The Ostend Story (Bibliotheca Bibliographica Neerlandica) 9061941598, 9789061941590

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THE OSTEND STORY

BIBLIOTHECA BIBLIOGRAPHICA NEERLANDICA VOLUME XXXVIII

TH E O S T E N D S T O RY Early tales of the great siege and the mediating role of Henrick van Haestens By

Anna E.C. Simoni

[hes & de graaf publishers]

Frontispiece: Plan of Ostend, 1604, by Walter Morgan Wolff and Florens Balthasarsz (Belägerung der Statt Ostende). Dust-jacket: painting of the siege of Ostend by Sebastian Vranck (Madrid, Prado, Cat. 18820).

Design: iD & vorm, Amsterdam ISBN

90 6194 159 8

HES & DE GRAAF PUBLISHERS BV

Tuurdijk 16 3997 MS ‘t Goy-Houten The Netherlands © HES & DE

GRAAF PUBLISHERS BV, ‘t Goy-Houten, 2003

All rights reserved

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Contents

Acknowledgements 7 Introduction 9 1. Fleming, Meuris, Van Haestens and the critics 13 2. Van Haestens on his Sources and a well-kept Secret 27 3. In the Beginning 35 4. Old Wine in New Bottles 60 5. Van Haestens the Scholar 70 6. Meuris’s Choice 77 7. Marzipan Treason and Gunpowder Plot 83 8. A Clash of Cannon-balls and other Cacophonies 89 9. The Great Assault and Amazons, rumoured and real 97 10. Into verse: the Polyglot Muse 107 I. Daniel Heinsius 116 II. Hugo Grotius 122 III. Maerten Beheyt 126 IV. Richard Jean de Nerée 128 V. Anonyma 132 VI. Franciscus Villerius 137 11. Seeing is Believing 148 12. Pompée’s Chariot, sausages and a castle that was no good 163

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CONTENTS

13. Heroes’ Gallery – and a bridge too far 173 14. Farewell to Arms 180

Appendices I. Wolff Tracks in Flanders 185 II. The Villerius Letter 191 III. Compiler’s Comment 192 List of sources and works consulted 206 List of illustrations 220 Index 222

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Acknowledgements

It is a pleasant duty for me to thank so many friends and colleagues for their unfailing help without which this comparison of early Dutch books on the siege of Ostend could not have been carried out. I gratefully acknowledge their contribution to my investigations while claiming sole responsibility for any errors. First and foremost my thanks are due to Mr R. Leroy of Ostend Municipal Library, who also notified me of the work of Miss Ponjaert which to a certain extent, though in pursuit of a different aim, anticipated my own research. Miss Ponjaert most generously granted me access to her unpublished thesis and allowed me to quote from and refer to it. She very kindly sent me parts of her thesis in photocopy and advised me to get in touch with Ghent University where a copy incorporating corrections is kept. Dr A. Derolez of Ghent University Library then allowed this special reference copy to be transmitted to me, a service in which my friend Dr C. Coppens of the Library of the Catholic University of Leuven played an active part. Other information was given me by my great friend, and the friend of all students of Netherlandish bibliography, Mrs E. CockxIndestege of the Royal Library, Brussels and by Mr M. de Schepper of the Centrum voor Bibliografie van de Neerlandistiek in the same institution who proved as helpful as he is indefatigable. I cannot thank any of these my Belgian helpers enough. From the Netherlands I received no less essential and valuable assistance. My warm thanks go to Dr J.A. Gruys and Dr A. Leerintveld of the Royal Library, The Hague; Mr A. Schuytvlot of Amsterdam University Library; Mr R. Breugelmans of Leiden University Library; Mr P. Pesch of Utrecht University Library; Dr P.J. Verkruijsse of Amsterdam University; Dr. J. Wijnhoven of the Library of the Catholic Theological Library, Amsterdam; and last but not least Dr C. van Heertum of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, Amsterdam, of whose offer of unlimited help I availed myself for much time-consuming research on books not accessible to me in London. Archivists in Middelburg and The Hague also answered enquiries and assisted with the reading of documents.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Dr C. Boveland of the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, supplied information on exceedingly rare items preserved there and custodians of other German collections likewise proved most helpful. In England I received information and help from Ms C. Blundell of the Bodleian Library, Oxford; Mr G. Hood of the Public Record Office, London; untiring assistance and encouragement also came my way from colleagues past and present at the British Library, London, especially from Dr D.E. Rhodes, Mr D.L. Paisey, Miss S.R. Roach, Dr J. Harskamp, all of Printed Books, and Mrs P. Basing and Miss R. Stockwell of the Department of Manuscripts. The Map Library staff gave me invaluable advice, whilst members of the North Library Section and Issue Desk teams were invariably patient and helpful to me. Mr D. Trim, then postgraduate student of military history at King’s College, London, also contributed valuable information. My special thanks are due to Ms Ellen Kempers, editorial director at my publishers, for her constant assistance and great understanding, not withstanding the fact that some publishers’ conventions have overruled my personal preferences. Finally, my deepest thanks go to my husband W.A. Harvey who, if he was ever bored by my continual talk about Ostend over far too many years, never once showed it. Instead he contributed the following little verse with which to counteract so much seriousness: There was a young lady from Joppa Who came a society cropper: She went to Ostend With a gentleman friend – The rest of the story’s improper.

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Introduction

It is general knowledge that the late sixteenth century saw a truly massive immigration of printers and booksellers from the Southern, Spanish-ruled and Roman Catholic to the Northern, loosely united, independent and largely Protestant provinces of the Netherlands, which greatly contributed to the young Republic’s remarkable growth in the field of book production. But there could also be the exception and it is found in the figure of Henrick Lodewijcxsoon van Haestens, a Calvinist from Geldern, who, after an extensive career as printer-publisher at Leiden from 1596 to 1620/21, moved to the South, converted to Catholicism, settled at Leuven and continued in business there until his death in 1629. Studies of this intriguing man’s career and the books he published in both places will be found in the list of sources and works consulted in this book, which examines some of those which appeared under his own name. Several characteristics become apparent when one looks at the output of Henrick van Haestens as a whole. First of all, of course, there is the dichotomy between the publications he produced at Leiden and those at Leuven. The latter are in the main strictly Catholic and politically conformist, even when consisting of poetry or academic works, whereas within the former there is still greater variety. Poetry and prose, historiography and geography, works by religious minorities and good Calvinistic theological treatises, scholarship and popular pamphlets, works in classical and modern foreign languages, all jostle for places in the long list. In the following pages I wish to concentrate on a small group of his patriotic publications and only a few of them at that. They are what I like to refer to as Van Haestens’s Ostend books. They form a special unit among the books that came from his press in so far as they bear his name as that of the author on their title-pages, and although they are not the only ones to do so, they appear to be the best survivors in this category. This may imply that he bestowed his most devoted care on them, which, though it still does not prevent the occasional misprint and poor imposition showing up in them,

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INTRODUCTION

must nevertheless mean that they gave him particular satisfaction. Furthermore, these books lend themselves to comparisons of various kinds: with each other, with sources, and with eventual successors. I do not intend to bring together all that was ever written about the siege of Ostend, rather is it my purpose to investigate the importance of these texts and their presentation in their immediate context and to try to establish their value and the desirability to give them a place in any study programme of the history of the countries involved in that event and its surrounding circumstances. These were the Dutch Republic, the Southern Netherlands - then nominally governed by the Archduke Albert and his wife Isabella, but in fact still ruled by Spain - and the England of Queen Elizabeth I and James I. It will also become clear that the siege was closely observed in other countries, especially Germany and France where religious and political allegiances were strong - and divided - for and against the warring parties. The examination of this small number of books may also serve as an example of the use of bibliography for research bordering on other fields of enquiry and leading to much wider horizons. While its motivation was purely bibliographical to begin with, it took me into the fields of historiography, literary and art history and has given me unsuspected insights into all of them. Nor can Van Haestens be the only printer/publisher of the period, or for that matter of any period, to offer such scope for an intensive study of part of his legacy; results may yet prove far more revealing and even more startling than are those presented here. * Among the many battles, sieges, naval encounters and all manner of other military engagements of the Eighty Years’ War, none was, and perhaps is, more famous than the long drawn-out siege of Ostend in which the Spaniards assailed the unassailable and the Dutch defended the indefensible. After more than three years of heroism and endeavour on both sides, accompanied by tremendous loss of life, the Spaniards entered the empty ruins of the town. A Pyrrhic victory whose fame, like that of neighbouring Dunkirk’s three and a half centuries later, remained with the defeated.

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NOTES : INTRODUCTION

No wonder then that accounts of the events began to circulate only a short time after the start of the siege on 5 July 1601, and as among both the besieged and the besiegers there were men originating from several nations, it is not surprising either that some of these accounts were in French or English and were printed in the countries to which their nationals had sent them. There are therefore English newsletters and early reports in French, while Dutch publications in book or pamphlet form multiplied over the years, themselves at times translated into foreign languages.1 It is more than probable that some, perhaps many, reports by real or self-styled eyewitnesses, in manuscript or printed form, have not been preserved, making it therefore very difficult to determine who among the later, more literary ambitious authors had taken over which details from whom. It is my present purpose to point out at least some of the stages in which the accounts of the siege were transmitted.2

Notes Quotations in text and footnotes from the original sources are transcribed as they were printed, including such errors in spelling or punctuation as they may contain, with only the customary resolution of abbreviations and similar modifications applied. References to printed books are entered under the surnames of their authors, abbreviated as indicated where this is appropriate, or, if anonymous, under a short title. The full titles will be found in the List of sources and books consulted. 1. For the political and military conditions leading to the siege of Ostend and the presence of other nationals, especially the English, in its defence, see Motley, vol.4., pp.60-202; Ponjaert, pp.1-3. Still useful and readable for the purpose of following the course of the siege from beginning to end are the relevant paragraphs in Arend’s chronologically arranged work, vol.3, pt.1, pp.171-208. For a technical survey of the fortifications, see Lombaerde. 2. Pamphlets about the siege are found in the well-known Dutch pamphlet catalogues, all arranged chronologically: Tiele, Van der Wulp, Petit, Knuttel, Broekema (in connection with which it has to be remembered that this library’s holdings were nearly all destroyed during the Second World War), Zijlstra. The index to Hohenemser has yielded only one German

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NOTES : INTRODUCTION

pamphlet s.v. Ostende: ‘no.1790, Newezeitung, Von Eröberung der Stadt und Festung Ostende in Flandern... (n.p. 1604)’, but there are bound to have been many more, a few of which will in fact be mentioned later. General library catalogues present different problems to the searcher. However, a small number of anonymous works are entered under the heading ‘Ostend’ in the British Library’s General Catalogue and the STC. No separate bibliography had to my knowledge so far been devoted to the subject, but while this book was in the press and nearing publication, sadly too late for me to avail myself of it, notice reached me of: Bibliografie van de geschiedenis van Oostende, eds. L. François, a.o. [Oostendse historische publicaties, 8], Oostende 2000, with a special section of nearly 60 items on the siege.

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1. Fleming, Meuris, Van Haestens and the critics

Eyewitnesses compiled some of these narratives; others used them second-hand to elaborate and moralise upon. When the diary of the siege kept by Philippe or Philips Fleming,3 ‘auditor’4 and secretary to the successive governors of the fortress throughout the period of the siege, finally appeared in 16215 the author felt compelled to complain of fictitious details which had been published by persons who had never been near the place (fig. 1).6 Fleming’s diary, considered as the most detailed and reliable, has with few exceptions served historians ever since as their main source.7 Yet as his publisher Aert Meuris remarked in the ‘advertisement’ added to his preface, passages from elsewhere have been interpolated into this diary to supplement it where Fleming had unavoidably failed to describe matters not witnessed by him, which his readers would have expected to find. One such gap, for instance, is the lack in Fleming’s journal of any reference to the battle of Nieuwpoort which preceded the siege.8 And there are other, if lesser, additions to the main story, which in Meuris’s view were important enough to be made, and let us be grateful to him. Let us be grateful to him also for the honesty with which he admits to these manipulations of a text given to him to publish. Can we even be sure that Fleming’s text as presented to Meuris was exactly as it had been composed during the siege? Passages in which Fleming refers to statements in other reports as lies already indicate that he had seen other literature relating to the events he described and that he added such remarks at a later stage. He would at any time have been able and perhaps tempted to ‘improve’ his original text, and not only stylistically. And why not? There must have been stories he remembered and told his friends, which he had not written down originally, but may have wished to include later. Perhaps he had his memory refreshed through conversation or reading or he learned of matters not known to him in the heat of battle, information he thought useful to offer as his own at that stage. He neither confirms nor denies using other people’s experiences, beyond of course gathering immediate reports brought to him offi-

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FLEMING , MEURIS , VAN HAESTENS AND THE CRITICS

Fig. 1 P. Fleming, Oostende Vermaerde Belegeringhe (The Hague 1621), title-page.

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FLEMING , MEURIS , VAN HAESTENS AND THE CRITICS

cially, including those of the events which occurred during the few weeks he was granted leave of absence.9

*

When the two are laid side by side, a close relationship is immediately apparent between Fleming’s journal as published in 162110 and Henrick van Haestens’s De Bloedige ende strenge Belegeringhe Der Stadt Oostende, in Vlaenderen [The bloody and strict siege of the town of Ostend, in Flanders], which the author printed and published himself and gave the imprint ‘Tot Leyden, by Henrick van Haestens. 1613’ (fig.2).11 Not only does the later book display the same engraved vignette on its title-page as had been used for the earlier one (albeit in its second state),12 it also contains the same engraved plates, as well as other illustrative material. Yet Van Haestens did not act as printer for Meuris, as he did for Louis Elzevier in that publisher’s production of the French edition of his work in 1615, entitled La Nouvelle Troye ou Memorable histoire du Siege d’Ostende.13 No printer is named therein, but not only does the book show a related title-page vignette and the same plates renumbered to a different sequence, the letterpress material is also typical for Van Haestens.14 None of this appears in the book published by Meuris, who in fact did his own printing.15 Rather, one has to assume that before Van Haestens left Leiden in 1621, taking some of his material with him to begin a second career in Leuven, he disposed of this strongly pro-Republican/pro-Orange stock of copperplates. They certainly could not have been in the sale intended to pay his creditors in 162216 since Meuris already used them in 1621. What is more, Meuris not only took over and reapplied the plates, he also used Van Haestens as his source for the introductory chapters and other matter as he states quite openly.17 His action was justified. Its admission could do him no harm: the book by Van Haestens must have been well received when first published in 1613, at a time when memories of the events were still fresh among a large section of the population, whom it obviously did not offend. Its success encouraged the author-printer to publish it in

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FLEMING , MEURIS , VAN HAESTENS AND THE CRITICS

what appears to have been a ‘popular’ and perhaps cheaper edition: Beschrijvinghe, Des machtigen Heyrtochts ... Van ghelijcken Bloedige ende strenge Belegeringe Der Stadt Oostende ... De tweede editie, met vlijt oversien, vergroot ende verbetert ... [Description of the mighty campaign, as well as the bloody and strict siege of the town of Ostend. The second edition, diligently revised, enlarged and corrected…] Tot Leyden, By Henrick van Haestens. 1614 (fig.3).18 The claim to revision, enlargement and correction is true enough: many spellings and some vocabulary have been changed, misprints corrected, a few poems added while others are left out,19 but no essential new facts are adduced. Indeed, here and there whole sentences or even paragraphs are omitted. Also, the typography is more compressed, its general appearance much less pleasing. It is undoubtedly this edition, however, from which Meuris culled his additional information. No phrases or passages among those taken over for Fleming’s book were among those omitted in the new edition. The vocabulary of the quoted parts is on the whole that of the 1614 edition and there is actual proof in the adoption of matter first found in the Beschrijvinghe.20 The title-page vignette, which in the 1613 edition showed the two lions of the United Provinces and of Flanders fighting one inside and the other outside the fortress of Ostend, each firing its heavy cannon at the other, without any inscription, now bears the legend, in capitals: ‘Huyden miin morgen diin’ [Today mine, tomorrow thine]. The same concept in a completely new form was used again on the title-page of the French edition the following year, published by Louis Elzevier. Evidently Elzevier knew a good thing when he saw it and was aware of the wider domestic and international market the book could reach in French. The new vignette on the title-page of this edition (fig.4) is now oblong in shape and the image is in reverse from the earlier design, with the besieged town on the right and its assailants on the left. Neither side is any longer seen firing its guns at the other and in the background the land and the road through it have made way for more of the sea. The legend is now in Latin, reading ‘Hodie mihi Cras tibi’, in cursive script. It is obvious that for the Fleming titlepage Meuris used the vignette as it had been prepared for Van Haestens’s second edition. If Elzevier paid for the making of the

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FLEMING , MEURIS , VAN HAESTENS AND THE CRITICS

Fig. 2 H.L. van Haestens, De bloedige Belegeringhe (Leiden 1613), title-page.

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FLEMING , MEURIS , VAN HAESTENS AND THE CRITICS

Fig. 3 H.L. van Haestens, Beschrijvinghe, Des machtigen Heyrtochts (Leiden 1614), title-page.

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FLEMING , MEURIS , VAN HAESTENS AND THE CRITICS

Fig. 4 H.L. van Haestens, La Nouuelle Troye (Leiden 1615), titlepage.

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FLEMING , MEURIS , VAN HAESTENS AND THE CRITICS

new ‘Hodie mihi’-vignette, as is possible, he could have retained it rather than let his printer have it and so Meuris could not have obtained it from Van Haestens together with the other copperplates. But even if it belonged to Van Haestens, Meuris would quite rightly have preferred the engraving with the inscription in Dutch since it agreed with the language of the text of the book, which was aimed first and foremost at the home market and was therefore a far better match. The plates have a history of their own which will be discussed later.21 Suffice it here to mention that the set which Meuris got from Van Haestens for use in Fleming, is not alike in all known copies.22 The Fleming copy in the British Library, of which I have availed myself, belongs among those with the most complete, though confusingly numbered set. A list of the plates with instructions to the binder of where to place them is added at the foot of the last printed page in the book, below another list of plates, here numbered, but not bearing the corresponding numbers themselves (fig.5); they did not form part of the work of Van Haestens, a sign perhaps indicating that their insertion is due to second thoughts?

*

Although the three editions of Van Haestens’s book on the siege of Ostend and the large-scale quotation from it for the amplification of Fleming’s diary testify to the esteem in which contemporaries held it, Van Haestens has had a poor press in more recent times. De Wind in his Bibliotheek der Nederlandsche geschiedschrijvers [Library of Dutch historiographers],23 a work referred to even by modern writers as ‘authoritative’ (an opinion which I, though not a historian, cannot bring myself to share), when describing De Nassausche Lauren-crans [The Nassau laurel wreath] of 1610 (on which more will be said later)24 as the work of Jan Orlers, almost grudgingly admits the co-authorship in that book of ‘a certain Hendrik van Haestens’. He later goes on to say25 that ‘the Hendrik van Haestens who has just been mentioned was another printer in Leiden. He had already earlier published a story of the Bloedige Belegeringe der Stadt Oostende in

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FLEMING , MEURIS , VAN HAESTENS AND THE CRITICS

Fig. 5 Fleming, Oostende ... (The Hague 1621), Instructions to the binder.

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Vlaenderen, with many engravings, of which work a second edition came out in 1614’. In a footnote De Wind adds the full title of the 1614 edition, a courtesy he had not extended to the first edition of 1613, and still omitting all text preceding the words ‘De bloedige Belegeringe’, as if the reference to the campaign of 1600 did not matter much, nor can he avoid the misprint ‘vijt’ for ‘vlijt’. In the addenda26 he mentions the date of the first edition and very briefly describes the French edition of 1615. Relying on Bosscha, Neêrlands heldendaden te land [The heroic deeds of the Dutch on land]27 he says: ‘Haestens seems in this work to be inaccurate and incomplete’. One can only ask how De Wind dared discredit an author whom he had evidently not taken the trouble to read. He had however at least attempted to read Fleming, for he does not quote another’s opinion before delivering his judgement, which is rather more favourable as far as historical accuracy goes.28 After summarising the little that is known of Fleming, he quotes the title of his book and then states: ‘This exhaustive narrative of no fewer than 598 pages contains a diary of all that happened during the siege down to the smallest detail. Although its obscure and confused style makes it a chore to read, this is nevertheless up to a point made good by its contents ... The book is the more important as the writer, both as eyewitness and as secretary to the governors, wrote with full knowledge of events and thus deserves total credence.’ Did De Wind really find Fleming ‘obscure and confused’ and the reading of his book so dull? It would be churlish to demand a grand literary style from a soldier fully engaged in a terrible siege or to expect from him great variation in the description of recurring events like the arrival of ships.29 But I found him particularly clear and direct, even down-toearth and on the whole unemotional in the midst of horrors, which our own time can understand only too well; it is the only manner of writing such a man would naturally employ under these conditions. Yet this factual reportage, like many a more recent documentary, can convey the drama and stress of particular situations, especially when it comes to the desperation of the last few months of the siege with constant retreats and heavy losses, which compel even this hardened soldier to expressions of sorrow for the sufferings and

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admiration for the dogged endurance of officers and common soldiers alike. In his long account of the siege Motley, in his turn,30 refers frequently to Fleming, whom he describes as the best and most trustworthy contemporary writer on the subject, listing him in the index with separate entries for various special matters. Here and there he also mentions Van Haestens, both in the text and in footnotes, but treats him nevertheless with contempt, considering him not even worthy of any reference in the index. He also refers to Fleming’s style as plodding and dull. It is strange that neither of these respected historians so much as noticed the large amount of Van Haestens quotation in the published diary of Fleming, which Meuris had so clearly defined. Even Miss Ponjaert in her very recent examination of material relating to the siege either did not see this statement by Meuris or did not realise its full implication. Whether influenced by their predecessors’ negative opinions of Van Haestens or independently equally dismissive of him, neither De Buck in 1968 nor Haitsma Mulier and Van der Lem in 1990 mention him in their bibliographies of Dutch historiography. Were they justified? Historians wishing to test the veracity of the writers on the siege of Ostend ought surely to have all the sources put impartially before them. It was left to Markham in his biography of the Vere brothers to cast some doubt on Fleming’s absolute reliability. He quotes for instance31 the passage in which Fleming describes his own part in helping to defeat the Spanish assault in January 1602.32 Who was it that suggested the opening of a particular sluice which then caused a large number of the enemy to drown? Fleming states categorically that the idea was his own, put to Vere in the midst of the battle and eagerly accepted by the latter for immediate execution, which Fleming again saw to in person. But Markham compared this passage with statements from various 17th-century historians, who assign this plan to Vere himself. He then refers especially to Vere’s Commentaries33 in which the description of this event is quoted from Henry Hexham’s True and historicall relation.34 There the author, then Sir Francis Vere's page, says he was sent by his master from the fort of ‘Sandhil’ to convey the command to this effect to the officers on

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the spot: ‘Serjeant-Major Carpenter, and the Auditor Fleming, who were upon Helmont’. This and other discrepancies persuaded Markham, who does not mention Van Haestens at all, that at times Fleming’s ambition to gain some military glory must have run away with him. These few instances do not of course discredit the rest of the vast amount of information he supplies, but a degree of caution is certainly not out of place. True, unlike Fleming, Van Haestens could not draw on personal experience, nor did he hold an official position providing him with all the available documents. Is it at all possible then to discover how he set about his task?

