature, to have left a paper trail, but nothing in his vast oeuvre suggests that he ever sketched Italian architecture or antiquities in situ. A further argument against an Italian or Spanish journey is to be found in another work by his hand, Spiegel van Staat [‘Mirror of State’, 1706]. In the introduction, he confidently states that he is eminently suited to write such a learned work, because he has travelled widely beyond the borders of the Dutch Republic. But he only specifies trips to the bishoprics of Osnabrück and Paderborn (in the Empire, just across the eastern border of the Dutch Republic) and Brussels and Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands, whilst omitting his trip to Paris, strangely enough.29 Apart from his lengthy stay in Paris and a few short hops across the border, he would remain an armchair traveller.

29 De Hooghe, Spiegel, vol. 1, ‘Voor-reden’ (no pagination).

Book Illustrations During his stay in Paris, Romeyn continued to work for the Dutch home market, etching the frontispiece and 60 illustrations for a Catholic emblem book entitled Het voorhof der ziele [‘The Forecourt of the Soul’] by François van Hoogstraten, published in Rotterdam in 1668. The frontispiece specifies ‘R. de Hooghe fecit Parisiis 1668’ (fig. 14.5).30 It is likely that he secured the commission before he left, and then finished the work in Paris. Once he had returned to the Netherlands, the bulk of his creative output would consist of book illustrations.31 He had already received his first commission to illustrate a book before embarking on his foreign trip. It was for the frontispiece for a lengthy epic entitled Zee-straet, authored by the courtier and gentleman-­poet Constantijn Huygens 30 Van Hoogstraten, Voorhof. 31 For Romeyn de Hooghe as a book illustrator, see lbi and Verhoeven and Verkruijsse, ‘Verbeelding’.

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Fig. 2.5. Romeyn de Hooghe after Jan de Bisschop, Frontispiece to Constantijn Huygens, Zee-straet (1667).

and published in the autumn of 1667 (fig. 2.5).32 Zee-straet [‘­Sea-Road’] celebrated a prestigious public works project, designed by Huygens himself and finished in 1665, which consisted of a wide and straight roadway that cut boldly through the pristine sand dunes, connecting the city of The Hague with the North Sea coast. Although in this case he simply etched after an existing drawing by Jan de Bisschop, a barrister at the Hof van Holland (High Court of Justice) in The Hague and an accomplished amateur draughtsman, this must have been a prestigious commission for a young artist starting out on his career.33 His dealings with de Bisschop and Huygens, who was secretary to the young Prince of Orange, may have opened up connections with the social and cultural elite around the court in The Hague that would later come to fruition.34 Frontispieces were a popular form of illustration.35 Publishers often opted for a separate engraved page preceding the title page of a book that conveyed an impression 32 33 34 35

lbi 1; Verhoeven and Verkruijsse, ‘Verbeelding’, p. 149. Huygens, Zee-straet, p. 6. Jellema and Plomp, Episcopius. Leeflang, ‘Waarheid’, p. 127. Verhoeven and Verkruijsse, ‘Verbeelding’, p. 151.

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Fig. 2.6. Romeyn de Hooghe, Frontispiece to Hollandse Mercurius (1670).

of its contents, often in allegorical form, and thus functioned as a sort of advertisement. Combining a Dutch tradition with fashionable French influences, Romeyn became a specialist in the genre, producing some 200 different specimens throughout his career. Every year between 1670 and 1690, he designed the frontispiece to the Hollandse Mercurius, a widely-disseminated yearbook containing numerous original documents, published in Haarlem by Pieter and Abraham Casteleyn.36 Mixing allegorical, mythological, and historical figures, he would invent an ingenious summary of the past year’s chief military, political, and dynastic events, thereby adding to the attractiveness of the publication (fig. 2.6). In the course of his career, Romeyn would illustrate every imaginable kind of book. They included devotional books and Bibles (both Protestant and Catholic versions), 36 lbi 8; Verhoeven, Hollandse Mercurius.

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volumes of poetry, novels, plays (ancient as well as contemporary), and emblem books.37 They encompassed scholarly and scientific works, some of them immediate classics such as Hugo Grotius’ De Jure Belli ac Pacis [‘On the Law of War and Peace’, 1670], Nicolaes Witsen’s Aeloude en hedendaegsche scheeps-bouw [‘Ancient and Contemporary Ship Building’, 1671], and several works by Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, as well as lavishly illustrated travelogues and luxurious coffee-table books. More expensive than simple books without pictures, the volumes illustrated by Romeyn were aimed at the upper segment of the book market. Romeyn supplied book illustrations to some 170 different publishers. For some of them he worked only once or twice, with others he entertained long-lasting relationships. Amsterdam’s publishers provided the lion’s share of his commissions, about 100 in total. He also worked for publishers in Leiden (nineteen), The Hague (seven), Utrecht (six), Rotterdam (four), Dordrecht (four), and Franeker (three). Publishers from Delft, Gorinchem, Gouda, Haarlem, Hoorn, Groningen, Leeuwarden, Bolsward, and Nijmegen also relied on his services, as well as publishers abroad in Antwerp and Brussels. Like almost all his fellow-etchers, Romeyn initially worked after the designs of other draughtsmen, such as Schellinks (the Medway Raid), de Bisschop (Zee-straet), or van der Meulen (Entry of Louis xiv into Dunkirk). Soon, however, he began to invent his own compositions; the first may have been his representation of the baptism of the Dauphin, which he proudly signed as ‘designed on the spot’. During the rest of his career, he would only rarely follow the inventions of others. In this respect, he stood out clearly from his colleagues, who almost exclusively worked after existing designs – very often Romeyn’s. The fact that he himself invented and designed nearly all his prints is almost more impressive than the staggering size and range of his oeuvre.38 Romeyn’s total output was immense. His illustrations appeared in at least 465 book titles (including reprints) and continued to do so well after his death.39 Estimates of his entire output of book illustrations, freestanding prints, and maps run to over 4,300 etchings.40 This is a rough assessment, as he did not sign all his work, while his pupils and many other artists followed his style. Some prints attributed to him may have originated in his workshop as collaborative projects by the master and an apprentice or assistant. Unsigned works that are attributed to him may turn out to be by the hand of a follower, while other unsigned works may have to be reattributed to Romeyn. This makes it impossible, for the time being, to come up with a more precise number. 37 38 39 40

On Romeyn’s emblem books, see Coppens, Ars moriendi. Leeflang, ‘Waarheid’, p. 127. Verhoeven and Verkruijsse, ‘Verbeelding’, p. 168. Ibid., p. 146.

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Critical Appreciation Romeyn’s vast output is an unequivocal indication that both his publishers and their customers valued his art. Arnold Houbraken, himself an artist and the author of an influential dictionary of Dutch painters published in 1718–1721, was condescending about Romeyn’s competence as a painter – and even more so about his morals – yet praised his ingenious inventions (geestige vindingen) and rich designs (rijke ordinantiën). He regarded Romeyn as ‘a man outstanding in great ingenuity and inventiveness, who had no peer in the art of etching, in his ability of designing, in the richness of his modifications, as witnessed by the infinite number of book titles and other prints’.41 The judgement of Samuel van Hoogstraten, another artist (a pupil of Rembrandt’s) and the author of a treatise on the visual arts, was succinct. If you want to become an etcher, he wrote, you should ‘attend the school of the most ingenious [aldergeestigsten] Romeyn de Hooghe’.42 He clearly regarded him as the best etcher in the Netherlands. Even Romeyn’s enemies acknowledged his artistic genius. In 1681, a slanderous roman-à-clef (about which more will follow in Chapter 4) granted that he ‘was regarded as one of the best masters to be found in all of Holland, particularly in regard to his designs’.43 Another author, writing in 1699, grudgingly conceded that Romeyn received commissions ‘from all the grandees at court and the houses of private individuals’ and that he was ‘a great master in practising his art’, from which he could live ‘in wealth and abundance like a petty prince’.44 The eighteenth-century French collector, dealer, and connoisseur of old master prints Pierre-Jean Mariette was rather more critical of Romeyn’s prints, especially those featuring larger representations of figures. He considered them ‘badly put together, poorly dressed, without character, and of such a pitiable taste of design, that it is hardly possible to do worse’.45 He had a higher opinion of prints containing only small figures. Without bothering to make any corrections (he wrote), Romeyn ‘gives them action, and almost always does so with a spirit and fire that are particular to him, and which have gained him a well-deserved reputation’. According to Mariette, he never made any preparatory sketches, but engraved, with his etching needle in his hand, whatever his extremely fecund and brilliant imagination made him conceive immediately into the copper-plate. The execution closely followed the thought, and the latter, not at all weakened, could show itself as it had been conceived. I have always heard it said that for him his etching needle took the place of the pen or the pencil, and that almost without preparation, 41 Houbraken, Groote schouburgh, p. 257. 42 Van Hoogstraten, Inleyding, p. 196. 43 Anon., Het wonderlijk leeven, p. 227. 44 Anon., Algemeene opvoeding, pp. 29–30. 45 Mariette, Abecedario, p. 377.

Fig. 2.7. Romeyn de Hooghe, Bursting of the Dike at Coevorden, 1678.

without needing to ponder and meditate on what he had to produce, he immediately traced on his copperplate whatever entered his mind. He was especially outstanding in those topics where he had to express trouble, where he had to put many figures in action and sow terror and surprise in the soul of the spectators. That is why he succeeded so well in presenting sieges, battles, feasts, and public merriment.46

Mariette considered Romeyn superior in his invention of subjects that were ‘bloody and filled with horror’, such as the bursting of the dike at Coevorden in 1678 (fig. 2.7),47 and especially the atrocities perpetrated by the invading French army in the villages of Bodegraven and Zwammerdam (fig. 3.12 and fig. 3.13). ‘One shudders at the mere sight of those prints; a darkness persists in the soul, which remains engrafted onto it for a long time’.48

46 Ibid., pp. 377–378. 47 le 73; h 98; fmh 2504. 48 Ibid., p. 378.

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The judgements of Houbraken and Mariette suggest that rather than the charm or grace of his art, contemporaries valued Romeyn’s ingenuity, his cleverness in inventing his subject matter and arranging characters in his compositions, and the emotions he inspired among his viewers.49 His prints are clever rather than good-looking. Mariette felt obliged to advise his readers: [As to] those who like pretty prints and who seek in a regular arrangement of forms those soft and harmonious tones so proper to fascinate the eyes, I warn them that the prints of Romeyn de Hooghe will be very little to their taste. They will seem coarsely etched and without effect.50

Mariette’s reserve regarding the aesthetic quality of Romeyn’s work should be understood within the framework of classicist ideals of his time, which emphasized harmony, order, and timeless beauty. But the modern viewer cannot help concurring; even if Romeyn was exceptionally fecund, inventive, and original, his workmanship rarely matches the level achieved by contemporaries such as Gerard de Lairesse or Cornelis Dusart, let alone Nicolaes Berchem or Rembrandt, who was still alive when Romeyn embarked on his career. The workmanship of his plates and the quality of his printing is sometimes rough and untidy, incomparable to the technical perfection of the editions of the earlier print shops of Jacob Matham in Haarlem or Claes Jansz Visscher in Amsterdam. It seems that he was aiming primarily at inventiveness, speed, and effect, something that partly explains his success as the maker of news prints and book illustrations, where rapidity and efficiency are more important than the aesthetic standards observed by the makers of art prints. On the other hand, Romeyn could deliver work of the finest quality when he so wished, as for instance in his ‘Wrestling Book’ (discussed below). It seems that he rarely took the time to apply himself fully to the perfect execution of his art.51

The Art of Etching By the later part of the seventeenth century, etching had become the favoured manner of producing book illustrations and news prints. Engraving, a procedure whereby an artist laboriously cut an image into a sheet of copper using a V-shaped instrument called a burin, remained the preferred procedure for products that required accurate lines, such as maps and charts. Etching, by contrast, allowed the artist to work in a much sketchier manner, with more freedom and speed, resulting in more lively and attractive pictures. Anyone who could draw with a pen on paper could make an etching, whereas it took many years of training to become an engraver. The artist would 49 For the emotional character of Romeyn’s prints, see Kolfin, ‘Tot uitpersing’. 50 Mariette, Abecedario, pp. 380–381. 51 I am grateful to Huigen Leeflang for sharing his ideas on the quality of Romeyn’s art.

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cover a sheet of copper with a varnish called etching ground and draw an image into it, using etching needles of various widths. He then covered the plate with nitric acid, which bit (‘etched’) a groove in the copper where he had scratched away the etching ground. If necessary, he could cover up some parts of the plate and again expose it to the acid, thus creating deeper grooves and hence darker accents in selected passages. This procedure could be repeated several times. After he had washed away the etching ground, the plate was ready for printing. We are well informed about etching practices in late seventeenth-century Holland, thanks to a manuscript manual by Adriaan Schoonebeek.52 Having been Romeyn’s pupil between 1676 and 1679, it is likely that Schoonebeek accurately described the practices prevailing in his former teacher’s workshop. Strikingly, a master etcher could leave most of the laborious technical preparations to his apprentices and assistants, if he so wished. First, they had to polish a copperplate to a high finish, using a stick of charcoal. They then prepared the etching ground by mixing white mastic, bitumen, and white beeswax. They gently covered the copperplate with this varnish and then with soot by holding it upside down over a burning candle. Next, they prepared the etching needles for their master. By this time, the master-artist had a preparatory drawing ready on paper, which had to be reproduced onto the etching ground. This was also typically done by an apprentice or an assistant. While the artist (with or without the help of assistants) was finishing scratching the image into the etching-ground, the assistants prepared the nitric acid. They carefully folded a ridge of beeswax around the image on the plate to prevent the acid from flowing off, and gently poured the liquid onto the copperplate. While the acid was biting into the copper, which took about an hour, they meticulously removed with a feather the small gas bubbles rising from the copperplate as a result of the chemical reaction. Finally, they poured off the acid, thoroughly rinsed the plate with clean water, heated it so as to remove the wax ridge, and wiped off the etching ground. It was essential to perform all these activities with the utmost care and cleanliness. Dirt, dust, or smudged or greasy hands would immediately ruin the result. Any impurity would prevent the etching ground from sticking properly to the copperplate, thus allowing the acid to bite where it was not supposed to do so and causing stains on the print. The activities of the master were limited to sketching the design, drawing the image on the etching ground, and overseeing the entire process. He might leave the etching of less important passages to his more advanced pupils. Clearly, Romeyn could not have achieved his massive output without a large team of apprentices and assistants.53 As we have seen, he later claimed that his Amsterdam studio had kept 36 assistants (knechts) at work ‘all the time’ (geduyrig).54 It is unclear 52 Janssen, ‘Adriaan Schoonebeek’s Etching Manual’. 53 Verhoeven and Verkruysse, ‘Verbeelding’, p. 163. 54 Above, fn. 2.

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whether this means that he had three dozen apprentices and assistants working for him at all times, or that the total number of his pupils during the fourteen years he worked in Amsterdam equalled that number. The former assumption is not entirely unrealistic; the Utrecht-based master Gerard van Honthorst taught 24 or 25 apprentices simultaneously, and Rembrandt at least as many.55 If the art of etching was in itself relatively simple, running a large-scale graphics workshop was not. An invoice dating from 1687 (when Romeyn was already living and working in Haarlem) for updating a map of the hoogheemraadschap or water control district of Rijnland sheds light on the complexities of his task (fig. 12.1).56 The Rijnland board had commissioned him to make a second edition of a map dating from 1647. The map consisted of twelve plates, with a number of smaller plates above and on the sides representing legends and the coats of arms of the board’s regents. Romeyn had to update the map following the geographical and toponymical changes that had taken place over the last 40 years and produce new border illustrations representing the arms of the regents governing in 1687. Instead of simply replacing the plates for the side ornaments with new ones, he chose to make an entirely new design, thus significantly changing the format of the assembled map. Making corrections to the map itself involved hammering out the plates to make them slightly convex and then grinding them down until they were flat again, thus rendering them thinner. After cleaning the plates in boiling water, individual lines had to be sanded away and the corrections applied. Existing lines that had become blurred as a result of the first round of printing had to be touched up with a burin. Galley proofs had to be made and more corrections made. Finally, 1,000 copies of 25 plates had to be printed, packed, and shipped to the Rijnland board in Leiden. The total costs charged by Romeyn amounted to 2,218 guilders. The invoice offers a unique insight into the complexities of map-making and, more generally, the work that took place in a large graphics workshop handling sizeable and multifaceted assignments.

Inventions and Designs Romeyn’s fame rested chiefly on his ‘ingenious inventions’. Having enjoyed a sound classical education, he had the reputation of being ‘learned’, which he brought to fruition in his inventions. He found the sources for his visual language in literature as well as the visual arts. If frontispieces and book illustrations are supposed to capture the essence of a book or a chapter in a single image, then for this reason alone he must have closely studied a large number of books written in Dutch, French, Italian, and Latin.57 Another source of inspiration was that of sixteenth-century allegorical 55 Montias, Artists, p. 169. 56 Hameleers, ‘Kaarten figuratief’, pp. 192–197, 200–203. 57 Leeflang, ‘Waarheid’, p. 131.

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prints, mostly by artists from Antwerp and the Haarlem engraver Hendrik Goltzius and his circle.58 Print publishers regularly reprinted sixteenth-century copperplates and kept them in stock in their shops, making it easy for Romeyn to acquire prints he could study. Works by the French etcher Jacques Callot were another engaging example.59 Romeyn’s ideas are well known because he left two theoretical treatises on the art of invention. In the introduction to Hieroglyphica he argues that most painters, printmakers, and sculptors are of modest origin and thus lack the intellectual background to study the origins of hieroglyphs, emblems and other symbols from antiquity. He has undertaken to write the work in order to assist his less well-educated colleagues. In order to understand the Ancients, an artist must also be a linguist, versed in the writings of antiquity, and a collector of medals, books, and drawings. ‘Nourished with these capabilities, he must be inventive and fertile of the various thoughts that cross his mind concerning each subject’.60 The other work in which he expounded his artistic credo is a volume dating from the early years of his career. The Schouburgh der Nederlandse veranderingen [‘Theatre of Changes in the Netherlands’], published in 1674, featured a series of six allegorical prints representing and interpreting the 1672 French invasion of the Dutch Republic and the subsequent war (figs. 3.24 and 3.25).61 The introduction elaborately explains the ‘historical emblems’ (historiële sinnebeelden) in the volume. Romeyn claims that his treatment of the subject matter, consisting of a skilful combination of ‘hieroglyphs, characters, and historical individuals’, is entirely original. ‘Hieroglyphs’, invented by the ancient Chaldeans (so he claims), are singular representations of abstract concepts, such as a pillar as an emblem for virtue, a scale for justice, or laurels for victory. ‘Characters’ are composites whereby individuals represent abstract matters. ‘Devastation of War’, for example, can be symbolized by a fearsome soldier clad in tiger’s skin, wielding swords, arrows, and torches, and trampling people, cattle, crops, and books underfoot. Finally, there are two kinds of ‘historical individuals’: either they are actual living individuals, such as kings, princes, and military chiefs, or they are individual personifications of empires, countries, cities, and villages.62 Romeyn was well aware that his approach was at odds with the rules governing the art of history painting, which insisted on the classical Aristotelian precept of unity of time, place, and action, and prohibited the mixing of earthly and heavenly matters. He felt free to combine events that had taken place in the course of several years and create a hodgepodge of pagan gods, Christian angels, and human beings in a single

58 Ibid. 59 For Callot’s influence on Romeyn, see Haks, ‘Franse tyrannie’, pp. 94–96. 60 De Hooghe, Hieroglyphica of merkbeelden, Introduction (no pagination). Cf. Leeflang, ‘Waarheid’, p. 131. 61 lbi 38. 62 De Hooghe, Schouburgh, p. 6.

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image. Formal rules had to yield to what he saw as his final aim, ‘the uncovering of truth’. Remarkably, the preceptors whose example he followed were not historians (‘who merely make use of words’), but classical tragedians such as Euripides, who literally brought blood and mayhem to the stage. Whilst very few seventeenth-century artists have left us with a written elucidation of their work, Romeyn’s text reads as a statement of principles: This is my aim, to show truth wherever it is not too dangerous, without insulting anyone from [undue] appetite for jousting. It is my aim to expose our national customs, to line up their virtues and deficiencies, in order to cherish the former, and hate the latter.63

The truth he uncovered in his art was perhaps not as universal or objective as he claimed; yet his partiality may have been a key to his success as an artist. Romeyn was famous for his ‘rich designs’. If they had not been packaged in striking compositions, his ingenious inventions would have had little appeal. The design (ordinancie) of a print – the composition and distribution of the various characters and their attributes over the image – played an essential role. This was where an artist revealed his individual stamp. Art historians have coined the term ‘baroque’ to describe the visual arts of the seventeenth century. The term is confusing for various reasons, but may serve as convenient shorthand for describing Romeyn’s art.64 Suggesting tremendous motion and speed, he made use of precise detail to produce a sense of drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur. His news prints, and especially his representations of battles, sieges, and pillaging, show an extreme and sometimes gruesome realism. He was particularly interested in human emotions, showing the visceral passions of his characters in their faces and posture, often in a greatly exaggerated manner.65 He filled his images with human bodies, each individually depicted, yet combining to create an overwhelming and sometimes threatening plasticity. His prints display stark contrasts between light and dark and sophisticated depth-effects. The quintessence of his prints lies in their sense of drama. In many prints, he arranged his characters as if they were standing on a stage. He often grouped them in a circle, representing some frontally, others from the side or halfway from the back (for example, figs. 7.5 and 7.7). Equally dramatic are the shocking events portrayed in his prints, such as the pillaging and destruction of the villages of Zwammerdam and Bodegraven by the French army in 1672 (fig. 3.12 and fig. 3.13).66 His battlefield pictures are full of movement, grandiose when seen from a distance, but showing minute 63 Leeflang, Waarheid’, p. 133. 64 Panofsky, What is Baroque?; Benesch, Meisterzeichnungen, p. 368. 65 Kolfin, ‘Tot uitpersing’. 66 Haks, ‘Franse tyrannie’.

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detail when studied up close (fig. 3.17). On examining his news prints, contemporaries must have felt something of the excitement as well as the horror of battle.

Wrestlers and Jews Among Romeyn’s ingenious inventions and designs, two bold and ambitious publishing projects stand out for their striking originality. In 1674, a richly illustrated book came off the presses of the Amsterdam-based publisher Johannes Janssonius van Waesberge. Its full title read: Clear Instruction of the Excellent art of wrestling, Discussing how one can be watchful in all circumstances of Strife in Hand-to-Hand Fight: And parry all Assaults, Breast-Thrusts, and Fist-Punches, &c. Very useful and profitable against all strike-sick Quarrellers, or those who threaten someone with a Knife or attempt to insult him. Invented by the widely famous and renowned Wrestler Nicolaes petter, And with 71 accurate Representations of the same, etched in Copper by the artful romeyn de Hooge.67

It was an impressive publishing venture, as van Waesberge simultaneously issued a version in German. Many years later, another publishing house would publish a French translation.68 Nicolaes Petter, a German-born wine merchant and owner of a wrestling school on Prinsengracht, had died more than a year before the States of Holland granted a privilege for his book, in February 1674. Petter’s widow continued to run the school with the help of Petter’s former pupil, Robbert Cors.69 Petter’s posthumously published book describes in intricate detail thirteen different throws and locks, each represented in four to twelve images. The description takes up just sixteen pages, whilst the rest of the book consists of Romeyn’s 71 full-page plates, each skilfully showing the positions. In effect, the publication was a picture book, not serious reading material. One may surmise that many customers bought the book in order to admire its elegant and attractive illustrations, rather than to prepare for any undesired assaults. The ‘Wrestling Book’ (as it is popularly known) reveals that Romeyn himself was a keen wrestler. In a preface ‘to devotees of the art of wrestling’, he advises readers to take lessons from Cors, ‘who has often practised all these postures with the author [i.e. Romeyn] himself’. He even went so far as to depict his own likeness in the wrestling scenes: in many plates, one of the two wrestlers represented bears a striking resemblance to the gentleman-artist in the 1667 title page for Figures a la 67 Petter, Klare onderrichtinge. 68 lbi 39; Petter, Künstliche Ringer; Petter, Academie. 69 Van Eeghen, ‘Voorsnijdinge’, pp. 6–7.

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Fig. 2.8. Romeyn de Hooghe, Plate 61 in Nicolaes Petter, Klare onderrichtinge der voortreffelijcke worstel-konst (1674).

mode (figs. 2.8 and 1.7). While his fictitious adversary invariably has the air of a gaunt, mean-looking crook, he portrays himself as a tall, elegant young man, periwigged and impeccably dressed according to the fashion of the day. Without exception, the stylish gentleman is the winner of the match. Another noticeable publishing event was that of a series of prints known today as the ‘Jewish prints’.70 Very early in his career, between 1665 and 1668, Romeyn had made a drawing showing a circumcision ceremony in the house of a wealthy Sephardic family (fig. 2.9). Very few of his drawings have survived, and this one was clearly not intended as a preparatory sketch for an etching. Executed on costly parchment, it must have been the final product. The drawing probably depicts Jeronimo Nunes da Costa, also known as Moseh Curiël, and his family.71 Nunes da Costa was a fabulously rich Sephardic Jew and the Amsterdam agent of the King of Portugal, who had bestowed a noble title upon him. 70 Offenberg, ‘Wijze stad’, pp. 112–125; Belinfante, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe’. 71 Wilson, ‘Art’, pp. 250–258; on Nunes da Costa, see Swetschinski, ‘Amsterdam Merchant-Diplomat’, and Israel, ‘Diplomatic Career’.

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Fig. 2.9. Romeyn de Hooghe, Circumcision, probably in the Family of Jeronimo Nunes da Costa, c. 1665–1668.

Presumably the connection with Nunes da Costa secured Romeyn a commission for a print of the opening ceremony of the new Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam in August 1675 (fig. 2.10).72 The medallions along the side display the names of the parnassim or synagogue directors, Nunes da Costa being one of them. The allegorical print at the top shows the city maiden of Amsterdam granting freedom of conscience to the Jewish community, personified by a rabbi holding a Torah scroll and a woman holding the tables of the Law. The subscription reads Libertas conscientiae incrementum reipublicae (‘Freedom of Conscience Magnifies the State’). Aloft, we see the bountiful product of Amsterdam’s liberal policies: putti, armed with the staff of Hermes, are showering golden coins from a cornucopia. The print was accompanied by a loose sheet with information in Dutch, Spanish, and French about the edifice and the inauguration ceremony. It boasts that the temple ‘surpasses all the other churches of this city in regular architecture, space, and clarity’. In particular, it praises the Holy Ark and the bema, all constructed of rare and costly 72 le 288; h 117; fmh 2574A.

Fig. 2.10. Romeyn de Hooghe, Opening Ceremony of the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, 1675.

jacaranda wood (sackerdaen-hout) from Brazil, which had been donated by Nunes da Costa (the text discreetly refrains from mentioning this). Below the legend are five different verses, in Dutch, Spanish, Hebrew, Latin, and French. Romeyn’s signature is under the Dutch, Latin, and French verses. In Dutch, he addresses the Jews as follows: ‘Fear no coercion of conscience, or torments, or death. Do grow, thou noble stem of Judah, and let thine offshoots flower’. The Latin text contrasts Amsterdam’s liberal religious regime with the situation in France and Spain: ‘The tyranny of the Inquisitors rages against all your people, oh Judah, with tribute, sword, and fire. It is not sufficient for you to hide. Neither the Seine, nor the Tagus is safe. The Amstel is more prudent: she openly recognizes and cherishes your Temple within her bosom’. And finally, in French, he invites the Jews ‘to pray, preach, and sing without fear’. The bottom of the sheet states that ‘This [print] is made by, and to be obtained at the author’s, Romeyn de Hooghe, in Kalverstraat’. The text sheet thus reveals that by 1675, Romeyn had not only become an accomplished poet in three languages, but was also active as an independent publisher. Twenty years later, he would return to the topic of Amsterdam’s Jewish community. One print again represents the interior of the Esnoga during its inauguration,

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or possibly during one of the yearly commemorations of the event.73 Around the same time, he produced a series of six large prints showing scenes of Jewish religious life in and around the synagogue, as well as three etchings showing the magnificent townhouses of (again) Nunes da Costa on Nieuwe Herengracht, Baron Belmonte alias Manuel alias Isaac Nunes on Herengracht, and David Emanuel de Pinto in Sint Antoniebreestraat, undoubtedly commissioned by the proud owners.74 He also produced a folder of nine splendid sheets representing the Temple of Salomo, which were commissioned by and dedicated to Nunes da Costa.75 Two etchings of the Portuguese Jewish cemetery Beth Haim at Ouderkerk, a village near Amsterdam, cannot be dated, since they display neither fashionably clad ladies – women were denied access to the graveyard – nor the name of a publisher (fig. 2.11).76 Romeyn made the etchings after prints by Abraham Bloteling dated 1670, which in turn followed drawings by Jacob van Ruysdael.77 It is typical of his baroque style that he disturbed the serene tranquillity of Ruysdael’s drawings by adding a large group of men in the foreground, who display uninhibited emotion during the funeral rites. Romeyn was not the only artist to represent the life of Amsterdam’s Jewish community. The freedom of religion and civic liberties enjoyed by the Jewish community added to Amsterdam’s fame during its Golden Age. Travel guides, many of them illustrated, commented on the Jewish presence. Yet no other artist left such a large number of representations of Jewish life, and so adeptly illustrated Jewish traditions, as did Romeyn. In the absence of sources other than the prints themselves, it is difficult to appraise his relations with the Jewish community. Nunes da Costa was probably responsible for most of the commissions, but the artist may have been acquainted with other wealthy Sephardim, such as Baron Manuel Belmonte, Moses Machado, Jacob Pereira, and Francisco Lopez Suasso, all of whom worked as bankers for ­William iii and financed his armies. It is hazardous to deduce an artist’s private opinions from his work. Praising Amsterdam’s tolerant religious policies and extolling the Sephardic community for bringing wealth to the city was simply part of the job. The ‘Jewish prints’ were lucrative commissions that few artists would have spurned, and they may shed no light at all on Romeyn’s convictions regarding religious toleration. Yet his benevolent ­attitude towards the city’s Jewry is consistent with what we know about his religious 73 le 289, h 118; fmh 2574-B. 74 le 296–298; h 257–259. On the basis of the hairstyle of the women depicted (the so-called fontange or top-knot style), Marieke de Winkel has argued that the series must date from the mid-1690s. Offenberg, ‘De wijze stad’, p. 115. The publisher of the series, Pieter Persoy, was born in 1668 and therefore cannot possibly have published the prints as early as 1675 (saa, 5001 inv. no. 44, p. 210). 75 Amsterdam University Library, Special Collections, inv. no. ROG A-838. 76 le 299–300; h 260–261. 77 Ruysdael’s drawings in Teylers Museum, Haarlem, inv. nos. Q+ 048 and Q+ 049, served as sketches for the oil paintings now in Dresden and Detroit. The Bloteling prints are in Teylers Museum, KG 05287 and KG 005288.

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Fig. 2.11. Romeyn de Hooghe after Jacob Isaacksz van Ruysdael, The Portuguese-Jewish Cemetery Beth Haim at Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, ca. 1675–1696.

opinions in later life. Moreover, composing three laudatory verses in three languages was more than one could reasonably expect from a printmaker; his verses demonstrate that he was an artist of considerable learning.

Commercial Success Despite the depressed state of the art market, things began to go well soon after Romeyn started his business. His prints were popular, his workshop was thriving, and he was making serious money; about 7,000 or 8,000 guilders a year, by his own account.78 When the States of Holland levied a 0.5 per cent tax (the so-called ‘200th Penny Tax’) on all movable and immovable property in 1674, he was assessed at 20 guilders, which puts the estimated total value of his property at 4,000 78 Kn. 13551, Nyd, p.22.

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guilders.79 To put this figure in perspective: a master craftsman in Amsterdam’s building industry could earn up to 30 stivers a day, or perhaps 400 guilders per year.80 A skilled construction worker would spend most of his wages on food and rent, making it very difficult to save. By contrast, Romeyn’s uncle and his father’s cousin Joannes de Hooghe, his second cousin the lawyer Romeyn (son of Paulus) de Hooghe, and the husband of his second cousin Josina de Hooghe, Jacob ten Grootenhuis, were each taxed 225 guilders and hence assessed at 45,000 guilders, more than ten times as much as the etcher.81 If he was aspiring to keep up with his relatives, the end was by no means in sight. In addition to selling his own prints and those of other printmakers in his shop, Romeyn was active as a wholesale art dealer. Between 1677 and 1682 he delivered, in at least six shipments, huge quantities of luxury goods to the Polish King John iii Sobieski, through the agency of the latter’s resident in Amsterdam, Francisco Mollo.82 In October 1689, at the behest of Mollo, he had a notarial deed drawn up specifying the art sales.83 These included luxury building materials for the king’s palaces and gardens, such as twelve pieces of various sorts of wood from the Indies, eleven crates containing several thousand custom-made delftware floor tiles, and another 21 crates of delftware tiles with figures and flowers; four big pieces of white marble ‘sent to Danzig in two shipments’, garden vases for flowers and trees ‘sculptured with the arms of His Majesty gilded and painted’, and a large statue of Pallas Athena and two large sphinxes ‘holding His Majesty’s arms’, all made of white marble, and ‘quantities of figures of all sorts of nations painted on wood to put in perspective in the gardens’. They included costly fabrics, such as 200 ells of custom-made blue and white velvet and another 60 ells of green velours à poile, custom-made for a blanket of embroidered silk. Closer to Romeyn’s core business, there were ‘four etched copperplates representing the victories of His Majesty, with all the prints’, possibly a four-sheet glorification of John iii dated 1685, costing 680 écus or rijksdaalders.84 He dispatched various maps, including a great world map and a celestial map, both with gilded frames, other maps representing ‘realms and provinces’ (possibly a Blaeu atlas?), two charts of the ‘Great Indian Oceans’, about 80 maps printed on silk with the king’s monogram in silver, and 79 saa, 5028, inv. no. 662, f. 554 vo. 80 Nusteling, Welvaart, pp. 101–124, 252–254. On nominal wages, see De Vries and van der Woude, First Modern Economy, pp. 609–620. Zandvliet, 250 rijksten, p. xiii, estimates the annual income of craftsmen (possibly including journeymen) at only 300 guilders. 81 saa, 5028, inv. no. 662, f. 91 vo. 82 On Mollo, see Schutte, Repertorium, pp. 543–544, nnbw vol. 6, col. 1032, and Salomonik, In Their Majesties’ Service, passim. 83 saa, 5075, inv. no. 3708, ff. 390–394. Cf. Otten, ‘Biografie’, p. 26. 84 le 126–127.

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two ‘very big’ globes, one terrestrial and the other celestial. A consignment of 22 paintings was shipped to Danzig, purchased at various auctions and from private individuals.85 Catering to the fashion for exoticism, there were assorted curiosities from the Orient, such as a lantern and chamber screens from Japan and ‘parties of flowers and other similar rarities of gold and silk from China’, and various naturalia, such as a unicorn’s horn (probably a narwhal’s tusk), an elephant’s tusk, a polished tortoise shell, a stuffed crocodile, and a whale’s penis. There was a model of a man-of-war with 80 cannon, ‘made like the tall ships, with sails, gilding, and the arms of His Majesty’. Considerable sums of money were involved: the total value of the shipments amounted to almost 14,000 écus or rijksdaalders, the equivalent of 35,000 guilders. The value of the paintings alone amounted to almost 2,400 écus. It remains a matter of conjecture how much profit Romeyn realized on these deals, but they do suggest he handled very large sums of money.

Marriage By 1673, Romeyn was 27 years old and sufficiently well-established to set up a household. His bride was Maria Lansman, the 23-year-old daughter of Anna Mits and the late Andreas Lansman, a respected minister of the Reformed Church in Amsterdam.86 The couple gave notice of their intended marriage on 1 May 1673.87 The groom brought his mother as a witness. Susanna Gerrits had remarried in the previous year; her new husband, a widower named Johannes Welsinck, was a draper living in Egelantiersstraat in the working-class Jordaan district of Amsterdam.88 Romeyn gave his address as Reguliersgracht. Maria, marrying from her parental home on Keizersgracht, also had her mother witness the ceremony. The wedding was celebrated some three weeks later. The eldest child of a Reformed dominee, Maria did not quite bring the wealth and political connections necessary to elevate the couple to Amsterdam’s social and political elite. Nevertheless, the match well exceeded the social level a button-­maker’s son could reasonably expect.89 Her father, who had died in 1666, had carved out a career in the Church in Abbekerk (near Medemblik in the Northern Quarter of Holland), 85 The art collection of the art dealer Johannes de Renialme ii was auctioned off in April 1687. Romeyn was later accused of committing fraud in this transaction; see below, Ch. 9. 86 Maria Lansman was baptized on 11 July 1649 in Edam. De Haas, ‘Commissaris’, p. 14. 87 saa, 5001, inv. no. 499, p. 92. Their marriage settlement, dated 28 April 1673, in saa, 5075, inv. no. 2178, ff. 75–77. 88 saa, 5001, inv. no. 497, p. 380 (30 January 1672). Susanna was still living in Nieuwe Hoogstraat at the time of her second marriage. 89 On the social status of Reformed ministers, see Groenhuis, Predikanten, pp. 133–177.

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Edam (where Maria was born in 1649), Leiden, and Amsterdam.90 He had taken his doctorate at the University of Utrecht, where he had read Theology with the ultra-­ orthodox professor Gisbertus Voetius. His academic disputation, defended in 1644, had addressed ‘The Prejudices and Errors of the Jewish Synagogue’.91 A learned man as well as a formidable polemicist, he continued to lambaste the enemies of true religion. One year before his death, he finished another lengthy work on the ‘Roman Apostasy, or History of the Most Prominent Popish Errors, in their Deviations, Progress, and Enactment, through all Ages of the Christian Church’.92 Andreas Lansman’s maternal grandfather, Jacob Willekens, had been a successful herring-merchant, regent and member of Amsterdam’s Vroedschap. As an admiral commissioned by the West India Company in 1623, he had captured San Salvador in Brazil, a much-­ heralded feat in the ongoing war against Spain.93 Rumour had it that Romeyn was after Maria’s money, and that her mother opposed the match. Only when Maria threatened to become pregnant, it was said, did Anna Mits grudgingly grant parental consent.94 To what extent did social ambition motivate his choice of spouse? By the time of the marriage, none of Maria’s siblings was old enough to practise a profession or marry. They were unlikely in the foreseeable future to provide him with access to influential friends and relations capable of helping him in his career. Her brother Jacob would become a public notary in Amsterdam.95 Another brother, Johannes, followed in his father’s footsteps and became a Reformed minister at Noordwijkerhout, a small town near Leiden. A sister, Anna, born in 1655, would marry Johannes Visscher or Visscherus, another minister in the Amsterdam Reformed Church and 37 years her senior. Like his father-in-law – who was six years younger than he – Johannes was a prolific writer of impeccable orthodoxy.96 Maria’s baby sister Helena, a ten-year-old child by the time of Maria and Romeyn’s wedding, would marry a jeweller and goldsmith named Casparus de Bruijn.97 Romeyn’s newly acquired in-laws were solidly middle class, orthodox Protestants; eminently respectable people, they had a penchant for learning rather than riches.

90 On Andreas Lansman, see nnbw, vol. 10, p. 510; Evenhuis, Ook dat was Amsterdam, vol. 3, pp. 94, 148, 168, and Bontemantel, Regeeringe, p. 114. 91 Lansman, Disputatio. 92 Lansman, Apostasia. 93 Elias, Vroedschap, no 141. 94 Anon., Het wonderlyk leven, pp. 253–254. 95 saa, 5075, no. 187 (Jacob Lansman). 96 Van der Aa, Biographisch woordenboek, vol. 19, p. 253; Glasius, Godgeleerd Nederland, vol. 3, pp. 507–508. 97 saa, 5001, inv. no. 507, p. 275 (29 May 1680).

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A daughter was born in March 1674.98 Her parents christened her Maria after her mother and her maternal great-grandmother Maria de Marees.99 The girl was to be known as Maria Romana, the Latinized version of ‘Romeyn’s daughter’. She would remain the couple’s only child.

Houses The young couple settled on Reguliersgracht, a pretty canal in a spacious residential area in the newly-developed south-eastern part of the city. It may have been no coincidence that the reading of their banns on 1 May coincided with the date on which all lease contracts in Amsterdam legally came into effect (verhuisdag or ‘house moving day’).100 However, the de Hooghes did not stay at the Reguliersgracht dwelling for long. The 1674 property tax register still records their address on the eastern side of canal, but towards the end of that year, Romeyn’s shop is on record as Kalverstraat, on the corner of Jonge Roelensteeg (today’s no. 14 or 16).101 It is unclear whether he had been renting this workshop before he married. In any case, it is unlikely that he practised his trade at the Reguliersgracht address, a residential zone relatively far removed from the centre of Amsterdam’s graphic industry. The legend of a broadsheet printed in November 1674 reveals that it was published ‘by Romeyn de Hooghe, living (woonende) in Kalverstraat’.102 The author of ‘The Miraculous Life of the Bolognese Dog’, a slanderous novel that was to appear in 1681 (more about which in Ch. 4), wrote that the couple moved to their house in the new district (de nieuwe uitlegging) some two or three weeks after their marriage and stayed there for only seven or eight months. But the novel also states that the de Hooghes only decamped after the birth of Maria Romana, that is, after March 1674.103 In all likelihood, the couple moved at some point in 1674 – probably on 1 May – from Reguliersgracht to the Kalverstraat workshop, perhaps in order to save money. The house in Kalverstraat not only included a studio where etchings could be made, but also a shop where Romeyn’s prints, as well as prints by other artists, were on sale.

98 Maria Romana was born on 2 March 1674 (wro, 705:366/2252, parcel 7) and baptized on 14 March 1674 (saa, 5001, inv. no. 66, p. 292). Her godparents were her great-uncle Pieter de Hooghe and her maternal grandmother Anna Mits. 99 Maria Lansman’s mother was a daughter of Daniel Mits and Maria de Mare(e)s. saa, 5001, inv. no. 40, p. 436 (6 February 1628). 100 Lesger, Huur, p. 26. 101 saa, 5028, inv. no. 662, f. 554 vo.: ‘Romain de Hoge plaetsnijder’, in militia ward no. 59; Van Eeghen, Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 4, pp. 259, 263. 102 fmh 2559. The print represents the siege and capture of the fortress of Grave by William iii on 29 October 1674, and must have been printed soon thereafter. 103 Anon., Het wonderlyk leeven, pp. 255–256.

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The central location of his studio spurred his success as an artist and entrepreneur. Dam Square, just a few houses away from his shop, was the hub of the city’s thriving publishing industry. Opposite his shop in Kalverstraat, the houses of several of Amsterdam’s most prominent book and map publishers were established. To the far left of the buildings across the street was the shop of Frederik de Wit, under the sign ‘In the White Sea-Chart’. Adjacent to this were the businesses of Hugo Allard in ‘The World Chart’, Justus Danckerts under the sign of ‘Gratitude’, and Nicolaes Visscher ii in ‘The Fisherman’. On Romeyn’s side of the street was Clement de Jonge’s business, ‘In the Crowned Art and Chart Shop’.104 Not long afterwards, Romeyn did even better: in 1676, he rented a workshop and lodgings in a spacious house on the south end of Dam Square between Kalverstraat and Beurssteeg (presently Rokin), called In de Wackeren Hondt [‘In the Wakeful Dog’]. The house, with its conspicuous shop sign of an attentive dog with its paw on a globe, is clearly recognizable in contemporary pictures (fig. 2.12). ‘The Wakeful Dog’ was one of the most famous printing houses in Golden-Age Amsterdam.105 The sign of the vigilant dog had originally graced the shop of the printer Jodocus Hondius in Kalverstraat. His successor, the famous cartographer Hendrik Hondius ii, moved the business to Dam Square. When renting the premises, Romeyn must have contemplated not only its unbeatable location, but also the prestige carried by its famous sign.106 It did not take long for the newly-established print shop to become one of the sights of the town, a must-see for every visitor. When visiting Amsterdam in 1678, the jurist Adam Ebert, a tourist from Brandenburg, drew his readers’ attention to Romeyn’s shop in his description of Dam Square: ‘Before the Town Hall is a large square, on which the Weigh-house [is situated], and not far from it the excellent Bourse […]. On the said Square was also an engraver [Kupferstecher], Romain Hoft [sic], who works with nitric acid [i.e., who makes etchings]’.107 The atelier became so iconic that the designer of an illustration of a print shop in 1717 could do no better than depict the interior of the shop ‘In the Wakeful Dog’, recognizable from its view of Amsterdam’s prominent Town Hall (fig. 2.13).108 The print appeared more than 30 years after Romeyn had moved to Haarlem and almost ten years after his death. 104 Van der Veen, ‘Danckerts’, pp. 64, 74–75; Van Eeghen, Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 4, pp. 262–263: Frederik de Wit In de Witte Paskaert; Hugo Allard in De Wereldt Caert; Justus Danckerts in Het Hof van Utrecht, shop sign De Danckbaerheyt; Nicolaes Visscher I and Nicolaes II In de Visscher; Clement de Jonge, In de Gekroonde Konst en Caart-winkel. 105 Van Lennep and Ter Gouw, Uithangteekens, p. 343. 106 The publisher Hieronymus Sweerts and the radical Huguenot author and publisher Jean Maximilien Lucas (author of La vie et l’esprit de Spinoza and translator of the latter’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus) rented space in the same building, probably from Hondius’ widow in Utrecht. Van Eeghen, Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 3, p. 228, and vol. 4, p. 139. 107 Apronius, Reise-Beschreibung, p. 35. 108 A Sancta Clara, Iets voor allen, p. 142.

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Fig. 2.12. Jacob van der Ulft, Dam Square with ‘The Wakeful Dog’ (detail of fig. 1.3).

In June 1677, Romeyn purchased for 13,000 guilders a spacious house situated on the Binnenkant canal; this was the south bank of a newly-developed site known as Nieuwe Waalseiland, a stylish residential area developed in the mid-1640s (fig. 2.14).109 Philipp von Zesen, the German author of a tourist guide to Amsterdam known as ‘Europe’s first Baedeker’, was lyrical about the island, which had recently been laid out between the old city and the roadstead in the River IJ. He found the site, from which all filthy, dangerous, and noisy trades had been banned, ‘graciously built, not overcrowded with many people, and truly clean, the inhabitants safeguarded against fires, stench, noise, and hammering’.110 The backyard of the new de Hooghe residence bordered the home of the widow of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter, the famous naval 109 Presently Binnenkant 27. saa, 5061, 29 June 1677. On Nieuwe Waalseiland, see Abrahams, Grote uitleg, p. 111. 110 Von Zesen, Beschreibung, p. 179. Cf. Gellinek, Europas erster Baedeker.

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Fig. 2.13. Anon., The Print Dealer, Interior of ‘The Wakeful Dog’ at Dam Square, 1717. Illustration in Abraham a ­Sancta Clara, Iets voor allen (1717), p. 412.

hero. Overlooking a wide stretch of water and with a magnificent view of the medieval Montelbaans tower, crowned with its elegant Renaissance steeple, Romeyn’s new house was commensurate with his newly-found wealth and status. A mere ten ­minutes’ walk from Nieuwe Hoogstraat, it was a world away in social terms. The de Hooghes apparently intended to live in a quiet neighbourhood, fifteen minutes’ walking distance from the din and bustle of the Dam Square workshop. It is unclear, however, how far they were successful in keeping work and home life apart. As we shall see, a number of affidavits produced in 1690 testify to the continuing presence of the family in ‘The Wakeful Dog’ after 1677.111 The Amsterdam archives provide evidence of additional real estate deals. In 1685, when he had already moved to Haarlem, Romeyn spent 500 guilders on one half of a property in Anjeliersdwarsstraat in the Jordaan district at the western end of the city, which was registered as the home of a cobbler.112 Three years later, he made another investment by purchasing another, more substantial property in nearby 111 Kn. 13545, Memorie van rechten … met de bylagen, passim. For the affidavits, see below, Ch. 10. 112 saa, 5062, inv. no. 63, ff. 323 vo-324 (20 September 1685) and inv. no. 67, f. 232 vo. (28 March 1689).

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Fig. 2.14. Pieter Schenk, View of Binnenkant on Nieuwe Waalseiland, c. 1710.

Anjeliersstraat for 1,660 guilders, which he sold five years later.113 These investments attest to his increasing wealth.

Claims to Gentility In addition to these urban real estate transactions, Romeyn also put his money in rural property. In June 1675, he acquired a feudal tenure at Borrendam near Zierikzee in the Province of Zeeland.114 The island of Schouwen was not within easy reach of Amsterdam, suggesting that he did not intend to use the land as a country estate. Nevertheless, ownership of a fief added to his social status. He leased out the property to local farmers, who were liable to pay tithes to the Chapter of St Mary in Utrecht. Interestingly, the deed of transfer of the property refers to him as honesto viro Romano 113 saa, 5061, inv. no. 2173, f. 85 vo (16 June 1688) and inv. no. 67, f. 272 (19 June 1693); nha, 1617, inv. no. 538, f. 70 (Romeyn de Hooghe authorized print-seller Pieter Persoij to represent him in the sale of the house). 114 Otten, ‘Biografie’, 28.

Fig. 2.15. Romeyn de Hooghe, Portrait of John iii Sobieski King of Poland on Horseback at the Battle of Chotyn, 1674.

de Hoge Sculptore Regio Regis Poloniae (‘to the honourable Romeyn de Hooghe, royal engraver to the King of Poland’). In a pamphlet entitled De Nyd en twist-sucht nae ’t leven afgebeeldt [‘Malice and Spirit of Quarrelling, Drawn after Life’, 1690], authored by Ericus Walten but dictated by Romeyn himself, Romeyn boasted that the King of Poland had bestowed a noble title on him in reward for ‘his honourable comportment and noble behaviour’.115 Romeyn’s biographers have never questioned his claim to noble status, although he was writing apologetically in the context of his defence against the 1690 slander campaign.116 But was his assertion justified? At face value, it seems unlikely that a foreigner, and a Protestant to boot, would have become a member of the powerful Polish szlachta. Moreover, Romeyn never used the Polish title when signing his works or otherwise. By contrast, he would make frequent use of the much lesser title of ‘royal commissioner’ bestowed on him in 1689 by William iii. Given his social

115 Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 11. 116 Thieme-Becker, vol. 17, p. 458; Von Wurzbach, Niederländisches Künstler-Lexikon, vol. 1, p. 718; Henkel, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe’, p. 263; Wilson, ‘Art’, p. 252; Otten, ‘Biografie’, p. 28; De Haas, ‘Commissaris’, p. 14.

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Fig. 2.16. Romeyn de Hooghe, Allegory of the Marriage of Francisco Mollo and Anna Maria Ooms, 1674.

aspirations, would Romeyn have neglected to use a noble title if he had been entitled to it? Indeed, Romeyn’s noble status is a myth:117 since 1578, it had been the Sejm (Diet), not the king, that had the right to bestow noble status upon foreigners such as Romeyn. Had this been done, the deed would have been recorded in the Volumina Legum, the series of Polish statutes. King John iii, however, did raise him to the rank of ­servitor in 1675. In the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, this privilege exempted merchants and artists working for the court from municipal jurisdiction, placing them directly under the jurisdiction of the king and discharging them from the obligation to pay taxes. A print glorifying the king and dating from 1685 (fig. 6.5) is duly 117 Treiderowa, ‘Tematyka’. I am grateful to Katarzyna Kuras for alerting me to this article and summarizing it.

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signed ­Romanus de Hooghe sr inv. et auct., with sr standing for Servitor Regis.118 The title of ‘Royal Engraver to the King of Poland’ in the property deed of 1675, no doubt given by Romeyn himself, thus referred to his status as royal servitor.119 John iii had ample reason to be pleased with the services Romeyn rendered. Not only did he supply the king with valuable works of art and luxury goods, but he also glorified him in his etchings, much as he lionized William iii. Commissioned by the ­ rata), royal secretary Francesco or Franciszek de Gratta (also known as Franciscus G he etched a number of prints celebrating the king’s victories over the Ottoman Turks.120 He also made a large map of Poland that displayed his portrait, a glorification of the occasion of his election to the throne of Poland, and two magnificent equestrian portraits. In particular, an equestrian portrait showing Sobieski at the battle of Chotyn in Western Ukraine became iconic and was reproduced many times, both by Romeyn himself and other artists (fig. 2.15).121 It shows the king on a rearing horse, against a battlefield that teems with the movement and gruesome detail that had become Romeyn’s trademark; note the beheaded corpse and the slipper-clad leg of the slain enemy between the horse’s hooves. During all these activities, Romeyn never visited Poland. The commission was brokered by Francisco Mollo, for whose marriage in 1674 to a local young woman, Anna Maria Ooms, Romeyn made an allegorical print (fig. 2.16).122 The years in which Romeyn rose to prominence witnessed momentous geopolitical changes. A French invasion nearly destroyed the Dutch Republic altogether, wreaking havoc on its economy and causing a political revolution. But whilst the war heralded the end of the Golden Age of Dutch painting, it simultaneously provided opportunities. Romeyn was to turn the crisis to his advantage.

118 le 126–127. 119 Henricus Westerhovius, the editor of Hieroglyphica, wrote in 1736 that he had seen two authentic charters testifying to Romeyn’s ennoblement. He was probably referring to the deed conferring the title of servitor regis upon Romeyn. De Hooghe, Hieroglyphica of merkbeelden, ‘Voorrede’ (Introduction), no pagination. 120 On de Gratta, see Salomonik, In their Majesties’ Service. 121 le 241, h 390; Widacka, Jan iii Sobieski, cat. no. 2. 122 Otten, ‘Biografie’, p. 26; le 245; h 383; fmh 2567-A; saa, 5001, inv. no. 689, p. 250.

3. Patriotic Prints The Year of Disaster In November 1686, an amateur poetess from Haarlem by the name of Elizabeth Hoofman wrote a congratulatory verse on the occasion of her younger brother’s birthday.1 Pondering the year of his birth fourteen years ago, Elizabeth entitled her poem – ungenerously, from her sibling’s perspective – ‘Memento of the Year of Disaster 1672’ (Herdenking aan het rampjaar 1672). You helped at once to weep over the disaster of your country. Your tender ear, instead of nursery rhymes, Caught the dismal sound of thundering canon.2

This was, as far as we know, the first time an author had employed the epithet rampjaar (‘Year of Disaster’) to describe the calamitous events of 1672.3 Hoofman’s poetry remained unpublished for almost a century, and the shorthand rampjaar did not become common currency among historians before the late nineteenth century. But the sobriquet stuck.4 The year 1672 presented the Dutch Republic with a disaster of unprecedented magnitude.5 With overwhelmingly superior forces, France and its allies, the bishoprics of Cologne and Münster, launched an attack across the Republic’s poorly-­ defended eastern frontier. England, supposedly an ally of the Dutch Republic, unexpectedly declared war as well. While Admiral de Ruyter succeeded in fending off an Anglo-French seaborne invasion, the Dutch land defences, which had been seriously neglected over the last quarter of a century, crumbled. In a matter of months, the enemy forces occupied three of the Dutch Republic’s seven provinces. Louis xiv entered Utrecht in triumph and attended Mass in the city’s main church, splendidly redecorated for the Catholic service. The Province of Holland only barely managed to stave off the French onslaught behind a line of hurriedly effectuated inundations, the so-called Waterlinie (‘Water Line’). The military collapse and the naval war precipitated an economic crisis, marked by the greatest crash on the Amsterdam exchange in early modern times. Commerce and finance collapsed; public and private building 1 After her marriage in 1693, Elizabeth Hoofman was known as Elizabeth Koolaart née Hoofman. Koolaart, Naagelaatene Gedichten, pp. 73–78. 2 Ibid., p. 76. 3 Woordenboek der Nederlandsche taal, gtb.inl.nl (accessed 26-9-2017). 4 ‘Dagboek uit het “Rampjaar”’. For earlier use of the term, see Van Wijn, ‘Verhandeling’. ff. 84–91 (September 1763). 5 Israel, Dutch Republic, pp. 796–806; Panhuysen, Rampjaar.

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came to a standstill, while an avalanche of bankruptcies caused a devastating slump on the art market. The rampjaar of 1672 was also a year of social revolution, with the common people and the civic militias decisively intervening in the political process. Demonstrations and riots against the regent oligarchies in the towns of Holland and Zeeland, who were widely suspected of selling out to the French, were accompanied by a flood of acrimonious pamphlets calling for regime change. The military catastrophe and the disturbances brought down the rule of Johan de Witt, Holland’s all-­powerful grand pensionary, while launching the career of the Prince of Orange – first as ­commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the States General, and soon thereafter as stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland. In an unprecedented outburst of rage and fury, the civic militia and the common people of The Hague lynched Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis, leaving their mutilated bodies strung on a stake, gutted and cannibalized by the frenzied mob.

Orangists and Republicans The events of 1672 were the direct outcome of the four-pronged attack on the Dutch Republic, but they were also the result of long-standing structural tensions within the Dutch constitution, politics, and society. In the course of the seventeenth century, two informal political parties had emerged, the Oranjegezinden or Orangists and the Staatsgezinden or States Party or Republicans.6 Lacking a platform, membership, and elected representatives, these were not political parties in any modern sense of the word. They were closely linked to local factions of regent families vying for jobs, income, and influence. Certain political controversies would usually simmer under the surface, as the extremely decentralized constitution of the Dutch Republic foregrounded issues of local significance. Only in times of crisis did ideological differences emerge. As political languages, rather than well-defined political theories, Orangism and Republicanism each had their own vocabulary and repertoire of ­images.7 Broadly speaking, the Orangists supported the stadtholder, the Union, and the public Reformed Church, whereas the Republicans stood for the unrestricted power of the urban regent oligarchies, provincial sovereignty, and religious tolerance. During the 1660s, the brothers Johan and Pieter de la Court developed a republican political theory that stressed the indivisible essence of sovereignty. Given the nature of human passions, they argued, a single head of state would never be able to act in the interest of the common good. The office of the stadtholder, in other words, was incompatible with true liberty. The Orangists, on 6 Price, Holland, pp. 57–69. 7 Stern, Orangism; Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism.

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the other hand, far from advocating a form of absolute monarchy, supported the Aristotelian idea of a mixed constitution, combining elements of monarchy (the stadtholderate), aristocracy (the local town councils and the provincial States), and democracy (popular influence, especially embodied in the civic militias). The absence of a stadtholder during the period between 1650 and 1672, they argued, had disrupted that fragile balance and given the regents free reign to suppress the people. The stadtholderate, restored in 1672, was widely expected to protect the popular element in the constitution against an aristocracy that had degenerated into an oligarchy. Neither a sovereign monarch nor a mere minister of the provincial States assemblies, the stadtholder held an awkward office. In the last resort, sheer power decided who would have the last word in politics: the stadtholder or the regents of the numerous and wealthy cities, especially in the Province of Holland. In 1618, the Orangists had enjoyed a victory when stadtholder Maurits of Orange had the leader of the States Party, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, arrested, tried, and executed and the town councils of the States-friendly cities Holland purged of his opponents. Tensions eased during the rule of Maurits’ brother, Frederik Hendrik of Orange, who sailed a more moderate course and allowed exiled opponents to return to the country. One year after his death, the Dutch Republic and Spain put an end to 80 years of warfare with the Treaty of Münster. Amsterdam and a number of other cities in Holland now wished to cash in the peace dividend and reduce the size of the army. This grated with the new stadtholder, young William ii of Orange, Frederik Hendrik’s son, whose hopes for future fame and glory depended on a commission as commander-in-chief of the States’ army. In July 1650, when Amsterdam stubbornly stuck to its guns, William, like his uncle Maurits before him, resorted to a coup d’état. Having arrested and locked up several adversaries, he sent troops to Amsterdam in an effort to enter the city by force. Unfortunately for the prince, his troops lost their way in bad weather. Spotting the wandering soldiers, a passing postman warned the city’s burgomasters, who promptly had the gates closed, the bridges drawn up, and artillery placed on the ramparts. The situation was extremely embarrassing for William, but the magistrates, who were more concerned about their trade interests than anything else, were willing to compromise. They allowed the stadtholder to enter the town and agreed that two Republican leaders be removed from the Council and all offices. In so doing, they saved William’s face, but relations between Amsterdam and the stadtholder remained tense. We can only guess at how this trial of strength between the stadtholder and the States of Holland might have ended, as the Prince unexpectedly died of smallpox in November 1650 at the age of just 24. Eight days after his death, his widow, the English princess royal Mary Stuart i, delivered their only son and heir, the future stadtholder William iii.

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Exasperated with the stadtholder’s highhanded behaviour, the provinces of ­ olland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, and Overijssel decided not to appoint a sucH cessor. Thus began the First Stadtholderless Period, also known as the Era of True Freedom, which saw the Republic achieve its economic peak. Under the leadership of Johan de Witt, Grand Pensionary of the States of Holland (the new name for the office formerly held by Oldenbarnevelt), the United Netherlands became a great power. Amsterdam’s booming economy continued to attract immigrants from all over Europe. The city embarked on an ambitious building programme, extending its ring of fortifications eastwards until it reached the River IJ. The newly-enclosed area featured spacious canals bordered with lush foliage, and splendid city mansions. The suburb beyond Reguliers Gate, where Romeyn’s parents had been living at the time of their marriage, had to make way for the new city. Part of the extension was the development of a residential area on a newly built island in the River IJ, the Nieuwe Waalseiland, where Romeyn was to buy a house in 1677. Not everything was auspicious, however: the Dutch Republic had to defend its newly-won maritime empire, resulting in two naval wars against England in 1652–1654 and 1665–1667. Military intervention in the Baltic during the Nordic War (1655–1660) brought heavy tax burdens, bankruptcies, and widespread poverty and discontent. During the late 1660s, when the Prince of Orange was approaching adulthood, his partisans became more vociferous, demanding that he be appointed to some significant office of state. The States of Holland responded in August 1667 by issuing an ‘Eternal Edict’ that forever abolished the office of stadtholder in Holland and declared the office of commander-in-chief of the army and navy incompatible with the office of stadtholder in any of the other provinces. The decree would remain valid for less than five years. The final years of the Stadtholderless Era coincided with Romeyn’s first years as a professional etcher. At this time, printmakers and pamphleteers were churning out large quantities of pamphlets and prints advocating the elevation of the prince.8 Such Orangist agitation was illegal during the rule of de Witt, and therefore hazardous. In 1665, Crispijn de Passe the Younger, one of the greatest graphic artists of the older generation, produced a satirical pro-Orange print that got him into trouble. It shows the Dutch Maiden lying sick in bed while the Dutch Lion affectionately licks a portrait of young Prince William: he is the only doctor who can cure her (fig. 3.1). The Hof van Holland banned de Passe’s print as a seditious libel and had the 72-year-old artist arrested and sentenced to 25 years of banishment.9

8 Orangist pamphleteering in 1672 is discussed in Stern, Orangism, pp. 180–198, Reinders, ‘Printed Pandemonium’, and Harms, Pamfletten, pp. 129–170. 9 fmh 2306-a; Veldman, ‘Riskant beroep’; Veldman, Crispijn de Passe, pp. 370–376. The banning order was never enforced, perhaps due to de Passe’s age, or because he had redesigned the plate, substituting a symbol of Concord for the portrait of the Prince.

Patriotic Prints

Fig. 3.1. Crispijn de Passe the Younger, Allegory on the Position of William iii as the Saviour of the Fatherland, 1665 (detail).

Fig. 3.2. Romeyn de Hooghe after Crispijn de Passe the Younger, Allegory of the Political Situation, 1672 (detail).

93

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There are no sources that shed light on Romeyn’s political convictions – if he held any – during the final years of True Freedom. Yet it is remarkable that he did not produce a single print before 1672 that could be considered remotely Orangist. Only during the rampjaar, with the States party defeated and a general pro-Orange mood pervading the country, did he become the leading purveyor of Orangist imagery. Among his prints of that year is a new version of de Passe’s satire that closely follows the older master’s design, but is far more lively and dramatic (fig. 3.2).10 Romeyn joined the Orangist chorus only when Orangist prints could be printed and sold openly and legally. The rampjaar and the ensuing six years of war proved to be Romeyn de Hooghe’s most successful period. Already well on the way to becoming the Dutch Republic’s most sought-after book illustrator, he tapped into the booming market for patriotic prints and became the leading artist promoting the cause of the Prince of Orange.

The Elevation of the Prince of Orange Early in 1672, Romeyn designed and executed a large news print, which also contained elements of allegory and portraiture, showing the 21-year-old Prince of Orange, newly appointed as supreme military commander, swearing the oath of allegiance to the States General (fig. 3.3).11 As was customary in the genre, the print artfully combines events that had taken place several days apart, with the background showing the sumptuous celebratory banquet to which the Prince was to invite the States of Holland several days later. Also in line with other news prints, it does not simply record a news item, but adds a certain ideological spin. By showing the prince standing between four handsome columns supporting the busts of his ancestors William i, Maurits, Frederik Hendrik, and William ii, Romeyn highlights a century of dynastic continuity. The presence of William’s eminent predecessors symbolically obliterates the two preceding ‘stadtholderless’ decades. The frame engraved around the image suggests that its publisher Marcus Doornick expected – or indeed encouraged – his clients to cut off the text and display the print on the wall. Several years later, he recycled the design for a book illustration, now slightly different and without the allegorical trappings. An adapted version of this print served as yet another illustration, this time representing William’s elevation to the stadtholderate of Holland in July 1672.12 The multiple use of the original design demonstrates 10 fmh 2307, not in le. I do not agree with David Kunzle’s suggestion that Romeyn was already an Orangist in 1667, when he designed a flag with an orange strip in his news print of the Peace of Breda (fig. 2.2, le 56; fmh 2284-a). Even during the Stadtholderless Era, the young Prince of Orange was the feudal overlord of Breda. Kunzle, Early Comic Strip, p. 99. 11 le 60; h 84; fmh 2316. 12 fmh 2318 was used in Van Domselaer, Ontroerde Nederlandt, vol. 1, p. 78, and fmh 2379 in Van Domselaer, Binnen-landtse borgerlyke beroerten, p. 60.

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Fig. 3.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, William iii Sworn in as Supreme Commander of the Army of the Dutch Republic, 1672.

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Fig. 3.4. Romeyn de Hooghe, Willam iii Triumphant, c. 1672 (detail).

the ease with which printmakers could copy, adapt, and reuse their inventions for various purposes. It also bears testimony to Romeyn’s success as the inventor of the imagery of the rampjaar. Another print, dating from the same time, explores William’s commission in allegorical fashion. It displays the Prince as a Roman victor, with Fame holding a laurel wreath over his head (fig. 3.4).13 The Dutch lion, clutching a bundle of arrows designating Concord and the cap of Liberty stuck on a lance, drives the four-in-hand trampling the personification of Envy, while the seven provinces, decked out in helmet and shield, press the chariot. The book printer Baltes Boekholt published the sheet, along with three laudatory verses, while an anonymous publisher (possibly Boekholt himself) recycled it as an illustration for a pro-Orange pamphlet.14 In the ensuing years, Romeyn produced numerous allegories glorifying the Prince of Orange. His vast knowledge of ancient history, literature, and iconography gave him a vantage position that proved hard to match. The year of disaster also launched Romeyn’s career as a satirist. He designed and executed a series of six portrait medallions representing William iii and his

13 fmh 2321, not in le, not in h. 14 Kn. 10622, Nimrods mugge-swarm, p. 18.

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opponents.15 When turned upside-down, the prints show an animal revealing the true character of each individual. The Kings of France and England become a toothless old lion and a cruel tiger; the Bishops of Cologne and Münster a donkey and a pig; and Johan and his brother Cornelis de Witt (a double portrait) a wolf and a fox. The Prince of Orange, by contrast, morphs into the Roman war-god Mars.16 For the young Prince William, the crisis of 1672 came as a blessing, as it brought the Stadtholderless Era to an end. The States of Zeeland appointed him stadtholder on 2 July, and the States of Holland, under heavy pressure, followed suit on the following day, rescinding the ‘Eternal Edict’ of 1667.17 William took the required oath on 9 July. Four days later, William visited Amsterdam, where the magistrates, the militias, and the common people hailed him as a redeemer. Romeyn may have participated in the festivities in an official capacity, as he was serving as a schutter (militiaman) in the company of Isaäc van Heuvel.18 He celebrated the event with a large print showing the stadtholder on horseback (fig. 3.5).19 The image of horse and rider follows a drawing by Adam Frans van der Meulen of Louis xiv leading his troops into Dunkirk, which Romeyn had etched in Paris four years earlier (figs. 3.6, 2.4).20 This demonstrates how his Parisian experience, and especially his artistic contacts at the royal court, helped him to devise a suitably heroic image of William iii. The baton in the Prince’s right hand, the military accoutrements on the left and right, and the battle scenes in the background signify his status as commander-in-chief, while the portraits of his ancestors, as in the earlier news print, underscore his dynastic claims to military and political offices. The predella-like illustration at the bottom is a ‘memorial’ (gedenck-teecken) of the magnificent welcome that the city’s burgomasters and militias had prepared for the prince. In spite of his lavish reception – and of Romeyn’s print celebrating it – William had the notoriously republican city council purged, replacing ten out of 36 councillors. The Prince allowed burgomaster Gillis Valckenier, who had defected to the Orangist camp, to remain in office, while removing the hardliner republicans of the de Graeff faction.

15 The undated prints may have been designed after 1672, but, in any case, before 19 February 1674, when the Dutch Republic concluded peace with England. 16 fmh 2327. Romeyn may have been inspired by Theodore de Bry’s reversible twin portraits of William of Orange as ‘Captain of Prudence’ and the Duke of Alba as ‘Captain of Folly’. Horst, Opstand, pp. 193–197. 17 Israel, Dutch Republic, pp. 791–792. 18 saa, 5075, inv. no. 4296, p. 320. The artist Gerard de Lairesse was serving in the same company. 19 le 257; fmh 2381-Aa. One version of this print has the Prince wearing a large feathered hat; in another one, he is bare-headed. As is the case with the 1674 Sobieski portrait, the horse is rendered far too small in relation to its rider. 20 Cf. Rijkens, ‘Nassau’, p. 143.

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Fig. 3.5. Equestrian Portrait of William on the Occasion of his Visit to Amsterdam, 1672.

Fig. 3.6. Romeyn de Hooghe after Adam Frans van der Meulen, Louis xiv on Horseback, detail of Entry of Louis xiv into Dunkirk, c. 1668 (fig. 2.4).

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The de Witt Brothers Slain The lynching of the de Witt brothers on 20 August marked the nadir of the 1672 crisis. The gruesome incident was one of the biggest media events in Europe before the French Revolution. Pamphleteers produced at least 770 different titles during the rampjaar, an all-time high.21 The bulk of these, more than 500 titles, appeared in June, July, and August, marking the elevation of the Prince of Orange as stadtholder, the build-up of the slander campaign against the grand pensionary and his brother, and their grisly death. The National Library of the Netherlands (Koninklijke Biblio­ theek) in The Hague possesses seventeen different pamphlets describing the bloody events of 20 August, many of them illustrated.22 Frederik Muller’s catalogue of ‘history prints’ lists 27 contemporary sheets dedicated to the murder.23 The iconography of the de Witt lynching illustrates two features of the print industry of this period: the multiple recycling of the same design, and the key role played by Romeyn de Hooghe as the inventor of the imagery of the event. The collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam holds a drawing showing the mutilation of the bodies of the de Witt brothers, attributed to Romeyn (fig. 3.7).24 If the ascription is correct, this would suggest that he was either present at the heinous event, or (more likely) travelled to The Hague shortly afterwards in order to inspect the site of the lynching, while drawing on eyewitness accounts to fill in the details of the bloodthirsty crowd. Whatever the case, there can be no doubt about his crucial role in shaping the public image of the event. Romeyn himself produced various versions of the lynching, which in turn served as examples for other artists to copy or emulate. One of the plates he dedicated to the topic is a news print with four different images of the events (fig. 3.8). The first plate shows the attack on the two brothers when they emerged from the Voorpoort, the prison where Johan de Witt had been visiting his brother just before the lynching; the second one shows the murder, which took place somewhat further down in front of the stadtholder’s residence on Buitenhof; the third one, the dragging of the two bodies to the scaffold, while passers-by start to cut off their limbs; and finally, the macabre apotheosis, with the two bodies dismembered and gutted and strung upside-down on the pale, while the mob struggles to take possession of their entrails.25 21 Harms, Pamfletten, p. 136, counting only Dutch-language pamphlets and excluding reprints in the National Library of the Netherlands (kb) collection, according to Knuttel, Catalogus. 22 Ibid., vol. 2, part 2, nos. 10189–10206. 23 fmh 2390–2427, not counting reprints, and listing only contemporary etchings and engravings. 24 rma, rp-t-00-333. Attributed to Romeyn de Hooghe in fmh 2416 and Wilson, ‘Art’, p. 393. 25 le 62, h 87, fmh 2401-a, b, c. The printed description is in Dutch and French. A second version of the same plate has an explicatory text in Dutch only. A third version has been touched up, carries a printed explanation in Dutch and French, and shows, for the first time, the name of its maker: R. de Hooghe des. et sc. 1672.

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Fig. 3.7. Romeyn de Hooghe (ascr.), Mutilation of the Bodies of the de Witt Brothers, 1672.

In another, presumably later, version, he brought the four images together, showing the subsequent events in one scene below the festooned portrait medallions of the unfortunate brothers (fig. 3.9). The result is even more dramatic. Three different versions of this broadsheet appeared in print, all of them signed.26 The picture is set in an etched frame, encouraging customers to cut off the text and pin the illustration to the wall as a morbid yet patriotic decoration. In the earlier version, the four separate illustrations, each of them etched on a separate copperplate, had simple frames of their own, which rendered them recyclable as book illustrations.27 26 le 63, h 88, fmh 2403-a, b, c. The first version carries a printed text in Dutch and French, the second and third ones a text in Dutch only. Only the third version features the name and address of the publisher, Carel Allard. 27 Romeyn used them again in Van Domselaer, Ontroerde Nederlandt, p. 345 (lbi 37).

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It is hazardous to infer an artist’s intentions, political or otherwise, from his work. The content of his art, after all, may reflect the opinions of the market – or the artist’s expectations of these opinions – rather than his own convictions. Yet in the case of the de Witt prints, it is striking that Romeyn refrained from adding the spiteful and slanderous imputations against the brothers that informed so many contemporary pamphlets. The resolute pose of the brothers when facing the hostile crowd moments before they meet their death – Cornelis arguing with his attackers, Johan unflinching in front of their pikes – is not without heroism. The title of Romeyn’s autograph copy frames their demise as ‘calamitous’ rather than, for example, ‘rightful’ or ‘well-deserved’. A similar attitude is conveyed by a large and ambitious print that was designed, executed, and published in 1675, three years after the event (fig. 3.10). It is entitled Witten Wonder Spiegel, or ‘Miraculous Mirror of the de Witt Brothers […], First Raised to the Highest Levels of Honour and Esteem, then Thrown off into the Deepest Humiliation’.28 Its theme is not treason and retribution, but rather the inevitable workings of the Wheel of Fortune. Romeyn holds up the frailty of all human endeavours, and the instability of power, wealth, and fame, as a ‘mirror’ to the viewers of the print. This classical adage reappears in biblical garb in the motto above the portrait of the two brothers: ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away’ (Job 1:21). Half-way down the image, between the portraits of the brothers, is a dais with a fire from which a Phoenix is emerging, symbol of the House of Orange during the ‘True Freedom’ era.29 Rising from the ashes, the Phoenix takes a trajectory contrary to the fall of de Witt brothers. Around the portraits of the two men, Romeyn has etched sixteen scenes from their life; ending, inevitably, with the ghastly scenes of 20 August 1672. Romeyn published this print with a separate text sheet elaborating on the political careers and the demise of Johan and Cornelis de Witt.30 The explanation presents a fair account of their careers, giving them full credit for the favourable outcome of the Second Anglo-Dutch War and the successes against the combined English and French fleets in 1672, while criticizing them for neglecting the army and the inland fortifications. The author – probably Romeyn himself – ends by remarking that their downfall was ‘a mirror of the fickleness and uncertainty of the favour of the people, a frightful and noteworthy ending of interests too narrowly drawn and of bold desire to magnify oneself and one’s faction’.31 The Latin motto above the text, tolluntur in

28 le 64; h 86; fmh 2390-a and b, Witten Wonder Spiegel, vertoonende Ian de Witt Raet Pensionaris van Hollandt etc., Cornelis de Witt Burgermeester van Dordrecht, Ruaert van Putten etc. Eerst opgeklommen tot Hooghe trappen van Eer en aensien daer na tot de laaghste Verneederingh afgeworpen. 29 On the phoenix theme, see Stern, Orangism, pp. 57–83. 30 fmh 2390. 31 ‘Een Spiegel der veranderinghen en twijffelinghen van des volcks gunst, verveerlijck en opmerckens waerdigh eynde, van al te stijf getrocken Interest, en stoute lust om sijn selfs en de sijnen groot te maeken’.

Fig. 3.8. Romeyn de Hooghe, Lynching of the de Witt Brothers, 1672 (detail).

altum, underscores the tenor of the print: ‘they are raised aloft in order that they may tumble with a weightier fall’.32 The Witten Wonder Spiegel print was the pendant of another print showing a congruous theme, executed in the same format and entitled Orangien Wonderspiegel or ‘Miraculous Orange Mirror, showing William Hendrik the Third Prince of Orange, Scorned, Reviled, Repressed, and then Esteemed, Honoured, Raised by God’s Grace to our Recovery and Prosperity. Amen’ (fig. 3.11).33 The corresponding biblical motto is ‘Hitherto the Lord has helped us’ (1 Samuel 7:12). Here, Romeyn depicted William as a military commander in full armour, clenching the commander’s baton in his right hand and wearing an ermine robe, suggesting his descent from the Royal House of England through his mother, Mary Stuart. Sixteen small pictures documenting his life surround the central portrait, as well as an additional ten pictures celebrating his 32 ‘Tolluntur in altum [sc.] ut lapsu graviore ruant’. Romeyn’s source was Claudian, In Rufinum, i, 21. 33 le 98; h 82; fmh 2304, Orangien wonderspiegel vertoonende Willem Hendrick de iii Prince van Orangie. Versmaet Gehoont Gedruckt daer na Geacht Geëert Verheven, door Godts Genaede tot onse Herstelling en Welvaren. Amen.

Fig. 3.9. Romeyn de Hooghe, Lynching of the de Witt Brothers, 1672 (detail).

victories in the war against France. If the Witten Wonder Spiegel ‘mirrors’ or contrasts the former greatness of the de Witt brothers to their eventual downfall, the Orangien Wonderspiegel does the same for William’s initial misfortunes during the ‘True Freedom’ period and his star’s subsequent rise. The two prints thus mirror one another, while Romeyn makes his moral point by holding up both mirrors to the viewer as an exemplum.34

French Tyranny Late in December 1672, a period of frost set in, allowing a French expeditionary force under the Duke of Luxembourg to cross the frozen inundations of the water-line and head for Leiden and The Hague. The frost did not last, however, and the French had

34 According to Kunzle, Early Comic Strip, p. 96, the actions of Johan de Witt and William iii are ‘in pictorial record surpassing that of any period down the Napoleonic era. This is due chiefly to the political insight and artistic genius of Romeyn de Hooghe of Haarlem – writer, painter, sculptor, goldsmith and etcher’.

Fig. 3.10. Romeyn de Hooghe, Miraculous Mirror of the de Witt Brothers, 1675.

to abandon their mission by the end of the month. As they retreated, they brutally sacked and burned the villages of Bodegraven and Zwammerdam, killing many of the inhabitants. Romeyn was quick to capitalize on the event. In January or February 1673, he brought out a news print outlining the sack of Zwammerdam in gruesome detail (fig. 3.12).35 Below the printed title ‘Mirror of the French Tyranny Committed against the Villages of Holland’, there followed a detailed description of the events and an extract from a pamphlet on the outrage authored by Adam Thomasz Verduyn, a local expert on water management.36 Verduyn’s text contains precise details and the

35 le 65; h 89; fmh 2435-a. Romeyn’s rendering of the sacking of the two villages is analysed in Haks, ‘Franse tyrannie’. The news print appeared, in any case, before 7 March, when Abraham de Wicquefort bought a copy for 8 stivers. Ibid., p. 99, fn.2. 36 Kn. 10707, Verduyn, Oprecht historisch verhael. For Verduyn’s credentials as an expert on water management, see Kn. 9834, Water-kryg, and Kn. 9836, Waterkryghspraetje.

Fig. 3.11. Romeyn de Hooghe, Miraculous Orange Mirror, 1675.

names of many victims and eyewitnesses, thus confirming the reliability of both the written report and the engraving. A second copy of the print came out soon afterwards, with an alternative title ‘French Cruelty at Bodegraven and Zwammerdam’ and a long poem elaborating on the atrocities. The poem was written by Govert Bidloo, a young barber-surgeon with literary ambitions, who would play an important role in Romeyn’s life.37 Romeyn set his engraving in an octagonal frame, wound with thorny vines and displaying a skull and lion heads spitting fire, thus reinforcing the macabre character of the scene and (as usual) encouraging future owners to cut off the text. The centre of the print shows the drawbridge (from which a man is hanging) over which the French had entered the village. In the background, houses and ships are ablaze. The

37 h 89; fmh 2435-b. For Bidloo see below, Ch. 9.

Fig. 3.12. Romeyn de Hooghe, Mirror of the French Tyranny Committed against the Villages of Holland, 1673 (detail).

foreground is filled with the writhing jumble of human beings that had become his trademark, realistically showing rape, torture, arson, and indiscriminate butchery. Historical and allegorical elements are again combined. A devilish monster, bedecked with the royal lilies of France, holds aloft the left end of the title banderole. In one hand, he holds a sword and a burning torch, in the other, looted valuables and chopped-off heads. By way of a helmet, he wears a bear’s head ‘spitting fire and smoke’. These attributes indicate that he is a representation of Ire or Fury.38 At the right side of the picture, the winged warrior-god Mars, wearing a magpie on his helmet and throwing thunderbolts, grips the banderole.39 The scales in his left hand suggest that he represents Justified War. Notwithstanding the carnage going on below, he seems to be gaining ascendancy over his opponent. It is noteworthy that in this particular case, the war-god does not carry any emblems that might associate him with the Prince of Orange. 38 Ripa, Iconologia of Uytbeeldinghen, pp. 185–186. 39 The magpie was associated with the Roman god Mars. Ibid., p. 246.

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Yet the most remarkable and innovative aspect of this print is not its allegorical trappings, but its brutal realism. In the middle of the foreground, Romeyn has drawn a soldier forcefully holding down a fiercely struggling woman, while his comrade is kneeling between her legs. To the right of this scene, a French soldier can be seen from the back, his breeches around his knees, in an apparent act of fornication. While rape had always been a major theme in European art – the rape of Europa, of the Sabine women, of Lucretia – never before had it been portrayed so realistically as in this etching.40 Romeyn again played a key role in the second phase of the reporting of the massacres. In October 1673, a book (or rather, a very long pamphlet) appeared, entitled Advis fidelle aux veritables Hollandois, touchant ce qui s'est passé dans les villages de Bodegrave et Swammerdam [‘Truthful Warning to the Veritable Hollanders Relating to what has Happened in the Villages of Bodegraven and Zwammerdam’].41 Its anonymous author was the colourful diplomat, historiographer, news agent, and spy, Abraham de Wicquefort.42 The pamphlet was an indictment against centuries of alleged French lust for power and domination, for which the wretched fate of the two villages served as an example. Eight etchings by Romeyn illustrated the Advis fidelle, all of them exposing in lurid detail how the French military raped, looted, tortured, and killed the hapless villagers (fig. 3.13).43 To no small extent thanks to Romeyn’s blood-curdling pictures, the Advis fidelle was an immediate commercial success. It originally appeared in both a cheap and a luxury edition, each with the de Hooghe prints. Written in French, the book was intended for the Dutch Republic’s elite rather than a broad readership, as well as for export. It did in fact circulate in France, where the authorities had it banned.44 In 1674, the publishers Johannes and Daniel Steucker of The Hague published a Dutch translation, again containing Romeyn’s engravings. The Amsterdam-based publisher Jan Claesz Ten Hoorn, however, was ahead of them, publishing a copy in December 1673. Exploiting the popularity of Romeyn’s earlier news print, the pirated volume entitled De Fransche tyrannie [‘French Tyranny’] boasted that its contents had been augmented with ‘what had happened in the villages of Nigtevecht, Waverveen, and Abcoude’. The illustrations are inferior copies of Romeyn’s work. Historians have claimed that Romeyn’s rendering of the French cruelties was exaggerated.45 The available evidence, however, amply confirms the facts reported and vindicates the realism of Romeyn’s designs. Donald Haks has compared the

40 I am grateful to Eric Jan Sluijter for pointing this out. Cf. Wolfthal, Images, pp. 91–93. 41 Wicquefort, Advis. 42 On de Wicquefort, see De Bruin, Geheimhouding, pp. 493–505. 43 lbi 30–34; h 90–96; fmh 2439 (1–8). The realistic rape scene is resumed in fmh 2439–6. 44 Haks, ‘Franse tirannie’, p. 99, fn. 7. 45 fmh 2438; Cillessen, Krieg, p. 138; Slechte, ‘Propaganda’, p. 16.

Fig. 3.13. Romeyn de Hooghe, French Cruelties in Bodegraven and Zwammerdam, 1673.

Advis fidelle to a Bodegraven tax register dating from 1673, the year following the disaster. It turned out that more than 100 taxable inhabitants had died; the same number of houses had been destroyed; and more than 170 inhabitants had reported their property ruined. Not surprisingly, 120 out of 200 taxpayers were considered insolvent.46 He also retraced many of the names of individuals mentioned in the legend of the ‘Mirror of the French Tyranny’ in local archives, which underpins its credibility. A key source validating the facts reported in both the ‘Mirror’ and the Advis fidelle is a memorandum found among documents confiscated from de Wicquefort, compiled by an anonymous author from testimonies by soldiers and survivors that de Wicqefort had used as a source when writing the Advis fidelle. According to this document, survivors found their homes reduced to ashes and the roads littered with maimed and charred human bodies and dead cattle. Witnesses reported that the French had chased the inhabitants – among them a woman in labour – into their houses and then set these on fire. The soldiers had raped several women and thrown them naked in the half-frozen canals, where they drowned under the ice floes. They had hanged a man in the chimney of his own house. These are all scenes that Romeyn depicted in realistic detail.

46 Haks, ‘Franse tirannie’, pp. 92–93.

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Haks’ comparison of Romeyn’s prints with the written evidence reveals that the artist also drew on a wealth of additional sources. Far from merely objectively reporting the facts – if such a thing were possible – he mined a rich repertoire of existing print imagery. Historians have argued that his work is reminiscent of the Great ­Miseries of War series by Jacques Callot, which Romeyn must have studied closely.47 Two prints in the Advis fidelle contain direct quotations from Callot’s work.48 In addition, ­Romeyn found inspiration in prints dating from the Dutch Revolt showing the atrocities committed by the Spanish soldiery. The very title of the ‘Mirror of the French Tyranny’ echoes the Spieghel der Spaensche tyranny in West Indien [‘Mirror of the Spanish Tyranny in the West Indies’], a Dutch translation of Bartolomé de las Casas’ famous Brevíssima relación, first published in 1596 and reprinted many times. The ‘Mirror of the Spanish Tyranny’ contained an abundance of rather crude engravings outlining the atrocities perpetrated by the Spanish in the New World. It became an immediate hit in the Dutch Republic and an important source for the ‘Black Legend’.49 Romeyn’s viewers must also have been reminded of a popular book, widely used as a history primer in the Dutch Republic, entitled De Spaensche tiranye ghe­schiet in Neder-lant [‘The Spanish Tyranny that Occurred in the Netherlands’].50 Another source of inspiration was the popular series of history prints by Frans Hogenberg, which revealed the cruelties perpetrated by the Spanish in the Netherlands during the sacking of Mechelen, Zutphen, Naarden, and Antwerp, and were reproduced in various popular histories of the Revolt. In addition, Romeyn quoted from graphic work published more recently, including representations of the Thirty Years War and the persecutions of Protestants in France and Savoy. The prints of the Bodegraven and Zwammerdam massacres were meant to achieve two aims. First, by drawing on written (and possibly also oral) eyewitness accounts, Romeyn satisfied the market’s demand for images of the latest news. He was not an eyewitness, but his careful scrutiny of the available sources ensured that his customers could rely on the veracity of his pictorial account. Second, by drawing on a repertoire of patriotic prints, he gave his message a certain spin. Viewers must have realized that the carnage in the villages was not an isolated fact, but part of a narrative that had been going on for at least 100 years. Telescoping the war with France back into the struggle for independence from Spain, he sought to achieve a sense of identity, togetherness, and solidarity among the Dutch. The aims for which they had been fighting during the Dutch Revolt, political liberty and freedom of religion, were again at stake during the rampjaar.

47 Cillessen, Krieg, pp. 136–137; Wilson, ‘Art’, p. 136; Slechte, ‘Propagandacampagnes’, p. 80. 48 Haks, ‘Franse tirannie’, pp. 94–96. 49 Meijer Drees, ‘Beeldvorming’, p. 166; Schmidt, Innocence, pp. 95–99, 115–121. 50 Anon., Spaensche tiranye.

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Illustrating the War If the Dutch experienced 1672 as a year of disaster, the following year was nothing short of a miracle.51 Not only did the Province of Holland hold out behind its tenuous line of inundations, the Dutch navy under Admiral de Ruyter stave off the combined Anglo-French fleet, and the Dutch Republic chase the forces of Cologne and Münster from the north-eastern provinces, but the Dutch also managed to gain the initiative and turn the scales against the enemy. This was partly the result of sheer luck. Louis xiv, dallying too long in Utrecht while waiting for the Dutch to surrender, failed to press his advantage. Even more fortunate for the Dutch was the fact that the Holy Roman Emperor and the Elector of Brandenburg, who perceived France’s conquest of the Netherlands as detrimental to their common interests, forged an alliance with the Republic. This forced Louis to employ part of his army to block the advance of their combined forces on Cologne. In August 1673, Spain also entered the war on the side of the Republic. On the other hand, when England (where the war had never been popular) failed to gain a victory at sea, the country rescinded its alliance with France and concluded a separate peace at Westminster in February 1674. The bishops of Cologne and Münster soon followed suit. Contemporaries regarded the survival of the Dutch Republic as a miracle. To Romeyn, it was another example of the inexplicable workings of the Wheel of Fortune: The unheard-of revolution [revolutie, in its original sense of rotation or orbit] of our beloved Fatherland, both in its downfall and rising up again, and the erratic fortunes of world-threatening France, serves us […] as a clear exemplum. To wit, how the prosperity of one country depends on the downfall of the other, and how the change in fortune of its glory must follow the circumvolution of that wheel, moved by the right hand of God.52

William III’s first achievement was the capture of Naarden, a strategically-­located garrison city on the northern end of the water-line guarding the approaches to Amsterdam (12 September 1673). Two months later, he boldly invaded the Electorate of Cologne, capturing Bonn and two other cities. He thereby cut off the French supply lines and forced the enemy to abandon their positions on the water-line and evacuate the occupied territories west of the River IJssel. In the north-east, meanwhile, Carl von Rabenhaupt, a Bohemian nobleman commissioned as lieutenant-general in the States’ Army, had successfully led the defence of the city of Groningen against the Prince-Bishop of Münster, Christoph Bernhard von Galen, in August 1672. By the end of that year, Rabenhaupt captured the strategically important fortress of Coevorden, 51 Israel, Dutch Republic, pp. 812–813. 52 De Hooghe, Schouburgh, p. 3.

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which was in the hands of the Münsterites. Two months later, England, Cologne, and Münster had to sign a humiliating peace treaty. France, bereft of its allies, evacuated the IJssel line and all of the eastern provinces of Gelderland and Overijssel in May 1674. By June 1674, the French only retained the fortresses of Grave and Maastricht. The narratives of all these victories, either appropriately inflated and in grand heroic style or in the form of lampoons, songs, and satire, found their way into script and were published and dispersed in a flood of pamphlets. Romeyn was by far the most prolific artist among the many engravers who transformed these stories into images. Throughout the six-year war with France, he functioned as a quasi-war correspondent. But unlike real news reporters, he never left his workshop, creating his designs from printed maps, pamphlets, and other written accounts, and possibly from oral reports. His broadsheets illustrating the siege and reduction of Groningen, Coevorden, Nieuweschans, Naarden, and other cities, and the naval battles of Schooneveld and Kijkduin, followed a fixed and traditional pattern. From the early years of the Dutch Revolt onwards, Frans Hogenberg had developed the genre of what contemporaries called ‘sieges and land and naval battles’ (belegeringen, veldt- en zee-slaghen).53 Artist-engravers invariably situated the besieged city in the middle or at the top of the picture. Their point of view, usually from an imaginary high position, was that of the besiegers. They depicted various phases of the siege as if these were taking place simultaneously. A print might thus show both the storming of the city and the subsequent surrender and retreat of the garrison. In representations of sea-battles, as a rule, decisive moments such as the boarding or sinking an enemy vessel would take place in the foreground. Here, too, artists captured key moments as if they were taking place simultaneously. Finally, their viewpoint was generally that of the victor. Defeats just would not do as a suitable news print topic, be it from a patriotic or a commercial point of view. As the war went on, Romeyn allowed more and more space in his designs for the person and deeds of William iii. His prints representing the initial victories in the northeast against the bishop of Münster only refer to general Rabenhaupt, whose portrait Romeyn included in a cartouche in the Nieuweschans print. William did not personally participate in these military feats, nor did he hold the stadtholderate in the north-eastern provinces.54 Romeyn did include representations of William in three prints of the two naval battles off Schooneveld (7 and 14 June 1673) and Kijkduin (21 August 1673). In all three, William’s portrait appears simply, and not very dashingly, in a cartouche at the top of the picture, perched between portraits of the

53 Van Nierop, ‘ Profijt en propaganda’, p. 73; Klinkert, Nassau. 54 Siege of Groningen: le 61; h 85; fmh 2383. Capture of Coevorden: le 66; fmh 2445. Capture of Nieuweschans: le 67; fmh 2477. William’s cousin Count Hendrik Casimir ii of Nassau was stadtholder of Groningen and Friesland.

Fig. 3.14. Romeyn de Hooghe, Siege of Naarden, 1673.

victorious admirals de Ruyter and Tromp.55 Although William was chief-admiral of the navy, he never participated in a sea battle. It was only in his superb print of the siege and reduction of Naarden that Romeyn found a more satisfactory solution to the problem of foregrounding the Prince of Orange (fig. 3.14).56 The campaign, led by the stadtholder in person, provided him with his first victory. Romeyn depicted the prince just to the right of the centre, wearing a smart feathered hat and a general’s baton, surrounded by his staff officers. The picture captures him at the key moment when he accepted the surrender of the city. A magistrate of Naarden lies prostrate at the feet of the victorious prince. The highlighted figure of William, cool and poised, is evidently in control of the entire scene. The picture simultaneously shows the storming of the fortress by the Dutch, as well as the subsequent retreat of the French garrison. One strikingly original and interesting feature of the composition is that of the scenes depicted in the 55 Schooneveld: le 68, fmh 2462 and 2467; le 69, fmh 2468; Kijkduin: le 70, fmh 2483. 56 le 71; h 97; fmh 2495.

Fig. 3.15. Romeyn de Hooghe, Siege of Grave, 1674 (detail).

foreground. Prominent on the left is a lively scene of ‘Sutlers and Military Life’. A woman is serving drinks to the soldiers in a makeshift tavern, while another woman with a child is taking off her dress. Two dogs, perhaps metaphorically, are fighting over a bone. In the centre, soldiers are dragging a piece of ordnance abandoned by the French ‘because of its broken carriage’. On the right, Romeyn cocks a snook at the French by showing a wounded French officer travelling in a litter. Next to him, the garrison’s chaplain, a Grey Friar with a colossal hood, is riding a mule. Yet none of these goings-on in the foreground, which take up roughly one third of the print, detract from the commanding position taken by the Prince of Orange. Romeyn underlines William’s achievement with the caption stating that this was his first victory, and in a verse praising ‘the war-hero Orange’ for reducing the stronghold in only three days. Like the Bodegraven and Zwammerdam prints, the Naarden print combines detailed research into the actual events with a broader patriotic message.

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Similar to Romeyn’s other successful inventions, the Naarden print, which was copied by several lesser artists, enjoyed a long afterlife.57 The engravers Jan Luyken and Jacobus Harrewijn produced versions of their own, based on Romeyn’s design but sufficiently different to make them their own work.58 Romeyn himself was so pleased with his own print that he reworked it one year later. Leaving in place the foreground scenes of soldiers’ life, the departure of the French army, and William accepting the surrender of the fortress, he represented in the background the ­capture of the fortress of Grave on 28 October 1674 (fig. 3.15).59

The Gelderland Affair By 1674, the situation in the besieged Republic had changed beyond recognition. With its allies out of the war, France had to go it alone. The young Prince of Orange had revealed himself an able commander and organizer and, perhaps more importantly, a charismatic leader around whom the Dutch could rally. His popularity was now at its zenith, both among the regents and the wider population. In January 1674, the States of Holland, rescinding the Eternal Edict, voted to make the office of stadtholder perpetual and hereditary in the male line of the House of Orange. In April, when the States General decided to readmit the provinces of Utrecht, Gelderland, and Overijssel (which for two years had been occupied by French) to their meetings, they forced them to implement certain changes in their system of government that strongly enhanced the stadtholder’s patronage and strengthened his hand in local politics. Yet with William firmly in the saddle, the old factional strife between Orangists and Republicans resurfaced. Now that the danger had abated and the Republic had reasserted itself as a strong power, the menace of an almost despotic stadtholder with semi-monarchical trappings again loomed large. Meanwhile, the common people grew less prepared to shoulder high taxes to finance a war that, from 1674 onwards, was fought entirely beyond the borders of the Republic and seemed increasingly irrelevant.60 In January 1675, the Provincial States of Gelderland, grateful for being allowed back into the Union, proffered the title of duke to the prince. Far from being an empty honorific title, this implied that William would rule as a sovereign instead of serving as mere ‘minister’ of the States. Gelderland was traditionally the first province to bring out its vote in the States General, and many people feared that other provinces might 57 Anonymous copies are fmh 2496 and 2497. 58 fmh 2498, 2499. 59 le 86; h 113; fmh 2561. 60 Israel, Dutch Republic, pp. 814–817.