Notes

3. P. Fleming, Oostende Vermaerde ... lanckduyrighe, ende bloedighe Belegheringhe ... ende stoute Aenvallen: Mitsgaders De Manlijcke ... teghenweer ende Defensie by den Belegerden, meer dan drie volle Jaren langh ... Waerachtelick beschreven [Ostend: its famous, long and bloody siege and bold attacks, together with the manful resistance and defence of the besieged, for more than three whole years, truthfully described] (The Hague 1621). Henceforth: FlO. 4. While among English forces an auditor was more of a paymaster, the rank of ‘auditor’ in the Spanish and Dutch armies denoted someone more like an adjutant in modern terms. He had administrative and above all judicial powers, needing his commander’s consent only for the confirmation of capital punishment. See Brancaccio, pp.124-5: ‘Auditore d’un Terzo’; pp.223-4: ‘Auditore della Cavalleria’; and especially pp.204-5: ‘Auditore Generale’. See also Wijn, p.97, with reference to Van Hasselt, App.G. 5. Neither Fleming nor his publisher Meuris offers an explanation for the long delay in publishing this diary. The date eventually chosen for its presentation to the public, probably spring or summer 1621, is certainly not fortuitous. As described by Leerintveld, esp. p.142, the text lent itself to propaganda in favour of continuing the war with Spain at a time when arguments abounded in support of maintaining the truce or transforming it into peace. 6. E.g. his rejection (p.339) of another writer’s claim that a cannon-ball had destroyed some of his papers. Motley, p.119, calls Fleming’s allusion to this author one of ‘whimsical indignation’: perhaps it should more accurately

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be dubbed one of ‘arrogant dismissal’. I shall return to this passage and others in similar vein in due course. 7. The main exception is Markham whose objections to some of Fleming’s assertions will be mentioned later. 8. FlO A4r: ‘Advertissement aen den Leser. Overmits d'Aucteur van dese beschrijvinghe der Belegheringhe van Oostende, alleen aenroert van den bloedighen Velt-slach, die gheschiet is omtrent Nieuwpoort in Vlaenderen, soo heeft den Drucker goet ghevonden, den selven Slach met sijne ommestanden hier by te voeghen, ende sal den Leser ooc veradverteert zijn, dat al ’tghene tusschen dese [ ] teeckens ghevoecht is des Aucteurs werck, ’twelck, den Drucker van hem ontfangen heeft, niet en is, op dat oock den Aucteur hem dies niet en heeft te belghen: Vaert wel.’ [Notice to the reader. Since the author of this description of the siege of Ostend merely touches upon the bloody battle which happened near Nieuwpoort in Flanders, the printer has thought good to add that same battle with its circumstances to it and the reader should note that anything printed between square brackets is not the author’s work such as the printer received it from him, in order also that the author may have no cause to be annoyed. Farewell.] 9. FlO, pp.398-9. He had been continuously at his post, trusted by all the different commanders whom he then saw wounded or killed, for well over two years without a break. It was obvious that for the sake of his health he needed some relief from the hardships of the siege to which he returned uncomplainingly after his short absence. 10. See n.3. 11. See Simoni, Catalogue, no. H 11; henceforth: BlB. 12. See pp.16, 150. 13. See Simoni, Catalogue, no. H 13; henceforth: NTr. 14. Van Haestens had an unmistakable set of decorative initials as well as typical ornaments, clearly identifying works printed by him. They are to be reproduced in a forthcoming bibliography of his publications. 15. On Aert Meuris see Kossmann, pp.267-9, which however does not mention this book in the list of his publications. See also Leerintveld. 16. Cf. Briels, p.308 document g. 17. See n.8. He mentions Van Haestens by name on p.17. 18. See Simoni, Catalogue, no. H 12; henceforth: BmH. 19. See below, ch. 10. 20. E.g. the letter written by Justus Lipsius ‘A Monsieur de Vertering d’Everberg, grand Veneur de Brabant, Gentilhomme & Chamberlan [sic] de son Altesse’, dated Leuven, 12 August 1604, which expresses the hope that Sluis could be maintained for the Archduke. This letter does not occur at all in BlB, it is printed in Latin and Dutch in BmH and in French translation only in NTr, p.285. For its source see below, pp.60, 71-2 no.16.

25

NOTES : FLEMING , MEURIS , VAN HAESTENS AND THE CRITICS

21. See below, ch. 11, 12. 22. The description given by Van Rijn, no.1162, does not tally with the copy in the British Library which again differs, whether accidentally or by design, from that in the Royal Library, The Hague. See also Ponjaert, pp.6570. 23. De Wind, p.319. 24. For the actual title see the List of sources s.v. Orlers. ‘Den Nassauschen lauren-crans’ is the half-title, which for obvious reasons became the one generally used to refer to the book; henceforth: Nlcr. 25. De Wind, p.321. 26. ibid., p.570. 27. Bosscha, p.368. 28. De Wind, pp.353-4. 29. It is precisely what Gaspar Lorchanus condemned when in Mercurius Gallobelgicus, 4, bk.6, pp.408-10, he began his summary of the siege of Ostend saying: ‘Nos vt nihil memoratu dignum, quod in hac obsidione factum sit, omittemus: ita diurna acta prosequi operae precium non putamus: nisi fortasse tua interesse existimes, lector, scire quot naues hoc vel illo die in portum sint inuectae, quot ictus exceperint, quot declinauerint; huic brachium, illi pedem, alij caput comminutum; & si quae talia vsitata sunt & quotidiana obsidionum spectacula’ [As for me, while not omitting anything in this siege deserving to be recorded, I equally think it not worth while to follow events day by day: unless you, dear reader, are perhaps interested to know how many ships entered the harbour on this or that day, how many attacks they suffered and how many they repulsed; that one man had an arm, another a leg and a third his head split; and things of that sort which are the common and everyday spectacles of any siege]. 30. See n.1. 31. Markham, p.328, n.1. 32. FlO, pp.195-6. 33. Vere, p.174. 34. Hexham, p.25[=27]. On Hexham, who was Vere’s page at Nieuwpoort and Ostend, see Biografisch lexicon, vol.3, p.185, with further literature.

26

2. Van Haestens on his sources and a well-kept secret

When Van Haestens began his narrative of the siege, sufficient time had elapsed since the event for a fair number of manuscript and printed accounts, as well as illustrations, to have come into circulation. Is it possible to trace those used by him? Unlike Aert Meuris, he does not mention names or titles already in his preliminaries, but he is honest, or clever, enough to claim authentic records as the basis of his story. On the title-page of the Bloedige Belegeringhe he asserts that it has been ‘Met voordacht opgesocht ende beschreven’ [compiled and described with forethought] and in the dedication to the States General35 he again stresses that he has ‘so veel ons moghelicken gheweest is de ghedenckweerdichste gheschiedenissen int corte verhaelt, ende ... al wat tot onse kennisse is ghekomen, sonder cieraet van woorden oft bloemen van welsprekentheyt, waerachtelick beschreven: ende elck op het korste [sic], op sijn jaeren, maenden, ende daghen willen brenghen’ [as far as possible briefly related the most memorable events and truthfully told everything that has come to my knowledge, without embellishment of words or flowers of rhetoric: and endeavoured to set each under its own year, month and day]. Now here Van Haestens seems to imply that he himself has arranged the events by date, we shall see whether this is in fact so. In the next sentence he is more cautious, excusing any omissions in the story by casting the blame on the negligence of his sources, yet finding an excuse for it in the circumstances: ‘Jae het welcke indien wy iet nae gelaten hebben, sal niet ons, maer de ghene toe gheschreven worden, die niet teghenstaende dat sy van den eersten in de Stadt verkeert, ende alles deelachtich geweest hebben, nochtans soo weynich aengheteeckent, ende voor de naekomelingen ghesorcht hebben: meer met haren plicht becommert zijnde, als met het gene datmen van haer schrijven soude’ [Yea, if I have omitted anything, let it be attributed not to me, but to those who notwithstanding that they abided in the town from the very beginning and participated in everything, nevertheless noted down and cared so little for posterity: being more concerned about their duties than with their future reputation].

27

VAN HAESTENS ON HIS SOURCES

The phrase describing persons present with every opportunity of knowing what was happening, seems admirably to fit Philippe Fleming himself, yet the reproach levelled at these persons, that they wrote down too little to satisfy the curiosity of later generations is, as we now know, unjustified in as much as Fleming is concerned. Was it known by 1613 that Fleming was supposed to have kept a diary, but only little of it had actually been seen? And if so, why is Van Haestens so coy about naming Secretary Fleming as a perhaps deficient, but certainly reliable source? How far then can we be sure that Van Haestens did not at least know some extracts from the diary? Finally in Van Haestens's dedication, the merit of his story is modestly apportioned neither to himself nor to his sources: ‘De welcke alsoo sy alle dienaers zijn geweest van Uwe Hoogemogentheydt, ende dat gemeyn met ons gehadt hebben, soo ist dat my [sic] ons laten voorstaen, dat de eere oock niemant toe en komt, dan God Almachtich, ende die syn plaetse op aerde bewaeren ... ’ [Who in so far as they were all servants of Your High and Mightynesses, which they had in common with myself, it is my view that the honour is really due to none but God Almighty and those who are His representatives on earth]. These claims as well as disclaimers are retained literally in the dedication, again to the States General, of the Beschrijvinghe,36 where only the misprints ‘korste’ and ‘my’ are corrected to ‘kortste’ and ‘wy’. Later on Van Haestens finds it necessary, or convenient, to quote some respectable and widely-known sources for parts of his story. Most prominent among them is the account of a naval battle, which took place in June 1600, a year before the beginning of the siege, but was already connected with the means of supplying the town by sea, which the Spanish forces tried their best to interrupt. In the Bloedige Belegeringhe this passage starts on p.49 (G1r), and is entitled ‘Scheeps-strijt ter Zee’ [Ships’ combat at sea]; in the Beschrijvinghe it does so on p.50[=55] (F3v),37 under the title of ‘Slach ter Zee’ [Battle at sea] which is then also the chapter heading adopted in the edition of Fleming’s journal where it occurs on p.52 (H3v). In each version the first paragraph ends with the statement ‘ende is dese Beschrijvinghe genomen uyt het 22. Boec van Emanuel van Meteren, aldus

28

VAN HAESTENS ON HIS SOURCES

luydende:’ [and this description has been taken from book 22 of Emanuel van Meteren, reading as follows:]. The relevant passage in Van Meteren’s Commentarien in the London edition of 1610 begins in bk.22, fol.29r, col.a, l.8 from below, and continues to fol.29v, col.a, l.3. This long narrative has been only minimally abridged by Van Haestens and very slightly changed and ‘modernised’, e.g. right at the beginning where Van Meteren writes ‘Terwylen het Legher van Mauritz door Vlaenderen treckt’ [While Maurice’s army is marching through Flanders], Van Haestens has ‘Terwylen dat het Legher door Vlaenderen trock’ [In the time that the army marched through Flanders]. Had he wanted to shorten his model text wherever possible, he could have dispensed with that attractive simile of the becalmed man-of-war, ‘als een Vogel, die sonder vleugelen niet vlieghen en can’ [like a bird which without wings cannot fly]; but all he has done with it is to change the spelling. He has also retained the story of the Turkish galley slave who, when a shot had cut his chain, swam towards the Dutch ships holding up its remnant as proof of his condition. He was rescued and taken to the Prince who clothed and honoured him and offered him the choice of either a passport or enrolment in his forces. The Turk would only accept the latter if he were given command of a galley in order to catch and in his turn enslave Spaniards. Maurice would not hear of such a thing and gave him his passport, whereupon the happy Turk travelled home via England and Barbary. Van Haestens omits Van Meteren’s additional statement that he met the man himself (which would then have been in London and is quite possible). But where Van Meteren ends by saying that on his return home the Turk was going to tell ‘den grooten Turck, zynen Heere/ alle der Christenen oorloge’ [the Great Turk his Lord about all the Christians’ war], Van Haestens goes one better and adds ‘ende met lof te kennen geven’ [and would relate it with praise], intended, I take it, as a not unflattering gesture towards both Maurice and the States General rather than towards the Spaniards who had treated the poor man so grievously! This is an unusually long quotation within the work of Van Haestens and thus transferred to Fleming. I shall discuss his other excursions into historical scholarship below.38 Such a display of learning could only benefit the author.

29

VAN HAESTENS ON HIS SOURCES

Fig. 6 Histoire remarquable de ce qui s’est passé, (Paris, Jérémie Perier 1604), title-page.

30

VAN HAESTENS ON HIS SOURCES

Recourse to anonymous pamphlets or similar works not enhanced by the name of an acknowledged authority might instead have diminished him in the eyes of his readers. Nor was Van Haestens going to confess to the amount of actual pilfering he had done from sources perhaps less easily available to a public which mainly read works only in the vernacular.

*

Apart from the star treatment the siege of Ostend received in Motley’s History,39 it has been the subject of several individual essays.40 Just as Motley had done, they mention, besides Fleming (with approval) and Van Haestens (with condescension, if at all), a booklet entitled Histoire remarquable ... de ce qui s’est passé ... au siege de la ville d’Ostende (fig.6),41 yet it appears that none of them, alas not even Ponjaert, has done any proper comparison of the texts. For as will soon become clear, such a simple procedure reveals that it is the Histoire remarquable which has served Van Haestens as his main source and through him has entered also Fleming’s book in the passages interpolated by Meuris into the diary. The original author of the Histoire remarquable wrote his text in German. This is quite plainly stated by the translator in his own preface to the reader in an attempt to explain the retention of words and names ‘en Aleman’ wherever a translation into French would have been clumsy or useless. This ‘Aleman’ cannot be equated with ‘Bas Aleman’, tempting though such a supposition might be; a temptation to which Van der Wulp and Knuttel have unfortunately succumbed.42 It is obvious from the spelling of names like ‘Vehr’ for Sir Francis Vere, whose name is usually spelled ‘Veer’ in Dutch, ‘Lohn’ for the Dutch name ‘Loon’, and ‘Grossendurst’ for the placename ‘Grootendorst’, to mention only a few, that the original was in fact not Dutch but German. Belleroche43 knew that the original text was preserved in the City Library at Ostend, but gives no further details, whether it is a manuscript or a printed book, what its title is, etc., and does not seem to have consulted it. Van Sypesteyn44 names a certain ‘A.V.’ as author of the Histoire remarquable, a sad error on

31

NOTES : VAN HAESTENS ON HIS SOURCES

the part of an aspiring historian as he then was, for what he assumed to be the author’s initials at the end of the dedication in its French translation, and read as ‘A.V.’, is in fact no more than a signature in the bibliographical sense: A v, i.e. leaf A5. He does not seem to have seen the original text either, though he says it was published in German in 1604. So far so good, but as we shall see, this is not the end of the confusion. Even Motley is inaccurate with his sources. He is more than a little contemptuous for instance of the achievements of Italian military engineers like ‘Pompey’ and ‘Targone’. He refers to Pompeo Giustiniani [sic, for Giustiniano] and to Targone (without telling the reader that he too was called Pompeo) as inventors of useless engines.45 Now, useless or not, Giustiniano was no engineer and had not invented them. His book, Delle guerre di Fiandra libri VI, was edited and illustrated by the real engineer Gioseppe [sic] Gamurini to whom, while he takes full credit and responsibility in the prefatory matter for the design of the plates, statements and opinions of a technical nature within the text are no doubt also due.46 Nowhere is there any mention of machinery invented by Giustiniano, though Fleming had already erroneously attributed to this officer an invention his engineer had done his best to oppose, but had nevertheless been told to help construct.47 If there were contributions to siege engines by Gamurini, approved by Giustiniano and in that sense his, successful or not, both officers have remained un-characteristically silent about them. The matter of these siege engines has its place in the context of the present argument because Gamurini’s plate showing them served as a model for one of the plates in Van Haestens’s narrative, where it retained its inscriptions in Italian. It reappears in this form in Fleming’s work. It will be more closely discussed at a later stage in this essay.48

Notes

35. The dedication to the States General is apparently standard in recorded copies of BlB. However, in one of the two copies in Amsterdam University Library (shelfmark 405 F 4) the dedicatory address, printed on a cancellans, is directed to the Admiralty of North Holland, whereas the dedication

32

NOTES : VAN HAESTENS ON HIS SOURCES

of another copy (Van der Wulp no.1007) is said in a footnote to its sequel (ibid. no.1008) to offer the book to the burgomaster and magistrates of Dordrecht. This footnote was unfortunately taken over in Knuttel no.1281, as if it applied to no.1280, which it does not: both copies in the Royal Library, The Hague, bear the standard dedication to the States General. If the special issues were produced singly as gifts to their dedicatees, it is possible that others with unique dedications may yet turn up. In fact, from an index to the accounts of the city of Middelburg, kindly communicated by Dr P.J. Verkruijsse to Mr de Schepper, it appears that in 1613 Van Haestens was paid a sum of money in recognition of the gift of his book on the siege of Ostend, this time probably bearing a dedication to the Middelburg magistrates. The text of the letter itself, to judge from that submitted to the Admiralty of North Holland referred to above, is however not adapted in any way to its new dedicatees, but is simply that of the letter to the States General. 36. No copies of BmH containing other dedicatees are known. 37. The pagination is faulty. See Simoni, Catalogue, no. H 12, annotation. 38. See ch. 5. 39. See n.1. 40. E.g. Van Sypesteyn, which has a good map showing the forts; Henrard; Belleroche; Vlietinck, with a large map. 41. Histoire remarquable, etc. (see List of sources). The copy in the British Library which I have used bears the imprint: ‘A Paris, Chez Ieremie Perier ... M.DC.IV.’ Actually, two issues of this book are known: one, as above, the other, as in the Royal Library, The Hague (Kn no.1268), with the name of Adrian Beys in the imprint. Both issues have the device of Jérémie Perier, showing Bellerophon, the name of Perier’s house, on the title-page. Henceforth: Hist.rem. 42. Kn no.1268; not in Tiele. 43. Belleroche, p.105. 44. Van Sypesteyn, p.2: ‘Reeds eenige maanden na de overgave van Ostende ... had zekere A.V. een gedurende het beleg door hemzelf gehouden journaal het licht doen zien, dat eerst in het hoogduitsch en later - in November 1604 - bij Jérémie Perier te Parijs in het fransch verscheen’ [Already a few months after the surrender of Ostend a certain A.V. got out a diary he had himself kept during the siege which was published first in German and later, in November 1604, by Jeremie Perier in Paris in French]. Van Sypesteyn, pp.2-3, is similarly careless when referring to Van Haestens: he mentions the 1614 edition only and misquotes its title as ‘Beschrijvinghe van de bloedige ende strenge belegeringhe der stadt Ostende [sic], waarvan in 1615 eene eenigszins gewijzigde vertaling in het fransch uitkwam met plannen en platen’ [Beschrijvinghe ... Ostende of

33

NOTES : VAN HAESTENS ON HIS SOURCES

which in 1615 a somewhat revised translation into French came out with plans and plates], to which he then in his n.1 assigns the title ‘La nouvelle Troie [sic]’. Shortly after Van Sypesteyn had gone into print, Fruin gave his paper on Sir Francis Vere’s command at Ostend to the Dutch Literary Society in which he correctly identified the significance of the false initials (p.180). In his translation of this paper Belleroche understands it correctly, but lacks the terminology for a precise rendering. 45. Motley, pp.171-3. 46. See Simoni, ‘Soldiers’ tales’, esp. pp.259-63. 47. FlO, p.433. 48. See ch. 12, pp.165,168.

34

3. In the beginning

Certainly, as far as the Histoire remarquable and its German original are concerned, Miss Ponjaert has made amends for the negligence of her predecessors by, firstly, establishing the relationship and, secondly, subjecting the German book to thorough analysis.49 As it is of interest to determine whether Van Haestens used the German, French, or for that matter the English version, a translation by Edward Grimstone from the French (fig.7)50, and since Miss Ponjaert’s thesis is so difficult to obtain, I shall now describe the German edition myself independently of her. It becomes immediately evident that the German text itself is not original material, but has been compiled from earlier communications, whether first or second-hand, mainly or even exclusively Dutch ones. This is clearly stated in the title: Belägerung der Statt Ostende. IOURNAL: Tagregister vnd eigentliche beschreibung aller gedenckwurdigsten Sachen/ handlungen vnd geschichten/ so inner vnd ausserhalb der weithberumbten vnd fast vnvberwindlichen Statt Ostende in Flandern defensive bey den Belägerten/ Offensive aber durch den gewaltigen Läger des Ertzhertzogs Alberti zu Oosterreich sich zugetragen/ welcher massen die Approches oder naherungen/ Aussfalle/ Sturme/ auss vnd einfarthe der Schiffe durch die Geule vnd newe Haven/ allerhand hultzern floss werkge vnd gebewde zu verstopffung vnd sperrung derselber Geule. Jtem mancherley Feurwercke vnd newe Inventiones zu Anzundung sollicher werkge/ zu vnd angerichtet. Auch sonsten viel vnerhorte Kriegsbehendigkeiten vnd Stratagemata von beyden theilen gevbet vnd angeleget sind worden/ gantz ordentlich begrieffen vnd von Anfang derselben Belägerung nemblich von 5. July 1601. biss auf diese gegenwertige Herbstmisse Anno 1604. extendirt, vnd in zwey theill verfasset/ auch mit schonen neuwen Kupffer-stucken vnd Mappen51 illustriert vnd den Augen furgebildet. Alles zum vertrewlichsten ausz den glaubwurdigsten Schrifften versamlet/ vnd menniglichen so zu solchen newen Beschreibungen lust vnd lieb haben/ zu dienstlichen wolgefallen ins liecht gebracht, vnd auss der Niderlendischen in die Hochteutsche Sprach transferirt vnd in Drvck verfertigt. [Engraving] Nach die Glaubwirdigste Schriften vnd Couranten ausz Ostende vnd andern Ortern geschrieben, in

35

IN THE BEGINNING

Druck verfertigt. 1604.52 [Siege of the town of Ostend. Journal: diary and truthful account of all the most memorable matters, actions and events, as they occurred both within and without the world-famous and almost invincible town of Ostend in Flanders, on the side of the defence by the besieged, but on that of the attack by the mighty army of Archduke Albert of Austria, in what way the approaches or advances, sorties, assaults, comings and goings of the ships in the river Geule and the new harbour, all kinds of floating works and buildings for stopping up and blocking the same Geule. Likewise various explosives and new inventions to light them were prepared and executed. Moreover also many unheard-of military tricks and stratagems practised and instigated by both sides, set out in their proper order and followed through from the start of this siege, that is to say from 5 July 1601, until this present autumn fair in the year 1604, and encompassed in two parts, also illustrated and visually presented with fine new copperplates and maps.51 The whole compiled from the most trustworthy writings to the highest degree of reliability, and published for the service and satisfaction of those who like and enjoy such new accounts, and transferred from the Dutch into the German language and produced in print. – Written according to the most trustworthy writings and newsletters from Ostend and other places, produced in print.1604].52 The reference to translation from the Dutch does not wholly deny inclusion of originally German reports from the besieged city or indeed elsewhere (the ‘andern Ortern’). But so far the actual ‘Schriften und Couranten’ at the root of this indeed very skilful compilation have not been identified. And this is not really surprising since they were, as will be seen below, probably all or to a large extent originally in manuscript.53 Even ephemeral printed matter such as pamphlets and news reports are, of course, notorious for their fragility and the number of such items lost to posterity is incalculable. The book is a folio volume with gatherings of four leaves, irregularly foliated. It is divided into three parts, the first and second of which are mentioned in the above title. The first part consists of gatherings A-I, ending with an epilogue presumably added by the

36

IN THE BEGINNING

Fig. 7 A true Historie of the Memorable Siege of Ostend (London 1604), title-page.

37

IN THE BEGINNING

compiler. The title-page engraving reinforces the words of the title, especially the ‘weithberumbt’ and ‘fast vnvberwindlich’: a dramatic view of fortifications under assault (fig.8). The artist does not spare the beholder the sight of death and destruction caused by violent explosions. Prominent among the defenders are ten flags whose three stripes represent the red, white and blue colours of the Dutch Republic. Another seven flags bearing a (red) St Andrew’s cross on a white ground, which were the Burgundian colours, identify the ‘Catholic’, i.e. Spanish army within the fire, smoke and confusion of the outer defence works as they are being blown up. This view, printed sideways to make it fit the available space and thus requiring a 90o turn to be looked at, is inscribed ‘OOSTENDE’, sure sign of its Dutch origin. The title-page of the second part, whose gatherings run from A-E, reads: IOVRNAL. Ander theil/ zusatz vnd Anhang/ des gantzen Journals/ vber die treffliche vnd weitberumte Belägerung der statt vnd Kriegs Vniversiteit Ostende in Flandern. Darinnen alles desjenige so sich seith nechstverschiener Ostermess des jetzt lauffenden Jars 1604 biss auf die gegenwertige Franckfurter Herbstmiss in Sept. so woll inner alls auch ausserhalb derselben Statt begeben vnd zugetragen/ ordentlich/ vnd mit allem fleisz zum warhafftigsten vnd grundtlichsten verfasset/ annotiert vnd beschrieben worden. Auch sind alhie beygefugt/ alle die händel deren vom Esquadron, so sie in wuriger jhrer Mutination wieder den Ertzhertzog Albertum in Brabant/ eine geraume zeitt hero gantz wunderbarlich getrieben/ vnd welcher gestalt sie die Statt Grave widervmb eingeraumt vnd abgetretten/ auch hergegen die vestung Hochstraten in jhren gewahrsamb bekommen haben/ vnd was sich weiter mit jhnen verlauffen vnd zugetragen hatt. Ferner wird alhie kurtzlich vnd bestendigklich bericht/ welcher gestalt die Belägerung vor Sluys angefangen/ vnd was sich biss auff dato davor vnd sonsten allenthalben bey nechstgelegenen Ortern in Flandern biss auff vnd nach die eroberung vorg. Statt zugetragen. Alles auss den furnembsten vnd glaubwurdigsten Advisen vnd Zeitungen extrahirt vnd zu sammen gezogen/ vnd dem gutwilligen vnpartheyschen Leser zu wollgefälligem dienst im Druck verfertigt/ vnd auss der Niderländischen Sprach treuwlich verdeutschet/ vnd zu allem vberfluss mitt ettlichen schönen Kuppferstucken gezieret/ darinnen menniglich die furnembsten Geschichten gleich wiein [sic] einem Spiegell fur

38

IN THE BEGINNING

Fig. 8 Belägerung der Statt Ostende, part 1, (no place 1604), title-page engraving, cf. Van Haestens, De bloedige Belegeringhe, pl. 5.

39

IN THE BEGINNING

den aügen gestellet werden. Hie ist bey gefugt ein schöne Mappa der Statt Ostende mit allen newen vnerhörten Fortificationen vnd abschneidungen; wie dieselbe jetziger zeitt jhre gestaltnuss habe. Neben dem abriss des Parvae vnd Novae Troiae. [Engraving] Nach die Glaubwurdigste Schriften vnd Couranten ausz Ostende vnd andern Ortern geschrieben/ in Druck verfertigt. [Journal. Second part, addition and supplement to the whole journal, of the excellent and world-famous siege of the town and military university of Ostend in Flanders. In which everything that has happened and occurred inside as well as outside the same town since the last-past Easter Fair of the current year 1604 to the present Frankfurt Autumn Fair in September has been encompassed, noted and related in good order and with all diligence. There have been added here all the actions of those of the squadron, which they carried out most amazingly quite a while ago in their disorderly mutiny against Archduke Albert in Brabant, and how again they left and surrendered the town of Grave, also instead got possession of the fortress of Hoogstraten, and what else passed and occurred with them. Furthermore there is here a brief and concise account of how the siege of Sluis began and what took place there up until now, and also everywhere else in near-by places around Flanders until and beyond the conquest of the said town. All this excerpted and contracted from the most important and most trustworthy information and newsletters, and produced in print to be of satisfactory service to the impartial reader, and faithfully translated from the Dutch language into German. To crown it all, it is adorned with several fine copperplates, in which the most outstanding events are set before all eyes as in a mirror. In addition there is a fine map of the town of Ostend with all its new and unheard-of fortifications and reductions; the shape it is in at present. Besides, there is the plan of Parva and Nova Troia. – Written according to the most trustworthy writings and newsletters from Ostend and other places, produced in print]. No date of publication is given, but it has of course already been supplied within the title as 1604. The engraving on this title-page, no doubt the ‘abriss’ referred to (fig.9), is printed upright. It shows the very small area still in Dutch

40

IN THE BEGINNING

Fig. 9 Belägerung der Statt Ostende, part 2 (no place 1604), title-page with engraving, cf. Van Haestens, De bloedige Belegeringhe, pl. 11.

41

IN THE BEGINNING

hands, manned by defenders recognisable by their flags, while the attackers occupy what had hitherto been the city’s outer defensive works under theirs. Mutual salvos are being fired from a vast array of guns on either side. The space near the bottom of the picture, with the numbers 27 and 28 at its corners, is inscribed ‘Nova Troia’. The names ‘New’ or ‘Little Troy’ were bestowed on the fortifications as they were reduced and made once more impregnable for what was to be the last time in a continuous process towards the end of the siege. The reference to ancient Troy was apt: the siege was felt to be of similar proportions. Although no epic was to be written about it, numerous poems in many languages celebrated its fame.54 The third part, which consists of a single six-leaf gathering A, of which the last leaf is blank, has again a title-page of its own, reading: Belägerung der Statt Ostende. IOVRNAL Dritter vnd letster theill des gantzenn Journals/ vber die treffeliche vnd weith berumbte belägerung der Statt vnd Kriegs-Vniversiteit Ostende in Flandren/ darinnen alles des jenighe so sich von dem 28. Augusti 1604. biss auf die eroberung vnd aufgebung gemelter statt verlauffen vnd zu getragen haben. Darinnen zu sehen/ wie gantz wunderbärlich vnd seltzam dise statt 3.Jahr 2.Monath vnd 17.tage manlich vnd dapfer erhalten/ auch welcher massen die selbe durch allerhande gwalt des schiessens/ sturmens/ Feurwerckens vnd vieler vnerhorten Kriegs behendigkeiten vnd Stratagematum angefochten/ vnd ausz gestanden. Alles zum vertrewlichsten auss den glaubwurdigsten schrifften versamlet/ vnd menniglichen so zu solchen neuwen beschreibungen vnd erfullung der gantzen Historien lust vnd lieb haben/ zu dienstlichen wolgefallen ins liecht bracht/ vnd ausz der Niderlandischen in die Hochteutsche Spraach transferirt vnd in druck verfertigt. [Engraving] Verhoffen auch vveiter (devveil disz Iaar 1605. sich vvunder vnd seltzam ansehen last) alle Historische erzehlungen des gantzen kriegs im Niderlantt in einer continuation mit Kupfer stucken an tag zu geben, vnd da bey zu fugen, vvas sich in Franckreich, Engellant vnd Hispangen gedenckvvurtigs zu tragt, deveill die zeitungen an disen nechst gelegenen Orth, vns am gevvisten mitgetheilt vnd communiciert vverden. [Siege of the town of Ostend. Journal. Third and last part of the whole diary of the excellent and world-famous siege of the town and military university of Ostend in Flanders, in which [is] all that happened and occurred from 28 August 1604 until the conquest and surrender of the aforesaid town. In it is to be seen how the town

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IN THE BEGINNING

quite wondrously and astonishingly held out manfully and bravely for three years, two months and seventeen days, also in what way it was attacked and endured every manner of fury of bombardments, assaults, explosions and many unheard-of military tricks and stratagems. All compiled most faithfully from the most trustworthy writings and published for the service and satisfaction of all who love and enjoy such new accounts and completion of the whole history, and transferred from the Dutch into the German language and produced in print. It is also our hope (considering that the year 1605 appears wonderful and strange) further to publish all historical narrations of the whole war in the Netherlands in a continuation with copperplates, and to add to that the memorable events which take place in France, England and Spain, seeing that the news reports are brought and communicated to us most accurately in this very near place]. The engraving on this title-page (fig.10) is again printed in the correct direction. It displays a great assembly of ships in a bay or estuary between two stretches of coast from one of which rise what appear to be clouds of smoke. This may suggest Ostend, ruined to the ground, with the ships ready to take part of the garrison away to Zeeland. Were there ever so many ships at Ostend, however, or does the plate actually depict a different event?55 By now the date of publication is 1605, a matter of importance in relation to the continuations attached to the Histoire remarquable, which were printed in different forms, either with the date 1604 or without any date at all.56 It is possible to follow the course of publication of this book from the references on the title-pages of parts 1 and 2 to the Frankfurt Book Fair in the autumn of 1604, followed by the third part in the new year. There was in fact an earlier version of part 1, entitled: Belägerung von Ostende. IOVRNAL. Oder eigentlich Taglichs Register von alle ghedenckwürdigste Sachen/ handlungen vnd Gheschichten so in der weith berhumbten vnwinlichen Statt vnd auch aussen da fur in des Ertzhertzogen Alberti von Ostenreich Feld-läger durch viel Approhein oder herzunähunge Aussfallen/ Sturmen/ ausz vnd einfahrt der Schiff auch Fewrwerck Höltzern flött/ vnd sonsten mancherley kriegszlisten/ vud [sic] newerfunden griffen/ von anfang der selben Belagerung von den 5.Julij zu beiden theilen haben zugetragen: Darinnen bey die fürnembste

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Fig. 10 Belägerung der Statt Ostende, part 3 (no place 1605), title-page with engraving.

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Sachen etzliche schone Figüren in Kupffer gestochen gesetzt sein, welche alle das jenige so schrifftlich erzehlt wurdt, auch fein deudtlich vnd ordentlich nachs leben wie solche geschehen gar eigentlich als einen Spiegel furbilden: Alles gar trewlichen ausz glaubwurdige zugeschickte Schrifften bey einander versamlet, vnd den Newsbelustigen Leser zu sunderlichen wollgefallen am tag gegeben, vnd in die Hochteudtsche sprache vertolmetscht. Durch J.S. Hier zu gehöret auch ein schone Mappa von Ostende, wie die selbe von ihre Excell. Mauritio von Nassau, newlich gezeichnet, dem Hertzogen von Florentz, verehret ist wurden.57 [Engraving] Getruckt nach die glaubwirdigste schriften ausz Ostende zu geschickt/ 1604. [Siege of Ostend. Journal. Or factual diary of all the most memorable matters, actions and events that have occurred on either side in the world-famous invincible town and also outside it in the army of the Archduke Albert with many approaches and advances, sorties, assaults, comings and goings of ships, also explosions, wooden floats and many other ruses of war and newly invented devices, since the start of this siege on 5 July: in which several fine pictures engraved in copper have been set next to the most important matters, in which all that which is told in writing is also represented very clearly and properly from life as it took place, quite truly as in a mirror: all very faithfully compiled from trustworthy writings sent hither, and published for the particular satisfaction of the reader desirous of news, and translated into the German language. By J.S. A fine map of Ostend is also included, such as, newly drawn, was presented by His Excellency Maurice of Nassau to the Duke of Florence.57 – Printed according to the most trustworthy writings sent hither from Ostend, 1604].58 The wording of the long title makes it clear that the narrative goes no further than the Spring Book Fair of 1604 for which the book in this form appears to have been intended. The sources, quoted here as ‘trustworthy communications from Ostend’, are not qualified as to their nationality as they are in the Belägerung der Statt Ostende and its sequels. Nevertheless, a good many of them, if not all, must have been in Dutch. The engraving here used to embellish the title-page (fig.11) is of the Christmas truce of 1601, unfortunately doomed to failure, when Albert and Isabella approached the town only to have their emis-

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Fig.11 Belägerung von Ostende (no place 1604), title-page with engraving, cf. Van Haestens, De bloedige Belegeringhe, pl. 7.

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saries rather unceremoniously dismissed as soon as further supplies arrived for the garrison, allowing a resumption of the defence.59 The engraving’s caption is printed in letterpress italics between it and the title above it. It reads: ‘der stilstant oder Cessation der waffenen da ihre hocheiden gegenwertig waren da von ins buch zu sehen ist, auf seine behorliche pflatse [sic]’ [the truce or cessation of arms when Their Highnesses were present, which can be read about in the book, in its own place]. The engraving has its own inscription in Latin in the bottom left-hand corner, framed in double rules. This engraving was also to survive in later publications.60 A trace of this title-page of the Belägerung von Ostende still lingers in the Belägerung der Statt Ostende, which became the definitive issue of part 1 of the book, but whose title-page is a cancellans pasted onto a stub of the cancelland, which was that of its predecessor. It can be assumed that leaves A2-4 did not have to be changed in any significant way. The rest of the text also appears to have been taken over straight from the original version, including the ‘Zum Beschlusz auff disz furgedachte Journal der gantschen Belägerung vnd Vniversiteit Ostende’ [In conclusion of this afore-projected journal of the whole siege and university of Ostend] on leaf I3v which ignores the ‘Ander theil’ which was eventually published together with part 1. The language and spelling of this earliest of the German books, based on direct news reports from Ostend, are interesting, especially some habits which seem closer to Dutch than to German practice, such as the repeated insertion of ‘h’ after ‘g’, the double ‘o’ in ‘Hoochteudtsche’, the spelling ‘hocheiden’ in the caption to the engraving, reminiscent of Dutch ‘hoogheden’, ‘waffenen’ in a plural form like Dutch ‘wapenen’, ‘Ostenreich’, reminiscent of Dutch ‘Oostenrijck’, and much more, like the neologism ‘Newsbelustigen’ which suggests an attempt at rendering ‘nieuwsgierigen’ into German, quite apart from the ‘Approhein oder herzunähunge’, which seems to be made up of ‘Approchen’ and ‘herzu[=an]näherung’ to describe the besiegers’ trenches. A study of the linguistic peculiarities, not only in the titles, but also in the text of the whole book could convey the probable origin of the translator J. (or I.) S., who is named only on this earliest title-page and who has so far not been identified. The text of the complete work can equally be reduced to

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Dutch in many places. It could be said that the translator was influenced by the Dutch material in front of him, and this could doubtless have been the case, the more so as he had to work fast to complete his task in time to allow printing before the tight deadline of the next Frankfurt Fair. Nevertheless, in areas like the title-pages where the wording is independent of any sources, the admixture of Dutch vocabulary and style is so strong that one suspects a man of Dutch or Flemish upbringing with a good, but far from perfect knowledge of German. This hypothesis explains instances of odd grammar, e.g. ‘aussen da fur’ for ‘aussen davon’ (in modern German ‘ausserhalb davon’) or ‘den Leser am Tag gegeben’ for ‘dem Leser an den Tag gegeben’, etc., better than simply attributing them to the fluidity of linguistic usage at the time. No part of the Belägerung bears either the name of a compiler or an imprint. While the ‘J.S.’ of the title-page of the Belägerung von Ostende cannot but apply to ‘vertolmetscht’, it is not so clearly linked to ‘alles ... versamlet’ - and can we even be sure that these initials are not those of a pseudonym? The lack of an imprint for this important production is hard to explain. The printer evidently intended to sell copies of the book at the Frankfurt Book Fair, whether in person or through a colleague acting for him. In his own town word of mouth would have spread knowledge of further copies among potential purchasers, and these two methods of sale may have sufficed. But why the secrecy? Though the book did not overtly propagate a religious point of view, its general tone in supporting the Dutch Republic implies Calvinist sympathy which could possibly have led to complications with Catholic authorities if it was printed in a town under such an administration. This town needs to agree with the reference on the title-page of part 3 to communications sent ‘an disen nechst gelegenen Orth’. This could signify proximity to Ostend or Frankfurt or to any town not too distant from either. Ponjaert suggests Cologne as the place of printing and Wilhelm Lützenkirchen as the printer.61 She may well be right with the former, but the basis of her argument for the latter, in a field where definite proof is needed to make it acceptable, is nothing stronger than vague ‘similarity’.62 Support for a Cologne connection can however be found at the

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end of part 2 of the book itself. Here the narrative ends on f.19(E3)r with events of 23 August 1604, a pious expression of trust in the Almighty and the greeting: ‘Vale’, the whole then explicitly concluded with a decorative border at the foot of the page. The verso of this leaf bears the text of Lipsius’s letter to, here, ‘Monsieur de Verlering d’Euerbeger grand Veneur de Braband, Gentilhomme de la Chambre de son Alteze’, which has been mentioned before.63 It is introduced as having been intercepted by men of Prince Maurice’s army. The only interest of this Latin letter of 4 August 1604 to the campaign then in progress lies in the scholar’s expression of his thoughts on the deteriorating situation at Sluis and its possible loss to the Archduke: ‘Deus auertat’ [God forbid]. Could the remarkable speed of its appearance in print in a book produced for sale in September be due to a copy made by an official person in receipt of the original having reached the compiler of the Belägerung by messenger fairly soon after its capture? The next page, f.E4r of part 2, may then contain the clue to this and the larger puzzle of the compiler’s identity. It bears a letter, also in Latin, from one Franciscus Villerius to one Henricus Bilderbeke, whom he addresses as ‘mi Maecenas’, describing a slow river journey down the Rhine from Cologne to Wesel. It has no real bearing on the siege of Ostend, nor to that of Sluis, but tells of the writer’s overnight stay at Rheinberg, recently taken by the Dutch64 and now in a sad plight after the soldiers’ excesses against the population. He reprimands them: ‘O pullos Martios! Sed nimis me Hercules Martios’ [oh chicks of Mars, but, by Hercules, too martial by half], but of course he approves of the Dutch conquest of the town. He adds two poems to his letter, written, if anything, in even more affected language, in which he makes first ‘Albertus Austriacus’, then ‘Mauritius’ declare their political credos.65 The same decorative border as on f.E3r is then repeated to mark the end of this part of the book. While Villerius has proved exceedingly elusive,66 more is known of Henricus Bilderbeke.67 The elder of the two men of this name, both notaries by profession, was at the time ‘agent’ in Cologne for the States General, i.e. he represented that government more or less in the manner of a modern honorary consul, without being a diplomat. In fact, he received a salary from the States General, not only for his occasional duties as trusted messenger between them and various

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local dignitaries, but as regular purveyor of news from many quarters which he sent to his employers in manuscript, often accompanied by a personal letter which sometimes contained his own reflections on the news items just sent. He in turn obtained information from similar suppliers of news in Vienna, Rome and elsewhere, and also, if less frequently, from the Netherlands, including the army itself where Prince Maurice’s secretary received a copy of his news from the States General. Indeed, at least one message from Ostend, relating to Maurice’s visit there in 1600, survives among Bilderbeke’s extant reports. Hendrik Bilderbeke’s position at the centre of a news network to and from Cologne makes him eminently suitable as a person for being considered as in some way responsible for the Belägerung. His connections would have made it comparatively easy for him to collect material from Ostend and to get hold of copies of the letters and documents he quotes, including the Lipsius letter. He was enough of a linguist to deal with sources in several languages. And who but he would have supplied the private letter and poems of Villerius for inclusion in the story of the siege? There were numerous Flemish fugitives in Cologne at the time, though their situation was anything but safe.68 In one of his letters Bilderbeke, who seems to have come from Ghent, tells of a fellow refugee and printer of Dutch news having been expelled because he had too openly professed his Calvinist faith. To suggest that ‘J.S.’ stood for another Fleming in Cologne whom Bilderbeke chose to translate the material, perhaps because he himself lacked the time, and in the belief that J.S. would make a good job of it - which, seeing the need to rush it, he did - would go far to explain the linguistic hotchpotch of the finished work. Again, Bilderbeke would quite naturally have preferred to let his hand in the publication remain unknown so as not to risk his standing in the city, which at times was precarious enough, nor would he have wished to endanger the printer whom he may have supported financially. Ponjaert’s further argument that a certain ‘Wolff’ could have been the designer and Floris Balthasarsz the engraver of the illustrations is however based on the occurrence of their names on a single map and is therefore too tenuous to entertain.69

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Let us now look at the plates as part of the book.70 They are grouped into two ‘Appendices’, each belonging to one of the first two parts of the Belägerung der Statt Ostende. The first of them, following the blank last leaf, I4, of the text of part 1 and originally also published with the Belägerung von Ostende, has the title: Der Belägerung von Ostende. [sic] APPENDIX, Das ist eigentliche/ vnd warhaffte Furbildung/ aller gedenck=wurdig-sten geschichten/ so von dem anfang der Belägerung bisz auf dise gegenwertige zeit in der Statt/ vnd auch in des Ertzhertzogen Lager sich zu getragen haben. Beneben warhaffter beschreibung vnd erklärung der bildnussen/ Figuren/ so hie bei kunstich vnd zierlich in Kupffer gestochen/ deren beschreibung oder bericht/ sonderlich bei iedes stuck angefugt ist worden. Alles von newen an tag geben vnd fur augen gestelt vmb den neuws gierigen Leser zu gefallen. [Engraving] Gedruckt Anno 1604. [The Siege of Ostend’s Appendix, that is, factual and truthful representation of all the most memorable events that have occurred since the start of the siege until this present time in the town and also in the Archduke’s camp. Together with the truthful description and explanation of the illustrations, the portrayals, that were herewith skilfully and elegantly engraved of them in copper, with a relation or report added separately to each piece: the whole newly published and presented in order to please the reader desirous of news. – Printed in the year 1604] (fig.12). An intriguing aspect of the title is the phrase ‘Alles von newen an tag geben’. Does this imply that these plates were newly made for this production? Alas, no. ‘Von newen’ here means not ‘newly’, but ‘again’. While the title-page engraving shows the naval engagement between Dover and Calais of 3 October 1602, to which I shall return,71 several of the plates are known from earlier use on broadsheets and the others may have been similarly issued soon after the events to which they refer, well before being brought together in the book of 1604. There was in particular a separate map of Ostend, derived from one made by Baptista van Doetecum in 1602, published at least twice by different publishers, each time surrounded by a series of views, four of which were the same in both productions. Although this map is not represented in the Belägerung, most of the added views do turn up again there. These composite broad-

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IN THE BEGINNING

Fig. 12 Belägerung von Ostende. Appendix (no place 1604), title-page with engraving, cf. Belägerung der Statt Ostende, title-page of the first Appendix, and De bloedige Belegeringhe, pl. 11.

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IN THE BEGINNING

sheets, known with German texts, were published respectively by Cornelisz Claesz at Amsterdam in or after March 1603 and by Jan Jansz at Arnhem without a date.72 Nor were they new when Jansz or Claesz used them: at least two of these same plates are known in separate prints.73 This applies most probably to the other plates for the maps and views used in the Belägerung. This collection of plates has its own signatures, A-C4 , the last leaf being blank. The letterpress text on the title-page and accompanying each page is printed on the recto above and below each engraving. A beautiful large folding map of Ostend, exquisitely drawn, between ‘FLANDRIA [sic] PARS’ and ‘OCEANI GERMANICI PARS’, is inserted - at least in the copy of the complete work at my disposal - before this Appendix and does not form part of any gathering. It has two smaller inset plans of the reductions made to Ostend under attack and keys in German to all three views, printed on separate strips, no doubt replacing original Dutch text. It is signed in the bottom right-hand corner: ‘WOLFF INVENT: FLOR. BALT. SCULP. ET IMPRES:’ This could well be the one mentioned at the end of the title of the Belägerung von Ostende. If it is the map made for Prince Maurice (frontisp.), of which a copy without the insets was sent to Florence, it would indeed have been ‘newly’, i.e. recently, made and the adjective ‘schon’ is no exaggeration. Its size prevented it from inclusion in the Appendix. The second Appendix, following the text of the Ander theil, has its title printed on the verso of that part’s last text page, E4, and does therefore not begin a new sequence of gatherings. Its title reads: Der Belägerten Statt Ostende. APPENDIX. Oder des ander theils des Appendicis Furbildungen vnd Abcontrofacturen/ aller Gedenck-wurdichsten geschichten vnd handlungen/ so sich seith nechst verschiener Franckfurther Ostermesz 1604 bisz auff die gegenwerrtige Herbst mesz in Septemb. zugetragen haben. Darinnen ein Mappa von Flandern/ der Zug Mauriti neben des Landes gelegentheit/ die Belägerung, der statt Sluys, mit etlichen neuwen Kupferen der statt Ostende vnd Novae Troiae verfasset vnd begriffen sind. Beneben warhaffter beschreibung vnd erklärung der Bildnussen/ Figuren/ so hie bey kunstich vnd zierlich [in] Kupffer gestochen/ deren beschreibung oder bericht/ sonderling bey jedes stuck angefugt ist worden darinnen auch menniglich die furnembste Geschich-

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ten gleich wie in einem Spiegell fur den augen gestelt werden. Alles von newen an tag geben vnd fleiszig extrahirt vmb den news girigen Leser zu gefallen. [Appendix to the besieged town of Ostend. Or the representations and likenesses of all the most memorable events and actions of the second part, that have occurred since the last-past Frankfurt Easter Fair 1604 until the present Autumn Fair in September. Wherein are encompassed and contained a map of Flanders, the campaign of Maurice as well as the situation of the country, the siege of the town of Sluis, with a number of new copperplates of the town of Ostend and Nova Troia. Also the truthful relation and explanation of the illustrations [and] portrayals, which have herewith been skilfully and elegantly engraved in copper, whose relations or reports have been separately added to each piece, in which the most important events are also in many instances set before all eyes as in a mirror. The whole newly published and diligently excerpted to please the reader desirous of news]. No engraving embellishes this title. The plates occupy five bifolia of which only the last two are signed: 4.1 and 4.2. The first bifolium consists of text on the left half of its opening, entitled ‘Kurtze beschreibung der nechstehenden Mappen von Flandern/ wor ein auch von den Stätten meldung gethan wirt’ [Short description of the adjoining map of Flanders, in which also the towns are mentioned], followed by ‘Beschreibung von Flandern’, which ends with the statement: ‘Disz sind alle beschlossen Stätte in Flandren. Die mehr bericht begehrt kan Guicciardinum lesen’ [These are all walled towns in Flanders. Anyone wishing to know more can read Guicciardini]. The first edition of Guicciardini’s description of the Netherlands in German was published as early as 1580.74 The other half, actually extending well past the centre into the left half of the opening, bears the map which has text in Latin and is signed: ‘Petrus Kaerius celavit’ [Petrus Kaerius engraved it]. The next bifolium opening carries two engravings. On the left side, beside a narrow column of text entitled ‘Abbildung der wunderlichen Sturm-bruggen/ von jhre Excell. inventirt/ mit jhren bedeutungen’ [Illustration of the amazing assault bridge invented by His Excellency, with its explanations], this bridge is shown on a

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narrow strip, which must be tilted to the right to be properly seen, and the text to yet another map, ‘Warhaffte vnd eigentliche Abcontrafactur der gelegentheit der Statt Sluys, wie dieselbe ist belägert durch die Mug: Edlen Herrn Staten, vnderm beleit des Durchluchtigen/ Hochgebornen Fursten Mauritij: Printzen von Vranien, Graffen zu Nassouvv’ [Truthful and factual likeness of the situation of the town of Sluis, as the same is besieged by Their Lordships the High and Mighty States, under the leadership of the Illustrious, High-born Prince Maurice, Prince of Orange, Count of Nassau]. The map, unsigned, which must be tilted to the left to be studied, shows the sea at its foot and the estuary leading to the city full of shipping, the land, in which ‘Casant’ is prominently shown, full of army units with Dutch flags flying. The third opening has a column of text on the left, ‘Kurtze vnd grundliche erzehlung der Machtigen vnd vbertrefflichen75 Armada Schiffen/ der Mugenden Edl. Herrn Staten, vnderm beleit des Hochgeb. Printzen Mauritij von Nassauw’ [Brief and precise narration of the mighty and most outstanding fleet of ships of Their Lordships the High and Mighty States, under the leadership of the Highborn Prince Maurice of Nassau], with next to it and occupying half of the left as well as the whole of the right pages, another map by Petrus Kaerius which bears the inscription: ‘Afbeeldinge van den grooten tocht in Vlaenderen, inde Maent van Apreles 1604. vande E.M. Staten Generael onder beleyt van syne Pr. Excellentie Mauritius van Nassau met de gelegentheyt der schansen vanden onsen ingenomen’ [Representation of the great campaign in Flanders, in the month of April 1604, by the High Mighty States General under the command of His Princely Excellency Maurice of Nassau with the situation of the bulwarks taken by our troops], with the same in French within an elaborate cartouche in the top right-hand corner. The two leaves of the bifolium signed ‘4.1’ each bear a plan of Ostend on the recto, the first ‘Abrisz der vorigen vnd heutigen stantt der Statt Ostende’ [Plan of the past and present condition of the town of Ostend], with the engraved inscription ‘Exacta delineatio Praeteriti et hodierni rerum status in Celebri civitate Ostenda’ [Exact delineation of the past and present state of affairs in the renowned town of Ostend], from which the German letterpress title has obviously been translated; the second, ‘Abcontrofactur der Statt

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Ostende/ welcher gestalt die jm Julio vnd Agusto gewesen’ [Likeness of the town of Ostend, in what shape it was in July and August], without an engraved title, but most easily recognised by the name ‘Nova Troia’ at the bottom. It is the plate already used once before for the title-page engraving of part 2 (fig.9). The versos of both these plates are blank. The first recto of the final bifolium, 4.2, bears a plate, ‘Warhafftige abcontrafeitung der wunderlichen gelegenheit der Statt Ostende, wie dieselbe mit Minen vnd vndergraben gesprengt ist worden’ [Truthful portrait of the amazing situation of the city of Ostend, how the same was exploded with mines and tunnelling], a title given to the engraving already used for the title-page engraving of part 1 (fig.8). So much for the claim ‘mit ... neuwen Kupferen der statt Ostende vnd Novae Troiae’ made in the title! The explanatory text to this engraving is carried over to the verso of the leaf. The last leaf of this bifolium and of the whole Appendix is blank on both sides. While the Appendix of the first part would have allowed it to be sold separately to customers not wanting the full text of the book, this could not have been so easily done with the Appendix to the second part. What could have been done, though, if required, would have been the make-up of a joint issue of both Appendixes with the title of the first only. Whether any copies of the plates only in this form exist is not clear to me from the descriptions I have seen. The Appendices were however an integral part of the book as planned from the beginning and not added later, as can be seen from such a reference in the text as: ‘Hier zu gehort ein figur von es [= das] brennen in der Schantze Alberti die hinden tzu sehen ist bey die Kupfer stucken’ [An illustration belonging to this of the fire in Fort Albert can be seen among the engravings at the back] (pt.1, f.D2v). Not surprisingly, there are corresponding references to the main text in the explanatory texts accompanying many of the plates.