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follow its example. There arose widespread anxiety, especially in Holland, that this might signify a first step towards princely sovereignty over the entire Dutch Republic. To William’s chagrin, some of the opposition was voiced by the town regents, notably in Amsterdam, including those he had refrained from purging in 1672. Towns with a penchant for Orangism, such as Haarlem, Leiden, and Enkhuizen, were the first to disapprove. The strongest resentment was voiced by the middle strata of society. Amsterdam’s merchant community reportedly believed that vesting sovereignty in the prince would be detrimental to commerce and financial confidence. William behaved clumsily in the matter, attracting bad publicity by being unable to hide his annoyance. Pamphlets offered satirical comment on the affair of ‘the sovereignty of Gelderland’. One untitled broadsheet shows a statue of the stadtholder as Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king who destroyed Jerusalem and deported its inhabitants into captivity, wearing a royal crown and surrounded by a circle of citizens kneeling in adoration’.61 Faced with mounting opposition, William appeared before the States of Gelderland on 20 February 1675 and declined the ducal title on the grounds that acceptance would give rise to misunderstandings about his ambitions. If some pamphleteers and cartoonists expressed dissatisfaction with William’s ambitions, Romeyn was not among them. Shortly after the denouement of the affair, he produced an allegory showing how the prince had ‘generously declined’ the ducal dignity of Gelderland (fig. 3.16).62 He showed William as a victorious Roman general standing next to a chariot, crowned with a laurel wreath, holding the cap of liberty aloft on a spear, and bedecked with the coats of arms of the Dutch provinces. An accompanying loose sheet explains that the print portrays William ‘as a constant and faithful champion of the liberty of the Fatherland’. The Dutch Maiden, holding a bundle of seven arrows (the device of the Union), urges him to maintain the state in the form in which it had become great and not to remove any of the arrows. On top of the chariot, Victory is displaying the towns William has conquered; next to her, a maiden is carrying the ducal crown. In the background are hovering not only William’s now-familiar precursors, but also his ancestor Adolf of Nassau, who ruled as King of the Romans (i.e., King of the German Empire). In the accompanying text, Romeyn praises William’s wisdom and generosity. The Prince prefers the defence of liberty to ambition, and the love of the people to their fear. He would rather protect them as their hereditary stadtholder than rule over them as a duke. The ducal crown is too heavy for a prudent prince; it is greater to spurn the honour than to accept it. In short, Romeyn does not disapprove of William for his ambition, but praises him for his lack of it. This is consistent with the main tenet of Orangism, that the stadtholder is not a sovereign prince and should not become one. The stadtholder provided the 61 fmh 2586; Tiele 7237, Rothe, Goddelijke verschijninge. The pamphlet appeared anonymously, but its author was Jan Rothe, a self-appointed prophet and member of the Fifth Monarchists. 62 le 91; h 115; fmh 2571.

Fig. 3.16. Romeyn de Hooghe, William iii Declines the Office of Duke of Gelderland, 1674 (detail).

monarchical element in an Aristotelian mixed constitution, the nature of which was essentially republican.63 In this print, Romeyn again mixed the allegorical with the historical. At the bottom, he drew three smaller illustrations of the States offering the ducal dignity, the meeting of the Council of State discussing it, and William’s refusal. The Gelderland broadside is an altered version of an earlier plate, dated 1674, showing the re-­ admittance of the Province of Utrecht into the Union after the French occupation on 13 November 1673.64 Here, Romeyn had shown William ‘as a triumphant dictator’ riding the chariot instead of standing next to it. Remarkably, Romeyn had dedicated the Utrecht print to Abraham de Wicquefort, the author of the Advis fidelle. As was so often the case, Romeyn was economical, saving time and money by using the same design twice. 63 Jill Stern, Orangism, pp. 33–34, discerns ‘a hint of ambiguity’ and ‘a hint of unease’ in this print. 64 le 82; fmh 2512.

Fig. 3.17. Romeyn de Hooghe, Battle of Seneffe, 1674 (detail).

During the last years of the war, Romeyn continued to produce a steady stream of prints illustrating William’s more memorable exploits. In 1674, for example, he dedicated three different prints to the siege and capture of Grave, a small fortified town of key strategic value controlling the river Meuse (25 July-28 October).65 Two years later, he made a print of the (eventually inconclusive) siege of Maastricht (7 July 1676, aborted 29 August).66 He also designed prints of the two open battles fought by William. The first one depicted the battle at Seneffe in Hainault in the Spanish Netherlands, where William commanded an allied army against a French army under the Prince of Condé on 11–12 August 1674 (fig. 3.17).67 Although at least seven or eight thousand men were lost on each side, the battle remained inconclusive, with both sides claiming victory.68 Romeyn captured it as a thick whirl of attacking, defending, struggling, and dying bodies – much as the soldiers must have experienced it. Numbers and letters in the print referring to the accompanying explanation provide insight into the strategies and tactics employed – the view of the participating staff 65 le 85, 86, 87; h 113; fmh 2559, 2561, 2565. 66 le 101; fmh 2592. 67 le 84; h 112; fmh 2549. 68 Anon., Narrative.

Fig. 3.18. Romeyn de Hooghe, William iii at the Battle of St Denis, 1678.

officers. This time, Romeyn depicted William as a tiny figure on horseback, a little speck almost invisible in the turmoil. Placing this in the exact middle of the print, he was acknowledging the stadtholder’s position as commander-in-chief. Romeyn chose the opposite tack for his rendering of the battle of Saint Denis (near Mons in Hainault, 14–15 August 1678), where the States’ army under William’s command fought the French forces under the Duke of Luxembourg (fig. 3.18). This is an ambitious sheet in large format, composed of two plates, but the perspective is rather clumsy.69 Romeyn reserved almost the entire left plate for a life-size portrait of the Prince of Orange on a rearing horse, next to the Duke of Monmouth and various other staff officers. Much smaller, at the bottom right, rides the Duke of Villahermosa, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, to whom Romeyn dedicated the print. Far in the background unrolls the chaos of battle, the last encounter of the Franco-Dutch war, which took place, more or less by accident, several days after the signing of the peace treaty at Nijmegen. The bulk of the news prints Romeyn produced during the French phase of the Guerre de Hollande refer to the so-called Scanian War (1674–1679), fought on and around the Baltic between the Dutch allies Denmark-Norway and Brandenburg on 69 le 119; h 131; fmh 2629.

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one side and Sweden, an ally of France, on the other.70 The Dutch had a keen interest in the outcome of the hostilities in the Baltic, in which a Dutch fleet under Admiral Cornelis Tromp participated. Romeyn’s flush of news prints suggests that he spent considerable energy on assembling the necessary information about the exact ­topographical and military circumstances. Apparently, there was an eager market for news prints covering the Baltic theatre of war, and Romeyn was happy to supply them.

Satire The 1674 turnaround in the fortunes of war inspired Romeyn to try his hand at satire. Satirical prints were almost as old as the printing press itself, but Romeyn was to raise the genre to a new level. ʻThe Death of the Eternal Edict, Caused by the Hereditary Stadtholderate of His Highness and his Male Successorsʼ is an unadulterated piece of Orangist propaganda and an even fiercer condemnation of republicanism (fig. 3.19).71 It celebrates the presentation of the hereditary stadtholderate to the Prince of Orange in February 1674, an act that implied the abolition of the Eternal Edict of 1667. Centre-stage, the Eternal Edict or ‘Anticurius of Loevestein’ lies dead. An image of Loevestein Castle – symbol of the staatsgezinde, republican, or Loevestein faction, named after the eponymous castle in which several republican leaders had been incarcerated – adorns his deathbed. Around him, allegorical figures representing the Republicans are mourning. Among them are Cornelis and Johan de Witt and Machiavelli, clutching Pieter de la Court’s Interest of Holland, the radical political treatise advocating a republic without a stadtholder. Crowning the scene is a bust of Oldenbarnevelt. On the left, other republicans carry books by Socinus and Descartes and banderoles proclaiming ‘libertinism’ (vrijgeest) and ‘pro-French correspondence’. France has bribed them; witness a bag filled with Louis d’or at their feet. The right-hand side of the picture shows a portrait medallion of William iii, held up by allegorical representations of Valour and Prudence. Behind them, the Orangist symbol of the Phoenix is rising from the ashes. Below them, a fearsome hag, the allegorical figure of Envy, who for more than twenty years had been tearing down the arms of Orange, is complaining that her court is no more. A printing press that ‘used to spit out devilish fire and flames’ stands idle, while 70 Victory of the Elector of Brandenburg over the Swedes near Fehrbelin, June-July 1675, le 92, h 119; Siege and Conquest of Vismar by Christian V of Denmark, October-November 1675, le 94, h 120; The Allied Danish and Dutch Navy Conquering the Swedish Fleet, June 1676, le 100, fmh 2590; Capture of Christianstadt by Christian V of Denmark, 1676, le 103, h 123; Helsingborg recovered by the Swedish, January 1677, le 108, h 128; Capture of Stettin (Szczecin) by the Elector of Brandenburg, 1677, le 111; Capture of Marstrand and Carlsten by General Gyldenløve, July 1677, le 112; Map Showing the Rügen Campaign, 1678, le 113; Campaign of Christian V of Denmark on the Isle of Rügen, 1678, le 116–117. 71 h 83; fmh 2524a.

Fig. 3.19. Romeyn de Hooghe (attr.), Death of the Eternal Edict, 1674 (detail).

rats are gnawing at ‘the papers of unrest’. A sign reads ‘Theriac for Sale’, suggesting that the hereditary stadtholderate will serve as a panacea. Closely related to this print is another broadside lambasting the republicans, entitled ‘Anticurius of Loevestein’ (fig. 3.20).72 The imagery of this print, too, is radically anti-republican. Anticurius, ‘the counter-party, slanderer, excluding and fending off the Prince of Orange’, is sitting on a chair labelled ‘the chair of the stadtholder removed’. He is wearing a hat marked ‘Liberty’ (VRYHEYT), but below it a crown, symbol of tyranny, is visible. Surrounded by the titles of anti-Orangist tracts and ditto legends, he wears a mask for duplicity. Behind his seat, ‘a Frenchman’ (evidently Louis xiv, but the text prudently refrains from stating so) is pointing to a map of Holland. With his purse or his sword, by way of treason or violence, he will gain mastery over the sea and the much-reduced Dutch Republic. Both prints are notable for their intense anti-republican stance. Although his news prints and allegories of 1672–1678 were brazenly Orangist, Romeyn was usually wary of offending supporters of the defeated republican faction. We noted his

72 h 83; fmh 2523. le 231 rejects the ascription of both prints to Romeyn.

Fig. 3.20. Romeyn de Hooghe (attr.), Anticurius of Loevesteyn, 1674 (detail).

cautious attitude in the broadsheets on the de Witt lynching, and we shall see it again in his ‘Theatre of Changes in the Netherlands’. He showed no such restraint in the two satirical prints discussed here. It is perhaps not coincidental that neither carries his signature; he was careful to profit as much as possible from the Orangist mood in the market, while trying not to affront prospective customers of republican persuasion. Another satirical broadsheet is entitled ‘The Failed Popish War, Played out on the Catholic Holidays, from Christmas Eve to May Day; or the French Moving House Day’(fig. 3.21).73 In four different images, it shows first the beginning of the war against France; then a carnivalesque rendering of the French crossing the river Rhine in heavily loaded vessels; then William iii distributing ashes to his enemies on Ash Wednesday (with the de Witt brothers strung on a stake in the background); and finally, the French being chased from the country, or ‘the French moving house’ mentioned in the title. The joke is that Romeyn fitted all these events within the calendar of Catholic holidays. In Chapter 8, we shall see how he took up this theme and employed it against the regents of Amsterdam.

73 le 211; fmh 2521.

Fig. 3.21. Romeyn de Hooghe, The Failed Popish War, 1674 (detail).

A series of three satirical prints takes the form of animal fables, representing the French as a cock, the Münsterites as a wild boar, and Cologne as a wolf.74 Two final satirical prints, ‘The French Alchemist’ and ‘The Barrel Smashed to Pieces’ mock the peace negotiations in Cologne and the abduction of Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg,75 Von Fürstenberg was Louis xiv’s henchman in the Empire, who tried to undermine the peace negotiations between the Dutch Republic and the bishops of Cologne and Münster. The Emperor had him abducted and bundled off to Vienna. All of these satirical prints were published in 1674, the year that marked the reversal in the Franco-Dutch war. Romeyn’s sudden burst of creativity turned out to be short-lived. For the remainder of the war, no other satires were to appear from his atelier. Only in 1688, in the context of William iii’s propaganda campaign for the invasion of England, would Romeyn resurface as a satirist.

74 fmh 2536. 75 le 208, fmh 2528 and le 210, h 110, fmh 2525.

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Publishing his Own Work Throughout his career, Romeyn de Hooghe continued to rely on the services of professional book publishers for the dissemination of his book illustrations and frontispieces. During his early years, book and print publishers also issued his news prints and other freestanding prints. At least from 1674 onwards, however, Romeyn started publishing his own news prints and allegories. This made him more independent, because it gave him control over the subject matter, the text that was to accompany his print, and the overall quality of the final product. It must have been lucrative, too, for by 1674 his news prints were popular and in huge demand. By publishing his own work, he prevented third parties from syphoning off the profits. Having received a commission to produce a number of book illustrations, Romeyn’s work would usually be finished by the time he delivered the etched copperplates and received payment. It was up to the publisher to have the plates printed and the product marketed. As the owner of the plates, he was in principle free to re-use them for reprints, have them altered to illustrate other books, or sell them to a fellow publisher. The engraver usually relinquished all rights over his product once he had sold and delivered it. When acting as his own publisher, Romeyn remained in possession of his plates and was thus capable of recycling them himself and economizing on production costs. As the publisher, he became responsible for the entire process. He was in charge of buying the paper, usually the most expensive part of the entire enterprise.76 He had to find a copywriter and discuss the text with him, or write the text himself. He had to engage a book printer and have him compose the text in type and do the proofreading before printing the set pages on a letterpress. He then had to find a plate printer to add the illustrations to the printed text pages using a intaglio press. Romeyn himself must have owned at least one intaglio press for printing the proofs of his etchings. There is no evidence that he invested in a book printing press of his own, which would have involved a significant outlay of capital, but this was certainly feasible given the size of his workshop. He probably outsourced the type printing to a professional book printer. Finally, he had to market and sell the finished sheets, partly in his own shop, partly through other printand booksellers.77 Romeyn usually signed his plates with his name, sometimes followed by f. or fecit. He occasionally added inv. or invenit in order to indicate that he was the inventor of the image as well as its engraver. When acting as the publisher of his own prints, he might add an additional exc., excud., or excudit. Many plates, however, remained 76 Van Eeghen, Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 4, p. 263. 77 In the case of cheap broadsides, which were not Romeyn’s line of business, he may have marketed his prints by way of street peddlers as well.

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unsigned, while the name of the publisher, too, was lacking. As far as we know, Romeyn never published any plates by other artists. Before Romeyn started issuing his own news prints, his favourite publishers for freestanding prints had been Marcus Willemsz Doornick and Hieronymus Sweerts, both of whom had their workshops on Dam Square. Doornick’s firm was on the eastern side known as Vijgendam or Middeldam, while Sweerts conducted his business in ‘The Wakeful Dog’, the very house that Romeyn rented from 1676 onwards. Doornick, for example, published Romeyn’s two iconic Orangist news prints of 1672, the first one showing William iii taking the oath as commander-in-chief of the States’ army, the other his entry into Amsterdam on horseback later that year (figs. 3.3 and 3.5), as well as Rabenhaupt’s heroic defence of Groningen.78 The following year, he published the news prints of the siege and capture of Coevorden and Naarden (two versions), the two naval battles off Schooneveld, and a print showing the providential bursting of a dike near Coevorden that wreaked havoc on the episcopal troops of Münster (fig. 2.7).79 In 1674, he issued two prints on the siege and relief of Grave.80 In 1673, he published the capture of Nieuweschans by Rabenhaupt, William iii’s capture of Bonn and other German cities, another version of the two naval battles off Schooneveld, and a print showing the two Schooneveld battles in a cartouche under a large representation of the naval battle off Kijkduin (fig. 3.22).81 In 1674, Romeyn himself stepped in as a publisher. Under his own imprint, he issued a large sheet featuring the conclusion of the peace treaty agreed at Westminster on 19 February 1674, which ended the Third Anglo-Dutch War and marked the reversal in the war against France.82 The large image at the centre showing the festive bonfires and fireworks lit in The Hague on 14 March is surrounded by smaller pictures dedicated to various episodes of the war. Romeyn must have issued the print shortly after the celebrations. He confidently signed it Romijn de Hooghe fecit, invenit et excudit Amstelodami 1674. Later that year, he published a print with a description of the siege and relief of Grave.83 It was accompanied by an elaborate Journal [Dagregister], signed in print type ‘In Amsterdam, at Romeyn de Hooghe, residing in Kalverstraat, 1674’ (t’Amsterdam, by Romeyn de Hooge, woonende in de Kalverstraet, 1674). The same

78 William taking the oath: le 60, h 84, fmh 2316, William’s entry into Amsterdam: le 257, fmh 2381; Siege of Groningen: le 61, h 85, fmh 2383. 79 Capture of Coevorden: le 66, fmh 2445; Naarden: le 71, h 97, fmh 2495; Naarden (2nd version): le 72, fmh 2500; Two naval battles at Schooneveld: le 69, fmh 2468; Bursting of the dike at Coevorden: le 73; h 98; fmh 2504. 80 le 86, h 113, fmh 2561; and fmh 2562. 81 Nieuweschans: le 67, fmh 2477; Bonn: le 79, h 100, fmh 2506, Schooneveld: le 68, fmh 2462, Schooneveld (other version): le 68, fmh 2462 and fmh 2467. 82 le 81; h 111; fmh 2532. 83 le 87; fmh 2565.

Fig. 3.22. Romeyn de Hooghe (attr.), The Two Naval Battles off Schoonevelt, 1673 (detail).

year witnessed the publication of Romeyn’s Schouburgh der Nederlandse veranderingen [‘Theatre of Changes in the Netherlands’], about which more will follow below. The Theatre remained the only publication in book format that Romeyn was to publish. In the following year, 1675, he published various large and ambitious projects, all discussed above: the two Wonderspiegels (the ‘Miraculous Mirror of the de Witt Brothers’ and the ‘Miraculous Orange Mirror’) and ‘The Temple of the Jews in Amsterdam’, celebrating the inauguration of the Portuguese Synagogue. (figs. 3.10, 3.11, and 2.10). In addition, he published another news print on the Baltic theatre of war, entitled ‘The Miraculous Successes of the Lord Elector of Brandenburg against the Swedes in Havelland’.84

84 De wonderlycke successen van den H. Keurvorst van Brandenburg, op de Sweden in Havel-lant; En sijne generale Victorie van den 26 Juny tot den 2 July 1675, Kn. 11284, Wonderlycke successen.

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During the years that followed, the number of publications carrying Romeyn’s name diminished. In 1676, he brought out no works at all under his own imprint. In the following year, there was just one publication: an almanac in broadside format entitled ‘Theatre of the Events Anno 1676’ celebrating the victories of William iii (Romeyn de Hooghe fecit et excudit 1677).85 In 1678, he published two more broadsheets, both allegories on the Peace of Nijmegen that brought an end to the Franco-­ Dutch War on 10 August 1678. One imprint reads ‘Made and published at Romeyn de Hooghe, in “The Wakeful Dog”, on Dam Square, in Amsterdam;’ the other one, a calendar sheet, is simply signed Bij Romijn de Hooghe t’Amsterdam.86 The two allegories on the Peace of Nijmegen were Romeyn’s last publications under his own imprint. This does not necessarily imply that his publishing activities ended. Many publishers routinely issued sheets bearing no imprint at all, and Romeyn may well have followed their example. Thus, any sheet with a print signed by Romeyn, or merely attributed to him on stylistic grounds but lacking a publisher’s imprint, may have issued from his press. One may assume that he himself did in effect publish the majority of these prints. Almost all his early news prints, up until 1674, came out under the imprint of a publisher. From 1675 onwards, however, no sheets were published with an imprint that was not Romeyn’s own. In other words, they either carried Romeyn’s imprint or appeared anonymously. It is therefore likely that Romeyn himself was the publisher of all, or at least the majority, of the anonymously published sheets.87 Moreover, a specific type of print, namely prints carrying a dedication, would not normally bear the name of the publisher; one may assume that the artist dedicating a print was also its publisher. It is therefore useful to explore Romeyn’s dedicated prints in more detail.

Dedications In his ‘Introduction to the Academy of Painting’ [Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst, 1678], Samuel van Hoogstraten included a useful piece of advice to artists who wished to advance in the world. An artist, he wrote, must, it is true, first of all seek his good fortune in his own accomplishments, that is, in the virtue and the congeniality of his work; but thereafter he must take care that he obtains, through industrious Maecenatisms, the favour of mighty Princes

85 le 115; h 124; fmh 2595. 86 le 121, h 132, fmh 2638; and le 120, h 132, fmh 2636. 87 Exceptions are two sheets showing an Allegory on the victories of William iii in 1673 and 1675, with an open space for affixing a calendar for 1674 and 1676, published by Dirk and Hendrick Boom. le 90, h 102, fmh 2515; and le 106, fmh 2580.

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or Kings; or attains the esteem of wealthy merchants. For without the help of well-­ disposed promoters and barrow-pushers, who noisily sing his praise, it will be difficult for him to gain a reputation.88

Romeyn was well aware of the niceties of the art of acquiring patronage. The way for an artist to attract the attention of a powerful patron was to dedicate a work of art to him. He might either offer a dedication as a thank-you for benefactions received in the past, or in anticipation of future benevolence. Although a print dedicated to an illustrious individual was supposed to be a gift, it would usually yield a financial reward. As a rule, the dedicatee would purchase several copies to hand out as presents. The same print would also be for sale in the open market, where its dedicatory text would bestow on it a certain standing and serve as an advertisement for the artist.89 Romeyn’s first print carrying a dedication dates from 1670 and celebrates the victories of Admiral Cornelis Speelman against the Kingdom of Makassar on the island of Sulawesi in the Indonesian archipelago between 1666 and 1669.90 Appropriately, Romeyn dedicated it to the directors (bewindhebbers) of the voc. If Romeyn was indeed the publisher of this print, this was years before he started using his own imprint. As a starting craftsman, he probably relied on the services of a book printer for the text below the plate, but the sheet does not mention the name of a printer or publisher. The next print carrying a dedication dates from 1674, the year that Romeyn began publishing freestanding prints using his own imprint. It is an allegory celebrating the re-admittance of the Province of Utrecht into the United Netherlands, with an engraved text and no printed type.91 It was dedicated ‘out of due affection’ to Abraham de Wicquefort, the author of the Advis fidelle, which had appeared in the same year. There was undoubtedly some connection between the dedication and Romeyn’s cooperation with de Wicquefort. The dedication, however, was unfortunate from the point of view of career promotion. Romeyn could not have anticipated that only one year later, the Hof van Holland would have de Wicquefort arrested for espionage for France and England, and sentence him to spend the rest of his life in prison.92 At the end of that year, Romeyn published, under his own imprint, Schouburgh der Nederlandse veranderingen [‘Theatre of Changes in the Netherlands’], a series of six allegorical prints with explanations in book format. He dedicated these to three wealthy regents: Cornelis van Beveren, Johan Honich, and Johan Steengracht. Van Beveren, the scion of an aristocratic family from Dordrecht, was lord of the manors

88 Van Hoogstraten Inleyding, p. 310. 89 Veldman, Crispijn de Passe, pp. 68–69. 90 le 59; h 81; fmh 2294; Van Groesen, ‘Geplukte Tapoeier’, pp. 58–61. 91 le 82 and fmh 2512. 92 De Bruin, Geheimhouding, pp. 493–505.

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of De Lint and West-IJsselmonde, and director (generaal-meester) of the Mint of Holland in Dordrecht. The van Beverens were close relatives of the de Witt family, who also hailed from Dordrecht; as a result, Cornelis van Beveren lost his seat on the local council during the 1672 revolution.93 Honich was a member of the City Council of Middelburg in Zeeland and the owner of a magnificent country house named Steenhove.94 More significantly, he was married to Margaretha Schaep, a sister of Pieter Schaep, member of Amsterdam’s Vroedschap and removed by William iii in 1672 because of his republican leanings.95 Steengracht was secretary of the Admiralty Board of Zeeland, also in Middelburg, and known as an extremely pious man.96 It is not known why Romeyn dedicated his book to these three men, but it suggests that he targeted a clientele within rich and aristocratic regent circles. It also implies he was not specifically looking for patronage in Orangist circles, for at least two of the dedicatees were or had been adherents of the de Witt faction. An allegory commemorating the death of Admiral de Ruyter, who had fallen in a naval battle off Syracuse (29 April 1676), was appropriately dedicated to the gecommitteerde raden or Admiralty Board of Amsterdam.97 In the same year, Romeyn dedicated to the burgomasters of Amsterdam a large ‘Princely Tableau’ (Vorstelyck tafereel), composed of two plates mounted one above the other and featuring an imaginary group portrait of all the European monarchs and princes involved in the war.98 Another print, displaying skirmishes between the Dutch and the French on the island of Tobago in 1677, carried a dedication to the Amsterdam Admiralty.99 With a large print of the 1678 Battle of Saint Denis, Romeyn aimed higher, dedicating it to the governor of the Spanish Netherlands Carlos de Aragón de Gurrea y de Borja, Duke of Villahermosa (fig. 3.18).100 Next, Romeyn dedicated a print to King John iii Sobieski of Poland, for whom he had worked in past years.101 It showed a dangerous accident, in which the Polish nobleman Stanisław Potocki had miraculously survived an explosion when travelling on a barge near Mechelen in the Spanish Netherlands. The following year, a print showing the re-burial in Amsterdam (24 October 1679) of the remains of field marshal Paulus Wirtz showed Romeyn’s dedication to the ‘great hero’, the deceased Wirtz himself.102 The dedicatory text, composed in elegant Latin, must have served to render the sheet more attractive to prospective buyers, since Romeyn could 93 Rowen, John de Witt, pp. 6, 339, 550-550; NNBW, vol. 3, p. 109. 94 Zelandia, vol. 1, p. 272. 95 Elias, Vroedschap, vol. 1, nos. 138 and 195. 96 nnbw, vol. 7, p. 1173. 97 le 269; h 126; fmh 2607. 98 le 105; fmh 2579. 99 le 109; h 125; fmh 2601. 100 le 119; h 131; fmh 2629. 101 le 118; fmh 2619-B. 102 le 102 (erroneously dated 1676); h 121; fmh 2587.

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Fig. 3.23. Romeyn de Hooghe, Allegory on the Events of 1680.

hardly expect any benefits from the man thus honoured. Finally, in 1680, Romeyn dedicated an allegory of that year’s events to the four reigning burgomasters of Amsterdam: Louis Trip, Gillis Valckenier, Cornelis de Vlaming van Oudtshoorn, and Johannes Hudde. This was the last print with a dedication that he made while living and working in Amsterdam (fig. 3.23).103 Romeyn’s dedications should give us some insight into the kind of social circles whose attention he hoped to attract.104 Two prints were targeted at aristocratic circles. He was already working for the King of Poland, and may have intended the dedication to John Sobieski as an acknowledgement of benefits received. The print for Villahermosa, on the other hand, was perhaps an attempt to attract attention to his art at the court in Brussels. The majority of his dedications were to rich and influential regents, especially in Amsterdam: the directors of the voc, the Admiralty Board (twice), and the 103 le 122; h 133; fmh 2644. 104 Veldman, Crispijn de Passe, p. 81.

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burgomasters of Amsterdam (twice). Well-connected magistrates were apparently the individuals from whom he expected the most in terms patronage and benefits. At the same time, the dedications enhanced the appeal of his prints among a wider circle of customers. Yet one fact stands out: at this stage in his career, Romeyn did not dedicate any of his prints to the Prince of Orange, or to any of the noblemen and courtiers in his entourage. This is all the more remarkable because most of his prints in this period glorified the military feats of the stadtholder. Romeyn apparently considered it inappropriate to seek personal and professional advancement in court circles in The Hague.

The Wheel of Fortune The full title of the book Romeyn published in 1674 is ‘Theatre of Changes in the Netherlands, Opened in Six Scenes, Wherein the Vicissitudes of the United Netherlands, Concocted by the French Invasion, are Revealed and Described’ (fig. 3.24).105 Striking for its artfulness and originality, it tries to make sense of the war by way of allegories in a series of six prints in folio format. Providing unusually elaborate clarifications, the book enlarges on the history of the Franco-Dutch War and explains Romeyn’s intricate and often rather bizarre allegorical idiom. The ‘Theatre’ is a proper book, containing all the usual front matter such as a frontispiece, title page, explanation of the frontispiece, dedication, a verse praising the volume and its author, and introduction.106 The title page states that the book was ‘Published by the Author in Amsterdam in the Year 1674’. The introduction betrays how much the events of the past two years had unsettled Romeyn. He regarded them as a true ‘revolution’ (revolutie), in its original meaning of a full rotation of the Wheel of Fortune. During the rampjaar, Romeyn was confronted with the prospect of the downfall and near annihilation of the once so prosperous Dutch Republic. Only one year later, he witnessed the unexpected and equally extraordinary reversal of the fortunes of war. This had precipitated him ‘in a deep confusion of thoughts’.107 He stated that he aimed to recount and illustrate, ‘for education and enjoyment […] the miraculous alterations and strange histories of this time. It is necessary that our fellow-countrymen and foreigners and our descendants know about these, so that the miraculous fall of this flowering nation may provide an example of the insecurity of all other nations’.108

105 De Hooghe, Schouburgh; lbi 38; h 103–108. The work was published in November or December 1674, as the text mentions the capture of Grave, which took place on 25 October 1674. 106 The dedicatory poetry is by Johannes Gribius, a young medical doctor from Amsterdam and author of De ontroerde leeuw, a contemporary history of the events of 1671–1677. 107 De Hooghe, Schouburgh, p. 1. 108 Ibid., p. 6.

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Fig. 3.24. Romeyn de Hooghe, Frontispiece to Schouburgh der Nederlandse veranderingen (1674).

Romeyn’s intense brooding on the instability of all human affairs also provided him with the subject for the two ‘Miraculous Mirrors’ he was to produce the following year, which addressed the rise and fall of the de Witt brothers and (inversely) the fall and rise of the Prince of Orange. The six scenes that make up the backbone of the Theatre are too rich and convoluted for even a summary analysis.109 Romeyn’s allegories elucidate, respectively, the peace reigning until 1672; the machinations of the Catholic Church and the King of France to prepare for war; the invasion of the United Provinces, with Utrecht, Gelderland, 109 See Munt, ‘Impact’, pp. 19–22.

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Fig. 3.25. Romeyn de Hooghe, War and Tyranny Ravaging the Netherlands, Plate 4 in Schouburgh der Nederlandse veranderingen (1674).

and Overijssel lying prostrate at the King’s feet; the misery following the invasion, with more scenes from the Bodegraven and Zwammerdam massacres (fig. 3.25); the reversal of the fortunes of war, featuring a group of naval heroes and (inevitably) the redeeming arrival of the Prince of Orange; and finally, the conclusion of peace with England, a maiden extending her hand to the armoured Dutch Maiden, while France is set on the run. In the introductory essay, Romeyn explains his desire to recount the history of the fall and resurrection of the Dutch Republic ‘in an amusing manner, pleasurable as much to the eye as to the ear’. If the ancient Greeks were famous as scientists and historians, it was the great tragedians among them who stood out, ‘like Euripides, who made the theatres of Athens groan by dousing palaces in their ashes, and smothering great princes in their blood’.110 Romeyn’s baroque allegorical idiom, obscure as it is to modern readers, would not have been easy for contemporaries to understand, either. The allegorical figure representing ‘The English Lust for Revenge’, for example, displays herself as a woman, raging tremendously. Her hair, flaming red and curly, flickers so horribly around her head that one can easily see that it would scorch everything where she meddles. She blows fire into the ears of Royal Lust for 110 De Hooghe, Schouburgh, p. 4.

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Domination, while offering her right hand to commit all kinds of violation. In her other hand, she holds a flaming sword to set everything ablaze and to slaughter. A tiger skin hangs over her shoulders, for she is ready to commit all sorts of horrors. Her five breasts are full of poison; the instigators of the war suckle them, yet they must eventually burst. She shows the flag of the Lord Admiral [Willem Joseph] van Ghent, the placards against the import and consumption of various French commodities and manufactures, and a map showing [the islands of] Pulau Run, Pulau Ai, and Surinam, and others; the medal and the painting of that great victory won at Chatham and Sheerness, under the command of Lord Cornelis de Witt, bailiff of Putten and burgomaster of Dordrecht. These objects serve to incense the King’s temperament and stir him up for war.111

Throughout the book, Romeyn draws on the Orangist rhetoric that had been widely disseminated in pamphlets during the ‘True Freedom’ era. Yet in the Theatre, Romeyn reveals himself a moderate Orangist. Reflecting on the causes of the war, he duly criticizes the members of the Loevestein or Republican faction who had been in power until the revolution of 1672: The first and most important cause of our calamity was the scandalous neglect of the required armament and the necessary preparations for the war, the consequence of a bitter hatred and foul zeal of some people who then controlled the government of the state, against the advancement of the Prince of Orange. We could not have the least suspicion as to their loyalty towards the Fatherland, and we considered it impossible that treacherous thoughts would arise in a great spirit, the essence and well-being of which is linked to the conservation of the common weal.112

Romeyn thus blamed, with some justification, the adherents of the Republican faction for neglecting the Dutch Republic’s land defences, although he did not credit them for the robust condition of the navy, which had prevented an Anglo-French seaborne invasion. He accused Johan de Witt – without mentioning his name – of nurturing ‘treacherous thoughts’, but he also considered him ‘a great spirit’. When discussing the de Witt lynching in his explanation of the third scene, Romeyn condemns the role played by ‘the mob’ (het grauw): ‘all honourable people denounced and abhorred this gruesome deed, but some say that the results are useful, namely in fortifying the indispensable office of stadtholder’.113 The argument is typical of mainstream Orangism and dovetails with his pictorial rendering of the de Witt lynching, in which the brothers take an heroic stand. 111 Ibid., pp. 14–15 112 Ibid., p. 5. 113 Ibid., p. 21.

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As we have seen, Orangist discourse celebrated the common interest of the Union above the particular interests of provinces and cities. In the Theatre, Romeyn duly argues that ‘the commonwealth was lost because the great liberty and sovereignty of each town caused everybody to follow his own interests’.114 The main programmatic tenet of Orangism was, of course, the dogma that the office of stadtholder was an essential part of the constitution of the Dutch Republic. Romeyn had visually advocated this idea in all his news prints and allegories since 1672. In two iconic prints of 1672, he inserted the images of William iii’s ancestors in order to highlight the value of dynastic succession. In the fifth scene of the Theatre, Romeyn goes one step further and projects the idea of a dynasty into the future, when he allegorizes the idea of ‘Eternal Stadtholderly Rule’ (Eeuwig Stadhouderschap) as a marriageable maiden, clad as a Princess […] in one hand holding the stadtholder’s baton, representing supreme authority. In her other hand, a series of medals attached to a string of pearls, affixed to a writhing snake, which hangs like a chain around her neck, represents eternity, and thus promises us a succession without end of that princely dignity onto the descendants of His Highness. The medals count from William i, Maurits, Frederik Hendrik, William ii, William iii, the fourth, fifth, and so forth, of that name, as an unbroken chain of succession of stadtholders.115

Romeyn designed an image of an angel at the end of the string, holding a phoenix; the symbol that represented Orangist hopes, during the ‘stadtholderless’ period, that the dynasty would rise from its ashes. The series provides room for a good deal of anti-Catholic rhetoric. The second scene features a priest wearing the triple papal tiara, ‘an arrogant representation of the Holy Trinity’, and a chasuble ‘to cloak their infinite horrors;’ he is pouring money from a cornucopia marked with the words ‘plenary indulgences’ to the bishops of Cologne and Münster. A group of Jesuits is busy forging bishop’s mitres into helmets and their staffs into lances. Yet in this respect, too, Romeyn’s position was moderate. Explaining the fifth scene, he remarks that Catholics and other dissenters, ‘expecting little advantage from a change of domination’, loyally fought side-by-side with their Reformed fellow-citizens. Mennonites, who refused to carry weapons, and Jews, ‘gratefully acknowledging their public freedom’, assisted in strengthening the fortifications of the cities. A member of the Reformed Church, Romeyn may have shared its prejudices against Catholics and other dissenters, but he was also an advocate of freedom of conscience, enshrined in the Union of Utrecht that served as the constitution of the Dutch Republic. 114 Ibid., p. 16. 115 Ibid., pp. 30–31.

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If Romeyn’s view of the origins of the war was moderately Orangist, it was also a mainstream one. During the rampjaar and the war that followed, a fervently patriotic mood gripped the inhabitants of the beleaguered provinces. Anxious about what the future might bring, they wholeheartedly supported the stadtholder as c­ ommander-­in-chief of the forces fighting the enemy. They deplored his setbacks and rejoiced in his successes. Few people wished to revert to the years of ‘True Freedom’, when it was generally believed that the Loevesteiners had sowed the seeds of the Republic’s present misfortune. Romeyn helped to spread this patriotic image of the state of the nation and the role of the stadtholder, and shared in the prevailing patriotic mood.

Competitors Romeyn and William iii were contemporaries. Born five years after Romeyn and predeceasing him by six years, it was inevitable that the Prince of Orange would loom large in Romeyn’s career. It was many years before the prince became Romeyn’s patron; William was to provide him with patronage and protection in return for political support. There is no evidence that this was already the case during the Franco-Dutch war, when Romeyn was churning out Orangist prints in his Amsterdam workshop. As we have seen, Romeyn emerged in 1672 as the leading printmaker producing news prints, allegories, and satire glorifying the role of the stadtholder. There is no indication that William or his entourage commissioned these, nor did the stadtholder need to encourage the production of patriotic prints. The war, the French occupation, the economic crisis, and the misery and confusion of the population by themselves created a market for such graphics, a demand that Romeyn and his publishers were eager to satisfy. Romeyn’s achievement as the leading purveyor of patriotic prints stands out when considered in the context of the overall output of the graphic industry during the war. No other artist was as prolific as Romeyn in making news prints, allegories, and satire. Others did cater to the same market, but in much smaller quantities; and most of them remained anonymous, being content to copy Romeyn’s designs for cheap books and prints. Gerard de Lairesse was the most accomplished painter and etcher of patriotic prints during this era.116 In 1672, for example, he made a news print of the banquet William offered to the States of Holland in celebration of his appointment as captain-general of the States’ army (also, as we have seen, captured by Romeyn), as well as a portrait of William iii with allegorical trappings.117 Later, he made allegories of the peace with England, the capture of the fortress of Grave, and the victories under William’s

116 De Vries, Gerard de Lairesse. 117 Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, vol. 10, nos. 70 and 100; fmh 2320.

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leadership.118 Johannes Jacobsz van den Aveele etched a series of five prints depicting the French occupation of the city of Utrecht as well as two news prints in 1677, one featuring the marriage of William and Mary Stuart ii, and the other the funeral of Admiral de Ruyter.119 Isaac Sorious, an artist active in Utrecht 1672–1676, made a series of 33 prints depicting the war in 1672 and a series of six representing the reversal of the fortunes of war in 1673–1674, containing a rather mediocre allegory glorifying William iii.120 After Romeyn, the most prolific artist working on the imagery of the war was Coenraet Decker, a follower (and perhaps a pupil) of Romeyn. In 1672, he produced several news prints showing the rebuff of the French assault on Aardenburg in Zeeland, the siege of Groningen, and the capture of Coevorden.121 The Groningen and Coevorden prints closely follow Romeyn’s designs on the same topics, but the Aardenburg print is an original one, albeit in the style of Romeyn. Decker also produced news prints of the capture of Grave and the battle of Seneffe, both his own inventions, but in Romeyn’s style.122 In addition, he etched allegories of the death of the de Witt brothers, the political and military power of William iii, and the victories of Admirals Michiel de Ruyter and Cornelis Tromp.123 His work can easily be confused with Romeyn’s own. Decker covered similar, or indeed the very same news items, in very much the same style. Yet Romeyn’s output was much larger, and his work surpasses Decker’s in originality. Romeyn’s productivity as a commentator on the war is even more astonishing if placed in the context of his overall production. In 1672, in addition to his freestanding news prints and allegories, he illustrated 26 different books. He illustrated 21 books in 1673 and 27 in 1674. Some of these books were commentaries on the ongoing war in which he could recycle his own inventions, such as Tobias van Domselaer’s history of the Franco-Dutch war, Het ontroerde Nederlandt [‘The Netherlands in Turmoil’]. But the large majority of these books bore no relation to contemporary affairs at all, such as Nicolaes Petter’s ‘Wrestling Book’, discussed above, or the illustrations in Constantijn Huygens’ volume of poetry, Koren-bloemen [‘Cornflowers’], or David de la Vigne’s Miroir de la bonne mort [‘Mirror of the Good Death’], a thoroughly orthodox Catholic Ars Moriendi.124 Historians have labelled Romeyn’s news prints and allegories ‘propaganda’ for William III, with some of them going so far as to suggest that William actually commissioned his prints.125 Yet the notion of propaganda is problematic. Though the 118 fmh 2513 and 328; Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, vol. 10, no. 71. 119 fmh 2620 and 2603. 120 Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, vol. 27, nos. 1 and 3, fmh 2349, 2585. 121 fmh 2367, 2385, and 2447. 122 fmh 2564 and 2551. 123 fmh 2423, 2318-A (added number rma, inv. no. RP-P-1908-166), and 2490; Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, vol. 5, no. 7. 124 Coppens, Ars; Wilson, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe’s Emblem Books’. 125 Van de Haar, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe’, p. 156 (‘betaalde propagandist’); Slechte, ‘Propaganda’, p. 16 (‘stadhouderlijke opdrachtgever’).

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term ‘propaganda’ dates from the seventeenth century, it was not used in its modern sense to mean ‘the systematic dissemination of information, especially in a biased or misleading way in order to promote a political cause or point of view’.126 ‘Propaganda’ suggests a purposeful campaign, organized and funded by a government agency, aiming at deliberately influencing the persuasions and the social and political values of its subjects. This gives rise to the question of who issued the propaganda message: the Prince of Orange himself, his court and ministers, pro-Orange city magistrates, the publisher, the artist, or even the customer who pinned the print to his wall? Those in power, as well as their opponents, were well aware of the formidable persuasive powers of the printing press and actively strove to harness it to their causes. The prints by Romeyn de Hooghe and others, as well as the numerous paintings, pamphlets, plays, and poems appearing during the Franco-Dutch war, ‘glorified’ the stadtholder in a general way rather than trying to sell his policies.127 ‘Glory’ was a key concept in seventeenth-century art and politics, and one can certainly say that Romeyn glorified William in his news prints and allegories, for example in the caption of the ‘Miraculous Mirror of the Prince of Orange’. Yet this does not imply that during the Guerre de Hollande, William or his court encouraged or indeed commissioned Romeyn and other artists to produce prints aimed at the proliferation of his glory. It is likely that engravers and publishers needed no prompting to deem it useful, as well as profitable, to produce broadsheets that enhanced the reputation and glory of the stadtholder. There is no evidence that the stadtholder actively interfered with the publication of prints during this period. It is also unlikely that Romeyn, at least at this stage in his career, would have emerged as an ardent Orangist on his own account. Shortly after 20 September 1678, Romeyn invented, etched, and published a large allegory celebrating the peace treaty concluded at Nijmegen that ended the Franco-­ Dutch War (fig. 3.26).128 He must have been aware that his celebration of peace would be far more pleasing to Amsterdam’s burgomasters than to the stadtholder. The latter had wished to continue the war, whereas the regents, representing Holland’s merchant community, had pressed for peace. William had to give in and regarded the treaty as a defeat. Among various personifications of the victims of the war – the Merchant without money or credit, Industry and Agriculture with their raw materials decaying and their instruments rusting – Romeyn designed a prostrate maiden, representing The Art of Painting, with dried-out daubs of paint on her palette and moth-eaten brushes. Although it is true that the war had been disastrous for artists,

126 The origin of the word is the Sacra congregatio de propaganda fide (‘Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith’), founded by Pope Gregory xv in 1622. The Congregation’s aim was the propagation of the faith, not propaganda for the faith. 127 Burke, Fabrication, pp. 4–6. 128 le 121; h 132; fmh 2638.

Fig. 3.26. Romeyn de Hooghe, Allegory on the Peace of Nijmegen, 1678 (detail).

signalling the end of the Golden Age of painting, in 1678 Romeyn had emerged as the most eminent, and probably the wealthiest, graphic artist in the Dutch Republic. Yet not everything was rosy: from the mid-1670s onwards, notwithstanding Romeyn’s success – or possibly because of it – ugly rumours began to circulate.129 People gossiped that Romeyn was a blasphemer and a thief, and they accused his wife Maria of lechery and adultery. The situation did not improve when, in 1678, Romeyn became entangled in a pornography scandal. 129 Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 12. In 1690, Romeyn dated the beginning of the rumours against him as ‘fourteen or sixteen years ago’.

4. A Wandering Whore and a Talking Dog The Wandering Whore On 15 March 1678, the bookseller, bookbinder, and publisher Timotheus ten Hoorn was summoned to Amsterdam’s town hall on a charge of ‘having distributed and sold several dirty pictures’.1 Even in the Dutch Republic, renowned for its religious toleration, freedom of the press was not unlimited. Writing, printing, selling, and indeed merely owning any book deemed seditious or scandalous was a criminal offence. In 1669, the States General, the Hof van Holland, and several cities had issued a wide-ranging edict banning a number of specific titles, including several ‘dirty and obscene booklets’ that corrupted the youth.2 Censorship legislation had primarily targeted publications undermining the safety of the state, public order, and true religion, but they now also aimed at conserving public decency by forbidding what was regarded as pornography. Yet enforcement of the censorship edicts was slack, due to the loose federal structure of the United Netherlands. A book banned in one city might pop up in the next one a few days later. The urban regents, always keen to protect the economic interests of their hometown, displayed a distinct lack of enthusiasm about interfering with the book trade. Although the law required that each publication display the name of its author and printer or publisher, booksellers routinely sold all kinds of anonymous publications under the counter.3 One week after interrogating Timotheus ten Hoorn, the Amsterdam magistrates’ bench (schepenbank) duly sentenced him to pay a fine of one guilder. Their verdict was extraordinarily mild, amounting to less than the value of the daily wage of a skilled labourer. When asked who had provided him with the offensive pictures, ­Timotheus had named a certain Stijntje Koops, widow of Bartholomeus Schouwers and presently married to Pieter van Dijck. The sheriff promptly had Stijntje arrested and interrogated.4 Naming three men who were safely dead and buried, Stijntje confessed that her late husband and a certain Dr Latenhouwer had bought the prints from the printmaker Crispijn de Passe, but she did not know when or for how much.5 While vigorously denying she had sold the prints to Timotheus, she admitted the possibility that her present husband or perhaps her eldest daughter might have done so. 1 saa, 5061, inv. nos. 150 and 207, 15 March 1678 and 22 March 1678. On Timotheus ten Hoorn, see Van Eeghen, Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 3, pp. 163–165, Peeters, ‘Leven’, and Leemans, Woord, esp. pp. 50–52 and 175–180. 2 Leemans, Woord, pp. 147–150. 3 On censorship, see Weekhout, Boekencensuur, and Groenveld, ‘Mecca’. 4 saa, 5061, inv. no. 324, f. 55 vo., 17 March 1678 and f. 58 vo., 24 March 1678. 5 Theodoor Latenhouwer was buried on 20 April 1672 and Crispijn de Passe II on 19 January 1670 (saa, 5001, inv. no. 1212, p. 41, and inv. no. 1158, p. 1). On Crispijn de Passe Jr, see Veldman, Crispijn de Passe.

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The sheriff then asked Stijntje for the name of the printer of a publication entitled De dwaelende hoer [‘The Wandering Whore’]. While acknowledging that she had heard that this notorious pornographic classic had again appeared in press, Stijntje professed no knowledge of the name of its printer or publisher. It was at this point that the name of Amsterdam’s famous etcher emerged. Who, inquired the sheriff, is selling the ‘dirty booklets’ (vuyle boekjens) by Romeyn de Hooghe?6 Stijntje promptly named a certain Pieter Voskuyl, a rather obscure bookseller ‘whose mother sells poultry behind the hall where he lives’.7 It was a murky affair, with the evidence proving too elusive for the sheriff to take a firm course of action. The court provisionally discharged Stijntje from confinement one week later, without passing sentence. The sheriff’s cause-list does not record a hearing of Romeyn de Hooghe, but in his 1690 apology, Romeyn himself reveals that the magistrates did summon him for an interrogation. According to his account, he succeeded in convincing the bench ‘gloriously and clearly’ that the rumours about his authorship of the illustrations in De dwaelende hoer were entirely spurious.8 He also mentions that around the same time, assistant sheriff Philips Engelbrecht caught a plate printer named Hendrik Hendriks red-handed, offering the plates for sale in Timotheus ten Hoorn’s shop.9 The offensive prints in question served to illustrate a new edition of a wellknown pornographic novel. At the time, the authorship of La puttana errante was ascribed to the Italian humanist poet Pietro Aretino, the inventor of modern literary pornography, but its real author was probably Aretino’s secretary, Niccolò Franco. De dwaelende hoer, in its new and illustrated 1678 translation, carried the puzzling subtitle Uylenspiegel op noten, referring to the famous trickster from sixteenth-century folklore, Till Eulenspiegel. The meaning of op noten is ‘set to music’, but it is unclear how this could be done with a prose text. A pamphlet nevertheless refers to ‘tours de manège […], practised to the tune of Pietro Aretino’s Uilenspiegel op noten’.10 The expression may have had a sexual connotation: the noun noot (‘nut’) was used metonymically for a sexual organ.11 The novel takes the form of a dialogue in which an older woman, Magdeleen, tells her younger friend, Willemyn, about her sexual experiences, describing 35 different positions for having sexual intercourse.12 An earlier Dutch translation, without illustrations, had appeared 6 On Romeyn’s role in the pornography affair, see De Haas, ‘Feit’, and Leemans, ‘Viceroy’. 7 Pieter Voskuyl is known as the publisher of a single pamphlet in 1672: Kn. 10072, Eyschen. 8 Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 12. 9 Ibid., p. 13 does not reveal the name of the printer, but he is identified in an attestation by his two daughters in 1690. Kn. 13545, Memorie van rechten … met de bylagen, pp. 19–20. On Philips Engelbrecht, see Bosma, Repertorium, no. 184. 10 Kn. 13534, Bekentmaeckinge. 11 Erotisch woordenboek, p. 133. 12 Leemans, Woord, pp. 104–109; Leemans, ‘Viceroy’, pp. 39–41.

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around 1670.13 No copies of the 1678 edition with its illustrations attributed to Romeyn are known today. Was Romeyn in fact the artist responsible for the lewd illustrations in the vanished edition of De dwaelende hoer? Amsterdam’s sheriff failed to press charges against him. ­ omeyn Since no copies of the novel exist, it is impossible to attribute the illustrations to R on stylistic grounds. Yet this is precisely what William iii’s secretary Constantijn Huygens Jr did, when he inspected a copy in October 1682. During a sojourn at the stadtholder’s ­ orssele van der hunting lodge at Soestdijk, he recorded in his diary how Adriaan van B Hooge, a nobleman in William’s retinue, had shown him during lunch ‘a booklet in the manner of the École des filles’. ‘The Girls’ School’ was a notorious French pornographic novel, a Dutch translation of which had been published around 1656.14 Van Borssele van der Hooge rather implausibly contended that he had ‘found it in the undergrowth while hunting with Bentinck’ (the future Earl of Portland) – a rather thin excuse for being in the possession of pornography.15 Huygens Jr was a discerning art critic and himself the owner of a fine collection of de Hooghe prints. His judgment was that the pictures were ‘seemingly [naar het scheen] designed by Romeyn de Hooghe’.16 The evidence strongly pointed towards Romeyn. It was twelve years before any witnesses were willing to testify against him; several of them stated that they had seen Romeyn and Maria peddling the bawdy prints at ‘The Wakeful Dog’, and one remembered that she had seen how the prints were hurriedly tossed into the fireplace immediately after Romeyn’s visit to the town hall.17 The attestations convincingly identified Romeyn as the author of the prints, despite his frantic attempts to discredit the depositors. But for the time being, the sheriff was unable – or more likely unwilling – to prosecute.

The Talking Dog Three years after these unpleasant events, Romeyn’s reputation received another blow. This time, the cause of his misfortune was the publication of another novel, entitled Het wonderlijk Leeven van ’t Boulonnois hondtje, or ‘The Curious Life of the 13 Only one copy of this edition is known to date. Aretino, Dwaelende hoer, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, shelf mark Rem. iv 404. 14 Anon., Escole. L’escole des filles (1655), attributed to Michel Millot and Jean L’Ange, is a novel in the same ‘dialogues of whores’ genre as De dwaelende hoer. On Adriaan van Borssele van der Hooge, see Van der Aa, Biographisch woordenboek, p. 964. 15 Huygens, Journalen, vol. 3, p. 77; Dekker, Family, pp. 132–134. 16 Bibliotheca … Zuylichemiana, p. 84, no. 1339, ‘Collection of Various Curious Prints of Romeyn de Hooghe, Bound in one Volume’. Huygens’ collection of de Hooghe prints, when auctioned after his death, yielded the meagre sum of one guilder and two stivers. The realized auction prices can be found in the copy kept in the Library of the University of Amsterdam, shelf mark otm ok 62–7410. On Huygens Jr as a connoisseur and art collector, see Dekker, Family, pp. 76–87. 17 Kn. 13545, Memorie van rechten … met de bylagen, Appendices b, d, g, i. See below, Ch. 10.

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Bolognese Dog, Talking by Witchcraft, Amusing Love-Makings, Strange Love-Convulsions, Humorous Pieces of Trickery, Farcical Experiences, and Cunning Thievery; Mostly Having Occurred, Very Recently, In and Around Holland’.18 In spite of the laws regulating the book trade, the title page fails to specify the name of the author, while the imprint is clearly fictitious: ‘at Fryburg [“Freeborough”], by Jacob van Boelonje [“of Bologna”] in the Crowned Dog on Dam Square’. The plot of the novel is as follows. A long introduction relates how two youthful lovers, Hermione and Artaxander, find a dog named Fidel who is capable of speech. Fidel tells the couple that he is in reality a young man, transformed by a sorceress into a dog. The metamorphosis had taken place in a wood near the Italian city of Bologna, hence the title of the book; but a ‘Bolognese’ is also a lap-dog of the Bichon breed, popular among the European upper classes. As punishment for being faithful to the memory of his deceased fiancée and having rejected the love of the magician, Fidel has lost his ability to speak, except in the presence of two lovers, ‘who suspect he is more than a dog’. This was a popular literary technique in early modern novels, known as a ‘novel of circulation’ or ‘it-narrative’: foregrounding an animal or an inanimate object as the narrator in a frame-story that was often a roman à clef.19 The novel continues with the dog Fidel recounting a series of eight salacious stories about all kinds of passionate entanglements and other sexual adventures of his previous owners, situations that usually remain concealed from human eyes – but not from the eyes of a dog – because of their intimate nature. All of the tales are situated in the Dutch Republic, mostly in the Province of Holland, and easily recognizable to a Dutch readership. The local setting helped to increase the novel’s appeal. The central character of the penultimate story is Romeyn de Hooghe. Although the book omits to mention his name in full, the biographical details leave no doubt as to his identity. For the benefit of those who remain unconvinced, the author characterizes one of that individual’s roguish tricks as ‘a Roman (Romeinsche) deed’. Elsewhere he is described as a man ‘of high Roman disposition’ (van een hoge Romeinse imborst), the pun giving away both Romeyn de Hooghe’s given name and his surname.20 Even the title page less than subtly hints at Romeyn’s identity. Few readers would have missed the similarity between the publisher’s (fake) address in ’t Gekroonde Hondtje op den Dam (‘In the Crowned Dog on Dam Square’) and Romeyn’s very real house and workshop ‘In the Wakeful Dog’. The frontispiece displays a fashionably dressed gentleman wearing a broad-brimmed hat and a curly periwig, walking his dog in a town square (fig. 4.1). The edifice in the background can be identified as Amsterdam’s municipal weigh-house, located in the centre of Dam Square, seen from the south. 18 Anon., Wonderlijk leeven (1681 edn.). 19 Rodríguez Pérez, Hond. The genre goes back to Miguel de Cervantes, El coloquio de los perros (1613). Another Dutch example is Anon., Wandelende dukaat; an English example is Coventry, History. 20 Anon, Wonderlijk leeven, pp. 235, 258.

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Fig. 4.1. Anon., Frontispiece to Het Wonderlijk leeven van ’t Boulonnois Hondtje (1681).

The man walking his dog is strolling in front of Romeyn’s print shop. Who could he be, other than the famous etcher himself? The talking Bolognese Fidel begins this particular episode of the novel by relating how he had first entered into the possession of his new master.21 This part of the story serves to introduce Romeyn to the readers, without divulging his name. The dog’s present owner is a young courtier from The Hague, who intends to present his pet to the wife of a certain gentleman residing in that city. Travelling by nightbarge, the courtier and his dog are spending the night in the cabin. A recently arrived passenger, tall and scrupulously dressed after the latest fashion, asks the skipper if he may share the cabin, because the main hold is full of common people. Fidel’s master kindly admits the new passenger, charging him half the fare he 21 Ibid., pp. 219 ff.

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has already paid. The newcomer displays ‘a miraculous command over his tongue and speaks of all matters of the world with uncommon grace’. When Fidel’s ­master finally goes to sleep, the ‘pleasant fellow’ (hupsche kwant) settles himself to read, or feigns to do so, while searching for a means to steal the dog. Upon arrival at the ­village of Alphen aan den Rijn, a stopping-place for the night-barges from ­Rotterdam, Delft, and The Hague, he surreptitiously changes to the Rotterdam barge, taking the dog with him. From Rotterdam, he catches another barge straight back to Amsterdam. Never stopping in The Hague, he clearly had no business at all in that city. Fidel casually explains that his new master ‘every now and then would undertake a ­journey, like the whores in Holland and Brabant used to do, in order to seek his fortune along the way’.22 At this point in the story, Fidel introduces his new master. ‘He was a great thief, who always had ample opportunities to steal, for he was always dressed like a gentleman’. He is ‘the son of bourgeois folk [burgerlijke luiden], who had lacked the means to let him study as much as his spirit demanded’. From childhood, he was capable of great things; yet he was born with the horrible sin of thievery. By the age of twelve or thirteen, he was so competent at drawing that he could have made his living from it; and by the time he pinched Fidel, he was reputedly one of the best master-craftsmen in Holland. Yet although he enjoyed a good income, he was unable to suppress his urge to steal.23 Initially planning to make some money by selling the dog, he fails to find a buyer.24 Having introduced his new master, Fidel goes on to relate four short stories, each illustrating his master’s lust for money, roguishness, and depravity. He is a counterfeiter, a trickster, and a thief. In the final episode, the narrator broadens his attack to encompass Romeyn’s wife Maria Lansman. This is what Fidel has to say.

The Forged Chinese Pictures The first story relates how a bookseller named ‘Jacobus’ was working on the publication of a great work on China, for which he needed a large number of Chinese drawings. These were to serve as the models for the etchings illustrating the volumes. Fidel’s new master, ‘an expert in the art of drawing’, immediately set to work and painted several gouaches following the Chinese fashion. According to Fidel, connoisseurs would have taken them for authentic. Yet his master could not sell the ­chinoiseries directly to Jacobus, because the latter was well acquainted with his tricks. 22 Ibid., p. 125. 23 Ibid., pp. 219, 226. 24 Ibid., p. 228.

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He therefore made use of an accomplice who had visited China. The next morning, he travelled to Haarlem to arrange matters and ensnare Jacobus. Several days later, Fidel’s master visited the bookseller Jacobus and told him he had a friend in Haarlem who had recently returned from the Indies and owned a large stock of Chinese drawings. The two men decided to go to Haarlem in order to purchase the drawings. Romeyn’s friend at first feigned himself unwilling to sell, while Fidel’s master, acting as a broker, to all appearances did his best to persuade him. The deal was eventually struck, and in celebration, Jacobus treated Fidel’s master to a splendid dinner and paid him ten or twelve silver dukatons to boot.25 Fidel scathingly comments that ‘the poor dope imagined he had pulled a fast one on the citizen of Haarlem with the help of my patron’.26 A few days later, Jacobus showed the Chinese drawings to a certain distinguished artist, who immediately spotted the deception, because the Chinese mix their paints in a special manner that Europeans cannot imitate perfectly. Jacobus began to suspect Fidel’s master, but wanted to hear the opinion of others before accusing him. Meanwhile, the Haarlem accomplice, having received 50 guilders for his cooperation, was jabbering away about ‘this Roman deed’, making Jacobus a laughing stock.27 Jacobus sent for Fidel’s master and angrily demanded his money back. The latter played the innocent, protesting that he had acted in good faith and accusing Jacobus of being ungrateful. Jacobus ordered his servant to report the affair to the sheriff and have Fidel’s patron thrown in jail. At this point, our man started to ‘tremble like a leaf shaken hither and thither by a strong wind’. He had committed many roguish tricks but never been to prison, though he had been sued for several thefts. Fearing that others might bring their complaints if he had to serve time, he confessed and begged for forgiveness, promising Jacobus to pay him back. But the publisher, realizing that his words were ‘as trustworthy as the waves of the Ocean’, summoned a public notary to draw up a deed in which Fidel’s master acknowledged he has cheated Jacobus and promised to produce as many illustrations for Jacobus as might be necessary to pay back the purchase price of the Chinese drawings, as well as all other expenditure. Soon afterwards, disagreement about the terms resulted in a new contract, which specified in detail the number and quality of the requested pictures. What in this story – if anything – may have been true? Informed readers of the novel would have had no difficulty in identifying ‘Jacobus’ as Jacob van Meurs, an engraver, merchant of books and prints, and prolific publisher of travelogues and works on exotic geography (an allusion to his first name appears on the title-page of 25 A dukaton is a silver coin to the value of 63 stivers; 10 dukatons equals fl. 31:10; 12 dukatons equals fl. 37:16. 26 Wonderlijk leeven, p. 230. 27 Ibid., p. 233.

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‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’ as the bogus publisher ‘Jacob of Bologna’).28 The fictional character ‘Jacobus’ in the dog’s tale was designed to suggest that the narrative was based on fact. There is, however, no proof of the veracity of the story. No notarial deeds in the Amsterdam archives have surfaced in support of the dog’s claim that Romeyn was forced to provide free illustrations to van Meurs, although his work can be spotted in many of van Meurs’ publications.29 Van Meurs was the publisher of two magnificently illustrated folio volumes on China, one by Johan Nieuhof and the other by Olfert Dapper, which had appeared in various editions and languages.30 Himself an able draughtsman and engraver, van Meurs may have made some of the etchings himself; the rest were probably done by his assistants in his spacious atelier on Keizersgracht. For the Nieuhof volume, van Meurs used sketches made on site by the author. Olfert Dapper, whose book came off the press in 1670, had handed in his manuscript without any sketches at all. This book contains many engravings à la chinoise that must have been made with Chinese examples, genuine or fake, at hand.31 It is likely that van Meurs and his assistants were responsible for most of the illustrations, but one large print representing ‘Pomp and Circumstance of the Mandarins’ may be attributed to Romeyn on stylistic grounds (fig. 4.2). Another work by van Meurs, published in 1669 and about the voc’s embassies to the emperors of Japan (which the Bolognese pet may have confused with ­China), contains at least one etching by Romeyn.32 To date, six preparatory sketches by Romeyn are known for four works with an exotic theme published by van Meurs between 1669 and 1672.33 Romeyn also provided illustrations for other works by van Meurs that were unrelated to the Orient: in 1672, almost 400 etchings for a prestigious three-volume work about fortifications entitled Den arbeid van Mars [‘The Labour of Mars’], and three years later another 39 plates for Lambert van den Bosch’s four-volume Tooneel des Oorlogs [‘Theatre of War’].34 These large commissions do not suggest that relations between van Meurs and Romeyn had soured due to the latter’s foul play.

28 On van Meurs, see Van Eeghen, Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 3, pp. 246–247. 29 No references in Kleerkooper and van Stockum, Boekhandel, vol. 1, pp. 416–424. 30 Nieuhof, Gezantschap; Dapper, Gedenkwaerdig bedryf. For the illustrations, see Blussé and Falkenburg, ‘Johan Nieuhofs beelden’; van Meersbergen, ‘Amsterdamse en “Antwerpse” edities’; Wills, ‘Author’; and Schmidt, Inventing Exoticism, pp. 94–97. 31 Dapper, Beschryving, esp. the illustrations nos. 1–4 bound between pp. 106–109. 32 About this print, see Ott, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe’; van Eeghen, ‘Arnoldus Montanus’ Book’; Montanus, Gedenkwaerdige gesantschappen, between pp. 248 and 249. 33 Ott, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe’, p. 25. 34 Manesson Mallet, Arbeid; lbi 97; h 817–967. Cf. Verhoeven and Verkruijsse, ‘Verbeelding’, p. 167. Van den Bosch, Tooneel; lbi 41.

Fig. 4.2. Romeyn de Hooghe (attr.), Pomp and Circumstance of the Mandarins, in Olfert Dapper, Gedenkwaerdig bedryf der Nederlandsche Oost-Indische Maetschappye (1670).

The Nicked Timepiece and the Lace Jabot A short while later (the dog continues), his master and one of his best friends, named ‘Astolfus’, visited the Commodities Exchange (Bourse) around noon. They did so not for reasons of business, but in order to see whether ‘they could find an advantage’. They soon noticed a merchant whose pockets were rattling with money. Astolfus, more dexterous in this trade, was to pick the merchant’s pockets, while Romeyn (as we shall call Fidel’s nameless master) was to stand behind him and quickly take the loot. Having addressed the merchant about some goods, Astolfus slipped his hand into his pocket, took out a watch and surreptitiously handed it to Romeyn. He then attempted to reach the money in the merchant’s pocket, but found a handkerchief in his way. Trying to remove this impediment, he became incautious. The merchant grabbed Astolfus’ arm and, noticing that his watch has disappeared, furiously demanded it back; or else, he cried, he would report Astolfus to the magistrates’ court. Astolfus of

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course denied having the watch and offered to have his body searched. ‘But if you do not find the watch on my body’, he said, ‘I shall demand satisfaction; and if the court fails to do me justice, I am a man who makes his own justice!’ The onlookers agreed that Astolfus should be body-searched. Meanwhile, Romeyn, having made his way through the crowd of merchants to the other side of the building, told the bourse servant he had just found a golden pocket watch ‘sitting in a green shagreen locker’. Would the servant be so kind as to announce his find? He would be delighted to return the watch to its rightful owner, for which purpose he would spend two hours waiting in De Hertog van Kleef (‘The Duke of Cleves’). The mugged merchant was just body-searching Astolfus when the announcement came through. Realizing his mistake, he immediately begged ­Astolfus’ forgiveness and humbly offered to render him a service on some future ­occasion. But Romeyn’s friend, calling him an uncivil beast, demanded ­compensation for being treated like a thief in the presence of honest gentlemen, grabbed him by his cloak, and was about to report him to the sheriff. Finally, bystanders succeeded in ­persuading him to let the matter rest. The duped merchant duly reported to the tavern to collect his watch. But the man who had allegedly brought it was nowhere in sight, while the innkeeper had no clue as to what the merchant was talking about. The story ended with Romeyn and Astolfus selling the timepiece in Dordrecht for 260 guilders. This is not the only example of the kleptomania of Fidel’s master. Only one week later, he visited a merchant in order to discuss the design of a pattern for some cloth. In an exquisitely furnished side room, he saw lying on a chair a splendid jabot made of fine Venetian lace with an estimated value of at least 100 guilders. Annoyingly, the merchant never left the room. Being a voluble speaker as well as a virtuoso liar, Fidel’s master told the man a long story, ‘so amusing as to make the fool almost wet himself with mirth’. In order to imitate a certain posture, he took off his cloak and in a broad sweep threw it over the jabot. Having finished the interview, he picked up his cloak, took the jabot with it, slipped it into his pocket, and politely bade farewell. Again, the question arises as to the veracity of these stories. They do contain several clues: ‘The Duke of Cleves’ was a well-known inn situated at Rokin near the Bourse;35 and ‘Astolfus’ refers to a well-known literary character Astolfo, a paladin of Charlemagne in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, who rides a hippogriff. His name highlights the literary quality of this episode, which may well be derived from an (as yet undiscovered) French or Italian picaresque romance. Here, Romeyn plays the role of a lusty rascal, whose actions, though morally reprehensible, command respect for their craftiness. He is the archetypal picaroon who elicits moral reprobation whilst entertaining the reader with his hilarious adventures. 35 Hell, ‘Amsterdamse herberg’, p. 364.

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Yet the story may contain a kernel of truth. On 3 May 1666, at the office of the Amsterdam public notary Henrick Outgers, Romeyn produced an attestation at the request of the painter Pieter Fris, the brother-in-law of his uncle Pieter de Hooghe.36 He declared that he had, 21 months ago, ‘sold to, exchanged with, and delivered to [Fris] a certain golden watch, enameled with images, with a golden chain therein, for which he had received [from Fris] four paintings’. Romeyn self-importantly signed the deed as ‘Romanus de Hooghe’.37 It can, of course, never be proven that this watch was the same as the stolen watch described in the fictitious dog’s narrative. But the document does give rise to some disturbing questions. How did Romeyn, at the time of the transaction a nineteen-year-old apprentice or journeyman who was still living with his parents, acquire a valuable golden pocket watch? And why did Pieter Fris need a legal document to prove that he had duly bought the watch from Romeyn? Did he somehow know or suspect that it was stolen, and did he need to prove he had acquired it legally (although this might give rise to the accusation of handling stolen goods)? The date of the transaction is also peculiar: it apparently took place in August 1664, when the plague was raging and Romeyn Sr took his citizen’s oath, shortly before Romeyn lost three siblings and fell ill himself. Is there a connection? And, finally, why did he exchange the watch for paintings instead of cash? Was the watch meant to be the starting capital for a career in art-dealing?

The (Not So) Secret Life of Maria Lansman The dog continues his account. Shortly afterwards, his master decided to mend his ways, being admonished by his next of kin and apprehensive of being caught. It should not be too difficult to refrain from his bad habits, as his drawing skills provided him with so many commissions that he was working day and night. Being extremely avaricious, he took every chance he could to make money. In order to convince the public that he was no thief, he frequented the church and sought the company of honest folk. A certain young woman, whose deceased father had been a most God-fearing and distinguished man, let her eye fall on him and made it clear she loved him. He remained indifferent, but pretended to return her love when he heard that she was well-off. But her mother, a devout widow, resisted the match. In order to force her mother’s hand, the young lady swore she would allow her lover to make her pregnant if she would not agree to the marriage. Seeing that no improvement was to be expected, the good lady finally gave her consent. ‘Thus, my master obtained a wife – and I a mistress’. 36 Pieter Fris was married to Josina or Josijntje, a sister of Martijntje van der Hulst, wife of Romeyn’s uncle Pieter de Hooghe. 37 saa, 5075, inv. no. 3189, f. 191; published in Künstler-Inventare, vol. 6 (1919), p. 1987.

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Two or three weeks after their marriage, they rented a house ‘in the newly-built quarter of the town’ (the area in which Reguliersgracht is situated). They were to live there for only seven or eight months. During their first year of marriage, they produced a child. From then onwards, she began to slip; and it was her husband’s fault. Fidel had heard him saying repeatedly that he would not mind that she allowed herself to be ‘abused’, as long as she made some money from it. She observed this lesson so well that Madam allowed Amsterdam’s little squires, who were swarming like bees around our house, to shave her so lustily, that she was afflicted by an impure flood with certain pustules; the healing of which took Master … more than a month. [… My master did not blame her] because she had made so much money with her bottom that these expenses might well be charged against it.

As soon as she had recovered, she resumed her old ways. Her husband allowed her many opportunities to do so by making himself scarce or spending his time in the shop (voorhuis). Meanwhile, the pot burnt for the second time, but this time much worse; for my chaste mistress was beyond help as long as she remained ambulatory. If she wished to avoid the Spanish ants devouring her alive, she had to resort to the smeerbed [literally ‘smear-bed’, a bed in a hospital ward for treatment with ointment].

Fidel’s master was unhappy about this, not because he would miss his wife, or because she had to spend a few weeks in misery, but first, because this would cost him a pretty penny, and second, because she would not earn anything in the meantime. He circulated a rumour that his wife had left on a jaunt for a few weeks. Few believed this, due to their notorious reputation, and the incident led to the writing of many libels. Yet Romeyn could not care less, and being ‘of a high Roman disposition’, he wiped his bottom with any paper that contained even the slightest bit of slander or ridicule. After five weeks, the dog’s mistress was fit again, and the barber-surgeon who had fixed the job arrived to collect his fee. A horrible quarrel arose. While his master had been under the impression that 25 dukatons (almost 80 guilders) would be enough, the surgeon demanded 200 guilders. He swore that he would drag his master before the magistrates’ court and openly divulge the disease from which his wife had been suffering. The dog’s master’s claim that others had paid only 40 or 50 guilders for their treatment counted for nothing. He would have to pay up if he wished to avoid incurring the mockery of the world. The little dog rejoiced. His master, used to cheating everyone else, had been given a dose of his own medicine. Having learned the hard way, he would certainly reach an agreement with the surgeon the next time. ‘As could well be the case, for old ice

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freezes with ease’. As soon as Fidel’s master had handed the money to the ‘pocks-master’, he swore he would now sell the dog for any acceptable offer, although ‘his burntout wife’ would have liked to have kept it as a pet. He sold the animal to a gentleman of private means in the city of Groningen. Thus ends the seventh episode told by the Bolognese Dog. The character of the final short story is markedly different from the previous ones; gone is the resourceful trickster whose actions, though immoral, elicit admiration and laughter. Driven by his lust for money, Fidel’s master brutally brings ruin upon his wife. The story also contains many more clues to actual places and people, pointing unambiguously to Romeyn and Maria; such as her clerical family background, the couple’s address in the new town quarter, and the birth of Maria Romana. We shall see later that rumours about their indecent lifestyle had been circulating for a long time. Only much later would witnesses commit their attestations to paper, confirming in detail both the circumstances of Maria’s infidelity and Romeyn’s connivance. Yet it seems unlikely that Romeyn was driven mostly by monetary considerations. The couple’s relaxed attitude towards extramarital sex rather suggests a libertine and hedonistic mind-set, reminiscent of the ideas of the radical philosopher Adriaan Beverland.38 In his booklet De peccato originali [‘On Original Sin’], Beverland maintained that original sin ought to be recognized as the sexual urge transmitted from parent to child and derived from Adam and Eve’s transgression. He advocated the liberation of the sexual drive, among both women and men.39 The book was condemned shortly after its publication, and Beverland was fined and exiled from the Province of Holland. It is impossible to prove whether Maria Lansman actually contracted syphilis as a result of her alleged amorous encounters. It was unusual for a couple to procreate only one child, but this could have been for any number of medical reasons.40

Honour and Shame The Bolognese Dog’s attack on the moral integrity and reputation of the de Hooghes was shattering. How did the couple respond to the publication of the libellous novel? One can only imagine their horror, despair, and anger. The assault targeted the most precious asset of all in early modern society, an individual’s honour or reputation; an essential part of one’s social capital.41

38 Israel, Radical Enlightenment, pp. 87–88; De Smet, ‘Realm’. 39 Beverlandus, De peccato. 40 The Burial Registers in the Amsterdam Stadsarchief do not record the burial of any stillborn or very young infants born to the de Hooghes. 41 On the significance of honour, see Frijhoff and Spies, 1650, pp. 187–190.

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In order to live as ‘honourable folk’ (eerlijke luiden), the inhabitants of the Dutch Republic were in need of friends. ‘Friends’, in early modern usage, included relatives and kin as well as intimate friends in the modern sense, and powerful protectors. Friends were indispensable for forging a career, scaling the social ladder, and receiving help in case of disease, unemployment, business adversity, and other misfortunes. Merchants, entrepreneurs, and artisans would not turn to a bank to obtain credit, but to their relatives and other ‘friends’. Having ‘credit’ was synonymous with having a spotless reputation. Only a person’s honour guaranteed that he would eventually pay back his creditors.42 A man’s honour lay primarily in his professional skills and integrity. A master-engraver like Romeyn would conclude hundreds of agreements with artists, booksellers, publishers, and printers. His reputation as an honourable man was the only reason to trust that he would honour his obligations. Bereft of his good name, it would be very difficult indeed to do any business at all. The reputation of a woman, on the other hand, was primarily located in her sexual demeanour. A woman was supposed to be chaste, modest, and obedient. If she was married, she was expected to be faithful to her husband. Accused of fornication and adultery, a woman would lose her virtuous reputation. In addition, she would make her husband a cuckold, thus heaping dishonour on him as well. The legal scholar Simon van Leeuwen was not off the mark when he concluded that ‘except for life itself, nothing is more precious than one’s honour, and the good feeling another man has for us’.43 For this reason, the publication of ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’ must have come as a blow to the de Hooghes. Their loss of reputation threatened to entail loss of work and income. Who would help them in their distress? Even little Maria Romana, seven years old in 1681, would be hurt, for how was a daughter of such dishonourable parents ever going to find a decent husband? Nine years later, when his reputation once more came under attack, Romeyn would defend himself vigorously. One of the tactics he employed was underlining his ‘honourable’ descent from a family of Ghent magistrates and pointing out that Maria Lansman was also descended from a ‘distinguished and honourable lineage’ (fraai en eerlijk geslacht).44 Yet it is remarkable that in 1681, following the publication of the novel, Romeyn refrained from putting up any defence at all. Libel, of course, was a criminal offence, but there is no trace of judicial action against any suspected author, publisher, printer, or bookseller. It would have been difficult for Romeyn to convince the sheriff to open an investigation. First, he needed solid proof as to the identity of the author or the publisher. More importantly, the book never specifically mentions Romeyn’s name – even if, in another sense, his name was written in large characters all over it. Making a fuss 42 On the importance of friendship, see Kooijmans, Vriendschap. 43 Quoted in Roodenburg, ‘Eer’, p. 129. 44 Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 10.

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would inevitably draw undesirable attention to the novel, while the public might interpret it as an admission of guilt. Romeyn probably reasoned that lying low and waiting until the storm blew over was his best strategy. One can imagine how his neighbours, colleagues, assistants and apprentices, and eventually half the population of Amsterdam sniggered about the saucy stories and the misfortune that had befallen the de Hooghes. Other citizens of Amsterdam, not least the ministers, elders, and Romeyn and Maria’s fellow-members of the Reformed Church, were shocked. Yet the consistory, usually quick to berate members who had strayed from the narrow path of the righteous, refrained from taking action against the couple for any of the outrages described in ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’.45 Apparently, the elders were unable to find any reliable first-hand testimony confirming the incriminating facts brought forward by the talking dog. Only in May 1683, when the de Hooghes had moved to Haarlem and requested an attestation of good behaviour from the Amsterdam Church, did the affair stir up the Amsterdam consistory.

The Anatomist and the Abbé Who wanted to hurt the de Hooghes, and why? Was it revenge, jealousy, a prank that got out of hand? Contemporaries may well have asked the same questions. In 1724, Jacob Campo Weyerman, a painter of flower pieces and a prolific hack, critic, satirist, journal editor, and figurehead of the Dutch Enlightenment, described a comedy he had attended in Amsterdam: A candle-snuffer with the mien of a runaway Kaffir appeared on stage, with the air of [someone living in] Duivelshoek (‘Devil’s Corner’).46 He originated from that Bolognese Dog that owes its birth to the pen of Govert without a Soul, and has caused more clamour by its barking than did his father by his anatomist’s lancet.47

A full generation younger than Romeyn, Campo Weyerman was writing more than 40 years after the publication of ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’. Nevertheless, he had an insider’s knowledge of the Dutch Republic’s literary underground. The ‘anatomist’ dubbed ‘Govert without a Soul’ was none other than Govert Bidloo.48 In 1681, Bidloo was still a simple barber-surgeon with an interest in anatomy, who combined his trade with a career as a prolific poet and playwright for Amsterdam’s municipal theatre. He had collaborated closely with Romeyn on several book projects, and 45 On the selectivity of consistories as to whom to censure, see Pollmann, ‘Off the Record’. Clerical discipline as practised by the Amsterdam Reformed consistory is explored in Roodenburg, Onder censuur. 46 A notorious working-class quarter near Reguliers tower (the present-day Munttoren) in Amsterdam. 47 Campo Weyerman, Ontleeder, vol. 2, no. 3 (1726): 17 (first published 30 October 1724). 48 For Govert Bidloo, see below, Ch. 9.

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would continue to do so during the 1680s and 1690s. He vigorously defended Romeyn in writing during the 1690 Pamphlet War. If Bidloo was the author of ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’, he must have been a master of deceit, secrecy, and duplicity, and Romeyn a credulous dupe. A closer inspection of the novel itself shows that Campo Weyerman simply had it wrong. ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’ is a translation of a novel originally published in Paris in 1668 entitled Le chien de Boulogne ou l’amant fidelle: nouvelle galante [‘The Bolognese Dog, or the Faithful Lover: A Gallant Novel’].49 The anonymous author was the abbé Antoine Torche, a renegade Jesuit who made his living as a writer of scurrilous novels, and who is chiefly remembered for his translations of Torquato Tasso’s Aminta and Giovanni Battista Guarini’s Il Pastor fido.50 Le chien de Boulogne is a roman à clef by which Torche aimed to blemish the reputation of a certain Parisian lady, whose daughter had rejected his amorous advances. The scandal caused by his novel forced Torche to flee Paris. As the subtitle indicates, the book is a ‘gallant’ one; that is, amorous or romantic, rather than pornographic, like De dwaelende hoer. It was an immediate hit: two Parisian editions appearing in the same year were followed by a third edition in ‘Cologne’ (actually Brussels or Utrecht) and a German translation. It was not the abbé-turned-hack, however, who was behind the attack on the de Hooghes. The Dutch translation dating from 1681 diverges substantially from the French original. Only the first section closely follows the French narrative of two youthful lovers finding a talking dog that turns out to be a bewitched human being. The original text then continues with a rather starry-eyed tale of a French nobleman taking part in the siege of Lille and falling in love with a fair maiden of that city, all seen through the eyes of the perceptive dog. In the Dutch translation, by contrast, the introduction is followed by a series of eight salacious novellas, all exploring various forms of extramarital sex. Retaining only the title and the introductory tale, the translator-editor composed the rest of the book from other sources, all or most of them French novelettes, more or less adapted so as to suggest a Dutch setting and accommodate the talking dog in the narrative.51

49 Paris: Claude Barbin, 1668; 2nd edition Paris: Gabriel Quinet, 1668; 3rd edition with fictitious imprint ‘à Cologne: chez Pierre du Marteau’, published in Brussels in 1678 by Philippe Vleugart, or in Utrecht by Gijsbert van Zijll. A German translation materialized in 1678: Torche, Boulognesische Hund, and a modern edition appeared in Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1979. 50 On Torche, see ‘Présentation’, in Torche, Chien, pp. i-x; Siècles littéraires, vol. 6, pp. 240–242; and Biographie universelle, vol. 46, pp. 240–242. 51 The first two stories after the introductory tale are translations of ‘L’apothicaire de qualité, nouvelle galante et veritable’, in Donneau de Visé, Diversitez Galantes, pp. 17–38, and ‘Le mary credule’ in Donneau de Visé, Nouvelles galantes, pp. 115–139. Cf. http://mengelwerk.tumblr.com/search/Boulonnois (accessed 25-4-2016).

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That leaves us with the section about Romeyn de Hooghe, the seventh after the introduction. It is possible that in the future, French sources will be found for the roguish adventures ascribed to Romeyn. But it is more likely that the work’s publisher was responsible for this section, recycling current gossip about a well-known local character. Such an approach was not unusual in translated literary works. It served to convince the readers that the other stories in the book had actually taken place in the Netherlands and, crucially, that they were equally ‘true’.52 Not for nothing did the novel’s subtitle promise a collection of amusing narratives ‘mostly having occurred, very recently, in and around Holland’. So who were the literary entrepreneurs responsible for the Bolognese Dog’s resurrection in the Low Countries?53

Novels and Drollery ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’ originated in the shop of Jan Bouman, a bookseller and bookbinder based in Amsterdam’s Kalverstraat opposite the ­ ­Nieuwezijds Chapel.54 Tiny flaws into the type of the vignette printed on the title page seem to be identical to those found in the vignette used for another novel published by Bouman around the same time.55 Along with Timotheus ten Hoorn, the convicted publisher of ‘The Wandering Whore’, Bouman was Amsterdam’s premier publisher of titillating French novels in translation, aimed at a broad popular readership.56 He was, for example, the man lurking behind the enigmatic ‘Elie Jogchemse van Rijn’, the fictitious publisher of ’t Amsterdamsch hoerdom [‘The Amsterdam Whoredom’], a salacious and largely fictional account of Amsterdam’s flourishing red light district.57 His colleague Timotheus ten Hoorn was listed as a bookseller and bookbinder with a shop on Nes street, opposite De Brakke Grond.58 After Bouman’s death in 1686, ten Hoorn took over his stock of ‘The Amsterdam Whoredom’ and brought out several reprints. The two bookmen shared a taste for saucy stories and they often worked in tandem. Ten Hoorn did not own a printing press, but outsourced the production of

52 Grootes, ‘Zeeheld’, pp. 309–310. 53 On the world of early modern authors, publishers, printers, and booksellers, see Dijstelberge and Verkruijsse, ‘Schitterend moeras’, and Dijstelberge, ‘Drukkers’. 54 On Jan Bouman, see Van Eeghen, Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 3, pp. 40–42, and Leemans, Woord, passim. 55 De Scudéry, Des doorlughtigen Bassa Ibrahims, vol. 2, title page. I am grateful to Paul Dijstelberge for pointing this out. 56 Leemans, Woord, p. 65. 57 Anon., Amsterdamsch hoerdom. A French translation came out during the same year: Anon., Putanisme. Cf. Van de Pol, Amsterdams hoerdom, and van de Pol, Burgher. 58 ‘The Brackish Land’, a former cloister used as an inn and various other secular purposes. On Timotheus ten Hoorn, above, fn. 1.

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his publications to various independent printers, including Jan Bouman.59 It is therefore impossible to say whether Jan Bouman was responsible for publishing ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’, or Timotheus ten Hoorn (using Jan Bouman’s printing press), or the two men together. The lion’s share of all romantic and erotic novels in the Dutch Republic during this period bore the imprints of either Jan Bouman or Timotheus ten Hoorn. Ten Hoorn was the uncrowned king of publishers specialized in what his shop catalogues advertised as ‘novels and drollery’ (romans en snakerij). He published more than a fifth of all first impressions of novels appearing in Amsterdam between 1677 and 1700. Many of his publications are love-stories, varying from (adaptations of) heroic-gallant novels to erotica, focusing on sex, love, satire, and pleasure. Ten Hoorn himself was the author of some of the novels on his list. The preface to his novel Hollantse trouw-gevallen [‘Dutch Marriage Cases’] spells out a programme for a new direction in literature that presents stories as true events, or at least events that could have been true.60 Set in the Dutch Republic, such tales are purportedly written by the characters themselves and aim at a broad audience by employing a simple style of writing. He also published a number of erotic novels using fictitious imprints, but it is difficult to specify which ones and how many. However, the two bookmen were not the translators of Le chien de Boulogne. Most probably, the book was translated by a respectable minister of the Reformed Church named Gotfried van Broekhuizen.61 Van Broekhuizen was born in 1651 in Engelen, a rural village on the border of Holland and States-Brabant near ’s-Hertogenbosch, where his father was a minister of the Reformed Church, after his grandfather before him. In 1669, he went up to Leiden to read Theology.62 Twelve years later, he received a call from the Reformed community at Hekelingen, a tiny village huddling behind the sea-dike on the island of Putten, south of Rotterdam. He settled in this remote corner of Holland, tending the souls of his parishioners, until his retirement in 1729, and died two years thereafter. Van Broekhuizen would have led the placid life of a country vicar, had he not been gripped by a passion for belles-lettres. He became a prolific translator and writer: at least twenty works carrying his name or initials on the title-page came off the press 59 Peeters, ‘Leven’, p. 21, identifies, apart from Timotheus’ brother Jan Claesz ten Hoorn and Jan Bouman, Dirk Boeteman, Klaas ter Loo, Hendrik Harmens, and Alexander Jansz Lintman. 60 Ten Hoorn, Hollantse trouw-gevallen. 61 Lia van Gemert and her students at the University of Amsterdam have unmasked the anonymous author of ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’ using computerized stylometry, a statistical analysis of the most frequent words in samples of prose texts. I am grateful to Lia van Gemert for sharing and discussing the preliminary results of her research with me. 62 Erfgoed ’s-Hertogenbosch, Index to registers of births, marriages, and burials Rosmalen, no. 3: Godefridus, son of Hendrik van Broeckhuijsen and Helena Hoverincks, baptized on 23 July 1651, ‘father minister of this town’. His enrolment at Leiden in Album, col. 553: ‘Godefridus a Broekhuysen Engelen-Hollandus’, 29 March 1669. He gave his age as twenty, though he was only seventeen. Only summary biographies of van Broekhuizen exist: nnbw, vol. 4, col. 309–310 and Van der Aa, Biographisch woordenboek, vol. 2.2, col. 1374.

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between 1679 and 1687. Initially, his literary output consisted mostly of translations of racy French novels, but once established as a pastor, he shifted to more serious fare such as travelogues and histories, more consistent with his dignity as a minister of the Lord. The Bolognese Dog was published in the same year that van Broekhuizen received his call at Hekelingen; he probably worked on the translation when he was a student or an ordinand. The bulk of van Broekhuizen’s translations came off the presses of only two Amsterdam publishers, those of Timotheus ten Hoorn and Jan Bouman. Of sixteen works published between 1679 and 1686 under van Broekhuizen’s name or initials, ten Hoorn published eight and Bouman five, while one work came out under their joint imprint.63 Only two of van Broekhuizen’s works were issued by other publishers during that period, one of them being Timotheus ten Hoorn’s brother and business associate, Jan Claesz ten Hoorn.64 Bouman’s death also signalled the end of van Broekhuizen’s collaboration with Timotheus ten Hoorn.65 It is prima facie unlikely that dominee van Broekhuizen had an axe to grind with Romeyn. It is difficult to think of a motive, as the two men had probably never met. The publisher is more likely to have been responsible for the smear-campaign.The mere fact that both the title-print of ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’ and the fake imprint ‘In the Crowned Dog on Dam Square’ directly refer to the etcher suggests the agency of the publisher. The paratext was an element over which an author or translator had little influence. The publisher may have provided van Broekhuizen with the details of Romeyn’s life and told him to spin a story around them, or he may have reworked van Broekhuizen’s translation, or he himself may have been the author of the entire section. Did Bouman or ten Hoorn have a motive, professional or otherwise, to slander Romeyn? Most of the works brought out by Timotheus ten Hoorn and Jan Bouman were illustrated, sometimes lavishly, with etchings of rather mediocre quality. Romeyn, who worked for so many different publishers, never illustrated any of their popular novels. The two bookmen may have deemed Romeyn’s work, with its learned allusions 63 Timotheus ten Hoorn was the publisher of Huet, Verhandeling van den oorspronk der romans (1679), Préchac, De musket-draagende heldin (1679), de Brémond, De bedroogene Hertog (1679), de Segrais, De wonderlijke werkingen der liefde (1680), Vairasse, Historie der Severambes (1682), Maimbourg, Historie der kruisvaarders (1683), Rycault, Historie der drie laatste Turksche keizers (1684), and Maimbourg, Historie van de kettery der beeldstormers (1685). Jan Bouman published de Brémond, Den nieuwen pelgrim (1679), de Thevenot, Gedenkwaardige en zeer nauwkeurige reizen (2 vols, 1681 and 1682), Savary, De volmaakte koopman (with Hyeronimus Sweerts and Jan Claesz ten Hoorn, 1683), and Hondorffius, De tien geboden des Heeren (translated from Latin, 1685). Timotheus ten Hoorn and Jan Bouman jointly published de Mézeray, Chronyk van Vrankryk (1685). De Sublignie, De valsche Clelie, jointly published by Jan Bouman, Timotheus the Hoorn and Jan Claesz ten Hoorn (1680), is commonly attributed to van Broekhuizen, but was probably authored by Simon de Vries. 64 Jan Claesz ten Hoorn published Eduward Melton (a pseudonym of van Broekhuizen), Zeldzaame en gedenkwaardige zee- en landreizen, and Dan, Historie van Barbaryen (1684); Aart Dirksz Oossaan published De LaPlace, Samenspraaken van een vader en zyn zoon (1684). 65 From 1687 onwards, Aart Dirksz Oossaan became van Broekhuizen’s favourite publisher.

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Fig. 4.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Illustration in Baldassare Castiglione, Den volmaakten hooveling (1675).

to classical mythology and religious imagery, too highbrow or possibly too expensive for the market they targeted. Two publications issued by Bouman in 1673 and 1674 have frontispieces and illustrations made by Romeyn, but these are news books rather than novels.66 In addition, Romeyn provided two illustrations for a Dutch translation of Baldassare Castiglione’s Il Cortigiano published by Bouman in 1675 (fig. 4.3).67 As far as can be ascertained, Romeyn made no illustrations for any of Timotheus ten Hoorn’s publications.68 There is, however, one exception: the notorious vanished 1678 edition of ‘The Wandering Whore’ with its enigmatic subtitle ‘Eulenspiegel Set 66 Van den Bosch, Reysende Mercurius (lbi 26) and van den Bosch, Spaensche Mercurius (lbi 35). 67 Castiglione, Volmaakten hooveling (not catalogued in lbi or Verkruijsse and Verhoeven, ‘Short title-lijst’). 68 Verkruijsse and Verhoeven, ‘Short title-lijst’ erroneously mentions two titles: Perdou de Subligny, Gewaande Klelie, published in 1680 by Jan and Timotheus ten Hoorn and Jan Bouman; and Van der Linden, Leven

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to Music’. As we have seen, on account of that work, ten Hoorn received a summons to appear before the magistrates’ bench and was fined, while Romeyn was questioned but let off without punishment. Had Romeyn reported Timotheus during his chat with the sheriff? Or did Timotheus hold a grudge against Romeyn for getting off scotfree, while he, Timotheus, had to take the consequences? It is not unthinkable that private rancour was a motive for slandering Romeyn in the talking dog’s account. Yet even in the absence of a personal grudge, it was entirely consistent with ten Hoorn’s and Bouman’s editorial policy to adapt and reshape the translation of a French novel for a Dutch audience by introducing gossip about a well-known local character. Romeyn de Hooghe, a successful but perhaps not universally wellliked artist, about whom rumours had persisted since the mid-1670s, perfectly fitted this role.

en daaden, published in 1685 by Jan and Timotheus ten Hoorn, Jan Bouman, and Aart Dirksz Oossaan. The unsigned and rather crude illustrations in De gewaande klelie, however, are definitely not by Romeyn’s hand. The illustrations in Leven en daden van Jan Sobietzki are signed by Jan and Caspar Luyken; the title-print is their copy of Romeyn’s famous equestrian portrait of the Polish King. Romeyn, however, did provide illustrations to several books published by Timotheus’ brother Jan Claesz ten Hoorn: a.o., De Wicquefort, Fransche tyrannie (1674), and his own work Spiegel van Staat (1706–1707) came off his press.

5. A Fresh Start Romeyn Evicted? The Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles holds a pen drawing showing four allegorical characters chasing an individual away from a city (fig. 5.1). The authorship of the anonymous and undated picture is obscure, but it is presumed to represent Romeyn de Hooghe being expelled from Amsterdam.1 On the left, a man with a giant periwig is smiling mischievously. In contrast to his abundant hairdo – a periwig was a sign of wealth and leisure – he is dressed like a tramp. Leaning on a stick and accompanied by a dog (!), he is carrying the besace or beggars’ knapsack, a famous symbol of the rebellious nobles who had started the Dutch Revolt. In his left hand, partly cut off by the border of the drawing, he clutches a purse or a money bag. In the foreground gleams a pile of treasure with the legend Aeraium, a misspelling of aerarium (public treasury). The character is evidently not only a vagrant but also a thief, a combination not uncommon in the early modern imagination. He is accompanied by a repulsive hag, winged and clawed, hovering above him and shrouded in dark clouds, the symbol of Invidia or Envy. The ­beggar-thief and his companion are being expelled from a city, visible in the background, by an allegorical figure, a woman holding a stick in her right hand and a knot of snakes in the other. She represents ‘Concord of War’ (Concordia militare), according to Cesare Ripa ‘an armoured woman, holding in her hands a bunch of snakes thrown together; for she is able to protect herself with weapons and harm others with venom, which is brought about by anger’.2 The central figure on the right, dressed in sixteenth-century garb, embodies the city-maiden of Amsterdam. She has no particular attributes, but the imperial crown on the wall behind her unequivocally refers to that city, which had the right to display the crown above its arms. She holds a laurel wreath over a figure sitting to her left, representing Justice, with scales (but no blindfold), a bundle of fasces (the ancient Roman symbol for justice), law books, and another imperial crown sitting on her lap. The figure on her other side represents the public executioner, dressed in ancient costume, the headman’s sword at his side and a flail (representing a scourge?) over his shoulder.

1 Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Research Library, Romeyn de Hooghe etchings, 1667-ca.1700, accession no. P850001, inv. no. 890147. The Institute acquired the drawing in 1985 together with a large batch of Romeyn de Hooghe prints and related pamphlets. I am grateful to Louis Marchesano for providing this information. The drawing is incorrectly attributed to Romeyn de Hooghe in Wilson, ‘Art’, pp. 384–385 (Catalogue of Accepted Drawings, no. 41). 2 Ripa, Iconologia of Uytbeeldinghen, p. 98.