Notes

49. See Ponjaert, pp.36-46, based mainly on its English derivative for which see below. 50. A True Historie ... of the siege of Ostend, etc. Henceforth: True Historie.

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51. ‘Mappen’, and later the singular ‘Mappa’, here meaning map/ maps. 52. Recorded copies of this work are rare and even rarer in complete sets. Ponjaert, pp.48-51, reports two copies in Ostend City Library and one in Ghent University Library; other known copies are in Leiden University Library, Amsterdam University Library; the Rijksprentenkabinet in the same city; and the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel. There is also an incomplete copy in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München. The engravings have hitherto elicited more interest than the text, but see Ponjaert. I have been fortunate enough to be able to use a privately owned copy for my observations. 53. See p.50. 54. See ch. 10. 55. It could for instance be an illustration of the very large fleet assembled by the Republic near Nieuwpoort in 1600 of which a larger engraving is found in the Nassauschen Lauren-crans, reproduced in Wilhelm en Maurits between pp.184-5; cf. Muller, Historieplaten, vol.1, no.1129-32, Suppl. no.1132a,b; Van Rijn, no.1078-81. Or it could refer to the great fleet brought together at Dordrecht in the summer of 1604 in an attempt to harass the Spaniards sufficiently to relax the siege of Ostend. 56. E.g. Le journal du siege d’Ostende, described as another version of the Hist. rem. and given the annotation: ‘Vertaald uit het Hollandsch’ (translated from the Dutch!); Continuation des sieges d’Ostende, et de l’Escluse, of which the British Library has another edition; Second livre du siege d’Ostende. Cf. also Petit, no.805-810. 57. I have been unable to get a reply from Florence on the possible whereabouts of the map. Prince Maurice usually had his own cartographers who accompanied him on his campaigns. 58. This title was kindly transcribed for me by Dr Van Heertum from the copy in the Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. 59. The whole negotiation had been a ruse of Sir Francis Vere in order to gain time. His explanation, though not an apology, for this embarrassing action is found in Belägerung, ff.E2v-3v, BlB, pp.111-3, and its derivatives, as also in an English pamphlet published in his defence: Extremities vrging ... Sir Fra. Veare to offer the late Anti-parle. Naturally, Albert did not see things in the same light. For the view taken by the Spanish side, see Bonours, pp.170-5. Markham, p.325, here as elsewhere mounts a vigorous defence of Vere against Motley who had condemned his and Sir John Ogle’s behaviour as devious and lying. Fruin’s view of the ethics of this affair is that Vere may well have acted out of necessity, but that this is really no excuse. He believes that Vere had told his officers in advance of his plan and that therefore none of the French or Dutch offered to go as hostage, leaving only the English to volunteer. He bases this on Fleming’s second-hand account

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which he thinks came from the pamphlet Extremities, but this is unconvincing as, even had it become available to Fleming before 1621, it is doubtful whether his knowledge of English, sufficient perhaps for everyday communication with such of his English colleagues as knew no French, would have allowed him to make use of it. More probably Fleming got a report shortly after the event, news of which had even reached Cologne quickly enough to be sent out from there on 30 December (Stolp, p.69). Nor can I see anywhere that Vere informed his staff until well into the execution of his plans. Belleroche translates Fruin’s paper (pp.106-15) adding several useful footnotes of his own, but taking over uncorrected the twice perpetrated misprint ‘Meneis’ for ‘Meuris’ which disgraces that publication. 60. See chapter 11, esp. pp.153-5. 61. See Ponjaert, p.50. 62. The suggestion, made on grounds of typographical resemblance, ignores the use of the same commercially available type by many different printers. She chooses her preferred printer on the basis of his imprint on a broadsheet she found in the Ostend file in Ghent University Library, offering no proof beyond that of a similar appearance. It would need the presence in both the signed and unsigned editions of initials and/or ornaments peculiar to this one printer only, as well as a large proportion of identical typefaces and printing practices to allow definite conclusions rather than the guesswork proposed. Indeed, a rapid check of editions around 1600 by Lützenkirchen and his fellow Cologne printer of, inter alia, news reports, Gottfried van Kempen, showed use of the same type by both as well as a typeface not found at all in the Belägerung. On the other hand the books printed by Van Kempen did not have any of the ornaments contained in the Belägerung. While absence of either particular type or ornaments does not exclude production of the Belägerung by one or other of them, this example demonstrates the doubtful nature of any attribution. 63. See p. 25 n.20. His actual name was Anthoine de Rubempré, ‘dit de Vertaing’, Baron d’Everberg, scion of a family of the high nobility of the Southern Netherlands, in which the office of Grand Veneur de Brabant appears to have been hereditary. Cf. Maurice, p.392, no.CCCLII. 64. This dates the journey and therefore the letter as some time after 1 August 1601, date of Prince Maurice’s much celebrated feat of the second capture of Rheinberg. The word Villerius uses for the time interval between then and the inhabitants’ inability during his visit to put their sufferings behind them is ‘nondum’ (not yet), which could imply weeks, months or even years. 65. See chapter 10, VI. 66. No suitable bearer of this name is recorded in any biographical dictionary, nor is he known to any collections of Neo-Latin poetry I know of. A

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Franciscus Villerius was in correspondence with Lipsius between 1600 and 1606 and even sent him a poem with which Lipsius was less than enchanted, which at first sight appears promising (cf. Gerlo & Vervliet, s.d. 00 01 09, 00 12 25V, 05 09V, 06 00 00; Buchler, pp.268-9, ep.79). On closer examination however this Villerius turns out to have been a Franciscan which is altogether unsuitable. He cannot be the son of Pierre de Loyseleur de Villiers who was closely associated with William of Orange, because he had only daughters. He may be the Franciscus Villerius who in 1605 matriculated as a student of theology at Leiden University. The Album studiosorum (col.77. no.19) describes him as aged 29 and ‘Carpensis’, i.e. a native of Kerpen near Cologne. If so, his connection with Bilderbeke is still a matter for speculation. 67. See Stolp, passim. I thank Dr Wijnhoven for this reference. 68. See Veldman, passim, and Stolp, p.77. 69. For the ‘Wolff’ mentioned by Ponjaert, p.50, who is the map’s designer, see Appendix I. This will show that the ‘inventor’ of this map was a military surveyor and mapmaker, not an artist-illustrator. 70. See Muller, Historieplaten, vol.1, no.1215, and idem, Suppl. no.1215Aa. 71. See pp.92-4. 72. Cf. Paas, P-17, 33. The views common to both maps are those of the plates inscribed ‘Induciae et cessatio armorum, etc.’, ‘Comprehendens 24 et 25 Decembris, etc.’, ‘Continens oppugnationem Inferorum, etc.’ and ‘Docet quomodo comes de Bucquoij, etc.’; those additionally on Claesz’s map only are the plates inscribed ‘Combustio habitaculi, etc.’ and ‘Novum opus, etc.’. The first five actually appear in that same order on leaves A2-B2 of the first Appendix, with the last one reproduced there on leaf C2. 73. Atlas van Stolk, no. 129, 131. 74. I.e. Daniel Federmann’s translation, Niderlands Beschreibung, republished as Beschreibung dess Niderlands, appended to Schopper’s Neuwe Chorographia. 75. ‘vbertrefflichen’, not derived from the German ‘übertreffen’ (excel, vanquish, and therefore ‘defeatable’), but quite the contrary, the ‘uber’, Dutch ‘over-’ as in ‘overgroot’ (very big), like English ‘over’ in similar compounds meaning ‘very’, ‘more than’ or the modern popular ‘super’, i.e. ‘particularly good’, ‘outstandingly excellent’, in fact, the Dutch ‘voortreffelijk’.

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Did Van Haestens know and avail himself of the Belägerung der Statt Ostende? There is no way of telling whether he had access to the German edition. The evidence is inconclusive. There are pointers to at least some acquaintance with its contents on the part of Van Haestens. One such is his adoption of the Lipsius letter in the Beschrijvinghe. It will be shown later that he may have found it or had it supplied to him from its publication elsewhere,76 but its first appearance in print definitely seems to have been in the Belägerung. So perhaps Van Haestens received its text from this source after all, although he only used it in the second edition of his book and its later French version. It had not been taken over in the Histoire remarquable. Again, there are the ‘pasquils’ which in the Belägerung appear in German and are absent from the Histoire remarquable. Of these Van Haestens uses what were no doubt the original Dutch versions and this time in the Bloedige Belegeringhe itself, but need not have based his inclusion of them on their presence in the Belägerung.77 Other material, including poems which he would have found there,78 has no place in any of the Van Haestens editions for that matter, nor in any others ultimately derived from the German source. My own view is that, if he knew the Belägerung at all, it could only have been in a fragmentary way and at an advanced stage of his work on the Ostend story. Leiden University Library’s copy of the Belägerung is first recorded in the Library’s 1623 catalogue. The 1612 catalogue mentions it no more than it does other works not in Latin. Nor has the book any inscription or other sign identifying the date it entered that collection. The same applies to the Histoire remarquable. But with this edition we are definitely on safe ground, though again it is impossible to tell whether Van Haestens saw the copy now in Leiden University Library or perhaps owned a copy himself or borrowed it from a friend. That the Histoire remarquable is a translation of the Belägerung admits of no doubt whatever. Extensive collation as well as Miss Ponjaert’s earlier comparison prove this sufficiently.79 The unnamed

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translator had however only part of the whole German work before him. The privilege of this edition is dated Paris, 4 June 1604. It was evidently issued before the translator received a further instalment, for in the event he tells the story until August 1604, not all that long before the fortress capitulated, and agreeing with parts 1 and 2 of the Belägerung. On f.122r, after events dated 10 January 1604, the translator writes: ‘Le discours Alleman finit en cet endroit: I’ay recouuert plusieurs memoires de diuers lieux, contenants la suitte de ce qui s’est passé depuis ... iusques à present que i’ay adiousté icy pour en faire part au lecteur, aduis ou lettres escriptes d’Ostende & autres endroicts.’ The book then ends on f.[132v]: ‘Le lecteur sera aduerty que l’Archiduc presse fort la ville d’Ostende a cause que le Prince Maurice est deuant celle de l’Escluse ... Qui est l’occasion, que nous finissont ce liure d’autant que de trois iours en trois iours il se donne des assaults, & que ce ne seroit que repeter semblables choses que nous auons cy deuant representées, partant le bening [sic] lecteur se contentera de ce qui est icy, iusques a ce qu’il y ait eu quelque chose de memorable que nous luy ferons veoir en son temps.’ This sounds as if the book was to be got out as quickly as possible while the translator was waiting for more news. His dedication is to Henry de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, and is followed by ‘L’Autheur au Lecteur’ which runs from the top of A3r to the first six lines of A5r, concluding as follows: ‘Mon intention, en escriuant ces simples memoires, exempte de toute autre affection, n’est que de faire seruice au public, si mon trauail se recueille auec reciproque candeur, & est aggreable aux gens de bien & à ceux desquels la passion n’a esgaré le iugement, & qui n’ont point coniuré contre la verité: I’ay donné ou ie visay, & tien ma peine pour bien employee, esperant auec l’aide de Dieu vous faire voir le reste, à Dieu.’ This preface does not occur in the Belägerung and is therefore the translator’s rather than the author’s. While this was obviously written at a time when the siege could conceivably have continued for a much longer time than turned out to be the case, there is also an assertion of impartiality on the part of the author and an appeal to fairness on that of the reader. This may have been meant to make the book acceptable to the ‘other side’. And perhaps the writer even believed in his own freedom from bias. In its printed form, this address to the reader ends with only six

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lines on its last page and the signature marking, the famous ‘A v’, printed under the concluding words, still occupies a place high on the page. This is by no means unusual, but, as has been mentioned earlier, led to a mistaken interpretation as the author’s signature.80 When the Histoire remarquable in turn gave rise to the True Historie,81 Grimstone already made this mistake, repeating the letter and numeral under his ‘The Author to the Reader’. Its last words are: ‘My intention in writing these simple remembrances, free from all other affection, was only to serue the publike: If my labours may be as friendly accepted, & be pleasing to all good men, & to those whose iudgements are not obscured nor transported by passion, neither that haue coniured against the trueth: I haue attained to my desire, and thinke my paines well imployed. Fare-well.’ And underneath: ‘A.V.’ But the page on which it is printed is A3r! The Histoire remarquable left the story in suspense. It was completed only later in the year when the booklet entitled Continuation des sieges d’Ostende appeared.82 The English edition also incorporates the whole story, ending with the exodus of the last defenders, their flags flying, drums beating and with all the military honours granted them by the victors as laid down in the articles of capitulation. Albert and Isabella are then described visiting the ruins, where, realising that all they have gained at such cost in money and lives is a heap of sand, they order the town to be rebuilt. But the English edition had no direct influence on later Dutch publications: the book would not have been imported into the Netherlands at the time. Using the French edition for his own compilation Van Haestens saw both the Histoire itself with its unsatisfactory ending and separate accounts, possibly including the Continuation des sieges, to provide a proper conclusion to the whole story.

*

The circumstances that persuaded Van Haestens to issue a new history of the siege of Ostend are not explained in any of the three editions of the work. At the time the first of them appeared, nine years

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had passed since the fall of Ostend. The Truce was in the fifth of its twelve years and the discussion about its eventual renewal had not yet truly begun. But was there a demand for books of a patriotic and, if possible, heroic character? From the literature of the preceding and subsequent years this seems to be very probable. There were chronicles and histories, plays and poems in abundance, exalting the part which the Dutch in general and the people of Holland and Zeeland in particular under their great leaders the Princes of Orange had played in the long war of liberation from Spanish overlordship, coupled with a proud affirmation of their Calvinist faith. Van Haestens himself had shown considerable patriotic fervour or commercial acumen - in the publication, not in 1610 as claimed on the title-page, but in 1611 as stated in the colophon, of Den Nassauschen lauren-crans, written by his friend and fellow publisher Jan Orlers and himself and celebrating in words and pictures the victories obtained by Prince Maurice in the war with Spain.83 The book contained a chapter on Ostend, entitled ‘Beschrijvinge van de strenghe bloedige, ende ongehoorde Beleegeringe der Stadt Oostende, Beleegert zijnde van den Eerts-Hartoge Albertus van Oostenrijck In de Jaren 1601, 1602, 1603, ende 1604’ [Description of the strict, bloody and unheard-of siege of the town of Ostend, which was besieged by the Archduke Albert of Austria in the years 16011604].84 It is not made clear which of the two authors was responsible for it; what is certain is that Van Haestens knew its text very well. Nor would this have been the first time that he was engaged in printing Ostend-related matter. In 1604, while the siege was still in progress, he printed and published Copye van twe verscheyden brieven, of which unfortunately, as far as I know, only a reprint of the same year now exists.85 This document purports to reproduce eyewitness accounts, truly straight from the battlefield. Van Haestens later never quotes from nor refers to this pamphlet; perhaps he had forgotten it, or it was too humble and insignificant a production in his own eyes to pay much attention to it. Next, in 1606, he had printed a finely illustrated edition of plays by the poet Jacob Duym, entitled Een Ghedenck-boeck, intended to keep alive the memory of the great exploits of the citizens of the United Provinces, their sufferings and achievements.86 When the same author’s Corte historische beschrijvinghe der Nederlandscher Oor-

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logen,87 a narrative of the same war from its beginnings until the conclusion of the Truce in 1609, came to be published by Jan Jansz at Arnhem in 1612, Van Haestens was chosen to print it. Whether this choice be due to Duym or Jansz, as a result Van Haestens printed yet another patriotic history for the Arnhem bookseller, issued the same year: Petrus Scriverius, Beschrijvinghe van Out Batavien,88 a translation of his Batavia illustrata which Louis Elzevier had published at Leiden in 1609.89 Both the Duym and the Scriverius are equally illustrated with woodcut portraits in elaborate scrollwork frames. The two books together offered a continuous history of Holland in the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages and the then present. Their unity is surely intentional, emphasised by the identical production style.90 They must have been a great success. None of these books contains illustrations related to those in the 1613 edition of the Bloedige Belegeringhe and its successors, although, had he owned the Ostend plates at that time, one or other could well have found a place in the Nassauschen lauren-crans. It is therefore most likely that he acquired the plates too late for that work, but in time for the next: could it be that having the plates he felt tempted to make use of them at once? And the quickest way to recoup the expense of the copperplates was to find a ready-made text and reissue it, revamping it to a certain extent, but with less trouble than if he had had to write one from scratch. It was certainly the Histoire remarquable which served as his exemplar. For the Dutch version he translated the text with some discrimination, abandoning matter which seemed to him superfluous, adding a few titbits which he had found in other sources. But when it came to the French version, well, ‘version’ is the wrong term. Apart from his historical introduction and a very few other passages not found in the Histoire remarquable (e.g. a long paragraph on pp.174-5 which is directly translated from the Bloedige Belegeringhe, pp.106-7 / Beschrijvinghe, pp.105-6), La Nouvelle Troye is nothing but a reprint. Let me exemplify this with just a handful of parallel passages picked at random from the Histoire remarquable and La Nouvelle Troye: 1. Histoire, fol.123r-v: ‘Du 10. de Mars à Ostende Le premier de ce moys il a faict vn tres grand vent d’VVest nordt vvest, auec vne furieuse tempeste, & a estè nostre ville extremement endommagee.

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L’eaue à [sic] esté si grande que plusieurs ont esté contraincts de quitter leurs loges & maisons. Les anciens habitans disent qu’il y a 40. ans que l’eaue n’y a esté si grande. Ceste tempeste a duré iusques au cinquiesme de ce moys ... Vn coing de la contr’escarpe a esté emportée [sic], le Luesebosch ou Luysbos des assiegeans, a esté aussi extremement endommagé.’ Troye, pp.262-4: ‘1604. Mars. Le premier de ce mois il se fit vn tresgrand vent de Vvest-Nord-VVest, avec une furieuse tempeste, tellement que l’eauë estoit si haute, que les plus anciens habitans disoient qu’il y a plus de quarante ans que l’eauë n’a esté si grande, la tempeste dura jusques au cinquiesme de ce mois ... Vn coing de la contr’escarpe fut emportee [sic], le Luysbos des assiegeans fut extremement endommagé.’ In the following examples the beginning of a paragraph is quoted only to indicate that the whole is identical in both editions, without even the minimal brushing-up such as the above passage underwent in the new edition. 2. Histoire, p.4 (1601): ‘Il y auoit dans la ville, etc.’ Troye, p.103 (1601): ‘Il y avoit dans la ville, etc.’ 3. Histoire, ibid.: ‘Le 6. arriua encor ... bleçes, etc.’ Troye, ibid.: ‘Le 6. arriva encor ... bleçes, etc.’ 4. Histoire, ibid.: ‘Les mutinez, etc.’ Troye, ibid.: ‘Les Mutinez, etc.’ 5. Histoire, fol.62v (1602): ‘Le premier Ianuier ils s’estrenerent à coups de mousquets, etc.’ Troye, p.193 (1602): ‘Le premier Ianuier ils s’estrenerent à coups de mousquets, etc.’ Of course Van Haestens adapts proper names to Dutch usage, such as calling Sir Francis Vere ‘Veer’ where the Histoire remarquable, following its original, calls him ‘Vehr’. As is well known, the notion of plagiarism was foreign to the time. Moreover, translations and adaptations were often understood as the translator’s or adapter’s own work and in a sense perhaps this is defensible. Nevertheless, not to make any reference or subtle allusion to an original work, even if left as vague as it had been in the Histoire remarquable itself or in its English translation,

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never to hint at a source which has in effect been completely swallowed up, cannot have been quite ‘comme il faut’ among scholars even in the seventeenth century. Before accusing Van Haestens and by implication Louis Elzevier of laziness and dishonesty however, let us remember that they supplied a keen public with the reading matter it wanted and in a form it enjoyed. The Histoire remarquable was nine years old in 1613, for La Nouvelle Troye this passage of time came to as many as eleven years and a new generation of readers was ready for what was no longer ‘news’, but was assuming the status of legend. With his Dutch version(s) Van Haestens may have hoped for a larger reward from the States General or other bodies to whom he dedicated them91 by passing the book off as his own brainchild. With the French version, dedicated to Louis XIII of France, Elzevier had produced what might be a bestseller both at home and abroad. With their illustrations all three editions offered the reader easier understanding of and participation in the story. If a reader did recall the Histoire remarquable when reading Van Haestens, he had at least the satisfaction of the new book’s additional matter and above all, again, its illustrations, since the earlier book was without such visual aids and excitements.92 The majority of readers would be unaware of the connection with the Histoire remarquable, let alone the Belägerung. Seen in this light, the actions of ‘author’ Van Haestens and publishers Van Haestens and Elzevier offended neither against the law nor against the ethical standards of the time. But lying, surely, is a different matter, and Van Haestens not only kept quiet about his chief source, he lied. Not so much in the printed edition of his book, but unashamedly in his promotion of it. Some of the addressees of his dedication have been referred to before.93 Others may yet be discovered in extant copies of the Bloedige Belegeringhe in local libraries or archives. Apart from actual copies preserving the name or title of their dedicatees, there are documents similarly recording the receipt of copies, apparently always sent in sufficient number to provide one for each member of the council. Two such documents recording the awards made to Van Haestens by the cities of Dordrecht and Gouda for presentation copies of his book on the siege of Ostend to them are for instance quoted by Briels,94 a similar one of Haarlem, also of

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1613, and kindly communicated to me by its finder, tells of the payment of 60 lb to him ‘for some books on the siege of Ostend with which he honoured the Magistrate of this town’, nearly as much as the 72 lb he was paid by the States General.95 A document going even further than the above has come to light at Middelburg.96 Dated 28 September 1613, it records the resolution of the Admiralty College of Zeeland to pay 40 Flemish pounds for books submitted by ‘Hendrick van Haestens Boecdrucker van Leyden’. And in his letter, largely reproduced in this document, Van Haestens stresses the trouble and expense he incurred in compiling the book, travelling widely to find engineers, captains and others who might have kept notes of the siege, which he then put into precise chronological order, etc. Alas, we know that this is not true, though the worthies of Middelburg, who had not read the Histoire remarquable, trusted him. They were well educated, too, to have reached the important positions they held, and yet, Van Haestens got away with it. Their names survive in the document, surrounding the transcript of Van Haestens's letter of petition. The treasurer, Eewoud Teellinck,97 made the payment as instructed, for a receipt dated 10 October 1613 and signed by the bookseller Adriaen van den Vivere,98 who no doubt had the opportunity of sooner or later visiting his Leiden colleague or of transmitting the money to him in the course of business, is appended to the petition. Also among the signatories of the resolution is Johan Huijssen who, coming from a distinguished family, rose to be Deputy for Zeeland from 1591 until his death in 1634, was president of the Council of Flanders in 1602, was ennobled by Louis XIII, knighted by James I for diplomatic services and left his name in Dutch literature as dedicatee of part of Petrus Hondius’s poem Dapes inemptae of 1621.99 The secretary signing the resolution was Adriaen Nicolai of Flushing. As a full member of the College of Admiralty he disgraced himself in 1626 by committing financial irregularities, for which he was banished for three years and fined 4000 Flemish pounds.100 The others were A. Zuijdland and Adriaen de Rooij, members of the Admiralty Committee, and J. van Rouberghen, clerk to the Admiralty College.101 Less controversial, both then and now, is the use Van Haestens makes of the chapter on Ostend in the Nassauschen lauren-crans. Whether he himself or Jan Orlers had actually written it, he was

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surely entitled to repeat from it whatever he wished so as to fill in gaps he had found in the Histoire remarquable. Especially towards the end of the narrative he would have been hard put to it without recourse to that chapter, since the earlier book, without the Continuation, leaves the siege in August 1604 before its conclusion in September. Notes

76. See pp. 71-2 no.16. 77. I.e. he might have been able to use the same or similar sources as probably partly underlay the German work, such as the Claesz and Jansz map broadsheets (see pp.51-3). 78. I.e. various reflections or the Villerius poems, for which see pp.137-9; Appendix III passim. 79. See n.49. 80. See pp.31-2. 81. See p.35, fig.7. 82. For the full title see List of sources, etc. 83. For a full description of this and other editions see List of sources, etc., s.v. Orlers, J.J. & Haestens, H.L. van. This book is generally known by its half-title. Henceforth: Nlcr. After the various editions of the work in Dutch, French, German and English up till 1624 it was taken off the shelf and dusted down to be republished anonymously in 1651 by the great Joannes Janssonius at Amsterdam as the second and larger part of a book believed to have been compiled by Isaak Commelin and entitled Wilhelm en Maurits, princen van Orangien, etc. Henceforth: W&M. 84. Nlcr, pp.l70-86. 85. List of sources, etc. 86. Simoni, Catalogue, no. D 155. 87. Simoni, Catalogue, no. D 156. 88. Simoni, Catalogue, no. S 107. 89. Simoni, Catalogue, no. S 106. 90. The British Library’s copies of both books are bound together in what appears still to be an original binding. This may well have been the most common form of sale, although either book could as easily have been sold separately. Dr. Gruys has kindly informed me of seven other copies of both books bound in one volume known to the Short-title catalogue, Netherlands. 91. E.g. the Admiralty of North Holland in the copy at Amsterdam University Library and the city of Dordrecht in the copy known to Van der Wulp

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(cf. n.35). In fact, the States General awarded Van Haestens 72 guilders (should it be pounds?) of 40 groten for having presented the BlB to them. See Laboranter, ‘Vereeringen’, p.126, where all other awards are specified in units of ‘lbs’ of ‘40 gr.’. 92. The title-page of the Hist.rem. promises a ‘pourtrait’, but I know of no copy which actually has this complete map. It only appears in the Continuation (n.56), and then there are two illustrations in one: a plan of the town and a double representation of the most terrifying of the Spanish army’s siege engines, the so-called ‘Chariot de Pompee’ (cf. ch. 12). 93. See pp.27, 32-3 n.35 and n.91. 94. Briels, p.307, notes (d) and (e). 95. The Haarlem document, Kloosterarch. 297:14 in the Municipal Archive there, was very kindly copied for me by Dr Hoftijzer. 96. Notice of the document, preserved at the State Archives of Zeeland, Middelburg (inventory number Rekenkamer C 6463/508), was given by Dr P.J. Verkruijsse to Mr de Schepper, who sent me a photocopy. 97. On Teellinck see NNBW, vol.5, coll.884-5; Biogr. lexicon, vol.1, pp.370-1, with further literature. 98. On Adriaen van den Vivere see Nagtglas, vol.2, pp.870-1; Briels, p.517. 99. On Huijssen see Nagtglas, vol.1, pp.449-50; Meertens, p.408, n.754. For Dapes inemptae see Simoni, Catalogue, no.H168. 100. On Nicolai see Nagtglas, vol.2, p.270. 101. The names of the last three kindly deciphered for me by J. Gramberg of the Rijksarchief in Zeeland, Middelburg. No biographical details of them are known.

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5. Van Haestens the scholar

It was natural for a printer-publisher employed by the academics at Leiden to be himself well educated and capable of proving himself a scholar. Van Haestens had to know Latin and Greek for the academic works he printed, and they are plentiful.102 He knew French as a matter of course and seems to have had at least a rudimentary knowledge of German and English. Among his authors were several scholars, some of whom may have numbered him among their friends. His work as a printer is usually very attractive, his errors no more numerous than those of other printers of his time and place. Such a man would not have failed to obtain any books he needed for his historical studies, as long as they were to be had at all. The Bloedige Belegeringhe and its offspring contain quite a few references to historical literature, mainly in the ‘Voorreden Offte Corte Beschrijvinghe van oudt Oostende inleydende tot de vermaerde Belegeringhe’ [Preface or short description of old Ostend leading to the renowned siege]. These references, used to support various statements, are made to the following books listed here in the order in which they occur: 1. ‘Marchantius Flandr. Descript.’, i.e. Jacobus Marchantius, Flandria commentariorum lib. IIII. descripta (Antwerp 1596). 2. ‘Groote Chronijck van Vlaendren’, also quoted as ‘Magnum Chronicon Flandriae’ and ‘La Grande Chronique’, i.e. the anonymous Dits die excellente Cronike van Vlaenderen (Antwerp 1531), sometimes attributed to Andries de Smet and Antonis de Roovere, attributed by Van Haestens to De Smet.103 3. ‘Emanuel van Meteren, Nederlandtsche Memorien’, i.e. Commentarien ofte Memorien vanden Nederlandtschen Staet, Handel, Oorloghen ende Gheschiedenissen van onsen tyden (London [or rather, Utrecht] 1610).104 4. ‘Lowijs Guicciardijn, Beschryvinghe vande Nederlanden’, i.e. any of the numerous editions in various languages of Lodovico Guicciardini, Descrittione di tutti i paesi bassi (Antwerp 1567 etc.), published up to 1613, but the quotation in Dutch makes it probable that

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he used the Dutch version by Cornelis Kiliaen, edited by Petrus Montanus and published by Willem Jansz (Blaeu) in 1612.105 5. ‘Marcus van Varnewyck’. The usual form of this author’s name is Vaernewijck. He has often been taken to be the author of De croonijcke van Vlaenderen in tcorte (Ghent 1557), now known to be the work of Gerard van Salenson. Van Haestens also quotes this book by its title as ‘Corte Chronijck van Vlaenderen’ or ‘De Chronijc van Vlaenderen int corte’. The quotation by name of author but without title could refer to Marcus van Vaernewijck’s equally anonymous Den Spieghel Der Nederlandscher audtheyt (Ghent 1568).106 6. ‘Waerachtighe Historie van Carolus de Vijfde, &c. Ghedruckt tot Ghendt, Anno 1561’, i.e. Die Warachtighe Historie van den alder onverwinnelicsten en alder moghensten Keyser van Roome, Carolus de vijfste (Ghent 1561), an anonymous work by Gerard van Salenson. 107 7. ‘Corte Chronijck van Vlaenderen’, see no.5 above. 8. ‘Magnum Chronicon Flandriae’, see no.2 above.108 9. ‘Meyerus’, i.e. Jacobus Meyerus, Commentarii siue annales rerum Flandricarum libri septendecim (Antwerp 1561), or Flandricarum rerum tomi X (Antwerp 1531). 10. ‘De Chronijc van Vlaenderen int corte’, see no.5 above. 11. ‘Andries de Smet, Groote Chronijck van Vlaenderen’, see no.2 above. 12. ‘Emanuel van Meteren, Nederlandtsche Historie’, see no.3 above. To these the following should be added as directly or indirectly referred to elsewhere in the book: 13. ‘Liber de Bello Belgico Bruxellae editus Anno 1609, auctore Iohanne Balino Burgundione, typis Rutgeri Velpij, cum Privilegio Archiducum’, referred to in the Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.162, i.e. Jean Balin, De Bello Belgico (Brussels 1609) 14. ‘Rod. Botereus, De rebus fere orbe gestis’, referred to in the Beschrijvinghe, p.58, i.e. Raoul Boutrays, Rodolphi Botereii ... de rebus in Gallia & penè toto orbe gestis, Commentariorum lib. XVI (Paris 1610). 15. Pompeo Giustiniano, Delle guerre di Fiandra libri VI (Antwerp 1609), source of the plate of the various siege engines. 16. The Belägerung, as source of the Lipsius letter, printed in both

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Latin and Dutch in the Beschrijvinghe, pp.165-6, and in Fleming Oostende, pp.589-91, and in French in La Nouvelle Troye, p.285. This is a possibility, but the absence of this text from the Bloedige Belegeringhe makes it questionable whether Van Haestens had found it there. Another possible source is its occurrence among the letters added to the edition of Lipsius’s commentaries on Suetonius: Ad C. Suetonii Tranquilli tres posteriores libros commentarii. Eiusdem epistolarum praetermissarum decades sex (Offenbach 1610).109 Van Haestens was not in correspondence with Lipsius and therefore could not have received a copy of this letter from its writer. He could not have had it from the addressee because it never reached its destination. Did he then read either Suetonius or the published correspondence of Lipsius for purposes so far unknown? This is less likely than that a friend of his who saw this letter and knew of Van Haestens’s interest in its subject matter should have passed it on to him. What in my view decides the choice in favour of the latter theory is the lack in the Van Haestens edition of its text of the introductory line ‘Diese Brieff Iusti LipsI, ist von den Soldaten im Läger vor Sluys, von einem Böten intercipiert ... worden’, found in the Belägerung and surely relevant enough to be taken over in whatever form Van Haestens might have preferred. If on the other hand he had found the original letter in the archive in which it was placed, would he not have said so as he did with his report of the Hans Storm conspiracy?110 As a bookseller and an educated man Van Haestens may well have owned some, but hardly all of these highly specialised books. His joint authorship three years before of the Nassauschen Lauren-crans may have led either Jan Orlers or indeed Van Haestens himself to assemble a few historical reference works such as an edition of Van Meteren and perhaps Willem Baudaert’s Morgen-wecker der vrye Nederlantsche Provintien, first published in 1610.111 Orlers would no doubt have lent Van Haestens any books from his own shelves.112 As mentioned earlier, there may or may not have been copies of the Histoire remarquable and the Belägerung in the University Library, but Van Haestens was not a member of the University and would have had to pull a few strings to be allowed to read there. However, having had business relations with Petrus Scriverius,113 what would

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have been simpler for Van Haestens than asking that great scholar and book collector for help? Indeed, if one checks the catalogue of the library of Scriverius as recorded for the purpose of its auction under the title of Bibliotheca Scriveriana (Amsterdam 1663)114 this hypothesis turns into a nearcertainty. Of course this catalogue does not record the dates at which the books came into his possession, so caution is still required, but the number of works from the list of references above to be found there can surely not be a matter of coincidence. Such a check revealed, for the books as numbered in the reference list: 1. not found. 2. s.v. Libri Historici In Folio, no.207: ‘Cronijk van Vlaanderen, van seer oud Druk’ (regrettably not specified). 3. s.v. Libri incompacti In Folio no.48: ‘Het 2. deel van Em. van Meterens Histoorien’ (undated, but other editions in this catalogue are all too late to have been of use to Van Haestens in the preparation of his book). 4. (a) s.v. Libri incompacti In Folio no.32: ‘Beschrijving der Neederlanden, door Louijs Guicciardin [sic] door Kilianus overgezet, en door Montanus vermeerderdt t’Amst. by Wilhem Jansz. 1912 [sic]’ (which is precisely the edition stipulated above); (b) ibid. no.57: ‘Guicciardijn van de Neederlanden t’Amst . by Wiggem [sic] Jansz 1612 (apparently another copy of (a)); also editions in Italian, 1565, Latin, 1566, and German, 1613, which are much less likely to have been consulted by Van Haestens. 5. (a) s.v. Libri Historici In Folio no.l96: ‘De History van Belgis alias Spiegel der Nederlantsche Oudheyt 1574'; (b) s.v. Libri Historici In Quarto no.171: ‘Cronijk van Vlaanderen tot Gent by Geer. van Salenson 1563’. 6. not found. 7. see 5b. 8. see 2. 9. (a) s.v. Libri Historici In Folio no.209: ‘Jac. Meyeri Annales Flandrici Antv. typ. Steelsii 1561’; (b) s.v. Libri Historici In Quarto no.l72: ‘Iac. Mejerus de rebus Flandricis Brugis typ. Hub. Croki 1500’; (c) ibid. no.174: ‘Ejusdem compendium Chronicon Flandriae Norimb. ... 1538’; (d) s.v. Libri Historici In Octavo no.251: ‘Jacobus Meyerus

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de rebus Flandricis Antv. apud Guil. Vorsterman 1531’; (e) s.v. Libri incompacti In Quarto no.146: ‘Iac. Meyeri Cronica Flandriae ... 1531’ (perhaps another copy of (d)). 10. see 7. 11. see 2. 12. see 3. 13. s.v. Libri incompacti In Quarto no.139: ‘Iohan. Balinus de bello belgico. Bruxell. typ. Rutgeri Velpii 1606’ (sic, an impossible date for a work which mentions the Truce and undoubtedly a misprint for 1609). 14. s.v. Libri Historici In Octavo no.14: ‘Roder. [sic] Botereii de rebus toto fere orbe gestis commentaria Paris ... 1610’. 15. s.v. Libri Historici In Quarto no.175: ‘Pompejo Giustiano [sic] delle guerre di Fiandra ... 1609’. 16. not found. A difficulty remains with the ‘Libri incompacti’: unbound books, if still in bundles of sheets, were often introduced by bookseller-auctioneers from their own stock into named owners’ collections. But unbound books are also regularly met with in straightforward library catalogues, without having been surreptitiously introduced by the auctioneer.115 Their exact status in the Scriverius auction must therefore be suspect as long as we cannot tell whether Scriverius ever failed to have the books he owned bound. If the sheets had at least been properly folded and cut, the books would be perfectly readable, regardless of whether they had a binding round them or only a paper wrapper. Allowing therefore for the doubt attaching to numbers 3, 4 and 13, there are then only four books out of the seventeen of which we can be sure that Van Haestens used them, but which were definitely not in the possession of Scriverius at the time of his death or for some reason were withheld from the auction. This does not of course exclude the possibility that Scriverius did have them when Van Haestens was compiling his story of the siege, though they may have vanished at a later time. Certainly, Scriverius and his library offered him greater assistance in his research than any other private owner of books in Leiden, whom he could have approached, would have been likely to do. Interestingly enough, Scriverius also possessed very many of the

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books which Van Haestens printed, published or wrote for publication by others, including copies of all three editions of his book on the siege of Ostend. Unfortunately, the Bibliotheca Scriveriana does not indicate whether these were presented by the author in gratitude for the loan of so many books.

Notes

102. Of the 66 books dating from 1605 to 1620-21 listed under Van Haestens in the Printers’index in Simoni, Catalogue, 43 are in Latin, with such admixtures of Greek as the context might require and including a complete text edition in Greek and Latin as well as seven university theses, disputations and orations; 15 are in Dutch, 3 each in English or French and 2 are in German. 103. See BB, vol.1, no. C318. 104. Without acknowledging it, Van Haestens used Van Meteren also in other parts of his book, e.g. when, coming to the end of the siege, he was forced to draw on other sources than the translation of the Belägerung as supplied by the Hist.rem., he virtually copied whole paragraphs: compare, for instance BlB, pp.161-2, with Van Meteren, bk.25, f.96ra, from ‘Aldus’ to ‘Visscherije/ visscherije gheweest’, which account also entered NTr, pp.276-8. 105. See La Fontaine Verwey, ‘The history of Guicciardini’s description of the Netherlands’, esp. p.44. 106. There are two possible editions: Den Spieghel Der Nederlandscher audtheyt (Ghent 1568), BB, vol. 5, no.V63, and De Historie Van Belgis, diemen anders namen mach: den Spieghel Der Nederlantscher audtheyt (Ghent 1574), ibid., no.V64. 107. See BB, vol.5, no. Sl03. 108. No Latin or French edition of this work is recorded and the details of the references fit the one in Dutch; the titles have evidently been made up to suit the context. 109. See Gerlo & Vervliet, p.372, under the date 04 08 12 V. This entry mentions the reproduction of the letter in FlO, but without reference to Van Haestens, let alone the Belägerung. Fleming would have been most unlikely to have consulted an edition of Lipsius’s commentaries on Suetonius in the hope of finding a document relating to the siege of Sluis by Prince Maurice. The letter in FlO is just part of the whole chapter on that part of the story, lifted bodily out of BmH by Meuris (see ch.6).

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110. See below, p.83. 111. See Simoni, Catalogue, no. B43. 112. Apart from any books Orlers could have acquired himself, he may have had books of his uncle, the distinguished Jan van Hout, on whom see NNBW vol.2, col.608. 113. Apart from the work by Scriverius which Van Haestens printed in 1612 (see p.63), the Dutch translation of Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff, printed and published by Van Haestens in 1610, contains preliminary matter by Scriverius and publication of it may have been altogether instigated by that great scholar (cf. Simoni, ‘German-Dutch tapestry’, pp.164-5). Similarly, Scriverius seems to have been the driving force and financial sponsor of the first printed catalogue of the Municipal Library of Amsterdam in 1612 for which he would then have chosen Van Haestens to produce it (see La Fontaine Verwey, ‘De stedelijke bibliotheek’, pp.89-92). 114. For the full title see the List of sources, etc. 115. See Van Selm, pp.87-8; also Van Goinga, passim, although this article deals with conditions affecting book auctions in Leiden rather than Amsterdam. On book auctions in Amsterdam see Van Eeghen, vol. 5, pt.l, pp.252-73.

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6. Meuris’s choice

In a footnote to his description of the Bloedige Belegeringhe, Knuttel,116 here repeating Van der Wulp,117 says that this work was ‘largely taken over literally in Fleming’s Oostende, ‘s-Graven-hage 1621’. This is of course true, but still very vague. ‘Taken over literally’ certainly does not apply to the whole or even most of the work brought out by Van Haestens, nor necessarily to this first edition of his text. There is more than the adoption of the title-page vignette to support the assumption that Meuris used the 1614 edition of Van Haestens’s work to expand Fleming’s diary. The best proof is in fact a comparison of the text from which the following quotations, chosen at random, may serve as examples: 1. The title of the chapter on the battle of Nieuwpoort: Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.15: Den grooten ende machtigen Veltslach geschiet by Nieu-poort in Vlaenderen opten 2. Julij inden jaere Christi 1600 [The big and mighty battle which took place at Nieuwpoort in Flanders on 2 July A.D. 1600]. Beschrijvinghe, p.15: Den grooten ende machtighen Veldt-slagh, gheschiet by Nieupoort in Vlaenderen, opten tweeden Julij, inden Jaere Christi 1600. Fleming Oostende, p.27: Den grooten ende machtigen Veldt-slagh gheschiet by Nieupoort in Vlaenderen, opten tweeden Julij, inden Jaere Christi 1600. It will be seen that where the two Van Haestens editions differ from each other, the text as reprinted in Fleming agrees in the spelling of ‘machtigen’ with the Bloedige Belegeringhe, but in that of ‘Veldtslagh’, ‘gheschiet’, ‘Nieupoort’, ‘tweeden’, as well as in the punctuation after ‘Vlaenderen’ and ‘Julij’ with the Beschrijvinghe. True, as spelling rules were not rigid, Meuris could please himself. But it was always easier for a printer simply to follow his copy and these more numerous agreements suggest that it was the Beschrijvinghe which he or his compositor had lying before him as his model.

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2. The title of the chapter on the naval engagement June 1600: Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.49: Scheeps-strijt ter Zee [Conflict of ships at sea]. Beschrijvinghe, p.50[=54]: Slach ter Zee [Sea battle]. Fleming Oostende, p.52: Slach ter Zee. Here a change of vocabulary has taken place between the Bloedige Belegeringhe and the Beschrijvinghe, which has been taken over directly into Fleming Oostende from the latter. And one could go on in the same vein, always reaching the same conclusion. What is more, the text of the Lipsius letter, included in the Beschrijvinghe, but not yet present in the Bloedige Belegeringhe, is reproduced in the same place it occupies there in Fleming Oostende.118 It is therefore obvious that it was the Beschrijvinghe and not the Bloedige Belegeringhe which served Meuris as the source for his quotations in Fleming Oostende. This argument assumes that it was Meuris himself who selected the Beschrijvinghe in order to supplement Fleming’s diary and that it was he himself who chose the passages for interpolation, almost always identified by square brackets. There is no reason to suggest why he should not have done so, of course, for by 1621 he was an experienced printer of political writings. But it could also have been his patron Constantijn Huygens, whom Leerintveld has shown to have been closely connected with some of Meuris’s output, who may have proposed this conflation and in fact helped him with it.119 The inclusion of the Lipsius letter is a case in point. It is printed in the Beschrijvinghe as part of the chapter on the conquest of Sluis in August 1604. When added to Fleming’s diary, this chapter is not set between brackets and the unsuspecting reader would accept it as Fleming’s own text. To this reader the appearance of the Lipsius letter is then only another instance of Fleming’s activity as collector of records relating to the siege and concurrent events. But Fleming was not present at the siege of Sluis, where the messenger carrying the letter was caught by Maurice’s soldiers: it would never have come into his possession in the original, although he could have seen a copy. How Van Haestens may have come to reproduce it in the Beschrijvinghe has already been given a tentative explanation,120 and it was Van Haestens’s use of it which allowed it to be printed once more in Fleming Oostende.

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The Lipsius letter would have been of interest to a scholar and political man like Huygens, but neither he nor Meuris needed any other source than the Beschrijvinghe, which was already so copiously drawn upon for other matter transferred to the edition of Fleming’s text. The whole chapter on the conquest of Sluis filled a gap in the original diary: that it contained the letter was an added bonus.

*

When it comes to the diary itself, many of the reported facts are bound to be the same and even the general picture painted of any event may easily enough have similar words used for it. But at times the similarity is so striking that one wonders whether Fleming’s diary was accessible to others during its composition or whether Fleming perhaps altered his own account at a later date to make his memories conform to those of other participants with whom he talked or with details in the books he read? Or was Meuris less scrupulous than he ought to have been? That last explanation is highly improbable: Meuris, it is true, says it was he who acted as editor by adding various chapters or paragraphs in order to fill gaps and always made it clear when he did so,121 but he did not treat Fleming’s manuscript at all critically in any other respect and could have felt little need actually to tamper with its wording. The following is an example of the same facts reported in a similar way, but with an essential difference. It is the text concerning Targone’s great assault bridge: 1. Bloedige Belegeringhe, pp.153-4: Den 10 deser, soo quam overgeloopen in de Stadt een Italianer, de welcke verclaerde als dat de vyandt voor genomen hadde tegens de eerste duystere nacht te Stormen, ende dat voornamelick op de Stadts halve Maen over de Geulle. Hy gaf noch te kennen, als dat de Vyandt hadde laten maecken een gheweldighe Stormbrugghe, die sy noemde Ponte di Tergone, den welcken sy anders den Helwaghen, noemden ... [On the 10th of this month an Italian came across into the town who declared that the enemy were preparing an assault on the first dark

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night, and that especially against the town's Halfmoon (a bastion) beyond the Geulle. He also gave information that the enemy had had a powerful assault bridge built which they called Ponte di Tergone, which is otherwise called Hellcart…]. Beschrijvinghe, p.150: Den 10 deser, soo quam over-gheloopen in de Stadt een Italianer, de welcke verclaerde als dat de Vyant voor genomen hadde teghens de eerste duystere nacht te Stormen, ende dat voornamelic op de Stadts halve maen over de Geulle. Hy gaf noch te kennen als dat de vyant hadde laten maecken een gheweldighe Storm-brugghe, die sy noemde Ponte di Tergone den welcken sy anders den Helwaghen, noemden… Fleming Oostende, p.433: Wy verstonden door eenen Italiaen die van de Oostzijde was overghecomen, datse aldaer seer arbeyden ... ende dat haer lieder Ingenieur Pompejo Iustiniano aldaer een grote Brugghe hadde ghemaeckt ... [We understood from an Italian who had come across from the Eastside that they were there hard at work and that the engineer Pompejo Justiniano of theirs had built a large bridge there…]. Fleming’s information was obviously less good, perhaps because of linguistic difficulties between the deserter and his interrogators, accepted by Fleming as best he could, whereas the narrative on which Van Haestens later based himself had been taken from a corrected version of the interrogation. Here are other parallels: 2. Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.76: Den 29 [i.e. July 1601], soo is des ErtsHertoghen Legher versterckt met thien Vaendelen nieuwe Italianen. Ende op desen ditto: was een groote sprinckvloet dat des Erts-Hertoghen loop-graven int water stonden, ende verloopen moesten [On the 29th the Archduke's army was reinforced with ten companies of fresh Italians. And on the same date: there was a great springtide so that the Archduke's trenches stood under water and they had to abandon them]. Beschrijvinghe, p.77: Den 29 soo is des Erts-Hertoghen Leger versterckt met thien Vaendelen nieuwe Italianen. Ende op desen ditto: was een groote Springh-vloedt, soo dat des Erts-Hertoghen Loopgraven int water stonden, ende daer uyt verloopen moesten. Fleming Oostende, p.80: Desen dach is des Ertz-Hertoghen Legher

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versterckt met thien Vaendelen nieuwe Italianen, op desen dach was een Spring-vloot [sic], soo dat des Ertz-Hertoghen Trencheen onder water stonden ende daer uyt moesten verloopen. Or on an exchange of artillery fire: 3. Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.82: Den 15 deser [i.e. Aug. 1601] soo hebben die van’t Legher by nae den gantsen nacht met vyer ende gloyende Cogels als oock met Kegel-steenen gheschoten, dat het een grouwel was om te sien waer teghens sy wederom betaelt wierden van ghelijcke munte… [On the 15th of this month those of the army kept bombarding almost all night with fire and glowing cannon-balls as well as with cobblestones, that it was horrendous to behold, for which they were repaid in the same coin…]. Beschrijvinghe, p.82: Den 15 deser so hebben die vant Leger by na den gantschen nacht met vyer ende gloyende Cogels als oock met Kegelsteenen gheschoten, dat het een grouwel was om te sien waer teghens sy wederom betaelt wierden van ghelijcke munte ... . Fleming Oostende, p.116: Heeft den vyandt vorder groote schade onder ons volck ghedaen, ende den gantschen nacht niet ghecesseert met Vyerballen, Granaten, ende gloeyende Cogels te schieten, wy hebben haer lieder met ons Cannon, Vyerwercken ende Mortieren oock wacker ghehouden [the enemy caused further great injury among our side and did not cease all night bombarding us with fireballs, granades and glowing cannon-balls; we too kept them awake with our cannon, fireworks and mortars]. In both these sets of passages, the Bloedige Belegeringhe and the Beschrijvinghe are almost alike, though again certain words in Fleming Oostende seem to have more in common with the Beschrijvinghe than with the Bloedige Belegeringhe, but where the former passage may prompt the question of who was copying whom, the latter shows a more subtle concordance, not so much in the words used as in the special emphasis by means of irony in describing the retaliation brought to bear by the Dutch on the Spanish: Van Haestens speaks of them being repaid in the same coin, while Fleming speaks of the Dutch with their heavy artillery in their turn keeping the Spaniards awake.