Fig. 5.1. Anon., Romeyn de Hooghe Expelled from Amsterdam, c. 1690.

The city-maiden holds a heraldic shield in her right hand, which enigmatically shows eleven mice under three crowns. The mice can only refer to Nicolaes Muys (literally ‘mouse’) van Holy, Romeyn’s nemesis in the 1690 Pamphlet War. The legend on the wall on the right, Priviligium Sacrae C[atholicae] Majestati[s] (‘Privilege of His Sacred Catholic Majesty’, the official title of the kings of Spain), relates to the clash between Amsterdam and William iii about the city’s privileges. The combination of shield and legend firmly date the print to 1690, or very shortly afterwards. The style of the drawing, with its rich allegorical trappings and extravagant movement, remotely resembles Romeyn’s own, but it is unthinkable that Romeyn was the author of a cartoon mocking himself. It is more likely that one of his pupils or former pupils was the author. The drawing probably did not serve as the design for a print, because no copies of such a print are known. The drawing, though a result of the Pamphlet War, cannot possibly refer to the events of 1690. By that time, Romeyn had been a resident of Haarlem for many years, where he had acquired full poorter rights. The notion that he was expelled from Amsterdam in or around 1690 simply does not make sense. The drawing must have been intended to put Romeyn’s earlier departure from Amsterdam in a bad light; its message was that the move had been anything but voluntary. In his ghost-written apology ‘Malice and the Spirit of Quarrelling’, Romeyn obliquely refers to the story behind the lampoon. Several of his domestic staff, ‘conspiring

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with those who envied and slandered him, had spread the rumour that a secretary of Amsterdam, on behalf of the burgomasters, had ordered him to leave’.3 The burgomasters of Amsterdam did in fact have the authority to expel citizens without due process if they deemed it necessary to do so for the maintenance of peace and order.4 But this was not what had happened, according to Romeyn. Only a handful of ordinary citizens, and certainly none of the regents and other ‘people of quality’, had believed this bit of gossip. The one and only reason for moving house was the fact that he had received a handsome inheritance from his uncle Pieter de Hooghe.

Uncle Pieter’s Testament Early in 1681 – the same year ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’ was published – Romeyn’s uncle Pieter de Hooghe died. On 28 February, he was buried in Haarlem’s Great or St Bavo Church, next to his wife Martijntje, who had died five months ­earlier.5 Among the four de Hooghe brothers of the generation above ­Romeyn – Jan, ­Pieter, Romeyn Sr, and Louis – Pieter had been the most successful. In 1647, he reported his profession as button-making, like his younger brothers, but he appears to have abandoned the button industry and turned to various other businesses (the nature of which is obscure) and become fairly well-to-do.6 Having no children of their own, Pieter acted twice, and Martijntje four times, as godparents to the children of ­Romeyn Sr and Susanna Gerrits. One of Romeyn Sr and Susanna’s children was baptized Pieter, and two others Martijntje. In 1663, Pieter de Hooghe and Martijntje van der Hulst moved to Haarlem, where they settled in a house surrounded by a large garden in Geldeloze Pad (‘Penniless Path’), pleasantly situated in the lush green suburbs outside the city’s southern Hout Gate (fig. 5.2). Cleverly combining their family names, they baptized their new home De Hooge Hulst (‘The High Holly’). Punning upon house names appears to have been a tradition in the de Hooghe family. The reason for their move to Haarlem is uncertain. Martijntje’s father Cornelis van der Hulst had lived in Haarlem, where he had died in 1657.7 Perhaps the plague that ravaged the families of Pieter’s brothers provided the incentive to move to the relatively salutary suburbs of the less contaminated neighbouring city. Pieter probably continued to do business in Amsterdam.8

3 Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 14. 4 Bontemantel, Regeeringe, vol. 1, p. 132. 5 nha, 2142, inv. nos. 81 (10 September 1680) and 82 (28 February 1681). 6 saa, 5001, inv. no. 464, p. 294. 7 saa, 5075, inv. no. 2423E, f. 23-23 vo (6 November 1657). 8 In 1665, Pieter de Hooghe authorized a relative of his wife to demand payment from his debtors in Amsterdam. saa, 5075, inv. no. 1843B, p. 97.

10 13

12

9 8

3

4

6 5

7

11

Fig. 5.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, Map of Haarlem, 1688–1689 (detail of fig. 5.5).

1. Geldeloze Pad, with Romeyn’s house De Hoge Hulst 2. Houtpoort (Hout Gate) 3. Romeyn’s house on Nieuwe Gracht 4. Ridderstraat, with entrance to drawing academy 5. Kruisstraat, with van der Gon familyhome 6. Grote Markt (Great Market) 7. Town Hall 8. Great or St Bavo’s Church 9. Walloon or French Church 10. Amsterdam passenger-barge terminal 11. Leiden passenger-barge terminal 12. River Spaarne 13. Bastion with Romeyn’s stone yard and (later) drawing academy

2

1

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In a series of successive testaments, Pieter and Martijntje took care to provide for their less fortunate kin. In 1667, they mutually instituted each other as universal heirs, except for the substantial sum of 8,000 guilders, which they could freely dispose of by codicil. Five years later, Pieter made a new testament in which he revised some of his former dispositions, which attests to his concern about the well-being of his relatives.9 He bequeathed 2,000 guilders to ‘the child or children of [his older brother] Jan’ (in 1672, Saertien was the only survivor of Jan’s fourteen children), under condition that Jan would enjoy the usufruct during his lifetime. To his nephew Romeyn the artist he bequeathed 400 guilders, in redemption of the sum Pieter had loaned earlier to Romeyn Sr, which was now in the possession of the latter’s widow Susanna Gerrits. In addition, he bequeathed to Romeyn another 600 guilders. The surviving child of his deceased youngest brother Louis also was to receive 600 guilders, being part of a debt of 3,500 guilders Louis and his progeny owed for taking over the inventory of Pieter’s button-making shop. He bequeathed another 100 guilders to another nephew, the son of his deceased sister Maria, who was living in the East Indies (‘knowing no better than that his name was van Lingen’). Strikingly, he also remembered several members of the affluent de Hooghe branch: 1,000 guilders for his cousin Paulus or his son (the lawyer Romeyn) and the same amount for his niece Anna, wife of the painter Ludolf Backhuyzen. In addition, Pieter willed several smaller bequests to a button-maker called Albert van Heems, probably an old friend and colleague, and to his former maidservant Hilletien, the wife of his gardener Jasper. The rest of the disposable 8,000 guilders, another 2,200 guilders, was destined to help out any ‘needy individuals of the testator’s family or blood’. The testament is instructive for several reasons. It shows that Pieter and his wife were well-off. It also demonstrates that Pieter not only felt responsible for providing for his kin after his demise (it was common practice to make sure that property would remain within one’s own family), but that he had also assumed responsibility for his less fortunate siblings during his lifetime: he had loaned 400 guilders to his brother Romeyn Sr, and he had transferred the inventory of his shop (to the value of 3,500 guilders) to his brother Louis, probably at the time when he himself abandoned the button-maker’s trade. These were loans, not gifts, but Pieter does not seem to have pressed his brothers (or, after the carnage of 1664, their widows and surviving children) to pay back the principal. In December 1680, just two months before his death, Pieter had another testament drawn up because of the recent death of his wife.10 All of his brothers and sisters were now dead, while his niece Saertien (daughter of Jan) and his nephew Louis (son of Louis Sr) were minors. Only his nephew Romeyn was of age, married and with offspring of his own. This time, Pieter was much less liberal in doling out bequests: 1,000 9 nha, 1617, inv. no. 353, 23 October 1667; saa, 5075, inv. no. 3591, ff. 107–109 (9 November 1672). 10 saa, 5075, inv. no. 4460, pp. 687–692.

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guilders for Saertien, 500 for Anna de Hooghe, 100 for his maidservant Hilletien, and 300 for the poor of the village of Zandvoort near Haarlem. As in his previous testament, he acquitted ‘the children of Louis de Hooghe’ (in effect, Louis’ only surviving son, also named Louis, now seventeen years old) of the sum of 600 guilders from the debt owed for the shop inventory. Apart from these modest bequests (a total of 2,500 guilders, instead of the 8,000 in his previous will), he instituted as his only and universal heir ‘his nephew Romeyn de Hooghe, son of Romeyn’, leaving him his house De Hooge Hulst, as well as the handsome sum of 38,000 guilders.11 Romeyn eagerly accepted this windfall, but remained true to his niggardly reputation by failing to pay out the bequests stipulated by his late uncle. The executor had to take the matter to court, which duly sentenced Romeyn on 17 June 1682 to pay the underage legatees (i.e., his cousins Saertien and Louis Jr) mentioned in the testament. Yet this was to no avail, at least for the time being; six months later, the magistrates had to issue another verdict ordering him to pay up within a fortnight. For good measure, they authorized ‘the captain of the night watch, accompanied by the town clerk and the usher’ to pay him a visit and if necessary enforce their judgment.12 Pieter de Hooghe’s sister-in-law Josina van der Hulst and her husband Pieter Fris also felt compelled to sue Romeyn. Martijntje had bequeathed the usufruct of 8,000 guilders of the inheritance to her sister during the latter’s lifetime, which Romeyn failed to disburse. By the summer of 1688, the disagreement had not yet been resolved.13

Motives for Moving Was the unexpected and fortunate acquisition of his uncle’s residence on Geldeloze Pad the only reason for Romeyn and his family to take up residence in Haarlem? In in his apology, Romeyn remained noncommittal about his motives: The reason why Romeyn de Hooghe left Amsterdam is that his uncle, Pieter de Hooghe, who was living in Haarlem, deceased in the year 1680 [sic] and bequeathed him, Romeyn de Hooghe, who was his only heir, an inheritance of 38,000 guilders. For which reason, he took up residence in the property inherited from his uncle in Haarlem.14

Romeyn’s explanation is rather unconvincing. Why would an eminently successful engraver leave Amsterdam, the centre of the Dutch and indeed the European printing trade? His thriving workshop on Dam Square, surrounded by the world’s premier publishers and booksellers, lay at the very heart of the international book industry. 11 12 13 14

The only source for the amount is Romeyn’s own statement in Kn. 13551, Nyd, pp. 13–14. nha, 3111, inv. nr. 26.7G, f. 44 vo. nha, 3111, inv. no. 26-8G, ff. 103 vo-104. Kn. 13551, Nyd, pp. 13–14.

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In 1680, when Amsterdam’s publishers issued 274 titles, their colleagues in Haarlem managed to supply the market with only 22 publications.15 Haarlem’s printers were less likely to publish the technically intricate illustrated books, maps, and atlases to which Amsterdam’s publishing industry owed its fame. Romeyn never worked exclusively for Amsterdam’s publishing firms, but most of his plates were printed locally. For example, out of seventeen books for which Romeyn provided a frontispiece or illustrations in 1680, nine were printed in Amsterdam and just one in Haarlem.16 Romeyn’s only patron in Haarlem was Abraham Casteleyn, publisher of the Hollandsche Mercurius yearbook, for each issue of which Romeyn provided the frontispiece.17 That can hardly have been the reason for moving to his late uncle’s house. Romeyn was acutely aware of the importance of his presence in Amsterdam to his business. During his first years in Haarlem, he tried to avoid burning his bridges. According to his apology, he leased out his house on the New Island [Binnenkant on Nieuwe Waalseiland] in Amsterdam for six consecutive years, with the intention of seeing and resolving in the meantime how the inherited dwelling and property in Haarlem would please him, and after the expiration of these six years move back to his house in Amsterdam.18

He also ‘kept fire and light’ (i.e., he rented lodgings) in Amsterdam in order to avoid the appearance – or so he said – of abandoning his Amsterdam poorter rights. He probably continued to use ‘In the Wakeful Dog’. Romeyn pointed out – surely in order to disprove the rumours about his expulsion – that he spent almost half his time in Amsterdam during this period, frequenting such public places as Dam Square, the Bourse, and the churches, and visiting several magistrates at their homes.19 It was certainly possible that he was a frequent presence in Amsterdam. The distance between Amsterdam and Haarlem is only 17 kilometres, and the two cities were conveniently connected by the Haarlemmertrekvaart, a canal specially constructed to accommodate a regular trekschuit or passenger-barge service. With hourly departures, it allowed passengers to travel comfortably and cheaply (at 2 ½ stivers for a single trip) from one city to the other in two hours and fifteen minutes, with only one transfer at Halfweg.20 Thus Romeyn could live in Haarlem and work in Amsterdam – and become one of the modern world’s first commuters. 15 Short Title Catalogue Netherlands (stcn), www.kb.nl/stcn (accessed 6-11-2017). On the Haarlem book trade, see Dorren and Verhoeven, ‘Twee gezichten’. 16 Verkruijsse and Verhoeven, ‘Short title-lijst’, p. 267. 17 Verhoeven and van der Veen, Hollandse Mercurius, pp. 62–63. 18 Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 14. 19 Ibid. 20 De Vries, ‘Barges’, pp. 56–57; Van der Ham, Tot gerief, p. 22.

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Romeyn was under no obligation whatsoever to live in his late uncle’s house. He could have put it up for sale, or used it as a country house, allowing him and his family to escape the heat and stench – and plagues – of the Amsterdam summer. Perhaps this is what he initially did. The exact date of the family’s relocation is uncertain. In May 1690, Romeyn told the magistrates’ court of Haarlem that he had been living there ‘for eight or ten years’, which would date his move to between May 1680 and May 1682.21 In ‘Malice and the Spirit of Quarrelling’, he states that he kept lodgings in Amsterdam ‘from 1680, when he moved with his wife to Haarlem, until 1684, and long afterwards’.22 It is unlikely that the de Hooghes settled in Haarlem before Pieter de Hooghe’s death in February 1681. The move must have taken place fairly soon after that, in the course of 1681. This was also the opinion of the Amsterdam Reformed Consistory, which reported in May 1683 that the de Hooghes had moved out ‘more than one year ago’.23 The Consistory also provides us, far more convincingly than did Romeyn himself, with a motive. It flatly states that the couple had relocated ‘because for a long time, and among all people, there had been very evil rumours about them’.24 According to Romeyn’s account in ‘Malice and the Spirit of Quarrelling’, the gossiping had started in the mid-1670s.25 But if the rumours provided the incentive, the publication of ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’ in the same year that Pieter de Hooghe died must have been the last straw. One can easily imagine how Romeyn – and even more so Maria – wished to make a clean break after the scandalmongering, against which they were defenceless. Books travelled as easily to Haarlem as did trekschuit passengers, of course, and it would not take long before the citizens of Haarlem were fully informed about the questionable reputation of their new neighbours. Nevertheless, the suburbs of Haarlem seemed a good place to lay low until the storm had blown over.

Before the Consistory Having settled in Haarlem, the de Hooghes wished to join the local Reformed Church. They selected not Haarlem’s ‘public’ Dutch Reformed Church, but the much smaller Walloon or French Church, snugly situated in Haarlem’s former Begijnhof (beguinage). Founded as an independent foreigners’ church during the Dutch Revolt, to accommodate the religious refugees from French-speaking areas in the southern provinces, the Walloon Church accepted another wave of French Huguenots after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The Dutch and the French Reformed 21 NHA, 3111, inv. no. 56.1, 10 May 1690. 22 Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 14. 23 saa, 376, inv. no. 15, p. 8. 24 Ibid. 25 Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 12: ‘fourteen or sixteen years ago’.

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Churches adhered to the same confession, but the Walloons had a consistory of their own and conducted their services in French. In Amsterdam, the de Hooghes had been members of the ordinary Dutch Reformed Church, which Maria’s father had served as a minister.26 Like many members of the elite, the de Hooghes probably opted for the much smaller Walloon congregation because it was chicer and more distinctive, as the faithful had to be familiar with the French language. In order to join, the de Hooghes needed to produce an attestation from the Amsterdam Church, a document testifying to the orthodoxy of their opinions and the godliness of their conduct. On 6 May 1683, Romeyn and Maria made their request through one of the elders. Having refrained from investigating the conduct of the couple immediately after the publication of ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’, the members of the Consistory now had to make up their minds. Considering that they had moved to Haarlem as a result of the ‘very evil rumours’ that were circulating, they resolved to keep the matter under consideration and assign dominee Gerardus Havicius the task of gathering further information.27 Havicius set to work at once. One month later, he presented his report about his enquiry ‘in the neighbourhood where [Romeyn] has lived and is reported to have a room’, that is, the Dam Square area. His witnesses had unanimously declared that Romeyn de Hooghe and his wife are the objects of a very scandalous rumour and that he is considered somebody who mocks God and His Word, of which they had narrated various examples, as well as a number of obscenities; several people would be greatly offended if an attestation be granted to such an individual.

The Consistory, horrified about what they had learned, resolved to withhold the certificate and charged dominee Isaac Le Maire (a distant relative of Romeyn’s) to communicate this to the de Hooghes, with the addition that ‘he [Romeyn] shall refrain from attending the Lord’s Supper here in Amsterdam’.28 One week later, the reverend reported that he had conveyed the assembly’s resolution to Maria Lansman, ‘to which she has listened with disdain’ (met versmadinge).29 The consistory decided to drop the matter and await the de Hooghes’ next move.

26 Ibid., p. 17: Romeyn states that he had been a member and taken the Lord’s Supper for 21 years, hence since 1669. 27 saa, 376, inv. no. 15, p. 8. 28 saa, 376, inv. no. 15, p. 10. Le Maire was a full cousin of Helena Le Maire, the first wife of Paulus de Hooghe, a cousin of Romeyn’s father. He had of course also been a colleague of Maria’s deceased father. Evenhuis, Ook dat was Amsterdam, vol. 1, p. 194. 29 saa, 376, inv. no. 15, p. 14.

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It took three full years for that move to materialize. In July 1686, the Consistory received a letter from their Walloon brethren in Haarlem requesting an attestation for the couple. The Consistory of Amsterdam haughtily replied that ‘individuals desiring an attestation must present their request in person’.30 Undeterred, the Walloon consistory repeated their demand four months later, but the Amsterdam brethren stuck to their guns.31 The de Hooghes had no choice but to report to the assembly. On 5 December 1686, Romeyn finally appeared before the Consistory and demanded his attestation. A heated discussion ensued ‘about several matters with which he had been charged’, with Romeyn being given to understand that the attestation would be denied for the time being and the matter deferred to the next meeting.32 On 2 January 1687, Romeyn appeared once again, but to no avail due to the absence of several members.33 Only two weeks later, his case was resolved in a quite unexpected manner. Deeply upset about the scandalous rumours, the brethren had nevertheless been unable to find any witnesses willing to step forward and testify. They therefore reluctantly decided to grant the attestation, although not in its habitual form: Romeyn de Hooghe and his wife Maria Lansman, having lived here among us for some time as members of the true Reformed Church, are now both living in ­Haarlem and have requested from us their ecclesiastical attestation. N ­ evertheless, since ­general, grave rumours have come in against them, contrary to the o­ rthodoxy of the Faith and the piousness of conduct, the Assembly has not been able to grant them an attestation in the usual form. Considering that following a ­previous inquest into the matter no one has proved willing to present himself at the ­Consistory, or take legal action regarding the matter, and that they have now been living in Haarlem for some considerable time and have presented themselves to the local Walloon Church, we do hereby hand them over to the latter and commend them to their Christian supervision.34

The Haarlem Walloon consistory decided to accept the attestation, though they regarded it ‘slightly irregular’ and left it to Romeyn to inquire into the reasons and demand satisfaction from their colleagues in Amsterdam.35 On 10 April 1687, Romeyn was back in Amsterdam, complaining that his attestation was ‘somewhat meagre’ and requesting the assembly to make changes to the text. The members of the Consistory refused to budge. Considering that the document contained nothing that was 30 31 32 33 34 35

Ibid., p. 146. Ibid., p. 158. Ibid., p.161. Ibid., p. 163. Ibid., pp. 165–166. The text of the attestation also in Kn. 13551, Nyd, pp. 17–18. nha, 2153, inv. no. 3, 26 January 1687.

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untrue, that Romeyn had already accepted it ‘with gratitude to the assembly’, and that the Walloon Church of Haarlem had admitted him regardless to the Lord’s Supper, they flatly denied his request. They also refused his subsequent demand that the scribe record his protest in the Church registers.36 They had clearly had enough of Romeyn de Hooghe.

Settling Down Around 1680, Haarlem had some 40,000 inhabitants, a number that was steadily decreasing. The city was much smaller than Amsterdam, which boasted a growing population of about 220,000.37 Its economy was in poor shape.38 The once famous ­linen industry was in decline, although the bleaching of linens, now mostly i­ mported, remained an asset. The influx of Huguenot French silk workers in 1685 following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes provided a new lease of life, but was not sufficient to stem the economic tide. Haarlem’s artistic production was also in decline.39 During the half century between the 1580s and the 1630s, the city had been the main centre for the visual arts in the Dutch Republic, but from then onward, it was overtaken by a booming Amsterdam. By 1680, the older generation of Haarlem painters had died (Frans Hals in 1666, Salomon van Ruysdael in 1670, Willem Heda in 1680). Many of the best painters of the younger generation moved to Amsterdam in search of patrons; they included Jacob van Ruysdael in 1666, while Nicolaas Berchem lived in Amsterdam from 1661 to 1670, and again from 1677 until his death in 1683.40 ­Adriaen van Ostade died in 1685; Jan de Bray moved to Amsterdam in 1689 following his ­bankruptcy. By the late 1680s, Romeyn de Hooghe was the only artist of consequence living in Haarlem. In the long run, settling in Haarlem did not negatively affect Romeyn’s artistic output. Although fewer works with his illustrations or frontispiece appeared in 1683 and 1684, he was back to his former production levels by 1685. Amsterdam’s publishers continued to commission his works.41 Apparently, they deemed his outstanding artistic reputation more relevant than his rather doubtful private one. For some time after moving to Haarlem, Romeyn continued to make use of his workshop ‘The Wakeful Dog’. The artist Matthias de Jong, who at the time was living with the de Hooghes as an apprentice, testified in 1690 that Romeyn used to leave him

36 37 38 39 40 41

saa, 376, inv. no. 15, p. 179. De Vries and van der Woude, First Modern Economy, p. 66. Van der Ree-Scholtens, Deugd, pp. 173–174. Ibid., pp. 295–296. Van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Biographies’, p. 103. Verkruijsse and Verhoeven, ‘Short title-lijst’.

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in charge of the house when he was residing ‘at his farmstead [hofstede] in H ­ aarlem’.42 As time passed, Romeyn and Maria must have grown to love the clean air, the wide views, and the pleasantly laid-out gardens surrounding their mansion De Hooge Hulst, ­ erhaps they were as well as the intimate small-town atmosphere in Haarlem. Or p just fed up with the constant sniggering behind their backs in their birthplace. Only gradually did the couple decide to make Haarlem their hometown, and their change of heart is documented by several steps. The first step, to hedge his bets, may have been Romeyn’s decision to enlist in January 1683 as a member of the artists’ confrerie (later known as Confrerie Pictura) in The Hague.43 The confraternity was a society of artists (painters, glaziers, engravers, and sculptors) who had seceded in 1656 from the local St Luke’s guild, which also admitted ordinary house painters (disrespectfully called kladschilders or ‘daubers’) and other ordinary manual workers. The goal of the new elite confraternity was to strengthen their professional identity and promote social and commercial ties between its members. Their secession testifies to an increasing sense of professional identity among artists, who wanted to distinguish themselves from mere artisans. Their elitism was in keeping with Romeyn’s sense of himself as a gentleman-artist, preferring to mingle with the social elite rather than with lowly craftsmen. His membership is nevertheless surprising, since he never ran a workshop in The Hague. It is possible that Romeyn was attracted by the founding in 1682 of a drawing academy by several members of the confrerie. An informal group of young artists, but also a few dilettantes – among them the sons of the stadtholder’s secretary, Constantijn Huygens – gathered several evenings each week in order to sketch from the nude (their favourite model was a young fellow nicknamed ‘The Flying Crab Louse’).44 Romeyn may have joined their meetings to improve his own skills or to teach. Another possibility is that he was hoping to find wealthy patrons in Holland’s administrative centre. In 1684, the painter and etcher Gerard de Lairesse also became a member without giving up his Amsterdam residency; four years later, he received a commission from the Hof van Holland for several large murals.45 Romeyn’s membership was to bear fruit in 1691, when he was commissioned to construct and adorn several triumphal arches for the festive entry of William iii. Romeyn’s request in May 1683 for the ecclesiastical attestation required to join ­Haarlem’s Walloon Church marks the moment when the de Hooghes definitively decided to settle in Haarlem. Two years later, they invested in four plots and gardens with buildings in the area south of Hout Gate, at least one of which was adjacent to the

42 43 44 45

Haags Gemeentearchief, The Hague, 0372-01, inv. no. 667, p. 300. ‘Boeken der Haagsche ‘schilders-confrerye’, pp. 107–108, 155. Buijssen and Dumas, Haagse Schilders, p. 43. De Vries, Gerard de Lairesse, pp. 49–63.

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Geldeloze Pad property.46 Not all of this property was for Romeyn’s and Maria’s private enjoyment: in October 1685, Romeyn cited a tenant in court for arrears in land rent.47

Moving Up In 1686, Romeyn was registered as one of the three regents who made up the governing board of the Pietershuis (‘St Peter’s House’), a private foundation providing poor orphans with education and professional training.48 Since only full citizens could serve in regent offices, by this time he must have sworn an oath of allegiance to the burgomasters of his new hometown. By becoming a poorter of Haarlem, he automatically forfeited his citizenship rights in Amsterdam.49 It is remarkable that his membership of the Pietershuis board lasted only one year. It was customary for its regents to remain in office for many consecutive years; in 1686, the senior regent was fulfilling his nineteenth year of office. Did Romeyn quarrel with his fellow-regents? Or did he abandon his responsibilities for the orphanage as soon as he had found a more suitable function, closer to Haarlem’s political elite and more commensurate with his social ambitions? At least from 1690 onwards, but possibly earlier, he was a regent on the board of the Armekinderhuis, Haarlem’s municipal orphanage. Providing for 500 boys and girls, all sons and daughters of deceased Haarlem poorters, it was a more distinguished institution than the Pietershuis, which had only ten or twelve wards.50 Romeyn’s stint as a Pieterhuis regent may have functioned as the stepping stone for a more elevated civil office. From October 1687 to February 1690, he served two consecutive terms as a magistrate (commissaris) on Haarlem’s Minor Bench of Justice (Kleine bank van justitie). Consisting of five lay judges, the bench dealt with misdemeanours carrying a fine of up to 150 guilders.51 As a rule, the magistrates served for two consecutive years, after which the entire bench was renewed. In this case, he served his time.

46 nha, 3111, inv. no. 76.89, f. 160 vo. 47 nha, 3111, inv. no. 116.36, f. 3. 48 nha, 3291, inv. no. 3; Schrevelius, Harlemias, p. 33; Tegenwoordige staat, vol. 4, p. 398. 49 Romeyn refers to himself as ‘poorter of this city’ in a petition to the burgomasters of Haarlem dated 5 March 1688. nha, 3393, inv. no. 511, f. 36 vo. 50 The number of wards in the Pietershuis and Armekinderhuis in Kn. 13541, Romein de Hooge voor den rechterstoel, p. 26. Romeyn signed several deeds in his capacity as regent of the Armekinderhuis in 1697 and 1700. nha, 1617, inv. no. 406, ff. 148–149 (22 August 1697); nha, 1846, inv. no. 175 (petition of the regents of the Armekinderhuis to the States of Holland, undated, but after the date of 22 November 1700 mentioned in the text). 51 nha, 3993, inv. no. 1274, f. 191 vo.; Naam-register (no pagination). The cause-lists (rollen) of the bench show that Romeyn served two terms from 25 October 1687 to 25 October 1689 and then remained in office until 25 February 1690, when five new magistrates were elected. nha, 3111, inv. nos. 116.38, 116.39, and 116.40.

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As a regent in one of Haarlem’s judicial colleges, Romeyn had joined the ranks of the ruling elite. Being a regent was the highest status to which he could possibly aspire in seventeenth-century Holland. It is questionable whether he would have achieved a similar position in Amsterdam. That city’s ruling class was far wealthier, and probably less open to newcomers, than their compeers in a relatively provincial city such as Haarlem.52 His renewed attempt to secure an attestation from the Amsterdam Consistory in July 1686, after more than three years during which he had let the matter rest, also suggests that he had made up his mind. When the six-year lease of his house on ­Binnenkant expired in 1687 or early 1688, he first leased out the property for another six years, and then sold it in December 1694 for 12,000 guilders.53 An informal agreement between Romeyn and the city government probably preceded his decision to settle in Haarlem permanently. It was not uncommon for ­Haarlem’s burgomasters to grant exceptions such as free citizenship or tax ­exemptions to newcomers in order to attract sorely-needed capital and skills.54 The magistrates must have been delighted to welcome Holland’s most sought-­after ­printmaker to their ailing city. They could offer benefits that Romeyn would not ­easily have obtained in Amsterdam, in the form of positions in the town’s charitable institutions and the lower echelons of the urban government, and thus a step up the social ladder. Minor regent functions, such as membership of one of the lesser benches of justice, were considered a first step in a career that could ultimately lead to the Vroedschap or City Council, and even the office of burgomaster. A non-native citizen of Haarlem was unlikely to get so far, but regent qualifications might in due time help Romeyn find a suitable husband for young Maria Romana, and thus firmly entrench his future descendants in the city’s upper-class. On his side, Romeyn must have promised the magistrates to employ his considerable creative and commercial energy for the benefit of his new hometown. Their mutual promises, if they were made, remained unofficial; no document officially certifying such a deal has been unearthed. As a full citizen of Haarlem, Romeyn had to join the local St Luke’s guild if he wished to practise his trade. Remarkably enough, his name does not appear in the guild’s membership registers.55 He must nonetheless have been a member, because without guild affiliation he could not have worked and trained apprentices. Perhaps the guild’s secretary, or the eighteenth-century copyist of the registers, inadvertently omitted his name; it is even more likely that Haarlem’s burgomasters, in order to land

52 Romeyn later boasted that the regents of Amsterdam had told him that he could have served in a magistrate office in Amsterdam. Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 23. 53 saa, 5062, inv. no. 71, ff. 249 vo-250. 54 Dorren, Eenheid, p. 120. 55 The membership registers of the St Luke’s Guild are published in Miedema, Archiefbescheiden.

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this prize with such potential for the city’s printing industry, waived the entrance fee. There is no documentary evidence of such a transaction. Snugly entrenched in their garden-encircled country house, the de Hooghes continued to see old friends and acquaintances from Amsterdam.56 Their friendship with Pieter de Graeff is well-documented, as de Graeff diligently recorded in his diaries the particulars of his meetings with the family.57 Pieter de Graeff hailed from very different social circles from those in which Romeyn moved.58 Lord of the manors of Zuid-Polsbroek (to the south-west of Gouda, near the River Lek) and Purmerland and Ilpendam (north of Amsterdam) and keeper of the castle of Ilpenstein, he was a scion of the two most powerful families in Amsterdam, de Graeff and Bicker, who ruled not only Amsterdam, but also Holland and the Republic during the ‘True Freedom’ era. By his marriage to his full cousin Jacoba ­Bicker, he was a brother-in-law of Johan de Witt, with whom he served as warden of the Prince of Orange during his minority. The restoration of the Orangist regime in 1672 resulted in his removal from the Vroedschap. Bereft of his political offices, his only remaining function was as director (bewindhebber) of the voc. Along with his activities as a grazier (ossenweider) and a string of fortunate inheritances, this made him one of the richest men in the Dutch Republic. He continued to nurture friendships with Amsterdam’s elite. In 1678, for example, he paid a visit, in the company of Joan Huydecoper, to the ambassador to the French court, Jacob Boreel. Both Huydecoper and Boreel would become Romeyn’s inveterate enemies in 1690. Immensely wealthy, well-connected, and a great collector and patron of the arts, de Graeff must have been a valuable asset among Romeyn’s friends. Pieter de Graeff owned a country house known as Valkenburgh (also named ­Hulstenhaege or ‘Holly Hedge’) in Heemstede, not far south of Haarlem. En route to or from his estate, he made it his habit to stop at Romeyn’s place and have a chat, first in Geldeloze Pad and later on Nieuwe Gracht. Their friendship dates at least from May 1686, when Romeyn and Maria had lunch at Valkenburgh for the first time. The couples continued to see each other, with de Graeff regularly inviting Romeyn and Maria, often accompanied by Maria Romana, for lunch or supper. There is no evidence of the de Graeffs ever dining at the de Hooghes’ home, which was perhaps considered socially unsuitable. The two men, both keen amateur botanists, exchanged gifts of shrubs and plants. Romeyn sent a basket filled with camomile and other plants and yew trees for a hedge, and de Graeff answered in kind by delivering a cartload of holly shrubs to be planted around ‘The High Holly’, as well as barberry bushes and a lobelia cardinalis 56 De Haas, ‘Commissaris’, pp. 16–17. 57 saa, 76, inv. nos. 184–226. I am grateful to Jeanine Otten for generously sharing her transcripts of de Graeff’s diaries. Cf. Fock, Stempel, pp. 7–13. 58 Zandvliet, 250 rijksten, pp. 93–97; nnbw, vol. 2, col. 502–503; Elias, Vroedschap, pp. 422–423.

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cutting. In May 1693, he donated ‘a stone from Curaçao for [Romeyn’s] grotto behind his house in Haarlem’.59 Their relationship was underpinned by patronage: in May 1686, de Graeff commissioned Romeyn to draw a bird’s eye view of his country seat. Notwithstanding a number of visits, the work did not proceed smoothly. More than three years later it was still unfinished, and it is uncertain whether Romeyn ever pulled it off. He also made designs of the de Graeff family coat of arms to be embroidered on cushions, and in the 1690s he was to design wall-covering paintings for de Graeff’s townhouse and a stained-glass window for the village church in his manor of Zuid-Polsbroek. The friendship between the two men was an asymmetric one, with the wealthy patrician patronizing the artist, but the diaries suggest de Graeff enjoyed Romeyn’s company.

A Drawing Academy and a Stately Mansion In March 1688, Romeyn filed a petition to Haarlem’s burgomasters in which he outlined an ambitious plan for founding a school for the education of children in designing patterns for the city’s textile industry ‘and otherwise’, and requested a plot of land on which to build it.60 He systematically laid out his design in sixteen points. He would associate himself with two masters, each an expert in a different discipline. Each master would teach once a week between five and eight in the evening. Lessons would be offered on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. The teaching offered on the first day would address the skills necessary for Haarlem’s textile industry, offering instruction in the design of patterns, borders, parterres (a silk damask-like fabric with flowers), monograms (cyffers), damasks, caffas, and other ornamental drawings. The second day was to be dedicated to perspective, the five architectural orders, sculpture, moulding, and embossing; and the final day to painting and drawing in general, as well as etching and engraving. Undoubtedly, the latter were the classes Romeyn himself intended to teach. One afternoon a month was to be dedicated to the critical analysis and discussion of a particular piece of sculpture, a painting, an engraving, or a design pattern, while the teachers would present their considerations in writing ‘to the advantage of the pupils’. Open to poor children in and outside the city’s public orphanages as well as the sons ‘of good families’, the lessons would be free of charge. Every year, the most advanced pupils would contribute ‘something’ to the glory of Haarlem’s burgomasters, whilst the teachers would be delighted to supply their designs and inventions should the city need any service in their field of competence. 59 Diary entries 24 May 1686, 14 March 1689, 26 April 1689, and 26 May 1693. 60 On the drawing academy, see Knolle, ‘Goede kunstwerkplaats’, pp. 185–186; the text is published in Miedema, Archiefbescheiden, pp. 311–313, and in van der Willigen, Geschiedkundige aanteekeningen, pp. 138– 141. The original document is in nha, 3393, inv. no. 511, f. 36 vo.

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To this noble end, Romeyn promised to provide a good workshop suitable for hewing large pieces of sculpture or painting large pieces, as well as a garden where the pupils could practise drawing flowers, trees, and avenues. He would put ‘the best antique sculptures, like Venus, Apollo, and Laocoön’ at their disposal, so as to acquaint them with classical beauty, as well as a lay figure, prints, medals, paintings, and mezzotints. In order to facilitate this project, Romeyn petitioned the burgomasters to supply him with a building lot 60 feet wide – the width of three ordinary houses – and as deep as possible. He had already spotted a marvellously suitable location on Nieuwe Gracht (at that time called Eerste Gracht), a stately canal in Haarlem’s newly developed, but still largely vacant, northern town extension.61 At the back of the building, Romeyn planned to lay out a garden, bordering on the houses in Ridderstraat, where he proposed to build an elegant gate with an appropriate inscription mentioning the names of that year’s four reigning burgomasters. If the latter would be so gracious as to provide the site free of charge, Romeyn would settle the bill for the rest and start building at once. Perhaps he was asking too much. The burgomasters maintained that they could not possibly donate the lot for free, since it was situated in the very best part of the new town extension. Instead, they offered to sell him the property for 1,500 guilders, while promising a bonus of 1,200 guilders ‘in order to encourage him to make his building facing the canal more distinguished and graceful’.62 In addition, they offered freehold over all such plots at the back of his garden in Ridderstraat as he might acquire. These back buildings were the premises where the actual drawing academy was to be established; the large house facing the canal was intended for the private use of Romeyn and his family. With the size of the bonus almost tantamount to the value of the land, it was an offer Romeyn could not refuse, and the deal was struck. Building started shortly afterwards, and by July 1689 the de Hooghes were settled in their new abode, which was yet to be finished (figs. 5.3 and 5.4).63 On 2 April 1690, Romeyn asked the burgomasters for permission to have his stoop jut out half a foot more from the building than the relevant municipal bye-laws allowed.64 Again, the magistrates showed their favourable disposition by allowing him to go ahead. Nevertheless, the financial settlement did not run smoothly.65 Romeyn balked at having to pay the full 1,500 guilders for the purchase of the lot, insisting that he should be allowed to deduct the 1,200 guilders promised as a bonus. On their part, the burgomasters were reluctant to pay out the bonus until Romeyn had fulfilled his part of the 61 On the development of Haarlem’s extension, see Taverne, In ’t Land, pp. 279–402. 62 Miedema, Archiefbescheiden, pp. 313–314. 63 Pieter de Graeff called at De Hooge Hulst on 17 July 1689, but found that Romeyn had already moved house. 64 nha, 3393, inv. no. 512, f. 21. 65 nha, 3393, inv. no. 512, ff. 59 vo, 186; inv. no. 513, f. 16 vo.

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Fig. 5.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Nieuwe Gracht, 1688 (detail of fig. 5.5).

agreement, especially the construction of the ornamental gate with inscription on Ridderstraat. Again, Romeyn got the better side of the deal. On 13 November 1691, the regents resolved that it would suffice for Romeyn to pay the remaining 300 guilders. With the de Hooghes comfortably settled in their magnificent mansion, the school at the back of their garden could open its doors. Little is known about the subsequent history of the drawing academy. The identity of Romeyn’s fellow teachers remains shrouded in darkness; nor do we know the names or even the number of pupils attending the lessons. Neither do we know how far the actual curriculum matched the plans Romeyn had outlined in his petition. But the school existed, and to all appearances, it functioned. It did not, however, stay attached to the de Hooghe residence for long. In June 1696, Romeyn filed another petition with Haarlem’s burgomasters, in which he argued that he had built the school house on the Ridderstraat lot ‘not to the amenity or profit of himself, but of the common weal, in particular for the devotees of the art of painting, for etchers, modellers, and other artists, who come daily thither to practise their art’. For that reason, he requested to be absolved from paying the real estate tax known as the verponding.66 Should this be inconvenient, he begged permission to move the school to a bulwark facing the River Spaarne, a property Romeyn already used for the storage of bluestone from the County of Lingen. The burgomasters refused the requested tax exemption, but allowed Romeyn to construct a new schoolhouse on the Spaarne bastion instead. The new site was to be exempt from verponding, on condition that it would fall to the city after the death of Romeyn and his wife. Thus, Romeyn again got his way. Having acquired the land for his canal house at a substantial discount, he was now free from the din and clatter rising from the schoolhouse in his back yard. 66 Miedema, Archiefbescheiden, pp. 318–319.

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Fig. 5.4. Anon., Nieuwe Gracht 13, Haarlem, 1930.

Why did Romeyn put so much effort into the establishment of a drawing school? The preamble to his petition reveals that he was already engaged in teaching – probably at his home in Geldeloze Pad – ‘several children from private homes as well as from orphanages’.67 Perhaps this was an activity he had begun when serving as a regent of the Pietershuis. His lessons had met with so much success, he wrote, that he would like to expand his ‘pastime’ (liefhebberij), while several master craftsmen were eager to contribute their skills. No other city, he added, stood in such great need of these sorts of drawing skills for the well-being of its industry. He flatteringly addressed the burgomasters as ‘the patrons [Mecaenaten] of such arts as have been found, cultivated, and become large and public, yet are now as if they were buried, to the evident disadvantage of the glory and prosperity of this city’. 67 Ibid., pp. 311.

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The establishment of an institution dedicated to the education of skilled craftsmen in the textile industry was a bold plan. Romeyn and the burgomasters were far ahead of their time. It was not until 1771 that another such academy was founded, again in Haarlem, by the wealthy Mennonite silk manufacturer and banker Pieter Teyler.68 Two years later, Amsterdam followed with a School of Design (Leerschool der Tekenkunst). Lyon, a city famous for its silk industry, had started an École gratuite de dessin in 1756, after the failure of some earlier attempts. And in London, it took until the nineteenth century for a ‘School of Design’ to be established in Spitalfields, the home of the metropolitan silk industry.69 Yet without discrediting Romeyn’s foresight, his educational zeal, or his affection for his new hometown, one may safely assume two underlying motives. One of these must have been his desire to ingratiate himself with Haarlem’s burgomasters, a quid pro quo for receiving regent status and becoming a member of the city’s magisterial elite. The other motive must surely have been the opportunity to obtain a plot of land cheaply for the purpose of building a superb residence bordering on a stately canal, a house commensurate with his newly-gained status as a member of Haarlem’s regent class.

A Prestigious Map The other bonus that Romeyn dangled before the burgomasters’ covetous eyes was a huge illustrated wall map of Haarlem, a luxurious object that would bring the city glory and prestige (fig. 5.5).70 The work consisted of a large map (166 x 198 cm) etched on four copperplates, surrounded by additional prints: the coats of arms of the city and of its four reigning burgomasters in 1688 and its secretary and pensionary at the top, a handsome cityscape at the bottom, and six topographical and historical pictures on either side. The whole was set in an attractive etched frame. Including its frame, the map was composed of prints of 26 different copperplates. The production of such a map was a complex undertaking. A professional surveyor had to chart the entire city, and the artist had to reproduce his work in considerable detail, with all of the gables depicted vertically. A skilled etcher had to reproduce the map in mirror-image on a number of copperplates. The surrounding pictures had to be invented, drawn, and etched. All of the plates had to be printed separately and then assembled. The map, if so desired, could be coloured by a specialized professional known as an afsetter, and finally framed. Romeyn himself acted as the coordinator and publisher of the entire project.

68 Sliggers, ‘Verzamelingen’, pp. 79–81. 69 Colenbrander, ‘Zolang de weefkunst’, p. 242. 70 le 337; h 288–300. The following is based on Van der Steur, ‘Grote kaart’.

Fig. 5.5. Romeyn de Hooghe, Map of Haarlem, 1688–1689.

Only six cities in Holland – and in the entire Dutch Republic – could boast of having such a prestigious wall map. While Amsterdam (1625) and Rotterdam (1626) already had one, five new maps appeared during the relatively short period between 1666 and 1690: The Hague (1666), Leiden (1670), Delft (1678), Haarlem (by Romeyn, 1688), and again Rotterdam (also by Romeyn, 1690). A recently planned or realized town extension, a general desire for prestige, as well as inter-urban rivalry, often provided the incentive to produce such a map. When he was still living in Amsterdam, Romeyn had been involved in the production of the so-called ‘figurative’ map of Delft, published in 1678, for which he had etched only two small border illustrations. In effect, he had had reason to hope for more. On 8 February 1676, he had a contract drawn up before the public notary Jacob Lansman (his brother-in-law) with Johannes Rammazeyn, a printer and bookseller from The Hague, in which they agreed that Romeyn would engrave the entire

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map with its border illustrations for the sum of 770 guilders.71 In reality, however, ­Rammazeyn had no authority to grant the work to Romeyn. The instigator and man ­ leyswijck, in charge of the project, Delft’s former burgomaster Dirk Evertszoon van B had already commissioned the artist Johannes Verkolje to draw the maps and most of the illustrations, and Coenraad Decker, a follower or ex-pupil of Romeyn’s, to engrave them in copper. In April 1677, van Bleyswijck received information that ­Rammazeyn was about to travel to Amsterdam to take possession of the copperplates ‘and thus make himself master of the said work’.72 He immediately set off in pursuit and was successful in thwarting Rammazeyn’s plan. Understandably, Romeyn was not amused. ­ ammazeyn and He took his revenge by purchasing a number of financial claims on R having the bookseller imprisoned for debt when he happened to visit Amsterdam. Rammazeyn remained in custody for several weeks, until Decker signed a standing security and gave him some cash.73 The Haarlem wall map, however, appears to have been Romeyn’s own initiative. On 27 August 1688, he wrote to the burgomasters that the survey he had ordered was finished and that he had designed ‘most advantageously’ an illustrated map of the city in profile, ‘with churches, gates, and other notable buildings’, which he would like to dedicate to the city fathers.74 The latter expressed their gratitude for the dedication and agreed to purchase 100 copies at twelve guilders apiece. Fourteen months later, the burgomasters, having received their copies, arranged to have them assembled and framed. They also agreed to have a number of copies coloured and put in an especially elegant frame.75 The map bore a legend stating that Romeyn de Hooghe had dedicated it ‘to the Lords Burgomasters and Governors of the City of Haarlem’.76 Romeyn’s success with Harlemum must have helped him to win the commission for the equally grand wall map of Rotterdam two years later.77 In 1766, many years after Romeyn’s death, another edition of the Haarlem map, without the now-­ outmoded border illustrations, was published by the Haarlem painter, art dealer, and collector Bernardus Kleynhens.78

71 On Rammazeyn, see Kossmann, Boekhandel, pp. 320–326. 72 Soutendam, ‘Mr. Dirck Evertszoon van Bleyswijck’, p. 202. 73 Clement-van Alkemade, Historische plattegronden, pp. 41–44; Van der Steur, ‘Grote kaart’, pp. 21–22. 74 nha, 3393, inv. no. 511, ff. 72 vo-73 vo. 75 nha, 3393, inv. no. 511, f. 161 vo. 76 According to de Haas, ‘Commissaris’, p. 17, following van der Willigen, Geschiedkundige aanteekeningen, p. 137, the burgomasters declined the dedication. The resolution of 27 August 1688, however, states that ‘the burgomasters thank [bedanken] Romeyn de Hooghe for the dedication’. The meaning of Dutch verb bedanken is ambivalent, signifying both ‘saying no thank you’ and ‘saying yes, thank you’. The burgomasters in this case accepted the honour, as the dedication did in fact appear in print. 77 h 328b; le 365. 78 Thieme-Becker, vol. 20, p. 493.

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Client of the Stadtholder The dealings between Romeyn and the government of his adopted hometown had a reciprocal character. The artist favoured the city and its economy by moving his business within its boundaries. In addition, he set up free drawing classes for poor orphans and the sons of more well-to-do families, aimed primarily at breathing new life into the city’s decrepit textile industry, but also at training accomplished draughtsmen and artists. He designed a magnificent map to rival those of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Leiden, and Delft. In return, the burgomasters helped him by granting a plot of land under extremely favourable conditions for building his townhouse and (probably) by waving the St Luke’s guild entrance fee. More importantly, they appointed him as regent of the municipal orphanage and judge in a subordinate law court, thus fulfilling Romeyn’s ambition to become a member of Holland’s regent class. No written document testifies to this deal, which may well have been based on an oral agreement. All of this suggests that Romeyn had powerful friends among Haarlem’s Vroedschap and burgomasters, and this in turn suggests that there must have been a political edge to Romeyn’s re-invention of himself as a regent of Haarlem. Romeyn’s protector was Willem Fabricius.79 Born in 1642, Fabricius read law at Leiden and graduated in 1664, and became a member of Haarlem’s Vroedschap in 1671. During the turmoil of the summer of 1672, when the common people of ­Haarlem forced their governors to press for the appointment of the Prince of Orange as stadtholder, he was a member of a delegation charged with informing William of these fortuitous events. Shortly afterwards, he was allowed to retain his place in the Vroedschap under the new regime. He did several stints as a magistrate (schepen) and became a member of Haarlem’s college of four burgomasters in 1681–1682, and again in 1687–1688. He was a prominent member of Haarlem’s Orangist faction, a protégé of William, and an informant of the court. He was re-elected burgomaster in 1687 only because William forced the Vroedschap to nominate him.80 During the 1670s and 80s, William iii diligently built up a powerful clientele of regents in the key cities of Holland, to whom he entrusted the task of managing local and provincial politics. A French memorandum dated 1692 identifies Hans Willem Bentinck, Earl of Portland, as William’s agent charged with running his patronage network in the Holland towns: All the great people there are governed on behalf of the Prince of Orange by his great favourite Bentinck, who for three of four years, or perhaps for much longer, has carried out a policy of not including anyone in the government until they had sworn an oath that they would unquestionably do and execute all which they 79 nnbw, vol. 7, col. 427–428. 80 De Jongste, Onrust, p. 91; Correspondentie van Willem iii, part 1, vol. 1, pp. 32–34, William to Bentinck, 19 and 21 September 1687.

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would be ordered on behalf of the Prince of Orange, in affirmation of which each one had to sign an act.81

The memorandum goes on to list the names of Bentinck’s clients in Holland, identifying Willem Fabricius as his agent in Haarlem. According to a contemporary report, Fabricius had an unpleasant character. ‘He made himself mortally hated by his insatiable greed, being of the opinion that everything accrues to him, leaving naught to another man’. He was stingy to the extent that he was unwilling ‘to make the least dispenses to gain good friends’ and unable to see ‘that one cannot find oneself in the present world so dryly, and that the greatest leagues and alliances are made under the drinking cup’.82 A pamphlet published in the summer of 1690 pinpoints Fabricius as ‘a friend of Romeyn de Hooghe’, adding that the common people were discontented because Romeyn had been admitted as a member of the Walloon Church. This had happened, the pamphlet asserts, on orders of Fabricius, ‘who has little religion himself, and has forced this upon his creatures in the Consistory’.83 Since Fabricius was one of the ruling burgomasters in 1688, his name and his escutcheon appear in print on Romeyn’s map of Haarlem. His name, to be chiselled in the monumental gate to the drawing academy in Ridderstraat, was to be remembered forever. It must have been Fabricius who recruited Romeyn as a propaganda artist for the Orangist cause. As part of the bargain, he must have been responsible for m ­ aking Romeyn a magistrate on the Minor Bench of Justice in 1687, the same year that ­William had made him a burgomaster. In his 1690 apology, Romeyn dates his conversion to the Orangist camp as having occurred in the early months of 1684. Three of Amsterdam’s leading regents – burgomaster Coenraad van Beuningen, Vroedschap member Isaäc van Heuvel, and hoofdschout (chief sheriff) Jacob Boreel – had ‘each separately’ visited him in his Amsterdam pied-à-terre and asked if he would be disposed ‘to invent something against the deputation about the 16,000 men’. This referred to an official delegation of the States General, led by the stadtholder himself, which was visiting the city in an attempt to put pressure on the magistrates. At that time, Amsterdam and the stadtholder were at loggerheads about the recruitment of extra troops for the relief of Luxembourg. The conflict had escalated into a major tussle in the States of Holland and the States General and fuelled a veritable torrent of pamphlets. According to Romeyn, the request of the three regents had been the cause of his conversion. He firmly refused to design such a print, declaring himself generously in favour of the Lord Stadtholder, and the Good Party, of whose just cause and good opinion he had become unequivocally convinced 81 Quoted in Onnekink, Anglo-Dutch Favourite, p. 118. 82 Quoted in de Jongste, Onrust, pp. 91–92. 83 Kn. 13546, Copy van een brief.

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since he lived in such a well-intentioned city as Haarlem, and since he had rubbed shoulders with regents of a better opinion and maxims than anyone in Amsterdam. He [now] had entirely different feelings from those he had nurtured previously when living with his wife in Amsterdam, blindfolded by those in office there. […] If Romeyn de Hooghe had agreed to produce these cowardly pasquils against the Stadtholder, his friendship with the Amsterdam regents and various other men of quality would have remained untarnished, yet seeing that his friendship with them, and as a consequence with all their followers, had been compromised, he decided to stay and live in Haarlem, which is what subsequently happened.84

There are ample reasons to take Romeyn’s own account of the affair and the dating of his ‘conversion’ with a grain of salt. His account was written in 1690 in the context of the Pamphlet War, when Romeyn was under severe pressure to rescue his reputation. It was vitally important for him to stress his longstanding loyalty to the Prince of Orange and his adherents. Accused of producing scurrilous lampoons against the burgomasters of Amsterdam, he had everything to gain from accusing the regents of inciting him to design libels against the stadtholder. His account nevertheless strongly suggests that Haarlem’s regents – especially Fabricius – played a key role in luring him into the Orangist camp. Whether his conversion does indeed date from 1684 is questionable. Only in 1688 did he put his etching needle unreservedly at the disposal of William’s policies. Romeyn’s enrolment into the Orangist party bore other fruits as well. It brought him into contact with the stadtholder himself and his powerful supporters in The Hague. In 1689, William appointed him as director of his stone quarries in the County of Lingen, possibly as a reward for producing news prints, satires, and book illustrations in support of his conquest of the British throne.85 It was a job rather than a title, and not a particularly grand one at that, but Romeyn called himself ‘Commissioner of His Majesty’ wherever and whenever he could. William also commissioned his client to design sculptures for the gardens of Het Loo Palace.86

84 Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 15–16. One of the Amsterdam regents, Isaäc van Heuvel, had given him a Latin distich with the request to work it into a print: Continet Amsterdam Ducem, male sed contentus in illa / Liquit eam; memores, hic Patris, illa Patrum. The exact meaning is obscure, but it may be translated as ‘Amsterdam contains the Leader [William iii], but he, ill at ease in that city, has relinquished it; he thinks of his father, she [Amsterdam] of her forefathers’. The gist is probably that William wished to follow in the footsteps of his father, Stadtholder William ii, who had notoriously attempted to make himself master of the Republic by overwhelming Amsterdam in 1650, while the burgomasters of Amsterdam honoured the memory of their predecessors, who had withstood the attack. On Isaäc van Heuvel, Elias, Vroedschap, vol. 2, no 225. 85 Sliggers, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe, Lingen’; na, 1.08.11, inv. no. 589, f. 181 vo. 86 De Jong, Natuur, Ch. 3.

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A Blueberry Diploma Considering his messy departure from Amsterdam in 1681 – if not shamefully expelled on the orders of the burgomasters, then certainly in confusion and under humiliating circumstances – Romeyn had made a grandiose comeback. Whatever the citizens of Haarlem might whisper behind his back, he had become a regent, a man of authority and standing, living in a splendid mansion appropriate to his ­newly-won status. To top it all, he obtained a degree in law from the University of Harderwijk, a small town in the Province of Gelderland, situated on the south-eastern shore of the Zuiderzee. Having enrolled as a student on 3 June 1689, he graduated on that very same day after taking an oral exam and defending a few theses in a so-called disputation.87 Such an instantaneous academic career, unlikely as it seems, was not at all uncommon. Almost 70 per cent of all students at Harderwijk obtained their doctoral degree within a month of enrolment. Some students arrived at Harderwijk – among them scholars such as Herman Boerhaave and Carl Linnaeus – with a written and sometimes printed doctoral dissertation in their luggage. The other universities in the Dutch Republic, in Leiden, Utrecht, Groningen, and Franeker, would usually request that candidates follow a few classes, do some practical exercises, and prepare at least part of their dissertation under the guidance of one of the local professors. The Harderwijk academy did not enjoy a first-rate reputation. A popular jingle ran, ‘Harderwijk is a city of commerce/ where people peddle kippers, blueberries, and doctoral degrees’.88 Contemporary playwrights used the expression ‘blueberry diploma’ (blauwbessenbrief) for a law degree awarded at Harderwijk, and its alumni were called ‘blueberry peddlers’ (blauwbessenkramers). A German traveller quipped that foreigners were routinely met by the university beadle, who politely queried whether they had plans to obtain a doctorate.89 The smallest of all Dutch academies and poorly funded, Harderwijk maintained lower standards of education than its sister-universities in the Dutch Republic. This made it an ideal school for those who were in search of a quick diploma rather than serious scholarly or professional training. The enrolment procedure was simpler and the tuition fees lower. Foreigners taking a degree were exempted from the obnoxious and expensive obligation to buy presents for their advisor and opponents and provide lavish entertainment for their fellow-students and teachers. The exam was fairly basic, the required standard of the dissertation or theses modest.

87 Van Epen, Album, p. 44; Schutte, Album, p. 73. 88 ‘Harderwijk is een stad van negotie/ Men verkoopt er bokking, blauwbessen en bullen van promotie’. Ekkart, ‘Harderwijkse academie’, p. 51. 89 Aerts and Hoogkamp, Gelderse Pallas, pp. 53–54.

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Nevertheless, despite the reports by a German traveller that one could purchase a Harderwijk doctor’s degree for seventy rijksdaalders, the system was not corrupt. The academy’s Album Promotorum informs us that Romanus de Hooghe was quizzed on two different laws from the Digest (or Pandects) and the Corpus Juris Civilis, and then proceeded to conduct a disputation dedicated to natural and international law (de jure naturale et gentium).90 The exam and the defence took place entirely in Latin, and Romeyn would have prepared for the exam by reading the relevant Roman and Canon (ecclesiastical) law texts in that language. We do not know when, where, and how Romeyn acquired his legal knowledge. He may have followed classes at Amsterdam’s Athenaeum Illustre or Illustrious School, a respectable institution that offered academic courses but was not entitled to award degrees.91 He may also have taken private lessons from a lawyer or a solicitor. The curriculum for future lawyers consisted entirely of reading Roman and Canon legal texts. Yet law courts in the Dutch Republic almost exclusively administered common law, with Roman law serving as a back-up when common law was not applicable. A thorough training in Roman and Canon law (the latter becoming redundant after the Protestant Reformation) continued to be regarded as an indispensable intellectual background for lawyers. Universities offered no training at all in common law. Rather than certifying any particular knowledge or skills, a law degree served to confirm social status based on descent.92 It was indispensable for professional lawyers, but redundant for regents serving in magistrate courts and other benches of justice in a system that entrusted the administration of justice to lay judges recruited from the upper classes. In the course of the seventeenth century, it gradually became more common for the scions of the upper classes to round off their education with a law degree. A diploma was tangible proof of the rite of passage separating a young man’s formative years from his life as an adult. The most salient feature of Romeyn’s degree is that it was indeed a rite of passage, serving not to mark the end of his youth – he was in his mid-forties when he obtained it – but to accentuate his ascent into the upper class. Yet his new status also poses a conundrum. On 10 January 1696 – more than six years after obtaining his degree – Romeyn took the oath before the Hof van Holland that entitled him to practise as a barrister (advocaat).93 Normally, fresh law graduates would take the oath within weeks or even days in order to be able to start practising as soon as possible. Romeyn’s second cousins Romeyn and Antoni de Hooghe, for example, were sworn in thirteen and five days, respectively, after graduating in Leiden.94 This might suggest that Romeyn, at least initially, was not interested in working as 90 Schutte, Album, p. 73. 91 On the Amsterdam Illustrious School, see Van Miert, Humanism. 92 Frijhoff, ‘Betekenis’, p. 26. 93 na, 3.03.01.01, inv. no. 5943, fo 125; Album advocatorum, p. 167. 94 Ibid., p. 172.

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a barrister. Yet the astonishing fact is that he did. Several documents in the records of notary Hendrik Haesewindius in Haarlem, for example, mention the agency of meester Romeyn de Hooge, advocaat voor den Hove van Holland (‘­barrister licenced by the High Court of Holland’), representing several Haarlem citizens in a variety of judicial transactions.95 Clearly, he was practising law without a licence. Why did he run the risk of being fined for practising illegally, and possibly of having his legal actions declared null and void? And why did he finally make the effort to take the oath six years later? Did he get caught, or did someone quietly advise him that it might be time to legalize his dealings? Romeyn has left no information about his motives for becoming a lawyer and a barrister, but one can make an educated guess. The law often functioned as a stepping stone for a career as a civil servant or a judge.96 In 1695, he was to be elected judge (leenman) in the tribunal (vierschaar) of the high-bailiwick (hoogbaljuwschap) of Kennemerland. Theoretical and practical knowledge of the law may not have been a formal requirement for that appointment, but it certainly helped. Obtaining a law degree and gaining experience as a lawyer were well-chosen instruments aimed at furthering Romeyn’s social ambitions.

95 nha, 1617, inv. no. 441, ff. 67, 133, 137, 242, 282, 298, 330, 447. 96 Le Bailly and Brood, ‘Advocatuur’, p. 79.

6. The Prince Abandoned and Regained The Great Turkish War The Guerre de Hollande of 1672–1678 had launched Romeyn de Hooghe’s career as the Dutch Republic’s foremost designer of scenes of siege and battle. It had also made him the principal artist glorifying William iii. He invented, executed, and sometimes published a copious number of broadsheets and book illustrations illuminating William’s military prowess. No artist matched his creativity or originality, or the sheer volume of his output. At first sight, it is therefore puzzling that Romeyn’s stream of broadsheets illustrating battles and sieges, and lionizing the stadtholder, ran completely dry after the Peace of Nijmegen. Not until the outbreak of the Great Turkish War in 1683 did Romeyn produce one single battle scene; and neither did he issue any print exalting the stadtholder before the summer of 1688. It would be tempting to relate Romeyn’s reticence to his troubled personal life during the late 1670s and his resettlement in Haarlem, but there is a simpler explanation. This was a rare period of peace in Europe, which simply did not provide Romeyn with the occasion to apply his skills as a reporter of battle. The absence of prints celebrating the Prince of Orange is more perplexing. ­Ro­meyn’s only broadsheet during this episode featuring William – albeit among other European leaders – is an almanac sheet for the year 1680 (fig. 3.23).1 Prominently displaying the allegorical figures of Peace and Justice, and featuring the stadtholder as a champion of peace rather than war, the print was dedicated to the burgomasters of Amsterdam – the very men who had been instrumental in pushing through the Nijmegen peace treaty against William’s wishes. By 1678, many Dutchmen, regents as well as the common people, were not only weary of the war, but also increasingly exasperated with William’s highhanded methods of government.2 It is impossible to determine whether Romeyn’s caginess during these years was a sign of his own disaffection with the stadtholder or of a generally slack market for Orangist prints, or both. Frederik Muller’s catalogue of history prints records only a handful of representations of the stadtholder, made by Romeyn as well as other artists, between the Peace of Nijmegen and the beginnings of the Glorious Revolution in Britain in June 1688.3 The outbreak of war in 1683 between the Habsburg and Ottoman empires provided Romeyn with the opportunity to make a comeback as a designer of military scenes. For more than a century, there had been a balance of power between the 1 le 122, h 133, fmh 2644. 2 Israel, Dutch Republic, p. 825. 3 fmh 2643–2691.

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Ottoman Turks and the Austrian Habsburgs in Hungary, with the Ottomans ruling the greater part of the kingdom. In 1683, Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha marched a large army to Vienna. After a two months’ siege, Vienna was on the brink of falling. At this point, the Habsburg Emperor Leopold i managed to forge an alliance including Poland, Saxony, Bavaria and various smaller German principalities, with Pope Innocent xi contributing ample funds. In September, a relief army commanded by Romeyn’s old patron, King John iii Sobieski of Poland-Lithuania, swept down from the heights of the Kahlenberg and routed the Ottoman forces. The relief of Vienna ­ alkans, signalled the beginning of the recovery by the Habsburgs of Hungary and the B which had been lost to the Ottomans more than 150 years earlier. The uncommonly violent and bloody war (even by seventeenth-century standards) was to continue until 1697, when the Treaty of Karlowitz restored almost the whole of Hungary and Transylvania to the Holy Roman Emperor. The war in Central and Eastern Europe offered fresh artistic challenges to Romeyn. In 1684, he celebrated the relief of Vienna with a news print published by Nicolaes Visscher in Amsterdam (fig. 6.1).4 Like his earlier prints illustrating the Franco-Dutch war, it had an unambiguous propagandistic twist. Vienna, according to the caption, was ‘severely’ (strenglijk) besieged by the Ottomans, yet ‘stout-heartedly’ (kloekmoedig) defended and ‘manfully’ (manhaftig) relieved. This was also the pictorial message of the print, which favourably depicts the allied forces crushing the Ottomans. Romeyn made the same point in a series of a frontispiece and ten illustrations, first published by Visscher and subsequently serving as illustrations in a history of the siege by Johann van Ghelen, published in Brussels (fig. 6.2).5 Another print, dated 1685, glorifies the conclusion of the Holy League in 1684, showing the Pope, the Emperor, and the King of Poland amid a baroque confusion of strikingly Catholic symbols.6 Other prints followed, representing the storming of Buda in 1686 (fig. 6.3), the capture of Nafplia on the eastern Peloponnese by a Venetian fleet (1686), and the allied victory at Nagyharsány near Mohács (1687), including a detailed ground plan of the order of battle and a map of the area. The same battle appeared in another sheet (fig. 6.4), while yet another print shows the storming and capture of Belgrade in 1688.7 In his prints of the Great Turkish War, Romeyn glorified the main contenders in the Roman Catholic camp. They testify to Romeyn’s mastery of the baroque pictorial language of the Counter Reformation. A very large print composed of four plates (each c. 47 x 66 cm) extolled John Sobieski of Poland-Lithuania, showing the king

4 le 123. 5 lbi 60. Van Ghelen, Relation. 6 le 125. 7 le 129, 130, 142, 140 (= h 139), 145. On Romeyn as a reporter of the Habsburgs’ Turkish wars, see Rósza, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe’.

Fig. 6.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, Siege of Vienna, 1683.

standing in a war chariot drawn by a team of eagles, riding over heaps of slain Muslim soldiers and about to take off amidst a confusion of allegorical figures. It is signed Romanus de Hooghe S.R., the abbreviation standing for servitor regis (fig. 6.5).8 In 1686, Romeyn etched a series of nine prints celebrating the glorious entry of Emperor Leopold i into Brussels.9 The title plate shows the emperor on a float surrounded by the usual swarm of allegorical and historical figures (fig. 6.6). Another freestanding allegory celebrating Leopold’s victories over the infidels, published in 1687, displays Romeyn’s usual allegorical skills, with the victorious emperor in a triumphal chariot drawn by the defeated Turks.10 Strikingly original within Romeyn’s oeuvre is a print of an imaginary memorial to the Spanish soldiers who fell in the struggle against

8 le 126–127. 9 le 131–139. 10 le 143.

Fig. 6.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, Capture of the Grand Standard and Defeat of the Ottomans, 1683.

the Ottomans. On the left, it shows an army tent with the King of Spain kneeling in front of an altar, in the centre a large number of slain soldiers, and on the right the Spanish soldiers amidst the flames of Purgatory, being rescued by angels who carry them aloft to the heavenly hosts of the elected, gathered in the light of Christ depicted as a lamb (fig. 6.7).11 Commissioned by the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, Francisco Antonio de Agurto y Salcedo, Marquis of Gastañaga, and dedicated to King Charles II of Spain, this print testifies to Romeyn’s mastery of the baroque idiom of Catholic iconography. Romeyn pitched his Turkish War prints to an international audience. Only the Buda (1686) and the smaller Nagyharszány (1687) prints, published in Amsterdam by Aert Dircksz Oossaen, have captions in Dutch. The text to the 1683 print of the

11 fmh 2690-B.

Fig. 6.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Capture of Buda by the Imperial and Allied Forces, 1686.

siege and relief of Vienna, though published in Amsterdam, is in French. The illustrations in the Relation succincte et véritable by Johann van Ghelen, with the imprint of Nicolaas Visscher, appeared in a book in French, published in Brussels in 1684. The Antwerp print publisher Filibert i Bouttats, a pupil of Romeyn’s, issued the allegory of the conclusion of the Holy League (1685) as well as the allegory on Leopold i and Joseph i (1687), evidently for a readership in the Spanish Netherlands. Since the other broadsheets discussed above do not have any imprint, one may assume that Romeyn himself published them. Having received a commission, he independently executed and issued the prints showing the Glorification of John iii Sobieski of Poland (1685), the series of nine prints showing the glorious entry of Leopold i into Brussels (1686), the ascension of the slain Spanish military (1687), as well as the composite plate of the battle at Nagyharszány (1687), which carries no text at all.

Fig. 6.4. Romeyn de Hooghe, Victory of Duke Charles V of Lorraine and Margrave Louis William of Baden-Baden over the Ottomans at Nagyharsány (Second Battle of Mohács), 1687.

The Luxembourg Affair The Great Turkish War, though unfolding far from home, was not a matter of indifference to the Dutch. The affairs of the empire were of major importance to their own safety. Ever since 1672, they had had good reason to regard Louis xiv as the chief threat to their existence as an independent nation. The emperor, along with the king of Spain and various German princes, had been the Republic’s natural ally against

French aggression. The Peace of Nijmegen had yielded a number of precious cities along the border of the Spanish Netherlands to Louis xiv, but these territorial gains did not satisfy his ambitions. His policy of réunions served as a legal fig leaf for the annexations, without officially declaring war, of the Franche-Comté, large parts of Lorraine, Alsace, and the free imperial city of Strasbourg. With the Emperor’s hands tied in the Great Turkish War, there was little to prevent the Sun King from ­pursuing his aggressive policies further to the north. In 1681, and again in 1683, a French army blockaded the strategically important fortress of Luxembourg in the Spanish ­Netherlands. Spain declared war on France in December 1683, but had no troops to defend the city.

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Fig. 6.5. Romeyn de Hooghe, Glorification of John iii of Poland, 1685.

The siege of Luxembourg became the occasion for bitter discord and party strife in the Dutch Republic, fuelling the long-existing enmity between ­Amsterdam and the stadtholder.12 William proposed the dispatch of 8,000 Dutch troops to ­Luxembourg, thus honouring the existing defence treaty with Spain. He found his scheme ­thwarted by Amsterdam, which insisted on forcing Spain to accept English arbitration. ­William, however, finally succeeded in forging a majority in the States of Holland and the States General. In September 1683, he proposed the deployment of another 16,000 troops, arguing that the loss of Luxembourg would fatally weaken the buffer of fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands that protected the Dutch ­Republic. ­Amsterdam, led by burgomaster Coenraad van Beuningen, vigorously protested. Supported by a number of other Holland towns as well as the provinces of Friesland and Groningen, the city contended that resumption of the war against France would ruin its commerce. In addition, the Republic would have to undertake the war on its own, since the emperor had his hands tied in Central Europe, the English were unwilling to step in, and Brandenburg and Denmark were siding with France.

12 Troost, William iii, pp. 163–171; Israel, Dutch Republic, pp. 830–836; Elias, Geschiedenis, p. 185; Hell, ‘Schatkist’, pp. 199–204. The most elaborate analysis of the conflict is Kurtz, Willem iii.

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Fig. 6.6. Romeyn de Hooghe, Allegory on the victories of Emperor Leopold i over the Ottomans, 1686–1687.

The situation became very tense. A delegation of the States General, headed by the prince himself, visited Amsterdam from 15 to 21 November 1683 to bully the Vroed­schap into submission, but failed to make any headway.13 There were signs that the common people of Amsterdam backed the regents, as ‘insolent and desperately seditious discourses upon the Dam, the Exchange, and other publiq places, against the Prince’ were reported. Some citizens took the view that ‘Amsterdam was a great republique and powerful and would rather separate from the rest of the provinces, and joyne with Freezland and Groningen and have another stadtholder [i.e., William iii’s cousin Count Hendrik Casimir ii of Nassau] than continue under the Prince’.14 The Dutch Republic was in danger of falling apart. In January 1684, William finally succeeded in persuading a majority in the States of Holland to agree to the proposed army augmentation. Amsterdam responded by refusing to contribute its share. This gesture was not merely symbolic, as the city paid about half the total tax revenues of the Province of Holland, which by itself was responsible for almost 60 per cent of the total budget of the Union.15 By keeping

13 Elias, Geschiedenis, p. 185. 14 Quoted in Israel, Dutch Republic, p. 832. 15 Troost, William iii, p. 104.

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Fig. 6.7. Romeyn de Hooghe, Ascension of Spanish Soldiers Slain in the Battles against the Ottomans, 1687.

its purse closed, Amsterdam could effectively block any Union policy with which it disagreed. The stadtholder was furious and staked everything on breaking the resistance of ‘these villains [cocquins] of Amsterdam’. On 16 February, he read aloud in the States of Holland an intercepted letter from the French ambassador Jean-Antoine de Mesmes, Count of Avaux, to his royal master, reporting his secret conversations with Amsterdam. The prince regarded the behaviour of the city – conspiring with a hostile head of state and sharing state secrets – as high treason. Amsterdam argued (somewhat hypocritically) that there could be no objection against discussions with the ambassador of a country with which the Republic was not officially at war. The States duly voted to have d’Avaux’s letter published. Seven different editions of the infamous letter appeared, two of them in French and five translated into Dutch.16 16 Kn. 11959–11965.

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The States also resolved to have the papers of the Amsterdam delegates impounded for an official inquiry. The latter promptly walked out, and Amsterdam officially withdrew its delegation to the States. Undeterred, in March the prince succeeded in pushing his proposal through a meeting of the States General, from which the dissenting delegates from Friesland and Groningen were absent. Amsterdam persisted in its refusal to pay and took no further part in the debates. The burgomasters brought the city to a state of defence, mindful of the attempt of William’s father to usurp the city in 1650. The impasse was only broken in June, when Luxembourg fell to the French before the Dutch reinforcements had seen any action. Louis xiv forced the Spanish to accept a twenty years’ truce in the Spanish Netherlands, with France keeping Luxembourg and other recently annexed territories. When France offered the same deal to the Dutch Republic, a majority in the States General was in favour of accepting it. The stadtholder could do little else than accept his defeat. The arm-twisting between the stadtholder and his opponents was accompanied by a huge outpouring of pamphlets. Nearly 250 have been preserved.17 This time, in contrast to his stance during the rampjaar and the subsequent war, Romeyn refrained from openly taking a position in the public debate. One satirical pro-Orange print by his hand, showing a herd of cows, a wolf, and a fox, is commonly dated to 1684. But the dating is erroneous, for, as we shall see, there is irrefutable evidence that Romeyn produced this print only in 1690.18 Yet the 1683–1684 turmoil did not pass Romeyn unnoticed. As mentioned above, Amsterdam’s regents had asked him to invent a print against the stadtholder, a request he adamantly rejected. It was this event, he said, that propelled him into the stadtholder’s camp. The incident suggests that regents were actively involved in pamphleteering. Even if Romeyn’s account is untrustworthy, his readers would have been familiar with the scenario of regents soliciting an artist or author to produce slander on their opponents. In the early summer of 1684, Romeyn fashioned a detailed bird’s eye view of the city of Luxembourg, showing the siege and capture by the French on 4 June (fig. 6.8).19 It remained the only news print relating to political affairs in Western Europe that he was to make until 1688. With captions in Latin and French, the map was aimed at an international market, but like Romeyn’s earlier news prints, it includes features for domestic consumption. The caption at the bottom is flanked by allegorical figures: France is represented as the war god Mars, wielding a sword and carrying a shield with the image of Louis as the sun and his well-known yet enigmatic device nec pluribus impar (‘Not Unequal to Many’). Mars is accompanied by the representation of War, a repulsive hag

17 Kn. 11966–12210. 18 fmh 2668; Kn. 12151a, Vette koe. See below, Ch. 8. 19 le 124; h 134; fmh 2667.

Fig. 6.8. Romeyn de Hooghe, Map of Luxembourg Besieged by the French, 1684.

wielding a torch and a holding burning fuse near a mortar.20 Opposite this bellicose couple is a group composed of a German warrior, the Dutch Maiden brandishing a sword, and an allegorical figure equipped with a sword and a pair of scales, representing Just War. The inscription states that the fortress only capitulated after ‘suffering’ two blockades, ‘horrible’ bombardments, ‘ruinous’ looting, and after a ‘vigorous’ defence. There can be no doubt as to whose side Romeyn was promoting. Nevertheless, there is no visual allusion at all to the conflict between William iii and Amsterdam about the recruitment of the 16,000 soldiers, nor is there any suggestion that Luxembourg could have been saved had matters developed differently in the Dutch Republic. If it is true that Romeyn espoused the cause of the Prince of Orange in 1684, there is no sign that he put his etching needle to the service of that cause before the summer of 1688.

20 Ripa, Iconologia of Uytbeeldinghen, p. 376 vo, entry Guerra, Oorlogh.

Fig. 6.9. Romeyn de Hooghe, Repression of the Huguenots after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 1686.

The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes In January 1686, Romeyn executed a large print criticizing the persecution of the Huguenots after the repeal of the Edict of Nantes in October of the previous year (fig. 6.9).21 Its title, ‘Tyrannies against the Reformed in France’ (Tirannien tegen de Gereformeerde in Vrankryk), echoes the ‘French Tyranny’ print of 1673, as do the atrocities depicted. Twelve small illustrations, showing in intricate detail the horrors committed against his French co-religionists, are arranged around a larger central representation of the benevolent reception the latter enjoyed in the Dutch Republic. Standing in the gateway of a classical edifice, the Prince of Orange and the States are welcoming the refugees. Money, loaves of bread, and other relief goods are being dispensed, while construction workers are engaged in building a Walloon Reformed church. 21 h 135; fmh 2673.

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The renewed persecution of Protestants in France created great commotion in the Republic and rekindled anti-French feelings. On 31 January 1686, the French ambassador d’Avaux sent Louis xiv a copy of what was evidently Romeyn’s print, complaining about etchings that represented the different sorts of torments one has made the people of the pretended Reformed religion suffer in France, with a printed sheet in French and Dutch containing the explication of these etchings, one of which represents what supposedly has happened to this pretended consul at Nantes. I take the liberty to insert a copy. One avails oneself of this sort of thing to incite the people.22

The States General’s consul at Nantes mentioned by d’Avaux was Jacob de Bie. A small scene marked ‘M’ (bottom right) shows how ‘eighty dragoons and thirty priests’ assaulted the unfortunate consul, forcing him to light 100 candles in honour of the Pope, plundering his precious furniture, and stabling horses in his prettiest rooms ‘and on his best beds’. Having tied the consul to one of the pillars of his bedstead, the soldiers used pincers to tear the hairs from his beard and legs, and ravished the young ladies of the house in his sight. De Bie’s tribulations found their way into a pamphlet, published anonymously in French in December 1685, and undoubtedly Romeyn’s source of information.23 D’Avaux followed up his dispatch by approaching his contacts among the delegates in the States of Holland in The Hague. Within two weeks, he reported to the king that his endeavours had been successful. The burgomasters of Amsterdam had ‘severely forbidden’ all opprobrious pamphlets against religious affairs in France, as well as etchings representing ‘everything false and atrocious that the refugees in this country can fabulate’.24 By the end of February, the States of Holland followed suit, ordering the governments of the towns to prohibit ‘the engraving, printing, and selling of prints, pamphlets and verses scorning and reviling the king of France’.25 Despite the public outcry against the persecution of the Huguenots, the authorities were reluctant to jeopardize their friendly relations with France. This was not only in order to prevent economic retaliation, but also to avoid providing the French government with a pretext for harassing the Huguenots even more. The ban was largely successful. Though d’Avaux complained that ‘one has made new etchings even more insolent, which are publicly exposed in all shops in The Hague’ and the

22 23 24 25

Quoted in Cillessen, Krieg, p. 28. On de Bie, see Levillain, Vaincre Louis xvi, pp. 343–344; cf. Cillessen, Krieg, p. 218. Ibid., p. 28. Ibid., p. 29.

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stream of pamphlets lamenting the fate of the Huguenots continued as before, Romeyn and his fellow-artists refrained from publishing any anti-French prints.26 This was to change only in the summer of 1688, when relations between the Republic and France entered a new phase.

The Glorious Revolution The event that eventually pitched William iii and Louis xiv against each other was not the persecution of the Huguenots in France, but William’s succession to the British throne. The Glorious Revolution was to transform international relations in Europe and overseas. It would also profoundly transform Romeyn’s career and indeed his life. In 1685, the British King Charles ii was succeeded by his younger brother James ii, an avowed Catholic. This posed a problem in a country where the king was Supreme Governor of the Anglican Church, and the Test Act of 1673 prohibited Catholics (as well as Protestant Nonconformists) from serving in the government, the army, and the navy. A brother of William iii’s mother Mary i Stuart as well as the father of his wife Mary ii Stuart, James was both William’s uncle and his father-in-law. Mary ii had been born from James’ first marriage to Anne Hyde and raised as a Protestant. Since James had no children from his second marriage to Mary of Modena, his daughter Mary – William’s wife – was expected to succeed him after his death. The succession to the throne of Mary, with her Dutch husband who was also a British prince of the blood, would decisively alter the balance of power in Europe, because it would create a secure personal union between England and the Dutch Republic and a permanent anti-French alignment. William had never forgotten that it was the secret alliance between the kings of France and England that almost brought down the Dutch Republic in 1672. On 9 November 1685, in his speech on the occasion of the opening of Parliament, James announced his intention to abolish the Test Act. This took place only two weeks after Louis xiv had revoked the Edict of Nantes on 22 October. Protestants all over Europe were aghast, regarding the two events as a single Catholic conspiracy to introduce popery and the Inquisition, root out Protestantism, establish an absolute monarchy in England, and present European hegemony to France on a platter. Two years later, Queen Mary was pregnant. If her child proved to be a boy and if he lived, William’s hopes for his wife’s and his own succession to the British throne and a stable Anglo-Dutch alliance would be dashed. For the British, the nuisance of a Catholic king would be replaced by the catastrophe of a Catholic monarchy. Another 26 D’Avaux was probably referring to Romeyn’s print h 135, fmh 2673, or le 128.

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Franco-English alliance against the Dutch Republic and a replay of the rampjaar seemed imminent. From that moment on, William started planning for military intervention in Britain. But he did not wish to be seen as a usurper of the throne. He therefore arranged for a number of disgruntled Whig MPs to invite him to come over as the saviour of Britain’s ancient constitution and established Protestant religion. In June 1688, when his preparations for an invasion of Britain were well underway, the royal infant was born. It was a boy. William’s intervention in England, on his own title but with the full support of the States General, would irrevocably bring war with France. For this reason, it was no simple matter to convince the cities of Holland, especially Amsterdam, to back his plans. In 1678, Amsterdam and the other cities of Holland had craved peace as much as William had desired war. The regents had gained the upper hand and forced the prince to accept the peace of Nijmegen. But in the summer and autumn of 1687, France unwittingly came to William’s aid by starting a trade war, banning the import of Dutch herring (unless salted with French salt) and slapping stiff tariffs on fine cloth and other imported goods. Holland’s export industries were severely hit. Several cities in Holland pressed for a ban on French imports by way of retaliation, but Amsterdam was not prepared to face the total destruction of its French trade. It tried to steer a middle course, facilitating the build-up of the fleet that was to invade England and at the same time resisting the trade ban, hoping that this would force Louis to drop his economic sanctions. In September 1688, the Amsterdam Vroedschap was still split between supporters and opponents of the banning of French commodities. Then Louis, impatient with the insolence of the Dutch regents, played into the hands of the stadtholder by issuing a general arrest of all Dutch shipping in French ports. Within days, Amsterdam agreed to the ban on French goods; and, more importantly, it approved the invasion of England. Louis xiv ultimately failed to come to the rescue of James ii, choosing instead to go to war in the German Rhineland. The immediate reason for his intervention was the succession in the Archbishopric of Cologne. In January 1688, Cardinal Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg, Louis’ agent in the German Empire, was elected coadjutor or designated successor to the archbishop and elector of Cologne. Having his agent installed in Cologne would give Louis a strategic as well as a political advantage in the Empire, as the prince-bishop was one of the seven electors entitled to appoint the next emperor. After the death of the incumbent archbishop, the Cologne chapter duly elected von Fürstenberg, but not by the required two-thirds majority. In such cases, the procedure granted the nomination to the Pope. Innocent xi, pursuing his usual political opposition to Louis, appointed a rival candidate, a member of the ­Wittelsbach family (like the deceased archbishop), and an ally of Emperor Leopold i. In September 1688, Louis retaliated by presenting an ultimatum to Leopold and at the same time occupying the fortress of Philippsburg on the right bank of the River Rhine. He gambled that the emperor, still entangled in the war against the Ottomans,

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would accept his demands. But Leopold decided to make a stand and mobilized an army to confront the French. The war in the Palatinate came as a godsend for William, because it prevented ­Louis from coming to the aid of the British throne. A flotilla of 500 vessels (four times the size of the Spanish Armada of 1588), carrying some 40,000 men and 5,000 horses, left the roadstead of the naval port of Hellevoetsluis near Rotterdam on 11 ­November. The same ‘Protestant’ easterly that so providentially blew William’s fleet towards its destination prevented the English navy, at anchor in the Thames e­ stuary, from ­setting sail. Four days later, the invasion fleet dropped anchor at Brixham in D ­ evon. ­Unopposed, William and his army of between 16,000 and 17,000 men marched to London.27 On 23 December (n.s.), James fled the country; six days later, William entered London. A Convention Parliament was to decide how to proceed further. Meeting in January 1689, it decided that James, by abandoning his realm, had in effect abdicated and that the throne was vacant. The crown was not offered to the infant Prince of Wales. On 21 April 1689 (n.s.), William and Mary were crowned in Westminster Abbey as King and Queen of England. William’s military campaign was accompanied by an unprecedented propaganda effort that was as massive as it was sophisticated. It was aimed at making the English accept William’s enterprise, and at making the Dutch support it and shoulder the unavoidable consequence of renewed war with France. A key element of William’s propaganda was the publication, on 10 October 1688, of a manifesto entitled Declaration of Reasons. Authored by Holland’s Grand Pensionary Gaspar Fagel and translated into English by the Anglican clergyman and later bishop of Salisbury Gilbert Burnet, the pamphlet expounded William’s justification for intervening in England.28 In great secrecy, specially appointed printers in The Hague, Amsterdam, and Rotterdam produced about 60,000 copies of the English version, an astonishing quantity for an age in which even a best-selling pamphlet rarely appeared in more than 2,000 or 3,000 copies.29 Five editions of the Dutch version were printed, one edition in French and three in German.30 In the months that followed, a flood of pamphlets gushed from the presses, many of them deriving their argument from the Declaration of Reasons. William was well aware of the value of printed propaganda. Already in the early 1670s, he had commissioned a pamphlet designed to turn the English Parliament against the alliance with France.31 Arthur Herbert, the English admiral commanding the invasion fleet, in a memorandum advised the Prince to bring ‘a printing presse, a 27 On the size of the invasion force, see Bosman, Roofkoning, pp. 208–217. 28 Kn. 12773, Declaration; Claydon, ‘William the iii’s Declaration’; Claydon, William iii, pp. 24–28; Bergin, ‘Defending the True Faith’. Bosman, Roofkoning, pp. 220–224, doubts the effectiveness of the Declaration. 29 Israel, ‘Dutch Role’, p. 121. 30 Kn. 12774–12782. 31 Haley, William of Orange, pp. 52–53, 98–111.

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mould and other things for coyning’. It is not certain whether this recommendation was heeded, for Burnet, already on English soil, wrote that ‘a [printing] press would serve us more here than a regiment […]; the world is such that if it does not see printed matter, it does not credit the most authorized and certain things’.32 However this may be, the stadtholder’s need of printed propaganda meant business for Romeyn.

Glorifying the Revolution In 1688, Romeyn de Hooghe, after ten years of not producing a single print ­dedicated to the glory of the Prince of Orange, resumed his position as the chief visual a­ rtist serving his propaganda effort. As had been the case during the 1672–1678 war, R ­ omeyn produced his prints for various publishers who sold them on the open ­market. As far as we know, William never paid Romeyn a salary as printmaker or in any other ­official capacity. Yet as we shall see, he did actively facilitate the artist and thus secure him a competitive edge in the market for propaganda prints. As announced in his programmatic ‘Theatre of Changes in the Netherlands’, and practised in his patriotic prints of the 1670s, Romeyn freely mixed the allegorical and the historical. For example, he devoted a large broadsheet to the departure of the invasion fleet (fig. 6.10).33 The Prince of Orange is leaving from the quay on a yacht; an excited crowd, throwing their hats in the air, is cheering him. The background shows the armada under sail. The text, printed on a separate sheet, summarizes the content of the Declaration of Reasons, identifies the individual vessels and their captains, and explains the complex ensemble of allegorical figures surrounding the prince’s coat of arms above the scene. The maiden on the right, equipped with a staff and snake that bites its own tail, representing God’s Church, is ‘lamenting and promising God’s guidance to the arms of His Royal Highness’. Neptune, representing ‘the valour of the navy against popish trickeries’, wields his trident against assorted Catholic objects (a reliquary, a crucifix) and snakes, one of them winged. On the left, a maiden holding scales and wielding a fiery sword tramples a mask (duplicity), a scimitar dripping with blood (unholy war?), and a torch (arson or unjustified war). She represents ‘the justification of His Royal Highness’ succession according to the laws of the realm’. A second maiden represents Unity (carrying a shield with the Dutch Republic’s emblem of a sheaf of seven arrows), Secrecy (closing her mouths with her fingers) and ‘the Art of Warfare Fighting Monarchical Ambition’ (in arms and piercing the representation of Envy).

32 Cillessen, Krieg, p. 12; Schwoerer, ‘Propaganda’, p. 856. 33 le 146; h 141; fmh 2708.

Fig. 6.10. Romeyn de Hooghe, Departure of the Invasion Fleet of William iii, 1688 (detail).

As we have seen, Romeyn did not usually visit the sites where the events he designed took place, but relied on published maps and prints or sketches made locally. The latter was the case in another print displaying, under another representation of the fleet’s departure from Hellevoetsluis, its arrival and disembarkation at Torbay (fig. 6.11).34 Apart from Romeyn’s name as the etcher and the imprint of the Amsterdam publisher Aert Dircksz Oossaen, the print carries the inscription Hekhuisen Ing. ad viv. del. 17 Nov. 1688, indicating that a certain Hekhuisen has drawn the scene from life. Nothing is known about Hekhuisen, except that he is referred to as Ing. or ­Ingenieur,

34 le 147; h 142; fmh 2713; Cillessen, Krieg, pp. 262–263.

Fig. 6.11. Romeyn de Hooghe after Hekhuisen, Departure and Arrival of the Invasion Fleet of William iii, 1688.

a military engineer charged with designing and constructing fortifications. Only one other print by Romeyn displays his name, showing the ceremonies of the coronation of William and Mary on 21 April 1689 (Hek: delin: ad vivium 1689).35 These professional services of a military man suggest that his superior officers, and perhaps the Prince of Orange or his staff, were involved. They must at least have consented to Hekhuisen’s working for Romeyn, and may have ordered him to do so.36 His privileged source in William’s army gave Romeyn an advantage over his fellow-engravers. From now on, he was always the first to produce a reliable picture of the events as they unfolded. Other artists could only turn to his work as their source.

35 le 156; h 150; fmh 2734. 36 Romeyn’s print of William’s departure from Hellevoetsluis after Hekhuisen (le 147; h 142; fmh 2713) shows the fleet at anchor and William boarding a pink, a flat-bottomed fisherman’s vessel. Romeyn’s own rendering

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As had been the case with his images of the Franco-Dutch wars, Romeyn’s news prints of the Glorious Revolution became iconic and found many copiers and followers. A copy by an anonymous engraver of Romeyn’s print of the departure and arrival of the prince after Hekhuisen has an ornate etched frame, inviting the buyer to display it on the wall. Four cartouches with anecdotal events are added. One of these shows William’s entry in London, which dates the copy to after 29 December 1688 (N.S.).37 Johannes van den Aveele copied the same print or its design drawing, but omitted the explicatory text.38 Another anonymous artist, or possibly also van den Aveele, only copied the top part representing William’s departure, and had it published separately.39 Caspar Luyken later used the print as the source for his own picture of William’s departure in a biography of William iii published six years after the event.40 The same is true of Romeyn’s representation of William’s arrival and reception in London.41 Van den Aveele produced a copy, as did other anonymous engravers.42 In April 1689, Hekhuisen sent Romeyn a number of sketches of William and Mary’s coronation ceremony. Romeyn designed a large broadsheet showing the actual coronation in Westminster Abbey, surrounded by eight smaller pictures showing, among others, the retrieval of the crown jewels from the Tower of London, the procession of the king and queen and their retinue to the abbey, the banquet in Westminster Hall, and the fireworks display on the Thames (fig. 6.12).43 Another broadsheet shows the coronation ceremonies from a different angle. The topographical details suggest that Romeyn made this print after sketches by a draughtsman on the spot, but the print does not specify this.44 A large broadsheet composed of two plates has clarifying texts in Dutch and English. On the top plate, William is shown standing between an image of Unity and his retinue (fig. 6.13).45 He tramples on a prostrate body representing ‘The Irish Papist’s Massacres Frustrated’, with rosary, crucifix, a reliquary, and snake-hair. Before him, a kneeling Britannia is holding a yoke, a portrait of Queen Mary, and ‘the Magna Charta of England, i.e. of Religion, Laws & Liberties’. Below William’s coat of arms,

of the same event (le 146; h 141; fmh 2708) shows the fleet under full sail and the prince on board a yacht. The explicatory text, however, describes the yacht as a pink. One must therefore assume that Hekhuisen’s drawing is the more reliable one, and Romeyn’s own the more fanciful representation of the event. 37 fmh 2714. Landwehr erroneously attributes the copy to Romeyn (le 148). 38 fmh 2715. 39 fmh 2715-a. 40 fmh 2717; Van Eeghen, Werk, 1475; Van den Bosch, Leven, vol. 2, f. 234. 41 le 49; h 143; fmh 2720, le 149. 42 fmh 2721. 43 le 156; h 150; fmh 2734. 44 le 155; h 151; fmh 2735. 45 le 151; h 144; fmh 2722-a.

Fig. 6.12. Romeyn de Hooghe after Hekhuisen, Coronation Ceremonies of William and Mary in Westminster, 1688 (detail).

three scenes depict his expedition to England. Below James’ arms are three pictures representing the disasters caused by his reign: ‘the murders and ruin of the Lords and cityes’; the imprisonment of the seven bishops in the Tower of London, and the birth of the ‘pretended’ Prince of Wales. In the centre, we see William’s arrival at Brixham, his reception in London, and the formation of the invasion fleet under sail. Another intriguing print entitled ‘Restitution of the True Religion and Fundamental Laws in England’ displays, amidst a flurry of allegorical figures, James being welcomed by Louis xiv at St Germain-en-Laye ‘with the pretended Prince of Wales, the King’s bastards, and many popish lords and priests (fig. 6.14)’.46 Romeyn arranged

46 le 152; fmh 2751; Cillessen, Krieg, pp. 266–267. Fig. 6.13. Romeyn de Hooghe, Allegory of William iii and the Events of the Glorious Revolution, 1688.  ▸

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Fig. 6.14. Romeyn de Hooghe, Restitution of the True Religion and Fundamental Laws in England, 1688.

ten smaller pictures around it, documenting in minute detail James’ flight from ­Britain in the manner of a modern comic strip.47 Here, as in the prints discussed above, ­Romeyn is experimenting with incorporating the explanation into the print, instead of composing it in typeset below. William’s providential accession to the English throne offered ample scope for the allegories that were by now regarded as Romeyn’s specialty. One allegory stands out, because it is the only mezzotint he ever published (fig. 6.15).48 Three maidens, representing Diligence (with Mercury’s staff), Fortitude (holding a pillar), and Discipline (with a bridle), backed up by Immovable Faith, are presenting a portrait of William,

47 Cf. Kunzle, Early Comic Strip, pp. 96–121. 48 h 145; fmh 2724-a; Cillessen, Krieg, pp. 290–291.

Fig. 6.15. Romeyn de Hooghe, Allegory of William iii’s English Enterprise, 1688.

entitled ‘the Phoenix of Orange’ and wearing the royal crown, to the allegorical figure of Britannia. She hands them a charter with seals in return. The personification of the Holy Roman Empire, with the illustrious lineage of the Prince’s ancestors (originally German), appears above. Behind Britannia stands Parliament, holding the rudder of the state. At their feet lies ‘Wild Rage’ (dolle drift), prostrate, blindfolded and with donkey’s ears, clutching three crowns representing the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, because he is ‘harmful to three realms’; he can be related to the defeated James ii. Jan Norel, the poet responsible for the verses below the print, reserved his most scathing invectives for the king of France, whose army (‘the frivolous rabble of Louis’) can be seen in the distance: ‘The Nero of our times, who listens to no reason, / Violates treaties, and breaches, and burns, and scorches, and murders. / Europe’s firebrand, great destroyer, plague of man, / A Nimrod, keen on looting, like a hunter’. Mezzotint was a popular technique among artists and their patrons during ­Romeyn’s lifetime, so one might ask why he produced only this single specimen. Apparently, he was not happy with the result, and it is not difficult to understand why. Mezzotint, a technique enabling the production of half-tones without the use of hatching or cross-hatching, was used for rendering picturesque effects. It was

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especially popular for portraits, but less so for allegories, news prints, and satire, where good legibility is essential. The fuzziness of this print makes it difficult to discern the characters and attributes from one another and from the background. In an earlier version of the same print, without legend, the portrait of William wears no crown, while the female figure to whom the portrait is being offered clutches the seven arrows of the Dutch Republic instead of a sceptre.49 This suggests that this print dates from 1672 and alludes to William’s appointment as stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland; the blazons of these two provinces are visible on an etched picture displayed to the bottom right. At that time, the blindfolded character clutching his three crowns would have represented Charles ii of England. Few other graphic artists besides Romeyn were involved in William’s propaganda drive. Next to numerous anonymous artists copying Romeyn’s work, only Johannes van den Aveele, Adriaan Schoonebeek, and Daniel Marot delivered original work. Van den Aveele produced prints showing the order of the invasion fleet sailing to England and the departure of Mary; Schoonebeek made a print of the fireworks lit in Amsterdam in celebration of the coronation, while Marot depicted William’s fleet a few days before its departure, in a style very different from Romeyn’s two prints of the same event.50 Gerard de Lairesse etched a fanciful allegory, in a style different from Romeyn’s, of William liberating Britannia from oppression. His son Jan etched another allegory in his father’s style.51 Jan Luyken made a number of smaller etchings, but these were book illustrations, which were not really comparable with freestanding broadsheets.52 Romeyn thus emerged as the principal provider of prints supporting William’s propaganda drive in 1688–1689. His style and manner of working were very similar to those of 1672–1678, except that this time, he sometimes based his news prints on the sketches that were dispatched to him by an ‘embedded’ draughtsman in William’s army. His most original and lasting contribution, however, would be that of his incisive and hilarious satirical prints.