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Notes 116. Kn no.1280. 117. Van der Wulp no.1007. 118. See ch.5, booklist no.16 and n.109. 119. Leerintveld, passim, especially pp.140-2. 120. See n.118. 121. See Meuris’s ‘Advertissement’ ( n.8).

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7. Marzipan treason and Gunpowder plot

There is what may indeed be proof that Van Haestens had access, directly or indirectly, to Fleming’s records. At the end of the introductory part of the Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.72, and the Beschrijvinghe, p.76[=72], Van Haestens tells the story of the spy who, in 1598, had entered Ostend with instructions from the Archduke to execute a devilish plot: to poison ‘Gouverneur Norrits’, poison the wells in the city and if possible also assassinate Prince Maurice.122 Van Haestens names him Hans Storm from Vienna who had offered his services to the Archduke. His confession after being apprehended was recorded in a document dated 14 April 1598. He was also stricken with enough remorse to warn his judges and in particular ‘d’Heere Secretaris ende auditeur Phelippe Fleming’ to cast the poisoned knife into the sea rather than to burn it, as the smoke would otherwise kill all bystanders. This spy was thereupon sent with ‘intelligence’ to Queen Elizabeth. What she did with him is not told.123 The story is then authenticated with the statement ‘Ex Archivis’. In the French edition of 1615 the same story is told on p.97, but without the note ‘Ex Archivis’. Fleming tells a great deal more about the matter.124 The would-be murderer is here called Jan Storm. According to his reported statement after his arrest, he was a barber-surgeon from Vienna who hoped to make his fortune in the Spanish Netherlands where he had a cousin. Passing near Cologne he was robbed and so arrived in Brussels penniless and in rags. His cousin, who was employed by a servant of the Archduke’s, saw to his immediate needs, then suggested that by agreeing to some secret business he could become really rich. He was taken from one official to the other and finally to the Archduke himself, with the outline of the plot becoming ever clearer. More and more entangled in the web, he agreed, first, to murder Maurice by finding employment in the Prince’s kitchen and serving him a poisoned dish of his speciality, marzipan, and if others partook of it, well, the more the merrier. Measures were promised to help him escape after the deed, as if there would have been much hope of that. Failing employment as pastry-cook in the

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princely entourage - and either he did so fail or never even tried - he was to join the garrison as a surgeon, find means and ways to approach Sir Edward Norris and so to the rest which we already know, though Fleming himself does not tell of the spy’s transfer to England. Instead it is Meuris who adds this information in brackets as ‘Byvoechsel’ (addendum), saying it is taken from ‘Haestens’, the only time he mentions him - or any other added author - by name.125 What ‘archives’ could Van Haestens have been able to inspect? It seems to me that what is implied is a manuscript source in private hands. It makes little difference whether this might possibly have included the original of Storm’s confession or only a copy of it together with a record of the circumstances. Where would the original have been kept if not first among the governor’s own papers, entrusted to Secretary Fleming? He could of course have moved as many of the records as possible out of the endangered city, perhaps first to nearby Flushing or Middelburg and then to The Hague;126 but again, he might have retained his ‘archive’ to have at hand when required, or held copies of at least some of the documents. But I doubt that any outsider could then or later put his hands on his papers without his knowledge and consent. Nor does it seem likely that Van Haestens travelled all the way to Sluis where Fleming was ‘auditor’ after Ostend.127 Nevertheless, it must have been his or some similar ‘archive’ which was consulted for quotation in the Bloedige Belegeringhe. Or was Van Haestens given access by a servant in Fleming’s absence? I would not put any kind of machination past him in an effort to obtain his goal, but frankly, in this particular instance I think it improbable. So did Fleming himself allow him a peep at it? We know that Fleming had an extremely low opinion of Van Haestens. I would therefore prefer to believe that it was a copy of the document or documents, made by someone else, perhaps even at the time when it all happened, which was the ‘archival’ source for this part of the story. It is also told in the Nassauschen lauren-crans and thence transferred to Wilhelm en Maurits,128 where it is ‘Philips Flemingh’ who is said to have issued the warning against burning the poison, and when Storm, complete with his confession and other information, is sent ‘naer Engelandt aen de Koninginne Elisabeth’ [to England to Queen Elizabeth], the author adds the pertinent comment ‘... daer

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hy onghetwijffelt Verraders Loon ontfanghen ende gekregen heeft’ [where undoubtedly he was awarded and got traitor’s wages]. The case of Jan Storm (or Hans Sturm?) was not an isolated one, in fact, the next murderous plot, discovered in November 1601,129 bears a strange resemblance to it in its final outcome. An ‘English gentleman’ by the name of ‘Connesbe’ is reported to have been caught before he was able to implement his plan to kill Sir Francis Vere.130 His associate, named ‘Willem’, had second thoughts and turned Queen’s evidence. The traitor was arrested and confessed: ‘Soo is desen verrader van Oostende afghesonden vanden Generael Veer naer Engelandt by haren Majesteyt met sijne confessie, om aldaer ghestraft te werden naer behooren’ [Thus this traitor was dispatched by General Vere from Ostend to England to Her Majesty with his confession, to be punished there as he deserved].131 Van Haestens found the story in the Histoire remarquable,132 where the accomplice is called ‘Guillaume N’, but no mention is made of ‘Connisbe’ being sent to England. There the report ends with the remark: ‘ses complices furent pareillement emprisonnez’. This is then also the narrative in La Nouvelle Troye.133 It is again Fleming who knows a little more.134 He calls the protagonist ‘Symon Connesbey’, says he was about twenty-five years old and a Catholic. There is a circumstantial account of his journey through France where, among other people who helped him, he had met a ‘Dr. Kellisson’.135 His accomplices in Ostend were ‘Eduwaert Poulet’ and ‘Willem Joris (George? Georgeson?)’, both English soldiers, and the English nobleman ‘Thomas Godwel’. Connesbey was imprisoned for a long time and tortured, then condemned to a flogging which was however not carried out because of what he had already suffered. He then disappeared; again, no word about him being returned to England.136 Further and more colourful touches to this story are laid on in Sir Francis Vere’s own Commentaries.137 In one of the parts added by William Dillingham from various sources,138 the ‘treachery’ is told of ‘an English man named N. Conisby (as the French diary relates [!])’ who got himself recommended to Vere, who had no choice but to admit him to his own company of soldiers. Conisby then conducted a correspondence with the Spanish army, sending information and receiving instructions. For his ‘dead-letterbox’ he used a boat which

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had been sunk and now lay rotting on the sand, ‘under the colour of gratifying nature’.139 He drew four men into his conspiracy, one of whom, ‘a Serjeant’, ‘was the means of revealing it’. The sergeant had spent some time under lock and key and was overheard muttering threats against the officer who had done this to him. Thinking him to be generally disaffected, Conisby approached him and gave him money in advance. The plan was to set fire to the powder magazines to which the sergeant had frequent access. Still pretending to want to join in the plot, he demanded written confirmation of his promised reward, received it - and took it straight to Vere. Conisby was taken, tortured and confessed. But there is no mention of him being sent to England.140 Such plots there may well have been and people in high places may also well have been behind them. William I of Orange was the victim of a planned murder in 1584, a fact the Dutch were not likely to forget; there had been several attempts on the life of Maurice in the fifteen-nineties; 1605 was to be the year of the English Gunpowder Plot; and in 1610 King Henry IV of France was assassinated, to mention only a few contemporary parallels. Sending apprehended would-be murderers to England is a different matter. Perhaps the rumour arose when Conisby ‘disappeared’. After all, he was an Englishman, just like his intended victim Sir Francis Vere, and perhaps the idea that therefore the Queen was the appropriate person to bring him to justice was not so farfetched as all that. This did not apply in the same degree to Hans Storm who was by origin a subject of the Emperor. When he was caught, his victim, it is true, was to be Governor Norris, but sending the man to Queen Elizabeth does seem unlikely. Also, the phrase used is so suspiciously alike in both cases that quite possibly the rumour of the end of the later event rubbed off on that of the earlier - thus making it so much more satisfactory.

Notes

122. The governor was Sir Edward Norris on whom see DNB. Prince Maurice came to Ostend before the siege, but not during it. 123. To the best of my knowledge no evidence has yet been published from

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public records concerning Jan Storm, alias Hans Sturm. As he was not a subject of the Queen there is no reason why he should have been sent for trial to England. The commander, here also the governor, had the power to confirm any capital punishment decided by his auditor, in this instance Fleming, who had jurisdiction over members of the army (see n.4), as Storm was at this time. 124. FlO, pp.11-17. 125. See n.17. 126. Fleming relates himself (FlO, p.577) how on 19 September 1604 he embarked with his papers for Sluis in order to save them from falling into enemy hands, but that he was then stormbound in Ostend harbour for three days, i.e. until the day of the surrender. Nevertheless he had them on board and so took them with him. Whether this would have included records from the time before the siege is not made clear. 127. This according to the statement added to Fleming’s portrait in his book, which contains almost all the biographical information known of him. Only a few more details occur in his diary. At the time of the portrait Fleming was 64 years old and as he had moved directly from Ostend to Sluis, he must by 1621 have been there for sixteen or seventeen years already. He was certainly at Sluis when Van Haestens composed his book. 128. E.g. W&M, pp.235-6. 129. BlB, pp.100-02; BmH, pp.99-101. 130. Sir Francis Vere was the most famous of the governors of Ostend where he served twice in this capacity, the interruption being his absence due to a wound he had sustained. He was greatly respected and admired by many fellow soldiers, including Fleming who knew them all. On him, apart from DNB, see Markham. For a list of the officers at Ostend under the States General see Ten Raa & De Bas, vol. 2, pp.275-8. 131. His name, not surprisingly perhaps, does not appear in the Calendar of Statepapers, nor have I found any evidence about his transfer to England. Markham, p.317, gives a similar account of the story of Conisby, referring to a letter sent by Vere to Lord Burghley, dated 11 November 1604. Belleroche, pp.72-3, reproduces an earlier letter from Vere to Cecil, dated 21 December 1601 (o.s.), in which he defends his action, whatever it may have been, against Cecil’s unstated objections, saying that under the circumstances and considering the pressure of events, he had no choice in doing what he did to ‘Connysbye’. This looks as if there had been a summary execution, perhaps in secret. Schrickx, ‘Cyril Tourneur’, pp.325-6, and idem, ‘Elizabethan drama’, p.31, suggests that none other than the poet and dramatist Cyril Tourneur interrogated Conisby and had him tortured. Whereas Schrickx adduces a number of arguments for Tourneur’s presence and importance at the siege of Ostend, his name is singularly lacking

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in the books examined here, which leads me to fear that Schrickx found proofs to support his preconceived theories for this event as well as for his claim that Tourneur wrote the pamphlet Extremities (see n.323). 132. Hist. rem., ff.40v-41v. It is a faithfu1 rendering of the story as told in the Belägerung, pt.1, f.13r-v. 133. NTr, pp.158-60. The text here, in a significant departure from its model, ends: ‘Le General Veer envoya le Traistre hors d’Ostende en Angleterre vers sa Majeste avec sa confession, pour y estre puni selon son merite’. A similar statement still occurs in Baudaert, Viva delineatio, vol. 2, pp.262-3: ‘Remisit eundem in Angliam juncta confessione Veer poenas ibidem meritas daturum’. 134. FlO, pp.158-62. 135. On Matthew Kellison see Anstruther. It is quite possible that Conisby met him at Rheims, where he was in 1589 and again from 1601 onward. 136. Again, I have been unable to find any evidence on his transfer to England or a subsequent trial. In the light of Sir Francis Vere’s letter to Cecil (n.131) the evidence is in fact all against it. 137. Vere, pp. 137-9. 138. The editor quotes from Sir John Ogle and Henry Hexham by name, e.g. pp.143-65, ‘Sir Francis Vere his parlie at Ostend, written by Sir John Ogle there present’; but the Conisby story on p.137 is taken from what the editor describes on p.131 as ‘according to what I have met with recorded by others’. 139. Only Markham is too squeamish to repeat the pretext under which Conisby went to the old boat. 140. This would tend to confirm the report of such a decision as mere rumour among the soldiers.

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8. A clash of cannon-balls and other cacophonies

Other threads cross between Van Haestens and Fleming, some of them leading to disagreement rather than mutual confirmation, and yet, and yet ... On 19 July 1603 Fleming was given leave of absence.141 On his return he apologises for reporting rather more scantily on those four weeks, since, to do so at all, he had to rely on other people’s observations. He ends this passage by stating that on his return ‘eenen Koghel vanden Vyandt, my seer schadelick is gheweest’ [an enemy cannon-ball has done me much damage]. It is not quite clear whether this is said to have happened before or soon after he had left. Whichever it was, he hastens to dispel any idea his readers might form that this could be the same destructive cannon-ball described by another writer. He certainly angrily rejects the very possibility of such a calamity having befallen anyone else and describes the purveyor of this information as a certain ‘schribent’ (scribbler) who had never been near the place, a liar whose manner of dreaming this up and inventing it is beyond his powers of understanding. No, it was through his own office that the enemy’s cannon-ball burst, destroying his own, not this pretender’s memoirs and terribly injuring and killing three poor sick soldiers who were sunning themselves outside. This circumstantial evidence is obviously meant further to appropriate the episode to himself and deny it to the usurping ‘scribbler’, i.e. most probably Van Haestens, who adds his description to the year 1602. In both the Bloedige Belegeringhe142 and the Beschrijvinghe143 a special paragraph printed in roman within an otherwise gothic type page and given the marginal note ‘NOTA’ tells of a cannon-ball which destroyed the ‘author’s’ memoranda on subsequent events. No indication is given of who that ‘author’ might be. The passage is absent from the Histoire remarquable and therefore also absent from Grimstone’s translation; neither is it included in La Nouvelle Troye. Any readers of the Dutch editions, having perhaps skipped the prefatory matter and believing that Van Haestens had been at Ostend himself, could be forgiven for taking the word ‘author’ to stand for Van Haestens. Fleming should have been better aware, but

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being only a simple soldier, not a scholar, was apparently misled into believing that Van Haestens did after all claim the status of an eyewitness. But not only had Van Haestens not been there, he never pretended to it and only asserts having compiled his book from the best sources. Could another officer then have been keeping a diary, unbeknown to Fleming, and have had such a similar experience? It appears elsewhere from Fleming’s own account that the soldiers garrisoning Ostend were regularly relieved and their places taken by fresh troops under their own officers: few if any could have stayed there as long as Fleming did.144 The destruction by an enemy cannon-ball of papers holding observations made from day to day looks very much like Fleming’s reference to the damage he himself suffered. If this is so, Van Haestens had somehow got hold of the ‘NOTA’, but maybe Fleming did not like admitting that any note of his could have fallen into anyone else’s hands, all the time realising that it had indeed so happened and that the ‘scribbler’ had only copied him? If so, his denial really boils down to protesting too much. Fleming’s anger against Van Haestens is even greater in his repudiation of another paragraph in the Bloedige Belegeringhe and the Beschrijvinghe under the date of 12 March 1602,145 based however on a description in the Belägerung of 5 July of the same year and thus transferred in the Histoire remarquable and La Nouvelle Troye. The latter date is the more probable as it was the first anniversary of the start of the siege, having thus more relevance to thanksgiving for the town’s preservation until then than the earlier date. However, it is this report which aroused Fleming’s ire. After referring to the safe, or almost safe, comings and goings of ships bringing supplies and taking out the wounded, Van Haestens says: ‘soo hebben die van Oostende alle haer Canons afgeschooten/ soo groot als cleen/ ronts om de stadt/ ende in plaetse vant gheluyt van Clocken (die sy niet en hadden) so namen vrouwen/ jongers/ kinderen in haer handen Ketelen/ Beckens/ ende voorts alderhande geluyt maeckende dingen/ ende raesden deur de Stadt dat den Vyant die ’t al hoorde eenen schrick daer af hadde’ [So those of Ostend fired all their cannons, both big and small, around the town, and in place of bells (which they did not possess) women, young people and children

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took up cauldrons, basins and other noise-making objects and ran through the town so that the enemy hearing it got a terrible fright from it], which is followed by details of the thanksgiving day.146 Fleming147, under the same date and also after referring to the successful entry and departure of the ships, first mentions this thanksgiving service for the preservation of both troops and citizens inside Ostend. He then goes on: ‘Eenighe vreemde Schribenten schrijven ende stellen in haer lieder discoursen/ dat men op den selvighen dach in plaetse van Klocken te luyden/ die gheheele Stadt door een afgrijselijck gheluyt van roepen ende tieren/ ende dat die Vrouwen ende Kinderen op Beckens/ ende Ketels/ uytnemende groot gherucht maeckten: Ick en kan niet gheweten/ waer desen goeden Heere alsulcken Fabulen ende verchierde Inventien mach ghedroome [sic] hebben/ maer by so verre hy hem als doen inder Stadt vant/ achte dat het was door apprehentie die hy hadde vant quaet weder/ dat hem int hooft draeyde/ oft in plaetse van Godt almachtich te bidden/ die Herberghe voor sijnen Tempel hielt’ [Some strange scribblers write and maintain in their discourses that in place of ringing bells [there was] an abominable noise of shouting and yelling throughout the whole town and that the women and children produced an uncommon great din on basins and cauldrons: I cannot tell where this fine gentleman may have dreamed up such fables and embroidered inventions, but in so far as he found himself in the town at that time, I imagine that it came from the apprehension he felt because of the bad weather which churned around in his head, or that in place of praying to Almighty God he mistook the tavern for his temple]. Once again we find Fleming under the impression that Van Haestens - for whom else could he be intending by these ‘strange scribblers’ and that ‘fine gentleman’? - was pretending to write from his own experience, and again he lets fly with a violent assertion that what he cannot confirm cannot be true. But Van Haestens’s entry under the date of 12 March was only what he had found in the Histoire remarquable under that of 5 July, whilst that book only gives the translation from the Belägerung of the following passage: ‘Den 5. Julij 1602. wurde es Jarig das die statt Ostende war belägert gewesen/ vnd wegen der Obrigkeit gebotten/ das jargezeit der belägerung zu halten oder zu feiren/ alle es

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grobe vnd kleine geschutz ab zu schiessen/ vnd in stete der klocken/ dieweil keine in der statt seind/ alle die Weiber vnd Kinder gleicher handt zu klopffen auff Becken/ Kessel/ vnd alles was sonsten einig gross gelaut oder gethon machen konte/ welchers gelaut bey denen draussen fur der statt ins Lager einen generalen Allarm verursachen thete/ weiln sie nicht wusten was solchs bedeuten muchte: Es wurde auch in der statt ein Predige gethan mit ein danksagung zu Gott fur die wunderberliche erhaltung der statt/ vnd dar nach ein gebet das er jhnen forthin wolte beschutzen vnd bewaren’ [On the 5th of July the siege of the city of Ostend was a year old and the authorities ordered the anniversary to be kept or celebrated, all the large and small cannons to be fired, and in place of bells, since there was none in the town, for all women and children to strike in unison basins and cauldrons and whatever else could make some big noise or sound, which noise caused a general alarm among those encamped outside the city because they did not know what it might signify. A sermon was also held in the town with thanksgiving unto God for the miraculous preservation of the town, and afterwards a prayer that He might continue to protect and preserve them]. Van Haestens’s account is very close to this original, and even Fleming’s description of the thanksgiving service, which he dates 12 March, is not far removed from that of the Belägerung. I cannot see why a news writer on the spot should have told a lie in this particular instance: he had nothing to gain, except that the thought of scaring the wits out of the Spaniards with no more than the equivalent of dustbin lids would have been worth a good laugh. Perhaps Fleming himself may have been too annoyed by the noise to note it down at the time; or he found it too childish to immortalise it, or maybe he had simply forgotten all about it. His denial then hides his distaste for such behaviour: his heroes could not be guilty of it and whoever told it must be a miserable liar. Whom should one then believe? And, rejecting one in favour of the other, would that invalidate everything else he tells? Is Fleming himself then whiter than white? All the books on the siege include a long passage on the naval battle of 3 October 1602 between Dover and Calais in which Dutch ships joined an English fleet in defeating a Spanish squadron. Van

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Haestens148 took it from his regular source, the Histoire remarquable,149 where it is translated from the Belägerung.150 This, with a different introductory phrase and ending where the Histoire remarquable and La Nouvelle Troye do151, i.e. without reference to the largesse given to liberated galley slaves, is as good as the same in Fleming Oostende.152 Once more the suspicion arises that Fleming had himself read Van Haestens and adopted what he wanted from the despised ‘scribbler’. Fleming’s text, inevitably lacking the foundation of his personal participation in the event, is not enclosed in square brackets. It flows naturally from the preceding matter rather than having been inserted by Meuris who then, whether intentionally or accidentally, forgot to follow his usual practice. The parallel text begins in all three Dutch versions: ‘... de aldergrootste Galeye was g(h)enaemt S(inte) Lowijs’ [the very largest galley was called St Louis] and ends: ‘Ick geve een yegheli(j)cken te bedencken wat een menichte datter verslag(h)en ende verdroncken zijn gheweest’ [I leave everyone to consider what a multitude of men were slain and drowned there], a reflection on the outcome added by Van Haestens which cannot possibly be Fleming’s own, just happening to be expressed in literally the same words. It is not derived from the Belägerung where this October event is recorded out of chronological order, rather as an afterthought, after the year 1602 has been summed up as having brought more trouble to Ostend by disease than enemy action, this text being finalised with the help of a decorative border. The story of the naval battle and some more generalities go on to fill the next two pages, again completed with the same border, indicating the end of the journal for that year.153 If Fleming did not so use Van Haestens, could both have gone back to the original document from which the Belägerung itself got this news item? That would presuppose that this document contained the phrase about the casualties which the Belägerung would for some reason then have omitted, and this is frankly improbable. There is then in the Belägerung a sentence describing Frederico Spinola’s flight to Calais and thence to Brussels which is not found in either Van Haestens or Fleming, again unlikely if they both saw the original report containing it. As the naval battle of 3 October l602 is the subject of the fine plate

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representing it in these books (fig.12),154 Meuris must have been happy to find the passage in Fleming’s diary. Its origin would not have troubled him greatly. * Discrepancies between Van Haestens’s and Fleming’s accounts also extend to personal names. For instance, on the death by the plague on 29 August 1603 of a certain captain, a passage which Meuris takes over from the Beschrijvinghe155 and duly prints inside square brackets,156 Van Haestens names the unfortunate man ‘Loys de Contuere’, where in Fleming’s journal his name is ‘Lowijs Contrere’: had Van Haestens misread his (perhaps manuscript) source and did Fleming, or Meuris, know better?157 In the Bloedige Belegeringhe158 the text runs on to say of him: ‘ende seer heerlick [my italics] nae costume ter eerden ghebrocht’ [and was very splendidly as is the custom laid to rest]; the Beschrijvinghe159 amplifies this as ‘nae costume van Oorloghe’ [as is the custom of war]; in 1621160 this became ‘ende seer eerlijcken na Costume vander Oorloghe begraven’ [and was buried very honourably as is the custom of war, i.e. with military honours]. Meanwhile, in La Nouvelle Troye of 1615 the passage runs: ‘Louyis de Coutuere ... fut honorablement enterré selon la coustume de la guerre’,161 which makes it appear as if in this instance either Meuris corrected what he took to be a misprint or this edition had also been consulted. The form of name of another captain quoted in the various editions162 as having been killed in the assault of 7 January 1602 turns out even more amazing, if not downright confusing, proving once again that nothing is so hard to memorise or transcribe correctly as names (unless it be addresses). In the Bloedige Belegeringhe he is Capiteyn Haeften, the same in the Beschrijvinghe; in La Nouvelle Troye he is Capitaine Haeffren, the name given him in the Histoire remarquable, which had it from the Belägerung. But in Fleming Oostende he is called Capiteyn Haston, with another Capiteyn Haeften appearing later.163 But all these pale into insignificance when compared with Baudaert’s Viva delineatio,164 where the name is given as Captain Haestens, a case surely of ‘facilior lectio’.