49 50 51 52

fmh 2724-b. For Van den Aveele, see fmh 2709 and 2728; Schoonebeek: fmh 2744; Marot: fmh 2707. fmh 2725, 2726. Van Eeghen, Werk, vol. 1, pp. 156, 161, 169, 170.

7. The Harlequin Prints Lampooning the Sun King Romeyn established his name as a satirist during the 1688–1689 campaign, but his earliest satirical prints date from the Guerre de Hollande. Having produced a spate of satires in 1674, though, Romeyn’s interest in the genre seems to have waned. The satires of 1688 and 1689 were part of William’s propaganda drive, but it is hard to tell whether he or anybody near him actually commissioned them. In contrast to the news prints and allegories discussed in the previous chapter, which were strictly limited to the invasion and revolution in England, these covered the entire European context. They especially targeted the Sun King, turning his colossal vanity into a weapon against him. Among other lampoons, Romeyn produced a coherent group of nine satirical prints, in which he ridiculed Louis and James and their families in an unprecedented manner.1 Romeyn did not conceive and execute these satires in one go, or as a proper (­numbered) series, planned in advance; they came into being from time to time as the political events unfolded. The sheets can be dated roughly according to the events depicted, but their precise order remains uncertain. Despite the sporadic origins of the prints, the series forms a consistent unity. The sheets all have the same format, design, and layout (fig. 7.1). They are broadsheets, in vertical orientation, with the etching at the top, including an engraved title in French, and an explanation in verse printed in letterpress below. The texts are in Dutch, but some include a translation in French or English. Most prints are anonymous; two are signed with the fake name ‘Gisling in Geneva’.2 One print (chronologically the last one, and possibly by a different hand) is signed, also falsely, Hazard de bon avonture fec. et exc. The addition exc[udit] indicates that the maker of the print also acted as its publisher. Romeyn was probably also the author of the explanatory verses, but we cannot be sure this was so. All of the sheets address the international political situation of 1688 and 1689: the birth of an heir to the British king in June 1688, William iii’s invasion of England and the Glorious Revolution; the contested succession in the archbishopric-­electorate of Cologne; and Louis xiv’s invasion of the Rhineland. More generally, they express concern about the dangers of Catholicism in Britain and on the Continent. The focus of all of the prints is the defamation of the opponents of William iii, ­especially ­Louis xiv and his son Louis, known as the Grand Dauphin; Louis’ agent in the empire, Cardinal 1 An earlier version of this chapter appeared as van Nierop, ‘Lampooning Louis xiv’. 2 The literal meaning of Gisling is ‘to be guessed’, while Geneva of course refers to the heart of Calvinist Europe.

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Fig. 7.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, The Fair Constance Dragooned by Harlequin Déodat, 1688.

Wilhelm Egon von Fürstenberg; and James ii and his family. In this sense, they are completely different from Romeyn’s earlier work, in which he lionized the stadtholder but did not bother to taunt his opponents. What makes the prints a coherent group is that each one casts the chief villain, Louis xiv, as the commedia dell’arte character

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of Harlequin. I will therefore refer to these prints as the Harlequin Prints. Closely related to these nine prints are a number of other lampoons by ­Romeyn supporting William iii’s policies, but none of these depicts Louis as Harlequin, and some are of a different format, so they will not be discussed here.3 Romeyn’s Harlequin prints are burlesque, bizarre, enigmatic, and hilarious. It is difficult to fathom their exact meaning; they demand an emblematic manner of reading and understanding that we have lost. Each of the three components of the sheet – the print, the title, and the explanation – is meaningless unless combined with the other parts. We can only begin to make sense of them when placing them in the full context of contemporary political affairs, as well as the cultural, artistic, and literary conventions of the period. Romeyn filled his prints with a rich concoction of hidden meanings, and this is exactly what must have appealed to his audience. One imagines the buyers of his prints sitting around a table in a tavern or a coffeehouse, hotly debating the significance of each character and attribute.4 More than three centuries later, it has become even harder to crack Romeyn’s cipher.

Arlequin Déodat The series kicks off with The Fair Constance Dragooned by Arlequin Déodat (fig. 7.1).5 The sheet addresses the persecution of the Huguenots in France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and the threat posed to Protestantism in Britain by the French Catholic monarchy. The print shows Louis xiv, nicknamed ‘Arlequin Déodat’ and garbed in a Harlequin costume bedecked with Catholic symbols: crosses, a chain with the Jesuit ihs sign, and a book marked ‘Missal 1688’. The image on the back wall and the legends Plus de bruit que de fruit and Algeria non allegria refer to the bombardment of Algiers on 1 July 1688, which resulted in heavy losses for the French navy. The background shows crippled soldiers returning from war and a fleet looming on the horizon representing either the French Mediterranean fleet or William III’s invasion forces. Arlequin Déodat is courting a maiden named La Belle Constance, who represents the Protestant religion. The verses explain how Constance, harassed by French 3 Anonymous, attributed to the circle of Romeyn, De vlugt van ’t Pausdom uit Engeland, undated [1689], le 224, fmh 2772 (different hand, no etched title in French). Anonymous (Romeyn de Hooghe), Paye qui tombe: die eerst valt betaelt de speelman, die laetst, de kosten, undated [1689], le 222, h 160, fmh 2766a (displays no Harlequin character). Gisling Geneve exc. (Romeyn de Hooghe), Het beest van Babel is aan ’t vluchten; de godsdienst heeft niet meer te duchten, undated [1689], fmh 2776 (no Harlequin character; folio format). Guindeau inv., J. Marlais f. à Londres (Romeyn de Hooghe), Pantagruel agonisant, undated [1690], le 228, h 167, fmh 2816 (no Harlequin character, no engraved title in French). 4 See Cillessen, Krieg, p. 19. 5 le 216, h 157, fmh 2757; Cillissen, Krieg, pp. 274–275. Romeyn’s design drawing is in rma, inv. no. rp-t-00-332.

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dragoons and a Jesuit priest, firmly turns down her unsolicited suitor. She considers flight to England, only to discover that the repression of Protestants on the other side of the English Channel is even fiercer than it is in France. Behind Harlequin stands the Queen of England cradling her new-born baby James Francis Edward, the Prince of Wales. Britain’s Catholic community believed Mary’s delivery had been a miracle, while the Protestants considered it a fraud. They spread the rumour that the infant was suppositious, the son of an unknown mother and a miller (or, in another version, a Jesuit), smuggled into the queen’s childbed in a warming pan. The text finally resolves the situation by announcing the arrival of Constance’s ‘brother’ (William iii), who will redeem her. The concluding line, ‘Constantia endures it all’, reminds the readers of Justus Lipsius’ celebrated treatise On Constancy, still popular more than a century after its first publication. The first conundrum that Romeyn presents is the enigmatic nickname Arlequin Déodat. While the commedia dell’arte character of Harlequin was well known, in order to decode the reference, the audience would have had to be have been aware that Louis’ middle name was Dieudonné, ‘Gift of God’, or Deodatus in Latin.6 This was just the start of a whole series of riddles that ran through the entire series of prints. On 3 September 1688, the English consul in Amsterdam Daniel Petit sent Secretary of State Charles Middleton a copy of La Belle Constance. In a covering letter, he wrote that the magistrates had banned the print as soon as it had appeared, but that this had only driven up the price: he had had to pay six times the original price of the print before the prohibition.7 The Marquis of Albeville, the English ambassador in The Hague, called the delegates from Amsterdam to account. The upshot was that on 17 September, the magistrates had a number of libels publicly burnt in the chamber of justice of the Amsterdam town hall. Nothing like this had happened for over half a century.8

The Son of a Miller The main topic of what was probably the second print, Europe Alarmed for the Son of a Miller (fig. 7.2), is the supposedly fraudulent paternity of the Prince of Wales.9 It was produced shortly after the seaborne invasion of England, visible in the background. The baby Prince of Wales holds a toy windmill and wears a tiny Jesuit bonnet. Two mothers and ‘Pater Peters’, Father Edward Petre, James ii’s Jesuit confessor and his trusted advisor, complain that their plot to produce a suppositious heir to the throne has been exposed. Louis, described here as ‘The Great Monster, Lord Harlequin 6 The French version of La Belle Constance helps its readers as follows: ‘Après un grand fassonné/ comme si Dieu l’avoit donneé, est venu lui [Constance] faire caresse’. 7 Cillessen, Krieg, p. 30. 8 Ibid., p. 31. 9 le 218, fmh 2760-a.

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Fig. 7.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, Europe Alarmed for the Son of a Miller, 1688 (detail).

Déodat’, but without his Harlequin costume, complains that his design to overrun Holland has failed. The character standing behind the queen in a cardinal’s outfit is Cardinal von Fürstenberg, described as ‘Pamirge, knightly prelate’ (Pamirge, ridderlijke prelaat). The curious name Pamirge was the result of a typesetter’s error: a later version of the same sheet with a translation in French correctly renders the name as Panurge, the well-known foolish character in the novel Pantagruel by François ­Rabelais.10 This character, with its garbled spelling, would continue to pop up in the Harlequin series. The print also shows the Pope, holding the keys of St. Peter. Dubbed ‘the old rascal’ (de oude schalck), and a ‘peddler of red hats’ in the French version (vendeur des chapeaux rouges), he comments on his anti-French policies. 10 fmh 2560-b.

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Fig. 7.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Harlequin on the Hippogryph on the Loyolist Crusade, 1688 (detail).

Various characters in the background (among them German soldiers and Louis’ son the Grand Dauphin) discuss European political affairs. On the far left, Quakers are heading off to Pennsylvania.

Riding the Hippogryph The sheet Harlequin on the Hippogryph on the Loyolist Crusade, subtitled Army of the Holy League for the Monarchy of the Jesuits (fig. 7.3), was probably the third in the series.11 Its focus is the danger posed by Louis’ and James’ Catholicism (‘Loyolism’ translates as Jesuitism), and it shows a crusaders’ army composed of Louis, James, 11 le 214, h 155, fmh 2755-a; Cillessen (ed.), Krieg, pp. 282–283.

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Father Petre, the Grand Dauphin, and assorted priests and monks. Arlequin Déodat is now clad in antique armour and he has a shield adorned with Catholic symbols and the text The Fifth Monarchy 1688.12 He has a wooden leg because, according to the caption, ‘he is lacking in everything’. The pun is lost in English; the Dutch phrase omdat hij in alles mank gaat also signifies ‘because he is a cripple in everything’. The pennant on his lance, reading ‘Holy Crusade against this Pope and the Heretics’, reminds the viewers of his differences with Pope Innocent xi. His steed is a donkey carrying a reliquary and a holy water stoop on its chest. The legend, however, describes the donkey as a hippogryph, the fabulous creature in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, offspring of a griffin and a mare. Behind Arlequin Déodat, holding on to him tightly, sits James ii. The two kings share a giant Jesuit bonnet. Strangely enough, it is now James that the explanatory text identifies as ‘Pamirge’. Thus, in this print Romeyn transferred the odd nickname from the Bishop of Strasbourg to the Stuart king. He did not employ the name Pamirge for any fixed stock character, but rather as a catch-all label for Louis’ cronies: sometimes Fürstenberg, sometimes James. On the right, we discern the son of Louis, the Grand Dauphin – incidentally, the same Dauphin whose baptismal ceremony Romeyn portrayed in 1668 during his sojourn in Paris. In 1688, the Dauphin was the nominal commander-in-chief of the army invading the Rhineland. His cart is a wooden box, slowly moved forward by a toad in a manner that can best be described as Boschian. ‘The invincible young hero’, reads the caption, ‘crawls through the swamps on the Rhine, shooting golden and silver coins’ – in other words, achieving his goals through bribery rather than fighting. In the background, clerics carry banners referring to popish outrages of the past, such as the Gunpowder Plot and the murder of the French King Henry iii. To the top left, an iconoclast riot is taking place, its iconography reminiscent of prints of the 1566 beeldenstorm in the Netherlands. Pride of place in this print goes to Father Petre, holding the suppositious infant in his arms and sitting astride a colossal lobster. The lobster was a splendid animal for poking fun at the Jesuits. According to legend, Saint Francis Xavier, one of the founders of the Society of Jesus, lost his crucifix during a storm at sea. At his earnest praying, a lobster appeared on top of the waves bearing the holy trinket in its claws.13 Lobsters were a symbol of inconstancy, because they were thought to be able to walk backwards and forwards with the same ease.14

12 Referring to the Biblical era of a thousand years when Christ and his Saints would rule, rather than the radical Puritan sect during the Commonwealth and the Protectorate. 13 Jameson, Legends, p. 443. 14 Ripa, Iconologia of Uytbeeldinghen, pp. 367–368.

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Fig. 7.4. Romeyn de Hooghe, Arlequin Furious and Pantagion Triumphant, 1688 (detail).

Frogs and Toads The print that probably appeared as the fourth in the series is entitled Arlequin Furious and Pantagion Triumphant (fig. 7.4).15 It focusses on Louis xiv’s invasion of the Rhineland. Arlequin Déodat is once again clad in armour and wooden-legged. A soldier identified as ‘Sax’ – the Duke of Saxony, Johann Georg iii – grabs him from behind. In the autumn of 1688, the French, under the nominal command of the Grand Dauphin, captured a string of cities along the Rhine. French aggression provoked a coalition of the Emperor and a number of German princes that eventually drove out the French. As we have seen, the war in the Rhineland was crucial for the 15 le 214, h 155, fmh 2755-a.

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eventual fate of the monarchy in England, for it prevented Louis from protecting James ii against the Dutch invasion. In this print, various characters are exchanging opinions on European politics: Cardinal von Fürstenberg (‘the Knightly Prelate’), the Pope, Father Petre, James ii, and the British Lords. Father Petre, alongside Queen Mary and securely holding the infant Prince of Wales, rides ‘Balaam’s donkey’: a hippogryph lookalike adorned with a monstrance, an aspergillum, and other Catholic utensils. William iii has the last word. He will deliver the British from ‘popish coercion [papedwang] and tyranny’. A book dangling from Harlequin’s armour entitled Litania de profundo Loiolismo 1688 roughly dates the print. The most curious and interesting character in this print is the Sun King’s son, Louis the Grand Dauphin. His name ‘Pantagion’, like ‘Pamirge’, sounds Rabelaisian, but the cast of Pantagruel has no character of that name. In order to understand the pun, Romeyn’s audience had to be aware that the Dauphin’s birthday fell on 1 November, All Saints Day, called Agiōn Pantōn in Greek. Yet at the same time, the name can be read as a corruption of the commedia dell’arte character of Pantaloon (French Pantalon, Italian Pantalone). Clad like his father in antique armour with an ihs-collar, he is decked out in a quaint high hat, adorned with a monstrance and a crucifix, on which a Gallic cock is perched (the Latin noun gallus means both cock and Gaul). He holds a lance with a pennant reading Veni, vidi, vici, on which four frogs are impaled. A team of toads draws his war chariot, just as a toad moved forward his box cart in Harlequin on the Hippogryph. The frogs and toads present the next emblematic puzzle. Back in 1672, the French poets Jean Commire sj and Jean de la Fontaine each wrote a translation of Aesop’s fable The Sun and the Frogs. In this, frogs vainly attempted to obfuscate the rays of the sun by producing foul vapours, but the sun punished them by drying out the swamp that was their habitat, and so killed them all. In the context of the Guerre de Hollande, the sun stood for Louis xiv, while the inhabitants of the Low Countries were notoriously known as frogs.16 An anonymous Dutch author promptly retaliated by producing a faithful Dutch translation of The Sun and the Frogs, yet cleverly adding an alternative version in rhyming alexandrines and with identical rhyming words. It represented the peaceful Dutch frogs as the true heroes of the story, while the venomous French toads had come to disturb the peace in their quagmire. Romeyn counted on his readers’ familiarity with this piece of satirical poetry, which had appeared sixteen years previously and continued to be part of Dutch patriotic lore.17 Romeyn’s viewers may have been aware that, according to Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, toads stand for greed and injustice.18 And the French word for toad, crapaud, also means ugly or repulsive (laid comme un crapaud translates as ‘ugly as sin’). 16 Ziegler, Sonnenkönig, pp. 42–43; Smith, ‘Kikkersymboliek’, pp. 26–31; Smith, ‘Zon’ p. 85. 17 Furetière, Versierselen. 18 Ripa, Iconologia of Uytbeeldinghen, p. 367 vo, entry Ingiustitia, ongerechtigheyt.

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Fig. 7.5. Romeyn de Hooghe, Arlequin Déodat and Pamirge Hypochondriacs, 1689 (detail).

This print shows how Romeyn constantly recycled his characters, themes, and stage props, adding new ideas as the series developed. Once he had invented a character – ­Harlequin, his armour, his wooden leg, his sidekick Pamirge, the toad-drawn chariot, the donkey-hippogryph – he thought it unnecessary to add any further explanation in subsequent prints. Such a technique tells us much about Romeyn’s assumptions of how his work would be read. He expected customers to buy each new print as it appeared, and provided a succession of running jokes throughout the whole series to encourage them to do so.

Hypochondriacs The themes of what was probably the fifth print, Arlequin Déodat and Pamirge Hypochondriacs (fig. 7.5), are the failure of Cardinal von Fürstenberg to win the election

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for the archbishopric of Cologne and (again) the suppositious Prince of Wales.19 Two discs above the porch in the background display the legends The Man in the Sun 1689 and The Man in the Moon 1681. While the sun obviously refers to the Roi Soleil and 1689 to the year in which the print was made, the moon suggests he is a madman (suffering from lunacy or moon sickness), 1681 being the year in which he began the infamous dragonnades against the Huguenots. The busts flanking the door, marked La Folie and La Rage, convey the same message. The scene is a hospital ward, or rather an asylum. On one of the hospital beds on the right hangs the sign Morbus Gallicus, meaning syphilis or (literally) Gallic disease. In the centre stands a Duytsche Doctor (which may be translated as either a German or a Dutch Doctor), a quack dressed in an old-fashioned sixteenth-century costume, as was common in genre paintings of the period. Examining the urine of Arlequin Déodat, the quack decides that the patient is suffering from hypochondria. Arlequin is clad in antique knightly armour covered with Catholic symbols as before, but has no wooden leg. From behind, William iii, here dubbed The Foreman (de meesterknecht), prevents him from drawing his sword. The character to the bottom left is Cardinal von Fürstenberg, whose scheme to obtain the archbishopric and electorate of Cologne had failed due to Pope Innocent xi’s support for a rival candidate with anti-French leanings. Combining folly and bellicosity, von Fürstenberg wears an ecclesiastical robe adorned with cap and bell and carries a sword. Sitting on a chamber pot, he is waiting for the Pope to administer an enema. The name ‘Pamirge’ in the title of this print has returned to its original holder, von Fürstenberg. On the right is Queen Mary in childbirth, attended by Father Petre, who complains that his attempts to father the baby have failed because another mother has produced the child. The infant again holds a toy windmill, indicating his father’s lowly professional status. The image above the door in the backdrop is of ‘Erycton, Offspring Created without a Mother’ (Proles sina [sic] matre creat[a]e).20 Erycton was the monstrous offspring of Vulcan and Minerva, whom people believed to be motherless since Minerva was too virtuous to have illicit affairs. He is flanked by pictures of other motherless births: Bacchus (Dionysus) born out of Jupiter’s thigh and Minerva (Pallas) born from his head.

Royal Infidelity The next print (fig. 7.6) pokes fun at James’ flight to France.21 In The Feast of the Three Kings at the Invalides, Romeyn stages the meeting between James and Louis in front of the Hôtel des Invalides on 6 January (Epiphany) 1689. In actual fact, Louis received 19 le 213, h 154, fmh 2754. 20 Ovid, Metamorphoses, II, 553: Ericthonium, prolem sine matre creatam. 21 le 219, h 159, fmh 2761; Cillessen, Krieg, pp. 278–279.

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Fig. 7.6. Romeyn de Hooghe, The Feast of the Three Kings at the Invalides, 1689 (detail).

James one day later at the royal palace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where James was to take up residence for the rest of his life.22 Romeyn was well aware of this. Around the same time, he made a news print showing the royal meeting in front of Saint ­Germain-en-Laye palace, erroneously dating the event on 2 January (fig. 6.14).23 ­Nonetheless, it understandably appealed to him to imagine Louis and James ­meeting at the Invalides, Louis’ showcase retirement home for aged and disabled soldiers, and to associate it with Epiphany. Epiphany, or the Feast of the Three Kings, was celebrated in a carnival-like manner, and this provided an irresistible opportunity 22 Turner, James ii, p. 461. 23 le 152, fmh 2751.

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to poke fun at the assembled royalty. The print shows three royals wearing paper crowns, as children do for the Dutch festival. On the left, Harlequin, ‘masked as St Louis’, wears a Gallic cock as headwear, and sports armour with the legends pirate­ ries, bombarderies, contributions and dragonnades. The legend on the pennant on his lance reads ‘All Alone against All’ (tout seul contre tous), and there is an upturned globe under his foot indicating that the world is turned upside down (de verkeerde wereld). To the bottom right, James, now in his turn designated as Pamirge, is dressed up as a pilgrim to Santiago de Compostella (St James’ shrine in Galicia), displaying the saint’s scallops, a compass, a lantern, and a pennant reading ‘My Reign Will Be in the Other World’ (mon reigne sera dans l’autre monde).24 The third ‘king’ is the baby Prince of Wales, cradled by two ladies-in-waiting and a dunce. Father Petre is supporting James. He carries a mask for duplicity and a pair of bellows that must have reminded the viewers of a series of highly popular allegorical prints, The Spanish Tyranny in the Netherlands, which had been in circulation since 1569, particularly in the form of a 1622 reprint.25 This had depicted Cardinal Granvelle blowing in the ear of the Duke of Alba (an oorblazer or ‘ear blower’ is a slanderer or an agitator). The most noteworthy action in this print takes place on the left, where Harlequin is embracing ‘Belemperia, a damsel from Modena, Queen’. Harlequin reminds her of an affair they had in the past, about which Pamirge was resentful: Harlequin: Hah, Belemperia, a warm welcome! Do you remember our former love, which rendered Pamirge, my comrade, so jealous in bygone days? That was because he was aware of his own impotence, and rather boorish; He does however have a brave son with you. Belemperia: When will a clever woman be lacking in children? Harlequin: That’s well answered and in an Italian way! Let me in the meantime Divert you here and pleasantly kiss you.

Three Kings Another print referring to the Feast of the Three Kings, produced around the same time, is entitled The Epiphany of the New Antichrist 1689 (fig. 7.7).26 The three kings in ­ antagion, the centre are Arlequin Déodat, clad in armour with Catholic attributes; P the Grand Dauphin; and ‘the Jesuit knight of St Georges’ (James), who wears a ­Jesuit biretta under his crown, carries a holy water stoup, and has his feet shackled. ­According to the tradition of Epiphany, children in groups of three, wearing paper 24 Cf. John 18:36, ‘My kingdom is not of this world’. 25 h 97-a; fmh 514. 26 le 217, h 158, fmh 2759-a; Hale, ‘Drie koningen’, pp. 104–107; Cillessen, Krieg, pp. 280–281.

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Fig. 7.7. Romeyn de Hooghe, The Epiphany of the New Antichrist, 1689 (detail).

crowns and carrying paper lanterns, would go from door to door and sing songs for sweets and money. This is precisely what these kings are doing. Their lantern is ‘the star of unrest, patched together from seven bishop’s mitres, turning Europe upside down’. This refers to the notorious trial of the seven bishops of June 1688. Following the English bishops’ petition against James’ order to have his second Declaration of Indulgence read in the churches, the king unwisely had them prosecuted on a charge of seditious libel. The jury, however, returned a verdict of not guilty, a colossal loss of face for James.27 The three kings are standing in front of an inn named ‘In the ­German Empire’: its shop sign, ‘Here hangs the Roasted Cock’, refers to a Dutch proverb ­meaning ‘spending money irresponsibly’. The clerics on the left are von ­Fürstenberg, his habit bedecked with scallops because he is ‘on pilgrimage to Cologne’, and Father Petre riding a donkey – or as the verses describe it, ‘one ass atop another’. In front 27 Miller, James ii, pp. 185–188; Gibson, James ii.

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Fig. 7.8. Romeyn de Hooghe, The Tumbling Monarchs, 1689 (detail).

of them sits, inevitably, Mary of Modena cradling the infant Prince of Wales, here denoted as ‘the little Antichrist’. On the right stands ‘the German exterminator of the Turks’, the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold i. With the Prince of Orange, who holds aloft a cap of freedom on his lance, he is restraining Pope Innocent xi from interfering. The Pope is clutching a cardinal’s hat for Father Petre.

A Royal Enema A print entitled The Tumbling Monarchs (fig. 7.8) displays Arlequin Déodat wearing a Turkish turban adorned with a sun and sitting on a globe, while an English peer holds an orange under his nose.28 A Dutchman administers him a clyster, using a giant 28 le 220, fmh 2762; Cillessen, Krieg, pp. 276–277.

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syringe marked ‘Enema as in the Year 1674’. In this shocking and unseemly image, Louis has his voluminous bare buttocks turned towards the audience while he is being purged of the towns he has recently captured in the Palatinate. This is, remarkably enough, the first time the Harlequin prints represent any Dutchman ­other than the Prince of Orange. In this, Romeyn was following the official position of the States General. In 1688, the Dutch rulers claimed that they were not at war with England, but merely assisting William iii and his spouse to intervene in a kingdom in which they had a legitimate interest.29 ‘The year 1674’ reminds the viewer of the time when Louis xiv had withdrawn from the territory of the Dutch Republic while his allies England, Münster, and Cologne were abandoning him. He carries a burning torch in his hand marked ‘Heidelberg’, referring to the hapless city (top left) as it is scorched by the retreating French army. This event dates the print to shortly after 2 March 1689. Meanwhile, a bucking English unicorn throws off Pamirge – this time again indicating James, in armour, crowned, blindfolded, and with donkey’s ears – along with Mary of Modena and the ubiquitous Prince of Wales. The unicorn tramples the decrees of the Council of Trent whilst attacking owls dressed as monks, a snake wearing a Jesuit bonnet, and Catholic clergymen carrying banners referring to a whole series of Catholic crimes. These include the Gunpowder Plot – ‘R.P. Gartner’ is Henry Garnet – and the assassinations of William the Silent, Henry iii, and Henry iv. The English Lords and an army in the background are carrying William of Orange aloft on a shield, proclaiming him king.

Royal Cuckolds The final print, Panurge Seconded by Arlequin Déodat on the Irish Crusade, 1689 (fig. 7.9), stages the usual suspects in a new alignment.30 On the left, Arlequin ­Déodat, this time in civilian dress, hands over a fat purse to James, here more correctly dubbed ‘Panurge’ instead of ‘Pamirge’. He is about to embark for Ireland with a French army in order to confront William iii and hopefully regain his crowns (12 March 1689). Dressed in armour, and wearing a cocked hat reminiscent of Arlecchino’s headgear (or a pilgrim’s hat?), he takes leave of the queen, once again nicknamed Belemperia. Behind the couple rides the Grand Dauphin, ‘Pantagion the Bold’ (­Pantagion le ­Hardy), on a donkey. The animal is identified as ‘Rossinante’, which explains Pantagion’s quixotic attire. On the left, Father Petre is carrying the Prince of Wales equipped with his toy windmill. ‘The Princely Prelate’ von Fürstenberg is riding a Gallic cock losing its feathers, which are marked with the names of various Rhineland cities recaptured by allied forces. He alludes to his flight from Bonn, which 29 Israel, ‘Dutch Role’, pp. 121–124. 30 le 221, fmh 2763.

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Fig. 7.9. Romeyn de Hooghe, Panurge Seconded by Arlequin Déodat on the Irish Crusade, 1689 (detail).

he had announced in mid-March and which took place on 6 April.31 James’ bastard sons, the Dukes of Berwick and of Albemarle, are loading a small vessel with equipment for the impending Irish campaign. The text resumes the sexual innuendo of The Feast of the Three Kings (Epiphany) at the Invalides. Panurge bids Arlequin to take good care of his wife while he is abroad. Arlequin is only too happy to oblige: I promise you, my cousin, as a man of honour, That I shall esteem her as my own wife. I shall visit her every day and at once console her to such an extent That she will not unduly cry about your departure. 31 O’Connor, Negotiator, p. 186.

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The backdrop to this scene, showing various antlered animals, a man wearing antlers and encircled by two giant bull horns, and the legend ‘Hostel for the Royal Cuckolds’ (Hostel pour les cornutes rojales), offers a none-too-subtle comment on the plot that is unfolding.

Driving Home the Message The nine Harlequin prints throw up many questions. What precisely was the message that Romeyn was attempting to convey? What political and cultural subtexts underlie his iconography? To what extent were William iii and his entourage involved in their conception and production? At what sort of audience did Romeyn aim the prints and how were they received? And to what extent were the prints innovative in style, theme, and genre? The prints are complex and multi-faceted, teeming with plots and sub-plots almost as numerous as the characters. Yet it is not difficult to discern three related themes informing each of them: the justification for William iii’s English enterprise, the denunciation of Louis xiv’s aspirations to European domination, and a broad anti-Catholic agenda. The Harlequin Prints should primarily be read as a sustained attempt to gain and retain support for William’s invasion of England. The key in the argument legitimizing his intervention, as well as his claim to the throne, is the (fallacious) idea that the new-born heir to the throne was suppositious. Each print prominently displays the royal infant, often farcically equipped with a toy windmill. The idea that the child was smuggled into Mary’s childbed in a bedpan and may have been the offspring of a miller or indeed of Father Petre himself, was essential to William’s hereditary claims to the English throne. Acknowledging the infant’s legitimacy would annihilate the potentially powerful argument that he should rule because his wife Mary was the rightful heir to the throne. It was therefore important for the credibility of the English enterprise – in Britain, the Dutch Republic, and the rest of Europe – that the bedpan myth be kept alive; and the etcher was doing his part through his depictions of the baby prince. Romeyn’s reading of events followed William’s Declaration of Reasons, which blamed all abuses in Britain on the King’s evil councillors and prudently made no mention of any plan by William to ascend to the throne himself. It boldly utters the suspicion ‘that the pretended Prince of Wales was not born by the Queen’. Romeyn’s early Harlequin prints follow the Declaration, depicting Father Petre as the corrupting power behind the throne, yet refraining from lampooning the King himself. Only in the later prints, made after James’ flight to France, did the exiled monarch become the target of his wit. An even more influential source for Romeyn’s images was that of the more than two dozen Dutch pamphlets issued in 1688 that denounced the

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suppositious Prince of Wales, often in lurid detail, all of which implicated Father Petre as the evil genius behind the plot to subvert the English succession.32 The second prominent theme in the cartoons is that of Louis xiv’s aggressive policy in the German Rhineland and, more generally, his aspirations to European hegemony. While only the first print depicts Louis dressed as Harlequin, most of the subsequent ones show him in armour, thus underscoring his bellicose ambitions. Romeyn employs the Grand Dauphin or ‘Pantagion’, clad in even more outrageous attire, as an auxiliary character to denounce his father’s aggressive attitude. The accompanying verses all point to Louis’ hegemonic ambitions. The English version of the verses under Arlequin Déodat and Pamirge Hypochondriacs, for example, has Harlequin saying: I am a mighty Prince: I have ’tis known, Compell’d all Europe to adore my Throne, Thro the whole world where my Example’s prest [present] It governs some: my Laws Command the rest, Who dares against my Friends let fly a word Without the punishment of Bomb and Sword?33

The third persistent theme in Romeyn’s Harlequin cartoons is their anti-­Catholicism. Arlequin Déodat, Pantagion and Panurge invariably appear loaded with missals, rosaries, crucifixes, and holy water stoups. The other characters – Father Petre, Cardinal von Fürstenberg, and Pope Innocent xi – help to hammer home the message. A Catholic monarchy in Britain will mean the oppression of all other religions. James’ Act of Indulgence is a fraud, because everybody knows that Catholics are not obliged to honour any agreements with heretics. Well-organized and well-endowed, the Jesuits will run the state to suit their own interests and prepare the reconversion of the rest of Europe. In several prints, Romeyn identifies the obnoxious baby Prince of Wales as ‘the little Antichrist’, a warning that a Catholic succession will be ungodly and herald the end times. By contrast, Romeyn represents the Prince of Orange as a providential deliverer. In Harlequin and the Fair Constance, for example, William rescues the Protestant Constance from persecution in France and England. In The Epiphany of the New AntiChrist, William (dubbed ‘The Upholder of Liberty’) claims that he is offering his life for the freedom and religion of others: Offering one’s state and life for Freedom, Religion, and the Law Of free peoples, is a virtue linked to Eternity, and cannot be described Nor voiced according to its value.34 32 Kn. 12965a-12991. 33 fmh 2754c, quoted from the English text. 34 fmh 2759a.

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These, then, were the main messages of the prints. To drive them home, Romeyn made use of two further subtexts. These implicit discourses, or devices within the pictorial scheme, remained constant throughout the whole series, and added new layers of meaning to his basic political position. The first subtext is the language of the theatre. This becomes immediately evident when one reads the explicatory verses. These are in effect play scripts, in which the characters engage in farcical conversation. In the prints themselves, Romeyn lines up his characters as if on a stage. In some prints (The Fair Constance, The Hypochondriacs, Europe Alarmed, and The Crusade of Ireland), he arranges his characters against ornamental neo-classical structures resembling seventeenth-century theatre backdrops. The character referring most directly to the world of the theatre is, of course, Harlequin himself.35 The commedia dell’arte protagonist of Arlecchino stands for the artful buffoon who unsuccessfully courts the maiden Colombina, just as Arlequin Déodat tries and fails to win the heart of Constance. The Italian masked comedy was certainly popular among Amsterdam’s theatre-goers in 1688. In March and April of that year, a group of Italian actors won wide acclaim playing a series of ten performances in Amsterdam’s municipal theatre, the Schouwburg on Keizersgracht.36 It is possible that Romeyn was in the audience. The first Harlequin print was produced only shortly afterwards, probably in July, and must have appealed to those who had attended the show. An essential element of the Italian masked comedy is a number of tippi fissi or stock characters improvising on a basic scenario, adopting new forms and sub-plots according to the demands of the audience and the abilities of the players. This is exactly what Romeyn achieved in his Harlequin prints. He conjured up a number of loony characters around Arlequin Déodat: his sidekick Pamirge, his son Pantagion, the Princely Prelate, and the Jesuit Father Petre. Equipped with stage props such as hippogryphs, giant lobsters, and toad-drawn waggons, they got themselves entangled in all kinds of comical intrigues. Queen Mary’s nickname Belemperia also derives from the world of the theatre. Romeyn borrowed it from a Castilian princess in a popular play by Adriaen van den Bergh, Don Jeronimo, Marshall of Spain, first published in 1638.37 Remarkably, Romeyn reserved his bizarre nicknames for the royals and allowed lesser mortals to appear under their own names. William iii only shows up prominently at the very end of the plot. He is the hero of the play who resolves the situation by intervening decisively. A deus ex machina, he brings the comedy to a happy end.

35 Katritzky, Art. 36 Erenstein, ‘Invloed’, p. 98. 37 Van den Bergh, Don Jeronimo.

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The second subtext is the image of the grotesque body. The degrading of all that is abstract, spiritual, noble, and ideal to the material level is the essential principle of what the Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, in his study of Rabelais, described as grotesque realism.38 Romeyn, like Rabelais, related political conflicts to the human anatomy and particularly to the ‘lower’ functions of the body, sex and defecation. Both Louis xiv and James ii made perfect targets for jokes about their sex lives. Louis was notorious for his voracious sexual appetite and his numerous mistresses, while James’ failure to produce a male heir cast him in the role of impotent and cuckold. The combination of both characters made for comical entanglements that Romeyn simply could not resist. In two prints, Epiphany at the Invalides and The Irish Crusade, he staged Harlequin-Louis and Belemperia-Mary as lovers and PamirgeJames as the cuckolded husband. Perhaps even more detrimental to the deference due to princes was the representation of their defecation. In the Hypochondriacs, the Pope more or less discreetly administers an enema to von Fürstenberg. In The Tumbling Monarchs, the Dutch sailor pokes a huge syringe into Louis’ royal behind, conspicuously turned towards the audience. By making Louis appear farcical, Romeyn effectively stripped him of honour and dignity. The king was turned from an object of deference and admiration into an object of laughter. Romeyn thus broke with the artistic convention that he himself had scrupulously endorsed during his earlier career. He ceased to treat princes with respect and portray them in a dignified and deferential manner. Who was Romeyn’s intended audience for these prints? The titles of the prints, all in French, provide a partial answer. They suggest that Romeyn was aiming at an international readership, though not necessarily a French one, given the European ­ omeyn currency of that language. Yet the explanatory texts in Dutch intimate that R initially focused on Dutch readers, while keeping open the option of subsequent translations. Copies have survived of The Fair Constance, Arlequin and Panurge Hypochondriacs, and Europe Alarmed for the Son of a Miller with a French translation printed next to the original Dutch text. One edition of Arlequin and Panurge Hypochondriacs has French and English texts only.39 The sheets with French verses were probably destined for the Huguenot diaspora and more generally an international, non-Dutch audience. The French versions probably found their way to England as well. No prints with a German text are known. It is unlikely that they were made, as their blatant anti-Catholic rhetoric would have alienated the allies of the Dutch in Vienna, Bavaria, and the Palatinate. As to the social composition of his audience, Romeyn must have had in mind a group of sophisticated, educated, and well-read customers from elite or at least middle-class backgrounds. This is clear from the many allusions to history, the references 38 Bakhtin, Rabelais. 39 fmh 2754-c.

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to authors such as Ovid, Rabelais, Ariosto, Lipsius, and Cervantes, the legends in French and Latin, the allusions to the theatre, and the general complexity of the puzzles he expected them to solve. There can be no doubts as to the popularity of the prints. The fact that ­Romeyn exploited a single theme through a series of nine prints suggests an eager clientele, constantly clamouring for a fresh supply. The large number of copies still extant today hints at voluminous print runs. A second edition exists of Harlequin Furious and Pantagion Triumphant, which is an accurate copy of the original print, yet produced by a different hand.40 Apparently, the number of prints made from the original copper plate was so large that it wore out and had to be replaced. Copying an existing print was a task that could be entrusted to any skilled etcher. Other evidence of the prints’ popularity is that contemporary artists appropriated Romeyn’s inventions for versions of their own. Both Harlequin on the Hippogryphe and Harlequin Furious reappeared as mezzotints, clearly made by another artist (fig. 7.10).41 The lobster theme in Harlequin on the Hippogryph reappears on a medal, cast in Gotha in Thuringia (Germany), probably for the English market (fig. 7.11). It shows Father Petre mounted on a lobster, cradling the Prince of Wales, on whose head is a small windmill. Near them is a ship flying the French colours. The reverse displays an armorial shield crowned by a windmill with a Jesuit's biretta instead of a helmet, with a rosary for a collar and a lobster for a badge.42 Satirical prints are almost as old as the printing press itself. During the ­German Reformation, the French Wars of Religion, the Dutch Revolt, and the English ­Civil War, the warring parties used the printing press to lambast their opponents and win support. Yet Romeyn’s frontal assault on the public image of kings and p ­ rinces in the 1688–1689 Harlequin prints was new in the world of political ­satire. ­Representing Louis xiv not only as a merry harlequin, but also as a fool, a scoundrel, a cheat, a coward, a tyrant, and a monster – and James ii as a cuckold – Romeyn went much further in dehumanizing a reigning monarch than anyone had done before him. Only on the eve of the French Revolution did satirists again employ their pen to degrade a ruling monarch on a comparable scale – and to remarkable effect. There is no evidence that William iii or one of his ministers actually commissioned Romeyn to produce his anti-Louis and anti-James lampoons. More likely Romeyn (as well as the numerous other pamphleteers, hacks, and graphic artists engaged in spinning William’s English enterprise) expected rewards and patronage 40 41 42 43

fmh 2755-b. fmh 2753.1 and 2753.2. Schwoerer, ‘Propaganda’, p. 865. Correspondentie van Willem iii, part 1, vol. 1, p. 102, Bentinck to William iii, 11 February 1690.

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Fig. 7.10. Anon. after Romeyn de Hooghe, Harlequin on the Hippogryph (mezzotint), 1688.

for their efforts after the fact. ‘I hope’, wrote Hans Willem Bentinck, Earl of Portland, to William in February 1690, ‘that Your Majesty will permit me to grant a gratification to those who use the pen for the justification of your cause’.43 One can hardly gauge the extent to which Romeyn’s satirical prints succeeded in persuading audiences in the Dutch Republic and Britain to support William iii and resist Louis xiv, or, more practically, to bear the ensuing loss of life in battle and on the merchant fleet, the high taxation, disruption of trade, and poverty. They may have been successful in bolstering William’s followers, rather than turning around his opponents. Yet historians agree that the flood of propaganda that accompanied William’s campaigns was a key factor in his eventual victory. Romeyn was the most prolific, the most original, and indubitably the wittiest of

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Fig. 7.11. Christian Wermuth, Silver medal with (obverse) Father Petre mounted on a lobster, holding the Prince of Wales, and (reverse) armorial shield bearing a windmill with Jesuit's cap, rosary, and lobster, 1688.

the propagandists for William’s cause. Representing the Sun King as Harlequin in the farcical company of a band of fellow dunces, Romeyn transformed the art of political satire.

8. Lampooning the Regents The Cows, the Herdsman, and the Wolf On 24 April 1690, the Haarlem plate printer Claes van Hoeck appeared before the notary Joannes Paerslaken in Amsterdam and testified that Romeyn de Hooghe, on some date in February he could not remember exactly, had handed him the copperplate of The Fable of the Cows, the Herdsman, and the Wolf.1 Romeyn had asked him, so testified van Hoeck, to find him a book printer, as he was engaged in writing ‘a verse’ that was to appear under the print. The Fable of the Cows, the Herdsman, and the Wolf (fig. 8.1) is a satire on ­Amsterdam’s opposition to William iii during the early months of 1690.2 Undated, it is signed ‘­Marlais’, a nom de plume Romeyn used several times in the course of that year.3 It carries the fake imprint ‘At Amsterdam, printed for Coppen Heerschops in the Mirror for the Councillors’.4 The motto under the print reads Fat cow of Pharaoh, you must know that you may be eaten by the lean ones, a reference to the Pharaoh’s dream in Genesis 24 about seven ‘ill-favoured and lean-fleshed kine [cows]’ emerging from the River Nile and devouring seven fat cows.5 This prophesied that the previous seven prosperous years would be followed by seven austere ones. The print shows a herd of seven cows. Six animals stand in a defensive position with their horns pointing outwards. A recalcitrant seventh cow has broken away and is threatening the herd. The herdsman and his cattle, representing the stadtholder and the Dutch Republic’s seven provinces, are standing in a meadow bordered with an osier fence, the traditional symbol for the Hollandse tuin (Dutch Garden), the ‘enclosure’ of Holland or, more broadly, the United Netherlands. Outside the fence, a wolf representing Louis xiv is roaming against the background of a burning village, a tell-tale sign 1 hua, 76, inv. no. 97, no. 1. Claes van Hoeck confirmed his attestation by oath on the same day. The document is published in Bijsmans, ‘Appendix’. The text erroneously mentions ‘dogs’ (honden) instead of ‘herdsman’ (herder). 2 le 212; h 138; fmh 2668. Frederik Muller, unaware of Claes van Hoeck’s affidavit, erroneously dates this print to 1684, arguing that the fox represents the French ambassador d’Avaux inciting Amsterdam against the stadtholder in the affair of the recruitment of troops for the relief of Luxembourg. Yet van Hoeck’s testimony that Romeyn made the print and the text only in February 1690 proves that the fox stands for the city of Amsterdam and the unruly cow for the province of Holland. The print is also dated 1684 in Landwehr and Kn. 12151-a, Vette koe. Hale, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe’, pp. 193–194, dates van Hoek’s attestation to 1689. 3 Romeyn used the variant form ‘Marlois’ in fmh 2794 (= Kn. 13499, Postwagen-praetjen). 4 Tot Amsterdam, Gedruckt voor Coppen Heerschops in de Spiegel voor de Raesheeren. The name of the printing house suggests that the print reflects (‘mirrors’) the policies of the Amsterdam Vroedschap. The alleged printer’s last name refers to mastery or dominion (heerschappij), while his first name Coppen was a common form of Jacob, but may be associated with koppig or stubborn. 5 Genesis 41: 1–4.

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Fig. 8.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, The Fable of the Cows, the Herdsman, and the Wolf, 1690.

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of warfare. Within the enclosure, a fox (Amsterdam) incites the unruly cow (Holland) against her herdsman. Amsterdam, with its landmark town hall, is visible in the background behind the herdsman.6 The theme is derived from a parable by the popular poet Jacob Cats entitled ‘Fighting Cows band together when the Wolf comes’. 7 According to van Hoeck, Romeyn himself wrote the text. It narrates how the wolf, hoping to devour the cows but unable to break into their enclosure, begs the fox for help. The crafty animal then addresses ‘the fattest and most voluptuous cow of all’ as follows: Of what avail, cousin, is it to you that you stand up to your belly in the clover and deliver so much milk? Your herdsman will deliver you to the butcher when he has drawn all milk from you; don’t you see that he has gained for your milk a new and heavier staff?

The herdsman’s ‘new and heavier staff’ obviously alludes to William’s recently won dominion over Britain. The foolish cow is not immune to the fox’s seductive speech. ‘I would not allow myself to be led by the drift of my sisters’, she answers, ‘who, though dry, are put on a par with me.8 I give the most milk; I want to be the herdsman myself and hold sway over my sisters’. Fortunately, all ends well; the other cattle, guided by their faithful herdsman, recognize the danger, brace themselves against the common enemy, and discipline their unruly sister. Romeyn’s fable was only one of a flood of pamphlets and prints that marked the short-lived re-emergence of fierce animosity between Amsterdam and the stadtholder in 1690. Romeyn actively took part in Orangist lampooning. Placing his talents at the service of the stadtholder, he lambasted the burgomasters of his former hometown. His engagement would have bitter repercussions. Relations between Amsterdam and the princes of Orange had traditionally been fraught with tension, sometimes mounting to downright animosity. From the regents’ vindictiveness about William ii’s attempt to overwhelm the city in 1650, to their keen support of Johan de Witt’s True Freedom, their obstruction of William iii’s elevation as Duke of Gelderland, their involvement in forcing the Peace of Nijmegen upon him, and their opposition to the recruitment of 16,000 additional soldiers, the wealthiest and most powerful city of Holland had often been at loggerheads with the stadtholder. Relations between the two had somewhat improved after the 1684 standoff. This was largely due to the split between the Valckenier and the Hooft factions in

6 Van Nierop, ‘Afzien’, where the print is also mistakenly dated 1684. 7 ‘Vechtende koeyen voegen haer te same, als de wolf komt’, in Cats, Alle de werken, vol. 1, p. 913. Ericus Walten employed the same image in Kn. 13496, t’Samenspraeck, p. 5. 8 Like the other seventeen voting towns and the nobles, Amsterdam had only one vote in the States of Holland.

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the Amsterdam Council, which undermined the city’s ability to make its full weight felt.9 William, on the other hand, realized after his defeat in 1684 that he needed to reach an understanding with the city that was crucial in funding his foreign policy. In 1688 he succeeded in rallying Amsterdam, after much opposition and procrastination, behind the planned invasion of England. The strained relations between Amsterdam and the stadtholder revealed an enduring pattern. Amsterdam’s regents, although anything but pacifistic and without compunction about resorting to military violence should this further the city’s commercial interests, usually favoured peaceful relations with other nations. They soberly calculated that war would bring high tax burdens, disruption of trade, falling stock prices, bankruptcies, unemployment, and poverty. Yet by 1688 scarcely anybody believed it would be possible to strike a deal with Louis xiv. The lifelong ambition of William iii, by contrast, was to obstruct French expansion at any cost. The French attack on the Dutch Republic in 1672, which had brought William to power, had left him mistrustful of French ambitions. At the heart of the argument between Amsterdam and the stadtholder lay the issue of power. William’s position, as compared to previous stadtholders, was almost unassailable. Due to his right to nominate the city magistrates in Utrecht, Overijssel, and Gelderland, his position as First Noble in Zeeland, and a vast web of patronage, favouritism, and influence, he could always count on a majority of four provinces within the States General. Only in the States of Holland did a majority favour a more ­consultative system of government. The only reason why Holland and especially Amsterdam could ­ olland influence foreign policy was that this province controlled the purse strings, with H contributing 58 per cent of the war budget and Amsterdam 50 per cent of ­Holland’s share.10 The Luxembourg disaster had taught William that negotiating with the cities was more profitable than pressuring them. Amsterdam’s regents, too, ­realized that the clash had damaged the interests of their city and of the Republic. Led by Johannes Hudde and Nicolaes Witsen, they cleared the way towards a policy of ­dialogue and compromise.11 Many regents had hoped and expected that the stadtholder’s grip on domestic affairs would weaken with his prolonged absence in the wake of the Glorious Revolution. Opposition was widespread as they tried to challenge his position. But the opposite was true: the Glorious Revolution only strengthened William’s hand. A French writer dryly commented in 1689 that the regents had enabled William to become king not only of the three realms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, but also of a fourth, the United Provinces.12 9 Israel, Dutch Republic, p. 821. 10 Troost, William iii, p. 104. 11 Ibid., p. 170. 12 Israel, Dutch Republic, p. 854.

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The Affair of the Magistrates This was the background against which the conflict between Amsterdam and the Prince of Orange unfolded.13 Its direct cause was a difference of opinion about a constitutional issue, symbolic rather than substantial. But symbols were of great importance in a commonwealth in which all authority was based on precedent and ‘privileges’, the liberties for which the Dutch had fought an eighty years’ war against their Habsburg overlord. Amsterdam’s ancient charters stipulated that the administration of justice be entrusted to a bench of nine schepenen (aldermen or magistrates). The schepenen were lay judges, recruited from the wealthier citizenry and serving one-year terms. Membership of the magistrates’ bench was regarded a first step in a regent’s career. Each year, the Vroedschap (town council) drew up a list of fourteen names, from which the stadtholder elected seven (the Vroedschap chose the other two schepenen directly). The procedure did not grant the stadtholder much control over the composition of the bench, as he could only select from the list submitted. Moreover, he would usually follow the recommendations of the Vroedschap as to which candidate to select. But the election added to his symbolic capital, being one of the sovereign prerogatives he inherited from the deposed Habsburg rulers. Amsterdam’s ancient charters required that the Vroedschap dispatch the nomination list to the stadtholder every year on 28 January, and that they must be informed about his choice five days later. Candlemas (2 February) was the appointed day when all magistrates serving in the following year were to be sworn into office. In January 1689, William had not been able to return his choice in time, because he was staying in London. The Vroedschap therefore requested the Hof van Holland in The Hague to conduct the election in his stead. They justified this procedure by pointing out that an ancient charter dating from 1581 specified that the nomination be sent to the Hof in case the stadtholder were absent.14 But the Court, not daring to slight the stadtholder, at once forwarded the nomination to London. William duly conducted the election, with the result that the list reached the city only in March. With the tenure of the former schepenen elapsed and no successors appointed, no justice could be administered. This was an unacceptable state of affairs in a city dedicated to commerce. Great confusion would have reigned, had not the States of Holland allowed the former schepenen and all subaltern benches of justice to remain in office until such time as the stadtholder had conducted the election. The same thing threatened to occur in 1690. Still residing in England, the ­stadtholder was unable to hand over the names of the elected schepenen before ­Candlemas. Early in January 1690, the Amsterdam Vroedschap approached the States of H ­ olland about the matter. Elaborately quoting their ancient charters, they requested the States to 13 Spruijt-Mets, ‘Gelijk hebben’, pp. 54–76; Troost, ‘The Image’ pp. 1–13. 14 Kn. 13431, Aan den edelen groot mogenden heeren.

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order the Hof henceforth to perform the election in the absence of the stadtholder.15 Should this be impossible, they begged the States to authorize the burgomasters to perform the election themselves. Rather undiplomatically, they added that the burgomasters, after all, had been authorized to do so since December 1650 – the beginning of the Stadtholderless Period, when the States and the cities had appropriated all prerogatives of the deceased William ii. The States of Holland, not even bothering to send an answer, perfunctorily forwarded the city’s request to Westminster. The king was upset. It was not just a matter of prestige: he rightly sensed that his authority would be greatly undermined if the other cities of Holland were to follow Amsterdam’s example. The consequences would be felt, he wrote, all over Europe.16 In order to remedy the situation, he dispatched his right hand and confidant Hans Willem Bentinck, the Earl of Portland, to The Hague. On 20 January, Bentinck took his seat in the Ridderschap, the delegation of the nobility in the States of Holland, of which he had been a member since 1676. It then transpired that Amsterdam had devised a second attack on the stadtholder’s authority. Amsterdam’s delegates declared that Bentinck had no right to resume his seat, since William in the meantime had made him the Earl of Portland. They argued that he should now be regarded a naturalized Englishman, who held a seat in the House of Lords. It was ‘a maxim and a constitutional law of the State’ that the subjects of ‘foreign monarchs’ (as they tactlessly described William) be barred from Holland’s States assembly. They shored up their position with a barrage of historical precedents.17 If Amsterdam’s regents had counted on support from the other cities, they were disappointed. Not one of the cities represented in the States of Holland was willing to back their proposition. Following the same tactics as in 1684, Amsterdam’s delegates responded to this setback by ostentatiously leaving the assembly. Only the pensionary and a secretary remained ‘in order to listen and watch’.18 As long as their delegation was absent, the war budget could not be passed. The result was a serious crisis, as the Republic was at war with France and William was preparing for the invasion of Ireland, for which he depended on a Dutch expeditionary force. The regents of Amsterdam were playing for high stakes. Yet they had no chance of winning, chiefly because they failed to find support among the other cities of Holland. The latter had no objection to sending the nominations of their own magistrates to England and having them sworn in at a later date, as long as the tenure of the magistrates who had served during the previous year could be extended until the election result had come in. The towns of Holland prudently prioritized 15 Ibid.; Elias, Geschiedenis, p. 190; Wagenaar, Amsterdam, vol. 1, p. 698. 16 Israel, Dutch Republic, p. 855. 17 Kn. 13443, Justificatie. 18 Quoted in Elias, Geschiedenis, p. 190.

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facilitating the war with France over fighting a rear-guard battle about constitutional issues. They regarded Amsterdam’s behaviour in the States as utterly irresponsible. Nor did Amsterdam find support against Bentinck. The representatives of the other cities agreed that the Ridderschap, like the cities, was entirely free to send its delegates to the States assembly as it saw fit. Amsterdam’s protest provoked so much anger among the delegates that Bentinck himself felt fortified. He wrote to William that in the States meeting, Haarlem’s burgomaster Fabricius (one of his clients) had decried the insupportable behaviour of this city [Amsterdam], that apparently wished to prescribe the law to others; and he declared that if they withdrew, one should consider that there was one member less; that the others should not see the state perish by the caprice of a single [member]; which seemed to be generally approved.19

Lack of support forced Amsterdam to back down. An additional reason was that the city’s own regents were divided between a republican or ‘States’ faction and those working towards a good understanding with the stadtholder.20 On Candlemas in 1690, three new burgomasters were sworn in: Johannes Hudde, Nicolaes Witsen, and Joan de Vries. The fourth burgomaster, Joan Huydecoper of Maarsseveen, had served during the previous year and was to continue for a second term in order to ­guarantee continuity. Huydecoper and de Vries were fierce republicans, while Hudde and ­Witsen were inclined to cooperate with the stadtholder. On 28 February, the States of Holland, led by the Ridderschap, decided to play it hard. They decreed that the tenure of Amsterdam’s schepenen had in fact ended by 2 February, thus declaring null and void all legal activity that had taken place in the city since that date. At the same time, they urged William to enforce their earlier resolution granting the election of the schepenen to the stadtholder. This could be read as an invitation to resolve the conflict by military means, which would open the door to civil war. But the threat that all legal actions performed by the outgoing schepenen would be invalid was enough to sway the regents. The private notes of Vroedschap member Jean Appelman, a man of strong republican sympathies, document how the burgomasters lost heart. ‘In the beginning’, Appelman wrote, ‘burgomaster Witsen sought to please the stadtholder, Huydecoper was very resolute to maintain the privileges, Hudde very weak, and de Vries very vigorous to maintain’. But on 2 March he jotted down: ‘Huydecoper, weak; Hudde, the same; Witsen, the same; de Vries, vigorously persisting’. On that day, the Vroedschap brought 19 Correspondentie van Willem iii, part 1, vol. 1, p. 72, Portland to William iii, 20 January 1690. 20 The leaders of the States faction were Gerard Bors van Waveren, Joan Huydecoper, Jacob Boreel, Gerrit Hooft, Joan de Vries, and Jacob Hinlopen. Correspondentie van Willem iii, part 1, vol. 1, p. 133, Portland to William iii, 3/4 March 1690.

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a compromise proposal to the vote. Designed by Holland’s grand pensionary Anthonie Heinsius, it unequivocally granted the election to the stadtholder, but in a manner designed to save Amsterdam’s face. It allowed the city to send their double list of fourteen nominations to the States, ‘to do with it, as their sovereigns, what they think fit’.21 Everybody understood that the States would forward the nomination to the stadtholder in England. Meanwhile, the schepenen of the previous year would be allowed to stay on until the city had been notified of the election result. The Vroedschap divided and passed Heinsius’ proposal with a majority of nineteen votes over twelve.22 As had been the case in the crisis of 1684, the affair of the magistrates was accompanied by a torrent of pamphlets and lampoons. Initially, these were mostly printed versions of the resolutions, remonstrations, and missives drawn up by the Vroedschap of Amsterdam, the States of Holland, the stadtholder, and other government agents. Their meetings were not open to the public, and the regents regarded all deliberations and written materials as state secrets.23 Nevertheless, many such secrets found their way into print, simply because one faction or the other would consider it expedient to have their point of view more widely known. Public support mattered, even if the Dutch Republic was far from being a democracy. Thus, January and February 1690 witnessed, among others, the publication of the Amsterdam’s missive to the States of Holland asking that the Hof conduct the election of the schepenen (including copies of all the relevant charters), a ‘Justification’ of Amsterdam’s opposition to Bentinck’s membership of the Ridderschap, and a ‘Deduction’ by the Ridderschap refuting Amsterdam’s opinion on this matter.24 Many of these appeared in multiple print runs, evidence of a wide readership. But more pamphlets of a more literary character were soon on offer, schuitpraatjes (‘barge dialogues’) and postwagenpraatjes (‘stagecoach dialogues’), in which invented characters, travelling from one town to another, discussed current affairs and thus allowed their anonymous authors forcefully to make their points. Romeyn emerged as one of the chief pamphleteers of the Orangist camp. In 1684, he had refrained from participating in the public discussion about the recruitment of additional troops for the relief of Luxembourg. But he now was a client of William iii, proudly signing his works with his new title of ‘His Majesty of Great Britain’s Commissioner of the Lingen Quarries’. His satirical prints supporting the cause of the stadtholder in the affair of the magistrates were a follow-up to the 1688–1689 ‘Harlequin’ prints. Moreover, there was money to be made. Claes van Hoeck, in his attestation before the notary Paerslaken, testified that Romeyn had told him he could earn a nice bit of money producing illegal lampoons. He had attempted to convince Claes with a mix of monetary, ideological, and opportunistic reasons, saying that ‘now there is money to be earned 21 Quoted in Israel, Dutch Republic, p. 856. 22 Ibid. 23 On the importance of secrecy in the practice of government, see de Bruin, Geheimhouding. 24 Kn. 13431, Aan den edelen groot mogenden heeren; Kn. 13443, Justificatie; Kn. 13440, Deductie.

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for you. Who cares how we make our money? The citizens of Amsterdam are playing the boss and revolting against the king. It is better to support a king then a city. You should never rebel against the king or prince of whom you are a subject’.25 Were these Romeyn’s own motives for libelling his native city? The result, in any case, was a remarkable series of satirical prints targeting Amsterdam and its republican burgomasters.

A New Tune: Toads and Barrel-Riders The New Tune of the Triple Crusade of Knights and Grandees Descended from Shop Signs has the familiar format of a print above a title and verse in letterpress (fig. 8.2).26 It is neither signed or dated, nor does it carry an imprint. Yet there can be no doubt as to Romeyn’s hand, or its vigorous anti-Amsterdam and pro-Orange message. The print features two comical characters leading a mock crusade, each sitting astride a barrel. Their barrel-steeds are trotting forward to the tune of an orchestra made up of three toads (not frogs!) representing the French. The cavaliers are trampling underfoot the blazons of the Holland cities represented in the States of Holland. Behind these buffoons strides a night watchman (the so-called ratelwacht) wielding a rattle and a pennant with the three St Andrew’s crosses of the arms of Amsterdam. They are followed by the city’s militiamen, magnificently decked out. The Amsterdam skyline is visible in the background on the left, as in the Fable of the Cows. Citizens are bringing the town to a state of defence, dragging cannon onto the ramparts, driving sharpened piles into the moat, and constructing reinforcements by pushing wheelbarrows loaded with dirt. One citizen is wielding two tall fire hoses, recently invented by the Amsterdam landscape painter and inventor Jan van der Heyden. In that same year of 1690, Van der Heyden, a client of the burgomaster Huydecoper, published a lavishly illustrated book advertising his invention.27 During the 1684 crisis, citizens had used these implements for wetting the ramparts in order to make them inaccessible to the enemy.28 Even without the doggerel below, it is obvious that the print ridicules the regents of Amsterdam. Prompted by the French toads, the mounted protagonists lead the burghers of Amsterdam on a disastrous campaign while flouting the interests of the 25 hua, 67, inv. no 97, no. 1. 26 le 226; h 163; fmh 2792; Kn. 13513, Nieuw Liedt, van de drie-dubbelde Kruysvaert van de Ridders en Grooten uyt uythangborden gesprooten. 27 Van der Heyden, Beschryving. Plate 6 in this work is attributed to Romeyn in Becker, ‘Review’, p. 385. On van der Heyden, see Sutton, Jan van der Heyden, and Schwartz, ‘Jan van der Heyden’. 28 During the winter of 1684, the burgomasters of Amsterdam ordered that the ramparts be wetted so as to prevent them from being assaulted (Kn. 13480 and 13481, Spiegel der waerheyd, p. 72). The text under the print Groothans en de privilegiezoeker (fmh 2797) reads: ‘Thou shalt wet our city/ with firehoses, clear and slippery [Gij sult begieten onse stat/ Met brandspuyt klaer en glibberglat].’

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Fig. 8.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, New Tune of the Triple Crusade of Knights and Grandees Descended from Shop Signs, 1690.

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other cities represented in the States. The ordinary citizens have to bear the brunt of the regents’ misguided policies: they are forced to stand guard and reinforce the ramparts, a reference to the crises of 1650 and 1684, when the burgomasters brought the city to a state of defence against the stadtholder. But who exactly are the quaintly rigged-out gentlemen astride their barrels? The title of the sheet describes them as ‘Knights and Grandees descended from Shop Signs’ (ridders en grooten, uyt uythangborden gesprooten). This quip not too subtly alludes to the foppish tendency of many regents to embellish their names with noble titles. In reality, Romeyn implies, they are the descendants of lowly shopkeepers. Being knights, they must go on a crusade; and that crusade must of necessity be a triple one (drie-dubbelde Kruysvaert), because of the three St Andrew’s crosses in Amsterdam’s arms. The title Nieuw Liedt or ‘New Tune’ suggests that the text is not just a piece of doggerel, but the lyrics of a song. Popular song books of the period brim with ‘contrafact’, newly composed texts designed to be sung to a well-known tune, in this case a popular ditty chanted in 1674 when England had abandoned its ally France in the war against the Republic. It was entitled ‘Goodbye, Monsieur the Golden Beetle, now your French kite has crashed’. 29 The Golden Beetle of course stands for Louis xiv, beetles referring to the golden lilies in the arms of France. The lyrics explain that the two mock-knights are spurring on their followers to attack the Prince of Orange and chase him out of the country. The cavalier on the left is riding a steed composed of a barrel of Rhenish wine with a roll of tobacco for a tail – perhaps a reference to Amsterdam’s trade, but more likely to the regents’ gluttonous way of life. ‘Smoke and steam’ from his pipe arise from his teeth: so much for the wisdom of his words. He is carrying a clyster in his hands, ‘with which he was about to breach the dykes’. This alludes to Amsterdam’s policies during the rampjaar, when it secured itself behind the inundations of Holland’s Water Line whilst sacrificing the entire east of the country.30 His sword is a Kolkse koek, a sweet cake produced by a popular bakery on Nieuwzijds Kolk in Amsterdam.31 His cuirass is a backgammon board, and ‘the ribbons of his breeches’ a deck of playing cards. He has ‘a cap of liberty’ drawn over his eyes; in other words, his desire for freedom has made him blind. These bizarre attributes indicate he is a Hansworst, the buffoon in popular puppet shows. His companion-dunce is sitting astride a beer barrel adorned with the i­mperial crown of Amsterdam. Carrying a jug (a sign of inebriety) and wearing a quaint broadbrimmed hat (a cardinal’s hat?) and glasses (a sign of blindness or foolishness), he is studying an almanac, in which he finds the treaties and privileges of the city, but also 29 Voyse: Oorlof Monsieur de goude tor, nu is u Franse vlieger hor. The music can be found in Anon., Innerlykke ziel-tochten, p. 159, no. 54. This song, in turn, was a contrafact of Psalm 9. 30 The allegation is made in one of the key Orangist pamphlets of 1690, Kn. 13480 and 13481, Spiegel der waerheid, p. 71. 31 Van den Bosch, ‘Kolkse koek’.

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‘that the date was wrong’ – a reference to the day when the election of the schepenen had to be returned. The word deductie on his chest refers to the title of A ­ msterdam’s voluminous remonstration delivered to the States. Published several times as a ­pamphlet, it laboriously expounds why the city’s charters do not permit sending the nomination to the stadtholder when he is residing abroad.32 The song ends with a call to remember the merits of the Prince of Orange for church and state. It is now time to unite and fight the French. Considering their honour as well as ‘the grease of offices’ (het vet officij smeer), the bigwigs (Hansen) are trying to overthrow the Prince of Orange and become princes themselves. Addressing Amsterdam’s citizenry, the song ends: ‘And then they will keep you, their slaves and fools, forever in the cold’. Employing the same trick that he had used in the Harlequin Prints, Romeyn framed Amsterdam’s regents as lunatics and dunces. Although their anti-Orange policies are misguided and dangerous, they are nonentities, characters from a Punch and Judy show. Representing the regents as ludicrous rendered them harmless. At the same time, the broadsheet has a strong democratic undertone. A call to support the Prince of Orange, it also summons the people to liberate themselves from the oppressive rule of the regents. In general terms, the mock-warriors can be identified as the leaders of the republican or ‘States’ faction in the Amsterdam council. Yet in this print, Romeyn was more specific than this, by describing them as ‘knights and grandees’. Several republican leaders did in fact carry manorial and knightly titles. One copy of the print, kept at the Atlas van Stolk in Rotterdam, includes a note in the margin by a contemporary hand that identifies the two barrel-riders as ‘Maarsseveen’ and ‘Bors van Waveren’.33 The ascription is correct. The right-hand barrel-rider represents either Gerard or Cornelis Bors van Waveren. Gerard, a prominent member of the States faction in the Vroedschap, served as burgomaster in 1689 and was responsible for the city’s refusal to send the schepenen nomination to London.34 His son Cornelis was ­Amsterdam’s pensionary or salaried legal advisor, responsible for dealing with the States and Heinsius in The Hague during the schepenen crisis, and the principal author of the Deductie.35 His companion is Joan Huydecoper, Lord of Maarsseveen and member of the Vroedschap since 1662, who served thirteen times as burgomaster between 1673 and 1693.36 In 1690 he was presiding burgomaster and a fierce defender of the city’s privileges. He perfectly fits the bill of a cavalier with a shopkeeper’s background. He 32 Kn. 13449, 13449a, 13449b, 13450, Deductie. 33 avs 2823 is reproduced, with the marginal note partly visible, in le 226. 34 Elias, Vroedschap, no. 211. 35 Ibid., no. 254. He was known as Lord of Leusden (near Amersfoort), Hamersveld, Snorrenhoef, ’t Heetveld (in Overijssel), and Donkelaar, but it is doubtful whether he had already acquired these manors in 1690, when he was only 28 years old and his father Gerard was still alive. 36 Elias, Vroedschap, no. 191.

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flaunted a knighthood and owned the manors of Maarsseveen and Neerdijk near his country seat of Goudestein on the bank of the River Vecht, a pleasant meandering stream in the province of Utrecht where many of Amsterdam’s nouveaux riches had their country houses. His surname betrays the lowly status of his grandfather Jan Jacobszoon Bal, the founder of the dynasty, who had been a tanner and adopted the name of Huydecoper (‘hides-merchant’).37 Huydecoper, Bors van Waveren, and the other adherents of the ‘States’ faction in the Amsterdam Vroedschap were greatly annoyed by Romeyn’s print. It was unquestionably libellous, making both the artist and the printer-publisher punishable by law. Yet as their names had not been included, it would be difficult to start a criminal procedure.

The French Calendar: The Cock and the Donkey In his affidavit, Claes van Hoeck also mentioned a second print made by Romeyn de Hooghe. On 19 March, his sister Apollonia, wife of the Leiden printer Johannes ­Tangena, had sent him a plate entitled Mardi Gras de Cocq à l’Âne or the French ­Calendar, as well as a clean copperplate, and asked him to hand both plates to ­Romeyn. Failing to find him or his wife at home, he had delivered the engraved ­copperplate and the blank one to the maid, who had asked him: ‘Is this the plate from Leiden?’ To which he had answered ‘Aye’. 38 Even more so than the New Tune, The French Calendar is reminiscent of the Harlequin prints (fig. 8.3). It has the same broadsheet format and an engraved title in French. It is unsigned, but it does have a publisher’s imprint: At Antwerp, by Cornelis Woons, on Milk Market, in the Golden Star, 1690. This is clearly a hoax. The Antwerp printer Cornelis Woons had in fact lived at the address specified, but he had died in 1673. The print shows many characters with whom the audience of the Harlequin prints would have been familiar. The full title, typeset below the etching, reads ‘French Calendar, Beginning on the Feast of the Holy Innocents 1689 until the Citizens’ Good Friday anno 1690’.39 Romeyn deliberately misspelled the word kalender (‘calendar’) as kael-ender, meaning someone who will end up bald or destitute. The ‘French Calendar’ comically frames all the events of the schepenen affair as part of the almanac of Catholic feasts and saints’ days between 28 December (the Feast of the Holy Innocents) 1689 and 24 March (Good Friday) 1690. The cycle of holidays between Christmas and Easter happened to coincide with the major events in the conflict. Romeyn had used the same ploy in 1674 in 37 Kooijmans, Vriendschap, p. 113; Elias, Vroedschap, no. 32. 38 hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 1. 39 le 227; h 164; fmh 2793, Franse Kael-ender, Beginnende vander Onnoosele Kinderen-Dag 1689, tot der Borgers Goe-Vrijdag Ao 1690. On this print, de Jonge, ‘Mardi Gras’.

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Fig. 8.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Mardi Gras de Cocq à l’Âne or the French Calendar, 1690 (detail).

a satirical print entitled The Failed Popish War, in which he had arranged a number of defeats and drawbacks for the French to fit with the Christian calendar (fig. 3.21).40 A second title, or perhaps rather a motto, engraved at the bottom of the print (in the same manner as in the Fat Cow of Pharaoh) is an elaborate literary pun. Taken literally, Mardi Gras de Coq à l’Âne means ‘Shrove Tuesday from (the) Cock to the ­Donkey’, which could refer to the cockerel and the donkey depicted in the print. But the French expression passer du coq à l’âne means ‘to jump from one subject 40 le 211; fmh 2521, Misluckte Papen krygh en De Fransche Verhuys-Tydt, Uytgespeelt op de Roomsche Heylige Dagen, Van Kers-nacht tot Mey-Dagh (‘Failed Popish War, Played Out on the Roman Holydays, from Christmas Eve until May Day, or French Moving House Day’).

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to another’, and refers more broadly to a literary genre of absurd poetry, ostensibly devoid of meaning. A piece of coq à l’âne is a nonsensical text without consistency in its presentation of facts and development of ideas.41 Stemming from a poem written around 1531 by the French court poet Clément Marot entitled Epître du coq à l’âne dédiée à Lyon Jamet, it had become a popular literary genre in its own right.42 Especially apt for concealing controversial ideas, it became a vehicle (mostly used by Protestants) to abuse one’s opponents during the Wars of Religion. François Rabelais exploited the coq-à-l’âne genre and made it popular in his Gargantua. This is exactly what Romeyn was doing. The print jumbles together a number of loony characters and bizarre events. Yet not everything is tomfoolery, for underneath the ­playfulness lurks a vehement attack on Amsterdam’s burgomasters. By referring to ­Rabelais, Romeyn, in carnivalesque fashion, turned the accepted social and political hierarchy upside-down; the very procedure he had employed in his Harlequin Prints. Yet the French Calendar was not directed against a foreign head of state with whom the Dutch Republic was at war. It was a frontal attack on the domestic regent elite of Amsterdam, and for that reason, the print was far more subversive and dangerous than the Harlequin Prints. Louis xiv sits somewhat to the left of the centre of the print. This time, he is not dubbed Harlequin Déodat, but he does wear the familiar antique armour and a helmet on which a rooster is perched. He is unceremoniously seated on a potty-chair, marked For the Service of my Allies, and wiping his behind with a sealed document, a treaty concluded with his allies, who are seen lying splayed under his stool. Behind him, jointly riding a donkey, are the familiar figures of James ii and the Prince of Wales. James’ doublet is adorned with French lilies, his hand rests on his sword, and he is wielding the torch of an arsonist. His suppositious son is also brandishing a little sword and clutching his customary toy-windmill. Louis, James, and the Prince of Wales together represent Twelfth Night or the Feast of the Three Kings (as in two of the Harlequin Prints), while their attributes explain the pun of the cock and the donkey. Louis is grabbing a man in the centre of the print by the arm. In his shirt-sleeves, displaying Amsterdam’s St Andrew’s crosses, and exposing his heart marked with a French lily, he meekly bows his head before the Sun King. He represents a burgomaster of Amsterdam, but not just any burgomaster; identified in the text below as Barsse Jan or ‘Gruff John’, he can again be identified as burgomaster Joan (or Jan for short) Huydecoper, Lord of Maarsseveen. Another pamphlet, dating from the same time and entitled New Uprising on Mount Parnassus, features a character named ‘Jan Huydecoper, Lord of Maarsseveen, a burgomaster of Hermepolis [Amsterdam], also known as Barsse-vent’.43 Barsse-vent is an (almost) homophone of Maarsseveen, the formal title by which Huydecoper was usually addressed. 41 Bakhtin, Rabelais, p. 423 42 Marot, Oeuvres, vol. 1, pp. 216–219; vol. 2, pp. 214–220. 43 Kn. 13547, Nieuw oproer, p. 12.

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Lined up behind Huydecoper’s back is a motley collection of cocq-à-l’âne characters: a street musician playing a fiddle (Shrovetide), a Jesuit holding a mask for duplicity (Candlemas), a character playing a rommelpot (rumbling pot or friction drum), a popular instrument associated with Carnival, and an unidentified man tearing at his hair. A shady individual labelled ‘Santa Claus’ (Sinter Claes), carrying a mouse-trap on his head and grasping a huge sack filled to the brim with French Louis d’or, is paying a bribe into Huydecoper’s hand. This was a thinly disguised reference to the current trial of a cobbler’s mate named Jan Jansz Hol before the Hof van Holland. Hol had been arrested in 1688 carrying compromising letters to Louis xiv’s war minister Louvois. He claimed that he had received the letters from several Amsterdam regents, among them then reigning burgomaster Jean Appelman.44 It was Romeyn’s accusation that they were involved in high treason that particularly infuriated the city’s burgomasters. Behind Louis, a female beggar called ‘France Persecuted’ holds a large sword covered with coins (taxes to pay for the war) and a shield adorned with French toads instead of lilies. Her shield rests on a chest marked ‘Offertory-Box for the Monarchy of the Jesuits’, a gibe that would have been familiar to the connoisseurs of the ­Harlequin Prints. The destitute woman represents the hounded and exploited French people. French ‘partisans, maltôtiers (tax collectors), and intendants’ are pulling and even gnawing at her hair and clothes. Her place in the calendar is Ash Wednesday. Below this group, a globe marked ‘Germany and the adjacent countries’, ravaged by war, sends up a plume of smoke. In the foreground, other victims of Louis’ rule are being sent to the galleys, one of them a Waldensian preacher clutching an oar. They represent ‘an eternal Lent’. In the right foreground a group of courtesans (Hoeren van ’t Hof) are selling their jewellery, service, and precious apparel to a bearded Jew in order to pay for the military (Ember Days, days of fast and abstinence in the Catholic calendar). The man on the right behind the Jew is chalking up the bill for all this folly, to be paid by the common citizens: ‘for the piglets will have to pay for the offenses of the sow’ (Want wat de Sog misdoet, komt men van de Biggen halen). The backdrop to the scene ties these disparate and absurd characters and events to the politics of the day. Tacked to the wall between the two arches are Amsterdam’s ancient arms representing a cog-ship, with the remark ‘Without Rudder’. Behind one arch Amsterdam’s town hall is visible; behind the other, the Kloveniersdoelen, the shooting-range where the Kloveniers militiamen had their meetings. The i­ nscription Raedhuijs 1690 (‘Town Hall 1690’) indicates that this is where the real decisions are – or ought to be? – taken. Like the New Tune, the French Calendar broadcasts both an Orangist and a democratic message. The last holiday of the calendar is ‘Citizens’ Good Friday’, when the Prince of Orange will come and dispel the monsters that have tormented them. As 44 Kn. 13500, Copye van brieven; Biographisch woordenboek, vol. 8.2, pp. 977–978.

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was the case in the New Tune, they are identified with the militiamen, in this case the members of the Kloveniers militia. In seventeenth-century usage, the word burgers denoted both citizens and militiamen. The militias (schutterijen) were regarded as the core of the citizenry, the solid middling sort responsible for the defence of the city and the enforcement of law and order.45 Although they had left the actual governance of the city to the regents, the latter should never forget that they were the representatives of the common citizenry. In exceptional cases, they did rise against their own magistrates. This had happened in the 1578 Alteratie, when Amsterdam’s militias had dismissed the Catholic and pro-Spanish burgomasters, purged the Vroed­ schap, and installed a revolutionary and Protestant regime. It had happened again in the Rampjaar, when the militias rebelled against the republican regents and had enabled William iii to purge the Vroedschap. The discontented citizens that Romeyn was addressing – and, indeed, Romeyn himself – regarded the stadtholder as their ally against a corrupt and treacherous regent oligarchy. The Prince of Orange (or so they expected) would restore the ancient liberties of the citizens.

Bigwig and the Privilege-Seeker This was also the core message of Bigwig and the Privilege Seeker (fig. 8.4).46 This print – unsigned, undated, and without imprint – is probably not from Romeyn’s hand. The theme, the imagery, and the verse closely match those of the New Tune and the French Calendar, but the style is awkward. The figure of Privilege-Seeker (centre) is stiff, while Bigwig (left) is cut off by the edge of the print and appears to be speaking from a pit. The style is reminiscent of Jacobus Harrewijn, a pupil of Romeyn at that time working in Antwerp. The print probably originated in Romeyn’s Haarlem workshop. Later in the spring of 1690, Romeyn was to make use of a drawing after the print to bamboozle the sheriff of Amsterdam, who was collecting evidence that Romeyn was the author of the libellous prints. That is another indication that ­Romeyn may not have been its (only) author. The centre of the print shows a kneeling man with donkey’s ears, carrying a fools’ cap, a yoke on his shoulders, and leaning on a lantern, with which he is seeking his ‘privileges’. Representing the citizenry of Amsterdam, he is engaged in a conversation with Bigwig (Groothans, left), who stands for Amsterdam’s regents.47 Between them is a stack of books and charters containing the city’s hallowed privileges. Apparently, they are of little value: a dog is lifting its paw, and rats are gnawing at them. 45 Knevel, Burgers; Knevel, ‘Armed citizens’, pp. 85–99. 46 fmh 2797, Groothans met de Privilegie-soeker. An explanation of this print in Kn. 13496, t’Samenspraeck, pp. 30–31. 47 The identification in fmh 2797 of Groothans with Hans Willem Bentinck is misleading.

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Fig. 8.4. Anon. (circle of Romeyn de Hooghe), Bigwig and the Privilege Seeker, 1690 (detail).

The background shows Amsterdam’s town hall with regents leaning out of the ­windows – one of them reading a proclamation – and the Leidsepoort (Leiden Gate), guarded by the militia and with its bridge drawn, suggesting the defence of the city as in the ­cityscape in the New Tune. In front of the gate is the Desolate Cemetery for the ­Privileges, where several coffins are being carried around. The regent dubbed Groothans or Bigwig berates the burgher who has the temerity to seek his rights as a citizen. Only regents are entitled to consult the city charters, he says; knowledge of their contents among the citizens will lead to mutiny. Privilege Seeker answers that he had not been able to find any privileges until inspecting the wrapping paper used in pharmacies and drugstores – wastepaper was typically used as wrapping material in shops. There he found the citizens’ rights and liberties and especially those of the militiamen, by which they ought to control the city government. Bigwig denies that the citizens have any liberties at all. He quotes the law in the form of Ten Commandments: the burghers shall stand watch every tenth day, keep the city wet and slippery using a fire hose (as shown in the New Tune), and keep the harbour and moats open in case of frost. Civic militias have no rights; a common citizen will never rise to the rank of militia captain. The citizens’ only entitlement consists of paying the taxes and duties imposed upon them. Only in two cases will they receive any benefits: if they ‘marry our harlots’ – meaning young women made pregnant by the regents – and if they risk their life and property to fight the Prince of Orange.

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Bigwig and the Privilege Seeker thus repeats the democratic message of the New Tune and Mardi Gras, but it does not specifically target Huydecoper or any other individual.

A Stagecoach Chat Another satirical print, this one indisputably by Romeyn’s own hand, shows a stagecoach keeling over, imperilling its frightened passengers (fig. 8.5).48 Labelled ‘Burgher’, ‘Merchant’, and ‘Shipmaster’, they represent the common citizenry. The wagon is being drawn by two bolting horses, bedecked with the arms of Amsterdam and named ‘Drunkenness’ and ‘Ambition’. The coachman, blindfolded and sprouting donkey’s ears, wears a cape adorned with French royal lilies and is receiving a stream of ‘French money’ from aloft. The unruly team of horses are trampling a ‘rentier’ (perhaps reminding the viewers that share prices had tumbled on the Amsterdam Exchange in response to the split in the Dutch body politic),49 an orange branch, a book marked ‘Privilege’, as well as allegorical figures representing Religion, Union, the Fatherland, and ‘Necessary Defence’. The seven arrows representing the unity of the Dutch Provinces lie unbound and scattered, while Justice is fleeing. The accident is taking place in front of an inn called L’Écu de France, displaying a shop sign with the French arms and marked ‘Treason against the State’. The inn may have reminded viewers of a similar inn called In the German Empire in Romeyn’s print The Epiphany of the New Antichrist (fig. 7.7). The subscription reads: Two horses, Drunkenness and Ambition, are bolting. Even if the country flounders, we wish to butt.50

Viewers would have no difficulty deciphering the message. The quarrelsome burgomasters of Amsterdam, lured by French bribes, are aiming to destroy liberty, religion, and wealth, as well as the House of Orange. The print is signed Marlois, just as the print of The Cows, the Herdsman, and the Woolf was signed Marlais (the French forms of Marlois and Marlais are interchangeable). The French verb marler means ‘to beat with a mallet’, while the noun marle signifies a shrewd or astute fellow. Romeyn the satirist thus appropriately took cover under a pseudonym that identified him as a clever man who gives his opponents a good whacking. Ironically, marle, usually in the form marlou, also denotes a pimp, but is hard to imagine that Romeyn would have been aware of this alternative meaning, 48 fmh 2794; Kn. 13499, Postwagen-praetjen. 49 Israel, Dutch Republic, p. 855. 50 ‘Twee paarden, Dronkenschap en Eersucht syn aen ’t hollen./ Al sou het Land vergaen, wy willen harde bollen’. The meaning of the verb hardebollen is butting with the heads, or to be (or to play) at hardheads.

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Fig. 8.5. Romeyn de Hooghe, Frontispiece to Anon. [Romeyn de Hooghe], Postwagen-praetjen, tussen een Hagenaer, Amsterdammer beneficiant, schipper en Frans koopman, 1690.

especially in the light of the accusations in ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’. It is significant that Romeyn, a member of the Walloon Church, posed as a Frenchman. His satires were particularly popular among the Huguenot diaspora. Most strikingly,

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this is not a freestanding print, but the frontispiece of a pamphlet, entitled ‘Stagecoach Chat between an Inhabitant of The Hague, a Beneficiary from Amsterdam, a Ship Master, and a French Merchant’. Its author is none other than Romeyn himself.51 Pamphleteers often chose a coach or a passenger-barge as the backdrop for a ‘chat’ (praetjen) between characters representing various interests and shades of opinion. In real life, people of different classes were often thrown together during long and tedious travels from one town to another, providing them with ample time to discuss the latest news and gossip. Barge chats and coach chats thus reflect actual ­practices – the genre would not have been so popular if this were not the case – but authors rarely used it for merely presenting a range of possible opinions on a given topic. Instead, one of the participants in the conversation would emerge as the all-out winner, convincing, if not his fellow-travellers, at least the readers of the pamphlet of the rightness of his case. The other passengers served as his sparring partners, demonstrating the indefensibility of their points of view. Romeyn’s Stagecoach Chat fits in this pattern, but this type of Platonic dialogue was already fading out of fashion by the late seventeenth century.52 The main character Hagenaer, or inhabitant of The Hague, defends the politics of the stadtholder and his party. His opponent is the Amsterdam beneficiant, someone who holds an office at the disposition of one of the burgomasters and is thus his client. Unsurprisingly, the beneficiary defends the position of his hometown, albeit rather clumsily and ineffectively. The French Merchant, perhaps a Dutch merchant trading with France rather than a native of that country, is a comical character, lacing his interventions with French expressions. He underlines the economic threat that France posed to the Dutch Republic. Schipper (Shipmaster) represents a democratic voice against the regent oligarchy. Hagenaer argues that Amsterdam’s position on the election of the schepenen is groundless and that the regents’ actions, especially those aimed at Bentinck and their refusal to cough up for the war budget, are unpatriotic. The real cause of the tragic events is the fact that the son of one of the burgomasters was not appointed as schepen. Schipper broadens this into a wider democratic discourse, arguing that Amsterdam’s burgomasters want to obtain mastery over the Republic. ‘They want to be Venice, their families the Signori and Cavallieri, in order to treat the burghers as they do, stepping and trampling on their necks, like so many tyrants and monarchs’.53 The French Merchant informs his fellow-passengers about the mood in the civic militias. He denies that the militiamen would be loyal to those ‘hotheads’ (dolkoppen): ‘In our company, we know better than that; and our neighbouring 51 Kn. 13499, Postwagen-praetjen. Ericus Walten identified Romeyn as the author during his interrogation on 25 June 1694, na, 3.03.01.01, inv. no. 5366, nos. 14 and 47. 52 Dingemanse, Rap van tong, pp. 258–259. 53 Kn. 13499, Postwagen-praetjen, p. 3.

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company has sworn not to move against the Prince’.54 Through the character of the French Merchant, Romeyn voices the same democratic sentiments as in the New Tune and The French Calendar. In the end, the three Orangists fail to convince the supporter of Amsterdam, but the scene ends in good harmony when the coach happens to stop at an inn and all four passengers decide to drink a pint. ‘If it were just a matter between us’, Hagenaer says, ‘we wouldn’t resort to arms’. The pamphlet ends with a call for unity. The more conciliatory tone of this pamphlet, as compared to the New Tune and The French Calendar, reflects the fact that it dates from April 1690, a month after the conflict about the schepenen nomination had been resolved. Schipper chides the burgomasters for turning a blind eye to the illegal peddling of pamphlets as long as these favour their cause: on 4 or 5 April (‘a Saturday’), he heard the public announcement of a decree against the authors, printers, and sellers of libels, under penalty of flogging and branding.55 Yet even while the proclamation was being read, street vendors were loudly broadcasting and hawking the (pro-Amsterdam) pamphlet Aulicus to no fewer than two sheriffs and hundreds of other gentlemen and merchants. Hagenaer adds that printers in Kalverstraat and Dam Square are printing pamphlets in favour of as well as against the city, ‘as long as it brings in money’. He has visited the home of an Amsterdam Vroedschap member, where the regents present were deciphering the characters in the pamphlets ‘from dot to dot’, which made him think the whole thing was ‘a masterpiece of policy’. The Amsterdam regents themselves apparently encouraged, facilitated, and patronized the flood of pamphlets.

The French Blue Shin The final print to be discussed here is Romeyn’s last to lambast the burgomasters. According to ‘Malice and the Spirit of Quarrelling’, he paid ‘Jan Marlois’ to produce two plates, one representing The French Blue Shin and another one entitled The Chamber of the French Triumvirate. Romeyn claimed that he never printed these plates, but ‘generously’ donated both of them to Amsterdam’s burgomaster Nicolaas Witsen.56 Frederik Muller’s pamphlet catalogue describes the former etching as ‘very rare’; the latter in all likelihood no longer exists.57 Apparently, the plates were never printed commercially.

54 Ibid., p. 11. 55 4 and 5 April 1690 were in fact a Tuesday and a Wednesday. 56 Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 25. 57 The French Blue Shin is catalogued in fmh 2795. Only one copy is known: Atlas van Stolk Rotterdam, inv. no. 36919. There is no entry in fmh for The French Triumvirate or similar title; nor have I found a copy in any public print collection.

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Fig. 8.6. Romeyn de Hooghe, The French Blue Shin, 1690 (detail).

The surviving print is entitled De Fransche blaeuwe Scheen (‘The French Blue Shin’, fig. 8.6). ‘Catching a blue shin’ (een blauwe scheen lopen) is an expression signifying that a suitor has been rejected by his beloved. It shows the maiden ‘Amstelia’ (Amsterdam) rejecting the advances of her suitor ‘François’ (France), much like the fair Constance rebuked Harlequin Louis xiv. Though its main thrust is clear, the print is fraught with riddles. Amstelia, conspicuously wearing the city’s St Andrew’s crosses on her bodice, is standing in front of a dressing table. Her maid is about to dress her in a gown embroidered with French lilies. The space in which the scene is taking place is full of French symbols: medallions picturing Louis xiv and James ii next to the porch, a fleur-de-lys pattern and the image of the Sun King on the carpet, and a pair of bellows featuring a a picture of mortars bombarding a city and the words garde feu (fire-guard). Amstelia’s suitor François and his companion are identified as Monsieur St ­Di­dier and Monsieur de Bon Repos. The former is perhaps Isaac de Saint-Didier, supposedly a French spy whose activities were reported in Amsterdam in January and

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February 1690.58 He cannot be identified as Alexandre-Toussaint Limojon, seigneur de Saint-Didier, a minor diplomat serving as the secretary to the French envoy Avaux in The Hague between 1678 and 1688, because he had died in the autumn of 1689.59 His companion may be François d’Usson, seigneur de Bonrepaus, a French diplomat who had served as special envoy at the court of James ii in 1688, and was in charge of the French marine corps in 1690.60 Above the door behind the two gentlemen, marked Dolhuys (‘Madhouse’), is a picture of a man butting his head against a brick wall, a comment on the French suitor’s slim chances of achieving his wishes. In the background, a Jesuit (whose mien reminds us of Father Petre’s), who is carrying a book and a banner mysteriously marked onse kerken (‘our churches’), is witnessing the scene. Two little lap dogs are barking at the French nobles. One pet says pas op! (‘watch out!’); the other one is named Fidel. Is his name a general reference to canine faithfulness or a very specific one to the eponymous talking Bolognese Dog? It is difficult to imagine Romeyn making fun of himself in this way. The explanation is perhaps that the text may have been etched into the plate by a later hand, either Witsen’s or that of a later owner. That would also explain the name of Bonrepaus, who was not, as far as we know, involved in the 1690 imbroglio, but served much later, from 1697 to 1699, as ambassador to the Dutch Republic. It might also explain the name of d’Avaux’s secretary, Limojon de Saint-Didier; the maker of the inscription was perhaps not aware of the date of his death. While the scene in the foreground celebrates Amsterdam’s steadfastness, the background criticizes its regents. A small door leading to the meeting room of the schepenen is securely locked, a reference to the decree of the States of Holland not to continue the tenure of the incumbent magistrates after Candlemas. The central porch leading to the backroom is marked Burgemeesters souverainiteyt (‘Sovereignty of the Burgomasters’). Above, the city’s coat of arms with its St Andrew’s crosses is al vol kruys (‘full of crosses’), suggesting that the city is suffering. A view of Amsterdam from the harbour is marked Nieuw Venetien (‘New Venice’). This may refer to Venice’s celebrated ‘mixed’ constitution, supposedly balanced but in fact (according to the Stagecoach Chat) an oligarchy in which the aristocrats trample the rights of the common people.61 Or does it signify that Amsterdam, famously dubbed the ‘Venice of the North’, has lost its economic edge? Various disturbing symbols and texts adorn the back wall of the burgomaster’s chamber behind the porch: a resolutie boeck (containing the resolutions of the burgomasters or the Vroedschap) is flanked by two owls 58 Correspondentie van Willem iii, part 1, vol. 1, pp. 80, 91, William iii to Portland, 27 January 1690, and Portland to William iii, 4 February 1690. A certain Isaac de Saint-Didier received a passport on 6 February 1690 (O.S.) to travel to Holland by way of Harwich. 59 Nouvelle biographie, vol. 31, p. 241. 60 Schutte, Repertorium, pp. 17–19. 61 Haitsma Mulier, Myth.

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with the text in dootsnoot (‘in death agony’; the expression ‘looking like an owl in agony’ means having a dejected air). The text below mysteriously reads ‘Sourish Wine (rinse wijn) Cellar of …’. The cog-boat of Amsterdam’s ancient coat of arms sonder roer (‘without rudder’) is the same one that appears in The French Calendar. Amsterdam’s four burgomasters are sitting around a barrel of alsenwyn, a bitter wine spiced with wormwood used for medicinal purposes. Holding up two fingers, they are swearing an oath with their hands on a goblet marked Evangeli (Gospel). In front of them, four other unspecified men are swearing an oath as well. The meaning is not clear; are they being sworn in on Candlemas, or is Romeyn suggesting that they are pledging allegiance to Louis xiv?62 Four small pictures at the bottom do little to solve the riddle. From left to right, they show a meeting of Amsterdam’s Vroedschap; a view of Dam Square with coaches in front of the town hall; four men, presumably the burgomasters, paying their respect to an aristocrat in the company of horsemen; and finally, the same picture with only three men (three burgomasters?) and a marching army in the background. The aristocratic figure to whom the men are paying homage may be either Louis xiv or William iii. Nor do the verses below the picture, a dialogue between Amstelia and François, help us to make sense of the print. Probably composed by Romeyn himself, they describe how François reminds Amstelia of the services he has rendered Amsterdam and the Dutch Republic since the early days of the Dutch Revolt. Amstelia steadfastly rejects his advances, decrying the untrustworthiness and power-hungry nature of the French. Under the text appears the unlikely signature of [Nicolaes] Muys van Holy, the man whom Romeyn regarded as the evil genius behind the libels against him. The imprint is clearly fake and presents another puzzle: ‘Printed in Amsterdam, at Monsieur du Fresne, Licensed Printer of Rashers of Bacon (lardondrukker) in Oudemanhuispoort in Amsterdam’. Lardons were printed sheets in the form of bacon rashers issued by the radical anti-French Huguenot press and smuggled in newspapers.63 Did Romeyn single out the Huguenot bookseller Daniel du Fresne for mockery because he had published, back in 1681, a Panegyric of Monsieur Jacob Boreel, in heroic verses?64 All in all, the picture is ambiguous, to say the least. ‘Amstelia’ represents the body of the citizens of Amsterdam rather than its regents. She firmly rejects the French overtures. The four burgomasters are distinct from the citizenry; they sit in a different space and fail to show the same resolve. But why did Romeyn present the plate to Nicolaas Witsen, one of the maligned burgomasters? Because Witsen, along with Hudde, was responsible for the rapprochement with the stadtholder? 62 Cf. Kn. 13547, Nieuw oproer (by Ericus Walten), p. 18 about chief sheriff Boreel: being a knight of the Order of St Michael, he is indebted to the King of France; when he was serving as an ambassador in France, the King became godfather to one of his children; he has professed his loyalty to the people and the King of France; and his son, born in Paris, is a Frenchman. 63 nnbw, vol. 4, p. 935. Cf. van Eeghen, Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 3, p. 62. 64 Anon., Éloge. On Daniel Du Fresne, see van Eeghen, Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 3, pp. 102–103.