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But even within one and the same edition confusion can reign when it comes to names. Who exactly instructed the artist who designed and/or engraved the portraits of the governors, Meuris in 1621 or Fleming then or much earlier? Since some of these men did not survive the siege, the latter seems most likely unless existing portraits of them were available for copying. But if they were done from life the variations in the names are even more remarkable. One portrait for example has the sitter’s name given in capitals on the oval frame surrounding it as ‘de buvrii’: likewise in the engraved text below it it reads ‘de Buurij’; while in the book itself and in the list of plates at the end it is given as ‘de Bevry’. The frame of another portrait plate calls the sitter ‘de hartaing’, its caption calls him ‘de Hertaing’, the text usually refers to him only by his title as ‘Marquette’.165 These may not be matters of the utmost importance, but they do set a question mark against the absolute trust too easily apportioned to one book.

Notes

141. FlO, pp.398-402. 142. BlB, p.137. 143. BmH, p.134. 144. See e.g. FlO, pp.249-52; 405-6; 463-4, etc. See also Ten Raa & De Bas, pp.277-9. 145. BlB, p.131; BmH, p.129. 146. Hist.rem., f.87v: ‘Le 5 Iuillet 1602. les chefs commanderent, qu’on celebrast le iour du siege d’Ostende, en tirant le canon au lieu de cloches, d’autant qu’il n’y en a poinct, & mesme fut enioinct aux femmes & enfans de frapper sur des chauldieres, poëlles, & autres choses qui rendent vn grand son & font bruict, ce que fit prendre l’allarme à tout le camp, ne scachant que ce pouuoit estre. Il fut aussi faict vn sermon pour rendre graces à Dieu de la miraculeuse conseruation de la ville ceste année, auec prières qu’il luy pleustla [sic] conseruer à l’aduenir.’ The translator has reduced the very concrete large and small cannons to the abstract ‘le canon’ and omitted the command, stated in the Belägerung, f.G3v, that the women and children should make their way through the streets beating their instruments to a single rhythm, but on the whole he has translated the passage accurately. NTr, p.230, also under the date of 5 July, repeats the text of the Hist.rem. so

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closely, it even copies the ‘pleustla’. Fleming does not mention the thanksgiving service under 5 July, but Van Meteren, bk.25, f.95rb, describes the annual celebration on this day with its firing of guns and other loud noises. 147. FlO, p.221. 148. BlB, pp.133-6; BmH, pp.130-3. 149. Hist rem., ff.89r-91r. 150. Belägerung, pt.1, f.28[G4]r. 151. NTr, pp.232-6. 152. FlO, pp.290-4. 153. Belägerung, ff.28[G4]v-29[H1]r, with many more details, including the freeing of many galley slaves. See fig.12, which as Van Haestens’s pl.11 has had the placename ‘Doeveren’ added to the English coast. 154. Belägerung, App.I, title-page and also B3; BlB, BmH, FlO all have it as plate no.11. 155. BmH, p.142. This event was not reported in the Belägerung and is therefore not mentioned in the Hist.rem. 156. FlO, p.406, as explained in the ‘Advertissement’ (n.8). 157. How inconsistent the authors could be is exemplified by Fleming’s reference to the same officer (p.176) also as ‘de la Coutiere’, on the same page another officer, called ‘Carpontier’, reappears shortly afterwards (p.181) as ‘Carpentier’, while Vere names him frequently as plain ‘Carpenter’. 158. BlB, p.139, under the date of 29 August 1603; BmH, p.143; FlO, p.406 (Contrere); NTr, p.251. His death and funeral are not mentioned in the Belägerung or Hist.rem. 159. BmH, p.143. 160. FlO, p.500. 161. NTr, p.251. 162. Belägerung, pt.1, f.21[F1]v; Hist.rem., f.66v; BlB, p.119; BmH, p.117 [=113]; NTr, p.119; FlO, p.l97. 163. FlO, p.208[=198]. 164. Baudaert, pt. 2, p.265. I have not seen the Dutch language edition of this book. The passage is absent from the French language edition of 1616. 165. On De Hertaing see BNB.

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9. The great assault and Amazons, rumoured and real

One particular event, which is given great prominence in all the existing accounts, is the battle of 7 January 1602 when the Spanish forces made their most concerted and vigorous attack in an attempt to take Ostend by storm. The Dutch, however, having had news from their spies of the impending assault, put up a determined defence. The battle raged all day; in spite of early advances in some places the Spaniards were ultimately repulsed, primarily through the opening of a sluice by the Dutch which brought seawater rushing into the attackers’ trenches, drowning many and sweeping them back out again to sea. The slaughter was obviously tremendous, more among the Spanish than among the Dutch, but so gruesome was the battlefield that the next day was set aside by both parties without any fighting to allow the bodies - robbed as they had been by the victors - to be recovered. The Belägerung and its translations report it as plainly as they do other matters. However, Van Haestens’s description of this battle, whatever his source for it, is unusually vivid and even emotional, perhaps in his own elaboration. He writes, for example,166 that the intensity of the fighting was ‘soo dat het menschen vleesch soot scheen aldaer goet coop was’ [such that human flesh as it seemed went cheap there], or ‘soo dat de canons onder alle de truppen speelden datse deur de locht vlooghen al haddent Crayen of ander vliegent ghedierte geweest ... int cort gheseyt dat sich eens steenen herte moest erbarmt hebben/ deur het groot verdriet ende ellendicheyt die aldaer vande overgheblevenen gesien is/ ende voorts alles te beschrijven is my onmoghelick/ van alle het gheene dat daer passeerde, ....’ [so that the cannons played among all the men, causing them to fly through the air as if they had been crows or other flying creatures ... in brief, a heart of stone would have turned to pity with the great misery and distress that was witnessed there by the survivors, and further to describe all that happened there is more than I can do]. In the Beschrijvinghe167 the passage is repeated literally with only a few modifications to spelling and punctuation. La Nouvelle Troye fol-

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lows the Histoire remarquable,168 but sets it under the correct date rather than the mistaken 9 January of its model. In this description, based on the narrative in the Belägerung,169 the awful facts are allowed to speak for themselves without the addition of such extra colour. Nor does Fleming Oostende170 seek to influence the reader’s reaction to events by means of metaphor or other rhetorical artifice. However, even this reputedly dry chronicler cannot abstain altogether from personal comment: ‘Der dooden waren soo veel datmen daer qualick wegh met wiste/ soo dat nooyt man (die gheleeft heeft voor onsen tijden of noch leeft by desen tijdt) alsulck groot jammer ende verdriet ghehoort ofte ghesien heeft’ [The dead were so many that one hardly knew what to do with them, so that never man (whether living before our times or still alive at this time) has heard or seen such anguish and misery]. For the modern reader the most intriguing detail of the battle stories is perhaps the discovery the following day of the body of a woman among the Spanish dead. The Belägerung, whatever source it had used, reports it as follows:171 ‘Den Raub oder Beut war gar grosz, von Geldt Kleidern und kostliche Rustungen: Ins ausz schütten der Todten würde ein jungers Hispanisch Weibszbildt/ in mans Kleider angelegt/ gefünden/ so mit gesturmet hette, wie man an sichre jhre wunden befandt/ liegende deicht vnter Sandthil, trug vnter jhr kleider ein golden Keten versetzt mit edel Gestein/ auch noch andere Kleinodien vnd Geldt’ [The loot or booty was immense, of money, clothes and precious armour: during the plundering of the dead a young Spanish woman, dressed in men’s clothes, was found, who had taken part in the assault as was obvious from certain of her wounds, lying close below Sandhill; under her clothes she wore a gold chain studded with gemstones and also some other valuables and money]. The Histoire remarquable translates this172 as: ‘Le butin fut grand en argent, habits & autres choses de prix: En fouillans les morts on trouva prez de Sand-hill, vne ieune famme Espagnole habillèe en homme, laquelle comme on pouuoit voir à ses playes, auoit esté tuée en assault, elle auoit soubs ses habits vne chaisne d’or, garnie de pierres precieuses, auec autres ioyaux & de l’argent’. This pas-

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sage was taken over substantially into La Nouvelle Troye,173 whereas in his intervening editions Van Haestens had adapted it a little more freely. The Bloedige Belegeringhe174 reads: ‘Den Beuyt (so cleederen, ende andere costelickheyt) was seer groot/ diese creghen vanden vyandt. Int uytschudden ofte plonderen/ so is gevonden een jonge Spaensche Dochter ofte vrouwe ghecleet in mans cleederen leggende dicht onder Sant-hil: Ende over haer werde bevonden een costelicke gulden keeten, verciert met Edele Gesteenten ende oock andere Juwelen, meer oock by haer hebbende seker ghelt’ [The booty, both in clothes and other valuables, was very great which they got from the enemy. During the stripping or plundering a young Spanish girl or woman was found, dressed in men’s clothes, lying close under Sandhill: and on her was found a precious golden chain, garnished with gems and also other jewels, besides also having with her some money]. Here Van Haestens, for whatever reasons, implies that she may not have been so young and he omits that she was reportedly seen to have died fighting. In the Beschrijvinghe175 the passage is not altered beyond the usual spelling modifications and one real improvement in punctuation, moving the comma in the last sentence to read ‘... verciert met Edele Gesteenten ende oock andere Juwelen meer/ oock by haer hebbende seker ghelt’ [... garnished with gems and also other jewels besides, also having on her some money]. Did Van Haestens not believe in Amazons? Yet he utters no word of doubt and is happy enough to repeat all the Histoire remarquable had had to say about her in his French text of 1615. It was different for Philippe Fleming. Leaving aside Boudicca and Joan of Arc, who acted in defence of their country and never hid the fact that they were women, exceptional fighting women are reported from ancient times onward in myth and by the poets, from Penthesilea and her Amazons to Brünhilde, from Tasso’s Clorinda to Tolkien’s Éowyn, and although reports seem to have persisted of women soldiers taking part in war, nobody had really ever met one or left trustworthy documentation. Evidently Fleming was a sceptic and in his book he will have none of this female Spanish soldier. He is in fact quite annoyed at the very suggestion of such heroism on the other side, for he writes:176 ‘Eenighe schrijven datter eene jonghe Dochter in Mans cleederen/ by haer hebbende vele Juweelen soude

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ghevonden zijn gheweest onder die dooden/ is gheheel impertinent eenighe lichtveerdighe hadden sulcx uyt ghestroeyt/ den Generael Veer doende daer van scherp ondersoeck/ en heeft ’tselve noyt connen met die waerheyt blijcken ...’ [Some write that a young girl in men’s clothes, having with her many jewels, was found there among these dead, this is quite preposterous, some nitwits having spread this rumour, General Vere set up a thorough enquiry and could never establish any shred of truth in it]. Which earlier writers could Fleming have had in mind? Since once again there is no mention of the woman’s wounds testifying to her valour, it is most likely that he got this written report from Van Haestens rather than from the Belägerung or the Histoire remarquable.177 But who was right? If a woman wanted to fight she would have tried her utmost to maintain the pretence of being a man. While it could not have been easy, it was surely not wholly impossible either. She would also have been well advised to have some valuables with which to silence anyone who found out or buy off unwanted attentions. On the other hand, as far as this Spanish lady is concerned, we have only rumour, no proof. Fleming’s denial is in so far corroborated as Henry Hexham, then page to Sir Francis Vere and at his side during the battle, makes no mention of her at all.178 Reporting the aftermath of the battle, he states that ‘our men ... pilliged & stript a great many of their men, & brought in gould Chaines, Spanish Pistolls, buff ierkins, Spanish Cassocks, Blades, Swords, and Tarkets [sic], among the rest one wherein was enameled in gold the seuen worthes [i.e. worthies] worth 7 or 8 hundred gilders’. All this detail, in which he explicitly refers also to the dead below Sandhill, would have permitted him to confirm or deny the story of the woman, but it seems to have passed him by completely. Not so the author of A breefe Declaration in 1602. Although brief indeed, he finds room to name a few of the more important and richly apparelled enemy dead, such as ‘Symon Antony Mr del Campo’, ‘The Sargeant maior Generall that was pledge [i.e. hostage] within Oastend the 25 of December last past’, ‘The Lieutenant of the Gouernour of Antwarpe’ [and all three of these were in fact one and the same man], ending his list with the words: ‘Under the dead is also found a woman person’.179 The German single sheet pamphlet Bericht vnd erzehlung des gewaltigen am 7. Januarij Anno 1602. vff

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Ostende gethanen Sturmbs, evidently based on a direct communication, in Dutch, from Ostend, is equally certain. It contains the following passage: ‘Bey den geplunderten hat man viel gelds/ köstliche kleider vnd wapffen gefunden. Vnder den toden ist hart bey dem Sandhil funden ein junge Spanische Fraw in mans kleidern/ welche/ wie an den wunden zu mercken/ thättlich mit gesturmbt/ vnd vor der faust ist erstochen worden ...’ [Among the plundered close to Sandhill a young Spanish woman in men’s clothes was found who, as could be noticed from her wounds, actively took part in the storming and was straightaway pierced].180 Although therefore part of the tradition, the wording of this report is independent of those here considered to be related to the Belägerung. But in spite of denial and at best uncertainty the story would not die. Willem Baudaert included it in his description of the battle of 7 January 1602 even in the Latin edition of his history of the war against Spain published after the work of Fleming.181 Nor did it fail to attract the romantic imagination of a nineteenth-century local historian like Pasquini who has this to say: ‘Le lendemain de cette expédition, on trouva parmi les morts, sous les remparts, le corps d’une jeune femme de la plus grande beauté, en habits d’homme. Cette infortunée portait au cou, une chaine d’or, garnie de pierres précieuses, à laquelle était attachée [sic] un medaillon renfermant le portrait du gouverneur Vère. Trahie par Vère, cette femme avait cru se venger de son abandon en venant se faire tuer sous ses yeux’. A pretty tale indeed.182 The following year Pietersz retold the story of the siege in a way intended to appeal to a broad audience. He too persisted in describing the finding of the Spanish woman’s body as a fact, although according to him the Spaniards themselves discovered her.183 But only another three years later the Baron de Saint-Genois published his novel about the siege, yet refrained from using such tempting material. On the contrary, in his ‘Lettre d’envoi’ he makes it the historical novelist’s credo not to falsify the truth.184 Markham, in telling the Spanish woman’s story,185 bases himself on Vere’s Commentaries,186 where, in an addition by Sir John Ogle to Hexham’s account on the great assault, the ‘French diary’ is quoted in English, translating ‘argent’ as ‘silver’, an error Van Haestens had correctly avoided,

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but a trap posed by ‘argent’ into which Grimstone had already fallen.187 More recently Dekker and Van de Pol,188 speaking of a Dutchwoman serving in the Republican army in the early years of the seventeenth century, add that a woman in man’s clothes also fought on the Spanish side as ‘it is said’, but they give no indication on date, place or source. But, though the existence of the Spanish woman soldier remains a matter of conjecture, it is known for a fact that there were brave women in Ostend. A large part of the original population of both sexes was taken away early on by sea,189 but civilians working as artisans and suppliers to the garrison are listed several times by name in Fleming Oostende.190 They and the military lived in the most appalling conditions, especially when the houses were being destroyed and they had to resort largely to underground shelters to find protection from the shelling, and there were women who chose to share these. One of them, a young woman called Catharina Handtschoenwerckers, was killed by a cannon shot right in her father’s house at the very beginning of the siege.191 Some at least of the officers still lived in houses, accepting all the risks, and some had their wives with them. Among them was also Fleming’s wife who, with any children born earlier, stayed with him all the time he was at Ostend, except for an occasional short visit to Zeeland. In fact, on 20 September 1601, as she returned from Middelburg on one of the ships bringing the Earl of Northumberland and his retinue on a visit to Ostend, the servant of a nobleman accompanying him was wounded on board their ship, the arm of this unfortunate man landing on her lap. Although Fleming does not say so in his account, this must have been a great shock for her. And yet she stayed.192 Other women came for longer or shorter visits.193 Women are mentioned as helping the soldiers to defend the walls by bringing up ammunition,194 falling into enemy hands while being evacuated together with some of the sick,195 or just as being there.196 Fleming himself, so sparing in eloquence, pays tribute to his wife in a moving, passage197 following on the little matter of the destructive cannon-ball which, as one will readily believe, brought ‘Mijn huysvrouwe/ zijnde swaer van kinde/ in duysent perijckel van haer leven te verliesen/ die my met alder ghetrouwicheyt ghe-

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durende die bloedighe Belegheringhe/ in alle swaricheyden totter doot toe heeft by ghestaen/ ende twee reysen met der hulpe des Almachtighen Godts my met twee jonghe Amasones ofte Crijchsdochters vereert ende ghebaert heeft’ [my wife, being heavy with child, into a thousand dangers of losing her life, [her] who during this bloody siege stood by me in all hardships unto death itself and on two occasions with the help of Almighty God presented and honoured me with two baby Amazons or Daughters of War]. This passage was however added or expanded at a later stage, for under February 1604 he writes: ‘Myn Huysvrouwe Catharina Moraels198/ is voor de tweede reyse ghedurende de sware belegheringhe van een Jonge Dochter ghelegen’ [My wife, Catharina Moraels, has for the second time during the heavy siege been delivered of a little girl]. He then goes on to tell that ‘Gouverneur Gistelles’ himself was the child’s godfather, giving her the name of ‘Anna Maria Flemingh’ and allowing for an all too infrequent brief occasion of rejoicing before a rapid resumption of fighting.199 But it is the earlier, expanded and more reflective passage which will strike the reader as a rare testimony of married love, worth the more because it comes from a man so hardened by experience. These women who endured in Ostend have on the whole remained unsung: this simple cameo must be their monument.

Notes

166. BlB, p.117. 167. BmH, p.115. 168. NTr, pp.196-202; Hist.rem., ff.64r-68r. 169. Belägerung, pt.1, ff.10[=20,E4]v-21[Fl]v. 170. FlO, pp.208-9. 171. Belägerung, pt.1, f.21[F1]r, ll.17-20. 172. Hist. rem., f.65v. 173. NTr, pp.197-8. 174. BlB, p.118. 175. BmH, p.116. 176. FlO, pp.196-7. 177. The image of the ‘Hispanica femina’ inserted on the plate illustrating the great assault (see p. 117 and fig.19) is already present on the large com-

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posite broadsheets published by Cornelis Claesz and Jan Jansz in 1603 (see n.72). The same plate must have been issued previously on a separate broadsheet (see n.73) with text which may have contained the same information as transmitted by the Belägerung from the same or a similar source. Although Fleming may have simply reproduced the rumours going around the garrison, it is possible that he may have seen such a document or, more precisely, may have read Van Haestens. 178. Hexham, p.25[=27]. 179. A Breefe Declaration, pp.4-5. 180. Bericht vnd erzehlung, coll.2-3. This is the pamphlet on which Ponjaert bases her suggestion that its named printer, Wilhelm Lützenkirchen, also printed the Belägerung (see p.48, and n.62). A copy of it is preserved in the Manuscripts Department of Ghent University Library (Documents Ostende 3385, no.l488), of which I obtained a photograph. Although Ponjaert is right in claiming some use of ‘similar’ type material, this is far too common to allow such a conclusion. Moreover, there is no stylistic conformity between the map of Ostend and the text of the broadside and the corresponding part of the Belägerung to infer a close connection between the two. 181. Baudaert, pt. 2, p.265. 182. Pasquini, p.95. The myth is then perpetuated by Jonckheere as recently as 1970 (p.127) as if it were fact, though also introduced as a ‘romantic detail’ which would make good TV drama. The author supplies no source here or anywhere else in his popularised history in which the siege occupies pp.123-34. 183. Pietersz, p.9. 184. Saint-Genois, vol.2, p.193. 185. Markham, p.329. 186. Vere, p.175. 187. True History, p.108. 188. Dekker & Van de Pol, p.49. 189. Hist.rem., f.4r: ‘Il y auoit dans la ville 21. enseignes de diuers regiments, & vn enseigne de Bourgeois souz la charge du sieur de la North, lesquels se preparerent à la deffence, la pluspart enuoyerent leurs femmes & enfans en Zelande’, a passage repeated in NTr, p.103, with the sole change of the commander’s name to ‘Sieur de Nooth’. BlB translates this, with added matter (p.15): on 6 July 1601 there were in Ostend ‘21 Vaendelen van Verscheyden Regimenten der E. Heeren Staten der Vereenighde Nederlandsche Prouincien als mede een Vaendel Burghers/ over deese Commandeerde de Heere Charles vander Noot; die thoonde hem seer mannelijck ter weer/ ende dede vertrecken Vrouwen ende Kinderen uyter Stadt naer Zeelandt’ [ ... C.v.N. who showed himself very courageous and

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ordered women and children to leave the town for Zeeland]. BmH (pp.756[=79-80]) repeats this. FlO (p.70), throws a different light on this evacuation right at the start of the siege: the enemy ‘strax met vier stucken inde Stadt begonden te schieten/ doende seer groote schade inde huysen/ ’twelcke eenen grooten schrick onder den ghemeynen man brachte/ princepalick onder Vrouwen ende Kinderen/ die alsdoen alle die Schepen inde Haven ligghende/ met haere goederen laden om te vertrecken’ [began to shoot straightaway with four pieces, doing very great damage to the houses, which caused great fright among the common people, especially among women and children who thereupon loaded all the ships lying in the harbour with their goods in order to leave]. 190. FlO, p.424 (‘Smeden’, ‘Timmerluyden’); pp.539-41 (again, smiths and carpenters, and also clergymen, doctors, surgeons, visitors of the sick, and ‘conducteurs’, whatever they might be). 191. FlO, p.74. 192. FlO, pp.122-3. He here refers to her as ‘mijn huysvrouwe (my wife) Katharina Fleming’. The story of the anonymous servant of ‘mijn Heer van Kessel’ is also told in the other Ostend books, but without mentioning Mrs Fleming. In connection with Fleming’s family life it is appropriate here to go back to p.1 of his book where he heads the whole narrative with the words: ‘Waerachtighe discoursen ende verhalen vant ghene geschiet is ghedurende die vermaerde ende bloedighe Belegeringhe der Stadt Oostende ... alles by een vergadert ende [sic] by Philippe Fleming/ die den tijdt van 13.Iaren aldaer Auditeur vant Garnisoen is gheweest ende Secretaris van 10. Gouverneurs/ hebbende hem continueerlijck gheduerende die Belegeringhe met sijn Familie [my italics] binnen die voorsz. Stadt ghehouden’ [Truthful discourses and relations of what happened during the famous and bloody siege of the town of Ostend ... All gathered together and [?] by Philippe Fleming who for the period of 13 years was Auditor of the garrison and Secretary to 10 governors there, having during this siege remained in the said town continually with his family]. 193. Cf. Van Meteren, bk.25, f.94rb: ‘Niet teghenstaende alle het schieten/ sterven van Peste en armoede binnen de Stadt/ soo werden de belegerde nochtans vant volck uyt Hollandt en Zeelandt ordinaerlijck versocht van haer vrienden/ met Wijf en kinderen/ al ofte het ter kermisse ofte feeste gheweest ware: eenighe Capiteynen brochten daer haer Wijf ende kinderen’ [Notwithstanding all the shooting, and dying from the plague and poverty inside the town, the besieged were quite ordinarily visited by their friends, with wives and children, as if it were for a kermis or a holiday; some captains brought their wives and children there]. 194. Cf. Hexham, p.25, a fact not mentioned elsewhere, perhaps because it was too common?

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195. BlB, p.139; BmH, p.143; NTr, p.251, based on Hist.rem., f.114v; FlO, p.406. Atrocities committed against them and the sick are grimly reported. Similar stories are told by Bonours, but then of course against the Dutch, e.g. in the story of the great assault (pp.183-200, which includes set speeches by Vere and Albert to their respective troops); the Dutch and the English, but not the French, are there said to have massacred Spanish soldiers after they had surrendered (p.196). 196. E.g. at the thanksgiving services at Ostend (see pp.90-2). 197. FlO, p.399. Nothing like this can of course be found in the less personal narratives of Van Haestens or his predecessors. 198. The mention of her by her maiden name (a general custom at the time) in this context rather than in the other passage, also strongly points to this having been written earlier. On Gistelles see NNBW, vol.2, coll.470-71, s.v. Ghistelles. 199. FlO, pp.449-50.