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The Cricket that Spoils the Harvest Amsterdam’s regents were furious about Romeyn’s flush of seditious prints. Not only did the democratic message underlying the prints undermine their authority, it was also unprecedented for several prints to target individual regents, obliquely yet undeniably, making them the laughing stock of the common citizens. The law defined slander as ‘robbery of honour’. Romeyn’s lampoons undoubtedly undermined the honour of prominent regents of Amsterdam, especially burgomaster Joan Huydecoper of Maarsseveen. On 1 February, the eve of Candlemas, the retiring magistrates issued a decree meting out harsh sentences – public flogging, banishment, and confinement in the municipal House of Correction – for all authors, printers, and vendors of libels.65 As always, the decree did little to stem the tide of hostile pamphlets. Since such pamphlets were invariably published either anonymously or under a fake name, it was nearly impossible to identify their authors and printers, let alone prove their identity before a court of law. But the situation was different with satirical prints; it was not difficult to identify Romeyn’s hand. In September, the Vroedschap member Cornelis Cloeck wrote to Huydecoper about ‘The French Calendar’, which he recognized as Romeyn’s work.66 The letter testifies to the aggrieved mood among the regents: I do hope there will be no thoughts of sparing a scoundrel like Romeyn […] because, truly, nothing would be gained. He is the cricket that spoils the entire harvest [Cloeck must have been thinking of a locust rather than a cricket], an unparalleled piece of villainy, a blasphemer, unworthy of living amongst other people, who should not be tolerated in any society, and [a man] for whose sake God would punish an entire country. […] Would it be possible to invent anything more calumnious and offensive to the detriment of the city of Amsterdam and to Your Honour’s person than that cursed print in which a consul of Amsterdam is presented, defending the privileges in front, and receiving with his other hand at his back louis d’or from Louis?67

Issuing stern edicts against the producers and purveyors of libels was one thing; dragging Romeyn before a law-court was quite another. He was living and working in Haarlem, where he enjoyed protection of the Orangist burgomasters and, from a distance, the King of England and his confidants. Dealing with Romeyn would require different and quite unconventional means.

65 saa, 5020, inv. no. 18, ff. 182 vo.-183. 66 For Cloeck, see Elias, Vroedschap, no. 232. 67 hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 31, Cloeck to Maarsseveen, 12/22 September 1690.

9. The Pamphlet War A Triplet of Rogues In 1690, the feud between William iii and the city of Amsterdam resulted in an almost unprecedented flood of libels. A great many of these were directed against Romeyn, whilst a sizeable number came to his defence. The exchange became so vicious that historians have labelled it the ‘pamphlet war’.1 Early in March, a curious broadsheet appeared entitled Bekendmaakinge aan de liefhebbers [‘Notification to the Aficionados’].2 It purported to announce the recent publication of several pamphlets and the forthcoming issue of another pamphlet by the bookseller Meyndert Uytwerf of The Hague.3 One of these was a reprint of a key Orangist pamphlet, supposedly published in Utrecht two months earlier, entitled Spiegel der waerheyd [‘Mirror of Truth’]. A certain Ericus Walten had corrected the edition, ‘assuring aficionados that it will contain few misprints or none at all’.4 Other pamphlets in print were to elucidate certain ‘Political Conferences on Mount Parnassus’, authored by Govert Bidloo, a ‘Quack from The Hague’. The second edition of another work by Bidloo, entitled ‘Description of Several Portraits Exhibited on Mount Parnassus’, was also for sale at Uytwerf’s bookshop; this work was ‘ingeniously’ illustrated by ‘Archicornutus ab Alto from Haarlem, also known as Romeyn de Hooghe’. Finally, another forthcoming publication from Uytwerf’s press was to be entitled ‘The Triple Pasquinade, or Triplet of Rogues: Being a Succinct Description of the Life and Deeds of Romeyn de Hooghe, Govert Bidloo, and Ericus Walten.’ It was not difficult for readers to conclude that the ‘Notification’ was a fraud. Obviously, its author was not the bookseller and publisher Meyndert Uytwerf, advertising the latest products from his press. Instead, he was some obscure hack attempting to expose Uytwerf as the anonymous publisher of a batch of Orangist pamphlets that had been circulating recently. The author attributed the authorship of these libels to a ‘Triplet of Rogues’ (trits van schurken) consisting of Govert Bidloo, Ericus Walten, and Romeyn de Hooghe. Around the same time, another broadsheet, similar in form and under the ­identical title Bekendt-maekinge, was circulating.5 Like the previous one, it carried 1 Van de Haar, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe’. 2 Meulman 6665, Bekendmaakinge. The copy in Ghent University Library displays, in handwriting, next to the printed year of publication mdcxc, the date 4/3, or 4 March. According to Kn. 13551, the pamphlet was published in early March. 3 On Uytwerf, see Kossmann, Boekhandel, pp. 415–419. 4 Kn. 13480 and 13481, Spiegel der waerheyd. 5 Kn. 13498, Bekendt-maekinge.

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the (fake) imprint of Meyndert Uytwerf. Purportedly authored by Ericus Walten, it reads as follows: Ericus Walten, libel-maker here in The Hague, hereby announces to everyone that he is again engaged (in order to make his living with double-crossing and honour) in the making of all manner of pasquils against their Lordships of Amsterdam, as one can clearly see in his ‘Letters from Parnassus’, as well as in his libellous piece of writing entitled ‘Dialogue between Two Travellers, One Being from The Hague and the Other from Amsterdam’ […].6 The aforementioned Ericus Walten offers his service to all booksellers to write for money: against their Lordships of Amsterdam or in favour of their Lordships of Amsterdam; in favour of their Lordships the States of Holland and West-Friesland or against their Lordships the States of Holland and West-Friesland; in favour of the King of France or against the King of France, all according to one’s demands; and how he can best agree with the booksellers upon a civil price. Anyone inclined to employ the aforementioned Ericus Walten should direct himself to Meyndert Uytwerf, bookseller here in The Hague, where all pasquils he [Walten] has written over the last two years have been printed and are for sale; or to Jacobus van Hardenberg, book-printer, or various other individuals who can provide information about him. Spread the word!7

The anonymous author (or authors) of both ‘Notifications’ was apparently well informed.8 So we must now turn our attention to Govert Bidloo and Ericus Walten, with whom Romeyn de Hooghe made up the roguish triplet responsible for the libels against the regents of Amsterdam.

The Quack: Govert Bidloo Govert Bidloo – jack-of-all-trades, highly intelligent, spirited, witty, and incurably quarrelsome – was the enfant terrible of Amsterdam’s cultural scene in the 1670s and 1680s.9 Born in 1649 to middle-class Mennonite parents (his father was a hatter), he was trained and practised as a barber-surgeon in Amsterdam, where he became involved in a nasty exchange of libels with Frederik Ruysch, the famous anatomist and 6 This refers to Kn. 13496, t’Samenspraeck. 7 Jacobus van Hardenberg was a bookseller and printer in Amsterdam. Van Eeghen, Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 3, pp. 153–154. 8 Although Bidloo, not Walten, was the author of the ‘Letters from Parnassus’ mentioned in the second ‘Notification’. 9 NNBW, vol. 8, col. 104–108; Noord, ‘Terwijl men Beeld’; Krul, Haagsche doctoren, passim; Krul, ‘Govard Bidloo’.

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examiner of Amsterdam’s municipal midwifes.10 Like Romeyn, Bidloo attended university only at a later age, being 33 years old when he obtained a degree as medical doctor, three days after his enrolment at the University of Franeker in 1682. Three years later, he published an ambitious anatomical atlas, elegantly though not always accurately illustrated by Gerard de Lairesse.11 His masterpiece drew sharp criticism from Dr Ruysch, but eventually brought him a professorship in anatomy at the University of Leiden. His support for William iii during the English expedition in 1688 was to earn him the protection of the stadtholder-king, who appointed him superintendent-general of the medical service of the military forces of the States-General in 1690, and gave him the same function in the British army two years later. William also employed Bidloo as his court physician. Bidloo’s restless activities as a surgeon, anatomist, medical doctor, university professor, superintendent-general, and royal physician did not keep him from pursuing a flourishing literary career on the side. He was the prolific author of prose, poetry, and plays that found an eager audience in Amsterdam’s municipal Schouwburg. In 1675, he published a work, learned as well as pious, in the tradition of Mennonite martyrologies, entitled Letters of the Martyred Apostles, for which Romeyn de Hooghe designed the title print and thirteen illustrations (fig. 9.1).12 Bidloo then turned his sights to drama. Following two allegorical commemorative plays – one on the occasion of the 1678 Peace of Nijmegen, the other a Lykstacy [‘Funeral Pomp’] lamenting the demise of the great poet Joost van den Vondel – he composed two full-length dramas in neo-­classical style and translated a play by Corneille.13 At the Schouwburg, he adapted two of Vondel’s dramas to the public’s taste – though not to everybody’s satisfaction – by adding scores of additional singers and dancers and spectacular stage machines. He also was the author of the libretto for the first vernacular Dutch opera ever performed. Set to music by the Amsterdam viola da gamba player Johan Schenck, the show was entitled ‘Without Food and Wine, there can be no Love’ (Zonder Spys en Wyn, kan geen Liefde zyn). Again, not all of Amsterdam’s discerning theatre-goers were enthralled: Would you see an Opera, of boozing, wallowing, bingeing, Full of Bacchanalia and boisterous grimaces? You will find it best represented at Bidloo’s house. Where he plays for Bacchus, and his Wife for Venus.14 10 Kooijmans, Death Defied, pp. 98–100, 120–121 and passim. 11 Bidloo, Anatomia. 12 Bidloo, Brieven. lbi no. 40. 13 Karel, erfprins van Spanje (1679), Fabius Severus (1680), and De dood van Pompejus: treurspel (1684). 14 Quoted in Bottenheim, Opera, p. 35. ‘Wilt gij een Op’ra zien van zuipen, zwelgen, brassen/ Vol Bachenaalspel, en baldaadige grimmassen?/ Gy vind het allerbest in Bidloos huis verbeeld./ Daar hij voor Bacchus en zijn Wijf voor Venus speelt’.

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Fig. 9.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, Frontispiece to Govert Bidoo, Brieven der gemartelde apostelen (1675).

Govert Bidloo and Romeyn de Hooghe knew each other well, having collaborated on several publishing projects. As early as 1673, Bidloo had contributed a caption in verse to the second edition of Romeyn’s etching ‘Mirror of the French Tyranny Committed to the Villages of Holland’ (fig. 3.12).15 The paths of the two men crossed again in the mid-1680s, when Bidloo wrote a satirical play entitled ‘The Mutiny and Defeat of Midas King Unreason, or: Comma, Period, Parenthesis’.16 Opening in the Schouwburg on New Year’s Eve 1685, the play chastised Bidloo’s opponents in an intricate and bitter conflict about the theatre’s desired artistic course. Among other characters, Bidloo staged a certain ‘Grasshopper’ (Sprinkhaan), whom the savvy Amsterdam 15 le 65; h 89; fmh 2435-b; Kn. 10710, Spiegel der waerheid. 16 Bidloo, Muiterij. Cf. Worp, Geschiedenis, pp. 140–141; Kooijmans, Death Defied, pp. 220–228; Sterck, ‘Uit het Amsterdamsche tooneelleven’.

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audience promptly identified as ‘the lawyer Romeyn de Hooghe’. Grasshopper, ‘on his mosquito legs, a pedantic critic and a political poet’, is not our etcher, however, but his wealthy second cousin and namesake, the son of Paulus de Hooghe. The artist obtained his Law degree only in 1689 and cannot possibly have been labelled a lawyer four years in advance.17 Nevertheless, Romeyn did participate to some extent in the volley of libels published in response to the artistic conflict. He designed a cartoon featuring Govert Bidloo wearing a doctor’s gown and clutching a money chest under his arm while embezzling the funds of the Old Men’s Home, a municipal charity supported by the box-office receipts of the Schouwburg. Perhaps due to his friendship with Bidloo, Romeyn refrained from publishing the design as a print. Only in 1716, when both de Hooghe and Bidloo were dead, did Bernard Picart produce an etching after the original de Hooghe design (fig. 9.2).18 On 21 April 1689, Bidloo delivered a festive and lengthy harangue in the Great Church of The Hague in celebration of the coronation of William and Mary. The text, preceded by a frontispiece by Romeyn, was published by Uytwerf.19 But if Bidloo revealed himself an ardent Orangist in 1689, one might question the depth of his conviction. In 1684, when Amsterdam and the stadtholder were quarrelling about the measures necessary to stem the tide of French aggression in the Spanish Netherlands, he was the anonymous author of a scathing staatsgezind poem that criticized a pamphlet by Grand Pensionary Gaspar Fagel in defence of William’s politics.20 At the same time, he was also writing for the Orangists, producing a translation of an oration by the ancient Athenian orator Demosthenes ‘Applied to the Present Time and Matters of State’, which exhorted the Dutch and particularly the citizens of Amsterdam to be vigilant against France.21 Thus, throughout the 1680s, Bidloo had gathered fame as a successful and popular writer of prose, drama, and occasional poetry. Well-versed in classical literature, with an easy pen and a mordant sense of humour, he was eminently suited to being recruited into William’s propaganda campaign. Like Romeyn, he was to receive ample rewards for his loyal service.

17 Kooijmans, Death Defied, pp. 222–223. 18 fmh 3523. The print is signed R. de Hooge inv. On Bidloo’s involvement with the Amsterdam Theatre, see Van der Haven, Achter de schermen, pp. 171–175. 19 Kn. 13278, 13279, ’s Graavenhaage zegevierende; lbi no. 74. 20 Kn. 12133, Waarheid aan Philalethes. The attribution to Bidloo in Nederduitse en Latynse keurdigten, pp. 183–185. Cf. Krul, ‘Govard Bidloo’, p. 69. 21 Kn. 12208 and 13343, Eerste rede, attributed to Bidloo in Meulman 6665, Bekendmaakinge. Knuttel dates no. 12208 in 1684 and no. 13343 in 1690. The two copies are identical, however.

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Fig. 9.2. Bernard Picart after Romeyn de Hooghe, Satire on the Schouwburg Controversy, 1716.

The Hack: Ericus Walten Romeyn’s second accomplice in libel, the 27-year-old Ericus Walten, hailed from Hamm, a rural village on the sylvan banks of the river Sieg, between the cities of Siegen and Bonn in the Holy Roman Empire.22 Almost nothing is known about his youth or family background.23 He was highly intelligent and must have enjoyed a good education. Above all, he had a remarkably original and independent mind. In his candid private notebooks, preserved intact in the archives of the Hof van ­Holland, he noted that he detested the debauchery of court life. He had countered the desires of his parents by refusing to enter into the service of the aristocrats who had solicited him to do so. He spent his time studying while his friends were bingeing. Some people regarded him as sullen and ill-mannered, because he refused ‘to ape all those curly compliments’ and preferred ‘to show civility in his actions 22 During his interrogation before the Hof van Holland on 30 March 1694, Walten stated that he was 31 years old and born in ‘Ham in the county of Nassau’. Walten Papers, nos. 62, 63. Hamm is actually situated in the county of Seyn, several kilometres west of the Nassau border. 23 nnbw, vol. 1, col. 1534–5; Knuttel, ‘Ericus Walten’; van Bunge, ‘Eric Walten’; Jagersma, ‘Leven’.

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and the service he rendered’. He never married, so he said, ‘restrained by examples of unhappy marriages’, and, remarkably, because ‘women are mostly educated in ­ignorance, ­following the foolish precept that they need to know naught, except how to sleep with a man, and that one could not possibly run a household with them if they were wise’.24 At some point, Walten emigrated to the Low Countries; whether as a child with his parents, or independently as an adolescent, we do not know. On the last day of December 1685, his name turns up in Utrecht, where the magistrates’ bench sentenced him to six months in the municipal workhouse and subsequent banishment from the city for ‘vagabonding and fraudulent begging in all sorts of manners’. He was discharged barely two months later, though his banishment remained in place.25 He then settled in The Hague, where he made his living practising both as a medical doctor and a legal advisor, although he had academic degrees in neither. In addition, he kept himself busy with designing medals. He styled himself a Doctor of Theology, Law, and Philosophy. When the justices of the Hof van Holland in 1694 asked him whether he had obtained a degree in any of these disciplines, he answered no, but that in his opinion he certainly had the capacity to do so in the future. From 1688 onwards, Walten proved to be an extraordinarily prolific pamphleteer. He wrote numerous tracts about all the great political and intellectual issues that dominated the news between 1688 and 1692: the policies of James ii, the birth of the allegedly suppositious Prince of Wales, and William iii’s British enterprise, but also the troubles in Rotterdam regarding the authority of the magistrates over the Church, and the conflict between the stadtholder and Amsterdam about the schepenen election. He became a staunch defender of the Reformed minister Balthasar Bekker, who in his bestseller The World Bewitch’d (1691) argued in good Cartesian fashion that witches, spirits, demons, and devils could not exist, and thereby provoked the wrath of his fellow-clergymen of more orthodox disposition. Walten, taking a much more radical stand than the man he defended, only succeeded in making things worse for Bekker – and eventually for himself – by abusing the orthodox theologians as ‘incompetent dunces, drunkards, and certified idiots driven by the spirit of the Anti-Christ’, and decrying the synods of the Reformed Church as a madhouse.26 Though not an atheist, as his opponents framed him, he made himself unpopular by ridiculing the Reformed ministers and cracking jokes about the Holy Writ itself, ‘in order to demonstrate the monstrosity and blasphemous nature of those who regard the text of the Scripture as an essential and literary history instead of a prophetic representation in a dream’.27 24 25 26 27

na, 3.03.01.01, inv. no. 374, vol. 2, ff. 3vo-4, 10, 13vo. Knuttel, ‘Ericus Walten’, pp. 346–347. Walten Papers, nos. 70, 71. Quoted in Van Bunge, ‘Eric Walten’, pp. 45, 49. Walten Papers, no. 60, art. 6.

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Far from being a hack who lent his pen to anyone willing to pay, he was a republican on principle and a freethinker, keenly participating in the intellectual debates about politics, philosophy, and religion that rocked Dutch society during the late seventeenth century. He consistently defended the policies of William iii. Only a powerful stadtholder, he argued, would succeed in shielding the people against tyrannical regents, and the Dutch Republic against French absolutism.28 An inveterate Orangist, he was anything but a monarchist; he championed popular sovereignty, contending that ‘all people by nature are born free, until they sell their freedom, or hand it over under certain conditions, and that they revert to their original state of perfect freedom if these conditions be violated, trespassed, or broken’.29 Though his opponents accused him of being a follower of Spinoza, Walten cannot be regarded a Spinozist in the full philosophical sense of the word, because of his insistence on Cartesian dualism. But he must certainly have been familiar with the writings of what has been called Spinoza’s circle, especially radical Bible critics such as Lodewijk Meyer and Adriaen Koerbagh.30

The Orangist Triumvirate at Work During the schepenen controversy of early 1690, one of Walten’s writings took the form of a ‘Dialogue between Two Travellers: One from The Hague and the Other from Amsterdam’.31 The travellers were sailing in a passenger barge between Amsterdam and Utrecht. One of them, the narrator of the story, starts by recounting a dream. Nineteen cows (representing the nineteen members of the States of Holland) are grazing in a field. The largest and fattest cow is unruly and negotiating with a wolf to enter the meadow and become their protector. But the other cows threaten to eat the fat cow ‘like Pharaoh’s fat cows have eaten the lean ones’ and succeed in bringing her to reason. Walten employed the same image here as Romeyn in The Fable of the Cows, the Herdsman, and the Wolf, though it is unclear whether Walten derived it from Romeyn or vice versa. The pamphlet ends with a summary of all the libels that had appeared on both sides during the conflict. It accuses the regents of A ­ msterdam of condoning the dissemination of pamphlets in support of their policies, while cracking down on the purveyors of pro-Orange tracts. In this manner, Walten discusses, among others, the first and second volume of the ‘Excerpt from the Political Conferences Held on Mount Parnassus’ (published anonymously but authored by

28 Israel, Monarchy. 29 Quoted in Knuttel, ‘Ericus Walten’, p. 351. 30 Van Bunge, ‘Eric Walten’, pp. 42, 49. 31 Kn. 13496, t’Samenspraeck. This pamphlet is attributed to Walten in Kn. 13498, Bekendt-maekinge, and in a list of Walten’s pamphlets by Cornelis Cloeck in hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 34.

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Bidloo) and the print of Bigwig and the Privilege-Seeker.32 The intertextuality suggests that Walten, de Hooghe, and Bidloo were very much aware of each other’s work. The ‘Walten Papers’ – the file of legal documents relating to his blasphemy trial before the Hof van Holland – reveal much about Walten’s collaboration with Romeyn and Bidloo.33 The three men worked closely together, either at Romeyn’s home in Haarlem or at Bidloo’s in The Hague, or by exchanging letters, often as frequently as twice a day and carrying double postage if speedy delivery was necessary. Romeyn’s letters to Walten were addressed to Meyndert Uytwerf’s bookshop in Halstraat.34 During the trial, the Attorney General produced a pile of eighteen pamphlets and inquired with regard to each whether Walten was the author, and if so, demanded the names of the publisher and printer. It would sometimes do for Walten to admit (or occasionally deny) his involvement, but in several cases, he revealed in detail how the three men had worked together. Confronted, for example, with ‘Malice and the Spirit of Quarrelling’ (cited earlier as Romeyn’s ghost-written apology), Walten stated that Romeyn had furnished him in Haarlem with ‘the ingredients and materials’ of the story and that he, Walten, had had it printed by Matthieu Roguet in The Hague, and that Uytwerf had financed the publication.35 When asked whether he had written the ‘New Uprising on Mount Parnassus’ and the ‘Authentic Copy of the Settlement of Accounts’, he declared that not he, but Romeyn, was the author.36 Bidloo’s maidservant had asked Walten to report to her master’s house in The Hague. Here he had found Romeyn, who had handed him the manuscript of the ‘Copy of the Settlement of Accounts’. At the request of Bidloo and de Hooghe, he had delivered it to the printer. Walten was also responsible for sending Romeyn’s ‘New Uprising on Mount Parnassus’ to the press. The first time that Walten was asked to have it printed was when he was staying at Romeyn’s for several days. The latter had written the pamphlet in Walten’s presence, and Walten had sent it to Uytwerf. Upon his return to The Hague, he found that it had appeared under a different title. Bidloo told him that he had been responsible for the change after reading the manuscript.37 Walten, and by implication Romeyn and Bidloo, did not work in isolation. They were prompted and facilitated – and probably paid, although this cannot be documented – by William’s chief collaborators and confidants. Walten’s trial papers and his confiscated private notebooks provide a fascinating glimpse into the Orangist network of which they were part. In the second volume of the notebooks, a synopsis for

32 33 34 35 36 37

Kn. 13496, t’Samenspraeck, pp. 30–31. I owe the term ‘Walten Papers’ to van Bunge, ‘Eric Walten’, 41. Walten Papers, no. 47. Walten Papers, nos. 49–54, art. 9. On Roguet, see Kossmann, Boekhandel, p. 331. Kn. 13547, Nieuw oproer. Walten Papers, nos. 49–54, art. 7.

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a projected autobiography, Walten briefly mentions his involvement in what he calls ‘the Romeyn de Hooghe affair’, only to state that he will refrain from enlarging on it: I shall be silent as to how and why I meddled with the affair of R.d.H.; for recounting a straight narrative thereof, I would have to offend many people I hold in great esteem for other reasons. I shall only say that I began without his [Romeyn de Hooghe’s] knowledge, and that I did much in his favour before he even knew it; being requested to do so by great individuals, and in particular by a minister of His Majesty, who considered the persecution as revenge and a vexation for services rendered to His Majesty.38

The passage is tantalizingly terse, yet revealing. The only candidate to fit the bill for William’s ‘minister’ is his confidant and right-hand man, Hans Willem Bentinck, the Earl of Portland. Walten wrote on the same page: ‘how I finally meddled with the Amsterdam [magistrates’] question; how I did so without any ulterior motive; and how I first spoke to the Earl of Portland’.39 William had dispatched Bentinck to ­Holland in January 1690 in order to sort out the imbroglio caused by the s­ chepenen affair. On 4 February, Bentinck wrote to the king that ‘the malicious people [in Amsterdam] do much damage with their villainous writings, even if they are full of lies, but we shall soon give them a taste of their own medicine, with a bit more force and foundation’.40 Bentinck probably contacted Walten, who had made his mark since 1688 as one of William’s key pamphleteers in the British campaign, and charged him with the defence of the stadtholder’s cause. He may also have asked him to set up a network of Orangist pamphleteers, which would have included both Romeyn and Bidloo. He correctly judged the scandalmongering against Romeyn to have been instigated by the regents of Amsterdam in retaliation for Romeyn’s acidic cartoons. Bentinck’s request resulted in a pamphlet by Walten entitled ‘Some Comments on a Scandalous and Libellous Pasquil Entitled Vindiciae Amstelodamenses or Counter-Mirror of Truth’, in which he identified and vilified the lawyer Nicolaes Muys van Holy as the author responsible for the attacks on Romeyn.41 Like many of Walten’s other writings, it was the fruit of a collaborative effort: he later confessed to having composed it from materials dictated and supplied by Bidloo, with Romeyn joining in later on. He added that Romeyn had provided some ingredients while he, Walten, was staying at Romeyn’s home in Haarlem and Bidloo’s home in The Hague.42 As Bentinck’s agent, Walten had contacts among the highest government ­circles in the Netherlands. On 12 July 1690, he dispatched a letter written by Romeyn,

38 na, 3.03.01.01, inv. no. 374, f. 8 v. 39 Ibidem. 40 Correspondentie van Willem iii, part 1, vol. 1, p. 91, Portland to William iii, 4 February 1690. 41 Kn. 13542, Eenige aenmerckingen. 42 Walten Papers, nos. 49–54, art. 18.

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along with a covering letter by himself, to two highly placed regents from Utrecht, Gaspard Schadé (also known as Jasper Schade van Westrum,) and Diederik van Veldhuizen, Lord of Heemstede.43 Both men were delegates in the States of Utrecht, Schadé serving as its president. They were close collaborators, favourites, and friends of Everard van Weede, Lord of Dijkveld, one of William’s key clients in the Dutch Republic, responsible for managing his affairs in the government of Utrecht.44 In 1688, Dijkveld had strategically positioned Schadé and van Veldhuizen as members of a committee of the Utrecht States charged with secretly preparing ­William’s invasion of England. The two regents may even have been involved, ­possibly along with Walten, in the publication of the ‘Mirror of Truth’, as it was suggested that ‘two regents from the government of Utrecht’ had authored this key Orangist tract.45 In his letter, Walten presented himself as Romeyn’s representative, ‘without whom he [de Hooghe] takes no action whatsoever in his affair’.46 The letter reveals that he was in correspondence with several of the s­ tadtholder’s henchmen in the Dutch Republic, notably Dijkveld himself. Walten claimed that he also had discussed Romeyn’s affairs with Willem van Schuylenburg, Lord of ­Dukenburg and ­Calslagen, a regent from The Hague and William’s secretary, councillor, and auditor of his private audit office (Nassause Domeinraad); with Johan van der Does, Lord of Bergestein, a member of the deputation of the nobility (Ridderschap) in the States of Utrecht, and with Diederik Borre van Amerongen, Lord of ­Sandenburg, another member of the Utrecht Ridderschap, chief sheriff of Utrecht, a client of Bentinck’s and married to his sister. In his n ­ otebook, Walten even suggests that he had gone so far as to claim responsibility for certain actions undertaken by Borre van ­Amerongen – perhaps the authorship of another ­pamphlet? – in order to exculpate him.47 Ericus Walten, Govert Bidloo, and Romeyn de Hooghe, despite their close partnership in this affair, were very different characters.48 The etcher and the medical doctor were middle-aged men, settled with families, the prosperous owners of stately homes (Bidloo owned a house on the elegant Buitenhof in The Hague). Both men 43 Walten Papers, nos. 47 (13 July 1694) and 74. The letter, with an enclosed letter from Romeyn, is in hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 2, and published in Knuttel, ‘Ericus Walten’, pp. 371–372. About Schadé, see Wilders, Patronage, p. 36 and passim. About Veldhuizen, ibid, p. 170, Zandvliet, 250 rijksten, no 157, and de Jong, Natuur, pp. 116– 119. Heemstede was a manor house (ridderhofstad) in the province of Utrecht, not the eponymous manor or village near Haarlem. Van Veldhuizen was married to Alida de Graeff, a cousin of Romeyn’s friend Pieter de Graeff, see saa, 76, inv. nos. 200 (16 December 1680) and 202 (28 February 1682). 44 Troost, William III, pp. 100–102. Dijkveld had an affair with the wife of Schadé. 45 Kn. 13480 and 13481, Spiegel der waerheyd. The suggestion about the involvement of two Utrecht regents in Kn. 13484, Vindiciae, p. 26, and Kn. 13482, Missive uit Rotterdam, p. 1; cf. also Kn. 13503, Missive van de Parnas, p. 8. The ‘Mirror of Truth’ was printed by Jurriaen van Poolsum, Utrecht’s official municipal printer. 46 hua 67, inv. no. 2. 47 na, 3.03.01, inv. no. 374, f. 8 v. 48 Knuttel, ‘Ericus Walten’, p. 359.

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could already look back on brilliant careers. Walten the hack was much younger and had no proper qualifications for the medical and legal jobs with which he made his living. A inhabitant of Grub Street, with a prolific output of books, tracts, and libels, he remained an obscure nobody, because all his writings had appeared anonymously. As the junior member of the team, he was saddled with the less attractive jobs: running errands to printers and publishers, doing most of the writing, correcting proofs, and keeping in touch with their political sponsors in The Hague and Utrecht. Always prepared to do the dirty work, he was eventually the only one to bear the consequences and suffer for it. There were also similarities. To a certain extent, all three men were outsiders. Walten was a poor immigrant with a criminal record for vagrancy who fraudulently flaunted academic qualifications. As a professing Mennonite, Bidloo was unqualified to serve in regent functions. And Romeyn, although well underway in his regent career, was constantly being harassed about his youthful trespasses, which frustrated his ambitions. At root, all three of them were self-made men. They owed their success not to birth, affinity, or connections, but to their own efforts and dedication. All three were exceptionally bright, but none of them was sent to university by his parents. They must have fully agreed with ‘Arminian’, the critic of the States faction in the Orangist libel ‘Mirror of Truth’, who complained that the schools and academies have declined during the Loevestein regime lest clever spirits rise and oppose them [the regents] in their evil maxims. The students told each other that their study was in vain because the friends of the Loevestein faction got all of the offices without having enjoyed the least bit of education. Men of learning, knowledge, and experience were not even considered unless they were married into that faction. No one would look at their academic qualifications, only at marriages and alliances with this faction.49

Filled with rancour against Amsterdam’s regent clique, the three men were game for being recruited into the service of the stadtholder.

Arch-Cuckold de Hooghe Early in March 1690, yet another Notification appeared: a one-page sheet in folio that purported to announce the forthcoming publication of a work with the curious title ‘The First Volume of the Life and Deeds of Archicornutus ab Alto, alias Romeyn de Hooghe’; Archicornutus being Latin for ‘arch-cuckold’ and ab Alto the

49 Kn. 13480 and 13481, Spiegel der waerheyd, p. 28.

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Latinized form of ‘de Hooghe’.50 The author proclaimed he would start by summing up a series of thefts of time-pieces, Venetian lace jabots, silver key-chains, and velvet jackets, and by providing the exact names of the victims of these robberies. He would then describe how Romeyn, during his stay in France, had ascended the ladder to the gibbet, and by what practices he had managed to evade the noose. Next would come ‘his amorous courtship, marriage, and voluntary cuckoldry’, being ‘the cuckold [or pimp] of his own wife, as she gives pleasure to every man’.51 What made it even worse was that Romeyn, when putting his wife to work as a prostitute, indiscriminately accepted Christian and Jewish clients. Did Romeyn’s prints of the Portuguese Synagogue and his friendly relations with wealthy Sephardim provoke these allegations? Although the Jews, according to early modern standards, were relatively well incorporated into Amsterdam’s social fabric, the law forbade them to have sexual intercourse with gentiles, ‘even with those who are leading a disreputable life’.52 The forthcoming publication would also reveal how Romeyn’s daughter, ‘the famous doña Maria Romana and her friend la signora Bianca Rossina Schalck­ wijckiana, in the company of three members of the Portuguese Synagogue’, went on a jaunt (kittelreisje, literally a tickle-trip) to the village of Voorburg near The Hague.53 It is not clear to what event (if any) this allegation refers. If true, it suggests that Maria Romana, who had just turned sixteen at this time, had eloped to Voorburg in the company of a friend, possibly a girl from the village of Schalkwijk near Haarlem. But why Voorburg, and what was the connection with the Sephardic Jews? In Voorburg, the girls had allegedly indulged in dressage, ‘practising tours de manege, voltes, demi-voltes and ruades’. The equestrian pastimes are accompanied by an unmistakable sexual innuendo, especially since they were executed ‘to the tune of Pietro Aretino’s Eulenspiegel Set to Music’, an allusion to the vanished illustrated edition of ‘The Wandering Whore’. The pamphlet goes on to suggest that Romeyn’s wife Maria had acted as a model for his bawdy illustrations in that volume, ‘while making love to the engineer Storf’. Paul Storff de Belleville was a military engineer who had served under Vauban during the Franco-Dutch War. After the Peace of Nijmegen, he had entered the service of the States General and designed and directed the early stages of the defence 50 Kn. 13536, Eerste deel. This is a slightly altered version of an earlier publication entitled Bekendmakinge [‘Notification’], in which the publication of ‘The Life and Deeds of Archicornutus ab Alto’ was merely announced, preserved in Ghent University Library (Tiele 9126). The date of its publication in Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 49. 51 ‘De Kochel van zijn eigen wijf is,/ gelijk het wijf tot elks gerijf is’. The noun kochel means cuckold as well as pimp. 52 Swetschinski, ‘Vestiging’, p. 79. 53 Kn. 13536, Eerste deel, probably a later impression than Tiele 9126, Bekendmakinge, has ‘her friends La Signora, Rossina, Bianca, and Schalckwijckiana’.

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works at Grave, Naarden, and other fortresses. By the end of 1683 or early in 1684, he had hurriedly left the country after the newly-built bastions at Grave had suddenly collapsed.54 According to the private journal of Constantijn Huygens Jr, Storff was a libertine and a frequenter of brothels.55 He may have met and befriended the de Hooghes while staying in Amsterdam. Another story the libel promised to divulge was how Romeyn had obtained his uncle’s inheritance by treacherously quoting his will. With the money so acquired, he had a house built on a canal in a part of the city that, ‘famous far and wide for Randy Mary, is now called the Venus District’.56 ‘The First Volume of the Life and Deeds of Archicornutus ab Alto’ was to be concluded with a comparison between Romeyn and the highly famous orator from The Hague, Doctor Arlequinus Windbag [Windbuyl], also known as Govert Bidloo, his colleague in the field of pimping, cuckoldry, atheism, pilferage, mutiny, and telling lies to and slandering honest regents, as both scoundrels and libellers have recently practised in their so-called Parnassian discourses, portraits, and other vulgar pasquils.

These were only the contents of the first part of the projected three-volume Archicornutus ab Alto biography. Another broadsheet, similar in form and layout, announced the forthcoming publication of a sequel entitled ‘The Second Volume of the Life and Deeds of Archicornutus ab Alto alias Romeyn de Hooghe’. Volume 2, however, has little to add.57 It tersely summarizes the first three stories of ‘The Curious Life of the ­Bolognese Dog’ – the forged pictures, the stolen time-piece, the pinched lace jabot – but omits the squalid section about Maria Lansman. It adds two further instances of Romeyn’s cunning in thievery. The first one has him steal an object from the chief ­sheriff’s household while he is giving drawing lessons to his son. Caught in the act, he goes into hiding at his mother’s house, whence he flees to France (which would date the story to 1668). The second one relates how he was commissioned to sketch a portrait of a deceased person lying in a coffin. Under the pretence of having run out of charcoal, he sends away the maid and makes use of her absence to pocket a valuable ring from the corpse. ‘The Third Volume of the Life and Deeds of Archicornutus ab Alto, alias Romeyn de Hooghe’, similar in form, relates in more detail how Romeyn narrowly escaped the gallows during his stay in Paris.58 Condemned for his thieveries to die on the scaffold,

54 Van Wieringen, ‘Fransche methode’. 55 Huygens, Journaal, vol. 3, pp. 76–77. 56 ‘Om Ritse Marry wijt befaamt,/ De Venus-Buurt nu wert genaamt’. 57 Kn. 13537 and 13538, Twede deel. 58 Tiele, 9132, Darde deel, collection of the author. This broadsheet is not present in the ‘Knuttel’ pamphlet collection of the National Library of the Netherlands, nor, to my knowledge, in any other public collection.

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he bribed the hangman, who let him slip from the noose and as a result lost his job. A bawdy rhyme scoffs at Maria Romana: ‘When his wife is not at hand/ he is a pimp whose daughter gives pleasure to every man’.59 The single-sheet format of the three Archicornutus libels (as well as the two ‘Notifications’) suggests that they were not put up for sale, but destined for public distribution, tacked or glued to walls and trees or slipped under people’s doors. Someone must have financed the entire print-run of each pamphlet, including the fees for a hack-writer, a printer-publisher, and beggar-boys and unemployed labourers who furtively distributed the leaflets.

Vilifying Romeyn In February, a substantial Orangist pamphlet, entitled ‘Mirror of Truth’, was published in Utrecht, possibly authored by highly placed regents.60 According to its subtitle, it takes the form of ‘a dialogue between an Arminian and a pious p ­ atriot, ­demonstrating that our country became involved in the previous and present war with France by the evil direction and design of several ruling regents in ­Amsterdam’. It expounds the Orangist grievances against the Loevestein or States faction, ­especially in Amsterdam. A character named ‘Pious Patriot’ voices the Orangist message, while ‘Arminian’ is the spokesman for the republicans.61 In the ‘Mirror of Truth’, Arminian acts as a stooge, gladly ceding the floor to True Patriot, who grabs the opportunity to explain the truth of Orangism in answer to Arminian’s ­questions. Towards the end, True Patriot succeeds in convincing his opponent of the ­superior quality of the Prince of Orange’s policies. Various details suggest that this ­pamphlet informed Romeyn’s satirical prints of the same period. True Patriot accuses ­Amsterdam’s ­magistrates of striving to reduce the army and rob the country of its means of defence. ‘Are they not afraid of coming to grief themselves?’ asks ­Arminian. No, answers True Patriot, ‘because they have at their disposal a private means that other cities do not, namely being able to inundate the lands around their

59 ‘Als de Vrouw niet bij der handt is/ Is hy Kogchel ’t welk de Dochter tot elks sijn gerijf is’. 60 Kn. 13480 and 13481, Spiegel der waerheyd. According to Kn. 13482, Missive uit Rotterdam, it had been published on 8 February 1690. 61 The Arminians (Remonstrants) was the name of one of the parties in the religious controversies of the 1610s. This party rejected the doctrine of predestination and championed a latitudinarian Church under the strict supervision of the Provincial States. By the end of the century, the epithet ‘Arminian’ was also used to denote what is known as ‘political’ Arminianism: a standpoint that opposed the hegemonic aspirations of the Reformed Church, promoted religious toleration, strove to limit the prerogatives of the stadtholders, preferred peace to war, and aspired to assert the dominance of the Province of Holland – in short, a synonym for the very ideas and maxims of the Loevestein faction that held sway in Amsterdam’s town hall. Israel, Dutch Republic, pp. 487–488.

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city and make it unassailable, as we saw in 1672 and 1673’.62 This passage resonates with one in the New Song of Knights and Grandees, where Romeyn puts a clyster in the hands of mock-cavalier ­Huydecoper, ‘with which he would break the dykes’. True Patriot also narrates how, during the winter of 1684, Amsterdam’s burgomasters had the citizens haul fire hoses onto the ramparts to make them wet and slippery and thus prevent them from being ­assaulted, a theme that recurs in the New Song as well as in Bigwig and the Privilege Seeker.63 The pro-Amsterdam response to the ‘Mirror of Truth’, published on or around 20 March and entitled ‘Vindication of Amsterdam, or Counter-Mirror of Truth’, did not attempt to refute the Orangist argument.64 Instead, it opted for a muckraking campaign against the regents of Orangist cities. The site of the discussion is a passenger barge sailing from Amsterdam to The Hague. To kill time, the travellers are telling each other – and gloating about – the sleaziest details of the lives and deeds of their regents back home. Take, for example, the burgomasters of Rotterdam, a bunch ‘for whom money is a substitute for their lack of abilities’. One of them ‘is so utterly infatuated with prostitutes’ that, during an amorous engagement, he was locked up in a room and left to rot for three or four days, whilst his colleagues from the town hall desperately organized a search of all the taverns and brothels he used to frequent.65 A traveller from Overijssel pipes up that the burgomasters of Kampen used to get so drunk that the city hall ushers had to cart them off in wheelbarrows from ‘the wineroom’, where they lay sprawled until awakened by the early morning sun for the next council meeting.66 The first barge passenger to speak up is a citizen from Haarlem. Not surprisingly, his target is ‘Burgomaster F…’, evidently Willem Fabricius, Bentinck’s client and Romeyn’s patron.67 The citizen of Haarlem accuses him of various instances of fraud and misrule: submitting an improbably low valuation of his assets for the 200th penny property tax, scheming to have a friend appointed as town secretary, attempting to remove one of the burgomasters from office, and delaying the election of the burgomasters (in Haarlem, the stadtholder’s privilege) for months on end. Yet there are scoundrels in the Haarlem city government who are even more depraved than Fabricius. One of them is ‘a disgrace to all honest people, someone whose lampoons ought to be publicly burned by the executioner’. He has become a regent of charitable institutions and a member of the city government; yea, his name has even been proposed as a deacon in God’s Church. He is a man

62 63 64 65 66 67

Kn. 13480–13481, Spiegel der waerheyd, pp. 71–72. Ibid., p. 72. Kn. 13484, Vindiciae. The date of publication in 13551, Nyd, p. 49. Kn. 13484, Vindiciae, pp. 16–17. Ibid., p. 37. Ibid., p. 11.

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who does not know God, or at least does not wish to know Him; who openly mocks all godliness and religion; and who (as I was told) was banished from his home in Amsterdam because of his atheism and the making and selling of those indecent illustrations that no virtuous eye can behold; who has been a thief since childhood and has committed so many thefts that he should have been left to dry a long time ago; for whom in France the gibbet had been erected for these reasons; who by his unruly and godless behaviour has utterly ruined his wife, the daughter of an honest man and faithful minister of God’s Church, and has prostituted her. Such a man, I say, one has pushed into the government, as if honest men were unavailable; and I do not doubt, all being well, that we will see him made burgomaster.68

Although the anonymous author of the ‘Counter-Mirror of Truth’ cautiously refrains from mentioning his name, no reader would have failed to identify ‘this vomit from Amsterdam, who has entered our city [Haarlem] like a Trojan horse’. His principal source must have been ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’, to which he added the gossip about Romeyn’s involvement in the pornography affair and his expulsion from Amsterdam. Thus, almost a decade after the publication of ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’, the smear campaign against Romeyn was revived, this time in the context of a political conflict about the nature and location of sovereign power in the Dutch Republic. Other leaflets followed suit. ‘Amsterdam Alone in the Vanguard of Liberty’ is a lengthy poem lamenting the miseries brought upon the Dutch Republic by the unrestrained rule of the stadtholder.69 Everyone is aware of them, it claims, but nobody dares, or is willing, to speak out: Or if one speaks, it is perverted into a print or filthy pasquinade, Which readily divulges its producer, though he keeps quiet; Cowering maliciously under Haarlem’s lindens, Like the King of Owls, he shuns the light of day. That godforsaken rogue, who now torments his mother, On whose breast he used to lie, from thence expelled As bastard son, the blemish of the city, the corrupter of morals, And now, what wonder! Seated in God’s Church As a presbyter, and brought into the government of the State, While the villain is laughing up his sleeve.

The anonymous poet identified Romeyn as the producer of the notorious lampoons, summarized the moral allegations against his character (and erroneously stated 68 Ibid., pp. 13–14. 69 Kn. 13477, Amsterdam alleen.

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he was an elder in the Haarlem consistory), but again stopped short of ­actually ­mentioning his name. A second edition of the pamphlet was published with a ­slightly amended title, however, as ‘Amsterdam Alone in the Vanguard of Liberty, and ­Romeyn de Hooghe Portrayed’.70 Naming followed shaming.

Scaling Mount Parnassus The first ‘Notification to the Aficionados’ had announced the publication of several pamphlets by Bidloo purporting to describe ‘political conferences’ and even a portrait exhibition on ‘Mount Parnassus’. Seventeenth-century pamphlets did not merely serve as vehicles for political, religious, or moralistic messages. They also had to divert and amuse, in accordance with the Horatian precept that literary texts ought to please as well as instruct (delectare et docere) their readers, and that an accomplished author should mix the useful with the pleasant (utile dulci miscere). Moreover, pamphlets being commercial products, what would boost sales more effectively than the promise of a bit of fun? Not all pamphlets were as coarse and vulgar as the Archicornutus broadsheets. One genre within seventeenth-century pamphlet literature that pre-eminently followed Horace’s guideline was the Parnassian discourse. This literary form took its name from the Ragguagli di Parnaso [‘News from Parnassus’], in which the ­Venetian satirist Traiano Boccalini had lampooned the actions and writings of many of his contemporaries.71 The amusing short stories were staged on Mount Parnassus in Greece, the residence of Apollo and the Muses. Apollo and his council, composed of a mixture of ancient and contemporary philosophers, wittily discussed all kinds of current affairs, after which the Sun God pronounced his verdict, which rounded off the author’s argument in an unexpected and funny manner. The Ragguagli became tremendously popular. Posthumously republished in 1614 as Pietra del paragone politico [‘Political Touchstone’], the essays criticizing the Spanish presence in Italy were responsible for Boccalini’s success as a satirist. The book was translated into several languages. Due to its anti-absolutist and anti-monarchical character, it fitted into a wider republican agenda that extolled the ‘mixed’ constitution of the Venetian Republic.72 German readers would read Boccalini as a critique of the expansionist policies of their Habsburg emperors, whilst the same texts in the 1660s and 1670s served as a warning against the ambitions of Louis xiv. From 1640 onwards, Dutch book printers published the work in Italian, Latin, German, and, 70 Kn. 13478, Amsterdam alleen … en Romeyn de Hooge. 71 Hendrix, Traiano Boccalini. 72 The constitution of Venice was thought to be the perfect mixture of monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic elements, as recommended by Aristotle.

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Fig. 9.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Discussion on Mt Parnassus, in Traiano B ­ occalini, Pietra del paragone politico (1671), p. 58.

in 1669, in Dutch.73 Another edition in Italian, published in Amsterdam two years later, included eight illustrations by Romeyn de Hooghe. These pictures, among the smallest etchings known in his oeuvre, reveal how Romeyn imagined Apollo’s court on Mount Parnassus (fig. 9.3).74 The Parnassian genre turned out to be eminently suitable for political satire. Borrowing Boccalini’s formula, Dutch pamphleteers playfully staged their discussions of current affairs in Apollo’s council. Just like the passenger-barge chat or the stagecoach chat, a Parnassian dispute enabled them to discuss actual topics from various perspectives before Apollo’s verdict gave the narrative its final spin. If the ­passenger-barge chat seemed somewhat stale by 1690 – perhaps a bit too ‘Dutch’ – the debates on Mount Parnassus were international, sophisticated, and fashionable. In February 1690, three Parnassian discourses came from the press – all anonymous and without a publisher’s imprint, and all fiercely critical of the policies of A ­ msterdam’s burgomasters in the schepenen affair.75 The Walten trial papers establish that Govert Bidloo was their author.76 The first of these pamphlets, entitled ‘Excerpt from the Political Conferences, Held on Mount Parnassus, Beginning with the Thunderstorm 73 Boccalini, Politiike toet-steen. 74 Boccalini, Pietra; lbi no. 10. 75 The title page of the copy of Kn. 13491, Beschryving van eenige portraiten, in the Library of the University of Amsterdam (shelf mark Pfl. L z 9) has a handwritten annotation ‘1690.20.2’, i.e., 20 February 1690. Similarly, the author’s copy of the second edition of the same pamphlet (Kn. 13492) has the annotation ‘16 2/20 90’. 76 Walten Papers, no. 66. Kn. 13539, 13540, Vervolg van de nieuwe tydinge, p. 4, erroneously attributes these pamphlets to Romeyn.

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of the First of January 1690’, describes a conference of political philosophers.77 The ­participants are the ancient writers Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Demosthenes, ­Cicero, Livy, and Tacitus, and the modern ones ‘Verulamius’ (Francis Bacon), Machiavelli, Hobbes, de la Court, and Spinoza. Apollo tasks Pieter de la Court (a staunch a­ dvocate of republicanism) and Machiavelli with providing a tangible example of ‘the best ­polity on earth’. To the consternation of all, they proffer ‘the city or state of ­Amsterdam’. This leads to a heated debate among the assembled philosophers, and provides ample opportunity to poke fun at the republican ­pretensions of Amsterdam’s rulers. The combination of learned allusions to classical and modern political theory and the mocking of contemporary politicians captivated the pamphlet-reading audience, leading to a second edition, as well as a sequel, entitled ‘Second Excerpt from the Political Conferences Held on Mount Parnassus’, which also ran through two impressions. These were followed by a pamphlet entitled ‘Description of several Portraits, Exhibited on Mount Parnassus’, which does not contain (as announced in the ‘Notification to the Aficionados’) any engravings by Romeyn, but is in effect a continuation of the previous two political conferences chastising the regents of Amsterdam.78 The hacks who wrote in defence of Amsterdam’s regents were quick to appropriate the Parnassian idiom for their own purposes. The author of ‘Vindication of ­Amsterdam or Counter-Mirror of Truth’, for example, framed his dialogue between ‘True Patriot’ and other burghers within a Parnassian discourse.79 Another ­pro-Amsterdam Parnassian discourse, published on 3 April and entitled ‘Sequel to the New Tidings from Mount Parnassus’, casts Romeyn himself as the main character.80 A stranger, ‘with bewildered countenance and of confounded brains’, appears at the gate of Mount Parnassus. Apollo charges Traiano Boccalini and Raphael of Urbino, assisted by the French engravers Jacques Callot and Israel Silvestre, to find out who he is and what he wants. The visitor says he is the famous etcher Romeyn de Hooghe and that he has come to lodge a complaint with His Majesty (Apollo) ­regarding the injury done to him: two gentlemen disguised as lawyers from ‘­Hermepolis’ (the city of Hermes, i.e., Amsterdam) had whipped and branded him without due process. Boccalini and Raphael do not know the man, but Callot and Silvestre do: We know this bragger [wildzanger]. Having examined his work, we consider the ordinance so confused and the design so badly put, that connoisseurs cannot 77 Kn. 13488, 13489, Extract Uyt de Politique Conferentiën. 78 Kn. 13491 and 13492, Beschryving van eenige portraiten; Kn. 13493, Tweede extract uyt de politijcque conferentien. 79 Kn. 13484, Vindiciae, pp. 3–8. See also Kn. 13464 and 13465, Waarheid, p. 2. 80 Kn. 13539, 13540, Vervolg van de nieuwe tydinge, is a sequel to Kn. 13495, Nieuwe Tydinge, which discusses the conflict between Amsterdam and William iii in a conciliatory way. The publication date in Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 49.

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possibly appreciate it. His drawings lack proportion, observance of light and shadow and perspective, without which no one can be a good draughtsman or etcher.

Boccalini becomes curious and asks about the cause of the injury done to the stranger. Romeyn answers that he has merely assisted in the production of three ­Parnassian ­ occalini discourses (parnassen), in which he had taunted the regents of Hermepolis. B intervenes: ‘Merely slanderous prints and Parnassian discourses? In Italy, I have paid with my life for doing the very same thing! To my mind, you got off lightly. You’re lucky the public hangman did not lay his hands on you.’ The Parnassian pamphlets in question are brought in. Boccalini, now aware of the identity of the author who so wickedly abused his name, drags him before ­Apollo’s throne. Hearing that Romeyn hails from Hermepolis, the Sun God asks ­ icked what made him vilify the government of his hometown. ‘No one can be so w and alienated of all virtue as to find pleasure in offending the magistrates of his own birthplace with claptrap and libel!’ The complainant indicates that he had been banned from the city several years ago; he produced and published libels in order to revenge that injury, and to gain some advantage. ‘You must have doubly deserved that ­banishment’, growls Apollo, ‘as the regents of Hermepolis govern their ­inhabitants gently’. Enter the Postmaster of Parnassus, who delivers several letters to Apollo. He says the reason for Romeyn’s banishment lies in the lecherous illustrations for ‘The ­Wandering Whore’ by Pietro Aretino, ‘whose lessons the engraver’s wife, as a ­second ­Aloysia Sigaea or priestess of Venus, with her husband’s agreement, has taught s­ everal Hermepolitan youngsters’.81 He adds that Romeyn also despises and slanders the gods and has committed numerous thefts and other crimes. This caused the magistrates of Hermepolis to banish him from their city as a harmful inhabitant and a corrupter of youth. Apollo, appalled by these horrors, speaks with a grave countenance: ‘Abominable and godforsaken man! How dare you appear here at Parnassus before my royal throne, and how is Vice so bold as to resort to Justice?’ To which the complainant remains silent, as if convinced of this universally known truth. Romeyn’s embarrassment increases when the Postmaster hands over a list of his thieveries and villainies, specifying when, where, and against whom these had been committed. ‘But the etcher is especially dumbfounded when it is publicly stated that he has often bragged of being the lover of his own daughter, and that he wishes to sleep with her lest she blame her mother for indecency and fornication’. He is then confronted with his numerous deceitful writings and libellous prints. And finally, it is proven how in ‘Weaving Town’ (Weefstad, i.e., Haarlem), he had recently thrown a scandalous libel 81 Aloysia Sigea is the pseudonym of Nicolas Chorier, the author of a famous pornographic novel. Sigea, Satyra, translated as Sigea, Academie.

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into the priestly offertory-box instead of alms, because he had been barred from the Church for his scandalous life. Here follows the final verdict. Apollo, divining the truth of the matter from the fearful countenance of the accused, and having received the corresponding declarations from many credible witnesses, orders that he be put backward on a donkey, in shackles and holding the donkey’s tail in his hands, and thus be banished from Mount Parnassus for all time. While Romeyn is being shepherded away in this ignominious manner, a huge crowd of Pegasus’ stable hands, having heard of his evil deeds, bursts forth. From all sides they salute him by throwing horse-droppings; one of which flies right into his blasphemous mouth, while he is crying out miserably, causing uproarious laughter among the assembled literati of Mount Parnassus – even more so when they hear the stable lads hissing at him to the well-known tune of ‘Out! You thief, what are you doing here?’82 This, says the libel, is the tune all poor orphans in the Weaving City’s Venus District are now chirping. The literary downfall of Romeyn de Hooghe was thus sealed with an imaginary charivari: a mock parade accompanied by a discordant mock serenade. The pamphlet contained an ominous postscript: ‘The next news tiding is expected to contain a pertinent memorandum of the sworn statements given about the thieveries and roguish deeds of Romeyn de Hooghe, as well as the proof of the amours with his daughter, as reported above’. The attack on Romeyn was to be scaled up from fiction to fact. But before that happened, another Parnassian pamphlet appeared entitled ‘Romeyn de Hooghe before Apollo’s Tribunal, Defending himself against the Evil Crimes and Filthy Libel with which he is Charged […] in Several […] Pasquils’.83 Ostensibly authored by Romeyn himself, ‘in Haarlem, by Romulus [sic] ab Alto, in the Venus District, anno 1690’, it allowed the author insidiously to quote at length from the earlier anti-Romeyn pamphlets, defending himself with an entirely inadequate and unconvincing apology. The pamphlet again stages Romeyn appealing to Apollo on Mount Parnassus, where he lodges a complaint against the scandalmongering. Apollo: ‘Ha-ha, I know where you’re going! We received tidings about your recent Law degree; you’re now looking for an opportunity to demonstrate that you’re capable of arguing a case before the bench!’ Romeyn confesses he committed various thefts in his youth, but rather lamely argues that he is no different from others: The world is a large forest, where men, a hundred times more dangerous than wild animals, devour one another. Does not a young man, not born for slavish labour, deserve the good life of so many people who steal more in a quarter of an hour than 82 ‘Her uyt jou dief, wat doe je hier’. The song was known to Jacob Campo Weyerman, Ontleeder, vol. 1, p. 355. 83 Kn. 13541, Romein de Hooge voor den rechterstoel, published on 10 April 1690 according to Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 49.

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I could do? […] What is normal among merchants is regarded as thievery with a poor and simple soul. I was naked and poor at that time: that is why my deeds were regarded as crimes.84

He argues that the illustrations for ‘The Wandering Whore’ may well be the work of one of his numerous pupils. But even if they were his, many great masters have depicted bawdy scenes, while even today, some artists do nothing but paint whorehouses. Pieter de la Court accuses him of having been a defeatist in 1673 when the war with France was going badly, and of becoming a follower of the Prince of Orange only when matters improved. Boccalini: ‘That’s a pretty business, making a stink in the newspaper as “meester Romeyn de Hooghe, Commissioner of His Royal Highness of Great Britain”! Why not add: On Account of the Lingen Sandstone?’ Romeyn flatly denies the allegations (elaborately summed up by the libel’s author) about the sexual escapades of his wife (‘Oh, deeply unhappy Maria, my worthy bedfellow!’) and daughter, and concludes: I have been the master of my own fortune, without anybody’s help. Everything I am, I owe to myself. I have to thank no one for anything. Among a thousand regents, there are not ten who could say the same. I am only the son of a common citizen, who did not have sufficient means to send me to university. And meanwhile, I have made such an effort that despite the hatred of my enemies, I have come so far as to hold the most distinguished offices in the country.85

Pretending to be his apology, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe before Apollo’s Tribunal’ had no other purpose than slandering him even more. Nevertheless, it concludes with a statement about his inner motives that has a ring of authenticity.

Arch-Cuckold Shareholder Nine years earlier, when the vilification of Romeyn had started with the publication of ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’, he had responded by lying low and quietly decamping to his late uncle’s house in Haarlem. Now that the slander campaign resumed, he decided to defend himself. Yet in order to do so, he had to find out who was responsible. It was no simple matter to establish the identity of the anonymous author or authors of the ‘Vindiciae Amstelodamenses’, the verse ‘Amsterdam alone’, the three volumes of ‘The Life and Deeds of Romanus Archicornutus ab Alto’, and the ‘Sequel to the New Tidings from Mount Parnassus’. Were they the work of a single 84 Kn. 13541, Romein de Hooge voor den rechterstoel, pp. 15–18. 85 Ibid., p. 31.

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hack, or were there more of them? Were these sinister and elusive inhabitants of Grub Street payed by his enemies, the regents of Amsterdam, or had they taken up the quill on their own initiative? Romeyn, Walten, and Bidloo knew – or thought they knew – the answer. All the evidence pointed in the direction of a man called Muys van Holy. Nicolaes Muys van Holy was the descendant of a junior branch of a wealthy and powerful patrician family hailing from Dordrecht.86 He made his living as a barrister and was living in Amsterdam, where in 1687 he had gained notoriety by advocating the imposition of a tax on the sale of voc stock.87 This had led him to be hated in some business circles, especially those, of course, composed of merchants involved in the trade in voc shares. Three years earlier, he had attracted attention with a­ nother pamphlet, in which he accused a regent of Haarlem, Dammas ­Guldewagen, of embezzling a large sum of money while serving as municipal tax receiver.88 The attack was all the more remarkable because Guldewagen was uncle to Muys van Holy’s wife, Anna Catharina Guldewagen. The reason for Muys van Holy’s enmity towards his wife’s uncle was allegedly the latter’s refusal to grant his niece her share in her grandparents’ inheritance.89 That pamphlet, too, earned Muys van Holy no small number of enemies, in this case among the governing elite of Haarlem. Among them was ­Willem Fabricius, who regarded Guldewagen as his ‘bosom-friend’ and also happened to be a cousin of Anna Catharina. A well-known pamphleteer, and suspect in leading circles in both Amsterdam and Haarlem, Muys van Holy made an ideal scapegoat. The first attack on Muys van Holy took place in a broadsheet conceived as a response to ‘The Life and Deeds of Romanus ab Alto’. In fact, ‘The Life and Deeds of Archicornutus Actionistes’ (‘Arch-Cuckold Shareholder’) echoes almost verbatim the wording of the semi-eponymous pamphlet against Romeyn.90 Its author is unknown, but it is likely that Walten was responsible, requested by Bentinck to defend Romeyn. The libel pretended to be a public notification that the Amsterdam-based publisher Jan ten Hoorn (the brother of Timotheus) was engaged in printing the first volume of a pamphlet entitled ‘The Life and Works of Archicornutus Actionistes, alias Nicolaes Muys van Holy’. The forthcoming work was to recount several thefts from the houses of his best friends and would describe his involvement in several fraudulent testaments and other legal documents. It would explore how Muys van Holy had stirred up trouble in the States of Holland in order to be appointed commissioner for the stock market, and how, as a consequence, his life was at stake in Amsterdam. It would reveal (here the author followed verbatim the text of Archicornutus Romanus ab Alto)

86 87 88 89 90

Roest, ‘Nicolaas Muys van Holy’. Kn. 12622, Muys van Holy, Middelen; Petram, World’s First Stock Exchange, p. 72. Kn. 12247-a, Muys van Holy, Memorie. Kn. 13553, Muys van Holy, Missive, p. 1. Kn. 13534, Bekentmaeckinge.

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‘his amorous courtship, marriage, and voluntary cuckoldry, being the cuckold [or pimp] of his own wife, as she gives pleasure to every man’. The libel then went on to promise a description of his infidelities, his renunciation of God and religion, and the betrayal of his friends. The forthcoming work was to be written in the same manner as Muys van Holy’s Parnassian discourses against the city of Haarlem. It would also follow the style of the legal proceedings he had instituted four years earlier before the magistrates’ court of Amsterdam, against his uncle Guldewagen, for embezzlement of public funds. Banished from the Province of Holland for that reason, Muys van Holy was still living in Amsterdam ‘by connivance’. The forthcoming book would then shift the brunt of its attack to Muys van Holy’s wife, again closely following the example of the pamphlet against Romeyn: His famous wife doña Brugmans,91 well instructed in the work of Venus by several devotees at the tender age of thirteen years, as can be seen from her caved-in nose, having a thorough command of pleasant postures and tours de manège of the brothel-beasts [bordeelbeesten] and sodomite villainesses [sodomitische schoftinnen], as well as carbettes, demi-voltes and ruades, practised to the tune of Pietro Aretino’s Eulenspiegel Set to Music, in order to help redress the damage suffered by her husband in the stock market, presents her service to all young maidens and married ladies, yea even magistrates’ wives, to teach them how to cuckold their husbands, commit adultery with his brother, and having their pleasure with animals; offering incomparable instructions starting soon and against a civil price; for which she will be available at her home on Herengracht, opposite Bergstraat, in Amsterdam.

Just as the Archicornutus Romanus ab Alto promised a comparison between ­Romeyn de Hooghe and Govert Bidloo, the Archicornutus Actionistes drew a parallel with another scoundrel, the widely famous Amsterdam Orator and Begging Lecturer, the barrister M ­ ercurius Windbuyl [‘Windbag’], a.k.a. Professor van den Broeck, his [Muys van Holy’s] ­colleague in the field of pimping, cuckoldry, atheism, pilferage, mutiny, and telling lies to and slandering honest regents, yea the sovereign of the land, as both wellknown scoundrels and libellers have recently practised in their so-called Parnassian discourses and other rude and vulgar pasquils and verses with dirty pictures.

Johannes van den Broeck was a professor of Law at Amsterdam’s Illustrious ­Athenaeum.92 Whether he was responsible for one or more of the pamphlets against Romeyn has not 91 The maiden name of Muys van Holy’s wife was Guldewagen, not Brugmans. 92 Van Miert, Humanism, pp. 102–103; nnbw, vol. 7, col. 217.

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been established. If Romeyn had in fact followed courses at the Athenaeum in preparation for his Law degree, he must have attended van den Broeck’s lectures. The Archicornutus Actionistes (to be illuminated with engravings ‘by a disciple of Romeyn de Hooghe’) was clearly as scurrilous a libel as the ones attacking Romeyn. Though designed in his defence, it did not refute any of the allegations made in the Archicornutus Romanus ab Alto, perhaps because these were considered too gross to deserve serious comment. Yet one may wonder whether it was wise to follow the text of the first broadsheet so closely. Contemporary readers were struck by the absurdity of the two semi-identical pamphlets. A pamphleteering wit published a third libel, comically entitled ‘Form for Pasquils in Blank’. Following verbatim the text of ‘The Life and Deeds of Archicornutus Actionistes’, it left blank spaces for the names, because the sheet was to serve ‘everyone wishing to defame somebody, providing blank ­spaces to be completed by hand or otherwise’.93 The ‘Arch-Cuckold Shareholder’ broadsheet was merely an opening shot. A ­fully-fledged attack materialized shortly afterwards in a 48-page pamphlet entitled ‘Some Comments on a Scandalous and Libellous Pasquil entitled Vindiciae Amstelodamenses or Counter-Mirror of Truth’.94 As we have seen, Ericus Walten later confessed to having composed it from information supplied by Govert Bidloo and ­Romeyn de Hooghe.95 The larger part consists of a frontal attack on the supposed author of the Vindiciae, Muys van Holy. He is an ‘infamous scoundrel, the scum of the greatest riff-raff and the ugliest rabble present in Amsterdam, the leader of godless scandalmongers, and an atheist’.96 He is ‘a man who has abandoned all honour, shame, and fear of God and is entirely devoted to vice, godlessness, atheism, and slander’.97 He is employed by several regents from Amsterdam, who do not deal directly with him, but through various lawyers, all of them being identified by name. He is the author of the Parnassian discourses against Romeyn. He has speculated – unsuccessfully – in brandy and stock; his attempts to have an impost raised on the sale of stock and to be appointed commissioner have failed. For this reason, the Jews, Amsterdam’s principal stock dealers, hate him so much that they waited for him at the quay where the passenger barges from The Hague dock in order to give him a sound thrashing. Though he hates the burgomasters of Amsterdam, he flatters and wheedles them. His wife is no better than he is: last year she had been confined to the ‘smear-bed’ for having infected him with the pox. Along with her husband, she was the subject of a striking portrait in a recently published Notification. That remark is followed by a full transcript of the ‘Notification’ of the forthcoming publication

93 94 95 96 97

Kn. 13535, Formulier van pasquillen. Kn. 13542, Eenige aenmerckingen. Walten Papers, nos. 49–54, art. 18 (25 June 1694). Kn. 13542, Eenige aenmerckingen, p. 12. Ibid., p. 10.

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of ‘Arch-Cuckold Shareholder’, which confirms the conjecture that Walten was the author of that libel as well.98 But was Muys van Holy really the author of the libels against Romeyn? Muys van Holy himself, in another pamphlet, pitched as an open letter to Fabricius, hotly denied being the author of the Vindiciae, the Parnassian and other lampoons against Romeyn de Hooghe.99 He argued that his style of writing – legalese, if anything – was entirely different from that of ‘these and similar pieces of trash’. In September 1690, the burgomasters of Amsterdam summoned him to the city hall and berated him for publishing the open letter to Fabricius. On that occasion, he solemnly declared that he was entirely innocent of writing any other pamphlets.100 Without exactly proving his innocence, his statement renders it rather doubtful that he was the author of the libels against Romeyn. Walten, in ‘Some Comments on a Scandalous and Libellous Pasquil’, accused the Amsterdam bookseller and publisher Johannes Boekholt of publishing the various ‘Notification’ broadsheets: A certain Jonannes Boekholt, bookseller in Gapersteeg in Amsterdam, being half a Quaker, a Tartuffe, a pretended saintly man [fynman], who looks as deadpan as flour gruel [effen als blompap] and so far has done nothing but printing and selling finicky and dilly-dallying rubbish [fijmelachtige en talmachtige lorren] translated from the English, is engaged these days with nothing but printing and selling libels, both against private individuals and against the stadtholder and other members of government. He is the printer of the foul and libellous ‘Notifications’ against Romeyn de Hooghe and other honourable individuals.101

Renowned for his outstanding piety and publisher of the bestselling Dutch translation of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, Johannes Boekholt must have seemed particularly odious to Walten, because he acted as publisher for the copious literary output of the Reverend Jacobus Koelman, with whom Walten was involved in a fierce polemic about the relations between State and Church.102 In a recent pamphlet entitled ‘Ericus Walten, Ostensible Apologist […] Refuted’, Koelman had ungenerously addressed Walten as ‘a stranger amongst us, born somewhere in Germany, as I have been told’.103 Was the pious Boekholt not only the publisher but also the author of the various ‘Notifications’?

98 Ibid., pp. 22–25. 99 Kn. 13553, Muys van Holy, Missive, pp. 3–4. 100 saa, 5024, inv. no. 73, f. 148 vo., Burgomasters to Hudde, 16 September 1690. 101 Kn. 13542, Eenige aenmerckingen, pp. 30–31. 102 Alblas, Johannes Boekholt. 103 Kn. 13321, Koelman, Ericus Walten, p. 2.

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Whether Muys van Holy was in fact the author of the ‘Counter-Mirror of Truth’ remains a moot point, and so does the involvement of Boekholt and the elusive ­Professor van den Broeck. But even if Muys van Holy was not the author of the libels against Romeyn, there can be no doubt about his active involvement in the scandalmongering. In May 1690, the chief sheriff (hoofdofficier) of Haarlem, Adriaan Bakker, moved to institute legal proceedings against Romeyn, prompted by his ­Amsterdam-based colleague, Jacob Boreel. The first step in a criminal trial was to draw up a paper stating the legal basis for prosecution, a so-called memorandum of rights (memorie van rechten). Working as a lawyer for Boreel’s office, Muys van Holy was responsible for composing the text of the memorandum and gathering the affidavits against Romeyn.

10. The Memorandum of Rights Legal Action The extent to which the burgomasters of Amsterdam – or some of them – were actively involved in the smear campaign against Romeyn is a moot point. It was not uncommon for urban regents in the Dutch Republic to have a hand in the production of libels.1 But since pamphleteering – the writing, printing, and distributing of potentially subversive broadsides and booklets that failed to mention the names of their authors and publishers – was a criminal offence, they had to observe discretion. Ericus Walten complained that Amsterdam’s magistrates were cracking down on peddlers of tracts favouring the Prince of Orange while condoning the overt dissemination of pamphlets supporting their own policies.2 Moreover, Walten, Bidloo, and de Hooghe were convinced that the burgomasters had supplied Muys van Holy with ‘evil rumours about the state, the stadtholder, and the affairs in England, and payed him handsomely for writing his malicious tracts’.3 The regents had spent ‘several thousand guilders’ to make him write libels against ‘the enemies of the city’ and especially against Romeyn.4 Yet they aspired to more than mere defamation of Romeyn’s character. If they could not hope to drag a citizen of Haarlem before an Amsterdam court of law, it might be feasible to secure a conviction in his own neck of the woods. In order to accomplish this, they had to produce solid facts, not mere rumours, about Romeyn’s behaviour, and provide the chief sheriff of Haarlem with the legal grounds necessary for criminal prosecution. They did both. On April 22, Adriaan Schoonebeek, Romeyn’s former pupil and presently a ­successful etcher and print retailer in Kalverstraat, appeared before notary Michiel Bockx to make an extremely damaging statement ‘at the request of [chief ­sheriff] Boreel versus Romeyn de Hooghe’.5 Who were the men cooperating to prepare ­Romeyn’s downfall? Michiel Bockx was a notary public who worked part-time as a clerk in the office of the chief sheriff.6 His boss, Jacob Boreel, was a quintessential member of 1 Harline, Pamphlets, pp. 131–133. 2 Kn. 13496, t’Samenspraeck, p. 28. 3 Kn. 13542, Eenige aenmerckingen, pp. 13–15. 4 Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 49. 5 saa, 5075, inv. no. 4436, pp. 618–623; the text of the attestation is published in Kn. 13545, Memorie van rechten … met de bylagen, pp. 13–16. On 10 May 1690, Schoonebeek swore before the town secretary of Amsterdam that the contents of his deposition were true. On Schoonebeek, see Janssen, ‘Adriaen Schoonebeek’s Etching Manual’, pp. 93–103. 6 Bosma, Repertorium, no. 60. Incidentally, the banns of Michiel Boxkx and his bride Helena Vlasbloem were published on the same day (5 May 1673) as those of Romeyn and Maria Lansman.

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Amsterdam’s wealthy and aristocratic regent elite.7 He had served his native city in various functions, and the States General as ambassador in Moscow, Brussels, and Paris. He owned several manors in Zeeland and a stately home, ­Meeresteyn, near Beverwijk. He was related to burgomaster Joan Huydecoper by marriage, as his wife Isabella Coymans was a double cousin (on both the paternal and ­maternal sides) of Sophia Coymans, the spouse (and incidentally also a first cousin) of ­Huydecoper. From a contemporary perspective, Boreel and ­Huydecoper were thus full (and even double) cousins. The two men were political allies and close friends. One of Huydecoper’s daughters had lived in Boreel’s household when he was ambassador to the French court. It was Huydecoper’s father, Joan Huydecoper Sr, who had facilitated the beginnings of Boreel’s political career.8 Like ­Huydecoper, Boreel flaunted his knighthood. But not everything was rosy. In April 1690 – when the proceedings against Romeyn were set in motion – the chief sheriff had his wife committed to a house of correction, ‘because she acted like a whore and stole all the goods from the house, sold them, and gave the money to her whoremongers’.9 Boreel’s cousin Joan Huydecoper played a dynamic role in the scandalmongering campaign. Clear proof of this is the presence in the Huydecoper family papers of a voluminous file ‘relating to the inquiry against authors and printers of pamphlets offensive to the burgomasters’.10 During the schepenen controversy, Huydecoper had been persistent in defending the city’s privileges against any encroachments by the stadtholder. And it was of course Huydecoper whom Romeyn had singled out for mockery, both in the New Tune and in The French Calendar. Huydecoper was an excitable and vindictive man, egocentric and tactless, and extremely sensitive about his honour.11 He had an axe to grind; working in tandem with Boreel, he set out to destroy the etcher. The lawyer Nicolaas Muys van Holy, though perhaps not the author of the scurrilous libels against Romeyn, did serve as the chief liaison between Boreel and Haarlem’s chief sheriff Adriaan Bakker. He was responsible for tracking witnesses against Romeyn and persuading them to make a notarial deposition, and he prepared the legal groundwork for Bakker.12 His key role in setting up Romeyn’s prosecution must have been the reason why Walten and Romeyn accused him of being the author of the libels. According to Walten, the regents communicated

7 Elias, Vroedschap, vol. 1, no. 200. 8 Kooijmans, Vriendschap, pp. 162–166, 364–365. 9 Huygens, Journaal, vol. 1, pp. 255, 256, 276, 297, 495. Later that year, she was restored to favour and allowed to return home. 10 hua, 67, inv. no. 97. 11 Kooijmans, Vriendschap, pp. 138–139, 156–159. 12 Kn. 13545, Memorie van rechten ... met de bylagen, p. 24.

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only indirectly with him through the lawyers Abraham van der Ende and Johan van Hertogveldt.13 Finally, Adriaan Bakker was a member of Haarlem’s regent class, and incidentally a grandson of the marine painter Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom. Having served his city in many distinguished functions, he was appointed chief sheriff in 1685.14 He had the Haarlem lawyer Pieter Baes working for him on the de Hooghe case.15

Witnesses The first thing that needed to be done was to collect statements incriminating Romeyn – the more the better. Two days after Schoonebeek’s deposition, the plate printer Claes van Hoeck, as we have seen, appeared before another notary, Johannes Paerslaken, to implicate Romeyn as the author of two satirical prints mocking the burgomasters of Amsterdam. It seems that van Hoeck testified at the request of burgomaster Huydecoper himself, for the original document is filed among Huydecoper’s private papers.16 On 8 and 9 May, a dozen more witnesses appeared, all of them before notary Bockx and at the request of Boreel. Together they produced eight lengthy attestations against Romeyn. All of the witnesses, having delivered their statements, went in orderly file to the city hall, to confirm by oath before town secretary Joseph Huydecoper (a son of the burgomaster) that their deposition was true and that they would stand by it.17 If the Amsterdam Consistory had failed to persuade any witnesses to testify against the de Hooghes seven years earlier, this time, Huydecoper, Boreel, Muys van Holy, and Bakker got what they wanted. The depositions were devastating. They focused on four areas: blasphemy, thievery, immorality, and pornography.18 Without exactly confirming the accusations about theft and fraud made in ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’ and the recent libels, they rendered them utterly credible. They corroborated the rumours about the pornographic prints for ‘The Wandering Whore’ and about the sexual escapades of Maria Lansman. Remarkably, none of the witnesses testifying before notary Bockx 13 Kn. 13542, Eenige aenmerckingen, pp. 13–15. For the identification of the lawyers van der Ende and Hertogveldt, see Album advocatorum. 14 On Bakker, see Naam-register, and Biesboer, Collections, no. 35. 15 On Baes, see Album advocatorum. According to Walten, Baes was gossiping about Romeyn in coffee houses and inns because his (Baes’) intrigues to become pensionary or town secretary of Haarlem had failed. Kn. 13542, Eenige aenmerckingen, p. 16. 16 hua, 76, inv. no. 97, no. 1, published in Bijsmans, ‘Appendix’. 17 saa, 5075, inv. no. 4436, pp. 681–696. All attestations are published verbatim, but in a different order, in Kn. 13545, Memorie van rechten … met de bylagen, pp. 8–22. A notarial attestation merely certifies that a certain individual had made a certain statement, but it does not guarantee that it is true. About Joseph Huydecoper, see Kooijmans, Vriendschap, pp. 166–168 and 189–195, and Elias, Vroedschap, no. 277. 18 Kn. 13543, 13543-a, Memorie van rechten, and Kn. 13545, Memorie van rechten … met de bylagen, p. 4.

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mentioned the satirical prints against Amsterdam’s burgomasters. The only deposition focusing on these, delivered by Claes van Hoeck before notary Paerslaken, was to play no role in the legal proceedings that chief sheriff Bakker was preparing. The regents of Amsterdam and Bakker must have reasoned that an indictment for libel in the Amsterdam schepenen affair would have little chance of persuading the magistrates in the notoriously Orangist city of Haarlem. To begin with, the witnesses provided the prosecution with a rich anthology of blasphemous quips. Adriaan Schoonebeek was the first acquaintance of Romeyn’s to speak out. He had been fifteen years old when he entered Romeyn’s service as an apprentice in 1676. He had lived in ‘The Wakeful Dog’ for three years. During that time, he had heard Romeyn utter abominable things. ‘God does not keep to his word’, Romeyn had bantered, for ‘it is written “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,” but he makes my nose drip from cold!’ About the death of his uncle Pieter de Hooghe: ‘Yes, the dog was tough, but I sent him two post-horses, brandy, and ros solis [a liquor] that dispatched him to heaven before his time, making St Peter look like a fool, because it exposed the doctrine of predestination of the Geuzen [a nickname for the Reformed]as a fraud’. About Mary Magdalene, when washing the feet of Jesus: ‘Christ must have been a poor gallant, having his feet washed by such a chaste lady rather than taking her to him and caressing her’. When explaining a print that he had made of the Reincarnation, represented as a woman with a baby between her legs, holding its head against her belly: ‘see how damned well [duivels] I have depicted this! Having just come out, the child wants to enter again in order to be reborn!’ Another former apprentice of Romeyn’s was Paulus Tamessen or Tamesius, now working as a schoolmaster. With his wife, Catharina Schouten, he testified that they had stayed at Romeyn’s ‘country house’ (plaats) outside Haarlem in 1683. A violent thunderstorm had broken out while they were taking a stroll with their host and his wife. ‘We’ll be all right’, Romeyn had joked, ‘Our Lord is playing knucklebones’. Another guest of the de Hooghe family at ‘The High Holly’, Gerrit Drogenham, a land surveyor and type cutter, testified that some four years ago Romeyn had told him ‘that he did not esteem the Holy Writ, and that the Revelation of St John is nothing but dreams’. Susanneke Willems, wife of frame-maker Albert Brakel, had been dining with the de Hooghes in ‘The Wakeful Dog’ around 1678. After saying grace, Romeyn had asked her and the other guests: ‘Are you praying? Damn [sacrament]! Our Lord must be wearing an iron band around his head, or it would burst to pieces!’ When visiting the coffee house near the Bourse next to the Antwerp Comptoir in 1685, Adriaen Witsen (not a relative of burgomaster Nicolaes Witsen) had heard Romeyn remark openly that ‘everything people said or imagined about the resurrection, eternal life, or the immortality of the soul, was nothing but deceit and foolishness. One should therefore do naught in this world but amuse oneself’. The Lord’s Supper was Romeyn’s favourite object for mockery. Paulus Tamessen related how, one Saturday morning in 1681 or 1682, when he was living with the de

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Hooghes at ‘The Wakeful Dog’, the maid had been cleaning the shop at the front of the house (voorhuis). Romeyn had jokingly warned several people who were present: ‘Gentlemen, please do not obstruct my maid; tomorrow she must be the guest of Our Lord!’ On a Sunday in 1680, he had been standing on the doorstep of his house while the Lord’s Supper was being dispensed in Nieuwe Kerk at the other end of Dam Square. ‘Hear these animals bellowing’, he had said, ‘with their throats greased now that they have a chunk in their gob and a mug in their hand!’ Susanneke Willems testified that she had seen Romeyn in the Nieuwezijds Kapel (a chapel in Kalverstraat, not far from his shop) on a Sunday morning in 1678, keeping his hat in front of his eyes as if he were praying, but leaving the church without taking communion. Questioned why he had left without joining the Lord’s Table, he had answered ‘Damn! I could not wait so long for a chunk. I went home and gobbled my belly full with my wife and the maid’. Adriaan Schoonebeek had often heard Romeyn scoff about the Lord’s Supper: ‘It won’t do them any good; it is as if they were licking a dish cloth!’ Blasphemy was close to atheism. Since godless people live, by definition, without any morals or virtue, it was evident that the likes of Romeyn de Hooghe must be leading a dishonest and lecherous life. The depositions provided plentiful evidence of his deceit and thievery. None of the witnesses exactly confirmed the picaresque stories in ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’, yet the instances of embezzlement and fraud recorded strongly suggest that these stories did not come out of the blue. Arnolt Nagtegaal was another former apprentice who had lived at ‘The Wakeful Dog’ between 1673 and 1677; he was now making a living as a master scrivener.19 He had observed how Romeyn, having received a large parcel containing hats, stockings, and other apparel for shipping at the expense of a third party, had opened it and appropriated the goods for himself. Adriaan Schoonebeek’s testimony, as before, was the most elaborate one. He told the notary that the bookseller Jacob Bloemendael, another tenant at ‘The Wakeful Dog’, had filed for bankruptcy in 1676, roughly at the time when he, Schoonebeek, was entering Romeyn’s service. Romeyn had furtively snatched 30 or 40 reams of paper from the insolvent estate, partly for his own use and partly to sell. He had also stolen a batch of unbound books to the value of 50 guilders from a small garret ‘separated by wooden bars’ and sold these to the bookseller Pieter Hagen in The Hague. On another occasion, the same Hagen had bought etchings from Romeyn to the value of nineteen guilders for shipment to the Indies. Romeyn told him that a friend of his was about to sail to those parts and would be happy to deliver the pictures as well as a parcel containing Nederduitse historie-boeken (‘Dutch history books’), probably copies of the popular history of the Dutch Revolt Neederlandsche histoorien by Pieter Cornelisz Hooft.20 Yet instead of shipping 19 The artist Arnolt Nagtegaal (b. 1658) should not be confused with the eponymous artist born in 1694, probably his son. His name is usually spelled ‘Aernout Naghtegael’. 20 Hooft, Neederlandsche histoorien, and many reprints.

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them, Romeyn had kept the prints and the books and sold them for his own profit. Schoonebeek’s account can be corroborated by a deposition made by Hagen himself before notary Christoffel van Damme in The Hague concerning the same event. The embezzlement had taken place in 1677, but Hagen only produced his statement on 20 May 1690, exactly four weeks after Schoonebeek’s deposition, which suggests that his attestation was destined to serve as further incriminating evidence in the case against Romeyn.21 Schoonebeek also accused Romeyn of committing fraud when he was working as an art dealer. Among several paintings that he had bought for the Polish resident, Francesco Mollo, was a canvas by Willem van Aelst depicting a still life with dead cocks.22 He allegedly had the painting copied by Pieter Fris, brother-in-law to his aunt Martijntje van der Hulst.23 He then sold the copy as an original work to Mollo for the King of Poland, and the original to another party for a large sum. Schoonebeek mentions that Romeyn had bought the van Aelst still life ‘at the auction of Renialmo’, which precisely dates the purchase at 26 April 1687, when the important collection of the recently deceased Johannes de Renialme ii, son of the famous eponymous art dealer, was auctioned off.24 Various witnesses confirmed the allegations in ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’ about Maria’s infidelity with Romeyn’s connivance or indeed his support. Arnolt Nagtegaal testified that Maria Lansman received visitors in a separate room almost every day, ‘Jews as well as Christians’, in the full knowledge of Romeyn, while he was etching in his shop. The most intriguing testimony comes from Arend Sluiter and Cornelia Cruijff, a married couple presently employed as house parents in the Aalmoezeniers Orphanage, the municipal charity for indigent children. In 1677 and 1678 they had served in the de Hooghe household, Arend as map and chart-colourer and Cornelia as maidservant. Arend, out of curiosity and suspicion of indecent relations, had cut a hole in the ceiling in order to see what was going on in that room. Both witnesses saw, one after the other, that Romeyn de Hooghe’s wife, while he was in the shop, had with her and in front of her a certain married man, who kept his hand for some time on her bosom, while she was kissing him and embracing him with a particular movement of her body.

21 Haags Gemeentearchief, The Hague, 0372-01, inv. no. 1122, f. 67–68. 22 On Willem van Aelst, see Paul, Elegance. 23 Pieter Fris, husband of Josijntje van der Hulst, was a specialist in still lifes and Italianate landscapes. Like van Aelst, he had been a member of the Bentvueghels, the Dutch painters’ community in Rome. ThiemeBecker, vol. 12, p. 490. 24 Dudok van Heel, ‘Honderdvijftig advertenties’, p. 156.

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It is remarkable that Nagtegaal and Schoonebeek used almost exactly the same words in their testimonies.25 This suggests that someone – probably either Muys van Holy or Boreel – had prompted them to make this statement. Sadly, young Maria Romana became implicated as well. Schoonebeek testified he had heard Romeyn say ‘that he wanted to be certain that his daughter, when she was sixteen, would know the taste of karssemayen [literally ‘candle-mowing’], a family expression used by Romeyn de Hooghe and his wife to mean carnal intercourse’. And Paulus Tamessen related how Romeyn had quipped to a certain gentleman who at the shop counter had asked after his daughter: ‘she is very well, I am starting to finger her; it won’t be long before you and others can use her’. The evidence about Romeyn’s involvement in the making of the prints for ‘The Wandering Whore’ was overwhelming. Several witnesses testified they had observed Romeyn etching the offensive illustrations and retailing them from ‘The Wakeful Dog’. The artist Barent Graat declared that Maria Lansman had been peddling the pictures to several young men while Romeyn was eating his supper.26 ‘One of them, seeing the prints, had patted her under the chin and started to laugh’. Two young spinsters, Cornelia and ‘Neeltje’ Hendriks,27 remembered how Romeyn had called at the house of their late father, the plate printer Hendrik Hendriks, and asked ‘if the prints were ready’. They had seen the pictures in question, which represented ‘several wanton postures of carnal intercourse’. Especially harmful for Romeyn was the testimony produced by Romeyn’s former maidservant, the ever-perceptive Cornelia Cruijff. Shortly after Romeyn had been summoned to the city hall to be questioned about the illustrations for ‘Eulenspiegel on Notes’, she had seen ‘how a large number of these prints were hurriedly tossed into the fireplace and burnt to ashes’. Cornelia’s testimony goes far towards explaining why no copies of the illustrated edition of ‘The Wandering Whore’ have been found to date. If anybody was still in doubt as to Romeyn’s involvement in the pornography affair, the attestations firmly established his authorship. While the testimonies were extremely dangerous for Romeyn, they also shed light on some of his religious and moral convictions. His flippancy reveals that he was well acquainted with the more modern and critical ideas on organized religion that circulated in the Dutch Republic during the late seventeenth century.28 His offhand remarks about God playing knucklebones causing a thunderstorm, for example, and 25 Nagtegaal: ‘Heeft gesien dat’er genoegsaem dagelijks soo Joden als Christenen, met kennisse van de voorsz. Romyn de Hoge, en terwijle hy in de winkel sat te etsen, by desselfs vrouw, in een kamer apart gingen, en aldaar veel maelen eenigen tijd verbleven’. Schoonebeek: ‘Heeft gesien datter, genoegsaam dagelijks, soo Joden als Christenen, met kennis van de voorsz. de Hoge, bij desselfs Vrouw, in een kamer apart gingen, en aldaar dikmaal een geruymen tijd verbleven, terwijle hij de Hooge ondertussen in de winkel sat te etsen’. 26 On Barent Graat, see Van der Hut, Barend Graat. 27 ‘Cornelia’ and ‘Neeltje’ Hendriks are identical first names, so this must be an error. Cornelia Hendriks (b. 1664) had two sisters, one named Hendrikje (b. 1667) and the other Aafje (b. 1669). Either one may have testified. saa, 5001, inv. no. 76, p. 301; inv. no. 44, p. 184; inv. no. 76, p. 488. 28 Spaans, ‘Verbeelding’; Israel, Radical Enlightenment, passim.

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having his head burst under the impact of incoming prayers, suggest that Romeyn rejected the idea of a providential God, one that actively interferes in his creation. His joking about Mary Magdalen intimates that, far from accepting the text of the Bible as divinely revealed truth, he read it as a text that can and must be subjected to the critique of reason. Where reason prevailed, he rejected the literal text of the Scriptures. Of course, such pranks were an abomination to the orthodox, but they were widespread in enlightened circles. Romeyn’s denial of eternal life after death and his advocacy of worldly enjoyment, articulated in an Amsterdam coffee house, define him as a libertine. This, and his apparently relaxed attitude towards his wife’s sexual activities and his frivolous remarks about his daughter, suggest that he was familiar with the works of the ‘Spinozist fringe’ of authors such as Lodewijk Meijer, Adriaan Koerbagh, and Frederik van Leenhof.29 His ideas about religion also resemble those of Ericus Walten, although the latter was a far more articulate and consistent philosopher than Romeyn. Not all the accusations made against Romeyn can be accommodated within a philosophical world view. Only towards the end of his life, when working on Hieroglyphica, did Romeyn attempt to make some order out of the sundry ideas about religion, morality, and philosophy he had picked up during his lifetime.

Romeyn Interrogated Around the time when Boreel and Muys van Holy were busy collecting evidence, chief sheriff Bakker of Haarlem started an inquiry of his own. He had to proceed with caution. Enjoying legal privileges as a full citizen of Haarlem, Romeyn could not summarily be arrested and interrogated. Bakker therefore requested and received permission from the burgomasters to hear him op artikelen (‘on articles’), which implied that in a preliminary investigation, he would have to answer a number of questions put in writing beforehand. Bakker’s motives are not entirely clear, as Romeyn enjoyed the protection of Haarlem’s burgomasters. With his new house on Nieuwe Gracht and the drawing academy in its back garden all but finished, the burgomasters continued to shower favours on him. Apparently, the sheriff steered a different course. His colleague from Amsterdam, Boreel, may have pressured him; or else public opinion among the citizens of Haarlem, who were of course familiar with the scandalmongering, demanded he act. Another moot point is that Bakker’s written questions focused on the libellous cartoons against the regents of Amsterdam. Did Bakker hope, against all odds, to convince the Haarlem magistrates’ bench to pass sentence against an Orangist pamphleteer? Or was he surreptitiously trying to help Romeyn, confident that the magistrates would reject his charge? 29 Wielema, March, passim.

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On Wednesday, 10 May, Romeyn appeared before the sheriff for questioning.30 ­Bakker started the inquest by asking whether he was an etcher and a printmaker (plaatsnijder). Surprisingly, Romeyn answered yes, he had been an etcher in the past, but he had exercised his trade little or not at all since settling in Haarlem eight or ten years ago. ‘In what cities have your plates been printed?’ Bakker wanted to know. ‘Mostly in Amsterdam’, Romeyn answered, ‘and otherwise … throughout Europe!’ The Sheriff then confronted him with eight prints, each one of them numbered. Unfortunately, the prints have not been preserved with the transcript of the hearing, which makes it impossible to identify them exactly. It is evident, however, that the prints were the cartoons addressing the recently resolved conflict between Amsterdam and the Prince of Orange. Romeyn hotly denied he was the author of the prints, with the exception of number 2, which he admitted he had partly conceived several years ago; he believed the Amsterdam engraver Bastiaan Stopendael had carried out the changes. He attributed the prints numbered 1, 4, 6, 7, and 8 to ‘Marlais’, whom he claimed was his former apprentice. The prints numbered 7 and 8 carried Marlais’ signature and can therefore be identified as those representing the Fable of the Cows, the Herdsman, and the Wolf and the frontispiece to the Stagecoach Chat. He said he believed number 3 was made by Jacobus Harrewijn, a former pupil now active in Antwerp and Brussels, or else by Schoonebeek. He also attributed number 5 to Schoonebeek. Both Stopendael and Schoonebeek worked more or less in the same style as Romeyn and had made their mark with broadsheets and book illustrations celebrating the feats of William iii. Only at this point did Bakker lead the inquiry to the political turmoil of 1690 and the allegations of blasphemy. Had not Romeyn last February, during a stagecoach journey from The Hague to Amsterdam, had a discussion with a certain young man about the dispute between Amsterdam and the Earl of Portland regarding the latter’s session in the States of Holland? Romeyn conceded that he had taken the coach from The Hague in late February or early March, and that he had had a chat with ‘the young gentleman van den Heuvel’, referring to either Nicolaas or Johan, sons of the Amsterdam regent Isaäc van Heuvel.31 The sheriff inquired whether Romeyn remembered that the young man, who was apparently unaware of his identity, had said that the regents of Haarlem are wrong in obeying an individual like Romeyn de Hooghe and entrusting public charges to him. [He is] a man who a short time ago in The Hague when passing by the Great Church where the congregation were singing psalms in preparation of the Lord’s Supper, said in a profane and bantering manner, ‘how merry these people are, I shall be a guest the day after tomorrow!’ 30 nha, 3111, inv. no. 56.1 (10 May 1690). The text is published in De Haas, ‘Feit’, pp. 112–113. 31 Elias, Vroedschap, vol. 2, p. 586; saa, 5001, inv. nos. 44, p. 114 and 9, p. 450. Isaäc van Heuvel was captain of the militia company in which Romeyn had served in 1672: saa, 5075, inv. no. 4296, p. 320.

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Romeyn flatly denied this, as well as Bakker’s final question, as to whether he remembered another incident: having taken the Lord’s Supper, he was said to have joked, ‘I drank a jug of wine with them, but it cost me half a rijksdaalder [rix-dollar, worth 2 ½ guilders] or a twenty-eight [28 stivers]’ – a reference to his contribution to the alms box. Having answered all of the questions, he was allowed to go home. The preliminary inquest had yielded nothing of value. He had denied all charges, and it would be very difficult to prove the authorship of the prints. However, by this time Bakker had become aware that Nicolaas Muys van Holy, by order of the burgomasters of Amsterdam, was running an investigation of his own, which had yielded more promising evidence. ­Bakker immediately contacted the lawyer and arranged a meeting at the De ­Karseboom (‘The Cherry Tree’) inn in Kalverstraat, near Dam Square, where he demanded to peruse the evidence or to have copies to take home. The encounter must have taken place shortly after 9 May. Muys van Holy promised to send the evidence as well as a first draft of a ‘memorandum of rights’, of which he would have 24 copies printed.32

Blasphemy Nicolaas Muys van Holy immediately applied himself to his task. Having the necessary attestations on his desk, he set himself to laying out the legal grounds for the prosecution of the etcher. He did so in a legal document entitled Memorie van rechten [‘Memorandum of Rights’], destined to be signed by chief sheriff Bakker and handed over in Bakker’s name to the schepenen serving on the Haarlem bench.33 The memorandum starts by stating that blasphemy has always been regarded a capital offence; that is, a crime liable to punishment by death. This had been the case among the ancient Athenians and Israelites, as well as according to Roman law, which considered violation of the divine majesty a crime even more depraved than ordinary or profane lese-majesty.34 Nevertheless, the memorandum continues, some people ‘out of godlessness’ continue to blaspheme against God and his Holy Word, especially a certain Romeyn de Hooghe. The chief sheriff of Amsterdam, having been informed of certain facts perpetrated in Amsterdam, ratione officii (‘in his official capacity’), has recorded the information attached – meaning the attestations produced before notary Bockx. These documents concern ‘first, the horrible and abominable blasphemies perpetrated by Romeyn de Hooghe, second, his various thefts and other criminal acts, and third, the fact that he has etched and published the lecherous prints for Pietro Aretino’s “The Wandering Whore”’. The memorandum goes on to summarize 32 nha, 3993, inv. no. 512, f. 41 vo. 33 Kn. 13543, Memorie van rechten. 34 Justinian, Novel 77 (538 ce). Cf. De Roo, Godslastering, p. 5.

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the various charges of blasphemy brought forward in the attestations. Almost as an afterthought, it adds the accusation that Romeyn boasts of having primed improba et incesta manu (‘with immoderate and incestuous hand’) his own daughter for sexual intercourse. The memorandum considers such villainy ‘of lesser calibre’, however, and only to be expected from a man who scorns God and religion. In conclusion, the chief sheriff trusts that the schepenen will agree that allowing such heinous crimes to pass unpunished would make the Lord afflict the land with sundry plagues. Finally, he requests permission for the arrest of Romeyn de Hooghe. At first sight, it may appear incongruous that the main charge was blasphemy. Especially baffling is the remark that ‘the sovereign rulers of the Netherlands [i.e., the Habsburg rulers Charles v and Philip ii] have always bridled the wickedness of such godforsaken people by issuing placards and edicts’. The author of the ‘Memorandum of Rights’ appears to have forgotten that the very existence of the Dutch Republic had its foundation in opposition to these very edicts, the so-called anti-heresy placards. Yet it is true that all statute law issued by the Habsburgs before the Dutch Revolt remained in effect in the post-revolutionary United Netherlands. The 1576 Pacification of Ghent had abolished the special tribunals dealing with heresy (the so-called Inquisition), but left the pertinent legislation in place. It was compiled in Joost de Damhouder’s Practijcke in criminele saken [‘Practice in Criminal Cases’, 1555], a textbook for legal officers that enjoyed many reprints and continued to be widely consulted by barristers, attorneys, and legal officers.35 The manual classified ‘violation of the divine majesty’ as the gravest capital and public crime of all, an offence far worse than mere profane lese-majesty. It defined blasphemy as ‘deliberately speaking ill of the almighty God who has created and made us’, and decreed it punishable by death.36 However, the Dutch Republic was renowned in Europe for its religious toleration.37 The mere fact that blasphemy was listed as a capital crime did not imply that legal officers frequently chose to act on it. Blasphemy cases were extremely rare, but they did occur. The ‘Memorandum of Rights’ states that the Hof van Holland had ‘only recently’ punished several individuals ‘of a much higher status and condition’ than Romeyn for sacrilege (profanie), who moreover (in extenuation of their crime) had acted under the influence of alcohol.38 The case to which the ‘Memorandum’ refers was tried before the court in July 1688, when the young nobleman Philip Jacob van den Boetzelaer, along with two fellow law students from Leiden,

35 De Damhouder, Practijcke. The last edition of this work appeared in 1660. 36 Ibid., pp. 109–110. Blasphemy also included speaking ill about the Mother of God and the Holy Saints. Remarkably, these clauses remained unchanged in the seventeenth-century editions of Damhouder’s work, although no cases are known in the Dutch Republic of people actually being prosecuted for these crimes. 37 Berkvens-Stevelinck, Emergence; Po-Hsia and van Nierop, Calvinism. 38 Kn. 13543, Memorie van rechten, p. 7.

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were sentenced to banishment from Holland and confiscation of property on a charge of divine lese-majesty. Their crime had consisted of proposing a toast to the devil.39 Twenty years earlier, the magistrates’ bench of Amsterdam had sentenced Adriaan Koerbagh on a charge of blasphemy to a fine of 4,000 guilders plus 2,000 guilders in legal costs, ten years’ imprisonment in the municipal Rasphuis and subsequent banishment from Holland.40 Koerbagh died in prison several months after receiving his sentence. He was one of the most radical philosophers of the Dutch Republic, a follower of Spinoza and a critic of religion and conventional morality. He argued that the Bible was written by man and denied Christian dogmas such as the Trinity and the divine nature of Christ. Romeyn may have been familiar with Koerbagh’s thinking, although all his books were banned. ­ ainter Another precedent, much earlier but not less relevant, was the fate of the p Jan Simonszoon van der Beek, better known by his Latinized name Johannes ­Torrentius.41 Both his case and his biography display uncanny similarities to those of Romeyn. Both men were born and bred in Amsterdam – in his youth, Torrentius even lived in Nieuwe Hoogstraat – and later moved to Haarlem. Like Romeyn, Torrentius used to dress well, even extravagantly. Putting on the airs of a gentleman, he was known for his charm and eloquence. He was suspected of having made p ­ ornographic paintings and of being a member of the Rosicrucian order, although he denied the latter allegation. In 1627, the sheriff of Haarlem had him arrested, incarcerated, and severely tortured as an alleged blasphemer, atheist, heretic, and Satanist. The ­Haarlem bench eventually sentenced him to a term of twenty years in the Tuchthuis or municipal prison for ‘blasphemy against God and avowed atheism while leading a frightful and pernicious lifestyle’. The executioner publicly burned all of his paintings that could be tracked down. Due to the interference of Stadtholder Frederik Hendrik and King Charles i of Britain, an admirer of his art, the artist was released two years later. He worked in England as a court painter before returning to Amsterdam, where he died in 1644. These cases, rare as they may be, suggest that Romeyn had ample reason to worry. A death sentence seemed unlikely, notwithstanding the harshness of the blasphemy laws. But if convicted, he could expect a heavy fine, a long term in prison, and lifelong banishment from Holland. The future would have looked grim for Romeyn, had not Bakker and Muys van Holy made the mistake of having their memorandum printed.

39 The Van den Boetzelaer family later bought off the confiscation for 80 pounds. nnbw, vol. 8, col. 155. 40 On Koerbagh see Wielema, ‘Adriaan Koerbagh’ and Leeuwenburgh, Noodlot. 41 On Torrentius see Cerutti, Schilder; Rehorst, Torrentius; Bredius, Johannes Torrentius; and Brown, ‘Tolerance’.

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A False Libel Soon after meeting with Bakker in De Karseboom, Muys van Holy finished preparing a draft of the memorandum and dispatched it to Haarlem. Bakker was satisfied with his work and travelled to Amsterdam on Friday, 12 May, where he visited Jan Rieuwertsz Jr, the city’s official printer and bookseller, in his shop in Beursstraat facing the Bourse. He ordered Rieuwertsz to print 25 copies with Bakker’s name on the title page and to send twelve of these to Haarlem for immediate use, to underpin his charge against Romeyn. The remaining thirteen copies were to remain in Amsterdam ‘for distribution’, but not earlier than three days after Bakker had received the first consignment.42 Three days later, Bakker wrote Muys van Holy that the printer would soon hand him (Muys van Holy) the twelve copies destined for Bakker as well as the remaining twelve copies – the twenty-fifth copy was apparently to remain in Jan Rieuwertsz’s shop. Bakker urged him to handle his share of the booklets with discretion, assured him that he would vigorously pursue the legal proceedings he had started, and sent his kind regards to his colleague Boreel.43 Muys van Holy sent off the twelve printed copies, along with manuscript copies of the notarial attestations, to Bakker on Monday, 20 May. Bakker replied the following day. He had discussed the documents with his lawyer Pieter Baes and regarded them highly suitable for proceeding against Romeyn. He encouraged Muys van Holy to continue to gather as many additional testimonies against Romeyn as possible and to have them notarized on his (Bakker’s) name and confirmed under oath. All witnesses should be individuals of irreproachable character, and their statements had to focus on Romeyn’s ­profanations and thievery.44 Bakker’s must have intended the twelve printed copies of the ‘Memorandum’ for Haarlem’s seven schepenen, four burgomasters, and his own personal use. But what was the purpose of the dozen remaining copies he left in Muys van Holy’s care? According to Jan Rieuwertsz’s account, Bakker had told him that these could be distributed to ‘others’.45 The printer, following Bakker’s orders, handed the printed copies to Muys van Holy, who was to ‘act in all discretion’. Bakker probably expected him to present them to Boreel, the four burgomasters, and various other regents. But that was not all that happened. Within days of printing the first 25 copies, Jan Rieuwertsz published another, much bigger print run of the ‘Memorandum’. Soon the booklets were for sale in all the bookshops of Amsterdam, Haarlem, and elsewhere. Muys van Holy’s carefully drafted legal argument against Romeyn, carrying the signature of the chief sheriff of 42 43 44 45

Kn. 13545, Memorie van rechten ... met de bylagen, p. 22. Ibid., p. 23. Ibid., p. 24. Ibid., p. 22.

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Haarlem, thereby morphed into another libel in the smear campaign against Romeyn. This time, there was nothing illegal about it. The pamphlet’s title page duly displayed the name of its author, Adriaan Bakker, as well as the imprint of Jan Rieuwertsz. All and sundry could now read about the charges of blasphemy, thievery, immorality, and pornography. They could find out about how the chief magistrates in Romeyn’s hometown were preparing legal proceedings against the villain that might well result in a death sentence. For the first time, the allegations were not mere scandalmongering. This was an official document, issued by the proper authorities. Who would question its truthfulness? The demand for this latest issue in the Pamphlet War was so overwhelming that Jan Rieuwertsz’s print shop churned out yet another edition within a matter of days.46 And more was to come: the pamphlet ominously ended with a note that the sworn attestations mentioned in the text would be printed ‘as soon as the printer has received the copy’. It did not take long for the four ruling burgomasters of Haarlem to become aware of the publication of the ‘Memorandum of Rights’.47 They were furious. Having summoned chief sheriff Bakker to their chamber, they demanded an explanation about the ‘Memorandum’ that had caused such a stir in their own city and the entire country.48 Some people regarded it a libel, they said, while others believed it was a proper memorandum officially issued by the chief sheriff himself, because it bore his name and he had not taken any action against it. Bakker bashfully admitted he had spoken to Muys van Holy in De Karseboom after hearing that the latter was collecting evidence against Romeyn. They had agreed that Muys van Holy would send him the evidence and draft a memorandum, to be printed in a limited edition. Instead, numerous copies carrying Bakker’s name on the title page had been dispersed. He solemnly professed that he had never agreed to or ordered this. The burgomasters of Haarlem were not the only ones to be shocked. Two days later, Romeyn wrote to Anthonie Heinsius, grand pensionary of Holland and ­William iii’s confidant for managing his affairs in Holland. Walten delivered the letter in person. Sir, Your Honour is aware of the persecutions and bitterness of the regents of Amsterdam against me. I have clear evidence that Mr Boreel has corrupted [people] falsely to testify against me […]. The attestations, all purchased together from sundry rabble, and re-forged by Muys van Holy, have been embellished with a 46 The texts of Kn. 13543 and Kn. 13543-a are identical, but with different typesetting. Both editions must have been printed between 20 May, when Jan Rieuwertsz dispatched the first two dozen copies to Muys van Holy, and 3 June, when he was preparing another enlarged edition with appendices (Kn. 13545, Memorie van rechten ... met de bylagen). At least one edition was out by 25 May, when Haarlem’s burgomaster’s questioned Bakker about the pamphlet. 47 Burgomasters in 1690 were Mahu Lefebure, Mattheus Schatter, Nicolaes van Assendelft, and Jonas de Jong. Naam-register Haarlem, no pagination. 48 nha, 3993, inv. no. 512, ff. 40 vo-41.

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Deduction, which he and Boreel had the impertinence falsely to entitle ‘Memorandum in [sic] Rights’, made and presented by Adriaan Bakker […]. Presently the Chief Sheriff denies having signed it or even having knowledge of it. The schepenen also declare they know nothing about it. I hope, Your Honour, that the government here [in Haarlem] will take this up vigorously against my adversaries, yet I would like most of all for this to be the task of the Fiscal [the advocaat-fiscaal acting as public prosecutor before the Hof van Holland], in order to shield me from a protracted lawsuit, which is what the Amsterdammers are speculating on.49 Ericus Walten, the bearer of this letter, will be able to inform you in detail. Meanwhile, I pray that Your Honour grant me his gracious protection, as His Excellency the Lord Earl of Portland has mercifully promised, and [which] I do not doubt, as Your Honour and everybody [else] can perceive the origin of their anger against me.50

It is unclear whether it was Heinsius or Romeyn himself who prompted the burgomasters of Haarlem to act. The latter perhaps needed no encouragement, and may have acted on their own initiative. On Tuesday, 30 May, burgomasters and ­schepenen of Haarlem jointly issued another ordinance forbidding the writing, printing, selling, and dissemination of all illegal pamphlets. The ordinance specifically declared the ‘Memorandum of Rights’ a falsification, ‘a false libel, which has never been signed by the chief sheriff of this city, or has served him in a lawsuit’.51 They had this ­publicly ­proclaimed from the steps of Haarlem’s city hall in the presence of B ­ akker himself, and published in an extra edition of the Oprechte Haerlemsche ­Courant [‘Sincere Haarlem Newspaper’].52 For good measure, Romeyn himself placed an ­advertisement in the Utrechtse Courant of 5 June, stating that the ‘Memorandum’ had neither been written by Bakker, nor presented to the schepenen of Haarlem. Rather, it was ‘a ­blasphemous and infamous libel, made by a pernicious and malicious individual, who under the name of the Lord Chief Sheriff and the schepenen of the city of ­Haarlem has ­attempted to give some semblance of truth to his lies and smears against […] Romeyn de Hooghe’. For that reason, the government of Haarlem had had all copies in their j­urisdiction confiscated, publicly torn to pieces, and ‘doomed to darkness’ by means of a public ordinance.53 This time, it was the turn of Muys van Holy and Rieuwertsz to be upset. Had they not in good faith accepted an order from Bakker to print 25 copies of the ‘Memorandum’ under his name? By order of Muys van Holy, Rieuwertsz placed an 49 On the role of the advocaat-fiscaal, see Huijbrecht, ‘Hugo de Groot’. 50 na, 3.01.19, inv. no. 173, Romeyn de Hooghe to Anthonie Heinsius, 27 May 1690. 51 nha, 2166, inv. no. 334. 52 Extraordinaire Haerlemse Donderdaegse Courant, no. 22, 1 June 1690; Kn. 13545, Memorie van rechten ... met de bylagen, p. 22; Kn.13551, Nyd, p. 53. 53 Utrechtse Courant, 5 June 1690. A copy is kept in Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek. I am grateful to Arthur der Weduwen and Guido Marnef for drawing my attention to this source.

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advertisement in the Amsterdamse Courant of Saturday, 3 June, announcing that he was preparing yet another edition of the ‘Memorandum’. Scheduled to appear two days later, it was to be enlarged with annexes containing the full text of the depositions against Romeyn, as well as the relevant letters written by the chief sheriff of Haarlem.54 In their meeting of 5 June, the burgomasters of Amsterdam agreed that Boreel ‘and other injured parties’ were free to have Rieuwertsz print whatever would best suit their defence, including a statement proving that Bakker had consented to have the ‘Memorandum’ printed with his name on it.55

Embarrassing Letters The augmented edition of the ‘Memorandum’ came from Jan Riewertsz’s press on Friday, 9 June. Instead of the original seven pages, it now had 31. The text of the memorandum proper was followed by the nine attestations made before notary Bockx, neatly labelled A to I, and including a statement about their confirmation under oath before the town secretary. The depositions were followed by a statement by the publisher, expressing his amazement on reading in the Haarlemsche Courant that the ‘Memorandum’ had been declared a false libel. He expounded how Bakker had come to Amsterdam to arrange the printing of 25 copies, including twelve for himself for his own legal use and twelve for distribution to others. Rieuwertsz had issued a reprint ‘because there was much demand for them’. He corroborated his statement by publishing two autograph letters from Bakker to Muys van Holy, ordering him to have the ‘Memorandum' printed and distributed. Nor was that all: the enlarged edition also contained the text of an extraordinary correspondence between Romeyn and two of the witnesses. On 30 May, Romeyn had written to Susanneke Willems, wife of frame-maker Albert Brakel and living in Baanstraat near the Leidse Poort, who had described two instances of his blasphemy. Romeyn invited her to visit him in his new house in Haarlem on the following day and take his order for a batch of 24 frames. He expected her to be able to deliver the goods more cheaply than the tradesmen in Haarlem and hoped she would not talk about it, ‘because Beatrix would be happy to make them’. When Susanneke failed to show up, Romeyn wrote again, reminding her of his order of twenty [sic] frames, and again inviting her to visit him the following Sunday June 4. This time, Susanneke sent an answer, dated 2 June:

54 Amsterdamse Saturdaegse Courant [no 21], 3 June 1690; Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 53. 55 saa, 5059, inv. no. 47, no. 52, ‘J. Hudde, notulen van hetgeen in de burgemeesterskamer is voorgevallen, 24 mei-31 juli 1690’. According to Romeyn and Ericus Walten, the burgomasters gave notice to Rieuwertsz not to publish the enlarged ‘Memorandum of Rights’ on Monday, 5 June, but Boreel and Huydecoper ensured that it nevertheless came out on Friday, 9 June. Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 53.

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Yesterday I received your second letter of 31 May […]. You first wrote about 24 frames, now about twenty. I must thank you for your offer, and because I can well imagine why you are offering me this favour, you must know I cannot accept it, because I cannot and will not revoke what I have once declared under oath, for no opinion in the world, even if I have to suffer poverty. Commending you to God and sending my kind regards, your obedient servant, Susanneke Willems.

On 31 May, Romeyn wrote to Paulus Tamessen, his former apprentice, now a schoolmaster and artist, who had also attested against him. As he had promised, Romeyn had spoken to Messrs Prins and Van der Lee in Haarlem about Tamessen’s appointment as a tax collector. The result was positive, but he admonished Tamessen to keep silent about this, because the tax farmer would dismiss the present collector only after he had reached an agreement with him. ‘He is willing to pay you 600 guilders per annum if you are diligent, faithful, and good. I expect you tomorrow at my new house’. Tamessen replied the same day. He would be obliged to Romeyn for the rest of his life if he had such good fortune by his doings and recommendation. But he had to know whether the job was for more than a year, because if not, his school would be ruined. Yes, replied Romeyn, still on the same day, the appointment would be for three years. Do not give away that I have spoken to you about the 600 guilders or any other matter; let me arrange it. But, my dear friend [lieve maat], you will have to be exact and perhaps you will have a large tax farm of your own on my recommendation. Please do not say a word and come at once, as I will leave for The Hague tomorrow night.

Tamessen’s answer arrived the following day: I have discussed this matter with my wife. She said: ‘Husband, presenting this to us at this time looks like evil intent. He might perhaps bring us to a false oath’, which I [Tamessen] would not do for the whole world, and neither would she. But I said thereupon, ‘Aye, Wife, I cannot think so, because Master de Hooghe cannot take us for such rash and godless people that we would give two different and contradictory declarations about one and the same matter, and what we have declared about that thunderstorm, that is the truth. Master Romeyn de Hooghe, who is a shrewd man, will make that good, and he will not take it ill from us, and I do not believe that he will say a word about it’. But she thought I should first write to you about this, and so this letter serves that we may learn in writing what is your opinion about this matter. I shall wait here for an answer. Best regards to the Mistress and your daughter, your obedient servant Paulus Tamessen.

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The publication of these embarrassing letters must have swayed the minds of all those who still considered Romeyn innocent. They reveal the depth of Romeyn’s despair and his willingness to take the risk of bribing the deponents into revoking their statements. Two things stand out. First, Romeyn was apparently aware of the identity of at least some of the witnesses before the augmented edition of the ‘Memorandum’ with the depositions came off the press. Had he learned this from his allies in the ­Haarlem city government or from friendly sources in Amsterdam? Second, Jan Rieuwertsz would only have been able to get hold of the correspondence that he published if Paulus Tamessen and Janneke Willems were conniving with Muys van Holy. He is the only one who could have persuaded them not only to hand over Romeyn’s letters, but also to keep copies of the letters they had sent to Romeyn. Bakker had asked Muys van Holy on 21 May to find as many additional witnesses against Romeyn as he could find. The lawyer hardly needed any encouragement, because this was exactly what he was working on, by order of Boreel and with the encouragement of Huydecoper. Yet Romeyn was prepared and was setting a snare for his persecutors. His strategy was to spread the word that the witnesses against him were untrustworthy and that Boreel had bribed them to deliver false evidence.

11. Honour Defended The Chief Sheriff Fooled Johannes Tangena was a seller of books and prints in Leiden with a shop on the corner of Kloksteeg and Rapenburg, facing the Academy. He was a key player in the web of publishers churning out visual propaganda for William iii’s activities in Britain. He had issued many of Romeyn’s prints about the events of 1688–1689, as well as at least two of the lampoons against Amsterdam’s regents.1 After his death in 1692, his widow Apollonia van Hoeck continued his enterprise. She had two brothers, Claes and Pieter. At Romeyn’s request, Apollonia and Claes van Hoeck had moved to Haarlem in order to set up an intaglio press, probably a branch of the Leiden firm dedicated to printing the illicit satires.2 Having become a poorter of Haarlem, in October 1688 Claes lodged a complaint with the burgomasters, because the guilds had harassed him ‘up to twelve times’ for illegally selling prints without joining the local St Luke’s guild. Merely polishing copper plates, he claimed, did not yield enough income, and selling a few prints on the side was an activity inseparably linked to plate-printing. The burgomasters decided to ask the guild’s governors for advice, which suggests that Claes did not get his way. Perhaps that was the reason why relations between Claes and Romeyn soured. As we have seen, Claes testified in April before notary Paerslaken that his master was responsible for the satirical prints against the burgomasters. On 13 May 1690, Apollonia arranged a meeting at the Rechthuis (courthouse) of the village of Overveen near Haarlem between her brothers, Pieter and Claes, and three associates of Romeyn named Nicolaes Assendelft, Abraham van der Bent, and Jan van Vianen. Van Vianen, nineteen years old, was an apprentice and assistant of Romeyn, an accomplished etcher who worked in his master’s style.3 Assendelft, 29 years old, and van der Bent, aged twenty, were probably Romeyn’s servants.4 The aim of the meeting soon became apparent. Pieter van Hoeck told the men they had received their orders from Huydecoper and Boreel: could they ‘testify, bring forward, or make up’ anything against Romeyn de Hooghe? Romeyn’s accomplices had come prepared. They produced a sketch drawn after the print Bigwig and the Privilege Seeker, made by a certain Martin Borst, probably another servant or apprentice of Romeyn’s, claiming that Romeyn was its author. The 1 le 144, fmh 2685; le 146, h 141, fmh 2708; le 152, fmh 2751; le 153, h 147, fmh 2729; le 155, h 151, fmh 2735; le 160, le 162, h 162, fmh 2786; le 169, fmh 2856; le 188, fmh 2673; le 261, fmh 2811. 2 Miedema, Archiefbescheiden, pp. 314–315. Claes van Hoeck married his sister-in-law Aeltje Tangena in 1688 (saa, 5001, inv. no. 517, p. 367). He was dead before 30 January 1700, when she remarried (saa, 5001, inv. no. 531, p. 142). 3 Van Vianen became a member of Haarlem’s St Luke’s guild in 1703. Miedema, Archiefbescheiden, p. 948. 4 Their ages in nha, 1617, inv. no. 441, f. 242.

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van Hoeck brothers were satisfied and handed Assendelft a note signed by Boreel granting him safe-conduct in Amsterdam. Romeyn’s friends then showed the van Hoeck brothers several other prints they claimed were made by Romeyn, and offered to hand them over for the hefty sum of 300 silver ducatons, the equivalent of 945 guilders.5 The van Hoeck brothers left for Amsterdam, allegedly to find the money, promising that the men would not lack ‘money, offices, or benefices’ if they would be so obliging as to testify against Romeyn. Claes van Hoeck himself served as an example: had he not been appointed freeman of Amsterdam’s municipal weigh-house as a reward for producing his attestation? Three more encounters followed in various Haarlem inns, but the van Hoeck brothers and Romeyn’s men failed to reach an agreement. Huydecoper and Boreel were reluctant to entrust the brothers with so large a sum, or to spend that much. The men eventually settled on 300 guilders, but that amount, too, failed to materialize. The conspirators refused to come to Amsterdam before they had received their award. The negotiations finally resulted in a meeting on 23 May at the Haarlem office of notary Hendrik Haeswindius.6 A certain Cornelis Vermeulen (probably a fictitious name), acting on behalf of Assendelft and van Vianen, handed to Pieter van Hoeck a sealed box containing ‘several original sketches, manuscripts, and other matters’.7 For his part, van Hoeck delivered a letter of safe conduct signed by Boreel for van Vianen, and promised to pass on the agreed 300 guilders not later than the following day. The notary duly authenticated the proceedings. Before visiting the notary’s office, van Hoeck and Vermeulen had filled the box with several prints and writings, including the drawing by Martin Borst after Bigwig and the Privilege Seeker. Unobserved by van Hoeck and Haeswindius, Vermeulen surreptitiously changed the sealed box for an identical one he was carrying in his pocket, filled with only blank sheets of paper and a small note with a few lines of verse. This was the box Pieter van Hoeck unwittingly carried to Amsterdam. Romeyn had orchestrated the meeting in order to have the notary put on record everything that had passed between his associates and the emissaries of Boreel and Huydecoper. Boreel had signed two acts of safe conduct because he was hoping the men would come to Amsterdam and testify against Romeyn. Pieter van Hoeck carried the box with the documents to Amsterdam, where he found Boreel, Huydecoper, and several other regents at Boreel’s house, merrily drinking after a copious lunch. Great were Boreel’s expectations when he opened the

5 A ducaton is a silver coin to the value of 63 stivers. 6 nha, 1617, inv. no. 441, f. 282 (23 May 1690). The full text of the attestation is published in Kn. 13551, Nyd, pp. 31–36. Curiously, this source states that the meeting took place before notary Cornelis Rens on 19 June 1690. 7 In 1694, Walten testified before the Hof van Holland that he did not know Cornelis Vermeulen and believed the name was fictitious. Walten Papers, no. 49.

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box – but even greater his fury when he inspected the contents. Under the blank sheets of paper, he found Romeyn’s verse: Lords of Amsterdam, do not trust scoundrels or fools. You cannot draw a false testimony from us. We are altogether honest folk, And we do not care about your money, offices, or promises.8

Realizing that Romeyn had bamboozled him, the chief sheriff unloaded his full wrath on the head of the hapless messenger. He understood that the accusations of Romeyn’s henchmen about his efforts to buy false witnesses had been notarized, and that the two letters of safe conduct issued to Assendelft and van Vianen that carried his signature would serve as evidence that he had attempted to lure them to Amsterdam in order to fabricate a false deposition. He also realised that it would not be long before Romeyn published a full account of the events.

More Pamphlets That was exactly what happened. Romeyn’s plotting and the notary’s diligent scribbling resulted in no fewer than three new issues in the ongoing Pamphlet War. The first one was another Parnassian tract entitled New Uprising on Mount Parnassus, written at great speed between 19 May and 3 June.9 The author was probably Ericus Walten, although he later tried to exonerate himself by imputing the authorship to Romeyn.10 It was published on 6 June, three days before the augmented edition of the ‘Memorandum of Rights’ came out. The Parnassian formula provided an excellent platform for ranting against Romeyn’s enemies without having to refute any of the allegations made. The witnesses were ‘a swarm of cripples, lepers, thieves, whores, and thugs’. Muys van Holy was ‘a jaundiced man, standing amidst the said rabble like a buffoon [Janpotagie], wearing a little old peruke on his pockmarked head’. Punning on their family names, the libel 8 Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 42: ‘Heeren van Amsterdam, vertrouwt op geen Schurcken of Gecken./ Van ons is gheen valsche getuygenisse te trecken/ Wij zijn hier altesaemen eerlijcke luy,/ En hebben van u Geldt, Officiën en Beloften den bruy’. 9 Kn. 13547, Nieuw oproer. The full title is ‘New Uprising on Mount Parnassus: Being a Narrative of the False Witnesses Recruited by the Barrister Nicolaes Muys van Holy by Order of Jacob Boreel, Chief Sheriff, and Jan Huydecoper, Lord of Maarsseveen, Burgomaster of the City of Amsterdam, and Paid with the City’s Money, to Testify Against Mr Romeyn de Hooghe, Commissioner of His Royal Majesty of Great Britain’. 10 On 3 June, Walten showed the manuscript of New Uprising to Wilhelm Vos, a clerk of the Gecommitteerde Raden, claiming that he, Walten, was its author. Vos stated that a few days later, Romeyn had denied ordering Walten to write it. Yet, during his interrogation before the Hof van Holland four years later, Walten imputed the authorship to Romeyn. hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 9; Walten Papers, no. 49.

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none-too-subtly nicknamed Boreel Bordeel (‘brothel’), Huydecoper H ­ uydestrooper (‘hide-stripper’ or ‘skinner’), while his manorial title of Maarsseveen morphed into Barsse-vent (‘gruff fellow’), which links him to the corrupt regent ‘Barsse Jan’ in The French Calendar. Interestingly, the pamphlet slandered Boreel’s witnesses before their names were publicized in the augmented ‘Memorandum of Rights’. ­Schoonebeek, for example, ‘gaunt and skinny like a stork’, makes his living by selling de Hooghe prints he stole while still his apprentice. His wife is ‘the mistress of all the whores and strumpets of Kalverstraat’, and he himself the publisher and illustrator of ‘a pornographic novel by Aretino’, evidently ‘The Wandering Whore’. The climax of the story relates how Boreel, ‘shivering and giving at the knees’, reads Romeyn’s doggerel hidden in the box with blank papers and realizes he has been hoodwinked. The blue book ends with the wooded slopes of Mount Parnassus reverberating to the uproarious laughter of Apollo’s councillors. A second libel purported to be an ‘Authentic Copy of the Settlement of the Accounts’ handed in by Boreel, Bockx, and Muys van Holy, ‘Regarding the Expense of Moneys Employed in Bribing the Witnesses against Romeyn de Hooghe’.11 Walten later declared that Romeyn himself had written it while he, Walten, was staying at his house in Haarlem. The two men had jointly corrected the proofs in Walten’s lodgings in The Hague. On that occasion, Romeyn had discussed how they would vex the Amsterdam regents with libels. ‘If [they] opt for the road of justice, we are familiar with it; and if they opt for libel, we are better at it than they are’, Romeyn had said.12 The Authentic Copy was published shortly after 4 June, the date of its last entry. It claims to list various expenses paid by Boreel, such as the price of the municipal public offices given to the van Hoeck brothers, Apollonia van Hoeck, and Bastiaan Stopendael. Boreel allegedly had paid Huydecoper a large sum for the offices as the latter exercised the right of bestowal of them. Boreel also claimed expenses for ‘the banquet laid on in order to receive the box with attestations and drawings’. The ­notary Michiel Bockx charged his expenses for recruiting and bribing various witnesses, for having the libels printed, and for inciting weavers’ and twiners’ boys in Haarlem to follow Romeyn de Hooghe and bawl after him, and if possible ­plunder his house. Muys van Holy charged a fee for writing the various libels against ­Romeyn, for having Apollonia van Hoeck print the plates made by ‘Marlois’, and for paying a bribe to ‘Susanna the frame-maker’. The account came to a total sum of 12,225 guilders. No reader would have believed in the authenticity of the ‘Authentic Copy’, but the libel reinforced the idea that the charges against Romeyn were trumped up and the witnesses bribed. Above all, it was amusing, another hilarious product of the Pamphlet War. 11 Kn. 13548, Copye authentijck van de liquidatie. 12 Walten Papers, no. 47.

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Yet Romeyn’s defence was not limited to mock-accusations against his enemies; there was nothing lacking in his determination to collect and publish notarized depositions that would uncover the conspiracy against him.

Bribery Exposed On 12 June, Romeyn placed an advertisement in the Utrechtse Maendagse Courant announcing his intent to publish within the next few days, a clear-cut story of the witnesses bribed against him in Amsterdam; to which will be added various attestations and the writings of the chief sheriff there used in the same bribery, as well as the adulteries and thieveries of the barrister N. Muys van Holy, and the practices of whoring and thieving of all the witnesses mentioned in the false libel of ditto Muys van Holy, printed by Jan Rieuwertsz, municipal printer in Amsterdam, which the law court of Haarlem by edict has publicly condemned and declared a blasphemous and infamous libel.13

The announcement enraged Amsterdam’s burgomasters. They immediately wrote to their colleagues in Utrecht, complaining that the newspaper had employed ‘injurious and defamatory terms’ against Boreel and others and demanding that its publisher, Broer Appelaer, be punished. The Utrecht burgomasters heeded their request and imposed a six-week publication ban.14 The newspaper advertisement was no bluff. Romeyn’s next move was an attempt to discredit the witnesses against him by defiling their moral character. Three days after the publication, the Leiden etcher Anthonij van Zijlvelt appeared before notary Cornelis Rens in Haarlem in order to make a statement at Romeyn’s request, with his associates van Vianen and Assendelft acting as witnesses.15 Van Zijlvelt’s attestation concerned a visit he had paid some seven or eight years ago to Paulus Tamessen, who was running a print shop at ‘The Wakeful Dog’ at the time. Tamessen had asked van Zijlvelt to print a number of plates etched by Romeyn ‘representing The Battle of Poland’, which he had surreptitiously snatched from a locker. He had confided that he had stolen more of Romeyn’s plates, that he had 13 Utrechtse Maendaegse Courant, no. 47, 12 June 1690. The text is published in De Haas, ‘Commissaris’, p. 18. 14 saa, 5024, inv. no. 73, ff. 124 and 128, Burgomasters of Amsterdam to those of Utrecht, 14 June 1690 and 4 July 1690. hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 2, Ericus Walten to N.N., 12 July 1690 and no. 3, Romeyn de Hooghe to N.N., 10 July 1690. Walten later identified his correspondents as ‘de heren Schaede en van Heemstede te Utrecht’. They can be identified as Gaspard Schadé, president of the States of Utrecht, and Diederik van Veldhuizen, Lord of Heemstede. Broer Appelaer was licensed newspaper publisher to the States of Utrecht, active in Amsterdam (1661–1673) and Utrecht (1674–1684). 15 nha, 1617, inv. no. 401, f. 93.

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sold the prints for his own profit, and that it was his intention to go on doing so. To make his statement more trustworthy, van Zijlvelt declared he was ready to confirm his story under oath. Two weeks later, two more visitors called at the office of notary Rens to testify at Romeyn’s request. They identified themselves as Lourens Pietersz of Haarlem, a goldsmith, and Jannetje, daughter of Maerten Coeijmans and wife of carpenter Harmen Gerritsz.16 Laurens Pietersz declared that he had visited master scrivener Arnout Nagtegaal at his home in Amsterdam. Nagtegaal had told him that Boreel and Huydecoper had harassed and threatened him, until he had finally consented to testify. His wife said she understood that her husband had received 400 guilders, or perhaps some office. The depositors had also visited Cornelia Cruijff, the matron of Amsterdam’s Aalmoezeniers Orphanage. They had found her ill and lying on a couch. Jannetje had pretended she was serving at some municipal office and that her employers pressured her to testify against Romeyn. Could Cornelia advise her as to what she should do? Cornelia, ‘deeply sighing and moaning’, answered that ‘these miraculous sighs as well as the steady trembling that you see in my body and my hands are caused by being a witness’. Oh God, I have seen nothing in the house of that gentleman that I would not like to see in my own. De Hooghe and his wife guided me to the confession of my faith; I was confirmed while I was living with him. He and his wife gave me all the time I wished to go to church, two or three times a day, and always encouraged me to do so. But those gentlemen came to me, first Muys van Holy and Bockx. They told me: ‘We know that de Hooghe and his wife are dishonourable people, that they are thieves and whores, and we shall force you to say something about it’. To which I answered: ‘Oh, I have eaten the bread of that man for such a long time, and both of them are honest people!’ To which Muys van Holy and Bockx replied: ‘If you ate his bread at that time, you are now eating the bread of the burgomasters! They are the supreme governors of all charitable institutions, and if you do not agree to testify, we will dismiss you. You may take it or leave it’. That was how they forced me to say something that I wish for a hundred ducatons I had not said […]. They come and squeeze such people as you [Jannetje] and me, because we fear we shall lose our prosperity, but for God’s sake, do not allow yourself to be seduced like me. You see how I am lying here; my husband is also suffering wretchedly; we have no rest, day or night. I caught this [illness] when they came to my home to show me the oath, and burgomaster Maarsseveen himself came to my home to administer it. Muys van Holy is a rogue of rogues, wanting to administer a second oath […] They asked me five or six times to make up something against Romeyn, before consenting to this declaration. […] For God’s sake, stay out of it in order to preserve 16 Ibid., f. 95.

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a good conscience, and tell me how you are getting on with it, but for the love of God, beware of giving evidence, the Lord God will help you!

One may well wonder how trustworthy these depositions are. Evidently Romeyn, at whose request the depositions were made, had a keen interest in discrediting the hostile witnesses. Does that imply they were fabrications pure and simple? Had he paid his accomplices to produce false statements? Perhaps he was overplaying his hand. The story about Cornelia Cruijff’s nervous breakdown, in particular, sounds too fantastic to be true. Buried among the records in notary Rens’ office, the attestations were innocuous. Only if publicised more widely would they aid his defence. But they never appeared in print, perhaps an indication that Romeyn did not ultimately consider them very convincing.

Malice and the Spirit of Quarrelling Early in July, another bulky 56-page libel appeared, entitled ‘Malice and the Spirit of Quarrelling Drawn after Life’.17 The title page deceptively identifies the author as ‘C.R. Theolog. Propon.’ (a proponent was an ordinand or candidate for ordination as a Reformed minister), and the printer as Anthony Schouten in Utrecht. The real author was the indefatigable Ericus Walten, who later confessed that Romeyn had ‘supplied the ingredients and materials’.18 It was printed in The Hague by Matthieu Roguet and financed by Meindert Uytwerff. According to Walten, Romeyn’s intention was to vindicate himself and show the world ‘what sort of fellows – these were his own words – they were, Boreel and Maarsseveen’.19 The introduction extolls Romeyn’s talents as an etcher and an entrepreneur and claims dubiously that both his own and his wife’s families were descended from various patrician lineages in Amsterdam. It dwells on his Polish noble title, his regent status in Haarlem, and the royal commission of the Lingen quarries. It goes on to lambaste his enemies, especially Muys van Holy, the van Hoeck brothers, Schoonebeek, Stopendael, and other hostile witnesses. It paints a grim picture of how Huydecoper and Boreel had been bribing witnesses to produce false evidence. It argues that their motives were pure ‘malice, spirit of quarrelling, and revengefulness’, because they had failed to find witnesses linking Romeyn to the satirical prints, and so had changed tack and focused on the blasphemy charges. The pamphlet offers a verbatim account of the attestation by van der Bent, van Vianen, 17 Kn. 13551, Nyd. hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 2, Walten to N.N. [Dijkvelt], 12 July 1690, refers to this pamphlet ‘that was published several days ago’. 18 Walten Papers, nos. 49–54, art. 9. 19 hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 9.

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and Assendelft as proof that Huydecoper and Boreel had charged the van Hoeck brothers with collecting incriminating evidence in return for money and offices. It relishes in narrating how the box filled with prints and drawings was exchanged for another filled with blank sheets, and gloats over Boreel’s rage when he realized he had been cheated. Of course, neither Romeyn nor Walten had been present at the dénouement at Boreel’s house, so they must have used their imagination when describing the event. Another elaborate piece of writing in defence of Romeyn, also by Walten’s hand, was ominously entitled ‘Criminal Proceedings of the Lords of the Government of the City of Haarlem and Romeyn de Hooghe against Adriaan Bakker’.20 It argues on the basis of several legal incongruities that the ‘Memorandum of Rights’ must be a falsification. For good measure, it extolls Romeyn’s fine moral character, and concludes that the libellous information against him had neither been collected on orders of the sheriff of Amsterdam, nor printed by Amsterdam’s municipal printer, nor signed by Bakker, nor submitted to the schepenen of Haarlem.

Romeyn Spins a Conspiracy Discrediting the hostile witnesses and their principals in print was one thing; but Romeyn went further. He devised a plot – ingenuous yet risky – to destroy his enemies. He got a long way in convincing the authorities in The Hague that a conspiracy was afoot, not just against himself, but also against Bentinck and the Prince of Orange. When it turned out that his stories had no basis in reality, he adopted a different approach, striving for reconciliation with Amsterdam’s regents while sacrificing his faithful helper, Ericus Walten. The affair provides a glimpse into the darker side of Romeyn’s character. On 28 June, two young visitors called at Romeyn’s home on Nieuwe Gracht. Frederik Hertogh was a recently graduated lawyer from Rotterdam, presently living in Amsterdam. His companion, Francisco Pedro (alias Mordechai) de Cohen, was a 24-year-old merchant from Amsterdam who had moved to The Hague; a former Jew, he had converted to Christianity when living in London.21 The two men told Romeyn a startling story. During three successive meetings at the De Gouden Leeuw (‘The Golden Lion’) inn on the corner of Dam Square and Kalverstraat, Muys van Holy had confidentially told them that he was working to destroy not only Romeyn

20 Kn. 13550, Crimineele actie. On Walten’s authorship, Knuttel. ‘Ericus Walten’, pp. 365–366. 21 Hertogh graduated from Leiden on 9 December 1689 and was admitted to the bar on 14 December; Album Advocatorum, p. 160. (De) Cohen was a son of Abraham Cohen, agent of Johan Maurits of Siegen-Nassau, Governor of Brasil, and Ribca Palache; Wiegers and Garcia-Arenal, Samuel Pallache, pp. 222, 231. Cohen stated on 10 July 1688 that he was 22 years old and had been born in Amsterdam; saa, 5001, inv. no. 517, p. 167.

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de Hooghe, but also the Prince of Orange and the Earl of Portland.22 He had said that ‘this dog, viz. the King of England, was an atheist more insidious than ­Romeyn de Hooghe himself [and] that this dog was the ruin of the state and the city of Amsterdam’. Muys van Holy’s design (referring to the augmented ‘Memorandum of Rights’, which was yet to be published) was to issue a publication containing the attestations against Romeyn, to have it translated into English, and send it to ‘the bishops of England’. The two young men had immediately grasped that such words amounted to high treason. They decided to travel to Ireland, where William was campaigning, and divulge the affair to the king in person. They first called at Romeyn’s to alert him and to ask for a subvention for financing the trip. According to Romeyn, he had tried to dissuade the men. He told them they should notify the authorities. If they kept an apparent case of lese-majesty to themselves, they risked being regarded as accessories. But they would not hear of it, because they feared powerful men like Boreel and Huydecoper would prevent them from speaking out freely. The story as told by Hertogh and de Cohen sounds extremely unlikely. First, why would Muys van Holy confide in the two young men, as many as three times, without apparently assigning them any role in his machinations? Second, it is hard to see how an English translation of the Memorie van rechten, with or without the appendices, would persuade the Tory opposition in England to overthrow William and Mary. And, finally, the way Romeyn arranged the meeting with Hertogh and de Cohen is highly suspicious. He received his visitors in the presence of two witnesses, his apprentice Jan van Vianen and another young man, Abraham Dusart from Amstelveen.23 During the interview, Romeyn urged his visitors time and again to reiterate their accusations, to such an extent that Hertogh finally fretfully exclaimed ‘Sir, we have now repeated the affair several times; we do not wish to repeat it here, you have brains enough to understand and remember what we have told you in one go!’ The reason for Romeyn’s insistence soon became clear. The next day he dispatched van Vianen and Dusart to notary Rens’ office to produce a deposition about everything Hertogh and de Cohen had said. Romeyn thus acquired another incriminating legal document ready for use against his enemies. As soon as the attestation was done, Romeyn travelled to The Hague to alert the authorities to the conspiracy. He found them surprisingly willing to accept his version of the events, and suitably horrified. William’s secretary Willem van S­ chuylenburg reported to Bentinck that he had learned that the regents of Amsterdam were ­secretly plotting against William: 22 On De Gouden Leeuw see Hell, ‘Amsterdamse herberg’, p. 58. 23 Abraham Dusart, baptized in Amsterdam on 26 January 1665, son of Abraham Dusart and Anna Wijlants (saa, 5001, inv. no. 106, p. 136), was probably a relative of the Haarlem painter Cornelis Dusart.

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Muys van Holy, not unknown to Your Excellency because of his maliciousness and evil reputation, seeing that he has accomplished nothing against Romeyn de Hooghe with his false and bribed witnesses, intended to have the aforementioned attestations translated into English, jointly with a devilish deduction against His Majesty, and send it to several malevolent individuals in London, hoping to stir up commotion during his [the king’s] absence, and especially in order to impress the clergy through this manifesto or deduction that the court attempted to patronize such an alleged slanderer as de Hooghe, because they would not know that the witnesses were not only unreliable and infamous, but also suborned and bribed, and would therefore detest the alleged patronage. I have delivered so much evidence of this to the Lord Grand Pensionary [Heinsius], that he has agreed to investigate the affair as a horrible and execrable crime.24

The letter clearly reveals Romeyn’s high standing among Orangist power-brokers in The Hague. Since the States of Holland were in recess, Romeyn presented his attestation to the Gecommitteerde Raden (‘Commissioned Councillors’) of the States, the executive board for the southern half of the Province of Holland encompassing both Haarlem and Amsterdam. The board was so alarmed that it immediately dispatched three commissioners to Haarlem to investigate the matter. One of them was Willem Fabricius, who was serving as a member of the board at that time.25 On 30 June, Hertogh and de Cohen again called at Romeyn’s house to receive the letters of recommendation they believed Romeyn had prepared for them and to hand him a key to the cypher they intended to use in future correspondence. This time, Romeyn had laid a snare. At his sign, the commissioners from The Hague barged into the room and arrested the two startled men; after a summary interrogation, they had them taken into custody. The culprits should have notified the authorities about the alleged high treason before departing to Ireland. Keeping the information to themselves had made them accessories to the crime. They confirmed under oath that the contents of the deposition by van Vianen and Dusart were true. They promised to divulge everything they knew to the authorities in exchange for a letter of impunity from the States. One week later, the commissioners visited Amsterdam, where they were civilly received at the town hall. The burgomasters considered the evidence sufficiently incriminatory to send Boreel immediately with two schepenen to ransack the house and office of a notary public named Jan Hoekeback on Vijgendam (the eastern end 24 Correspondentie van Willem iii, part 2, vol. 3, pp. 167–178, Schuylenburg to Portland, 30 June 1690. 25 Fabricius’ tenure in Naam-register (no pagination). The other two commissioners were Herman van den Honert from Dordrecht and Hendrik Ewoutsz van Bleyswijck from Delft. Van den Honert was married to Anna de Witt, daughter of Johan de Witt and Wendela Bicker. He was thus a nephew by marriage of Romeyn’s friend Pieter de Graeff, who was married to Wendela’s sister Jacoba. nnbw, vol. 8, col. 816.

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of Dam Square), who had allegedly translated Muys van Holy’s text into English.26 Yet having fastidiously gone through all of his papers, they found nothing. Hoekeback, in his turn, enlisted the help of a colleague notary and testified and solemnly swore that he had never translated the Memorie van rechten, that neither Muys van Holy nor anyone else had asked him to do so, and that he had not even seen Muys van Holy over the last six months. By this time, it must have dawned upon the authorities in The Hague, Haarlem, and Amsterdam that Romeyn had been trying to hoodwink them. And Romeyn, too, must have realized that the game was up and that it was time to change tack. Nevertheless, the story was too good to abandon. Hence Ericus Walten, who had just finished writing ‘Malice and the Spirit of Quarrelling’, started working on another lengthy libel entitled ‘Sequel to a Modest Enquiry into the Causes of the Present Disasters of England’, in which he – again – narrated the story diligently following the facts as Romeyn had supplied them.27 Presenting the blue book as a ‘sequel’ to another pamphlet entitled Modest Enquiry, which had been published in London a short while ago and exposed a conspiracy against William iii, Romeyn and Walten framed the rather parochial quarrel between Romeyn and the regents of Amsterdam as part of an epic struggle on a European scale.28 The story broadly concurs with van Vianen and Dusart’s deposition, but Romeyn and Walten added a few artful touches for embellishment. Thus, the published version is silent about Romeyn sending his witnesses to the notary’s office to have the account of Hertogh and de Cohen notarized. Instead, in a farcical scene, it has the notary hide behind an enormous painting, ‘twelve feet high and of proportionate width’, which Romeyn had put in front of the chimney of his drawing room. Seated at a small table, provided with ink and paper and in the company of two witnesses, he diligently scribbled down the words of Hertogh and de Cohen as they were spoken. Romeyn’s version of the ransacking of notary Hoekeback’s house is also at odds with the facts. The private notes of burgomaster Hudde show that the burgomasters kept Muys van Holy’s house under observation while Hoekeback’s office was being searched lest incriminating papers be spirited away, though the burgomasters did not allow the commissioners to be present during the raid.29 In Walten and Romeyn’s published version, Boreel and Huydecoper were far more effective in protecting Muys van Holy. ‘People have seen’, the pamphlet asserts, ‘how papers were carried from his [Hoekeback’s] house 26 On Hoekeback, see Bosma, Repertorium, no. 262. 27 Kn. 13552, Vervolgh op het zeedig ondersoeck. Walten Papers, nos. 49–54, art. 2 and 11, and no. 66, art. 9: Walten confessed that he had composed the ‘Sequel to a Modest Enquiry’ from materials delivered by Romeyn and at his special request. Uytwerff again acted as publisher, and Roguet as printer. 28 Anon., Modest Enquiry. Two translations into Dutch and one in French were published: Kn. 13413, Zedigh ondersoek, na de redenen, Kn. 13414, Zeedig ondersoeck, noopende de oorzaak, and Kn. 13412, Recherche modeste des causes. 29 saa, 5059, inv. no. 47, no. 52.

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and stuffed in a barrel’.30 The last date mentioned in the ‘Sequel to a Modest Enquiry’ was 12 August, just over a month after the publication of ‘Malice and the Spirit of Quarrelling’. It was sent to the press shortly thereafter. But by that time, the political landscape, and Romeyn’s position in it, had changed.

Walten Sacrificed By the summer of 1690, Romeyn’s position was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. As long as the stadtholder and the city of Amsterdam were locked in battle, he had little to fear. But with the Amsterdam schepenen crisis resolved, the now dominant burgomasters Witsen and Hudde favoured friendly relations with the stadtholder and the States of Holland. On 11 July, William fought a decisive victory on the banks of the River Boyne, defeating James ii, who had landed in Ireland in an attempt to regain his crown. William’s now apparently unassailable standing divided the opposition in Amsterdam. Many republican-minded regents, even Huydecoper himself, reached the conclusion that Amsterdam’s interests demanded an understanding with the stadtholder.31 Another bad omen for Romeyn was that the trial before the Hof van Holland of Jan Hol – the journeyman cobbler accused of carrying treasonous letters to the French court, implicating Amsterdam’s burgomasters – was nearing its end.32 The allegation that they had perpetrated high treason was the main charge in the French Calendar print and many other Orangist pamphlets. In the course of the trial, it became apparent that Hol had made up the whole story. The case dragged on – sentence was passed on the last day of December – but already by mid-June, Heinsius was assuring Huydecoper that the matter would be concluded to the satisfaction of Amsterdam.33 Even worse for Romeyn was that his political backing was crumbling. His patrons –Fabricius, Heinsius, and Schuylenburg – had simply had enough. Heinsius told Huydecoper that he hoped Amsterdam would bury the hatchet in the conflict with Haarlem about Romeyn de Hooghe. The accusations, he said, amounted to little more than raking up the past. One could, in the same way, make attestations against plenty of other people ‘who had shown little candour in their behaviour and much malice in their discourses’.34 Prodded by Heinsius, Huydecoper discussed the matter with Haarlem’s pensionary, Matheus van Valckenburgh. The latter promised he would make sure that Romeyn was kept in line. Rather alarmingly, he added that Haarlem’s 30 31 32 33 34

Kn. 13552, Vervolgh op het zeedig ondersoeck, p. 21. Correspondentie van Willem iii, part 2, vol. 3, pp. 172–173, Schuylenburg to Portland, 28 July 1690. Kn. 13500, Copye van brieven; Biographisch woordenboek, vol. 8.2, pp. 977–978. saa, 5029, inv. no. 9, Huydecoper to the Burgomasters of Amsterdam, 13 and 15 June 1690. saa, 5029, inv. no. 9, Huydecoper to the Burgomasters of Amsterdam, 15 June 1690.

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city government ‘did not know how to prevent his house from being plundered’. Public opinion in Haarlem was shifting against Romeyn. A libel stated that ‘street urchins are chasing after him because he is a blasphemer and a thief. If the regents do not punish him, we will!’35 Rumours about the fate of William iii sapped Romeyn’s self-confidence. On the eve of the Battle of the Boyne, William had received a grazing shot to his shoulder. Soon reports began to circulate that he had died, causing ecstatic celebrations in France and nervous anxiety in the Dutch Republic.36 Although the rumours soon turned out to be false, they made Romeyn acutely aware of the tenuousness of his position. A client of the stadtholder, he ultimately depended on the latter’s protection. Walten later remembered how Romeyn, ‘during the rumour of the wounding and death of His Majesty in Ireland’, had been ‘extremely embarrassed’ and had behaved ‘very strangely and extraordinarily’ towards him.37 Amidst his increasing efforts to defend his frayed honour, Romeyn found time to dedicate a satirical print to William’s survival entitled Pantagruel Agonisant (‘Pantagruel Agonizing’, fig. 11.1).38 It shows Louis xiv mortally ill in bed, surrounded by his faithful followers; among them are the Devil, James ii, the Prince of Wales in Jesuit attire, Father Petre, and the king’s mistresses, ministers, and generals, all commenting, in Dutch and French, on the ill tidings that William – visible through the door on the right, triumphantly on horseback – is alive and kicking. The foreground shows a satirical print about William’s death, allegedly made in Paris, various versions of which were widely circulated in Holland.39 It was Romeyn’s way of thumbing his nose at the French. One can almost sense his relief that his protector was safe and sound. The print is akin to the earlier Harlequin prints, except that the character of Harlequin was replaced by that of Pantagruel. Signing the print J. Marlais f[ecit] à Londres, Romeyn added Guindeau inv[enit] as a further mystification (guindeau is the French word for windlass). Apprehensive due to his diminishing support, Romeyn made one last desperate effort to force the hands of the burgomasters of Amsterdam. On 26 July, he sent a letter to a certain van Ceulen, probably Ferdinand van Collen, a wealthy lawyer and Vroedschap member serving as one of the directors of the West India Company and the Society of Suriname.40 Having complained bitterly about the 35 Kn. 13546, Copy van een brief geschreven uyt Haerlem. Similar reports about Romeyn being jeered in the streets in Kn. 13539–13540, Vervolg van de nieuwe tydinge, p. 7, and Kn. 13548, Copye authentijck van de liquidatie, p. 4. 36 Kn. 13422, Sotternyen van Vranckryck. The news was brought out in Paris in the night of 28–29 July 1690. 37 Walten Papers, no. 47. 38 le 228; h 167; fmh 2816; Cillessen, Krieg, 312–313, cat. f.viii.3. 39 fmh 2813 and 2814. 40 hua, fa 67, inv. no. 97, no. 4. On Ferdinand van Ceulen or van Collen, see Elias, Vroedschap, no. 257. The addressee may have been Caspar van Collen, a younger relative of Ferdinand, director of the voc (ibid., no. 261).

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Fig. 11.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, Pantagruel Agonizing, 1689 (detail).

unfair slander campaign, he stated that he had collected seventeen (!) different attestations ­making mincemeat of the ‘Memorandum of Rights’. He had no choice but to publish them, though this would severely damage the reputation of several highly-placed regents. They could prevent this by issuing an edict proclaiming that all the pamphlets against him were libellous. Should they fail to do so, he would be compelled, to his regret, to submit all the evidence to the press. The burgomasters were advised not to underestimate the havoc he would wreak: ‘I have under my hands, apart from a great many and weighty attestations against the regents, autograph letters by burgomaster [Huydecoper of] Maarsseveen to various gentlemen’. One such letter, he wrote, dated 2 September 1672, was directed to the Duke of Luxembourg, the supreme commander of the French forces in the Netherlands during the rampjaar. Another was addressed to Pierre Stoppa, military governor of Utrecht during the French occupation, another to ‘Madam the Governess’ (­Stoppa’s wife), and there were two letters to his chaplain. ‘Whether it is convenient that such letters by such prominent gentlemen to the enemies of the state circulate amongst the citizens at a time like ours, I leave to Your Honour to contemplate’. If the burgomasters would agree to his demand, he promised to hand over both the originals and the copies for destruction.

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Was Romeyn bluffing or did he really possess Huydecoper’s incriminating letters? And if so, how had he acquired them? It is true that during the rampjaar, Huydecoper had gone a long way when attempting to preserve his country seat of Goudestein in French-occupied territory.41 He had managed to secure a letter from the French war minister Louvois to Luxembourg, ordering to grant dispensation from paying a contribution. Unbeknownst to him, however, Louvois had immediately sent a second message to Luxembourg repealing the previous one.42 Huydecoper gratefully referred to Louvois’ letter of safeguard as ‘my paper harness’. Back in Holland, he established good relations with the occupiers. While secretly carting off to Amsterdam as many valuables as possible (among them boxes filled with the season’s ripe apricots and peaches), he secured a letter of safeguard from the local commander Jean-Baptiste Stoppa, brother of the military governor of Utrecht, as well as the promise that his Swiss troopers would watch over his house.43 An attempt to bribe Luxembourg with a consignment of tobacco failed, but Huydecoper did present two costly silk kimonos to commander Stoppa. At the same time, he petitioned the Dutch political and military leaders neither to attack the French on his lands nor to quarter Dutch troops there. Privately, he admitted that he was more afraid of the States’ troops than of the French.44 Several owners of country seats in the area jointly paid 10,000 écus to the French to save their property. While the houses of those who failed to pay up were reduced to ashes, Goudestein escaped unharmed. Blackmailing Amsterdam’s powerful burgomaster was not the most prudent move Romeyn could make. Huydecoper was not a man to have his hand forced by intimidation, and neither would Romeyn’s new tactics endear him to his patrons in The Hague and Haarlem. On 14 August, the burgomasters of Haarlem got wind of the impending publication, ‘in which prominent regents were to be mentioned by name’.45 It was the last straw. They summoned Romeyn to their chamber in the town hall and curtly told him that they were greatly offended. Had their edict banning the ‘Memorandum of Rights’ not assuaged the matter? He must stop immediately and refrain from writing any more libels. Romeyn meekly promised he would do nothing that might displease the burgomasters, whilst begging them to help him protect his honour and reputation. The burgomasters’ rap over Romeyn’s knuckles was a turning point. The ‘Sequel to a Modest Enquiry’ was bound to appear any day. Once published, it would unequivocally reveal Romeyn’s involvement. Hertogh and de Cohen, on whose 41 Panhuysen, Rampjaar, p. 201. 42 Den Tex, Onder vreemde heren, p. 70. The allegation that Huydecoper was in Paris when the invasion took place finds no support in Huydecoper’s diary. See Schwartz, ‘Jan van der Heyden’, p. 213, fn. 51. 43 hua, 67, inv. no. 51, Jean-Baptiste Stouppe (Stoppa) to Huydecoper, 30 September 1672. 44 Schwartz, ‘Jan van der Heyden’ p. 213. 45 nha, 3993, inv. no. 512, f. 64.

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accounts the booklet was based, had remained in custody in Haarlem since their arrest on 30 June. Attempts by the burgomasters of Amsterdam to have the two ‘false witnesses’ extradited to their jurisdiction for a confrontation with Muys van Holy had failed.46 On 12 August, the two men were transported to The Hague, interrogated by the Gecommitteerde Raden, and set free on condition that they remain available.47 By that time, the Gecommitteerde Raden must have realized that their story was not credible and that they were probably in league with R ­ omeyn.48 It was time for Romeyn to dissociate himself, completely and persuasively, from the affair. On Saturday, 19 August, only days after being berated by Haarlem’s burgomasters, Romeyn found himself in The Hague, where he learned from Wilhelm Vos, clerk of the Gecommitteerde Raden, that Hertogh and de Cohen had flown the coop and were hiding in Rotterdam.49 He also had a meeting with Meyndert Uytwerff and Ericus Walten. From Uytwerff, he secured the first quire of the ‘Sequel to a Modest Enquiry’, the ink still wet. He took it first to Bidloo’s house and then to the States’ meeting on Binnenhof, where he showed it to Haarlem’s delegates pensionary Matheus van Valckenburgh and Aernout Druyvesteyn. He told them he hoped this would ‘remove the unfounded suspicion that I have been an accessory to collusion with the authors of several libels’.50 Romeyn reported these events to the burgomasters of Haarlem and Amsterdam in person as late as 12 September, almost a month after the events. He pretended he had sharply berated both the bookseller and the author for their audacity in attacking prominent regents ‘in an affair they could not possibly understand’. He had warned them that highly-placed individuals had complained to him and that no one would be able to save them from losing their life and property. Terrified, the men had promised to desist. Romeyn had then left The Hague and (according to his own report) travelled to the army, which at that time was encamped at Braine-le-Château near Halle in the Spanish Netherlands.51 Did Romeyn really have business to conduct with the military, or did he deem it convenient to lie low for a while? Whatever the case, the ‘Sequel to a Modest Enquiry’ was for sale in all the bookshops of Holland soon after his departure,

46 saa, 5029, inv. no. 91, Hinlopen to the Burgomasters of Amsterdam, 5 August 1690; saa, 5024, inv. no. 73, f. 137, Burgomasters of Amsterdam to Hinlopen, 7 August 1690; ibid. f. 139, Burgomasters of Amsterdam to Hinlopen, 9 August 1690. 47 Kn. 13552, Vervolgh op het zeedig ondersoeck, p. 30. 48 Knuttel, ‘Ericus Walten’, p. 379. 49 hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 8, attestation by the kamerbewaarder (usher) of the Gecommitteerde Raden van den Broeck, 19 September 1690. 50 hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 5, Romeyn de Hooghe to Burgomasters of Amsterdam, 14 September 1690. 51 Correspondentie van Willem iii, vol. 2, part 3, no. 204, Schuylenburg to Portland, 16 August 1690.

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Ericus Walten later recounted a rather different story about Romeyn’s ­visit.52 ­Romeyn, panicking at the rumours of the death of the Prince of Orange, had ­attempted to persuade him to go into hiding. Various persons of quality, Romeyn had said, would be better able to protect him if he were absent. Walten had considered his attitude ‘very suspect’ and was not aware of any difficulties, but decided to obey him anyway, because he realized Romeyn had an interest in keeping him out of the hands of the law. Romeyn had offered to reimburse him for all the costs of hiding, handing him the ready money he was carrying in his pocket and promising to pay more if necessary. This exchange had taken place in The Hague at Uytwerff’s house, in the street, and at the De Kolder (‘The Jerkin’) inn on Market Square. Govert Bidloo, no ­ ersuade him less nervous than Romeyn, and for the same reasons, had also tried to p to abscond. Uytwerff, acting on Romeyn’s advice, had spirited away various printed sheets from his shop, among them the sheets of the ‘Sequel to a ­Modest Enquiry’. The men later met again at the De Valk (‘The Falcon’) inn in Haarlem, where Romeyn offered to put Walten up with a farmer who was living opposite his garden, again with all expenses paid. It looks as though Romeyn was trying to hedge his bets. Whilst allowing the impending publication of the ‘Sequel to a Modest Enquiry’ to go ahead, he attempted to dispose of its author, who might, when pressed, divulge Romeyn’s involvement in its composition. Outwardly, he pretended that he had nothing to do with the pamphlet and was doing his utmost to prevent its publication. He was playing high, and at the expense of Walten. No wonder that Walten later bitterly complained that Romeyn did not care about his (Walten’s) reputation and honour, but ‘sought to ruin him and thereby save his own skin’.53 By the beginning of September, Romeyn’s political supporters were fed up with his whims. On 6 September, Heinsius had a chat with Johan Willem Dedel, burgomaster of The Hague and, incidentally, a nephew of Amsterdam’s burgomaster Hudde.54 He said that he utterly detested the recent flood of libels and considered it the result of the ‘bitterness’ between Romeyn and Muys van Holy. He intended to tell the delegates of Haarlem and Amsterdam to put an end to it. Heinsius’ interference resulted in a historic meeting on 12 September between Romeyn and burgomasters Assendelft and Druyvesteyn of Haarlem and the two hawkish burgomasters de Vries and Huydecoper of Amsterdam.55 It took place at Swanenburg House, seat of the Rijnland Polder Board and conveniently located exactly halfway along the passenger-barge line between Haarlem and Amsterdam. There are no minutes of the conference, but we may safely assume that Romeyn 52 53 54 55

na, Walten papers, nos. 47–48. Ibid., no. 48. saa, 5059, inv. no. 47, no. 45, Dedel to Hudde, 6 September 1690. hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 10.

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promised to refrain from further libelling and do his best to help the authorities to catch the author and the printer of the ‘Sequel to a Modest Enquiry’. On that very day, the magistrates of The Hague issued an edict banning it and promising a reward of 300 guilders to anyone who would deliver the author and the printer into their hands.56 Romeyn also reported on the previous month’s visit to The Hague, where he claimed he had tried to persuade Walten and Uytwerff to abandon the publication of the pamphlet. The regents asked Romeyn to commit his findings to paper, which he did two days later.57 In return for his efforts, he must have asked de Vries and Huydecoper to issue an edict banning the libels directed against him (as Haarlem had earlier outlawed the ‘Memorandum of Rights’), yet no such edict ever materialized. Amsterdam’s burgomasters made sure that Muys van Holy stayed in line. Around the time of the conference, Muys van Holy published an open letter to Willem ­Fabricius in which he defended himself against the allegations in the ‘Sequel to a Modest Enquiry’.58 He was astonished that a man like Fabricius, nota bene his wife’s cousin, would protect a man like Romeyn. ‘Even his own brother-in-law, the ­Reverend Visscherus [Johannes Visscher, the husband of Maria Lansman’s sister Anna], does not want to be associated with him because of his villainy and godlessness’. He emphatically denied being the author of the various libels slandering Romeyn: ‘you can tell from the style and manner of writing that such rubbish is not of my making’. He had never engaged in any factionalism; this was a fabrication by Romeyn, who blamed him for having served Boreel as solicitor in the case against him. He had never in his life met Notary Hoekeback, nor would he have needed his help, because he himself spoke and wrote English fluently. Hertogh and de Cohen were villains and thieves: ‘Like trained comedians, they have aided Romeyn de Hooghe in playing out the farce of The Notary in the Chimney with the Two False and Cheated Informers’. Muys van Holy’s open letter was precisely the sort of pamphleteering the burgomasters had vowed to suppress. They immediately summoned him to the town hall and gave him a sharp dressing-down. The lawyer implored the regents to forgive him; this was the only pamphlet he had ever written, he said, and he promised to abstain from publishing anything else.59

Tying Up Loose Ends By the middle of September 1690, the Pamphlet War was over. Reprimanded by the burgomasters of their respective hometowns, both Romeyn and Muys van Holy had pledged to stop libelling. In the Swanenburg House meeting, Romeyn offered his 56 57 58 59

saa, 5059, inv. no. 47, no. 45, annex to Joannes Prins to Hudde, 14 September 1690; hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 24. Ibid., no. 5, Romeyn de Hooghe to Burgomasters of Amsterdam, 14 September 1690. Kn. 13553 and 13553-a, Muys van Holy, Missive, dated 9 September 1690. saa, 5024, inv. no. 73, f. 148 vo, Burgomasters of Amsterdam to Hudde, 16 September 1690.

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help in capturing the author and the printer of the libels. The burgomasters of both towns were prepared to accept Romeyn’s rather improbable assurance that he had had nothing to do with the pamphlets written in his defence. They did not believe Romeyn would be particularly helpful, but they were willing to respect Heinsius and Schuylenburg, who continued to work towards reconciliation. The Orangist leaders were willing to sacrifice Walten, but not Romeyn. The latter lost no time. Two days after the meeting, he proposed to Amsterdam’s burgomasters that he would travel to The Hague, enlist the aid of two assistant printers or compositors, have the printer and the author of the ‘Sequel to a Modest Enquiry’ make a deposition in the presence of witnesses, track all booksellers and private parties already in the possession of copies, and conduct an enquiry at the home of the supposed author that would lead to his arrest.60 The burgomasters agreed and gave Romeyn a letter of introduction to Johannes Hudde, who was staying in The Hague as a delegate to the States of Holland.61 In return, Romeyn asked the burgomasters to issue an edict banning the libels against him, but they made no promises. Having little confidence in the outcome of his endeavours, they also sent Huydecoper to The Hague to conduct an investigation of his own. Huydecoper spent his time in The Hague discussing the affair with various prominent officials, among them Schuylenburg and Heinsius. The former assured him that ‘he considered Walten a villain who ought not to be suffered in the commonwealth, and that he would not rest until the regents of Amsterdam had received ­contentment and satisfaction with regard to their justified complaints’.62 He was ­furious with ­Walten for surreptitiously using his and Heinsius’ names to encourage the attorney general of the Hof van Holland to start criminal proceedings against chief sheriff ­Bakker. Walten had tried repeatedly, ‘yea, more than twenty times’, to obtain an ­audience with Schuylenburg, who had succeeded in turning him away only by threatening him with a sound thrashing. But the etcher, Schuylenburg contended, was innocent; he did not believe that Romeyn had any knowledge of the libels, let alone had participated in making them, knowing full well how loathsome this would be to the Earl of Portland and to himself [Schuylenburg]; and that he thereby would have risked his commissarial dignity of the Lingen Quarries and suffer everything pertaining to his embarrassment and mortification.

Heinsius also stood up for Romeyn and gave Huydecoper to understand that he considered it ‘highly villainous to produce attestations to the detriment of another man 60 saa, 5024, inv. no. 73, f. 147 vo, Burgomasters of Amsterdam to Romeyn de Hooghe, 15 September 1690, published in Knuttel, ‘Ericus Walten’, pp. 380–381. 61 saa, 5024, inv. no. 73, f. 148 vo, Burgomasters of Amsterdam to Hudde, 15 September 1690. 62 hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 10.

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concerning matters that occurred many years ago; and that this was perhaps the cause of the difficulties’. His words suggest that he believed the substance of the allegations regarding blasphemy and dishonesty to be true, but that he was willing to forgive Romeyn for his missteps because they were youthful sins. To which Huydecoper retorted that neither Amsterdam’s government, nor the regents in a private capacity had done any such thing, ‘unless one intends to draw an honest man by all ways and means into a querelle d’allemand [a far-fetched quarrel about a futile point] and set the rabble and the riff-raff upon him’. Huydecoper secured the attestations of two officials working for the Gecommitteerde Raden, the clerk Wilhelm Vos and the usher (kamerbewaarder) Cornelis van den Broeck, which irrefutably incriminated Walten as the author of various libels while exculpating Romeyn. He handed over the documents to the bailiff of The Hague and arranged that the magistrates hear Uytwerff, offering him impunity in return for giving evidence against Walten.63 Everything was thus set for Walten’s prosecution; the only element lacking was Walten himself. Romeyn had promised he would deliver him into the hands of justice, but the burgomasters’ distrust soon proved to be justified. Returning ­empty-­handed from The Hague, he could only report that Walten had flown the coop.64 While spreading tales of being summoned to the army, Walten had taken a barge to Leiden, then a night-barge to Alkmaar, another barge back to Leiden, and yet another one to Delft, from whence he had walked to Schiedam (near ­Rotterdam). He had sent a man to his digs in The Hague to collect his belongings, books, and writings. Then he had disappeared without a trace. Romeyn was remarkably well-informed about Walten’s meandering trip – he wrote that he had sent a man to shadow him – which makes it likely that he himself had tipped him off and told him to make himself scarce. Huydecoper at least believed ‘that Ericus Walten, as I trust already alerted by Romeyn de Hooghe, will retire elsewhere, where he will be able to employ his mercenary and slanderous pen with more liberty’.65 All that remained was to tie up the loose ends. The bailiff and magistrates’ court of The Hague summoned and heard Meyndert Uytwerff. Under the promise of impunity, he told them everything he knew – incriminating Walten and sparing Romeyn. Walten, despite the price on his head, remained absent. It turned out later that he was hiding in Rotterdam.66 All parties maintained the fiction of Romeyn’s innocence, although Huydecoper and his colleagues were fully aware of his role. Cornelis Cloeck, a member of the republican faction in the Amsterdam Vroedschap, wrote from Utrecht that he hoped no one was considering saving Romeyn. ‘It has been 63 Ibid. nos 7, 8, 9. 64 Ibid., no. 13, Romeyn de Hooghe to Burgomasters of Amsterdam, 21 September 1690. 65 Ibid., no. 10. Report of Huydecoper about his research in The Hague, 19 September 1690. Partly copied in saa, 5059, inv. no. 47, no. 45, and published in Knuttel, ‘Ericus Walten’, pp. 454–455. 66 saa, 5059, inv. no. 47, no. 45, Dedel to Hudde, 5 November 1690.

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proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is his work, because these libels concern no other subject than [his] defence’.67 Romeyn, meanwhile, continued to offer his good services for bringing Walten to justice, hoping that Amsterdam’s regents would restore his honour in return, by issuing an ordinance that would clear him of the slander disseminated against him. In October, he wrote several letters to the regents, pressing them to issue a publication as soon as possible that would exculpate him. In return, he promised to render Ericus Walten harmless: ‘I have invented a means to keep the living Walten dead, which I shall communicate privately to Your Honours; to keep him abroad and forever suppressed; for if he is free and (to his own opinion) done in, he will travail more violently than ever’.68 That meeting never materialized, as Romeyn excused himself because he was suffering from ‘a fierce colic and fever’.69 And despite his willingness – indeed his eagerness – to betray his old friend Walten, the burgomasters never lifted a finger to publish a public exoneration. Towards the end of the year, an anonymous letter was delivered to Huydecoper, written in a meticulous but inexperienced hand (fig. 11.2): sir, if mr romeyn de hooghe will not get decent satisfaction before the coming christmastide, having the honour of being a friend of his honour, i shall recoup the damage not only from boreel and the lord of maarsseveen, but also from messrs hudde and his wife and witsen and his mother, i shall expose them all sorely, but this happens and will happen without the knowledge of mr de hooghe, but i do hope everything will be prevented by a timely reparation and then i shall be silent, this for your information.70

Inevitably, Romeyn was suspected of some involvement with the threatening letter, though he emphatically denied this.71 Even Maria Lansman felt obliged to deny authorship. In the only letter we have by her, she reminded Huydecoper of his promise to restore Romeyn’s good name: Sir, I understood with amazement that I am said to have written a letter to the Lord Secretary Maarsseveen threatening several gentlemen of the city of Amsterdam,

67 hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 31, Cloeck to Huydecoper, 22 September 1690. For his party allegiance, see Correspondentie van Willem iii, part 1, vol. 1, p. 110, Portland to William, 18 February 1690. 68 hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 18, Romeyn de Hooghe to the Burgomasters of Amsterdam, 11 October 1690. 69 Ibid., no. 17, Romeyn de Hooghe to the presiding Burgomaster of Amsterdam (Huydecoper), 28 September 1690. 70 Ibid., no. 33, N.N. to Huydecoper, n.d. 71 Ibid., no. 30, Romeyn de Hooghe to Huydecoper, 3 January 1691.

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Fig. 11.2. Anonymous letter to Joan Huydecoper, 1690.

for I would not be capable of such evil follies, as these are weapons of people of lowly descent [and] invented by evil people. I allowed myself to be contented with My Lord’s parole when I spoke to Your Honour on the Singel sluice, and while it was not yet Candlemas and not yet the time for doing justice, I wished

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to wait, next to my loved one, for what I expect to be the effect of your word as burgomaster.72

The year 1690 thus ended in an atmosphere of mutual distrust. It had been an annus horribilis for Romeyn and his family, a replay of the affair of the Talking Dog, but even more devastating. They had irretrievably lost their honour. Few people in Holland remained ignorant of the alleged sins and follies of Romeyn’s past. The ‘Memorandum of Rights’ in particular, undersigned by the chief sheriff of Haarlem, couched in legal language, supported by nine detailed attestations, and followed by Romeyn’s embarrassing letters in which he foolishly attempted to suborn the witnesses against him, must have convinced the general public that the accusations against him were accurate. The fact that his protectors in Haarlem had banned the ‘Memorandum of Rights’ as libellous did not redeem him. His name became a byword for villainy and godlessness. His frayed reputation almost immediately became apparent in yet another scabrous novel. Entitled ‘The General Education of Children, or: Mad Mother, Mad Child’, its subtitle announces that it contains ‘A Succinct Account of the Romeyn de Hooghe Affair’.73 The author is anonymous, while the publisher, a bookseller named ‘Adriaan Jansz van Wezel’ is known only for this particular book and therefore almost certainly a pseudonym.74 The novel’s argument is that a sound upbringing must indisputably result in virtuous children. Unfortunately, some mothers, instead of begging their spouses to chastise their wayward offspring, are wont to indulge them. The author then brings in the ‘very apposite’ case of ‘that desecrator of divine majesty and atheist’, Romeyn de Hooghe, as an example of the grief that children can bring upon their parents. The author goes so far as to suggest that this deplorable example may bring comfort to women who have remained childless. Just like ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’, the novel is a collection of salacious stories, including one that refers to a well-known local character, designed to render the rest of the book more credible. In this case, though, Romeyn’s name is clearly spelled out. The section dedicated to him is largely a rehashing of the now well-known stories from the 1690 libels. For good measure, this is followed by the full text of the original edition of the ‘Memorandum of Rights’.75

72 Ibid., no. 23, Maria Lansman to Huydecoper, dated ‘in the middle of summer’. 73 Anon., Algemeene opvoedinge. 74 The suggestion in Wayne Franits, ‘Seks’, that the author was Nicolaes Muys van Holy is not credible. 75 Anon., Algemeene opvoedinge, pp. 38–50.

12. Serving the Stadtholder The Desolate End of Ericus Walten Although the affair of the pamphlets was over by the end of 1690, the scandalmongering would sour the rest of Romeyn’s days. His assiduous helper Ericus Walten was to suffer worse consequences. His part in the pamphleteering attracted the attention ­ omeyn’s of William iii, and William’s intercession had serious consequences for R standing and safety. We must therefore turn to the vicissitudes of Walten after ­Romeyn had betrayed him. Ditched – but also alerted – by Romeyn, Walten settled in Rotterdam. Here he witnessed the riots that broke out in the early days of October 1690, when a frenzied mob razed the house of the local bailiff.1 He again put his pen at the disposal of the Orangist cause and wrote two pamphlets in defence of bailiff Jacob van Zuylen van Nijevelt, a notoriously corrupt official, but also William iii’s client and strongman in Rotterdam.2 His next project was the controversy around Balthasar Bekker, the Reformed ­minister who in The World Bewitch’d denied the existence of ghosts, spirits, witches, and the devil.3 His book was an immediate bestseller, with almost 6,000 copies of the two volumes selling out in two months.4 It sparked a furious debate, conducted in some 200 books and pamphlets. Bekker’s orthodox opponents banned him from the Lord’s Supper and had him sacked from the pulpit. Walten became the most mordant of Bekker’s defenders, labelling his enemies as ‘seditious, Devil-sick usurpers, Satan-worshippers, and disturbers of the common peace’, forever seeking to rob the common man of the right to think for himself.5 His head-on attack on the clerical establishment was as radical as it was reckless. In November 1693, the Synod of South Holland submitted a petition to the Hof van Holland. Indignant at his ‘filthy mockeries, gruesome slander, and absurd distortions of the Word of God, and charging the orthodox opinion of the Reformed Church with horrible consequences’ they demanded Walten’s seizure and the suppression of his writings.6 On 19 March 1694, he was arrested on a charge of blasphemy and locked up in the Gevangenpoort jail in The Hague.7 1 Knuttel, ‘Ericus Walten’, pp. 383–390. 2 Onnekink, Anglo-Dutch Favourite, p. 118; nnbw, vol. 3, col. 1523. Walten’s pamphlets, published anonymously, are Kn. 13525, Waerachtigh verhael, and Kn. 13526, Tweede deel van het Waerachtigh verhael. 3 Bekker, Betoverde weereld. On Walten’s defence of Bekker, see Fix, Fallen Angels, pp. 107–108 and 116–124. 4 Israel, Radical Enlightenment, p. 383. 5 Quoted ibid., p. 387. 6 Quoted in Knuttel, ‘Ericus Walten’, p. 406. 7 Ibid., p. 407.

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During the following months, the justices of the Hof interrogated Walten about his theological views. On the basis of his private diaries and a Bible containing his annotations, all seized in his lodgings, as well as testimonies by witnesses, they confronted him with his scoffing remarks about the Prophets, the Fall of man, and many other scriptural tenets. He had argued, for example, that the Saviour, being ‘the descendant of an incestuous bastard’ (meaning Perez, a child procreated by Judah with his daughter-in-law Tamar), could not possibly gain salvation.8 He had asserted that Adam’s sin was not eating the forbidden fruit, but his desire to follow God in making men, by which he meant procreation – a thought evidently derived from Adriaan Beverland.9 His irreverent mockeries, intended to demonstrate the untenability of certain theological positions contrary to reason, marked him as a freethinker. Walten’s attitude towards the Holy Writ is reminiscent of Romeyn’s allegedly blasphemous remarks as recorded in the ‘Memorandum of Rights’. That was also the conclusion of the justices, all the more so as the examinations amply documented Romeyn’s role in the 1690 libelling campaign. On 14 July 1694, the attorney general consequently requested the court’s permission to prosecute all booksellers and printers involved in the pamphleteering, ‘especially Romeyn de Hooghe, because he had been forgiven and remained uncorrected regarding the blasphemy described in the “Memorandum of Rights”’.10 The justices responded differently. Some of them voted to allow the attorney general to collect evidence against Romeyn, while others advised that the Walten case should first be finished, and only then should they decide whether to proceed.11 These considerations, though debated in the seclusion of the chambers of the Hof, alarmed the Orangist leadership. On 7 September, William asked the court to send him all written materials regarding the Walten case. Having studied the file, he wrote another letter on 2 November in which he expressed his satisfaction about the court’s diligence in prosecuting Walten for ‘the horrible crime of blasphemy’. The libels of 1690, however, were an entirely different matter. They had crassly attacked the king and dislodged almost the entire government. These disputes were now over, to everyone’s satisfaction. It would be in the interest of the commonwealth if all these unfortunate matters were relegated to oblivion. An investigation into the pamphleteering might entail raking up the past and provoking fresh disturbances. He consequently requested the court to terminate its investigation into the libels and draw up a draft act of amnesty covering all those involved.

8 9 10 11

Ibid., p. 432; cf. Genesis 38. Knuttel, ‘Ericus Walten’, pp. 436–437, 440. Walten Papers, no. 10; Knuttel, ‘Ericus Walten’, p. 441. Walten Papers, nos. 38, 39, 41.

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The justices of the Hof answered on 22 December.12 They enclosed a draft bill as requested by the king, but advised against enacting it. Amnesty as a legal instrument, they argued, was only advisable in cases where a crime could not be punished because of the great number of perpetrators, for example in the wake of riots. Issuing an amnesty act would not smother, but rather resuscitate the memory of the former disagreements. It would be preferable if those involved were quietly to petition the king for individual letters of abolition. It took until May 1695 for William to send his answer, enclosing an ‘act of abolition or pardon’ to be issued by the States of Holland.13 The text stated unequivocally that ‘Ericus Walten, as well as all others, with no exception, who may be guilty of the writing, printing, divulging, commissioning, furnishing materials pertaining thereunto, or selling of the said slanderous libels and pasquils […], are entirely and absolutely pardoned’ for the said crime. Substituting ‘abolition or pardon’ for ‘amnesty’, the king followed the advice of the court to some extent, but the justices remained dissatisfied, because the ruling was a general one instead of an individual favour bequeathed on request. They realised, however, that they could not ignore his wishes. Only on 12 October 1695 – more than a year after William had broached the matter – did they grudgingly consent to have the edict registered.14 It is questionable whether Romeyn was aware of the legal deliberations conducted in the chambers of the Hof, but the promulgation of the edict must have come as a relief. He no longer had to fear legal prosecution for his involvement in the libelling. His dedication to the Orangist cause had paid off; the king had saved his skin. That was not the case for Walten. By the time the edict was finally registered, he had spent nineteen months in jail. The last time the court had examined him was fifteen months ago. The edict absolved him from his involvement in the Pamphlet War, but not from the much graver charge of blasphemy. One would expect the court to resume the case vigorously, now that it had been settled once and for all that the libels would play no part in it. Indeed, the court did resolve on 28 November 1695 to give the attorney general another hearing and reopen the case on the first trial day after the Christmas vacation. Yet no such thing happened. A whole year passed without the court taking any action, while Walten languished in jail. When entering the Gevangenpoort jail, Walten had been reasonably well provided with money to see to his needs. After almost three years, his means were exhausted. In January 1697, he wrote to the attorney general, imploring him to restore several silver medals and an unpaid bill that had been seized during his arrest. His clothes and shoes, he complained, were worn out and he was suffering 12 Ibid., no. 5, Hof van Holland to William iii, 21 December 1694. 13 Ibid., nos. 3 and 4, William iii to Hof van Holland, 29 May 1695. 14 Knuttel, ‘Ericus Walten’, pp. 447–448.

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from the freezing cold. Receiving no answer, he wrote again. Once more, he received no reaction.15 On 9 February, he finally wrote a heart-breaking letter to the bailiff (drossaard) of the Hof van Holland, Marinus de Jeude, who was in charge of the jail in which he was being held.16 He had heard nothing from the attorney general, ‘as if I had written to someone not in this world, but in the other one’. He had written several times over the last six weeks, merely asking to have his property restored. ‘Your Honour knows that I am without clothes, without stockings and shoes and without linen. And for want of money, I cannot have the old linen rags laundered that I still have’. This was followed by a threat to commit suicide, should his situation not improve: If I am not sufficiently tormented by being kept confined for such a horribly long time, and if it be judged that I should be vexed even more, one ought to impose a bearable burden upon me, one that is habitually imposed upon people. I shall then demonstrate that my God and Creator has endowed me with an excess of patience and endurance. Yet the same God and Creator has also taught me not to put my shoulders under any other burdens than bearable ones, that patience and endurance should only be exercised there […]. Who is obliged to do the impossible? If unbearable burdens and impossible matters are being inflicted upon me, and I have found no support after trying all possible means, [He has taught me] to withdraw my shoulders deftly and unabashedly from under such burdens.

For some time, it seemed as though Walten’s cries of distress were being heeded. Two days later, the Hof ordered the bailiff to have Walten compose a list of the items he needed and to provide him with these. The Hof also decided to resume his case as soon as one of its members had returned from a mission to Zeeland. Whether this took a long time is not known, but the justices failed to follow up their intention. Only on 13 June did they again mention Walten’s name, when ordering that his ‘little cabinet’ be publicly auctioned. Ericus Walten had stayed true to his word and taken his own life.17 It is unlikely that Romeyn had any idea – or cared – about what was going on in the dungeons of the Hof. Walten had been an invaluable help during the troubles of 1690, but that was a long time ago. Moreover, Romeyn had promised the authorities 15 Walten also filed two petitions to the same effect to the Hof, which went unheeded: Walten Papers, nos. 8 and 9. 16 Ibid., no. 7; Knuttel, ‘Ericus Walten’, pp. 449–452. Walten directed his letter imprecisely to ‘M. de Joode, drossaard van Holland, Zeeland en West-Friesland’. On de Jeude as an art collector, see Campo Weyerman, Levens-beschryvingen, p. 130. His art collection was auctioned on 15 April 1739; Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis, vol. 1, pp. 76, 118, 283. 17 Knuttel, ‘Ericus Walten’, pp. 452–453. The Synod of South Holland held in Breda in 1697 reported that Walten ‘has passed away in jail in a miserable manner’.

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to help track the man down in return for a public rehabilitation that had never materialized. And there were pressing matters that demanded his full attention.

Running a Spy Network A master in the art of promoting the image of the stadtholder-king, Romeyn was indispensable for the Orangists. But the opposite was also true; if anything, Romeyn had learned from his predicament in the Pamphlet War that his safety, his well-being, and perhaps his life depended on the continuing support of King William and his circle. That may be why he decided to make himself useful in more ways than one, and became a secret agent running a spy network. His activities in this field intensified his relations with the Orangist leadership, but they did not bring him the awards and advancement he had hoped for. In December 1692, the king’s councillor and secretary Willem van Schuylenburg reported to his master that Romeyn had told him that he had discovered a conspiracy against the state, and wanted to travel to London in order to advise the king personally as to the best way to thwart it.18 Romeyn, in a letter enclosed with Schuylenburg’s dispatch, described how around 1680, he had made the acquaintance of a shady native of Rome named Borghese at the house of another Italian named Romano, ‘the ­coffee-man near the Bourse’.19 Borghese, now using another name, Caraffa – and in Germany, the rather grander title of ‘Baron Borgers’ – was living in Rotterdam near the Fish Market ‘with a certain lady […] to whom he said he was married, who is a full cousin of Madam Powis, the governess of the pretended Prince of Wales’.20 In December 1690, when Romeyn was engrossed in designing the triumphal arches for the festive entry of William iii into The Hague, Borghese had approached him and sounded him out as to ‘whether he would be disposed to serve the king of France’. To this end, he had shown written authorizations from both Louis xiv and James ii. Romeyn had immediately alerted Schuylenburg. With Borghese’s help, he designed ‘a chemical alphabet or cipher’ (apparently involving invisible ink) enabling them to communicate secretly. He shared the cypher with Bentinck. It took more than a year before the agent (who was ‘travelling from town to town, taking with him the aforementioned lady’) approached him again, in February 1692. Bentinck and Schuylenburg encouraged Romeyn to establish closer ties, so as to be able to turn his designs against him. Acting as a double agent, he succeeded in gaining Borghese’s confidence by feeding him bogus information. 18 nul, Pw A, inv. no. 1144, Schuylenburg to William iii, 26 December 1692. 19 nul, Pw A, inv. no. 1874/2, Romeyn de Hooghe to William iii, 24 December 1692, published in Correspondentie van Willem iii, part 1, vol. 1, p. 374. 20 Elisabeth Somerset, younger daughter of the 2nd Marquess of Worcester, was married to William Herbert, 1st Marquess of Powis.

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The upshot was that Borghese and two other French agents – one styling himself as the Marquis de Blagny, the other Blavet – came up with a concrete plan to cause floods by cutting the dikes of the River Maas near Rotterdam and the River IJ near Amsterdam. This would cause so much confusion that the ‘malcontents’ in ­Rotterdam and elsewhere in Holland would revolt, aided by the arrival of a French expeditionary force of 25,000 men at the province’s southern frontier. Romeyn’s role was to advise them about the best locations and timing for their scheme. The etcher, they alleged, was an expert in this field, because he had designed maps of the water control districts of Rijnland and Schieland. They promised to send two petardiers (soldiers in charge of explosives) disguised as Huguenot refugees to help him do the job. Romeyn’s account sounds highly implausible. Five years earlier, as we saw in Chapter 2, he had indeed produced a new edition of a map of the Rijnland district, by adding corrections to the old plates and designing an ornate border with the escutcheons of the regents of the hoogheemraadschap (fig. 12.1). But this did not suddenly turn him into an expert in aquatic engineering.21 Moreover, he had never made a map of the Schieland district, which would have been necessary for the enterprise on the Maas sluices. Were the French agents merely poorly informed, or was Romeyn spinning a story? And why did they approach Romeyn, of all people, a man widely known to be William’s client? Romeyn’s activities as a double agent were closely connected to another project, equally remote from his activities as a printmaker. In April 1692, he succeeded in obtaining a private audience with William at Het Loo palace, during which he broached a plan to attack the port of Dunkirk. Since 1689, the French navy had been no match for the combined British and Dutch fleets, but French privateers based at Saint-Malo, Calais, and especially Dunkirk, continued to inflict heavy losses on British and Dutch merchant shipping. Romeyn’s stratagem amounted to sending a convoy of scrapped fishing vessels filled with kegs of gunpowder, functioning as floating bombs, into one of these ports. William warmed to the idea and charged the naval engineer Willem de Meester with its execution.22 Several attempted raids using the ‘machine vessels’ ended in failure, but de Meester took the blame, while Romeyn went scot-free. In a letter to the king, Romeyn conveys the impression that he continued to play a major role in the enterprise. He had shared his knowledge with the French agents, who had handed him passports enabling two ships to dock in Dunkirk, and they had encouraged him to persuade William to undertake an assault using the ‘fire ships’. Romeyn would have to relay to the agents the precise time and circumstances of the raid. Warned well in advance, the French army would be in a position to overwhelm the allied forces with relative ease. 21 le 277, Hameleers, Bibliografie, pp. 221–233, cat. no. 72. 22 Roorda, ‘Loopbaan’.

Fig. 12.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, Map of Hoogheemraadschap Rijnland, second state, 1687.

The agents promised Romeyn ample rewards in return for his services, to be paid on top of the compensation he was to receive for abandoning his properties in Holland. His wife and daughter would be brought safely from Ghent to the nearest French-conquered territories (in a later version, they were to be saved from Aix-laChapelle). The agents hoped that Romeyn himself would take charge of the maritime operation, defect with the fire ships in Dunkirk, and from there misguide the allied troops with his signals and thus ‘lead them to the slaughtering block’. This project, too, sounds rather fantastic. Why would the king entrust a complex naval operation to someone completely unexperienced in military matters? Even so, William and the Orangist leaders took Romeyn’s information seriously. On 22 J­anuary 1693, he again informed Bentinck that he wished to discuss the matter privately with the king.23 A week later, he had a lengthy meeting with Heinsius, Schuylenburg, and

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the secretary of the Amsterdam Admiralty, Hiob de Wildt. They encouraged him to continue his secret correspondence with the enemy and promised that they would refrain from taking any measures regarding the Maas and IJ sluices without his foreknowledge, ‘because they found that point eminently practicable’. But Heinsius expressed his doubts to Bentinck, stating that ‘the design appears very extensive and uncertain’.24 Four months later, Heinsius sent Bentinck two secret memoranda that he had received from Romeyn.25 One of them, entitled Project of the Enemy, divulged in great detail how the petardiers would blow up the IJ and Maas sluices, how the French forces would march to Rotterdam, and how Romeyn himself would sail to Dunkirk with two machine ships. The second memorandum was entitled Project of Our People – Following my Concept and outlined in even more detail how to arrest the petardiers and the French spies, how to trap and destroy the French forces at the southern frontier, and how to wreak havoc at Dunkirk. Notwithstanding Romeyn’s comprehensive instructions, none of these plans ever came to fruition. The only tangible result, as far as Romeyn was concerned, was another news print showing a two-pronged attack on the port of Dunkirk in 1695 (fig. 12.2).26 Two years later, in July 1694, Romeyn again dispatched a letter to Bentinck in which he informed him about another set of spies he was running.27 He expressed his satisfaction that Heinsius had allowed him to get rid of a certain agent named Cleran. Out of credit and business, Romeyn wrote, Cleran was more interested in pocketing his fee than delivering news. He was now handling another agent, named du Ruel, and he highly recommended a certain La Feuillie, who ‘for a long time had delivered trustworthy news reports, had widely extended intrigues and acquaintances among the malcontents with the enemy, and had a thorough knowledge of the areas where our forces and the French engage; he is very honest, devout, and fervently hates the King of France’. And, crucially, La Feuilly was offering his services free of charge. Few things in the Dutch Republic came for free, and Romeyn’s loyalty was not one of them. The second half of his letter therefore took a different tack. ‘Your Excellency will be surprised’, he wrote, ‘that I return to the vacancy of the office of pensionary 23 nul, Pw A, inv. no. 1875, Romeyn de Hooghe to Bentinck, 22 January 1693, published in Correspondentie van Willem iii, vol. 1.1, no. 301. 24 nul, Pw A, inv. no. 1915/1–2, Heinsius to Bentinck, 30 January 1693, published in Correspondentie van Willem iii, vol. 1.1, pp. 420–421, no. 385. On de Wildt, see Elias, Vroedschap, pp. 392–393. 25 Correspondentie van Willem iii, vol. 1.1, p. 317, no. 385, Heinsius to William III, 31 May 1693. Romeyn’s memoranda are in nul, Pw A, inv. nos. 1876 and 1877. Undated and unsigned, they are in Romeyn’s handwriting. 26 le 184; fmh 2913. 27 Fondation Custodia (Paris), Autographs, inv. no. I-7482, Romeyn de Hooghe to Bentinck, 10 July 1694.

Fig. 12.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, Attack on Dunkirk, 1695.

of Haarlem, a topic I had ostensibly dropped’. The pensionary was a city’s most important official, acting as its spokesman in the States meetings, reporting directly to the Vroedschap, and representing continuity in a government that changed its composition every year. The previous incumbent, Mattheus van Valckenburgh, had died in March 1694, and no successor had so far been appointed.28 Apparently, Romeyn had approached Bentinck at an earlier occasion, begging for his recommendation for the job, but to no avail. He now gave it another try, diligently listing six reasons why he would be the perfect choice: First, I am known to have a better understanding than anyone else of the interests of the citizens’ means of existence and welfare. Second, being able to live well from what is mine, and unburdened by family, I shall have the courage to push good sentiments [i.e., the Orangist agenda]. Third, I would exercise that office with more lustre and splendour. Fourth, I am familiar and welcome among all regents (with the exception of some of those of Amsterdam that I have lost for the sake 28 Van Valckenburgh had died on 1 March 1694. Van Lennep, Van Valkenburg, pp. 77–83; De Jongste, Haarlemse pensionarissen, p. 102.

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of Your Excellency), and especially with the Lord Grand Pensionary [Heinsius], as His Grace affirms. Fifth, I know more languages than any of the [other] pretenders. Sixth, I have penetrated into foreign affairs and foreign courts better than anyone among the same.

The most important reason why Bentinck should recommend Romeyn came last: But above all (I dare to add emphatically), because I am engaged with Your Excellency’s interests, and desire to become so even more. Finally, if Your Excellency agrees with these or more other considerations, let him remember with what vigour I have followed everything that My Lord has approved, without regard to dangers; and that this is the only reason why I was the butt of all His Excellency’s enemies. Should it not be part of Your Excellency’s generosity to advance his most faithful servant?

It is not known whether Bentinck even deigned to send an answer; but it is certain that Romeyn’s plea fell on deaf ears. The precise nature of Romeyn’s secret activities as double agent remains shrouded in darkness. Yet his short-lived career as a spy perfectly illustrates two things. First, the intimacy of his relations with the Orangist leadership, including the king-stadtholder himself, and the amount of trust they continued to invest in him. Second, it shows that Romeyn never lost sight of his objective to raise himself in society. Another proven means of achieving the same end was an astute marriage. Finding a distinguished and well-connected partner for his daughter Maria Romana, who was now approaching marriageable age, would undoubtedly boost his present and future standing.

Father and Daughter In March 1690, Maria Romana de Hooghe celebrated her sixteenth birthday. It is unlikely to have been a happy time for her. Everybody in town had presumably read the ugly libels that kept being shoved under the door of her home. They tainted her whole family: her mother a whore, her father an atheist, a thief, and a pornographer. Very worst of all, her father was maliciously accused of doing unspeakable things to her, Maria Romana. Was there any truth in that allegation? In any case, the teenage girl is likely to have been deeply upset. Romeyn had great plans for his daughter. A good marriage had to safeguard and further expand the family’s rise in status, for which he had so skilfully laid the foundations. As early as 1690 or 1691, he promised his daughter’s hand to Caspar

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Frederick Henning, secretary to the Earl of Portland, Hans Willem Bentinck. A native of Glückstadt in the Duchy of Holstein, Henning became a naturalized Englishman in 1693.29 He was engaged in the laying-out and upkeep of the royal gardens at Hampton Court and elsewhere, for which he received and handled huge imprests from the Treasury.30 Later in his career, from 1700 to 1702 and again between 1714 and 1727, he was to hold the position of Keeper of the Privy Purse.31 It is likely that Henning got acquainted with Romeyn and his daughter in the spring of 1690, when Bentinck was in Holland managing William’s feud with Amsterdam. The matrimonial bond would cement Romeyn’s ties to Bentinck and the king, and guarantee future protection, patronage, and a stream of useful information. But Maria Romana, as headstrong as her father, had other plans. In 1692, at Haarlem’s ­ ornelis van der Gon, and the two started seeing annual fair, she met a certain C each other.32 Cornelis was fourteen years older than his sweetheart. His background was shady; his father, Nicolaas van der Gon, had at one time been employed as secretary to the village administration of Alphen aan den Rijn. Caught tampering with the community’s fiscal administration, he had been fired and declared bankrupt. The family had abandoned the town in disgrace and resettled in Haarlem, where Nicolaas found an administrative job as bailiff to Holland’s provincial tax office.33 He apprenticed his son as clerk to a notary, but Cornelis dropped out, never to follow the profession. Several years later, the young man became involved in a tavern brawl, in which one of his companions was fatally wounded. The sheriff charged Cornelis, ‘an individual living dissolutely and rashly’, for ‘malice and violence’ and for being an accomplice to the tragic event, only to find that the accused had flown the coop. By 1689 Cornelis was back in Haarlem, where he moved in with his widowed father and two spinster sisters in Kruisstraat, just around the corner from the de Hooghes’ family home. Probably making his living by intermittent clerking, he supplemented his meagre income by writing occasional poetry for weddings and other family celebrations. Cornelis van der Gon embodied everything Romeyn loathed in a future son-inlaw. He was penniless and had debts; he was of questionable descent, and at one time wanted by the sheriff’s office. He was a tavern-crawler, a hack, and a second-rate 29 Letters of Denization, p. 228: ‘Caspar Frederick Henning, born at Gluckstadt in Holstein, son of John Caspar Henning and Philadelphia, his wife’ (1693). Strode & Henning was a London-based trading company, originating from Glückstadt, which dealt in wine and sugar; Caspar Frederick’s father may have been one of the partners (Schulte Beerbühl, Deutsche Kaufleute, pp. 105–106, 112, 135). Henning made his testament in 1737; in 1743, Lydia Henning was his widow. wro, 705:366/2252, parcel no. 5. 30 Calendar of Treasury Books, passim. 31 Office-Holders in Modern Britain, pp. 11–12. 32 The following is based on De Haas, Wie de wereld, pp. 60–78. 33 Van der Gon Sr was employed as deurwaarder van de gemene landsmiddelen.

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poet. His past was as miserable as his future seemed bleak. Maria Romana convinced Cornelis that it would be pointless to ask her father for her hand. The couple thought up a better plan: they would elope. According to the law, a couple with wedding plans needed their parents’ consent as long as they were underage (below 25 for men, twenty for women). But at the same time, a wedding vow (the so-called verba de futuro) followed by sexual intercourse was legally binding, even if the couple were minors.34 Such vows were preferably made in the presence of one or more witnesses, and often sealed with an exchange of pledges such as a ring, a coin, or a medal. Youngsters could force their parents’ hands by eloping. The parents could not prevent the wedding from taking place, though they might deny their wayward children their statutory inheritance. Elopement, which assumed the consent of the female partner, was fundamentally different from abduction, in which case a man forcefully kidnapped a woman. Abduction was punishable with death, although this seldom occurred in practice. On Friday 11 July 1692, Maria Romana, Cornelis, and his sister Cornelia sailed in a rented private barge to Gouda. It is certain that Maria Romana did not leave against her will, for the etcher Jan van Vianen, when making his evening stroll along the Nieuwe Gracht on the night before, saw her lowering a parcel from a window to an unknown woman (almost certainly Cornelia), who carried it to the van der Gon home. From Gouda, the conspirators travelled overland via Rotterdam to Schiedam. Here, Cornelis’ aunt Margrietje Veret and her fourteen-year-old daughter Catharina had prepared a room. Cornelis’ other sister, Anna, was also present. She and Cornelis soon returned to Haarlem, where they arrived not later than the evening of 13 July. Meanwhile, Romeyn was frantically searching for his daughter, and eventually visited Cornelis’ father. Van der Gon Sr bluntly informed the baffled Romeyn that he would only see his daughter again if he forgave both perpetrators and consented to their marriage. For the time being, there was little Romeyn could do. The two fathers met the next day at the familiar office of notary Rens, where Romeyn signed an ‘act of pardon and consent’. Unbeknownst to van der Gon, he had the notary draw up a second deed stating that he regarded himself in no way legally bound by the previous one, ‘being forced and necessitated in a menacing and evil manner against his will’.35 Maria Romana should have known better than to try to force her father’s hand. Romeyn immediately took the initiative. He tracked witnesses (among them Jan van Vianen and his old friend Nicolaas Assendelft) and had them make notarized statements.36 He filed a complaint at the sheriff’s office. On 14 July, Cornelis, barely returned home, was arrested and, at Romeyn’s request, committed to custody.37 34 35 36 37

Van der Heijden, Huwelijk, p. 31. nha, 1617, inv. no. 402, ff. 143–144 (12 July 1692). nha, 1617, inv. no. 402, f. 148; inv. no. 549, no 90 (15 July 1692), and nos. 91, 92 (16 July 1692). nha, 184, inv. no. 56:1 (23 July 1692).

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The news of Cornelis’ imprisonment caused panic among the women in S­ chiedam. Anna travelled to The Hague to consult her uncle, the lawyer Willem Schaep. He advised Maria Romana to produce a notarized statement to the effect that Cornelis had acted only for himself. That might absolve him of the charge of abduction. ­Otherwise, the girls insisted, the judiciary would threaten their brother and cousin’s life and first ‘behead him, then hang him, then do worse’; Maria Romana would then be solely responsible, not only for Cornelis’ death, but also for ‘the death and total ruin’ of his father and sister.38 Maria Romana initially refused, but eventually gave in and signed a private act that Anna had drafted. Interrogated in jail, Cornelis flatly denied having abducted Maria Romana or being aware of her whereabouts. He alleged that she had signed a statement to the effect that he had neither abducted her nor eloped with her. He had merely assisted her in fleeing her parents’ house. Romeyn subjected his daughter to massive pressure as soon as she returned home. She had to deny her own active involvement and put the blame on Cornelis. On 5 August, Maria Romana, her resistance broken and ‘lying ill in bed’, stated in the presence of a notary that the unfortunate event had occurred entirely against her will.39 She retracted the deed drawn up in Schiedam, which she said Cornelis’ sisters, acting ‘sinisterly and deceptively’, had forced her to sign. The statements of Maria Romana and Cornelis are contradictory. For Maria ­Romana, denying her own part in the escapade was the only way to rescue her frayed honour. But in doing so, she incriminated Cornelis. In order to escape conviction for abduction, her lover had to deny any involvement in the affair. Both fathers were eventually content to let the matter rest. Cornelis was released from jail after two months on condition that he kept himself at the disposal of the judiciary.40 The court never passed a verdict against him. Romeyn’s case was weak, because all of the witnesses’ depositions – including those summoned by himself – suggested that his daughter had cooperated wilfully. Shortly before running away, Maria Romana had made Cornelis a present of a precious crystal snuffbox with gold fittings.41 What else could the trinket have been if not a symbol to secure her vow? But the elopement had stranded on Romeyn’s firm resolve. Two years later, on 11 August 1694, Maria Romana and the man her father had selected for her, Caspar Frederick Henning, gave notice of their intended marriage. Arch-gossip Constantijn Huygens Jr noted in his diary that the marriage ‘had been stalled for three or four years’ and that ‘something scandalous’ had occurred. Not entirely aware of all the ins and outs, he was surely hinting at the affair with 38 nha, 1617, inv. no. 549, no. 99 (5 August 1692). 39 Ibid. 40 nha, 184, inv. no. 26.9G, f. 185 vo (26 September 1692). 41 nha, 1617, inv. no. 594, f. 5-5 vo (10 October 1692).

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Cornelis van der Gon. He later added that Romeyn had promised Henning a dowry of 30,000 guilders, but that ‘he would not give him much, as he was a good-for-nothing [deughniet]’.42 On Sunday, 15 August, the first of the mandatory three marriage banns was proclaimed in Haarlem’s Walloon Church. An intended marriage had to be publicly proclaimed three times so as to enable interested parties to object. Grounds for objection were forbidden kinship relations between the spouses, the absence of parental consent (especially in the case of minors), and the existence of an earlier marriage or vows. In practice, objections were seldom brought forward, but this time Cornelis van der Gon seized his opportunity. On the next Saturday, 21 August, he appeared before Haarlem’s schepenen to state his objection.43 But the documents he produced, the same ones he had used in his defence two years earlier against the abduction charge, failed to convince the magistrates. They ruled that his case was unfounded and that the proclamations of the banns should continue. The documents Cornelis produced are lost, but they must have contained proof or an indication that Maria Romana had pledged to marry him. Fortunately for her anxious father, Maria Romana insisted that no such vows had ever been exchanged and that she wished to pursue her intended marriage to Henning. On the same day that Cornelis filed his objections, the burgomasters of Haarlem received a request to have the two remaining banns proclaimed on a single day. Couples sometimes submitted such a demand, for example when the groom was about to embark on a sea voyage. In this case, the argument was that Henning had to leave urgently ‘to expedite the affairs of the Earl of Portland in the army’. The couple – and especially the bride’s father – were apparently anxious to avoid any further trouble. The wedding was promptly celebrated on the next day, Sunday, 22 August, immediately following the proclamation of the second and third banns. The end of the story was as unexpected as it was tragic. Only four months later, on 27 December 1694, Maria Romana died in London.44 She was twenty years old. Her father’s troubles to find a suitable partner, and get rid of the dissolute van der Gon, had been in vain. His hopes and expectations for perpetuating his family line had come to naught. What had happened? Just one day after Maria Romana’s death, William iii’s spouse Mary Stuart died of smallpox at Kensington Palace. It is quite possible that the same infectious disease felled the youthful Mrs Henning. But the true history

42 Huygens, Journaal, vol. 2, pp. 390 and 426. 43 nha, 184, inv. no. 26.10.g, ff. 141vo-142vo (21 August 1694). 44 The only known source for the date of Maria Romana’s death is the poem quoted below, saa, 30579, inv. no. 848. It is uncertain whether the date mentioned is in old or new style. If in o.s., Maria Romana’s death would have taken place on 6 January 1695 n.s.

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of the short-lived marriage remains shrouded in mystery. Henning’s private papers reveal next to nothing about it. Between the names and addresses of relatives, friends, business relations, and purveyors of useful commodities, a small notebook lists the following item, ostensibly to remind the owner of his late wife’s birthday: Maria Romana de Hooghe Born in Amsterdam, on the 2nd day of March, 1674. Dead.45

On another page, Henning drew up an inventory of a complete bedroom suit ‘sent to Mr Romeyn de Hooghe at Harlem [sic] and now in his Custody’, consisting of a four-poster bed with calico bed-curtains, valences, hangings, backs and seats for twelve chairs, and more. Consisting of 64 pieces in all, the set must have been Maria Romana’s trousseau. Three years after the death of his first wife, Henning married again, this time to a woman named Lydia Martyn. Among his papers is a letter in Latin from Romeyn, dated 8 January 1700 and addressed to Henning’s present father-in-law, Nicholas ­Martyn.46 Romeyn congratulates him, also on behalf of his wife, on the happy news that ­Lydia is expecting.47 His wording reveals that the de Hooghes continued to regard Caspar as ‘our much beloved son’ and consequently Lydia as their own daughter. But the news had also re-opened old wounds. ‘At last something that diverts us from our own ­daughter’, he sighed, and added a learned literary reference: ‘From your daughter, may little ­Ascanius play in our hall’. Ascanius was the son of Aeneas, who fled with his father from Troy and settled in Italy. The sentence refers to a passage in Vergil’s Aeneid, in which Dido, abandoned by her lover, laments: ‘If only I had a child by you, conceived before you took flight; if only a tiny Aeneas were to play in my halls, his face recalling your own, then I would not feel so completely trapped and abandoned’.48 In true humanist fashion, Romeyn gave vent to his feelings only in covert terms. But the reference to one of the most tragic heroines in classical literature reveals the depth of his grief. His sadness, in a more convoluted form, is also captured in an etching published shortly after Maria Romana’s death. Among the dozens of pamphlets and prints memorializing the demise of Queen Mary, a series of ten etchings made by Romeyn stands out.49 As had been the case in 1688 and 1689, he had a privileged source and made his etchings ‘after original drawing(s) from the court’ in London. One of the prints, representing the body of the queen lying in state while mourning courtiers offer their condolences to William (fig. 12.3), has a separate explanatory text sheet 45 wro, 705:366/2252, parcel 7: ‘Maria Romana de Hooghe/ Nata Amstelodami, ii. die Martii, 1674. Dead’. 46 wro, 705:366/2252, parcel 4, no ii. 47 The child was not born alive, or died young, because the marriage between Caspar and Lydia Henning remained childless. 48 Vergil, Aeneid, 4: 327, italics mine. 49 le 171–183; h 189–198; fmh 2905 (1–10); Hyde, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe’.

Fig. 12.3. Romeyn de Hooghe after Anon., Queen Mary ii on her Deathbed, 1695.

dedicated to Willem Fabricius, entitled ‘Condolences of State to His Majesty of Great Britain, etc., on the Death of Her Majesty his Inimitable Spouse’.50 In a burst of unusual open-heartedness, in the opening sentence Romeyn refers to his grief about the loss of his daughter: I had decided to stop etching a long time ago, so as not, now that I am ageing, to darken the esteem I had gained with my previous works from art-lovers by pursuing my activities too long. Yet, while lesser and greater spirits communicated their sadness, I have been obliged, engaged with the common disasters,

50 le 174; h 194; fmh 2905–6. The text sheet is entitled Condoleantie van staat, aan Syne Majesteyt van Groot Brittagne, &c., wegens het af-sterven van Hare Majesteit, syne onvergelijkelijke gemalinne. Opgeoffert aan den Wel-Ed. Gestrengen Heer Wilhelm Fabricius, raad en regerend burgemeester der stadt Haarlem, Hoog-baljuw van Kermerland, &c. (rma, rp-p-ob-77.222, not catalogued in fmh). Leeflang, ‘Waarheid’, pp. 142–143. 51 Italics mine.

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and plagued by my own special loss, to mitigate the mourning for my daughter with busy activity.51

Again, libellers were waiting for an opportunity to take a shot at him, even in the hour of his deepest misery. A malicious poem entitled ‘Romeyn Lamenting the Death of his Daughter, Deceased in London on 27 December 1694’ mockingly purports to quote his words.52 The anonymous author – possibly Cornelis van der Gon – has Romeyn cry out for the loss of his daughter, who has suffered for the wrongdoings of her father. He had hoped to use her as a vehicle for the advancement of his own ambitions, but is left empty-handed. His wife furiously blames him for their loss. His disregard for her own choice of husband has sent the child to an untimely grave. Begging the Lord’s forgiveness, he promises to mend his ways. But suddenly he hears his own words, sobers up, and reverts to his true self. His greed is stronger than his remorse: But hush! What do I say? What words? What reason? Is this me? Whither fly my thoughts? What words does sadness make me utter before the whole world! Come old foundation, do stem my cowardly deeds; Submit again to the fortune bestowed upon you: And honour to the grave that supreme power; Choose the best part, the lustre here below; And thus approach death, haughtily in your steps, So that (though you are dying) everyone can see That in all your doings you are the same Roman.53

The bitter epilogue to this episode came in March 1695, when Haarlem’s schepenen ruled that Romeyn owed almost 90 guilders, to be paid to the widow of the city’s jailer and to the sheriff, for the cost of keeping Cornelis van der Gon in custody at his request.54

52 The only known copy is in saa, 30579, inv. no. 848. The poem is partly quoted in De Haas, Wie de wereld, p. 75, and De Haas, ‘Commissaris’, p. 21. 53 ‘Maar sagt, wat segge ik? Wat voor woorden? Welke re’en?/ Ben ik dit selver wel? Waar vliegt mijn denken heên?/ Wat doet de droefheyt my voor al de Werelt uytten?/ Kom oude grondslag wilt mijn laffe daden sluyten [read: stuyten];/ Geef u weêr over aan het lot u toegeleyt;/ En eerd tot aan het Graf die Oppermogendheyt:/ Verkiest het beste deel, de luyster van beneden;/ En naderd so de Dood, hoogmoedig in uw schreden;/ Op dat (schoon hoe gy sterft) een ieder siet ten spijt,/ Dat gy in al uw doen de selfde Rômer zijt’. 54 nha, ora inv. no. 26:11, f. 5 (2 March 1695).

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Vassal of Kennemerland Despite these setbacks, Romeyn did not give up his ambitions. Having served as a judge on Haarlem’s Minor Bench of Justice for just two terms, he remained a member of the board of the municipal orphanage for the rest of his life. Such minor offices normally constituted the first step in a regent’s career. It must have been painful for him to see how all four colleagues with whom he had sat on the bench were soon elected to higher offices. Three of them made it to the Vroedschap, the most elevated office to which a citizen could aspire.55 There can be little doubt that the stagnation of his career was due to the scandalmongering. Even if the Orangist magistrates continued to protect him, many citizens of Haarlem were horrified by the idea of having a man of such questionable reputation pass sentence on them. An attempt to cajole Bentinck into making him pensionary of Haarlem had failed. His luck changed in 1695, when he was elected vassal or liegeman (leenman) of the bailiwick (baljuwschap) of Kennemerland, the vast rural district surrounding Haarlem. But this success, too, was to be darkened by scandal. The bench of bailiff and vassals (baljuw en leenmannen) of Kennemerland was the high court with jurisdiction over the villages of the bailiwick; the village courts were authorized to pass judgement only over lesser offences.56 The bench also served as a court of appeal for sentences passed in these lower tribunals, issued ordinances, and granted or denied requests filed by the inhabitants of the bailiwick. Meeting once every month in Haarlem’s town hall, it was chaired by Willem Fabricius, high-bailiff (hoogbaljuw) of Kennemerland since 1691.57 Every year around Easter, Fabricius nominated fourteen individuals from ‘among the most able, qualified, and experienced vassals of the county of Holland’; the stadtholder, in a procedure similar to the schepenen elections, elected seven of them to sit on the bench during the following year.58 Romeyn’s name appeared on the list of nominees for the first time on 30 April 1695, no doubt thanks to patronage of Fabricius (to whom he had recently dedicated his print of the obsequies of Queen Mary).59 There was, however, one snag: in order to be appointed, he had to be a vassal of the county of Holland, in other words own feudal property in Kennemerland. Since the deposition of the last Count of Holland, Philip of Spain, more than a century ago, feudal tenure in Holland had remained largely unchanged, the only difference being that fiefs were now held from the disembodied 55 Romeyn’s colleagues on the bench were Hendrik Coning, Jan Vermeulen, Hendrik Witte, and Adriaan Heerse Jr. The latter became a member of the Vroedschap in 1691, Coning in 1692, and Witte in 1708. Coning, Vermeulen, and Heerse Jr also served as schepenen. Naam-register Haarlem, passim. 56 Tegenwoordige staat, vol. 8, pp. 214–217. 57 Naam-register Haarlem (no pagination). 58 nha, 3862, inv. no. 498, Memoriael, van de bailluwen van Kennemerlant… etc. (Haarlem: Pieter Casteleyn, 1651), art. 3. 59 nha, 184, inv. no. 3, f. 48.

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county (grafelijkheid) of Holland instead of its count. Feudal property differed in few respects from ordinary or allodial property, with the exception that each new owner (either the heir of the previous owner or a buyer) had to do homage and fealty to the liege lord (the County of Holland) and pay a feudal duty called relief (heergewaad). Most fiefs were manors (heerlijkheden), few of which were on the market at any given moment. But manors were often divided into sub-fiefs, properties usually no larger than a plot of land or a farm, which in turn were held in fief from the main comital vassal; and this practice enabled ordinary burghers like Romeyn to attain the coveted status of liegeman. As soon as he had heard that his name was to appear on the shortlist for the bench, he went in search of a fief. Approaching an acquaintance named Jacob van Vlackvelt, a medical doctor in Haarlem, he enquired whether ‘he knew of a fief that might be on sale for him’.60 As it happened, Dr van Vlackveldt had also been nominated for the bailiwick bench, and he, too, was scouring the market for a suitable feudal plot.61 He told Romeyn that a certain Barend van Duyst, an old and sickly man who made his living as a painter and a glazier, had recently tried to sell him a premise he held as sub-fief from the lady of the manor of Heemstede, a village near Haarlem. The transaction had fallen through because van Duyst had demanded the excessive price of 750 guilders, which he justified by pretending that the property was exempt from all land taxes. Van Vlackveldt had abandoned the purchase after someone had warned him not to trust van Duyst. He cautioned Romeyn to be careful and not to allow van Duyst to cheat him. Notwithstanding this useful piece of advice, Romeyn went ahead and purchased the property, which consisted of a modest house with a yard, which was leased to a cobbler. Tellingly, in the deed of purchase dated 14 April 1695, Romeyn grandly styled himself ‘vassal (leenman) of Kennemerland’, though his nomination to the bench would take place two weeks later; only in June was he to be informed of his election and actually sworn in. As liegeman of Kennemerland, Romeyn served on the bailiff and vassals’ bench from October 1695 to October 1696. He was re-elected for another year, but then had to stand down after the completion of a two-year stint. He served again in 1699–1700 and 1700–1701, and one more term in 1702–1703. From then on, he continued to be nominated, but was never elected again.62 Even so, the possession of the Heemstede fief did not only bring him esteem, but also a bitter conflict with the previous owner and his heirs, resulting again in a flush of notarial depositions and the dissemination of a libellous broadsheet that slandered his good name.63

60 61 62 63

nha, 1617, inv. no. 447, f. 95 vo. nha, 184, inv. no. 3, f. 48. nha, 184, inv. no. 3, ff. 48 ff. The affair is discussed in Krol, ‘Huis’.

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The nature of the conflict is not entirely clear. In 1696 and 1697, Romeyn requested a number of citizens of Haarlem to have their depositions recorded in several notarial deeds. Perhaps not coincidentally, three of the four attestations were produced in ­ omeyn on the bailiwick’s the office of notary Hendrik Haeswindius, who sat with R bench. Dr van Vlackveldt testified how Barend van Duyst had tried to swindle him and how he had warned Romeyn. A wagoner named ­Hendrik de Graet related how, in April 1695, he had carried Romeyn to the Heemstede courthouse, where he had seen how the schepenen condemned van Duyst to pay back to Romeyn two silver ducatons (6 guilders and 6 stivers) he had received as relief (the payment made to the overlord by the heir or buyer of a feudal property on taking possession of the vacant estate). He also had to pay an additional 3 guilders and 3 s­ tivers for food and drink (het gelag) – probably the cost of a meal to celebrate the enfeoffment. Did the wagoner make up the story? Not a trace of such a conviction can be found in the cause list of the court of Heemstede, in which, moreover, van Duyst himself was serving as a schepen.64 The painter Pieter Kieft attested that he had acted as an arbitrator (goeman) between the parties in an informal extra-judicial procedure aimed at restoring peace between them.65 It appears that van Duyst had cheated R ­ omeyn by selling him a property worth not more than 200 guilders for 500 and four golden pistoles (pistoletten, a golden coin to the value of an écu). He had also surreptitiously omitted from Romeyn’s copy of the purchase deed that he (van Duyst) was obliged to stand surety. The men wanted to end their differences and agreed that the purchase of the property would be annulled on condition that van Duyst repay Romeyn the 10 guilders and 3 stivers he had paid as relief. They also settled an old score, for which van Duyst was to pay Romeyn another 100 guilders. ­Nicolaas Assendelft, Romeyn’s acquaintance who had testified for him in 1690, confirmed the settlement; as did, almost a year later, the reverend Johannes ­Provoost, minister of Haarlem’s Walloon Church.66 Romeyn’s repeated efforts to have his version of the events notarized suggest that the men ultimately failed to reach an agreement. It is certain, however, that the purchase was not cancelled, for Romeyn remained the owner of the fief until his death, after which his widow and heir Maria Lansman was enfeoffed. In 1716, she sold it to Barend van Duyst’s son and heir, Hendrik.67 Barend van Duyst, and especially his widow and son, told a markedly different story. According to them, it was Romeyn who had swindled the fief out of van Duyst. After the latter’s death in the autumn of 1695, a lawsuit had vindicated his heirs and 64 nha, 148, inv. no. 555, 6 April 1695. According to the wagoner’s affidavit (nha, 1617, inv. no. 447, f. 95 vo.), van Duyst was sentenced ‘to restitute and pay [to Romeyn] the two silver ducatons, which the aforementioned van Duyst had received from the Lady [Anna] Huygens [Lady of the manor of Heemstede] in order to be invested with the fief’. 65 nha, 1617, inv. no. 447, ff. 624–625 vo. 66 Ibid., inv. no. 597, f. 76. 67 Krol, ‘Huis’, p. 51.

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restored their property to them. This was clearly false, for the feudal registers document that Romeyn remained in possession of the fief. The source of their version is a long poem, published anonymously.68 The poem, set in the world of birds, casts Romeyn in the role of a Roomse Gier (‘Roman Vulture’) and Barend van Duyst as a Duytse doffer (‘Dutch cock-pigeon’). The association of gier is gierig (niggardly), while Duytse is evidently a pun on van Duyst. The vulture, ‘by its intrigues’ (door bekuyping), has acquired a position as judge, but needs a ‘feudal feather’ (leenveer) to assume its post. Seeing the cock-pigeon flaunting just such a feather in its tail, it lulls the bird with soothing words and ‘idle hope of gold’, snatches out the feather, and flies away with it. The pigeon, ‘saddened by this robbery, languishes away, and pays this theft with its death’. ‘His virtuous dove and her adolescent young’ (van Duyst’s widow and his son Hendrik) bring the case to court. The judge (‘Lady Themis’) vindicates the pigeon family and punishes the vulture; everybody praises her wisdom. The final verses drop the bird metaphor and put Romeyn in the limelight: Romeyn lately bragged with blown-up cheeks That Amstel’s Civic Council could not make him a villain: Now a widow makes him a villain, an orphan makes him a thief, At present he is both, only due to the relief.69

The libel poses many riddles. No sources documenting a trial against Romeyn have been found.70 And if one did take place, how could it have vindicated the van Duysts while Romeyn remained in possession of the fief? And who was the author of the doggerel? Was it Romeyn’s would-be son-in-law, the second-rate poet Cornelis van der Gon? The affair demonstrates that Romeyn never succeeded in shedding his depraved reputation. Scandal followed him wherever he went.

68 Ekama, ‘Schimpdicht’, republished in Krol, ‘Huis’, pp. 53–54. Van Duyst’s death is recorded in nha 184, inv. no. 555, 4 January 1696. 69 ‘Romeyn die pogte laetst met opgeblazen kaaken/ Dat Amstels Burgerraad hem tot geen schelm kon maken/ Nu, maekt een Weeuw hem schelm, een wees die maekt hem dief,/ Die beyde is by thans, alleenig door 't relief’. 70 The cause list of the court of Heemstede (nha, 148, inv. nos 555-559) documents several legal procedures by the heirs of Barend van Duyst against various parties, but none of them against Romeyn de Hooghe. Cf. van de Haar, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe’, pp. 158–159.

13. Composing most Pompously Intendant of the King’s Buildings Romeyn’s intimate knowledge of ancient history and mythology and his skill in mixing the allegorical and the historical had earned him a reputation as the most ingenious and inventive etcher in Holland. From the late 1680s onwards, and especially during the 1690s, he further broadened his artistic scope by becoming a designer of statues, triumphal arches, huge wall paintings, stained-glass windows, and other large-scale artworks of a more or less public nature. His renown, since the stadtholder’s campaign of 1688–1689, as the latter’s artistic spin-doctor helped him to win honourable and lucrative commissions. Counting city governments, water control district boards, wealthy individuals, and the stadtholder-king himself amongst his patrons, he designed and executed extensive baroque decorations that were simultaneously stylish, fashionable, and patriotic. In the late 1680s, Romeyn became involved in designing the gardens of Het Loo Palace, William’s favourite country residence in the Netherlands. In May 1689, the steward of William’s domains paid him an advance of 1,145 guilders ‘for several statues of His Majesty’s house at Het Loo’, and in February of the following year he reimbursed 1,256 guilders and 6 stivers for advances paid to several sculptors working on the gardens.1 Most of the sculptors so employed, such as Jan van Blommendael, Pieter van der Plasse, and Jan Ebbelaer, were Romeyn’s fellow-members of the Hague artists’ confrerie Pictura.2 The man responsible for recruiting him was almost certainly Hans Willem Bentinck, who in June 1689 received a commission as superintendent of the royal gardens.3 Around the same time, Romeyn styled himself intendant des bâtiments de Sa Majesté Brittanique in a notarial deed.4 He later wrote with obliging flattery that Het Loo owed ‘the Magnificence and Curiosity of its Greatness & Pleasantness’ to ‘the great Care of the Earl of Portland’.5 The payments reveal that Romeyn was acting as a contractor, but his involvement was artistic as well. The Atlas van Stolk in Rotterdam preserves a series of eight drawings in red chalk representing the designs for large statues that were to adorn the waterworks in the palace gardens.6 Each statue is provided with an elaborate explanation of its allegorical meaning, scribbled in Romeyn’s neat handwriting. The god of the River IJssel, for example, seated amidst irises, reeds, and waterlily leaves, is clutching a ship’s 1 2 3 4 5 6

De Jong, Natuur, p. 66. Ibid., p. 70. Ibid., p. 67; Correspondentie van Willem iii, vol. i, 2, p. 721. saa, 5075, inv. no. 3708, f. 394 (15 October 1689). Ter Molen, Konings Loo, p. 12; Onnekink, Anglo-Dutch Favourite, pp. 177–178. avs 2719 (1–8); le 356–363.

Fig. 13.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, The God of the River IJssel, 1686 (drawing).

rudder or an oar indicating the river’s eminent navigability, and carries a shield on his right arm showing that he protects the fatherland from hostile invasions (fig. 13.1). Curiously, the horns on his head represent both the river’s meandering course and the fat cattle grazing on its banks. This is vintage Romeyn, in a style very similar to the explanations he offered to his allegorical prints. His designs were not realized in exactly the same form, but two large statues placed at the back of the palace, wrought by the sculptor Pieter van der Plasse, betray Romeyn’s hand (fig. 13.2). The top of a grand staircase leading into the gardens is flanked by two statues of river gods, representing the rivers Rhine and IJssel, each holding a jar from which water flows down a cascade. Around the mid-1690s, Romeyn further capitalized on his work for the palace gardens by etching a monumental series of twenty sheets that could be mounted into a large-scale composite map of the palace and its gardens (fig. 13.3).7 The scale, scope, execution, and ambition of the prints – a bird’s eye view of the palace and its gardens, surrounded by thirteen smaller pictures showing topographical detail, and proffering a wide profile at the base – is similar to the large Haarlem map of 1688. He added a ‘Brief Description’ in Dutch, French, and English to accompany the prints, which eulogises the elegant palace, its verdant gardens, and its illustrious owner.8

7 le 340–355; h 304–321; Cillessen, Krieg, pp. 232–233. The plates were reprinted in book format in 1786 as de Hooghe, Korte beschryving (lbi 109). 8 The description is published in Ter Molen, Konings Loo, pp. 12–13.

Fig. 13.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, River Gods at the Cascades behind Het Loo Palace, c. 1695 (detail of fig. 13.3).

Director of the Lingen Quarries It was probably Romeyn’s involvement with the gardens that triggered his – not ­altogether successful – career as a stone merchant. On 16 September 1689, at ­Hampton Court Palace, William signed his appointment as ‘director or c­ ommissioner of His Majesty’s minerals at Lingen’.9 From then on, Romeyn often flaunted the title of ‘Commissioner of His Royal Majesty of Great Britain’ when signing his prints. For this reason, historians have assumed that the king bestowed the title upon him as a reward for services rendered.10 But the commission does not mention a salary, and its wording strongly suggests that Romeyn had taken the initiative by petitioning the king for the job. It is certainly possible that Romeyn’s good standing with Bentinck had disposed William to grant his request, but it was a real job rather than an honorific title, entailing tangible responsibilities, as well as possibilities for profit. The County of Lingen was a tiny principality in the German Empire near the border of the Dutch Republic, over which William iii was sovereign ruler.11 Its chief economic resource was the export of sandstone, large quantities of which were employed in the construction of Het Loo Palace. Since Hans Willem Bentinck represented the 9 na, 1.08.11, inv. no. 589, f. 181 vo. De Jong, Natuur, pp. 66–67. 10 Snoep, Praal, p. 110; Sliggers, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe, Lingen’, p. 43; De Haas, ‘Commissaris’, p. 17; de Jong, Natuur, p. 70. 11 Ter Kuile, ‘Graafschap Lingen’.

Fig. 13.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Views of Het Loo Palace, c. 1695.

Prince as drost or bailiff of Lingen, it is likely that he was instrumental in Romeyn’s appointment.12 Shortly after receiving his commission, Romeyn travelled to Lingen to show his credentials.13 He ordered a few sample stones to be worked and for two large pieces destined for statues to be shipped to Haarlem, along with some others for basins and cascades. Since he expected the quarries to yield more building materials than necessary for the construction of Het Loo, his vantage position as director of the stone industry enabled him to set up a potentially lucrative trade. On 13 September 1689, 12 Onnekink, Anglo-Dutch Favourite, p. 16. 13 Sliggers, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe, Lingen’, p. 43.

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Haarlem’s burgomasters granted a request he had filed ‘to establish the staple and trade in bluestone [arduynsteen] of all kinds from the County of Lingen for and by order of His Royal Majesty as Count of Lingen’.14 The date, three days before the king signed his appointment, again suggests that the job did not come as a surprise and that Romeyn himself had actively solicited for it. As before, the burgomasters granted favourable conditions for setting up his business. They allowed him to use one of the bastions in the city ramparts for storage and committed themselves to constructing and maintaining a dock and a canal to render the yard accessible for freight barges. The merchandise would be exempt from excise duties and other charges, and the workmen and shipping free from guild regulations. Romeyn, for his part, promised not to establish a similar trade elsewhere, to employ only local citizens and ­locally-built ships and rafts, and to supply stones to the city at a discount. The enterprise promised to be mutually advantageous. Yet Romeyn, the burgomasters, and eventually William, as the owner of the quarries, were to be disappointed. Despite a second trip to Lingen in May 1691, Romeyn did not succeed in making the trade profitable, mostly due to the high costs of shipping. River barges had to haul the cargo all the way down the River Ems to the village of Halte near Papenburg, where it was transhipped to seagoing vessels. He had to consider the staple right of Emden, which required the ships to unload their goods, thereby losing valuable time. Imports from the sandstone pits in the adjacent County of Bentheim, which took the much shorter route over the Overijsselse Vecht River, were considerably cheaper. Romeyn’s newly established trade soon ground to a halt, and there followed the inevitable squabbles about money. As late as 1698, William’s steward in Lingen, Jacob de Famars, was complaining that Romeyn had failed to return the advances he had paid in 1689, 1690, and 1691, about which he had pressed him repeatedly.15 By that time, Romeyn had already found an alternative destination for his stone yard. In June 1696, the burgomasters allowed him to move the drawing academy from the back of his home in Ridderstraat to the site of the yard.16 When filing the petition, he may have been moved by practical considerations, as one of the things he had requested when he had proposed his plans for the academy was ‘a good workshop [konstwerkplaets] to hew large stone statues’.17 But the move also relieved him of the inconvenience of having a school in his backyard.

14 nha, 3993, inv. no. 510, f. 148 vo, quoted in Sliggers, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe en zijn Haarlemse steenwerf’, p. 61. 15 Sliggers, ‘Romeyn de Hooghe, Lingen’, p. 46. Romeyn’s transparent excuse was that he had never received the stones because the characters and numerals painted on them to indicate their destination had washed away. 16 nha, 3993, inv. no. 519, ff. 2–3 vo. 17 Knolle, ‘Goede kunstwerkplaats’, p. 184.

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Director of the Triumphal Arches Romeyn’s sponsors in Haarlem’s city government did not only facilitate his stone business, but also awarded him honourable and presumably profitable commissions for public decorations. In April 1689, they contracted him to design a huge pyramid or ‘victory standard’ (zegen-standaard) for Haarlem’s Great Market in celebration of the coronation of William and Mary. The construction was illuminated by a double circle of barrels filled with burning tar (piktonnen) and covered with allegorical decorations and Latin inscriptions.18 Seven years later, they approached him again for the decorations celebrating the capture of the fortress of Namur on 1 September 1695, a turning point in the Nine Years’ War against France. He designed an 80-foot-high pyramid, marbled in red, its four sides painted with martial and heroic images celebrating William’s conquest of the fortress. The foreground displayed allegories of the rivers Sambre and Meuse begging William to liberate the city, and expressing gratitude for having done so; the four corners showed representations of Vigilance, Fortitude, Indefatigability, and Prudence.19 In 1697, the burgomasters commissioned him for the festivities on the occasion of the Peace of Ryswick that ended the war. This resulted in the erection in the Great Market of no fewer than 24 towering stakes bedecked with piktonnen, festoons, and banners. Romeyn indulged himself in a series of life-sized images representing the disasters of war: Robbery, Privateering, Murder, Arson, Rape, Razing of Villages, Ransoming, Capturing, Murder of Children, Church robbery, Poverty, Bankruptcy, Begging, and Boerenplaag (‘Scourge of Peasants’). The spectacle was so gripping that thousands of visitors from The Hague and Amsterdam were said to have travelled to Haarlem ‘in all sorts of coaches and vessels’ to gape at it.20 Romeyn was the city government’s favourite decorator for all public works. In 1696, they entrusted him with designing the botanical gardens (hortus medicus) for the ­Collegium Medicum, the medical doctors’ guild, in the newly-laid-out urban extension. Apart from the garden plans, he designed the busts of twelve ancient and modern medical doctors, botanists, and philosophers, including Hippocrates, Galenus, Vesalius, Clusius, Aristotle, Plato, Cartesius, and Boyle. These were ostensibly not hewn in stone, for in 1708 the magistrates commissioned a painter to execute them ‘with very good, durable, and air-resistant paint’.21 The centrepiece of the gardens was to be a ­full-length stone statue of Laurens Jansz Coster, allegedly the Haarlem-born inventor of printing with moveable type – pace Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz. Romeyn made the design, including a twelve-verse laudatory poem in Latin on the pedestal. The 18 Schrevelius, Harlemias, vol. 2, pp. 575–576; Snoep, Praal, p. 107. 19 Schrevelius, Harlemias, vol. 2, pp. 576–578. 20 Ibid., pp. 579–581. 21 Ekama, Romeyn de Hooghe, p. 5.

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statue was executed only in 1722 by Gerrit van Heerstal and placed at Prinsenhof, to where the medicinal gardens had moved, and where it can still be admired today. Romeyn’s embarrassing fall from public grace had not discouraged his patrons in Haarlem and beyond. Quite the contrary; in the autumn of that same year, with the final skirmishes of the Pamphlet War still lingering, he secured a giant commission to design the decorations for the triumphal entry of William iii into The Hague. The Orangist leadership considered Romeyn a loyal Orangeman, who had unjustly suffered for their cause at the hands of the king’s enemies. A few youthful trespasses did not overshadow his usefulness. Tremendously gifted, he was uniquely capable of selling the king-stadtholder’s political agenda to the public at large, complete with allegorical trappings and biting satire. At the end of October 1690, having recuperated from his illness, Romeyn wrote to the burgomasters of Amsterdam that he hoped they would soon publicly exonerate him, preferably ‘before the arrival of the King, for whose reception the councillors of His Majesty and the regents of The Hague have invited me, now that I have convalesced, to compose most pompously the ordinances [op het allerpompeusten te ordineren]’.22 To that end, he had to report to The Hague on 2 November, where the magistrates had appointed him and Govert Bidloo as ‘directors of the two triumphal arches or porches erected on order of the magistrates, one in the Market in front of the entrance of Hoogstraat, the other one on Plaats [a large square in the town centre]’.23 Having mopped up the last remnants of the rebellion in Ireland, the ­stadtholder-king finally had his hands free to leave for Holland, where his presence was urgently needed at a congress of the allies discussing the ongoing war against France. The States of Holland, who had not met with their stadtholder since the fall of 1688, decided to partake in the festivities and disbursed to the usher of the ­Gecommitteerde Raden, Cornelis van den Broeck, the sum of six thousand guilders, in two terms, for the costs of William’s entry. This was to include the erection of another Arcus Triumphalis in addition to those commissioned by the magistrates.24 Held up by adverse winds, fog, and heavy rains, William disembarked at the island of Goeree on 30 January 1691,and showed up unexpectedly in The Hague in the late afternoon of the following day. He peevishly intimated that he would gladly dispense with a more ceremonious entry, but the city fathers, having spent considerable money and energy on the preparations, were unwilling to cancel the ceremony, all the more so since huge crowds of people were entering the town to cheer their stadtholder-turned-king. William allowed himself to be persuaded and consented to make his entry into The Hague for a second time, this time officially, on 5 February. 22 hua 67, inv. no. 97, no. 19, Romeyn de Hooghe to Huydecoper, 29 October1690. 23 Snoep, Praal, p. 96; Cillessen, Krieg, pp. 244–245. 24 Snoep, Praal, p. 92; Staring, ‘Borstbeeld’, p. 224.

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The triumphal entry of William iii into The Hague was the costliest and most elaborate public display ever held on Dutch soil. Before the revolt against the King of Spain, cities used to welcome their princes in a ceremony known as the ‘Joyous Entry’, for which they invested heavily in ephemeral arches, floats, and other decorations.25 But the last time they had done so was as long ago as 1549, and the stadtholders, being mere ‘ministers’ of the sovereign States, had never enjoyed such an honour. The great day began in the Walloon Church with Bidloo delivering a lengthy address in Latin, a ‘Triumphal Salute on the Occasion of the Coveted Arrival in the United Netherlands of the Great and Mighty Prince William’.26 In the afternoon, ­William and his entourage left the Binnenhof, the ancient block of government buildings housing the States of Holland, the States General, and the stadtholder’s lodgings. Leaving the town on the northern side, the cavalcade followed the outer moat in a westerly direction and soon arrived at the drawbridge giving access to a wide street known as Westeinde. Here, the town magistrates were nervously waiting. The town pensionary delivered a speech at the open door of William’s coach, mostly inaudible due to the clamour of the bystanders. As the town had no ramparts or gates, a small and unobtrusive arch had been erected, fabricated of wooden slats tended with cloth and embellished with appropriate statues, emblems, and mottos, to mark the king’s entry into The Hague.27 The procession, consisting of some 30 coaches (several of them drawn by a team of six horses), mounted bodyguards and heralds, and a multitude of guards and valets on foot, proceeded along Westeinde towards the town centre to the sound of ringing church-bells and booming artillery; while the crowds, massed behind the civic guards lining the streets, fervently cheered ‘Long Live the King our Stadtholder!’ The procession passed the town hall, festively decorated with festoons and chasinettes, diaphanous screens of coloured glass or paper with artful representations and texts, placed in the windows and lit from behind by candles. Beyond the town hall, where the Market (today’s Dagelijkse Groenmarkt) opened onto Hoogstraat, the procession encountered the first triumphal arch, commissioned by the magistrates, designed by Romeyn, and praised in a contemporary pamphlet as ‘the highest and loftiest of all’ (fig. 13.4).28 The single-passage arch consisted of two storeys and two curved wings. The wings enclosed an elliptical space with two obelisks. The arch was crowned by a globe, rising from clouds, with representations of Pegasus and Fame, flanked by trophies. The wings carried the busts of William’s ancestors, alternated with trophies; the obelisks displayed busts of ­William and Mary. The entire construction was built of wood tended with painted cloth. The pilasters and other architectural framework were painted to look like bluestone. The linen on the wings was decorated with grisailles representing the unification 25 Thøfner, Common Art. 26 Kn. 13643, Bidloo, Zeegegroet. 27 Snoep, Praal, pp. 119–121 and 141–142. 28 lbi 173–174; h 168–185; fmh 2827-14, Snoep, Praal, pp. 123–125 and 142–143.

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Fig. 13.4. Romeyn de Hooghe, Triumphal Arch on the Market in The Hague, 1691.

of the Dutch Republic through the military and political prowess of William’s predecessors. These historical events culminated in the frontal face of the arch, which allegorically represented William’s life and deeds, while the back in mythological garb celebrated his education. Appropriate mottos in Latin elucidated each allegory. The representations over the passage were painted in colour on thin taffeta that could be illuminated from behind, as could parts of the obelisks. Not far beyond, the square called Plaats was the location of Romeyn’s second arch (fig. 13.5).29 Another two-storey, single-passage porch was flanked with two lower wings. Atop the cornice, on a high plinth, towered an equestrian statue of William. The sculptor Jacob Pietersz Roman had loaned the city a large wooden horse for this purpose, to which the city sculptor Johannes Hannaert had added a wooden effigy of its illustrious rider. Horse and horseman were painted bronze and covered with a canopy of drapes and greenery, and fronted with the royal arms of Britain. Painted chassinettes, to be illuminated at night, and framed with trophies, cuirasses, and drapes, flanked the statue. The capitals, bases, and friezes were gilded, the Ionic pilasters flanking the porch marbled red and white, the rest of the construction marbled black and white. The paintings on the smaller 29 fmh 2827-12; Snoep, Praal, pp. 125–129 and 145–146.

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Fig. 13.5. Romeyn de Hooghe, Triumphal Arch on Plaats in The Hague, 1691.

side-wings were grisailles, but the eight paintings on both sides of the arch were executed in lurid colours. The theme of the paintings was the juxtaposition of land and sea battles in Antiquity and contemporary Europe. Mythological parallels (the Rape of Europe, the Abduction of Thetis) clarified the epic struggle between William and Louis xiv. Louis was represented as Phaeton falling from the sun chariot, while William in the garb of Perseus was liberating Andromeda. Mottos in Latin explained the representations. The third triumphal arch, erected in the Buitenhof directly in front of the gate leading to the Binnenhof, had a vastly different architecture, probably inspired by French examples (fig. 13.6).30 It had three arched gates, the middle one of which, much higher than its neighbours, was crowned with a huge octagonal cupola. Large parts of it, like the Doric pillars, cornice, cupola, and base, must have been constructed of solid wood, as opposed to the painted linen that merely suggested structure in the preceding arches. Atop the cupola was mounted a gilded equestrian statue representing William, flanked by statues of slaves in shackles. Each of the eight porticos was crowned with two statues, probably made of wood or plaster, and thematically connected to the paintings inside the porticos. The curved sides of the structure and the walls inside the porticos were decked with grisailles, painted on linen tended 30 fmh 2827-7; Snoep, Praal, pp. 129–136 and 146–150.

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Fig. 13.6. Romeyn de Hooghe, Triumphal Arch on Buitenhof, 1691.

on frames. They represented the glorious life and deeds of William, all dressed in Greek and Roman garb and clarified by appropriate mythological references and Latin inscriptions. William was represented as a classical hero bringing peace and prosperity. The Buitenhof arch was funded by the Gecommitteerde Raden of the States of Holland. The architect Steven Vennekool was responsible for the structure, while Romeyn had signed for the grisailles. Having made its way under the successive arches, the royal procession disbanded at Binnenhof, where a lavish banquet was waiting. A magnificent firework show was taking place on an artificial island in the middle of Hofvijver, the large pond stretching alongside the block of government buildings (fig. 13.7).31 The platform was constructed like a fortress, with towers at the corners and two huge painted pyramids in the centre, dedicated to Religion and Liberty. William’s crowned monogram was suspended between the pyramids, supported by Atlas and Pallas, under a banner with a painting representing William’s perilous crossing of the North Sea. The States of Holland had paid the sum of 6,000 guilders to the controller of the States’ artillery for the pyrotechnic display. Romeyn was the designer of the emblematic paintings. 31 fmh 2827-17; Snoep, Praal, pp. 136–141 and 150–151.

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Fig. 13.7. Romeyn de Hooghe, Fireworks on Hofvijver, 1691.

Another banquet was simultaneously laid on in the town hall, with its illuminated chasinettes, for the city magistrates, the weesmeesters (the regents charged with the care of the affairs of the city’s orphans), and several guests of honour. The most prominent among the latter were the two directors of the triumphal arches, Govert Bidloo and Romeyn de Hooghe. Another guest was the sculptor Jacob Roman, who had so graciously put his wooden horse at the city’s disposal. Munching his food, Romeyn may have recalled the reversal of fortunes in the war against France that had so impressed him seventeen years ago. Equally swift, dramatic, and unexpected was the present twist in his own fate. Only a few months ago he had been hounded by his enemies, threatened with a blasphemy trial, jeered at by street urchins: ‘Archicornutus ab Alto’, the laughing stock of the pamphlet-reading community. And here he was, the guest of honour of the regents of The Hague, the inventor, author, and director of the costliest and most spectacular multimedia show the Dutch had ever seen. He had rendered his inventions three-dimensional. Liberating them from the books and broadsheets to which they had been confined, he had brought them into the open, in giant format, for everyone to gaze at and admire. He had etched William’s effigy hundreds of times, but this time the living king himself was part of the spectacle he had conceived. In doing so, he had faithfully followed the iconographic programme he had laid out for himself in 1674 in the ‘Theatre of the Changes in the Netherlands’. His

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designs for the arches and the pyrotechnic island artfully mixed ‘hieroglyphs, characters, and historical individuals’. Pagan gods and goddesses, mythological heroes, Greek and Roman commanders, and contemporary princes and generals mingled freely. His hodgepodge of mythology, ancient history, and recent events had always worked well in print; he had now made it work in the streets and squares of The Hague. Nor was that all; although the ephemeral wooden and linen structures were soon removed, their memory lived on in a flood of pamphlets, prints, occasional poetry, and medals.32 Bidloo himself authored the official commemorative volume, a sumptuous coffee-table book in folio, set in large print and entitled ‘Arrival of His Majesty William iii’.33 Romeyn provided the etchings, most of them spread over two pages, representing the festivities, the arches, the pyrotechnics, and close-ups of the grisaille paintings. A slightly altered edition in French followed a year later.34 A rival publication entitled ‘Royal Triumph’ (Konincklyke Triumphe) was ready much earlier than the Bidloo-de Hooghe production, but suppressed by the States of Holland, which had granted a patent to the official book.35 Inevitably, there were the dissenting voices of criticasters who would not grant Romeyn the credit that he deserved. Steven Vennekool was insulted because none of the publications celebrating the royal entry had mentioned his name as the architect of the Buitenhof arch. He therefore designed and published two prints of the structure, etched by Bastiaan Stopendael, which duly acknowledged his role as its inventor.36 Vennekool was especially vexed by Romeyn, who, as director of the festivities, tacitly claimed the architecture of that arch as well. Panegyrics published on the occasion did indeed suggest Romeyn’s authorship of all the arches, such as ‘On the Triumphal Arches, Victory Porches, etc. … invented by the Ingenious Romeyn de Hooghe’.37 An ‘Epigram for Romeyn de Hooghe’ stated that ancient Rome was surprised and excited to see the revival of her art in more perfect form; lamenting her loss, she was consoled by the fact ‘that it was a Roman [een Romeyn] carrying away her laurels’.38 In response, an anonymous poem appeared that addressed ‘the rhymer of the verses according to which Romeyn de Hooghe claims the architecture and the invention of master Vennekool’s triumphal arch on Buitenhof […], on which, with the help of 32 Discussed ibid., pp. 97–99. 33 Bidloo, Komste. 34 Bidloo, Relation. 35 Anon., Konincklycke triumphe. 36 Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, vol. 28, entry Stoopendael, nos. 6–7; fmh 2832. 37 Kn. 13613-b, Op de triomfboogen. Another panegyric was entitled ‘In Arcus Triumphales a Godofredo Bidlo ac Romano de Hooghe Hagae Comitis Erectos’, published in Nederduitse en Latynse keurdigten, p. 239; cf. Snoep, Praal, pp. 98, 134–135. 38 ‘Noch strekt het ons ten troost, daer w’ons verlies beklagen/ Dat ons de lauwer word van een romein ontdragen’. Anon., Epigramma (collection of the author).

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the barber [baardscheerder – a reference to his former profession of barber-surgeon] and pretended orator Govert Bidloo, were painted nothing but frills [kieremieren] along with some dog Latin’.39 The poem accused Romeyn of the old charges of blasphemy and theft, to which it added his ignorance of architecture. Wherever Romeyn went, scandal was not far behind. But on the whole, his involvement in William’s joyous entry was honourable. It was also profitable; just how profitable, was not for everyone’s eyes to see.

Tampering with the Books Their tussle with Bentinck and the stadtholder had not ended well for the leaders of the republican faction in Amsterdam’s Vroedschap. When his term as ­burgomaster ­ended on Candlemas in 1691, Joan de Vries was relegated to the board of the ­Amsterdam Admiralty, an appointment seen as a waiting post for ex-burgomasters biding their time until reappointment. Yet de Vries remained in this post until his death in 1708.40 Similarly, Joan Huydecoper, after serving thirteen terms as ­burgomaster, was shunted to the Treasury Office (Thesaurie) in 1694, to remain there until his death ten years later. Even more brutally dismissive was the Stadholder’s refusal, in December 1690, to follow Amsterdam’s recommendation to appoint Huydecoper’s son Joseph as bailiff of Muiden Castle, Naarden, and the Gooiland district. The lucrative commission instead went to a favourite of Bentinck’s.41 The elder Huydecoper was known as a rancorous man, something that explains the presence among his private papers of a fat file containing all the documents pertaining to the 1690 libel affair, including a fair number of Romeyn’s autograph letters. Surprisingly, the file also contained a folder filled with papers relating to the triumphalia of The Hague.42 They show in detail how Romeyn fleshed out his role as ‘director of the triumphal arches’ by acting not only as their designer, but also as a contractor. Having recruited a crew of artists to execute his designs and having paid their wages, he subsequently handed in the receipts to his patrons for reimbursement. In all, Romeyn charged more than 1,300 guilders to the magistrates of The Hague and more than 1,500 guilders to the Gecommitteerde Raden.43 The file contains about two dozen statements by the workmen so employed, most of them made on 3 and 4 April 1691. 39 Nederduitse en Latynse keurdigten, p. 240. 40 Porta, Joan en Gerrit Corver, p. 30. 41 Elias, Geschiedenis, 192. 42 hua 67, inv. no. 97, nos. 36–40. 43 The sum charged to the magistrates of The Hague in Snoep, Praal, p. 112; the sum charged to the usher van den Broek (1089 guilders 18 stivers for the Buitenhof arch and 472 guilders 19 stivers for the pyrotechnic island) in hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 36.

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Hendrik de Rogissart, for example, stated that he had been painting for Romeyn for four weeks and received 96 guilders, which would amount to four guilders per day. Yet the receipt he had signed had been tampered with: another hand had scribbled a ‘1’ in front of the original ‘96’, thus raising the sum to 196 guilders.44 No work of art by de Rogissart is known today, but he must have belonged to Romeyn’s inner circle in Haarlem: in 1695, Romeyn and Maria Lansman would act as godparents for de Rogissart’s son, who was duly baptized ‘Romeyn’.45 Elias van Nimwegen declared he had been painting for seven days, also charging 4 guilders per day or 28 guilders in all. Not only had another hand changed the ‘28’ in his receipt into ‘48’, but Romeyn had also paid him only two guilders and six stivers a day, alleging that ‘the interest of the country’ forced him to reduce the price of his labour.46 Other receipts originated from ghost-painters. A certain Pieter Kievit had apparently charged 48 guilders for painting on the Buitenhof arch. The semi-eponymous Pieter Kieft, an artist from Haarlem, declared that he had worked on that arch, but that this was not his receipt or signature. He did not know anybody named Pieter Kievit and was sure that no one answering to that name had been on the job.47 A receipt handed in by Romeyn’s apprentice Jan van Vianen to the amount of 160 guilders also raised suspicion. First, it seemed as though a different hand had written a ‘1’ before the ‘60’. Second, the receipt failed to specify the work that van Vianen had delivered. Fellow-artists testified that he had not been on the job at all. Instead, he had produced a large etching for the bookseller of The Hague, Barent Beeck, representing the cavalcade passing under the Buitenhof arch.48 Several receipts among those disbursed for the arches commissioned by the magistrates of The Hague also originated from van Vianen. It seemed impossible that anyone could have done so much work in so short a time.49 And so it went on, in eleven detailed statements concerning the Buitenhof arch and another ten for the firework platform. The amounts charged had been upped by inserting or changing figures; artists who had worked on the job went unpaid, while their alleged expenses were claimed; receipts were handed in from artists who had never been involved or were not known to exist. In addition, three statements by the schepenen of The Hague reported similar irregularities in receipts from artists 44 hua 67, inv. no. 97, no. 37, item 2. 45 nha, 2142, inv. no. 104, 22 June 1695. On 24 June 1696 the de Hooghes again acted as godparents to another de Rogissart child, named Henry. De Rogissart is not listed as a member of the Haarlem St. Luke’s guild. 46 hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 37, item 6. Elias was possibly related to Willem van Nimwegen, who also worked on the arches. Miedema, Archiefbescheiden, pp. 741, 958. 47 hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 37, item 10. On Pieter Kieft, see Miedema, Archiefbescheiden, pp. 701, 709, 955, 1039. 48 Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, vol. 36, entry Jan van Vianen, no 17; fmh 2831. 49 hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 37, item 3.

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employed on the arches in Market and Plaats commissioned by the burgomasters of The Hague.50 The declarations unequivocally document that Romeyn committed largescale fraud. It is evident that Huydecoper collected the papers with the knowledge and cooperation of the Gecommitteerde Raden and the magistrates of The Hague. His aim must have been to have Romeyn dragged before a court of law on charges of embezzlement and forgery. The evidence being overwhelming, ­ owever, a t­ rial the lawsuit would indubitably have ended badly for Romeyn. H never materialized. It must have been Romeyn’s Orangist sponsors F­ abricius, Heinsius, Schuylenburg, Bentinck, and ultimately William himself, who prevented it from taking place. The papers documenting Romeyn’s fraudulent billing were never published, either in the form of libels or otherwise. They do not exactly prove the veracity of the earlier accusations of forgery and theft brought forward in ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’, the libels of 1690, or the affidavits in the ‘Memorandum of Rights’; but they do reveal that honesty, reliability, and accountability were not among Romeyn’s chief virtues. Driven by greed, he had few scruples when pursuing his aim: that of keeping up with his Flemish ancestors and his rich Amsterdam relatives.

Oil Paintings Although Romeyn, as far as we know, never trained as a painter, he succeeded in gaining a foothold in the expanding market of wall-sized paintings usually associated with Gerard de Lairesse.51 Only one smaller canvas, an undated and unsigned Allegory of Coinage, is attributed to him (fig. 13.8).52 Probably commissioned by the Holland Mint in Dordrecht, it shows a personification of Money as a woman with a coin-filled horn in her lap. She is accompanied by Mercury with two slaves on the left and two goldsmiths or mint-makers on the right. In the background, labourers are engaged in mining and smelting precious metals. The allegorical idiom may be Romeyn’s, but the execution of the painting is stiff and wooden, possibly painted by an unknown artist following his design. A series of wall paintings for a large hall in Dubbelsteyn, the country house of the Dordrecht merchant (and future burgomaster) Mattheus van den Broucke, originated

50 hua, 67, inv. no. 97, no. 37, items 37, 38, 41. 51 De Vries, Gerard de Lairesse, passim. 52 Van Thiel, All the Paintings, p. 289. Hofstede de Groot, ‘Kritische opmerkingen’, p. 115, fn. 1, questions the ascription. Another canvas representing a Landscape with Ruins and Shepherds (private collection, formerly on loan to the Walraf-Richarz-Museum, Cologne), undated and signed R.H., is dubiously attributed to Romeyn. Mai, Kabinett, p. 136.

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Fig. 13.8. Romeyn de Hooghe (attr.), Allegory of Coinage, undated (oil on canvas).

during the 1690s.53 The work, no longer extant, represented the revolt of the Batavian chief Julius Civilis against the Romans (69–70 ce), a popular allegory for the Dutch revolt against the King of Spain. Romeyn’s friend and patron Pieter de Graeff, who was acquainted with van den Broucke, may have helped him to secure the commission.54 We are better informed about the genesis of a series of grisailles (also no longer extant) for the entrance hall (voorhuis) of de Graeff’s home on Herengracht in Amsterdam.55 In August 1691, de Graeff handed a rough sketch made by Romeyn to the young etcher Caspar Luyken and ordered him to take it back to Haarlem and make a neat copy under Romeyn’s supervision. Several months later, de Graeff mentioned ten canvasses in his diary, destined for four oval niches and six recesses above them, which he had marked and sent to Haarlem ‘in order to have the aforementioned de Hooghe draw Education, Application, Profit, and Piety, along with what belongs above it, according to a concept drawn by him R. de Hooghe that is in his 53 Houbraken, Grote Schouburgh, p. 257. Van den Broucke was a member of the Oudraad of Dordrecht from 1679 to 1716. He is not to be confused with the eponymous admiral serving the voc, member of the Oudraad from 1672 to 1685. 54 saa, 76, inv. no. 198, 1 November 1678: de Graeff had tea with van den Broucke (‘een Teetie op sijn Camer drinckende’). 55 Van Eikema Hommes and Bakker, ‘Hoogachtbaarheid’, pp. 236–238.

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possession’. Romeyn personally had to draw the images on the canvasses according to the cartoon made by Luyken. But he did not execute the paintwork, for which he engaged an unknown painter. Almost the same procedure was followed in a large commission from the Rotterdam city government.56 In November 1699, the Vroedschap charged Romeyn with the decoration of the ceiling of a large hall (krijgsraadzaal) in the shooting-range (doelen) of the St George militia. In this case, he had to make a drawing on site according to a design that the council had approved. He was supposed roughly to indicate the colours he intended to use, but to leave the actual painting to an obscure local artist named Adam Bernard du Moulin. The division of labour was the same as for the de Graeff commission, the difference being that this time, Romeyn could not perform the work in his own studio. Ostensibly, he made the Rotterdam under-drawing directly onto the wooden or stuccoed ceiling. In both cases, he had to apply his design with his own hands onto the support and supervise the execution of the painting, but again, he did not wield the paintbrush himself. Two commissions executed in Alkmaar probably followed the Rotterdam practice, because the work is painted on boards and not on canvas.57 In 1693, Romeyn designed an allegory known as The Victory of Virtue for St Lawrence’s Church that can still be seen above the organ. One year later, he received a commission for twelve paintings adorning the landing of Alkmaar town hall, two of which are still extant (fig. 13.9). The uninteresting and wooden composition of these images offers a striking contrast to Romeyn’s etched work. Romeyn’s chef d’oeuvre as a public decorator were the huge wall paintings he designed in 1707 for the burgomasters’ chamber in the town hall of Enkhuizen, still in situ today.58 Painted on eight canvasses, about 75 m2 in all, they cover the four walls of the room, including the doors to the adjacent rooms and a built-in cupboard. The theme of the paintings is the wise and righteous government of the burgomasters, represented as Roman consuls amidst archaic buildings. The south wall, for example, displays the popular story of consul Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator (c. 275203 bce) receiving his father in his encampment; the latter only dismounts from his horse when his son orders him to do so, thus expressing that his son in his capacity of consul must force even his own father to obeisance (fig. 13.10). The surviving design drawings and correspondence allow us to reconstruct the genesis of the ensemble. The burgomasters had commissioned Romeyn in the spring of 1707. On 29 May, they wrote that they were returning the drafts he had sent them for approval. One of the burgomasters had earlier communicated their critical remarks on the design, and they trusted that he would incorporate their proposals for changes. He seems to have listened to their criticism, for there are significant 56 Ibid., pp. 238–239. 57 Ibid., pp. 226–227, 239; Otten, ‘Paneelschildering’. 58 Van Eikema Hommes and Bakker, ‘Hoogachtbaarheid’, pp. 222–243; Bedaux, ‘Allegorieën’, pp. 151–155.

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Fig. 13.9. Romeyn de Hooghe, The City of Alkmaar Swears Allegiance to the Maiden of Holland, 1694 (oil on panel).

differences between the paintings and the sketches he had submitted (fig. 13.11). Late in October, he wrote that the work was finished and that he was about to ship the canvasses to Enkhuizen. As had been the case in Alkmaar and Rotterdam, he left the actual paint work – the colouring of the under-drawing he himself had made on canvas – to one or more unknown assistants. The painting must have been done in his Haarlem workshop, because the regents had them varnished within days of their arrival in Enkhuizen. The artwork cost the city the huge sum of 1,895 guilders. The Enkhuizen murals, spectacular as they may be, vindicate Arnold Houbraken’s sober judgement about the quality of Romeyn’s skills as a painter.59 They are much less attractive than the sketches, which display a deliberate composition and a convincing three-dimensional effect. The final product, mostly filled in with paint in a somewhat 59 Van Eikema Hommes and Bakker, ‘Hoogachtbaarheid’, p. 224.

Fig. 13.10. Romeyn de Hooghe, The Splendour and the Eminent Respect for the Office of Burgomaster, 1707 (oil on canvas).

bookish and repetitive manner, barely shows any interaction between the rather stiff personages, which makes it difficult to understand its exact meaning. In fact, one of the conundrums of Romeyn’s life is how such an excellent draughtsman could have apparently been content with work of such banal mediocrity – and get away with it.

Glasses, Cups, and Medals Romeyn also applied himself as a designer of stained-glass windows in at least five churches. In 1688, he designed glasses for the parish church of Bennebroek near Haarlem, most probably commissioned by the lord of the manor Adriaan Pauw Jr, presiding justice of the Hof van Holland.60 On 20 October 1688, Pieter de Graeff wrote in his diary how he had accompanied Romeyn and his wife back to Haarlem after having d­ inner with them in his Heemstede country estate. They first drove to the nearby ­village of Bennebroek, where they inspected the windows that Jan Isaaksz van N ­ ickelen, ­ omeyn’s a glass painter from Haarlem, was making ‘in a new manner following R ­invention’.61 Nothing is known about this new technique, but Romeyn boasted in 1690 that he had founded a workshop in Haarlem for ‘making window-panes and plate glass of equal or better quality than French manufacture’.62 Van Nickelen received 60 Elias, Vroedschap, vol. 1, p. 196. Romeyn etched his portrait, le 247, h 385. 61 Otten, ‘Kerkglas’, p. 22, fn. 5. On van Nickelen, see van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Biographies’, pp. 256–258. 62 Kn. 13551, Nyd, p. 21.

Fig. 13.11. Romeyn de Hooghe, Design for The Splendour and the Eminent Respect for the Office of Burgomaster, 1707 (drawing).

37 guilders and 16 stivers for the job, while Romeyn cashed in a royal 119 guilders and 14 stivers, more than three times as much. It shows how much more highly the work of the inventor was rated than that of the menial job of a skilled craftsman. As was so often the case in Romeyn’s life, controversy was not far away. In yet another notarial deposition, Romeyn was accused of having abused van Nickelen while he was working on the job.63 Two years later, Romeyn designed a window, now lost, for the village church of Zuid-Polsbroek, which had been destroyed during the French invasion. Once more, he owed the commission to Pieter de Graeff, the lord of the manor.64 The imagery was rather original: in allegorical form, the water control district of Lopikerwaard (the donating institution) begs Lady Geometry to tame the River Lek, represented as an old man in fetters. 65 63 nha, 1617, inv. no. 441, f. 447. The attestation was made on 18 August 1690 at the request of chief sheriff Bakker, which suggests that there is a connection with the Pamphlet War. 64 De Graeff’s diary reveals that Romeyn designed the glass between 10 June and 14 September 1690. 65 Jeannine Otten, ‘Pieter de Graeff en de gebrandschilderde glazen in zijn kerk in Zuid-Polsbroek en de kerk in Voorschoten’ (unpublished paper), pp. 20–23. I am grateful to the author for kindly allowing me to make use of her research.

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Fig. 13.12. Romeyn de Hooghe, Design for a glass window in the north gable of the Oosterkerk in Hoorn, 1703 (drawing).

In 1703, he was responsible for three designs for windows in the Grote Kerk and the Oosterkerk in Hoorn, to replace the glass that had been blown out by an explosion at a gunpowder mill.66 The designs, commissioned by the Vroedschap of Hoorn and the board of Gecommitteerde Raden of North Holland, respectively, have been preserved (fig. 13.12). Correspondence between Romeyn and the regents of Hoorn reveals that he insisted on closely supervising the work of the local glaziers, just as he oversaw the painters of the murals he had designed. The most interesting glass was for the Oostzijderkerk in Zaandam, still in situ.67 Commissioned by Willem Fabricius, it shows an allegory of the administration of justice in the bailiwick of Kennemerland. The representation is bordered with the 66 Otten, ‘Drie ontwerptekeningen’. 67 Otten, ‘Kerkglas’.

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names and coats of arms of bailiff Fabricius and seven of the vassals serving on the Kennemerland bench in 1700 and 1701. It is likely that each of them had to pay to have his name and arms included, as was common practice with militia company group portraits. Serving as one of the vassals in 1700, Romeyn proudly flaunted his own name and arms, borrowed from his would-be Ghent ancestors.68 Even earlier, Romeyn had started making a name for himself in the applied arts by designing richly decorated hensbekers or hanzebekers (‘inauguration goblets’ or cups for ceremonial use) for the water control district of Rijnland (1685), the government of the manor of Cromstrijen (on Hoekse Waard Island, south of Rotterdam, 1688), and the court (baljuw en leenmannen) of the Land van Voorne (another island to the west of Hoekse Waard, 1701).69 The Rijnland goblet is made of enamelled copper. The hoogheemraadschap paid him 370 pounds (guilders) for ‘embossing, modelling, enamelling, and gilding’ the cup, which suggests that the division of labour was similar to the later wall-painting projects. Romeyn furnished the design, while the cup itself was made by a certified gold- or silversmith under Romeyn’s supervision. The ornaments on the cup, in his typical style, allegorically tell the story of the district’s successful struggle against the ever-present danger of flooding. The Cromstrijen goblet, made of gilded silver, features the sea god Neptune holding the manor’s escutcheon, suggesting its aquatic origins, and a peaceful landscape with men building dikes, a fisherman throwing his nets, and grazing cattle. It brought him 308 guilders and 12 stivers.70 The Voorne cup is made of gilded silver and enamelled copper. The highly original but rather obscure allegorical language of the ornaments refers to the administration of justice. The commission was part of a package: Romeyn also etched the frontispiece to a set of maps of the Voorne district and made the designs for a set of woven cushions. A related field in which Romeyn was active was that of designing commemorative medals.71 These were highly popular at the time, but their inventor is often unknown. It is impossible to determine which medals were made after Romeyn’s designs. An early example commemorates the murder of Johan and Cornelis de Witt. It shows the effigies of the unfortunate brothers and on the reverse, their naked bodies being devoured by a multitude of wild animals representing the unruly mob (fig. 13.13). The legends in Latin are highly flattering of the murdered grand-pensionary and his brother.72 Romeyn must have designed it before 1677, for in April of that year, Pieter de Graeff wrote in his diary that he had ordered ‘two medals of the de Witt [brothers,

68 Another window in the same church dating from 1687 may also be attributed to Romeyn on stylistic grounds, but documentary evidence is lacking. 69 Biemond, ‘Geestrijke vindingen’. 70 Nobel, Besturen, pp. 101–103. 71 Sanders, ‘Romein de Hooghe’. 72 Van Loon, Beschryving, pp. 87–88. Romeyn’s design drawing is reproduced in Snoep, Praal, p. 104.

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Fig. 13.13. Anon., Representation of a medal with (obverse) portraits of the de Witt brothers and (reverse) an allegory of their murder, 1672–1677.

with on the] reverse the beastly raging’ (’t beestelijck woeden).73 Romeyn also designed so-called vroedschapspenningen, medals of silver or gold awarded to Vroedschap members or to meritorious individuals: for Haarlem in 1687 (not coincidentally the year in which Fabricius, on William iii’s behest, was elected burgomaster, and Romeyn was appointed magistrate on the Minor Bench of Justice), for Rotterdam in 1689, and Alkmaar in 1693. The Prince of Orange was also among his patrons. Between November 1689 and January 1691, Romeyn received a payment from his treasurer Schuylenburg for two medals (as well as an etched plate plus the prints thereof) celebrating William’s victory in Ireland.74 These medals cannot be identified, as there are many of them showing the same event. In 1700, he designed a medal for the Company of ­Scotland Trading to Africa and the Indies in celebration of its (failed) attempt to found a colony in Panama, and in 1702 a medal for the voc memorializing its first centenary.75

The World’s First Satirical Periodical Romeyn’s activities in the applied arts, which increasingly took up his time and energy during the late 1680s and the 1690s, may help to explain his rather enigmatic statement when questioned by chief sheriff Bakker in May 1690 as to why he had done little or no engraving since settling in Haarlem. It may also shed light on the 1695 sheet accompanying the prints of the obsequies of Queen Mary, in which he 73 saa, 76, inv. no. 197, 8 April 1677; cf. fmh 2427-b. 74 Snoep, Praal, p. 175, fn. 55. 75 Sanders, ‘Romein de Hooghe’.

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remarked that he had decided to stop etching altogether. Both observations are evidently untrue, but they do suggest that he had ceased to regard himself as simply an etcher. He imagined himself as a universal artist, gifted in a multitude of disciplines, following in the grand tradition of the greatest Renaissance and Baroque artists. His universalistic ambitions had already emerged in his plans for the drawing academy, the curriculum of which was not only to encompass his own disciplines of drawing, painting, and etching, but also designing textile patterns, sculpture, moulding, and embossing. Both remarks also give rise to questions. Did he in fact scale down his activities as an etcher, and if so, to what extent? What was the impact of his career as a designer of public art on his earlier trade? And what about his activities as a lawyer, a judge, a mining director, a stone merchant, and a spy? For want of a catalogue raisonné of his work, it is difficult to gauge the evolution in time of his overall production of book illustrations and freestanding prints. According to the short title list by Verkruijsse and Verhoeven, the number of books with one or more illustrations signed by or attributed to Romeyn did not significantly diminish between 1687 and 1702. Each year, he continued to produce prints for six to nine different publications.76 Landwehr’s (incomplete) catalogue of freestanding prints gives a rough impression of the number of news prints made during this period.77 While the years 1688 to 1690 witnessed the production of a large number of news prints dedicated to the invasion of England, the coronation of William and Mary, and the expedition to Ireland, the numbers steeply declined in the following years. In 1693 and 1694 he made no news prints at all. This may be due to the nature of the war on the Continent, which brought few successes for the allied forces and resulted in a stalemate. Entering into secret negotiations with the French Court in the latter part of 1693, which were to create the framework for the Peace of Ryswick, William was in no need of bellicose propaganda.78 In 1695, as we have seen, Romeyn covered Queen Mary’s obsequies in London, eight sheets in all, as well as a print dedicated to William’s naval attack on Dunkirk (perhaps connected to his sailing bombs) and a print of the capture of Namur (a victory he helped celebrate in Haarlem). The production of news prints then slumped again, never to rise to its previous levels. Romeyn’s observation that he had stopped etching only appears to make sense in relation to the production of news prints. Another feature of Romeyn’s later years as an etcher is that he increasingly adapted old plates to serve fresh news events. By this time, he had a huge stock of engraved copper plates at his disposal, with representations of land and sea battles and sieges that 76 Verkruijsse and Verhoeven, ‘Short title-lijst’ catalogues twelve publications for 1690, but these include five unillustrated pamphlets attributed to Romeyn, and the print series ’t Konings Loo, which dates from c. 1695. It lists only three titles for 1697. The numbers are: 1687: 8, 1688: 5, 1689: 9, 1690: 12, 1691: 6, 1992: 9, 1693: 6, 1694: 8, 1695: 7, 1696: 8, 1697: 3, 1698: 6, 1699: 6, 1700: 9, 1701: 7, 1702: 8. 77 The numbers are: 1687: 4, 1688: 7, 1689: 11, 1690: 4, 1691: 1, 1692: 3, 1693: 0, 1694: 0, 1695: 11, 1696: 0, 1697: 1, 1698: 0, 1699: 0, 1700: 1, 1701: 0, 1702: 2. The date (1700) attributed to the entry of Louis xiv into Dunkirk is not correct (le 190). 78 Israel, Dutch Republic, p. 859.

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could easily be transformed into plates illustrating the latest news. As we have seen, he had occasionally done this in his early years, morphing the siege of Naarden (1673) into that of Grave (1674), and the re-admittance of Utrecht to the United Provinces (1674) into the offering of the titular Duchy of Gelderland to William iii (1675). But only from 1690 did the reworking of old plates become a standard routine. Thus, the sea-battle of Kijkduin (1673) became that of Beachy Head (1690, exceptionally dedicated to a crashing Anglo-Dutch defeat), the campaign of Christian v of Denmark on the Island of Rügen (1677) became the victory of William iii at the Battle of the Boyne (1690), the siege of Londonderry (1689) became that of Athlone (1691), and so on. Between 1690 and 1708, Romeyn recycled at least eleven old news prints.79 He applied the same process to a number of portraits of contemporary princes by assembling, from an undated earlier portrait of Charles ii of Spain, an allegorical portrait of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles vi, who as pretender to the Spanish throne styled himself ‘Charles ii of Spain’ (1704), and yet another one representing the same prince (1705) out of a former portrait of William iii.80 One equestrian portrait saw multiple transformations: Don Manuel Diego López de Zúñega (1682) became Holy Roman Emperor Joseph i (as King of Hungary) in 1689, a victorious William iii in Ireland in 1690, and finally – again – the pretender Charles ii of Spain.81 For the latter print, Romeyn did not even bother to change the portrait; he merely put a new legend under the plate. Recycling old plates and adapting them to novel uses was standard practice in the etching industry, but Romeyn had always been an exception by producing almost exclusively original work.82 From circa 1690 onwards, he reworked his old plates more and more frequently, capitalizing on his artistic success and saving time and money. For a while, Romeyn also abandoned political satire. After the copious production of satires against Louis xiv and James ii and the regents of Amsterdam, this comes as rather a surprise.83 Perhaps his unhappy experiences during the Pamphlet War made him wary of further mischief; or perhaps this was the result of his promise to Haarlem’s burgomasters to refrain from libelling. Only in 1701–1702 did he resume his old trade with a series of satirical prints about the events leading up to the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714).84 79 Listed, not exhaustively, in le 200. 80 le 235–237; h 250; fmh 3329. 81 le 265, le 244, le 261; fmh 2811; fmh 3379. 82 Examples of the recycling of old plates in Veldman, Crispijn de Passe, figs. 48 and 168, and Veldman, ‘Riskant beroep’, fig. 11 and 12. 83 Romeyn may be the author of two lampoons celebrating the English victory in the naval battle off Cape La Hogue on 29 May 1692. One is entitled Canailje ’t Canael uyt (‘Canaille out of the [English] Channel’), fmh 2866 and Cillessen, Krieg, pp. 326–327, cat. G.ii.3; the other one Desolaten Inventaris van de Franse Wracken (‘Desolate Inventory of French Wrecks’), fmh 2862 and Cillessen, Krieg, pp. 324–325, cat. G.ii.1. Both prints are in Romeyn’s style, but the attribution is doubtful. 84 Wilson, ‘Art’, pp. 301–305, erroneously dates Paye qui tombe (le 222, h 160, fmh 2766-a) to 1700, but it is a satire on the events of 1689.

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Esopus in Europa [‘Aesop in Europe’] is a series of no fewer than 40 pamphlets that appeared in weekly instalments in 1701 and 1702.85 Each consists of a title page with a small etching (c. 12.5 x 9.5 cm), a programmatic title, and six pages of text. Except for issue no. 5, which is in verse, the texts are dialogues between two, three, or four characters discussing current political events in a satirical and often highly bizarre form. The master-narrator is cast as Aesop, the celebrated but largely mythical sixth-­ century Greek fabulist. Most stories thus take the form of conversations between animals, but sometimes the protagonists are humans and sometimes inanimate objects, as in the ‘Dialogue between the Divining Rod and the Melting Pot’ (no. 14), or that between ‘the Suitcase and the Mitre’ (no. 15). The publisher of the series was Johannes Petzold, a bookseller and printer hailing from Berlin with a shop in Amsterdam on Rokin, near the Bourse. There can be no doubt as to the identity of the anonymous author. The illustration preceding the first fable, and serving as the frontispiece for the whole series, is signed R.d.H. invenit, while all the instalments are marked Volgens de Romeinse Copy, meaning ‘According to Copy from Rome’ but also ‘According to Romeyn’s Copy’ (fig. 13.14). The style of the narratives resembles the absurd dialogues of the Harlequin Prints. The Introduction reveals that it had not originally been planned as a series. Two pamphlets, 5 and 6 in the table of contents, had been the first to appear. Their success had encouraged the author to continue the series in weekly instalments: I [Aesop] shall then again, as I did before, make the animals speak, and through them teach men how to promote their true interests, and avoid their loss and disadvantage. That is why I have decided to present you every week with an agreeable fable, a useful moral lesson. By this means, I hope to achieve my aim of bringing you some advantage and pleasure.86

Esopus in Europa has been hailed as the world’s first satirical periodical.87 However, Romeyn probably took his cue from the earlier series La pierre de touche politique [‘The Political Touchstone’, 28 issues, 1688–1692] and Les traveaux d’Hercule (‘The Works of Hercules’, 21 issues, 1693–1694) by Eustache le Noble, the astute satirist working for Louis xiv. Tirelessly lampooning William iii, le Noble was Romeyn’s opposite ­number in France. Several other series of political fables, all authored by ‘Aesop’, appeared in England between 1698 and 1701, but it is unclear whether ­Romeyn was aware of them, since he is not known to have read English. Yet if Esopus in Europa was

85 lbi 95; h 204–243; fmh 3017; De Hooghe, Esopus. The series originally came out in separate volumes, each under its own title. Many of these have been joined into convolutes. A reprint in one volume was issued in 1737 (De Hooghe, Aesopus). On the journal, see Langemeyer, ‘Aesopus’. 86 De Hooghe, Esopus, p. 3. 87 Veth, Politieke prent, p. 37; Greve, ‘Esopus’.

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Fig. 13.14. Romeyn de Hooghe, Title page to Aesopus in Europa (1701).

not the first satirical periodical, it was the first illustrated one, and hence a landmark in the history of the political cartoon.88 The occasion for their publication was the chain of events culminating in the War of the Spanish Succession. It had been obvious for a long time that the mentally and physically disabled King of Spain, Charles ii, would die without issue. His global legacy included the Iberian realms, the Southern Netherlands, the Kingdom of Naples, Milan, the Philippines and the colonies in the Americas. The pretenders to the inheritance were Charles’ Habsburg cousins in Austria and Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis xiv by his first wife Maria Theresa of Spain. Either succession would upset the European balance of power that had been so carefully calibrated at the Peace of ­Ryswick, and was therefore unacceptable to Britain, the Dutch Republic, 88 Langemeyer, ‘Aesopus’, pp. 30–31.

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and their allies. Attempts initiated by William iii to negotiate a division of the empire misfired. When Charles ii died on 1 November 1700, it emerged that he had left his empire undivided to the French claimant. When Louis xiv accepted on behalf of his grandson (the future Philip v of Spain) and French troops occupied the ­Southern ­Netherlands, war became inevitable. The task of Esopus in Europa was to make the war acceptable to a domestic audience. It is possible, and indeed likely, that the Orangist leaders again turned to Romeyn and asked him to design another graphic propaganda project, but there is no documentary evidence that this was so. In a conversation between ‘The Neapolitan Stallion, the Fisherman, and the ­Riding-Master’ (no. 17), Romeyn defends the doctrine of popular sovereignty in Lockean tones.89 The object of their discussion is the future of the Kingdom of Naples. The fisherman observes that the death of Charles ii has freed its inhabitants of unbearable tyranny: Why would not the nobles, clerics, burghers, and peasants, who together constitute the Neapolitan people, be free to accept a new lord? Due to the death of the Spanish King, who has been dragged from this world without leaving offspring, the right has been devolved upon them to institute a different government, either of the best, or of the people, or to choose a king to whom they wish to subject themselves, with powers as large or limited as they see fit. Nature makes all people free, and equal between themselves. If all of them had been honest of character and virtuous of disposition, they would never have needed a government; yet, in order to live together in security, they have sometimes chosen a single individual, and sometimes a collective, to rule amicably over the multitude; each time they died, their given authority devolved again upon the givers.90

The last issue appeared in or shortly after May 1702, when war had broken out. The periodical had achieved its goal.

Self-Portraits Having left us so many portraits of the celebrities of his age, Romeyn paradoxically failed to bequeath us an image of himself, except for the rather bland and indeed almost faceless young gentlemen depicted on the title page of Figures à la mode and in the ‘Art of Wrestling’ (above, figs 1.7 and 2.8). Nevertheless, he must have painted

89 Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government, Ch. 8. 90 De Napelsche hengst, visscher, en pikeur, p. 6 (italics in the original text). h 220, fmh 3017 (17).

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Fig. 13.15. Taco Jelgersma after Romeyn de Hooghe, Portrait of Romeyn de Hooghe, 18th century (pen in black, brush in water colour).

one and probably two self-portraits that are now lost.91 Several eighteenth-century copies allow us to get a fairly good idea of his looks. The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam holds two portrait drawings in brown ink and watercolour on paper that are remarkably similar, but may have been produced by two different hands. Each portrait may be a copy of the other one, but they may also be copies after the same original. The first sheet (fig. 13.15) is signed T J Del[ineavit]. The draughtsman was Tako Hajo Jelgersma, a painter of landscapes, portraits and copies of Old ­Masters, who moved from Friesland to Haarlem, probably after 1757. One of his t­ eachers was Frans Arentsz Decker, a pupil of Romeyn’s in Haarlem.92 This portrait must be a copy of a self-portrait, as the legend above the portrait medallion reads R. de Hooghe se ipse pinxit, meaning that ‘Romeyn himself has painted himself’. This is remarkable, 91 This section is based on van Nierop, ‘Se ipse pinxit’. I am grateful to Erik Hinterding for his comments on an earlier draft. 92 Van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Biographies’, pp. 138–140.

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because Romeyn was not a professional painter. Jelgersma states in the text around the medallion that the sitter was born in Amsterdam and deceased in Haarlem; the drawing must therefore have originated after Romeyn’s death. It shows Romeyn with a delicate, finely chiselled face, a lofty brow, a prominent but well-formed nose, a slightly ironic look in his brown eyes, and smiling lips. He wears a luxuriant powdered periwig with springy curls and is dressed in a casual shawl and coat, probably a japonse rok or banyan, then in fashion. The wig makes it difficult to identify his age. At least as revealing as the portrait is the opulent frame with inscriptions. It is likely that the frame, too, was originally designed by Romeyn, but not necessarily at the same time as the self-portrait. Due to the fact that Jelgersma cut off both sides of the medallion, the last words of the second and fourth lines of the subscription (auctor and expertus) do not fit the frame. This suggests that he did not compose the text himself, but copied it from a text under the original portrait. It reads: ‘­Romeyn de Hooghe, Doctor of both Laws,93 Royal Commissioner at Lingen, an excellent and inventive artist, as well as a famous chalcographer, painter, and poet, and an expert in all arts and sciences’. romanus de hooghe j.u.d. com: reg: ling: exc: inventor et au[ctor] necnon cel: calcog: pict: et poëta et in quavis arte scientia et doct: exper[tus]

The ornaments above the portrait display the escutcheon of the Ghent de Hooghes. The helmet atop the shield carries a crest of a laurel-wreath and a sphinx; laurels form the ordinary symbol for a poet, while the sphinx is ubiquitous in Romeyn’s allegorical work. On the frontispiece of his ‘Theatre of Changes in the Netherlands’, for example, he had depicted the Art of Drawing carrying a sphinx on her head, ‘the best known of the hieroglyphs’.94 In Hieroglyphica he drew Minerva with a sphinx on her helmet, ‘showing that she is steadily straining her senses in order to fathom dubious and uncertain mysteries’.95 Here he followed Cesare Ripa, according to whom the sphinx stands for ‘sharpness of the senses: for no matter on earth is covered and hidden, which Man’s boldness of senses could not discover and disseminate’.96 The sphinx crowning the helmet refers to his ability to invent allegories, representations in which a deeper ­ ercury’s meaning or truth is hidden that can be uncovered by using one’s wit. M staff (commerce and news) and Apollo’s lyre (poetry, music, and the arts in 93 j.u.d. is short for Juris Utriusqe Doctor, ‘Doctor in both Laws’, i.e., Roman and Canon Law. 94 De Hooghe, Schouburgh, p. [2]. 95 De Hooghe, Hieroglyhica, p. 210. 96 Ripa, Iconologia of Uytbeeldinghen, pp. 541–542.

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general) are next to the crested helmet; and next to these, two globes, presumably a world globe and a celestial one, suggesting the universality of Romeyn’s art.97 A stack of books is piled up on the left (generally referring to learning, or perhaps ­statute books), next to a palette with brushes and a sheet with a drawing or an ­etching. A charter with a seal showing two crossed keys refers to his doctoral degree certificate. The two keys appear in the crest of the Leiden Academy; it is uncertain whether it was Romeyn himself who thus upgraded his Harderwijk diploma, or Jelgersma who made a mistake. On the right is a cornucopia (wealth, success) and an open volume of the Esopus in Europa series. An etching needle and a quill lie in front of the ensemble. If the frame ornaments, as drawn by Jelgersma, do conform in all aspects to a design by Romeyn, the latter must have designed it after the publication of Esopus in Europa in 1701–1702. But it is possible that the reference is Jelgersma’s addition, or that Romeyn designed the frame well after finishing his self-portrait. The second portrait drawing of Romeyn in the Rijksmuseum is almost identical in likeness and execution, but has a different frame (fig. 13.16). The inscription this time is not profuse in superlatives, but tersely states that Romeyn de Hooghe is a doctor of both laws, commissioner of the king at Lingen, and a painter, engraver, author, and poet. The ornaments above the portrait display the Ghent escutcheon, the books, the sealed doctoral degree diploma (without crossed keys, but possibly a calligraphic J for Jus or Law), and a bundle of rods or fasces indicating Romeyn’s authority as a magistrate. The most unusual elements of the drawing are the supporters upholding the escutcheon, two merrily laughing satyrs, the left one rather ostentatiously spreading his legs to display his private parts. A positive reading could make them represent Romeyn’s accomplishments as a satirist, but it is more likely that the artist was alluding to Romeyn’s alleged lewd and immoral way of life. Nor is the monkey on the right, equipped with palette and brushes, meant as a compliment. An artist was supposed to imitate nature in a manner both ingenious and lofty, not merely to ape it. In seventeenth and eighteenth-century paintings, the monkey is a symbol of sensuality, lecherousness, roguishness and impudence. The animal on the left may be an owl; it stands for learning, but also for folly. Cesare Ripa designed ‘Shame, Dishonour, or Derision’ (Scorno) as a man with an owl on his head, ‘a bird of bad luck, flying by night, which may easily seduce Man to wicked thoughts’.98 It is unlikely, to say the least, that Romeyn himself would have invented such infamous imagery to frame his portrait. The unknown copyist took his inspiration from his bawdy reputation, which was widely known, especially since the publication of Houbraken’s ‘Great Theatre of Dutch Painters’ in 1718–1721.

97 The words ‘Mare Atlanticum’ can be discerned on the globe on the left. 98 Ripa, Iconologia of Uytbeeldinghen, p. 451.

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Fig. 13.16. Anon., after Romeyn de Hooghe, Portrait of Romeyn de Hooghe, 18th century (pen in black, brush in water colour).

The Rijksmuseum also keeps a woodcut signed by Cornelis van Noorde (fig. 13.17). Working in Haarlem, van Noorde was a pupil of Jelgersma. The print may be a copy of Jelgersma’s portait, but it may also have originated after Romeyn’s self-portrait. Like the drawing, it displays the legend ipse pinxit (‘he has painted it himself’) and the notice that the sitter was born in Amsterdam and died in Haarlem on the tenth day of the sixth month of 1708. The best known portrait of Romeyn, and the most successful one from an artistic point of view, is an engraving by Jacob Houbraken dated 1733 and published two years later in Hieroglyphica (fig. 13.18).99 The medallion frame simply mentions the legend Mr. romein de hooghe (Mr. being the abbreviation for Meester in de rechten or Master of laws) and the motto honor alit artes or ‘Honour Nourishes the Arts’, a phrase coined by Cicero.100 This was a well-known device, but interestingly, the passage by Cicero states that his own art and learning will flourish only if touched by the 99 Jacob was the son and pupil of Arnold Houbraken, author of the ‘Great Theatre of Dutch Painters’. Thieme-Becker, vol. 17, pp. 555–556. 100 Cicero, Tusculanae Disputationes, i, 2, 4.

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Fig. 13.17. Cornelis van Noorde after Taco Jelgersma, Portrait of Romeyn de Hooghe, 18th century (woodcut).

favour – also in a financial sense – of his benefactor, Gaius Cilnius Maecenas. In connection to Romeyn de Hooghe, the motto may suggest that the patronage he enjoyed from the Prince of Orange sustained his art. The Houbraken portrait, though similar in many ways to the two drawings in the Rijksmuseum, is neither a copy of the latter, nor was it copied from the lost self-­ portrait that served as their model. It displays Romeyn with a grave and unsmiling face, and the wig is modelled differently. The light falls in from the other side: in the two drawings from the sitter’s left, in Houbraken’s engraving from the right (although the light appears to be coming from the left because the print displays the mirror image of the portrait). The engraving is signed H. Bos Pinx. J. Houbraken sculps. 1733. Hendricus Bos or Bosch is known as a painter of portraits and mythological subjects, active in Zwolle and Vienna.101 The original is lost.

101 Ekkart, ‘Zwolse schilder’; Haga, ‘Hendricus Bosch’. The painter may also have been Hendrik van den Bosch, a painter active between c. 1692 and 1736 and documented in Amsterdam between 1717 and 1736.

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Fig. 13.18. Jacob Houbraken after Hendrik Bos (after Romeyn de Hooghe?), Portrait of Romeyn de Hooghe, 1733 (engraving).

There is, or was, another miniature portrait of Romeyn, the present whereabouts of which are unknown. Painted after the Houbraken engraving by N ­ icolaas Verkolje, an artist active in Delft and Amsterdam, it was part of the so-called Panpoeticon Batavum, a cabinet with a large collection of painted miniature

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portraits of Dutch writers and poets.102 More striking than the portrait itself is the fact that ­eighteenth-century critics apparently regarded Romeyn as an author of importance.

102 It must have originated posthumously between 1732 (death of the cabinet’s first owner Arnoud van Halen) and 1746 (death of Verkolje). Van Deinsen, Panpoëticon; Van Thiel, All the Paintings, pp. 723–736. About Verkolje, see Knolle and Korthals Altes, Nicolaas Verkolje. Van Someren, Beschrijvende catalogus, no. 2572, mentions another engraved portrait by Johann Christoph Sysang.

14. Final Years A Masterless Man On 19 March 1702, William iii died unexpectedly at Kensington Palace, having caught pneumonia after an unfortunate fall from his horse. Romeyn paid due attention to the king’s demise in several prints, but his output was smaller and more restrained than it had been seven years previously, when Mary Stuart had died: two issues of Esopus in Europa, an allegory representing the city-maiden of Haarlem ‘clad in mourning’, and a news print of William’s funeral procession (fig. 14.1).1 After lionizing the Prince for three decades, this might seem small beer, but it was in tune with the prevailing mood in Holland. Only days after William’s death, the States of Holland announced that the stadtholderate would be left vacant, causing a profound change in the politics of the Dutch Republic.2 The loss of his master also had serious personal repercussions for Romeyn. In his hometown, the new political reality almost immediately led to bitter factional strife in the Vroedschap, where a large minority of fifteen members contested the decisions of the remaining seventeen.3 The leader of the opposition was ­Willem Fabricius, who had never been re-elected as burgomaster since serving in 1688 and had since been shunted to minor offices. Romeyn sharply felt the effects of his patron’s isolated position. After 1702, the States of Holland never re-elected him as liegeman on the Kennemerland bench, despite the fact that Fabricius, in his capacity as high-bailiff, doggedly continued to put his name on the list.4 An even more alarming and damaging consequence of his loss of protection was the publication, immediately in 1702, of a second edition of the infamous novel ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’.5 The text was unaltered, the only difference being that the Amsterdam-based publisher Philip Verbeek now unashamedly put his imprint on the title page. Verbeek was a minor player in the Amsterdam book market.6 Having entered the guild as a bookbinder specialized in shagreen bindings (segrijnbinder), he mainly worked in collaboration with other publishers. In 1699, he had made his publishing debut with Cervantes’ Don Quixote in a translation revised by Gotfried van Broekhuizen. Three years later he issued a second edition, in van Broekhuizen’s translation, of Denis Vairasse’s Histoire des Sevarambes, 1 h 237, fmh 3017–34 (Europa in Rouw); and h 238, fmh 3017–35 (De Waarheid boven al); fmh 3027, le 192, and fmh 3024-a. 2 Israel, Dutch Republic, p. 959. 3 De Jongste, Onrust, pp. 89–98. 4 nha, 184, inv. no. 3. 5 Anon., Het wonderlijk leeven (1702 edn.). 6 Van Eeghen, Amsterdamse boekhandel, vol. 3, pp. 83, 216; vol. 5, p. 350.

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Fig. 14.1. Romeyn de Hooghe, Funeral Procession of William iii, 1702 (detail).

originally brought out by Timotheus ten Hoorn in 1682.7 It may not be coincidental that ­Verbeek, as Broekhuizen’s publisher, was the one to reissue ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’. Under the new regime, he could do so with impunity. The most fundamental change, though, was that Romeyn shifted his political allegiance. Without the prospect of a speedy return of the stadtholderate and with ­Fabricius out of favour, he needed new patrons. The only place to find these was in the republican faction, now firmly in the saddle. In his defence, it should be added that he was not alone in choosing this course of action. Many regents who had ­identified with the Orangist regime quietly accepted the new political order, in which lucrative offices routinely rotated among members of different factions. The first sign of his accommodation was his frontispiece to ‘The Life and Death of the Illustrious Brothers de Witt’ by Emanuel van der Hoeven, published in 1705, a laudatory biography that could not possibly have been published during the 30 years of William’s reign.8 A graphic artist designing book illustrations had to follow the author’s narrative more or less faithfully, but one could exercise much more freedom when composing a frontispiece, which had to capture a book’s argument in 7 Cervantes, Verstaandigen vroomen ridder; Vairasse, Historie. 8 Van der Hoeven, Leeven; Velema, Republicans, pp. 43–44.

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Fig. 14.2. Romeyn de Hooghe, Frontispiece to Emanuel van der Hoeven, Leeven en dood der doorlugtige heeren gebroeders Cornelis de Witt en Johan de Witt (1705).

a single image. Romeyn, as we have seen, was a master of this art. Yet his pictorial vocabulary was so rich and unusual that he often needed one or two pages of written explanation to make sure that his message came across. This was the case for van der Hoeven’s biography.9 Romeyn’s frontispiece is a monument to civic republicanism (fig. 14.2). On the left, it features an image of the Beloved Fatherland, accompanied by the Dutch lion, with an open book as a symbol of religion and an unblemished helmet and cuirass signifying her valour in war. She holds the fasces, symbol of magisterial power, and the staff of Hermes, symbolizing commerce. A councillor’s gown covers her helmet, 9 Romeyn’s explanation to the frontispiece in van der Hoeven’s de Witt biography was rendered into poetry by Nicolaas van Brakel.

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indicating that the government is one of burghers and that only the burgomasters are entitled to settle disputes. Neptune, lying at her feet, and Hercules, standing behind her, represent her victories at sea and on land. In front of her, in the centre of the picture, a maiden is rising up, leaning on the pillar of virtue and impersonating the ghost of the de Witt brothers. She holds a pair of scales, in which the staff and sabre of the chief commanders of the army and the navy weigh less than a purse filled with ballots, ‘the old emblem of liberty’. The burning heart in her bosom signifies faith, and the snake biting its own tail on her head stands for her eternal and unswerving resolution; a bright sun in her left hand disperses the mist of folly. In the background an altar supports the portraits of the two slain brothers, either side of an urn containing their ashes ‘so dear’. The explanation ends with a lament about the miserable and undeserved end of the ‘faithful fathers of the beloved Fatherland’. While the pictorial idiom does not greatly differ from Romeyn’s earlier Orangist allegories, the role of the defender of the liberty of the commonwealth has shifted from the stadtholder to the de Witt brothers, once his adversaries. One year later, Romeyn designed another frontispiece (again accompanied by a lengthy explanation) and six illustrations for a second work by van der Hoeven. Even more passionate in its republican persuasion, it was programmatically entitled ­‘Holland’s Ancient Liberty without the Stadtholderate’.10 The book argued that the nobility and especially the cities (meaning the States of Holland) had always protected the liberty of the inhabitants against the encroachment of a single head of government. Although paying lip service to the memory of the stadtholders of the House of Orange, van der Hoeven boldly states that it makes no difference whether rulers are styled as stadtholders, counts, princes, dukes, kings, emperors, or the like. As just another form of monarchy, the stadtholderate is incompatible with a free commonwealth. The disastrous experience of its combination with the British Crown had clearly revealed the dangers to which Dutch liberty had been exposed. Illustrating a book that espouses certain political tenets does not necessarily indicate that the artist shares the author’s convictions. In the course of his career, ­Romeyn had made illustrations for hundreds of books, not all of them concomitant with his views. Himself a member of the Reformed Church, for example, he had illustrated three Catholic devotional emblem books.11 But Romeyn was not just anybody. Since 1688, he had consistently hitched his wagon to William’s star. Styling himself ‘Commissioner of His Majesty’ whenever he could, he was widely known as the designer of the triumphal arches in The Hague and the key artist glorifying the king-stadtholder in numerous adulatory works, from Ludolph Smids’ Orange’s Crossing to England, or Description of the Prints of Romeyn de Hooghe in 1689 to Lukas Rotgans’ William the Third, by God’s Grace King of England […], Epically Described.12 10 Van der Hoeven, Hollands aeloude vryheid. 11 Van Hoogstraten, Voorhof; Horstius, Paradisus; De la Vigne, Miroir. 12 Smids, Oranjes overtogt; Rotgans, Wilhem de Derde.

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A Man of Letters The most significant shift in Romeyn’s career after 1702 was that he became a writer. This line of work was, of course, not entirely new to him. As early as 1674, he had written the ‘Theatre of the Changes in the Netherlands’, but that was basically a series of prints with an elucidation, published in book format, just as he had provided the texts to many of his other prints, including the 40 issues of Esopus in Europa. Nor can the handful of pamphlets of 1690, all issued anonymously, be regarded as stepping stones to a literary career. Spiegel van Staat [‘Mirror of State’], published in two volumes in 1706 and 1707 by Jan Claesz ten Hoorn, was of an altogether different calibre.13 ‘Mirror of State’ is a bulky and learned compendium of all the political and legal institutions of the Netherlands (fig. 14.3). The first volume encompasses the institutions of the separate provinces and their cities, while the second elaborates on the governing bodies of the Dutch Republic as a whole, including the East and West India companies and various other trading enterprises. The largest part of the ‘Mirror of State’ is dedicated to a meticulous description of the bewildering variety of administrative councils and law-courts that constitute the institutional fabric of the Dutch Republic. In the introduction, Romeyn simply states that he wishes ‘to assist citizens and strangers who must bring a civil suit […] with knowledge about law courts, ordinances, laws, and law of civil procedure’. Yet behind this seemingly practical purpose lurks a broader agenda: he wants to demonstrate ‘why liberty is as common here as slavery elsewhere’.14 Liberty, according to Romeyn, is the essence of the Dutch national character and history. Already in remote antiquity, the tribes of the Low Countries had stood out by obstinately and gloriously defending their freedom, while their hapless neighbours were being overwhelmed by Romans, Normans, and other foreigners. The natives had diverse forms of government, but shared a common distaste for monarchical authority.15 The decisive moment in the progress of freedom was the Revolt against the King of Spain, resulting in ‘the certain hope of a Golden Age, in which Peace and Justice would meet’. The blessings of his own age are ‘intimately tied to Liberty and Justice, which have established their Temples here’.16 The second volume opens with a treatise on politics that favourably compares the Dutch Republic to France, Britain, and other European states. Not surprisingly, it concludes with the observation that the Dutch is the only commonwealth that is really free. The argument is profoundly anti-monarchical. Monarchy must necessarily collapse as a result of internal weakness and outward coercion: 13 14 15 16

De Hooghe, Spiegel. Ibid., vol. 1, Voor-reeden, no page number. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 4. Ibid., vol. 1, Voor-reden, no page number.

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Fig. 14.3. Romeyn de Hooghe, Frontispiece to Romeyn de Hooghe, Spiegel van Staat des Vereenigde Nederlands, vol. 1 (1706).

The monarch must continually make the [common] inhabitants toil, endanger the wealthy and forfeit their property by false charges, and exploit the population by various evil inventions. The latter, ruined and bereft of their lands and property, must band together, and find an opportunity to wrench the sceptre of government from the hands of the unbound voluptuous villain.17

The prime example of the depravity of monarchical rule is France, ‘a theatre of ­tyranny over the French, and of faithlessness, land theft, and evil tricks against foreigners’.18 Romeyn’s opinion of England, an ally in the ongoing War of the Spanish 17 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 12–13. 18 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 34.

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Succession, is much more positive. A limited monarchy, with Parliament checking the prerogatives of the Crown, he regards this country as ‘a very beautiful and almost perfect model of a great and lordly commonwealth’.19 Oligarchic rule is almost as repulsive as monarchy. Romeyn makes a sharp distinction between oligarchic republics such as Venice and Poland, and popular ones like Switzerland and the Dutch Republic. Venice receives short shrift; it is a despicable polity where ‘the nobility oppresses the citizens and peasants. In Genoa, Lucca, and Poland, too, the nobles suppress the commons and ‘hardly regard the peasants as people’.20 This brings to mind the 1690 Stagecoach Chat, in which he accused the burgomasters of Amsterdam of wanting ‘to be Venice’ and oppressing their own burghers.21 The Swiss Confederation, by contrast, is ‘a laudable commonwealth [with] an eminently free popular government consisting of many members, Catholics as well as Reformed’.22 Had Romeyn morphed into a full-blooded republican? The litmus test of the nature of his republicanism would be his attitude towards the stadtholderate. Did he regard the office as an essential part of the republican constitution of the Dutch Republic – the Orangist view – or as one foreign to it, barely or not at all distinguishable from monarchy and tyranny, as Emanuel van der Hoeven and, before him, Johan and Pieter de la Court had maintained? Remarkably, he succeeded in remaining entirely noncommittal on this issue. Repeatedly praising the individual stadtholders for their military prowess, he had nothing to say about the merits or disadvantages of the office itself. To his credit, he remained steadfast in his appreciation for William iii, ‘to whom England, Ireland, and Scotland owe their restoration, Spain its lawful prince, and Europe its freedom from the tyranny of France’.23 Romeyn was not a political philosopher. In both its form and content, the ‘Mirror of State’ was chorography; a geographical and historical description of a city, region, province, or country. Chorography was popular in Renaissance Europe, especially in a decentralized polity like the Dutch Republic.24 The genre provided scope for showcasing a considerable amount of scholarship. Devoting ample space to the past, its focus was antiquarian rather than historical, privileging the enumeration of facts and data over narrative and analysis. ‘Mirror of State’ was the first chorography to explore not just one single city or province, but the entirety of the United Netherlands.

19 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 36. Cf. Israel, Enlightenment Contested, p. 244, where Romeyn is described as ‘contemptuous of mixed monarchy’. 20 De Hooghe, Spiegel, vol. 2, pp. 19, 46. Israel, Enlightenment Contested, p. 245. 21 Kn. 13499, Postwagen-praetjen; Israel, Enlightenment Contested, p. 246. 22 De Hooghe, Spiegel, vol. 2, p. 22. 23 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 246. On ‘Orangist Republicanism’, see Israel, Monarchy. 24 On chorographies in the Netherlands, see Esser, Politics.

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So why did Romeyn exchange the etching needle for the pen? Was it only to offer a helping hand to natives and foreigners who anticipated litigation? He believed he was particularly well suited to write such a work, because he had ‘served almost all regents of the Holland cities and their assemblies’ and had travelled widely, both in the Netherlands and abroad (mentioning only Paderborn, Osnabrück, Antwerp, and Brussels).25 One cannot help pondering Romeyn’s sincerity in this respect. Someone preparing a lawsuit in one of the Netherlands’ many jurisdictions would surely need an able attorney, well-informed about local customs, rather than a learned, wide-ranging, and often rambling work covering all the country’s administrative and legal institutions, as well as a long-winded celebration of the immemorial pedigree of Dutch liberty. ‘Mirror of State’ was a coffee-table book rather than a practical guide, not least because of the fourteen attractive folding plates by Romeyn’s hand. It was the sort of learned compendium of encyclopaedic knowledge summarizing the tegenwoordige staat (present state) of a place that was popular at the time among the educated elite. Being an author in the Dutch Republic was not a profession like etching or the law. It was difficult to make money from one’s pen. By the end of the seventeenth century, a new class of hacks had emerged. Paid by interested parties, they wrote pamphlets for a mass market, sometimes defending a lofty moral position, but more often scurrilously tarnishing their opponents, as Ericus Walten did. Or they might scrape together a meagre income by writing occasional poetry for weddings, burials, and public festivities, or publish a journal, like Cornelis van der Gon. But not all writers were hacks. At the other end of the social spectrum were the literati, men of letters able to live by their own means. They had enjoyed the humanist education that was indispensable for literary fame. This explains why almost all successful ­seventeenth-century Dutch authors were drawn from the upper classes, in contrast to the painters, engravers, and etchers.26 Artists were artisans, subject to the regulations of their craft guild, even if some of them had loftier aspirations. In the introduction to ‘Mirror of State’, Romeyn made sure that this point was not lost on his audience. ‘I have [written this book] using my own fortune, on holidays, and without being constrained by necessities’.27 Presenting himself as an author and a scholar was another opportunity to profile himself as a member of the leisure class. He did not have to work for a living – at least, not all the time. Volume two of the ‘Mirror of State’, as he wrote in its Dedication, would have been even more elaborate if the burgomasters of Enkhuizen had not invited him ‘in a very pressing manner’ to paint the canvases for their chamber in the new town hall.28 Re-inventing himself as a man of letters was another step in Romeyn’s self-fashioning as a gentleman. 25 De Hooghe, Spiegel, vol. 1, Voor-reeden, no page number. 26 Price, Dutch Culture, pp. 138–153. 27 De Hooghe, Spiegel, vol. 1, Voor-reden, no page number. 28 Ibid., vol. 2, Toe-eigening, no page number.

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An Invisible Church Between 1703 and 1708, Romeyn finished the manuscript of yet another book, entitled Hieroglyphica. Its double-barrelled full title suggests that he wished to accomplish two things at once. The main title, ‘Hieroglyphica, or Emblems of the Ancient Peoples, Especially Egyptians, Chaldeans, Phoenicians, Jews, Greeks, Romans, etc.’, proclaims an iconography or instruction manual on the use of ancient emblems or ‘hieroglyphs’, as they were called at the time. The subtitle, ‘Containing an Exhaustive Essay on the Progressive Decline and Corruption of Religion through the Ages, and its Recent Reformation until the Present Day,’ announces a treatise on the history of religion.29 Hieroglyphica was published in 1735, almost 30 years after Romeyn’s death, with a German translation following in 1744.30 It consists of 63 plates in quarto and the same number of matching explanatory chapters. The ‘illustrations’ constitute the real argument, while the 455 pages of legends merely illuminate the plates (fig. 14.4). As was the case with the ‘Mirror of State’, Romeyn pretended that his purpose was chiefly practical. He had noticed that artists often make a mess of emblems and history paintings, more often than not jumbling up facts, places, and epochs. This was ‘because most painters, engravers, and sculptors, being born to lowly parents, are unable to explore the ancient sources’ and therefore lack historical understanding. Romeyn extended a helping hand; again, he was the man eminently qualified to help them out. With characteristic immodesty, but not untruthfully, he summed up his wide-ranging skills: he is a linguist versed in the ancient authors and a collector of coins, books, and drawings. These sources inspired him to be inventive and creative in almost every topic.31 It is unlikely, though, that Hieroglyphica ever served as a manual for artists in the manner of Cesare Ripa’s influential Iconologia or Ioannis Pierius’ Hieroglyphica, both of which Romeyn mentions as his examples.32 His images are too convoluted and mostly too bizarre to be useful to other artists. Unlike Ripa and Pierius, he never presents a simple picture of a single emblem, accompanied by a straightforward explanation of its meaning. Instead, his designs are extremely complex and intricate, ­featuring multiple allegorical figures, animals, and objects artfully jumbled together. No example is known of an artist deriving his imagery from Hieroglyphica. Romeyn must have used the formula of an emblematical manual to disguise his real intentions.

29 lbi 108; De Hooghe, Hieroglyphica of merkbeelden. 30 De Hooghe, Hieroglyphica, oder Denkbilder. 31 De Hooghe, Hieroglyphica of merkbeelden, ‘Voor-rede’, no page number. 32 Ripa, Iconologia overo descrittione. A Dutch translation followed in 1644: Ripa, Iconologia of uytbeeldingen. Valeriano Bolzani, Hieroglyphica.

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Fig. 14.4. Romeyn de Hooghe, Illustration to Romeyn de Hooghe, Hieroglyphica of merkbeelden der oude volkeren (1735).

Long before Jean-François Champollion deciphered them, the hieroglyphs of the Egyptians were thought to be sacred signs containing and leading the way to divine truths. Pictures were thought to be more reliable than written texts, just as a painted portrait provides a quicker and more immediate understanding of someone’s physiognomy than does a description in words.33 Romeyn thought pictures could ‘penetrate species and things to the core’ and that they were the best instrument to convey ideas to an audience. Creating hieroglyphs meant grasping the core of the invisible world of the divine.34

33 De Hooghe, Hieroglyphica of merkbeelden, p. 2. 34 Van ’t Hof, ‘Old Emblems’, pp. 889–890.

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Hieroglyphica was the form that Romeyn chose to present his mature thinking on religion.35 It presents his vision of the history, or rather the genealogy, of the great world religions. With this work, he was claiming a unique position in contemporary discussions about the character, essence, and use of religion. His views are highly unorthodox and reveal the influence of thinkers like Hobbes and Spinoza. It should come as no surprise that he attempted to hide his argument under the guise of an emblem manual. Perhaps publication was precluded by his death, but more likely he wittingly chose not to send it to the press, because he foresaw that the work would raise a storm of opposition. Religion, according to Romeyn, is not based on divine revelation; it is a human invention. It originated in the ancient Middle East, where astronomers achieved a high degree of scientific knowledge that enabled them to understand natural phenomena like the apparition of comets, and to predict the weather and the chances of a bountiful harvest.36 Failing to understand that their learning was merely empirically obtained, the common people believed that astronomers had access to divine secrets. Not wishing to spoil their illusions, the latter appropriated the role of priests. Princes and nobles deftly exploited the people’s deference to the clerical caste for their own uses, and jointly developed a divine cult that coaxed the people into obedience. All religions in world history, Christianity not excepted, are variations on this oriental invention. Religion is the bedrock of the wealth and power of princes, priests, and nobles. The first part of Hieroglyphica begins by painting a kaleidoscopic picture of antique representations of gods, the cosmos, the world, man, and the human soul. It then shifts its attention to world history, as it was reconstructed at the time from biblical stories and the new science of chronology. Without saying so explicitly, Romeyn thus interprets the Bible as a human projection instead of divine revelation. He displays a dazzling knowledge of ancient and biblical history, customs, and images, and mixes this with stories about exotic peoples, derived from contemporary travel literature. He is keenly aware of contemporary debates on natural philosophy. He mocks, for example, clerical resistance to the Copernican system, and he defends hypotheses, hotly debated at the time, about the possibility of extra-terrestrial life. Romeyn carefully calibrated the composition of the work. Plate 32, placed exactly half-way through the book, is dedicated to the incarnation of Christ. In order to achieve this, he had to be quite repetitive in the first 31 chapters, but it enabled him to dedicate the entire second half to the history of the Christian Church. Christian prelates and theologians, despite the promise of redemption, managed to coax the people back into slavish obedience. The advent of the Protestant Reformation promised a new beginning, but brought new forms of fraud and priestcraft, and more 35 The following is based on Spaans, ‘Hiëroglyfen’ and Spaans, ‘Art’. For Romeyn’s religious iconography, see also Dallett, Romeyn de Hooghe: Illustrations. 36 De Hooghe, Hieroglyphica of merkbeelden, pp. 27–28.

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theological hair-splitting. The progress of religion provisionally culminated in the Reformed religion as practised in contemporary Holland, allegedly consisting in the simple imitation of Christ under the tutelage of the States. Romeyn’s faith is spiritualistic, appreciating a humble, non-confessional piety and scorning learned theology and priestcraft. This had been the distinctive form of his religious nature from the very beginning of his career. Although a confirmed and practising member of the Reformed Church, he cherished a spiritualistic piousness that sat uneasily with Reformed orthodoxy. In 1668, for example, while still residing in Paris, he made the illustrations for The Forecourt of the Soul by François van ­Hoogstraten.37 The frontispiece of this Catholic emblem book features a ­laurel-crested ‘Pious Soul’ approaching his goal, a burning torch in hand, barefoot as a penitent (fig. 14.5). An angel points to Christ, who runs towards him with his arms wide open, against a background with a flight of stairs leading to the heavens. The frontispiece for Govert Bidloo’s Letters of the Martyred Apostles (1675) resumes the theme of true Christianity that sustains itself through self-sacrifice (fig. 9.1).38 The fact that the former book was a Catholic one and the latter Mennonite was ­irrelevant to Romeyn, just as his own religious denomination was apparently a ­matter of indifference to their authors. What mattered was a shared view of the spiritual essence of Christian piety. After his move to Haarlem, his pictorial idiom became increasingly crowded, complex, and original. Yet his religious ideal of an invisible true Church that does not coincide with any officially recognized confession remained unaltered. An i­llustration for ‘Discourse on the Ancient Oracles of the Pagans’ (1683) by Antonius van Dale, a Mennonite physician from Haarlem, features ‘False Religion’ in the guise of a Golden Calf with two female figures (fig. 14.6).39 One of them – veiled, masked, and walking on cat’s feet (symbols of fraud) – keeps Conscience in chains, in the shape of two fettered captives with the attributes of inconstancy and blindness. The second has five breasts (a reference to the cult of Diana), three faces, and a mouse-trap on her head, signifying that she seduces by means of an abundance of knowledge. Only one figure remains immune to the lure of False Religion: a donkey, crushed under the weight of a corpulent monk, has its eyes fixed on a crucifix sitting on a rock and an opened book. Not powerful prelates and learned theologians, but simple souls are the recipients of true faith, symbolized in the donkey of the prophet Balaam, the lowly beast of burden that perceived the angel his master was unable to see.40 The same pictorial idiom and anti-confessional ideal can be perceived in subsequent frontispieces for various religious publications, such as the Dutch translation of Unpartyische Kirchenund Ketzerhistorie [‘An Impartial History of the Church and of Heresy’] by Gottfried 37 Van Hoogstraten, Voorhof. 38 Bidloo, Brieven. 39 Van Dale, Verhandeling, pp. 80–81. 40 Numbers 22: 21–39.

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Fig. 14.5. Romeyn de Hooghe, Frontispiece to François van Hoogstraten, Het voorhof der ziele (1668).

Arnold, a work displaying more sympathy for heresy than any established Church or its clergy, and the so-called ‘Print-Bible’, a rich collection of illustrations and maps to the Old and the New Testament intended to be bound with the Lutheran Bible translation by Adolf Visscher (1702), and later reused in Jacques Basnage de Beauval’s Groot waerelds tafereel [‘Great Tableau of the World’, 1705].41 Whilst Romeyn’s thoughts on the institutions of the Dutch Republic as expounded in ‘Mirror of State’ are not particularly ground-breaking or enlightened, his discourse on religion is. Joke Spaans has argued that Romeyn must be regarded as an exponent of the Radical Enlightenment that emerged in the Dutch Republic in the second half of the seventeenth century.42 Well aware of Descartes’ new epistemology 41 Arnold, Historie; Biblia; Basnage de Beauval, Groot waerelds tafereel. 42 Cf. Israel, Radical Enlightenment.

Fig. 14.6. Romeyn de Hooghe, Illustration to Anthoni van Dalen, Verhandeling van de oude orakelen der heydenen (1687).

and recent discoveries in the natural sciences, he questioned the early modern religious establishment, theology, and political theory. He criticized all contemporary religions, including his own, for being deformed by elementary forms of priestcraft, inherited from their distant forebears in the ancient Middle East. In Hieroglyphica as well as in his earlier graphic work, Romeyn was advocating a spirit of freedom of inquiry that takes seriously even the most far-reaching consequences of contemporary scientific and scholarly revolutions, even when these run counter to the Biblical worldview. True faith can only be based on the free moral judgement of the believer. The history of religion teaches us that the gods worshipped by man are either deified humans or the powers of nature. Spaans concludes: ‘In his radical deconstruction of Christianity, de Hooghe reveals himself a full-blooded Spinozist. Like Spinoza, he was not an atheist in the modern sense. His work is infused by a lightened spirituality. Measured by the religious codes of his own time, he was every inch the libertine his enemies claimed he was’.43

43 Spaans, ‘Art’, pp. 302–303.

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This formed the backdrop to the mocking remarks about religion, the Bible, and the Lord’s Supper that had almost brought him down in 1690.

Death and Legacy Romeyn died in the summer of 1708, at the age of 62. On 15 June, he was buried in Haarlem’s Great or St Bavo’s Church in a grave marked no. 4, in a prime location right in front of the chancel. He had inherited the lease of the tomb from his uncle Pieter, who had been laid to rest in the same grave with his wife, Martijntje van der Hulst.44 So notorious was Romeyn for his alleged atheism that the wildest, though in all probability apocryphal, deathbed stories circulated: People assure me that he has pushed his extravagance so far as to lapse into the errors of metempsychosis. The minister who exhorted him at his deathbed, trying to convince him of the absurdity of this opinion, asked him into what sort of animal he would be changed. ‘I do not know’, replied the dying man; ‘but for you, do you know what has been preordained? You will pass into the body of a stork, and nothing would suit you better, for having poisoned the interior of churches during your lifetime, it is only appropriate that you should be at liberty to deposit your droppings on their rooftops after your death’.45

The scandalmongering that had soured his life did not immediately end. An anthology of Dutch and Latin occasional poetry that came out two years after his death contained the following verse, a ditty probably originating from 1690, entitled, ‘Avarice, the Root of all Evils, Vividly Demonstrated in Romeyn de Hooghe, Savage Engraver, and Dishonourable Libeller in Amsterdam’: He counterfeits for money: his eyes were beagles, His hands hooks, his pockets an insatiable Hell. Velvet, Silk, Silver, Gold, Time-Pieces got stuck, That gold vein has stopped; every man watches his hands. A burnt-down mind steps forward and knows no pales, The silver-thief now steals the honour of the most virtuous Heroes And for gain dares falsely to depict them as villains, Thus lies and theft will never part.46

44 De Haas, ‘Commissaris’, p. 27, fn. 109; nha, 2142, inv. no. 85, p. 413. 45 Mariette, Abecedario, vol. 2, p. 382; cf. ibid., p. 376. 46 Nederduitse en Latynse keurdigten, p. 186.

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Cornelis van der Gon, who had little reason to be generous, remembered him in 1713 in his periodical Den Schiedamse Saturnus.47 In a dream, he sees ‘Romulus ab Altus’ in the inferno being whipped by three Furies: ‘Bedecked with red-hot pictures of Aretino and the likes, he resembled a rhinoceros; constantly looking outwards to see if his plaything was not coming; and seeing me, he grinned like a billy-goat chewing burning oats’.48 Romeyn had designated his wife Maria as his universal heir. She probably moved back to their old home ‘The High Holly’ on Geldeloze Pad, where she had her last will and testament made on 13 February 1717. She died less than two years later. On 11 November 1718, she joined her husband in his grave.49 Maria’s heir was her youngest sister Helena, or, if she were to predecease Maria, her two children Jacob and Anna de Bruijn. Helena had separated from her husband Caspar de Bruijn, and Maria’s will explicitly excluded him from the inheritance. Their son Jacob de Bruijn settled the inheritance. The long list of plots of land he leased out or sold in 1719 reflects the ample size of Romeyn and Maria’s properties as well as their passion for gardening. Five gardens in Mercuriuslaan near Geldeloze Pad and two gardens in Visserlaan joining Grote Houtweg, measuring between 200 and 400 m2, were let on long lease. Four gardens near Grote Houtweg were sold off, three of them measuring almost 300 m2 and the other over 700 m2. In 1731, Anna de Bruijn’s husband, the Reverend Petrus de Mol, sold ‘The High Holly’, a plot of almost 2,000 m2 with gardens and buildings.50 The last item to be sold, also in 1731, was the big townhouse facing Nieuwe Gracht. Romeyn’s legacy is twofold. On the one hand, his book illustrations long remained as popular as they had been during his lifetime. In the first ten years after his death, 24 books with a frontispiece or illustrations by his hand were published, evidently most of them reprints. The number tapered off, but a steady trickle continued until the end of the eighteenth century. Between 1740 and 1789, each five-year period witnessed the publication of three works containing his art.51 The production of news prints and satires discussing current affairs obviously came to an end, but even in this field, enterprising publishers discovered new uses for his work. In 1746, a print appeared that in its original version had shown James ii and Mary of Modena with their baby-son as tight-rope walkers. They were tumbling down while Louis xiv and the Dauphin were about to set foot on the rope, all to the tune of William iii playing the cello. The new edition came with a new legend explaining that the character falling from the rope represented James’ grandson Charles Edward Stuart, known as 47 De Haas, ‘Commissaris’, p. 24. 48 Van der Gon, Schiedamse Saturnus, vol. 11 (1713), p. 42. 49 De Haas, ‘Commissaris’, p. 22. 50 Petrus de Mol was a minister in Midlum (Friesland) from 1722 to 1727. In 1727, he was called to Jisp in North-Holland, and in 1735 to Middelburg in Zeeland, where he died in 1748. 51 Verhoeven and Verkruijsse, ‘Verbeelding’, p. 168.

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the Young Pretender, whose invasion of Scotland had ended in disaster at the Battle of Culloden, while the cello player had morphed into the King of France (fig. 14.7).52 Another way in which Romeyn’s artistic legacy lived on was in the work of his pupils and followers. During his 40-year career, he had taught dozens of apprentices who continued to work in his style. None of them was as original as their master, but it is often difficult to discern a real de Hooghe from an etching by an artist working in his orbit. Adriaan Schoonebeek offers the most telling example of Romeyn’s wide-ranging influence. In 1698, he sold his shop and his stock of copperplates, prints, and books, and left with Tsar Peter the Great for Moscow to set up Russia’s first etching studio. He carried in his luggage a large stock of prints that were to serve as models, many of them by Romeyn’s hand. His prints glorifying Peter are in many ways indebted to his teacher, as are those made by his stepson, pupil, and successor, Pieter Pickaert. Thus, Romeyn’s 1682 equestrian portrait of Don Manuel López de Zúñiga (which he himself had already transformed into versions successively representing Joseph i of Hungary, William iii of Orange, and Charles iii of Spain) resurfaced in yet another form with Peter the Great’s countenance pasted onto it (fig. 14.8).53 On the other hand, and in striking contrast to his fame as an artist, he was to remain an example of immorality until long after his death. In ‘The Great Theatre of Dutch Painters’, Arnold Houbraken called him ‘an evil fellow and a second A ­ retino’.54 Devoting only one page to Romeyn’s artistic achievements, he used the remaining ten to caution young artists against ‘offensive behaviour and filthy images’. His tirade against pornography leads one to suspect that he was familiar with the illustrations of ‘The Wandering Whore’. Jacob Campo Weyerman, labelling him ‘the Viceroy of Hell’, associated Romeyn in his encyclopaedia of Dutch painters with freethinkers like Lucilio Vanini, Pietro Pomponazzi, Giordano Bruno, and Baruch Spinoza.55 Admitting that he was ‘an artful painter and an excellent etcher’, he dismissed him as a deceitful creature. The magistrates of his hometown had allegedly exiled him because of the prints for an obscene novel. Citing ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’ as his source, Campo Weyerman concluded that the exact date of his death was irrelevant, ‘because we firmly believe that he now finds himself in a place where he does not need firewood as much as the ice floes of Novaya Zemlya’.56 Romeyn’s image as a rascal and a libertine, based for the most part on the imputations in the ‘Memorandum of Rights’, thus became canonized. In his manuscript dictionary of artists, Pierre-Jean ­Mariette repeated the story that Romeyn had been exiled from Amsterdam because of the ­pornography affair. It was said that Romeyn had told a man eager to court his daughter that ‘he himself would rather be the one to 52 fmh 276-a (1689); fmh 2766-b and 3846 (1746). 53 Gerson, Ausbreitung, pp. 516–517. 54 ‘Een slechte knaap, en een tweede Aretyn’. Houbraken, Groote schouburgh, vol. 3, p. 258. 55 Campo Weyerman, Levens-beschryvingen, vol. 3, p. 113. 56 Ibid., p. 117.

Fig. 14.7. Romeyn de Hooghe, Satire on the Defeat of the Young Pretender at the Battle of Culloden, 1746.

Fig. 14.8. Alexey Fyodorovich Zubov after Pieter Pickaert after Romeyn de Hooghe, Equestrian Portrait of Tsar Peter the Great, 1704–1726.

pick that rose’, and he was said to have employed his daughter as a sitter for obscene etchings.57 Romeyn’s reputation for depravity continued well into the twentieth century, when the great historian Johan Huizinga, in a comment on the general decline of Dutch art after the death of Rembrandt, disparagingly remarked that one could no longer speak of a flowering of the arts ‘when a coarse spirit like Romeyn de Hooghe’s captures the print market’.58 To what extent are these allegations of immorality based on truth? It should be stated, first and foremost, that Romeyn was never indicted, tried, or convicted for any of the crimes and misdemeanours of which he was accused. But now that his extraordinary life story has been recorded from beginning to end, we can try to shed 57 Mariette, Abecedario, vol. 2, p. 376. 58 Huizinga, ‘Nederland’s beschaving’, p. 502.

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some light on the veracity of the contentions about his wrong-doings, elusive as they may be. In order to do so, we must first distinguish three different media in which the allegations were made, with different levels of credibility: libels, a novel, and notarized attestations. The libels and pamphlets of 1690 are the least reliable. Their aim was character assassination, to be accomplished, if necessary, by what today is termed ‘fake news’. No evidence has turned up, for example, to confirm the claim in the scurrilous Archicornutus ab Alto libels that Romeyn had narrowly escaped the gallows in Paris. The more sophisticated Parnassian pamphlets, an early form of infotainment, should also be read with caution. On the other hand, some of these tales may have a basis in truth, as they were rooted in stories that were circulating widely. Abbé Torche’s novel Le chien de Boulogne, in the form in which it was translated and transformed by Gotfried van Broekhuizen and published by Timotheus ten Hoorn or Jan Bouman (or both), was by definition fiction. But the only purpose of inserting the paragraphs about Romeyn was to lend some credibility to other tales that were fictitious, pure and simple. This was a common literary strategy that only worked if the inserted stories contained at least a kernel of truth. Probably not true in all aspects, the stories can be seen as a hyperbolical form of common gossip, as we have learned from the deliberations of the Amsterdam Reformed Church Consistory. Our most reliable source are the attestations produced before notary Bockx in April 1690, confirmed by oath before the city secretary, and later published in the ‘Memorandum of Rights’. Of course, the mere fact that the depositions were notarized and sworn did not in itself guarantee that they were trustworthy. Romeyn did his utmost to establish that Boreel and Muys van Holy had encouraged the witnesses to testify against him with promises of money and jobs. This may well have been the case, but it does not prove that their depositions were incorrect per se. In many respects, they did confirm each other. The fact that the city government of Haarlem protected Romeyn by declaring the ‘Memorandum of Rights’ an illegal libel did not in effect rescind the contents of the affidavits published in it. Finally, Romeyn himself unwittingly provided the definite proof of the trustworthiness of (some of) the attestations by covertly trying to suborn two of the witnesses – and then failing to persuade them to withdraw their statements. We can identify four different crimes of which Romeyn’s was accused: (1) pornography, (2) atheism and blasphemy, (3) theft, fraud, and embezzlement, and (4) sexual immorality. Although no copy of the illustrated edition of ‘The Wandering Whore’ seems to have survived, it is highly likely that the charge of making the pornographic illustrations was justified. Constantijn Huygens Jr thought he recognized Romeyn’s hand when he saw a copy. The most damning assertion was made by Romeyn’s former maid, who had witnessed how the illustrations were thrown into the fire immediately after his chat with the sheriff in the town hall. Other witnesses credibly confirmed the presence of the pictures in ‘The Wakeful Dog’.

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The blasphemy charges are also well founded. Witnesses remembered how ­ omeyn had made flippant remarks about Scripture, and especially about the Lord’s R Supper. His libertine attitude towards religion suggests familiarity with ­philosophers associated with the Radical Enlightenment, and contemporaries would have ­ branded him an atheist for that reason. Today, his opinions rather seem ­modern and ­ enlightened. He valued reason and independent research over scriptural ­revelation and priestcraft. This attitude is confirmed by the contents of his last work, ­Hieroglyphica. What strikes the reader, however, is his blatant insouciance about uttering these opinions. He seems to have cared little about shocking the feelings of others, including the worldly and clerical authorities, with potentially damaging consequences for his career. None of the colourful accusations of fraud and thievery in ‘The Curious Life of the Bolognese Dog’ can be substantiated. They may be exaggerated versions of real facts, metaphors of dishonesty rather than reports of crimes actually committed and to be prosecuted by the authorities. The attestations, again, provide more convincing evidence. The charge that Romeyn had a copy made of a canvas by van Aelst and sold it to the King of Poland instead of the original cannot be substantiated, but it has a ring of truth about it, and conforms to widespread practices in the art market. The charge of embezzling books in ‘The Wakeful Dog’ is supported by a different attestation produced in The Hague by the injured bookseller himself. The allegations find unexpected circumstantial support in the file assembled by Joan Huydecoper containing depositions from the artists employed in the making of the triumphal arches in The Hague. Their affidavits were never published, nor did they serve in a trial, but they do unambiguously unveil Romeyn’s deceit. It is impossible to identify the motives behind his cheating. Was it pure greed and lust for money, as contemporaries believed? Was it part of his life project of escaping the straightened circumstances of his youth? Or did he suffer from kleptomania, a clinical affliction? Was he in it for the money, or for the excitement of the act of stealing, followed by relief if he was successful? Was it a combination of these motives? Again, it is striking that he was willing to take egregious risks, something that threatened to destroy his career time and again, and that did ultimately demolish his reputation. Finally, the accusations about sexual immorality are the most difficult to substantiate. The allegations about Maria’s promiscuity may find support in the fact that the de Hooghes had only one child, something that was unusual in the era before contraception. But her barrenness may have been due to many medical causes other than syphilis; or she may have caught the disease from Romeyn himself, rather than during any extramarital escapades of her own. If veracious, the charges suggest that Romeyn and Maria shared a libertine worldview. Romeyn’s reckless remarks about the virginity of his daughter were probably just that –inadvertent chatter. Although

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uncouth and unforgivable from a pedagogical point of view, they do not necessarily imply incest. We will never know. The verdict of the historian must therefore be that most of the accusations against Romeyn were based on truth. He was a tremendously gifted and productive artist, a creative and versatile entrepreneur, highly intelligent, well-educated, with a superb sense of humour, and a devotee of new scientific and philosophical ideas. He came a long way in realizing his ambition of bettering his social status and joining Holland’s cosy circle of well-off regents. But there was a wild and roguish side to his character that tempted him to take unwarranted risks, time and again. If it had not been for the protection he received from William iii and his henchmen, his enemies would have destroyed him. In 1767, the lease on Romeyn’s and Maria’s final resting-place in St Bavo’s Church expired due to ‘failure to pay the increment’.59 It was probably cleared out soon afterwards. Romeyn’s art remains as the lasting testimony to his genius.

59 De Haas, ‘Commissaris’, p. 27 fn. 109.



Appendix: Genealogy of the De Hooghe ­Family1

I. Willem de Hooghe, born …, d. …, m. before or in 1500 Thaenkin N.N. From this marriage (a.o.?): II. Olivier de Hooghe, alderman, tax-collector, and burgomaster of Tielt, born Tielt, c. 1510, d. 1599 –1602, m. between 1537 and 1539 N.N. From this marriage (a.o.?): III. Jan i de Hooghe, merchant, born Tielt c. 1540, d. London … December 1601, m. c. 1566 –1568 1st Paschina (Pasquijntje) van Ryckeghem, daughter of N.N. van Ryckeghem and N.N., m. 2nd Janneken ’s Hooghen, daughter of Giles (Gillis) and N.N. From the first marriage: 1. Jan ii, follows IVa. 2. Romeyn I, follows IVb. IVa. Jan ii de Hooghe, born Tielt c. 1569, d. Amsterdam … December 1624, m. … Sara Stevens, born …, d. 10 November 1635, daughter of Louis (?) Stevens and Louise du Trocq. From this marriage: 1. Louis, born …, d. c. 1624. 2. Lucretia, born ..., d. 3 November 1635, m. 13 May 1634 in The Hague (?) Pieter Willemsz Pos(t). 3. Maria, born …, d. …, m. Nicolaes Telink or van Lingen. From this marriage: a. Anna Telink or van Lingen. b. Klaes Telink or van Lingen.

1 The basic source for the genealogy of the de Hooghe family is a manuscript kept in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, compiled after the death in 1758 of Christina Sibilla Moll, daughter-in-law of Anna de Hooghe and Ludolf Backhuysen, rma, rp-d-2017–2295 (=rp-d-2017–2287 no. 15). Partly based on a ‘Family Book’ initiated by Anna de Hooghe in 1680, it provides the dates of birth, marriage, and death of members of both branches of the de Hooghe family. Photographs of all pages of Anna de Hooghe’s Family Book are published in de Beer, Ludolf Backhuysen, pp. 235–240. Where possible, I have added the dates of baptisms, marriage banns, and burials, mostly gleaned from the registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials (dtb) in the Amsterdam City Archives (saa, 5001), which can be consulted at www.amsterdam.nl/stadsarchief. Data on the de Hooghes in Tielt are derived from Stadsrekeningen Tielt; the de Hooghes in London can be found in Marriage, Baptismal and Burial Registers and in Returns of Aliens. Waller, ‘Familie’ should be consulted with caution, as it misses out the generation of Romeyn iv’s grandfather Jan ii de Hooghe.

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4. Jan iii, follows va. 5. Catalina, born ..., d. ... 6. Pieter, button-maker, later merchant (?), born Antwerp c. 1616, buried Haarlem 28 February 1681, m. 15 March 1647 Martijntje van der Hulst, born Amsterdam 1619/20, buried Haarlem 10 September 1680. 7. Romeyn ii, follows Vb. 8. Louis, follows Vc. Va. Jan iii de Hooghe, silk-braid weaver, born Cologne 1605/6, buried 29 July 1674, m. 1st 7 September 1630 Geertruid Ambrosius, born ..., d. 8 May 1639; m. 2nd 3 March 1640 Marritje Daniels alias Maria Goudenhooft, widow of Jan Joosten Slijper, born Amsterdam …, d. between 1-1650 and 5-1654; m. 3rd after 11 December 1655 (banns 30 May 1654 and 11 December 1655) Grietje Hendrickx, born Amsterdam 1619, d. between October 1660 and January 1665; m. 4th 24 January 1665 Judith Jans, widow of Lambert Teunisse. From the first marriage: 1. Jan v, follows VIa. 2. Paulus, born Amsterdam 5 October 1636, bapt. 9 October 1636, buried 13 ­January 1665. From the second marriage: 3. Sara, bapt. 28 March 1641. 4. Olivier, bapt. 27 April 1642. 5. Johannes, bapt. 19 August 1646. 6. Johannis, bapt. 13 October 1647. 7. Gerrit, bapt. 4 January 1650. 8. Olivier, bapt. 2 January 1652. 9. (?) Jacomina. From the third marriage: 10. Elsje, bapt. 21/30 January 1656. 11. Elsie, bapt. 27 May 1657. 12. Jan, bapt. 22 October 1658. 13. Hendrik, bapt. 26 October 1660. From the fourth marriage: 14. Saertien, bapt. 3 March 1669, buried 7 June 1690. NB: Unnamed children of Jan de Hooghe were buried on 26 January 1657 and 28 September 1664. Vb. Romeyn ii de Hooghe, button-maker ‘in de Romeyn’ in Nieuwe Hoogstraat (1664), bapt. Amsterdam 25 February 1620, buried 30 September 1664, m. Diemen 29 September 1641 (banns Amsterdam 7 September 1641) Susanna Gerrits, bapt. 19 April 1616 (?), d. 1681 or 1683, daughter of Gerrit Meijnertsz of Bellingwolde, carpenter

APPENDIX

419

and shipwright, and Annetje Andries of Flensburg; she marries 2nd 30 January 1672 Johannes Welsinck, draper, of Borkum, b. 1603/04, widower of Elisabeth of Kessel, in Egelantierstraat. From this marriage: 1. Sara, bapt. 14 September 1642, buried Haarlem 24 September 1666; m. 26 ­January 1666 (banns 8-1) 1666 Pieter Jansen Crul, barber-surgeon, born Amsterdam c. 1642, buried 27 December 1685. 2. Gerard, bapt. 26 May 1644. 3. Romeyn iv, follows vib. 4. Gerrit, bapt. 22 September 1647. 5. Susanna, bapt. 8 November 1648. 6. Martijntje, bapt. 22 January 1651. 7. Pieter, bapt. 12 May 1652. 8. Martijntje, bapt. 15 May 1654. 9. Lodewijck, bapt. 18 October 1656. 10. Susanna, bapt. 24 February 1658. NB: Unidentified children of Romeyn ii de Hooghe were buried on 2 February 1651, 15 July 1651, 17 May 1652, 20 March 1653, 20 January 1657, 29 August 1664, and 15 September 1664, and 24 September 1664. Vc. Louis i de Hooghe, button-maker, born Amsterdam 11 February 1624, d. 28 ­ ctober (buried 30 October) 1664, m. 1st Lijsbet Forré, born ..., d. …; m. 2nd 9 April 1661 O Annetje van den Vroonhoff, born in Maaseik 1627/28, d. …? From the second marriage: 1. Pieter, bapt. 8 February 1662, buried 25 November 1664 or 8 December 1664. 2. Louis ii (follows vic). 3. François, bapt. 14 September 1664, buried 25 November 1664 or 8 December 1664. VIa. Jan v de Hooghe, bapt. Amsterdam 3 September 1634, d. before 11 December 1680, m. before 1666 Judick Levijn. From this marriage: 1. Paulus, born 4 July 1666. VIb. Romeyn iv de Hooghe, etcher, bapt. Amsterdam 10 September 1645, buried Haarlem 15 June 1708; m. (banns 1 May 1673) Maria Lansman, bapt. Edam 11 July 1649, daughter of Andreas and Anna Mits, buried Haarlem 11 November 1718. From this marriage: 1. Maria (a.k.a. Maria Romana), born Amsterdam 2 March 1674, bapt. 14 March, d. London 27 December 1694 or 6 January 1695; m. 22 August 1694 Caspar Frederick Henning, fl. 1683-before 1743.

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VIc. Louis ii de Hooghe, shipmaster, bapt. Amsterdam 16 May 1663, buried 12 July 1699, m. 11 January 1695 (banns) Pieternella van der Sprinckel, born 1667, d. ... From this marriage: 1. Romeyn, bapt. 4 July 1696, buried 22 November 1699. 2. Pieter, bapt. 11 February 1699, d. 1745. 3. Pieter Louis, bapt. 28 March 1700, d. 1768, m. 1st Maria Leijdekker, born …, d. 26 September 1734; m. 2nd Catharina Wagenaar; issue four children from the first marriage and six from the second one. IVb. Romeyn i de Hooghe, silk-weaver and silk-braid worker, born Tielt c. 1571, d. Amsterdam 1 January 1625 (buried 8 January 1625), m. 1st 3 July 1593 Susanna Felix, born Oostende ..., d. 4 October 1603; m. 2nd 29 May 1604 Judith Bischop, born London ..., daughter of François and Gilette N.N. from Tournai, d. 28 February 1651, buried 4 March 1651. From the first marriage: 1. Susanna, bapt. London 27 December 1593, d. 1593. 2. Susanna, bapt. London 24 November 1594, d. 1596. 3. Joannes, bapt. London 21 January 1596, d. 1603. 4. Perina (Pierynken), bapt. London 3 December 1598. 5. Sara, born London 4 December 1600 (according to rma manuscript genealogy; not in registers Dutch Reformed Church), d. after 1625. 6. Maria, bapt. London 13 March 1603, d. 1603. From the second marriage: 7. Romeyn iii, follows Vd. 8. Judith, born London 15 September (bapt. 28 September) 1606, d. 20 ­December 1641, m. 5 April 1639 (banns 4 March 1639) Philip Philipszoon Serrurier, ‘in Dantsick’, widower of Hester de Bordes, born London …, d. 1660. From this marriage: a. Romeyn Serrurier, graduated medical doctor in Leiden 9 July 1664. b. Judith Serrurier. 9. Joannes, follows Ve. 10. Paulus, follows Vf. 11. Nicasius, follows Vg. 12. Daniel, born Amsterdam 5 October (bapt. 19 October) 1614, d. unm. 27 ­September 1657. 13. Maria, born Amsterdam 26 January (bapt. 7 February) 1616, d. 13 February 1616. 14. Esther, born Amsterdam 5 June (bapt. 9 July) 1617, d. 24 April (buried 28 April) 1646.

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Vd. Romeyn iii de Hooghe, silk merchant, born London 25 February 1605, d. 10 ­January (buried 15 January) 1669, m. 21 November (banns 27 October) 1645 Levina van H ­ alewijn, daughter of Rogier and Josijne de Vos, bapt. 26 October 1614, d. 22 July 1671. From this marriage: 1. Romeyn, born 17 September (bapt. 22 September) 1647, d. in infancy. 2. Josina, born 20 March (bapt. 28 March) 1649, d. 24 March (buried 29 March) 1684, m. 10 July (banns 21 March) 1672 Jacob ten Grootenhuijs, alderman and councillor, son of Pelgrom and Elisabet van Duijnen, bapt. 22 November 1648, d. 19 April 1689; he remarries 21 December 1684 Elizabeth de Dieu. From this marriage: a. Pelgrom ten Grootenhuijs, bapt. 21 March 1673, d. unm. 3. Johannes, born 10 December (bapt. 14 December) 1650, d. unm. 14 February (buried 19 February) 1731. 4. Romeyn, bapt. 11 January 1653, d. in infancy. 5. Romeyn v, born 28 May (bapt. 30 May) 1655, d. unm. Zoeterwoude 24 ­November 1704. Ve. Joannes (Jan) iv de Hooghe, shopkeeper, born London 26-6 (bapt. 3 –7) 1608, d. Amsterdam 5 April (buried 9 April) 1682, m. Amsterdam 20 December (banns 9 December) 1633 Anna van der Does, born 18 November (bapt. 19 November) 1609, d. 7 February (buried 8 February) 1650, daughter of Frank and Anna Broers. From this marriage: 1. Jan vi, born Amsterdam 24 September (bapt. 26 September) 1634, d. Pipeli (now Baliapal), West-Bengal, India, 15 May 1657. 2. Judith, bapt. Amsterdam 24 May 1637, d. 11 November (buried 14 November) 1637. 3. Franck, born 1 September (bapt. 4 September) 1640, left for the East Indies for the second time on 12 January 1655 and perished with his ship near ­Shetland on 20 January 1665. 4. Romeyn vi, born 11 May (bapt. 13 May) 1642, d. between 10 November 1674 and 15 January 1675 as second merchant in Malacca; left for the East Indies on 16 September 1663, m. Geertruid Kits, born …, d. … From this marriage: a. Jan de Hooghe, bapt. Batavia. 3 February 1668, d. ... b. Anna de Hooghe, bapt. Batavia 5 July 1669, d. ... 5. Anna, born 14 June (bapt. 16 June) 1643, d. 22 February 1717, m. Sloten 2 June (banns 10 May) 1680 Ludolf Backhuysen, marine painter, born ­Emden 29 ­December 1635, d. 7 November 1708, son of Gerard Backhous and ­Margaretha Jansen.

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From this marriage: a. A child, d. unbapt. b. Joannes Backhuysen, born 4 February (bapt. 7 February) 1683, m. ­Christina Sibilla Moll, born ..., d. 11 February 1758. c. Gerardus Romani (Gerard Romeyn) Backhuysen, born 9 March (bapt. 11 March) 1685, d. 18 March 1685. 6. Nicasius, born 1648, d. 12 November (buried 15 November) 1661. Vf. Paulus de Hooghe, merchant, born Amsterdam 24 May (bapt. 29 May) 1611, d. 22 July (buried 27 July) 1674; m. 1st 8 September (banns 15 August) 1637 H ­ elena le Maire, daughter of Isaac le Maire and Maria Walravens, born 26 May (bapt. also 26  May) 1602, d. 2 October 1647; m. 2nd 30 July (banns 6 July) 1651 Maria ­Anthonisdochter Recht, widow of Jacob Bruijninck, born ..., d. 8 February 1679. From the first marriage: 1. Romeyn vii, lawyer in Amsterdam 1661 –1710, born 1 September (bapt. 7 ­September) 1638, d. without issue 23 September (buried 2 October) 1710, m. Rotterdam 30 October (banns Rotterdam 7 October and Amsterdam 11 October) 1673 Suzanna van Crackouw of Rotterdam, daughter of Jan ­Henricxsz van Crackou and Hendrickge Harmens van der Vult, since 26 July 1673 widow of Willem of Assendelft, M.D., born ..., d. 11 November 1720. 2. Maria, born 15 March (bapt. 18 March) 1640, d. 16 May 1640. 3. Maximiliaan, twins with the following, born 17 April (bapt. 21 April) 1641, d. 8 May 1641. 4. Paulus, twins with the previous, born 17 April (bapt. 21 April) 1641, d. 7 ­October 1641. 5. Isabelle, born 31 December 1642 (bapt. 4 January 1643), d. 15 April 1643. Vg. Nicasius de Hooghe, chief merchant of the voc at Fort Zeelandia, Formosa (­Taiwan), born Amsterdam 15 November (bapt. 25 November) 1612, d. 6 May 1648 aboard the returning vessel West-Friesland. Left for the East Indies on 18 December 1637, m. Elizabeth Paedts from Leiden, born ..., d. 1648. From this marriage: 1. Antoni de Hooghe, born c. 1641 in the East Indies, lawyer in Amsterdam from 1664 to 1672, d. unm. 4 March (buried 8 March) 1672.

Sources Manuscript Sources Stadsarchief Amsterdam 76 Familie de Graeff 366 Gilden en het Brouwerscollege 376 Hervormde Gemeente: Kerkenraad 5001 Doop-, trouw- en begraafboeken 5004 Weeskamer: begraafregisters 5020 Burgemeesters: Privilegeboeken en keurboeken 5024 Burgemeesters: dagelijkse notulen, resoluties en missivenboeken 5028 Burgemeesters: stukken betreffende verscheidene onderwerpen 5029 Burgemeesters: missiven en notulen van gedeputeerden ter dagvaart 5033 Burgemeesters: Poorterboeken 5045 Honderdste en Tweehonderdste Penningkamer of Commissarissen tot de ontvangst van de honderdste en andere penningen 5059 Collectie handschriften. 5061 Schout en Schepenen, Schepenen en Subalterne Rechtbanken 5062 Schepenen: kwijtscheldingsregisters 5075 Notarissen ter Standplaats Amsterdam 30579 Collectie Stadsarchief van Amsterdam: Personalia Rijksmuseum Amsterdam rp-d-2017-2287 Handschriften betreffende familie de Hooghe Noord-Hollands Archief (Haarlem) 184 Oud Recherlijke en Weeskamer Archieven (ora) 1617 Notariële protocollen en akten van notarissen te Haarlem (Oud Notarieel Archief Haarlem) 1846 Gereformeerd of Burgerweeshuis te Haarlem 2142 Doop-, trouw- en begraafboeken van Haarlem 2153 Waalse Hervormde Gemeente (Waalse Kerk) te Haarlem 2166 Stadspublicaties van het stadsbestuur van Haarlem 3111 Oud Rechterlijk Archief (ora) van Haarlem 3291 Pietershuis te Haarlem 3862 Heerlijkheid Heemstede 3993 Stadsbestuur van Haarlem

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Nationaal Archief (The Hague) 1.08.11 Nassause Domeinraad 3.01.19 Anthonie Heinsius, raadpensionaris van Holland en West-Friesland 3.03.01.01 Hof van Holland Haags Gemeentearchief (The Hague) 0372-01 Notarieel Archief Het Utrechts Archief (Utrecht) 67 Familie Huydecoper Erfgoed ’s-Hertogenbosch 19 Doop-, trouw- en begraafboeken The National Archives of the uk (Kew, Richmond) prob 11 Prerogative Court of Canterbury and Related Probate Jurisdictions: Will Registers Nottingham University Library gb 159 Pw A Portland of Welbeck Archive, Papers of Hans Willem Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland Worcestershire Record Office (Worcester) 705:366 Correspondence and Papers of Frederick Henning Fondation Custodia (Paris) Autographs

Pamphlets

Kn. 9191, Franciscus van den Enden, Vrye politijke stellingen, en consideratien van staat, gedaen na der ware Christenen even gelijke vryheits gronden. Amsterdam: Pieter Arentsz Raep, 1665. Kn. 9834, Adam Thomasz Verduyn, Water-kryg of een tweede missive, geschreven aen een particulier vriendt: over het sluyten van het water na de Haerlemmer-meer. N.p., 1670. Kn. 9836, Adam Thomasz Verduyn, Waterkryghspraetje, tusschen verscheyde persoonen; of Derde missive aen een particulier vriend. Amsterdam: Jan Rieuwertsz, 1670. Kn. 10072, Eyschen van de koningen van Vrankryk en Engeland aen de Staten der Vereenigde Nederlanden. Amsterdam: Pieter Voskuyl, 1672. Kn. 10622, Nimrods mugge-swarm noch in ’t harnasch. Tegens Oranje. Neffens een hemelsche artzenye voor de willens-weete blinden. N.p., n.d. [1672]. Kn. 10707, Adam Thomasz Verduyn, Oprecht historisch verhael, van ’t geen voorgevallen is in Bodegraven en Swammerdam, door ’t invallen en doorbreken der Fransen. Amsterdam: Jan Rieuwertsz, 1673. Kn. 10710, Romeyn de Hooghe and Govert Bidloo, Spiegel der France tirannye gepleecht op de Hollantsche dorpen. N.p., n.d. [1673].

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426 

THE LIFE OF ROMEYN DE HOOGHE 1645–1708

Kn. 13478, Amsterdam alleen in ’t spitz voor de vryheyd, en Romeyn de Hooge afgebeeld. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13480, 13481, Spiegel der waerheyd, ofte t’Samensprekinge tusschen een Arminiaan ende vroom patriot, waar inne krachtig vertoont ende bewesen word, dat door de quade directie ende toeleg van eenige heerschende regenten tot Amsterdam, ons land in den voorgaanden, en desen oorlog is ingewickelt met Vrankryk. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13482, Missive uit Rotterdam aan een persoon binnen Amsterdam. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13484, Vindiciae Amstelodamenses, of Contra-spiegel der waarheid. ‘Molkwerum: Tiebbe Tabes’, n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13488, 13489, Extract Uyt de Politique Conferentiën, Gehouden op Parnassus. Beginnende met het onweêr van den eersten January Anno 1690. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13491, 13492, Beschryving van eenige portraiten, vertoont op Parnassus. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13493. Tweede extract uyt de politijcque conferentien, gehouden op Parnassus. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13495, Nieuwe Tydinge uyt Parnas. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13496, t’Samenspraeck Gehouden tusschen twee Reysigers; zynde de een een Haegenaer en de andere een Amsterdammer: dienende tot ontdeckinge van het ooghmerck der Heeren Burgemeesters en regeerders der Stadt Amsterdam, in haere tegen-woordige Proceduyren. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13498, Bekendt-maekinge. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13499, Postwagen-praetjen, tussen een Hagenaer, Amsterdammer beneficiant, schipper en Frans koopman. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13500, Copye van brieven gevonden by Jan Hol, tegenwoordigh gedetineerde op de Voorpoorte van den Hove van Hollandt binnen ’s Gravenhage. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13502, Legende van Amsterdam, aen den dagh gekomen door de eigene belydenisse van Jan Hol, tegenwoordigh gedetineerde op de voorpoorte van den Hoove van Hollandt, in ’s Graevenhaege, en bevestigt door de by hem gevondene brieven van den koningh van Vranckrijck, en van de eigene handt van desselfs voornaemste minister, de Louvoys, aen eenige regenten der stadt Amsterdam. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13503, Missive van de Parnas, behelzende eenige consideratien over de confessie van Jan Hol. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13513, Nieuw Liedt, van de drie-dubbelde Kruysvaert van de Ridders en Grooten uyt uythangborden gesprooten. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13525, Waerachtigh verhael van ’t gepasseerde te Rotterdam, soo ten regarde van het vangen, examineeren en onthoofden van Cornelis Kosterman, als van het gheene daar op is gevolght. Rotterdam: ‘for the author’, 1690. Kn. 13526, Tweede deel van het Waerachtigh verhael van het gepasseerde te Rotterdam [...] ten regarde van het vangen, examineeren en onthoofden van Cornelis Kosterman. Rotterdam: ‘for the author’, 1690. Kn. 13534, Bekentmaeckinge: tot Amsterdam by Jan ten Hoorn werd gedruckt, en staet eersdaegs uyt te komen, het eerste deel van het leven en bedrijf van Archicornutus actionistes, alias Nicolaes Muys van Holy. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13535, Formulier van pasquillen in blanco. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13536. Het eerste deel van ’t leven en bedryf van Archicornutus ab Alto, alias Romein de Hooge. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13537, 13538, Het twede deel van ’t leeven en bedryf van Archicornutus ab Alto, alias Romein de Hooge. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13539, 13540, Vervolg van de nieuwe tydinge uyt Parnas. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13541, Romein de Hooge voor den rechterstoel van Apollo, verdedigende zich wegens de snoode misdaaden en vuile lasteringen, welke hem in een zeker geschrift, geintituleerd Vindiciae Amstelodamenses, of Contra-Spiegel der Waarheid, enz. mitsgaders in verscheidene andere pasquillen te last gelegt worden. Haarlem: ‘Romulus ab Alto’, 1690. Kn. 13542, Eenige aenmerckingen op een schandaleus en faemroovendt pasquil, genaemdt Vindiciæ Amstelodamenses, of Contra-spiegel der waerheydt. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13543, 13543-a, Memorie van rechten by Mr. Adriaen Bakker, hooft-officier der stad Haarlem, ex officio doen maeken [...] in de crimineele saak tegens Romein de Hooge, etser aldaar. Amsterdam: Jan Rieuwertsz, 1690.

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Kn. 13544, Joachim Oudaen, Op de regtsvordering van de Heer Mr. Adriaan Bakker, Hooft-officier der Stad Haarlem, tegen de persoon van Romeijn de Hooge, wijlen plaetsnijder tot Amsterdam. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13545, Memorie van rechten by Mr. Adriaen Bakker, hooft-officier der stad Haarlem, ex officio doen maeken [...] in de crimineele saak tegens Romein de Hooge, etser aldaar: met de bylagen. Amsterdam: Jan Rieuwertsz, 1690. Kn. 13546, Copy van een brief geschreven uyt Haerlem aen een vrient van Amsterdam. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13547, Nieuw oproer op Parnassus. Zijnde een verhael van de valsche getuygen, die den advocaet Niclaes Muys van Holy, door ordre van Jacob Boreel, Hoofd-Officier, en Jan Huydekooper, Heer van Marseveen, Burgermeester der Stadt Amsterdam, heeft geworven, en met Stadts geldt betaelt, om te getuygen teegen den Heer en Meester Romein de Hooge, Commissaris van sijn Koninglijcke Majesteyt van Groot Britanjen, &c. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13548, Copye authentijck van de liquidatie van reeckeningen tusschen den Heer Jacob Boreel, Hooft-Officier der Stadt Amsterdam, Michiel Bocx, Notaris en Clerck van gemelde Hoofd-Officier, en Mr. Niclaes Muys van Holy; weegens den uytgaef der gelden geëmployeert in het omkoopen der getuygen tegen Romeyn de Hooge, zedert den 2. February en 4. Juny 1690. Getrocken uyt het Boeck van den eersten Clerck van dito Bocx. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13550, Crimineele actie die de [...] heeren van de regeeringe der stadt Haerlem, en de heer mr. Romeyn de Hooge [...] zyn hebbende [...] teegen den heer mr. Adriaen Backer. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13551, De nyd en twist-sucht nae ’t leven afgebeeldt: zynde een waerachtig verhael… etc. Utrecht: Antony Schouten, 1690. Kn. 13552, Vervolgh op het zeedig ondersoeck nae de reedenen van de teegenwoordige ongevallen in Engelandt, &c. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13553, Nicolaes Muys van Holy, Missive van mr. Nicolaes Muys van Holy, advocaet, aen den heer mr. Willem Fabritius. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Kn. 13613-b, Op de triomfboogen, zeegepoorten, etc. … uytgevonden door den geestrijken heer Romeyn de Hooge. N.p., n.d. [1691]. Kn. 13643, Govard Bidloo, Zeegegroet, ter gewenschter komste in de Vereenigde Nederlanden van den grootmagtigen en dapperen vorst Willem … etc. The Hague: Arnoud Leers, 1691. Kn. 13649, Sententie, by den Raad van State der Vereenigde Nederlanden gearresteert, tegens Jan Jansz, in de wandelinge genaemt, Jan Holl, den 31 december 1690. The Hague: Jacobus Scheltius, 1691. Meulman 6665, Bekendmaakinge, aan de liefhebbers. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Tiele 7237, Johannes Rothe, Goddelijke verschijninge aen den persoon van J. Rothee, op den 4. December, 1674 tot Worcum in Vrieslant. Worcum: ‘for the author’, n.d. [1674]. Tiele 9126, Bekendmakinge. N.p., n.d. [1690]. Tiele 9132, Het darde deel van ’t leeven en bedryf van Archicornutus ab Alto, Alias Romein de Hooge. N.p., n.d. [1690].

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Index Adolf, Count of Nassau (1250–1298) 115 Aelst, Willem van (1627–1683) 300, 415 Agurto y Salcedo, Francisco Antonio de, Marquis of Gastañaga (1640–1702) 194 Alba, Duke of see Álvarez de Toledo, Fernando  Albemarle, Duke of see FitzJames, Henry  Albeville, Marquis of see White, Ignatius  Allard, Hugo (1620–1684) 82, 100 Álvarez de Toledo, Fernando, Duke of Alba (1507–1582) 97, 229 Andries, Annetje (b. 1592/93) 31–32, 419 Appelaer, Broer (1636–1690) 317 Appelman, Jean (1608–1694) 247, 256 Apronius, Paulus see Ebert, Adam  Aragón de Gurrea, Carlos de, Duke of Villahermosa (1634–1692) 118, 128–129 Aretino, Pietro (1492–1556) 140, 279, 287, 291, 304, 316, 410–411 Arnold, Gottfried (1666–1714) 406–407 Assendelft, Nicolaes van (b. 1660/61) 313–315, 317, 320, 348, 356 Assendelft, Nicolaes van (burgomaster of Haarlem, d. 1696) 308, 329 Avaux see Mesmes, Jean-Antoine de  Aveele, Johannes Jacobsz van den (c. 1655–1727) 136, 211, 216 Backhuysen, Ludolf (1635–1708) 43, 417, 421 Baes, Pieter (d. 1704) 297, 307 Bakker, Adriaan (1631–1693) 294, 296–298, 302–304, 306–310, 312, 320, 331, 382 Basnage de Beauval, Jacques (1653–1723) 407 Bavaria, Maximilian Henry of, Bishop of Cologne (1621–1688) 97, 110, 122, 134 Beaulieu see Pontault  Beeck, Barent (fl. 1682–1692) 373 Beek, Jan Simonszoon van der see Torrentius, Johannes  Béjar, Duke of see Zúñega, Manuel Diego López de  Bekker, Balthasar (1634–1698) 273, 337 Belmonte see Nunes, Manuel alias Isaac  Bent, Abraham van der (b. 1669/70) 313, 319 Bentinck, Hans Willem, Earl of Portland (1649– 1709) 141, 184–185, 239, 246–248, 261, 276–277, 282, 290, 303, 309, 320–321, 331, 341, 343–347, 350, 354, 359, 361, 372, 374 Berchem, Nicolaes (1621/22–1683) 46, 52, 67, 172 Berwick, Duke of see FitzJames, James  Beuningen, Coenraad van (1628–1691) 185, 198 Beveren, Cornelis van (1634–1689) 127–128 Beverland, Adriaan (1650–1716) 151, 338 Bicker, family 176 Bicker, Jacoba (1640–1695) 176 Bicker, Wendela (1635–1668) 322 Bidloo, Govert (1649–1713) 105, 153–154, 267–271, 275–278, 280, 284–285, 290–292, 295, 328–329, 365–366, 370–372, 406 Bie, Jacob de (1644–1702) 204

Bischop, Judith (d. 1651) 42, 420 Bisschop, Jan de (1628–1671) 62, 64 Blagny, Marquis de (fl. 1692) 342 Blavet (fl. 1692) 342 Bleyswijck, Dirk Evertszoon van (1639–1681) 183 Bleyswijck, Hendrik Ewoutsz van (b. 1640) 322 Bloemendael, Jacob (fl. 1676) 299 Blommendael, Jan van (1636–1707) 359 Bloteling, Abraham (1640–1690) 76 Boccalini, Traiano (1556–1613) 284–287, 289 Bockx, Michiel (1648/49–1702) 295, 297, 304, 310, 316, 318, 414 Boekholt, Baltes (c. 1634–1692) 96 Boekholt, Johannes (1656–1693) 293–294 Boerhaave, Herman (1668–1738) 187 Boeteman, Dirk (fl. 1681–1699) 156 Boetzelaer, family 306 Boetzelaer, Philip Jacob van den (1662–1706) 305–306 Bonrepaus, Seigneur de see Usson, François de  Boreel, Jacob (1630–1692) 176, 185, 247, 265, 294–297, 301–302, 307–310, 312–323, 330, 333, 414 Borghese (fl. 1690) 341–342 Borre van Amerongen, Diederik, Lord of Sandenburg (d. 1703) 277 Bors van Waveren, Cornelis (1662–1722) 252–253 Bors van Waveren, Gerard (1630–1693) 247, 252–253 Borst, Martin (fl. 1690) 313–314 Borssele van der Hooge, Adriaan van (1658–1727) 141 Bos(ch), Hendricus (1684/89-after 1740) 392 Bouman, Jan (1645/46–1686) 35, 155–159 Bourbon, Louis de, Prince of Condé (1621–1686) 117 Bouttats, Filibert i (1654–1731) 46, 195 Bouttats, Filibert ii (1675-after 1736) 46 Brakel, Albert (b. 1637/38) 298, 310 Brakel, Nicolaas van (fl. 1705–1711) 397 Bray, Jan de (1626/27–1697) 172 Broeck, Cornelis van den (fl. 1690) 332, 365 Broeck, Johannes van den (1648–1739) 291–292, 294 Broekhuizen, Gotfried van (1651–1731) 156–157, 395–396 Broucke, Mattheus van den (1652–1716) 374–375 Bruijn, Anna de (fl. 1717) 410 Bruijn, Casparus de (b. 1656/57) 80, 410 Bruijn, Jacob de (b. 1685) 410 Bry, Theodore de (1528–1598) 97 Burnet, Gilbert (1643–1715) 207–208 Callot, Jacques (1592–1635) 70, 109, 286 Campen, Jacob van (1596–1657) 36 Campo Weyerman, Jacob (1677–1747) 153–154, 411 Caraffa see Borghese  Casas, Bartolomé de las (c. 1484–1566) 109 Casteleyn, Abraham (c. 1628–1681) 63, 168 Casteleyn, Pieter (1618–1676) 63 Cats, Jacob (1577–1660) 243 Champollion, Jean-François (1790–1832) 404 Charles ii, King of England (1630–1685) 205, 216

448  Charles ii, King of Spain (1661–1700) 194, 384, 386–387 Charles v, Duke of Lorraine (1643–1690) 196 Charles v, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) 305 Charles vi, Holy Roman Emperor (1685–1740) 384 Christian v, King of Denmark (1646–1699) 384 Cleran (fl. 1694) 344 Cloeck, Cornelis (1622–1693) 266, 332 Cohen, Abraham de (fl. 1690) 320 Cohen, Francisco Pedro alias Mordechai de (b. 1665/66) 320–323, 327–328, 330 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste (1619–1683) 56–58 Collen, Caspar van (1655–1704) 325 Collen, Ferdinand van (1651–1719) 325 Cologne, Bishop of see Bavaria, Maximilian Henry of  Commire, Jean (1625–1702) 225 Condé see Bourbon, Louis de  Conincx, Cornelia (m. 1674) 52 Coning, Hendrik (d. 1707) 354 Cors, Robbert (1650–1705) 72 Coster, Laurens Jansz (fl. 15th century) 364 Court, Johan de la (1622–1660) 90 Court, Pieter de la (1618–1685) 90, 119, 286, 289, 401 Coymans, Isabella (1647–1705) 296 Coymans, Sophia (1636–1714) 296 Cruijff, Cornelia (1651/52–1710) 300–301, 318–319 Crul, Pieter Jansen (c. 1642–1685) 35, 38, 419 Curiël, Moseh see Nunes da Costa  Dale, Antonius van (1638–1708) 406 Damme, Christoffel van (fl. 1679–1695) 300 Danckerts, Dancker (1634–1666) 46 Danckerts, Justus (1635–1701) 82 Daniels, Marritie (fl. 1640) 32, 418 Dapper, Olfert (1636–1689) 146 Decker, Coenraet (1650–1685) 136, 183 Decker, Frans Arentsz (1684–1751) 46, 388 Dedel, Johan Willem (1636–1715) 329 Descartes, René (1596–1650) 119, 406 Dirx, Jacob 32 Does, Johan van der, Lord of Bergesteyn (d. 1702) 277 Domselaer, Tobias van (1611–1685) 136 Doornick, Marcus (1633–1703) 94, 124 Dou, Gerrit (1613–1675) 45 Drogenham, Gerrit (1655–1713) 298 Druyvesteyn, Aernout (1641–1698) 328–329 Dusart, Abraham (b. 1665) 321–323 Dusart, Cornelis (1660–1704) 67, 321 Duyst, Barend van (d. 1695) 355–357 Duyst, Hendrik van (fl. 1696–1716) 356–357 Dijck, Pieter van (fl. 1678) 139 Dijkveld see Weede, Everard van  Ebbelaer, Jan (c. 1666–1706) 359 Ebert, Adam (1653–1735) 82 Ende, Abraham van der (fl. 1690) 297 Enden, Franciscus van den (1602–1674) 44–45 Engelbrecht, Philips (1635–1708) 140 Engels, Bartholomeus (1636/38-after 1702) 46 Fabricius, Willem (1642–1708) 184–186, 247, 282, 290, 293, 322, 324, 330, 352, 354, 374, 380–382, 395–396

Index

Fagel, Gaspar (1634–1688) 207, 271 Famars, Jacob de (c. 1630–1703) 363 FitzJames, Henry, Duke of Albemarle (1673–1702) 233 FitzJames, James, Duke of Berwick (1670–1734) 233 Fontaine, Jean de la (1621–1695) 225 Franco, Niccolò (1515–1570) 140 Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange (1584–1647) 91, 94, 134, 306 Fresne, Daniel du (d. 1693) 265 Fris, Pieter (1628–1706) 149, 167, 300 Fürstenberg, Wilhelm Egon von, Bishop of Strasbourg (1629–1704) 122, 206, 218, 221, 223, 225–227, 230, 232, 235, 237 Galen, Christoph Bernhard von, Bishop of Münster (1606–1678) 89, 97, 110–111, 123, 134 Garnet, Henry (1555–1606) 232 Gastañaga, Marquis of see Agurto y Salcedo, Francisco Antonio de  Gerrits, Marietje 31–32 Gerrits, Susanna (1616–1681/83) 31–33, 38, 79, 163, 166, 418 Ghelen, Johann van (1645–1721) 192, 195 Goltzius, Hendrik (1558–1617) 70 Gon, Anna van der (b. 1663) 348–349 Gon, Catharina van der (1678–1724) 348–349 Gon, Cornelia van der (1662–1694) 348–349 Gon, Cornelis van der (1660–1731) 347–350, 353, 357, 402, 410 Gon, family van der 164–165 Gon, Nicolaas van der (1631–1701) 347–349 Graat, Barent (1628–1709) 301 Graet, Hendrik de (fl. 1696) 336 Graeff, Alida de (1651–1738) 277 Graeff, Pieter de (1638–1707) 176–178, 277, 322, 375–376, 378–379, 381 Grand Dauphin see Louis of France  Gratta, Franciszek de (1613–1676) 88 Gregory xiv, Pope (1535–1591) 137 Gribius, Johannes (1650–1679) 130 Grootenhuys, Jacob ten (1648–1689) 43 Grotius Hugo (1583–1645) 64 Guldewagen, Anna Catharina (1660–1718) 290–291 Guldewagen, Dammas (1626–1685) 290–291 Gutenberg, Johannes (c. 1397–1468) 364 Hagen, Pieter (fl. 1678–1690) 299–300 Halen, Arnoud van (1673–1732) 349 Hals, Frans (1582/83–1666) 172 Hannaert, Johannes (d. 1709) 367 Hardenberg, Jacobus van (1643/44–1722) 268 Harmens, Hendrik (1669–1701) 156 Harrewijn, Jacobus (1660–1627) 46, 114, 257, 303 Havicius, Gerardus (1619–1699) 170 Heda, Willem (1594–1680) 172 Heerse, Adriaan Jr. (d. 1694?) 354 Heerstal, Gerrit van (d. 1750) 365 Heijndrixss, Willem (fl. 1633) 32 Heinsius, Anthonie (1641–1720) 248, 252, 308–309, 322, 324, 329, 331, 343–344, 346, 374 Hekhuisen, N.N. (fl. 1688–1689) 209–212

449

Index

Hendrik Casimir ii, Count of Nassau (1657–1696) 111, 199 Hendriks, Aafje (b. 1669) 301 Hendriks, Cornelia (b. 1664) 301 Hendriks, Hendrik (b. 1630/31, d. 1678–1690) 140, 301 Hendriks, Hendrikje (b. 1667) 301 Henning, Caspar Frederick (fl. 1683-before 1743) 347, 349–351 Henning, John Caspar (fl. 1693) 347 Henning, Philadelphia (fl. 1693) 347 Henry iii, King of France (1551–1589) 223, 232 Henry iv, King of France (1553–1610) 232 Herbert, Arthur (1648–1716) 207 Herbert, William, Marquess of Powis (1626–1696) 341 Hertogh, Frederik (fl. 1690) 320–323, 327–328, 330 Hertogveldt, Johan van (fl. 1690) 297 Heuvel, Isaäc van (1640–1686) 97, 185–186, 303 Heuvel, Johan van (b. 1666) 303 Heuvel, Nicolaas van (b. 1665) 303 Heyden, Jan van der (1637–1712) 249 Hoeck, Apollonia van (d. 1703) 253, 313, 316 Hoeck, Claes van (fl. 1690, d. before 1700) 241, 248, 253, 297–298, 313–314, 316, 319–320 Hoeck, Pieter van (fl. 1690) 313–314, 316, 319–320 Hoekeback, Jan (1660–1718) 322–323, 330 Hoeven, Emanuel van der (c. 1660-after 1727) 396–398, 401 Hogenberg, Frans (1535–1590) 109, 111 Hol, Jan Jansz (d. 1692) 256, 324 Hondius, Hendrik ii (1597–1651) 82 Hondius, Jodocus (1563–1612) 82 Honert, Herman van den (1645–1730) 322 Honich, Johan (1629–1692) 127–128 Honthorst, Gerard van (1592–1656) 45, 69 Hoofman, Elizabeth (1664–1736) 89 Hooft, Gerrit (1649–1717) 247 Hooghe, Anna de (1643–1717) 43, 166–167, 417 Hooghe, Antoni de (1641–1672) 43, 188 Hooghe, Franck de (1640–1665) 43 Hooghe, Gerard de (b. 1644) 33 Hooghe, Gerrit de (b. 1647) 33 Hooghe, Jan i de (c. 1540–1601) 41–43 Hooghe, Jan ii de (1569–1624) 40, 42–44 Hooghe, Jan iii de (1605/06–1674) 31–32, 43–44, 163, 166 Hooghe, Jan iv de (1608–1682) 42–43 Hooghe, Jan v de (1634–1657) 419 Hooghe, Josina de (1649–1684) 43, 78 Hooghe, Lodewijck de (d. before 1648) 43 Hooghe, Lodewijck de (b. 1656) 33 Hooghe, Louis i de (1624–1664) 32, 34–36, 38, 44, 163, 166 Hooghe, Louis ii de (1663–1699) 166–167 Hooghe, Maria de (b. before 1605) 166 Hooghe, Maria Romana de (1674–1694) 81, 151–152, 175–176, 279, 281, 301, 346–353 Hooghe, Martijntje de (b. 1651) 33, 163 Hooghe, Martijntje de (b. 1654) 33, 163 Hooghe, Nicasius de (1611–1648) 42 Hooghe, Olivier de (c. 1510-c. 1600) 41 Hooghe, Paulus de (1611–1674) 39, 42–43, 166

Hooghe, Pieter de (c. 1616–1681) 32, 43–44, 163, 166–167 Hooghe, Pieter de (b. 1652) 33, 163 Hooghe, Romeyn i de (c. 1571–1625) 42, 44 Hooghe, Romeyn ii de (1620–1664) 31–39, 42, 44, 163, 166 Hooghe, Romeyn iii de (1605–1669) 42–43 Hooghe, Romeyn iv de (1645–1708) passim  Hooghe, Romeyn v de (1655–1704) 43 Hooghe, Romeyn vi de (1642–1674/75) 43 Hooghe, Romeyn vii de (1638–1710) 39, 43, 166, 188 Hooghe, Saertien de (1669–1690) 166–167, 418 Hooghe, Sara de (1642–1666) 33, 38 Hooghe, Susanna de (b. 1648) 33 Hooghe, Susanna de (b. 1658) 33 Hooghe, Willem de (fl. 1500) 41 Hooghen, Janneken ‘s (fl. 1593) 42 Hoogstraten, François van (1632–1696) 57, 406–407 Hoogstraten, Samuel van (1627–1678) 65, 126 Hoorn, Jan Claesz ten (1639–1715) 107, 156, 157, 159, 290, 399 Hoorn, Timotheus ten (1644–1715) 34–35, 139–140, 155–159, 290, 396, 414 Houbraken, Arnold (1660–1719) 45, 65, 67, 377, 390, 411 Houbraken, Jacob (1698–1780) 391–393 Hudde, Johannes (1628–1704) 129, 244, 247, 265, 323–324, 329, 331, 333 Huizinga, Johan (1872–1945) 413 Hulst, Cornelis van der (d. 1657) 163 Hulst, Martijntje (Martina) van der (1619/20–1680) 38, 149, 163, 166–167, 300, 409 Hulst, Josijntje (Josina) van der (1627–1709) 149, 167, 300 Huydecoper, Joan Sr (1599–1661) 296 Huydecoper, Joan, Lord of Maarsseveen (1625–1704) 30, 176, 247, 249, 252–253, 255–256, 259, 266, 282, 296–297, 310, 312–314, 316, 318–321, 323–324, 326–327, 329–334, 372, 374, 415 Huydecoper, Joseph (1667–1709) 297, 372 Huygens, Anna (d. 1681) 356 Huygens, Constantijn (1596–1687) 61, 62, 136, 173 Huygens, Constantijn Jr (1628–1697) 141, 173, 280, 349, 414 Hyde, Anne (1637–1671) 205 Innocent xi, Pope (1611–1689) 192, 206, 223, 227, 231, 235 James ii, King of England (1633–1701) 27, 205–207, 212, 214–215, 217–218, 220, 222–223, 225, 227–230, 232–235, 237–238, 255, 263–264, 273, 324–325, 341, 384, 410 Jans, Trijn (d. before 1633) 32 Jelgersma, Tako Hajo (1702–1795) 388–392 Jeude, Marinus de (d. before or in 1735) 340 Johan Maurits, Prince of Nassau-Siegen (1604–1679) 320 Johann Georg iii, Duke of Saxony (1647–1691) 224 John iii Sobieski, King of Poland (1629–1696) 78, 86–88, 128–129, 192, 195, 198, 300, 415 Jong, Jonas de (d. 1702) 308 Jong, Matthias de (b. c. 1664) 172

450  Jonge, Clement de (1624–1677) 82 Joseph i, Holy Roman Emperor (1678–1711) 195, 384, 411 Julius Civilis (fl. 1st century ce) 375 Kieft, Pieter (fl. 1691–1696) 356, 373 Kleynhens, Bernardus (1702–1779) 183 Koelman, Jacobus (1632–1695) 293 Koerbagh, Adriaan (1633–1669) 274, 302, 306 Koolaart. Elizabeth see Hoofman, Elizabeth  Koops, Stijntje (b. 1634) 139–140 La Feuilly (fl. 1694) 344 Lairesse, Gerard de (1641–1711) 67, 97, 135, 173, 216, 269, 374 Lairesse, Jan de (1673–1748) 216 Lansman, Andreas (c. 1624–1666) 79–80 Lansman, Anna (b. 1651/52) 80 Lansman, Helena (b. 1663) 80, 410 Lansman, Jacob (1650/51–1718) 80, 182 Lansman, Johannes (1660/61–1722) 80 Lansman, Maria (1649–1718) 79–81, 144, 149–151-153, 169–176, 279–281, 289, 294, 297, 300–301, 330, 333, 356, 373 Latenhouwer, Theodoor (d. 1672) 139 Le Brun, Charles (1619–1690) 58 Leenhof, Frederik van (1647–1715) 302 Leeuwenhoek, Antoni van (1632–1723) 64 Lefebure, Mahu (d. 1690) 308 Leopold i, Holy Roman Emperor (1640–1705) 192–193, 195–199, 206–207, 224, 231 Limojon, Alexandre-Toussaint, seigneur de Saint-Didier (b. c. 1630) 264 Linnaeus, Carl (1707–1778) 187 Lintman, Alexander Jansz (1664–1686) 156 Loo, Klaas ter (1694–1695) 156 Lopez Suasso, Francisco (1657–1710) 76 Louis of France, the Grand Dauphin (1661–1711) 56–57, 64, 217, 222–225, 229, 232, 235–236, 410 Louis William, Margrave of Baden-Baden 196 Louis xiv, King of France (1638–1715) 27, 44, 56, 58–61, 64, 89, 97–98, 110, 120, 122, 131, 196–197, 201, 204–207, 212, 215, 217–240, 241, 244, 251, 255–256, 263, 265– 266, 268, 284, 325, 341, 344, 368, 383–387, 410–411 Louvois, Marquis de see Tellier, François Michel le  Lucas, Jean Maximilien (1646–1697) 82 Luxembourg, Duke of see Montmorency-Bouteville, François Henri de  Luyken, Caspar (1672–1708) 159, 211, 375–376 Luyken, Jan (1649–1712) 114, 159, 216 Maarsseveen see Huydecoper, Joan  Machado, Moses (1655–1706) 76 Maecenas, Gaius Cilnius (c. 70–8 bce) 392 Maire, Isaac le (1558/59–1624)  Maire, Janneke le (d. 1664) 39 Marees, Maria de (b. 1590) 81 Mariette, Pierre-Jean (1694–1774) 65–67, 411 Marlais, Jan (alias of Romeyn de Hooghe) 219, 241, 259, 303, 325 Marlois, Jan see Marlais, Jan  Marolles, Michel de (1600–1681) 57 Marot, Clément (1496–1544) 255

Index

Marot, Daniel (1661–1752) 216 Martyn, Lydia (d. after 1743) 351 Martyn, Nicholas (fl. 1700) 44, 351 Mary of Modena, Queen of England (1658–1718) 205, 220, 225, 227, 231–232, 234, 236–237, 410 Mary Stuart i, Princess of Orange (1631–1660) 91, 102 Mary Stuart ii, Princess of Orange (1662–1694) 136, 207, 210–212, 272, 321, 350–352, 354, 364, 366, 382–383, 395 Matham, Jacob (1571–1631) 67 Maurits, Prince of Orange (1567–1625) 91, 94, 134 Meester, Willem de (1643–1701) 142 Meijnertsz, Gerrit (1589/90-before 1633) 32 Mesmes, Jean-Antoine de, Count of Avaux (1640–1709) 200, 204–205, 241, 264 Meulen, Adam Frans van der (1632–1690) 58–61, 64, 97–98 Meurs, Jacob van (1617/18–1679) 145–146 Meyer, Lodewijk (1629–1681) 274 Middleton, Charles (1649/50–1719) 220 Mits, Anna (1628–1679) 79–81 Mits, Daniel (b. 1579) 81 Mol, Petrus de (fl. 1722–1748) 410 Mollo, Francisco (1648/49–1721) 78, 87–88, 300 Monmouth, Duke of see Scott, James  Montmorency-Bouteville, François Henri de, Duke of Luxembourg (1628–1695) 103, 118, 326–327 Moulin, Adam Bernard du (fl. 1699) 376 Münster, Bishop of see Galen, Christoph Bernhard von  Muys van Holy, Nicolaes (1654–1716) 29, 265, 276, 290–297, 301, 303–304, 306–310, 312, 315–323, 328–330, 335, 414 Nagtegaal, Arnolt (1658–1725/37) 299–301, 318 Nagtegaal, Arnolt (1694- after 1730) 299 Nickelen, Jan Isaaksz van (1655/56–1721) 378–379 Nieuhof, Johan (1618–1672) 146 Nimwegen, Elias van (1667–1755) 373 Nimwegen, Willem van (1635/36–1698) 373 Noble, Eustache le (1643–1711) 385 Noorde, Cornelis van (1731–1795) 391–392 Norel, Jan (1635–1700) 215 Nunes da Costa, Jeronimo (1620–1697) 73–76 Nunes, Manuel alias Isaac, Baron Belmonte (d. 1705) 76 Odescalchi, Benedetto see Innocent xi, Pope  Oldenbarnevelt, Johan van (1567–1619) 91–92, 119 Ooms, Anna Maria (1654/55–1683) 87–88 Oossaen, Aert Dircksz (1657–1692) 194, 209 Oosterwijck, Jan van (1646–1693) 52 Ostade, Adriaen van (1610–1685) 172 Oudaen, Joachim (1628–1692) 45 Outgers, Henrick (1644–1707) 149 Paerslaken, Johannes (1639/40–1696) 241, 248, 297–298, 313 Palache, Ribca (b. 1628) 320 Passe, Crispijn de, Jr (1594–1670) 92–94, 139 Pauw, Adriaan Jr (1622–1699) 378 Pereira, Jacob (b. 1629) 76 Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia (1672–1725) 411, 413

451

Index

Petit, Daniel (fl. 1688) 220 Petre, Edward (1631–1699) 220, 223, 225, 227, 229–232, 234–236, 238, 240, 264, 325 Petter, Nicolaes (1624–1672) 71–72, 136 Petzold, Johannes (d. 1704) 385 Philip ii, King of Spain (1527–1598) 305 Picart, Bernard (1673–1733) 271–272 Pickaert, Pieter (1668/69–1732/37) 411–413 Plasse, Pieter van der (1655–1708) 359–360 Pontault, Sébastien (1612–1674) 58–59 Portland, Earl of see Bentinck, Hans Willem  Potocki, Stanisław (1659–1683) 128 Provoost, Johannes (fl. 1697) 356 Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator (c. 275–203 bce) 376 Rabelais, François (1483/94–1553) 221, 225, 237–238, 255 Rabenhaupt, Carl von (1602–1675) 110–111, 124 Rammazeyn, Johannes (1619–1693) 182–183 Rembrandt (1606–1669) 45, 53, 65, 67, 69, 413 Renialme, Johannes i de (c. 1600–1657) 300 Renialme, Johannes ii de (1641–1687) 79, 300 Rens, Cornelis (d. 1703) 314, 317–319, 320–321, 348 Rieuwertsz, Jan (1651/52–1723) 307–310, 312, 317 Rijn, Elie Jogchemse van 155 Rijn, Rembrandt Harmensz van see Rembrandt  Rogissart, Hendrik de (fl. 1691–1696) 373 Roguet, Matthieu (1664/65–1720) 275, 319, 323 Rothe, Jan (1628–1702) 115 Ruel, du (fl. 1694) 344 Ruysch, Frederik (1638–1731) 268–269 Ruysdael, Jacob van (1628–1682) 76–77, 172 Ruysdael, Salomon van (1602–1670) 172 Ruyter, Michiel de (1607–1676) 83, 89, 110, 112, 128, 136 Ryckeghem, Paschina van (fl. 1567) 41–42, 417 Ryckeghem, Romeyn van (fl. 1567) 41–42 Saint-Didier, Isaac de (fl. 1690) 263–264 Saint-Didier, seigneur de see Limojon, Alexandre-Toussaint 264 Salisbury, Bishop of see Burnet, Gilbert  Schadé, Gaspard (1623–1692) 277, 317 Schaep, Margaretha (1630–1674) 128 Schaep, Pieter (1635–1685) 128 Schaep, Willem (b. 1636) 349 Schatter, Mattheus (d. 1695) 308 Schellinks, Willem (1627–1678) 56, 64 Schenck, Johan (1660–1712) 269 Scherm, Laurens (c. 1671–1702) 46 Schoonebeek, Adriaan (1661–1705) 46, 68, 216, 295, 297–301, 303, 316, 319, 411 Schouten, Anthony (fl. 1688–1707) 319 Schouten, Catharina (1660–1739) 298 Schouwers, Bartholomeus (b. 1634) 139 Schuylenburg, Willem van (1646–1707) 277, 321, 324, 331, 341, 343, 374, 382 Scott, James, Duke of Monmouth (1649–1685) 118 Sluiter, Arend (d. 1709) 300 Sobieski see John iii  Somerset, Elisabeth (1633/34–1691) 341

Speelman, Cornelis (1628–1684) 127 Spelbergen, Nicolaes (d. 1663) 39 Spinoza, Baruch (1632–1677) 44–45, 82, 274, 286, 306, 405, 408, 411 Steengracht, Johan (1633–1705) 127–128 Stevens, Louis 43 Stevens, Sara (d. 1656) 31, 43 Stopendael, Bastiaan (1637–1693) 303, 316, 319, 371 Stoppa, Jean-Baptiste (1623–1692) 327 Stoppa, Pierre (1619–1701) 326–327 Storff de Belleville, Paul (fl. 1675–1684) 279–280 Stouppe see Stoppa  Stuart, Charles Edward (1722–1788) 279–280, 412 Stuart, James Francis Edward, Prince of Wales (1688–1766) 206–207, 212, 220, 225, 227, 229, 231–232, 234–235, 238, 240, 255, 273, 325, 341 Suyderhoef, Jonas (1613–1686) 56 Sweerts, Hieronymus (1629–1696) 82, 124, 157 Sysang, Johann Christoph (1703–1757) 394 Tamesius, Paulus see Tamessen, Paulus  Tamessen, Paulus (1661–1725) 298, 301, 311, 312, 317 Tangena, Aeltje (fl. 1688–1700) 313 Tangena, Johannes (fl. 1687–1692) 253, 313 Tellier, François Michel le, Marquis de Louvois (1641–1691) 256, 327 Terborch, Gerard (1617–1681) 56 Teyler, Pieter (1702–1778) 181 Thaenkin (fl. 1500) 41 Torche, Antoine (1631–1675) 154, 414 Torrentius, Johannes (1588–1644) 306 Trip, Louis (1605–1684) 129 Trocq, Louise du (d. before June 1657) 43 Usson, François de, Seigneur de Bonrepaus (1654–1719) 264 Uytwerff, Meyndert (1658–1708) 267–268, 271, 275, 319, 323, 328–330, 332 Valckenburgh, Matheus van (1641–1694) 324, 328, 345 Valckenier, Gillis (1623–1680) 97, 129, 243 Vauban, Sébastien le Prestre de (1633–1707) 297 Veldhuizen, Diederik van, Lord of Heemstede (1651–1716) 277, 317 Vennekool, Steven (1656/57–1719) 369, 371 Verbeecq, Jacob (d. before 1674) 52 Verbeek, Philip (fl. 1699–1718) 395–396 Verduyn, Adam Thomasz (fl. 1670–1673) 104 Vermeulen, Cornelis (fl. 1690) 314 Vermeulen, Jan (fl. 1687) 354 Veret, Margrietje (d. 1696) 348 Verkolje, Johannes (1650–1693) 183 Verkolje, Nicolaas (1673–1746) 393 Vianen, Jan van (1670/71-after 1726) 313–315, 317, 319, 321–323, 348, 373 Vigne, David de la (c. 1614–1684) 136 Villahermosa see Aragón de Gurrea, Carlos de 118, 128–129 Visscher, Adolf (1605–1652) 407 Visscher, Claes Jansz (1587–1652) 67 Visscher, Johannes (1618–1694) 80, 330 Visscher, Nicolaes ii (1649–1702) 55, 82, 192, 195

452  Vlackveldt, Jacob van (fl. 1695–1696) 355–356 Vlaming van Oudtshoorn, Cornelis de (1613–1688) 129 Vlasbloem, Helena (b. 1648) 295 Voetius, Gisbertus (1589–1676) 80 Vondel, Joost van den (1587–1679) 269 Vos, Wilhelm (fl. 1690) 315, 328, 332 Voskuyl, Pieter (fl. 1672–1678) 140 Vries, Joan de (1633–1708) 247, 329–330, 372 Vroom, Hendrick Cornelisz (1566–1640) 297 Wales, Prince of see Stuart, James Francis Edward  Walten, Ericus (1662/63–1697) 28, 40, 51, 86, 243, 261, 265, 267–268, 272–278, 285, 290, 292–293, 295–297, 302, 308–310, 314–317, 319–335, 337–341, 402 Weede, Everard van, Lord of Dijkveld (1626–1702) 277 Welsinck, Johannes (1603/04-after 1672) 79 Westerhovius, Arnoldus Henricus (1677–1738) 59, 88 White, Ignatius, Marquis of Albeville (c. 1626–1694) 220 Wicquefort, Abraham de (1606–1682) 104, 107, 116, 127 Wildt, Hiob de (1637–1704) 344 Willekens, Jacob (1564–1649) 80 Willems, Susanneke (1646/47–1698) 298–299, 310–311 William i, Prince of Orange (1533–1584) 94, 134, 232

Index

William ii, Prince of Orange (1626–1650) 94, 134, 186, 246 William iii, Prince of Orange (1650–1702) passim  Wirtz, Paulus (1612–1676) 128 Wit, Frederik de (1630–1706) 82 Witsen, Adriaen (b. 1643/44) 298 Witsen, Nicolaes (1641–1717) 64, 244, 247, 262, 264, 265, 298, 324, 333 Witt, Anna de (1655–1725) 322 Witt, Cornelis de (1623–1672) 90, 97, 99–104, 119, 121, 125, 131, 133, 136, 381–382, 396–398 Witt, family de 128 Witt, Johan de (1625–1672) 90, 92, 97, 99–104, 119, 121, 125, 131, 133, 136, 176, 243, 322, 381–382, 396–398 Witte, Hendrik (d. 1731) 354 Zesen, Philipp von (1619–1689) 83 Zubov, Alexey Fyodorovich (1682-c. 1741) 413 Zúñega, Manuel Diego López de, Duke of Béjar (1657–1686) 384 Zuylen van Nijevelt, Jacob van (1642–1695) 338 Zijlvelt, Anthonij van (c. 1645–1695 or later) 317–318