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The story of the siege has to follow the day-to-day events of history, but its presentation still varies between the books. The Belägerung consists almost wholly of plain prose text, relying on its sheer size, the occasional beauty of its typography and its fine illustrations to keep the reader enthralled. The few verses which do occur, either do so naturally, i.e. they supplement the military action, or they turn up as an afterthought, attached to the Villerius letter near the end of part 2, with two more, possibly by Heinsius, filling up an otherwise blank page.200 The Histoire remarquable is plain prose throughout, unrelieved by any attempt at catching the reader’s attention with appeals to his aesthetic sensibilities or at increasing his empathy by pictorial or poetic means. In fact, the illustration promised on its title-page is missing in all the copies I have seen or read of.201 The two engravings in A True Historie are purely intended to help the reader understand difficult matter in the text.202 But the Van Haestens editions and Fleming’s book, in addition to plentiful and powerful images, not all relevant to the events described,203 also interrupt the steady flow of the chronicle with passages in verse, sometimes in the form of chronograms, at others reflecting and commenting on the situation or illustrating the feelings of participants or onlookers, almost as a Greek chorus breaks and thereby enhances the relentless unfolding of a tragedy. Of course not all the verses are true poetry, and to tell the truth, very few achieve that status. But their introduction by itself lends these books a literary air on top of their historiographic character. It was a well established custom to send books forth into a cold world furnished right at the beginning with laudatory poems written by the author’s or publisher’s friends, with the aim of persuading potential readers of the great merit of the author and his work. Such poems may hold valuable information for future historians, but are not themselves part of the text. Of the books under discussion only that of Fleming boasts a laudatory poem. Its author has, wisely, remained anonymous, for it is truly atrocious. Maybe Aert Meuris wrote it in the hope of boosting sales, but if one assumes that

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he really knew better, he may have printed it only because Fleming insisted on the inclusion of a poem composed perhaps by one of his military companions. In fifteen tedious four-line stanzas204 it extols the author’s career, though telling us nothing about him not also available elsewhere in the book. It ends with this pathetic plea to the reluctant buyer: Coopt hen die wilt verstaen/ en vele wonders leren ’Tis int Belegh ghedaen/ hy aensacht veel met vreesen Noyt is dier g’lijck ghehoort/ ghesien nochte geschreven Daar soo veel zyn ghesmoort/ en hebben moeten sneven. [Buy, ye who want to learn and many marvels know! They happened in the siege: he watched, his heart sunk low. Never has like been heard nor seen nor yet was written! Where such great numbers choked and grievously were smitten.] The verses in the two Dutch and one French language editions by Van Haestens and those occurring within the body of Fleming’s account are more skilfully woven into the structure of the books and are none of them quite so awful. They are written variously in Dutch, French, Latin or Greek and may, where this is felt to be desirable, be followed by a translation into Dutch or French. Not all the poets are identified, some of the poems were perhaps originally graffiti which had achieved almost ballad status, like the lines ‘Oostende/ Oostende/ Wie hoorde van sulcke Ellende’ [Ostend, Ostend, oh, who ever heard such woe], printed alternately in red and black on leaf A1 of the Bloedige Belegeringhe,205 setting the tone for the whole sorry tale. Van Haestens used different verses in the two editions of his Dutch text and again in the French one and it may be instructive to list them. First, as they occur in the books. 1. Bloedige Belegeringhe A1r: ‘Oostende, Oostende, wie hoorde van sulcke ellende’ (see above). A2v [=title-p.verso]: ‘Quem facta coelo ... ’, signed: D.H., i.e. Daniel Heinsius, a poem in praise of Prince Maurice, accompanying the engraving of his arms.206

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A4r:

‘Op het Belegh van Oostende. [Begin:] Aenschout het kleyn tooneel, het graf der vromer helden ...’ [End:] ‘De stadt is lange wech: de Spaniaert komt te laet’, signed: ‘D.H.’, i.e. Daniel Heinsius.207 A4v: ‘Vergeefs zijn Poorten, wallen en Vesten, als niet en waeckt den Alder-besten’ [In vain are gates, bulwarks and bastions, unless the All-Highest keeps watch].208 p.52: ‘Regius Arragonum sanguis ...’, a poem described in a pre ceding line as by Hugo Grotius, in fact the well-known poem he wrote on Francisco de Mendoza, Admiral of Aragon, who was taken prisoner by the Dutch during the battle of Nieuwpoort in 1600 and set free in an exchange of prisoners two years later. The Latin poem is followed immediately by its translation, still on p.52: ‘O Conincklijcke stam van Arragon ...’ (the translation not safely attributable to the author).209 p.64: 2 chronograms, one in Latin, one in Dutch, quoted from the Groote Chronijck van Vlaenderen.210 p.65: another chronogram, in Dutch, quoted from Magnum Chronicon Flandriae.211 p.67: yet another one, in Dutch, quoted from Magnum Chronicon Flandriae.212 p.74: ‘Achtelijng. [Begin:] Lesers merckt hier ernst en vlijdt ...’, signed: Met arbeyt heen, motto of Maerten Beheyt.213 p.107: ‘Pasquille’ ... ‘Den Spaignaerts sullen haest ...’, a rhyme dated December 1601 alluding to discontent in the Spanish army and known to the Dutch from an intercepted letter. This jibe is then said to have been dropped, probably shot by arrow as was customary, into the enemy camp. Its crudeness makes it likely that this piece of propaganda was aimed at the common soldiers whereas the next ‘pasquil’ would be directed at the better educated officers.214 p.114: ‘Pasquil. [Begin:] Ick Ostende ostendo/ bewijs dat ick niet ben Papau ... [End:] So sal Ostende ostendens/ bewijsende volstandicheyt zijn bekendt’. The eight lines run through the present tense of the Latin verb ostendere, including the imperative andpresent participle; they are printed in a large

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Fig. 13 ‘Ick Ostende ostendo’ (De bloedige Belegeringhe, p. 114).

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gothic type, with the Latin words in roman and their Dutch equivalents superscribed in small gothic (fig.13).215 p.139: ‘Epigrammata. [Begin:] ‘Als achtensestich mael de Vyand heftich schoot ...’ and ‘En soudt den Vyandt niet in sijn ghemoet verdrieten ...’, verses said to have been written by ‘a certain good gentleman’ on the occasion when the Spaniards bombarded a boat carrying not men or ammunition, but turf.216 p.153: ‘Ick bleef veel liever t’Huys ...’, not a soldier’s wish for a less arduous time, on the contrary, the affirmation that he will not fail his comrades on the battlefield.217 p.163: ‘Besluyt reden. [Begin:] Hier eyndt de moortel-merckt ...’, signed: Met arbeyt heen, i.e. Maerten Beheyt.218

Some of the above verses, such as ‘O Conincklijcke stam’ and some others, were eventually taken up in the second edition (1619) of Den Nassauschen lauren-crans, thus to survive also into its 1651 reprint.219 2. Beschrijvinghe (pagination as in the book whether correct or not) A2v: ‘Quem facta coelo ...’, as BlB tpv., signed: D. Heynsius. A4v: ‘Psalm 127. vers 1. So de Heere de Stadt niet en bewaret, So waken de Wachters te vergeefs’ [Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain], the same lines as in the Bloedige Belegeringhe, A1r, but in the translation of Petrus Dathenus.220 p.53: ‘Regius Arragonum sanguis...O Conincklijcke stam van Arragon ...’, as Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.52 and similarly quoted as by Grotius. p.58: ‘Area parva ducum ...’, with an introductory quotation from Rodolphus Botereius attributing this poem to Scaliger, Baudius or Grotius, but with a marginal note firmly ascribing it to Grotius.221 p.60: ‘Epigramma Dialogismi forma propositum. Viator aloquitur [sic] Ostendam. [Begin:] Si quis contulerit ...’ and: ‘Ostenda respondet. [Begin:] Cur mirare! Deo me debeo Servitori ...’, signed: N.R., i.e. Richard de Nerée (fig.14).222 pp. 67-70: the same chronograms quoted from the Groote Chronijck

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Fig. 14 ‘Viator aloquitur Ostendam’ (Beschrijvinghe des machtingen Heyrtochts, p. 60).

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p.74: p.106: p.113: p.136: p.150:

van Vlaenderen (Magnum Chronicon Flandriae) as Bloedige Belegeringhe, pp.64-7.223 ‘Op’t Belegh van Oostende’ by Heinsius, as Bloedige Belegeringhe, A4r, but with his name signed in full. ‘De spaignaerts sullen haest’, as Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.107; ‘Ick Ostende ostendo’, as Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.114, but the verb in Latin only. ‘Als achtensestich mael de Vyandt heftich schoot’, etc., as Bloedighe belegeringhe, p. 139. ‘Ick bleef veel liever t’Huys ...’, as Bloedige Belegeringhe p.153.

The newly added verses give this edition a very real interest. The publication of Grotius’s poem ‘Area parva ducum’ in a book far more accessible to the reading public than its earlier forms in print had been is of particular importance, while the dialogue poem by Richard de Nerée has a poignancy well beyond the rhetoric of most of the other Ostend verses in these books. 3. La Nouvelle Troye The poems in this edition are in Latin, French or both, with one in Greek and French. According to Willems224 at least one copy of this edition is known attributing the French translation to ‘J. de la Heye’ (or Haye), though the wording leaves it uncertain how much or how little this implies.225 Since, as has been seen, most of the text is taken straight from the Histoire remarquable, his translation could cover the introductory part and the passages derived from those parts of the Dutch editions not originally translated from it, but might, as Ter Meulen-Diermanse have suggested,226 extend also to the poems. Only further research, not possible here, can either confirm or deny his contribution. Title-p. verso: ‘Quem facta coelo ...’, as Bloedige Belegeringhe / Beschrijvinghe, printed below the arms of Prince Maurice and signed ‘D. Heynsius’. A4v: ‘De Ostenda triennio pertinacissime obsessa, necdum capta. [Begin:] Area parva ducum ...’, signed: H. Grotius, i.e. taken over from the Beschrijvinghe, p.58, with the attribution now confirmed.

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Extra leaf: Between B1 and B2, r-v: ‘Sonet sur son Excell. Monseigneur le Prince Maurice de Nassau, &c. Au quel sont comparés les plus grands & signalés guerriers qui ayent iamais porté les armes. [Begin:] Parmi tant de lauriers, qu’au milieu des hasards ...’, signed: De Neree, with a note to the binder: ‘Mettez ces Vers entre le [sic] pages 10 & 11.227 p.68: ‘Regius Arragonum sanguis ...’, as Bloedige Belegeringhe / Beschrijvinghe, also described as by Grotius, but here with a French translation: ‘O! sang Arragonois de descente Royale ...’.228 p.83: The Latin chronogram as Bloedige Belegeringhe / Beschrijvinghe. pp.92-3 After the introductory : ‘Ces vers Latins et Grecs ont esté composés par M. Heinsius qui les laissa en son Hostelerie à Ostende & vertis en François par M. de Nerée': ‘In Ostendam. [Begin:] Fama loci superest ...’; ‘In antiquam Ostendam quam mare nunc habet. [Begin:] Tradidit haec ponto Batavus ...’; ‘In manes omnium Heroum, qui Ostendae pro patria occubuerunt [Begin:] ’Hr¤on ¥r≈vn neo¤lion ≥ går ¶hya.229 p.191: ‘ ... Pasquil ou Colloque ...’ [Begin:] Je Ostende ostendo, que je ne suis point Papau’, a translation of the ‘Ick Ostende’ from the Beschrijvinghe, i.e. without use of the vernacular for the retained Latin verb forms. Together with the next paragraph on ‘Le jour de Nouël’, it appears to have been rather awkwardly forced between the dates of ‘Le 27. Decembre’ and ‘Le 28. Decembre’, when 25 and 26 December have already been dealt with on pp.188-9. Was it an afterthought or did it arrive late at the printer’s?230 p.294: ‘Sonet. Sur l’Ostende assigée [sic]. [Begin:] ‘Ce tertre est le theatre, ou les foudres de Mars ...’, signed: De Neree.231 It is tempting to ascribe all the translations, whether signed or not, to one and the same poet. The name may have been added only to those deemed sufficiently successful, or they may have been treated differently if they were taken to Van Haestens at various times. Jean de la Haye, preacher at The Hague, wrote the French translation of Van Meteren (1618) as well as the Dutch translation of La repentance

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de Jean Haren, published by Louis Elzevier in 1610, neither offering much scope for poetry.232 The theory that De Nerée was the only verse translator in La Nouvelle Troye is supported by the prose résumé of the jibe ‘Den Spaignaerts sullen haest’ of Bloedige Belegeringhe / Beschrijvinghe: ‘On avoit aussi au mesme temps semé un pasquil dont le contenu estoit, Que les Espagnols chanteroyent en peu de iours une chanson laquelle nt [sic] plairoit guerres [sic] à l’Archiduc’ [italics in the text]233. A translator able elsewhere to put verse into verse should not have found these simple lines beyond his powers, but he certainly did not do it here: why? Again, a gradual supply of verses to the printer, who would then have had to insert them in the prose text as best he could, would account for the awkward position of the ‘Je Ostende’ pasquil and its adjoining paragraph mentioned above, as well as for its remarkably high quality: the translator may have taken his time particularly over this. Richard or, to give him his full name, Richard Jean de Nerée was an accomplished poet.234 Apart from the theological treatise, Inventaire des inconveniants, which Van Haestens printed in 1619, strictly in prose of course,235 both he and Louis Elzevier had printed some laudatory verses by him.236 His contributions to his new book could be regarded as a feather in Van Haestens’s cap. 4. Fleming Oostende A4r: chronograms;237 A4v-B1v: the long laudatory poem which has already been mentioned above;238 p.57: ‘Regius Arragonum sanguis...O Conincklijcke stam’ as in Bloedige Belegeringhe / Beschrijvinghe, complete with authorship statement; p.165: ‘Pasquille...Den Spaengiaerts sullen haest’, taken over from the Beschrijvinghe, p.106; p.344: ‘Als 68 mael...’, within a paragraph taken over from the Beschrijvinghe, pp.135-6, but using numerals in place of letters. And that is all. In view of the author’s declared intention of presenting an unadorned, truthful narrative, the absence of other and espe-

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cially new patriotic or emotionally tinged poems is not surprising. It results however in a characteristic difference in the approach to their subject matter between the two authors. While it is alas impossible to be sure how contemporary readers may have reacted, perhaps the touch of literary aspiration on the one hand and the appearance of dogged adherence to recorded fact on the other have contributed to the greater respect accorded to Fleming in 19th and 20th-century historiography. The modern student of history knows that he would be ill-advised to disregard verse: many political pamphlets are written wholly or partly in verse or consist of songs; if they hold nothing else not known from elsewhere, they record the kind of information available or propaganda in vogue at the time of their production and the way facts became known and opinions were propagated to readers and listeners. What is so interesting in the Van Haestens Ostend books is surely precisely the mix of prose texts taken to such a large extent from existing sources (the Belägerung in its French translation, the listed ‘scholarly’ works, ‘archives’ and other quotations, much of this material of as much eyewitness credibility as Fleming’s own), and verses, again to some degree derived from published sources (e.g. the chronograms, Grotius) and in some instances specially produced (Heinsius, De Nerée, perhaps Beheyt). It must be left to the literary critic to decide how successfully all these pieces are welded together; to the dedicated student of seventeenth-century Dutch books they must remain pleasing additions to, rather than irritating interruptions in, the unremitting progress of a tale of horror and hardship. * Having analysed the books, now the Ostend poems themselves, with contemporary or later printed translations. For poems lacking any earlier translations I have supplied attempts of my own. Spelling of i/j and u/v has been retained; ligatures have been resolved and expanded letters italicised in the usual way. I. DANIEL HEINSIUS i. ‘Quem facta coelo’ occurs in all Van Haestens’s Ostend books, but is not included in any of the 17th-century editions of the scholar-

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poet’s Poemata. A modern, critical edition still remains a desideratum. It was written at the earliest in December 1612, more probably in early 1613. Maurice did not attend in person when James I created him Knight of the Garter at the ceremony in London in December 1612, when the same distinction was conferred on Frederick V, Count Palatine, prior to his marriage to the Princess Elizabeth. Maurice immediately adopted the Garter in his arms. [In honour of Prince Maurice]239 Quem facta coelo, fama consecrat terris, E cuius armis pax renascitur Belgis,240 Nassauiorum non domabilis Mauors, Post fulminatum saepe qua patet Rhenum, Et saepe fusas gentis Asturum turmas,241 Vacat trophaeis praemijsque, non bello. Nunc illi abunde laudibus coronato, Ne qua indecorus viuat aut inornatus, Hinc serto & inde fascia triumphali, Caput Batauus, crus Britannus inuoluit. D. H. /D. Heynsius. Honi soit qui mal y pense239 Whom deeds raise to the sky, all earth proclaims in fame, out of whose feats of arms new peace to Belgium came,240 of Nassau’s house the indomitable Mars, oft having thundered o’er the branching Rhine, and oft dispelled hordes of Asturia’s line,241 he may enjoy his trophies, prizes now, not wars. Praise in abundance garlands for him winds, but lest undecorated, unadorned he be, his brow the Dutchman everywhere with triumph’s fillet binds, the Briton binds meanwhile the Garter to his knee. ii. ‘Aenschout het klein tooneel’ is the best known and most easily accessible of the poems by Heinsius which Van Haestens was happy to offer his readers, since it occurs not only in his own books but also in Heinsius’s collected poems. It was printed in the 1616 edition and all subsequent editions of his Nederduytsche Poemata (1616: pp.12-3),

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with only very slight variations in spelling when compared with Van Haestens. Reproduced from the Bloedige Belegeringhe.242 Op het belegh van Oostende Aenschout het kleyn tooneel, het graf der vromer helden Die voor het Nederlandt haer lijf te pande stelden, Den dorren mollen hoop243 besprengt met menschen bloet, Bestreden van de pest, de vyandt, en de vloedt, Bevochten en bewaert met al de Elementen, Vier, water, aerd’ en locht: maer meest met Spaenschen renten En ’t Indiaensche gout. daer Hollant met verdrijft Den Spaniaert uyt het landt, en selve meester blijft. De wereld wacht het endt, den hemel telt de jaeren, En siet het wonder aen. Daer eerst de wallen waeren Is nu des vyandts macht. den Spaniaert komt gegaen Int midden van de stadt, noch heeft hy daer niet aen. De menschen houden plaets, die doot sijn en die leven, Selff die verslaghen zijn en willent noch niet geven, Zy stellen haer te weer. want daer de aerde wijckt Daer wort sy wederom met menschen vlees gedijckt.244 Waer wilt de vyandt zijn? wat heeft hy toch begonnen? OOSTENDE is hy quijt, al heeft hyt al gewonnen. De menschen staen int sandt. hoe dat het komt of gaet, De stadt is lange wech: de Spaniaert245 komt te laet. D.H. On the siege of Ostend Behold the little stage, of heroes true the grave who for the Netherland their lives in forfeit gave, The barren molehill243 which, sprinkled with human blood, is ravaged by the plague, the enemy, the flood, fought over and preserved by all the elements, fire, water, earth and air: but most by Spanish rents and Indian gold whereby Holland is set to sweep the Spaniard from the land and mastery to keep. The world awaits the end, the heavens count the years and wonder at the sight. Where once were walls and piers, the enemy holds sway. The Spaniard strides about

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the very heart of town, but it avails him nought. Our men, alive or dead, hold on and keep their place, the slain themselves refuse e’en so to quit the race, resisting to the last: when there’s no earth to build another dike, it is with human bodies filled.244 Where would the enemy be? what is it he has done? Ostend is lost to him in spite of having won. The men stand in the sand uncertain of their fate; the town has long been gone: the Spaniard245 is too late. iii. The epigrams which Heinsius, according to Van Haestens, left at the Ostend inn when he visited the town.246 If it seems strange to think of a civilian, in fact a young university lecturer,247 quite unnecessarily visiting a scene of such horror and danger, we must remember that it had become almost fashionable to do just that.248 Sightseers, while probably irritating the military, may also have contributed to the maintenance of morale among the troops, sufficient reason for such visits to be tolerated and even perhaps encouraged by the governors. In the event, matters may have turned out rather too hot for Heinsius’s liking and he beat a hasty retreat, leaving his newly written verses behind. Van Haestens does not record who then found and preserved them, nor how they came finally into his hands. The most likely explanation may be that Richard de Nerée got them, perhaps directly from the innkeeper, and later passed them to Van Haestens, with or as yet without the translations. Surprisingly Heinsius does not seem ever to have claimed them back, nor, what would have been easy enough, did he copy the published text: they do not appear in any edition of his Latin and Greek Poemata between 1613 and 1649. True, he there bemoans the loss of several poems,249 in return for which he offers the honest finder nothing less than that ‘Basia bina Venus roseis furtiva labellis Spondet… et his si quid dulcius esse potest’ [With her rosy lips Venus will bestow on him two furtive kisses at a time and whatever there may be even sweeter than these], together with new verses he will address to him. But these lines as well as the preceding part of this elegy make it absolutely clear that the ‘lost’ verses sought here were of an amatory rather than a heroic nature. Were these verses then in fact written by Heinsius? Or could Van

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Haestens have been mistaken or intentionally have made a false claim for them? This, I believe, is highly improbable because Heinsius could so easily have objected to their publication under his name, nor do I think would Elzevier have connived at such an error or fraud. Here then are Heinsius’s Ostend epigrams, each accompanied by the French version by Richard de Nerée: (a) IN OSTENDAM. Fama loci superest, pontus prope possidet ipsam: Et damnum tantis sumptibus emit Iber. Sur Ostende. L’Ocean a peu prez a l’Ostende empietée Et n’en reste a jamais que le nom seulement, L’Espaignol la prenant a sa perte achaptee. Et la tient comme on fait un triste monument. (b) In antiquam OSTENDAM quam mare nunc habet. Tradidit haec ponto Batavus, ne traderet hosti Moenia. cognati pontus & ille sumus. Sero venit Iber. nihil est quod vincere possit, Altera pars bello, caetera cessit aquae. Sur la vieille ville d’OSTENDE. Les braves Hollandois ont vendu ces murailles A Neptun leur cousin qui les tient de leurs mains? L’Espaignol n’en a rien, que pour ses funerailles, Et marquer ses efforts autant tardifs que vains. (c) In Manes omnium Heroum qui OSTENDAE occubuerunt. ’Hr¤on ¥r≈vn neo¤lion ≥ går ¶hya DeinÚw égΔn, poll«n émf‹ seË Ùllum°nvn, To›sin nËn tÒde ke¤yv §pe‹ nekÊessin éoido‹ Proye›nai b¤oion moËnoi §pisãmeya. Epitaphe sur tous ceux qui sont demeurés a OSTENDE. Tombeau des grands Heros, dont la juste querelle

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Deffendue asprement par tant de braves corps, Il faut bien desormais qu’Ilion on t’apelle Puis qu’on a fait des monts de tes gens d’armes morts. Leur gloire & leur honneur par mille & mille carmes Eternels se rendront en despit de la mort, Puis que les Poëtes seuls affranchissent les ames, De la rigueur des lois du destin & du sort. iv. The following pair of poems is printed in the Belägerung only, where it occurs on f.A5v of part 3, filling the last printed page of the whole book. There is no explanatory introduction and no author is named. The attribution to Heinsius rests precariously on Baudaert’s quotation of the couplet ‘Cedat Troia ... non fuit orbe labor’ at the end of his chapter on Ostend.250 (a) IN SLVSIAM Flandrorum ad Boream moderatrix Slusia fluxis Vicini in vires ambitiosa maris; Splendida marmoreo & regali carcere,251 plena Milite, tormentis dira tremenda rate. Dum froenum Pelago & terris iniecerat, armis Omnibus invicta & credita, victa fama est; Victa fama est, sed cincta tuis illustribus armis Mauriti, & coram dum fremit hostis Iber, Ne simile huic quidquam iactet Romano Pelasgo Aut si qua bello clarior vlla acies. (b) IN OSTENDAM Nulla vnquam acies defensa vrbs nulla petita Acrius, Heroum aut nobilior tumulis. Tu vatum aeternis vrbs sola es digna Camoenis Thebana & Tyria, dignior & Solymis Cedat Troia animis, cedat Carthago ruinis, OSTENDAE similis, non fuit orbe labor. Empta quidem caré est pars altera & altera Ibero Optata cedit, Conditione vices. (a) On Sluis Sluis that imposes bounds on Flanders’ northern flow,

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Eyeing the ocean’s strength from nearby shore, Resplendent with a marble royal jail,251 filled now With soldiers, guns and dreadful men-of-war; having curbed land and sea, all armies she could face, Unconquerable, trusted, yet subdued by fame, Fame, as your glorious arms, Maurice, embrace Her walls, while Spanish enemies before you foam, Lest aught alike be flung at Greece, at Rome, If ever war on arms bestowed a brighter name. (b) On Ostend Line never saw such hot defence nor town desire, Nor tombs of Heroes made a nobler fane, Worthy alone, Ostend, the poet’s Muse to inspire: Thebes, Tyre, Jerusalem herself compete in vain, Nowhere in spirit is Troy, in ruins Carthage near. Like Ostend’s toil the whole world knows not one. Each part the Spaniard bought has cost him dear. Longed for she yields, but terms in turn has won.

II. HUGO GROTIUS i. The poem addressed to Francisco de Mendoza, Marquis of Guadalesco, Admiral of Aragon, belongs to the cycle of poems Grotius had composed on the Sand Yacht expedition in 1602 in which both had taken part,252 Grotius, still only just nineteen years old,253 as an honoured guest, Mendoza as a prisoner to whom this favour was extended, surely not without political motives, at the least to impress him. He had been taken prisoner at Nieuwpoort in 1600 and was to be released in May 1602 under a prisoners’ exchange scheme.254 The famous Sand Yacht was the invention of Simon Stevin, mathematician, engineer and military architect in Maurice’s employ. The run along Scheveningen beach was a great and much admired event. Grotius’s poems were written for the engraving by Willem Swanenburgh after a drawing by Jacques de Gheyn. They were printed in 1603 by none other than Henrick van Haestens to accompany this engraving on a broadsheet and published jointly by him and Hans Christoffel van Sichem.255 Christoffel van Sichem the

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Elder used the earlier engraving as model for one of his own depicting an ice yacht following the same principles as Stevin’s sand yacht, then appended a poem to it in three versions, one in Dutch, one in German, both published in Leiden in 1605, the text probably once more printed by Van Haestens, the third with the Dutch text accompanied by a French translation and published in Amsterdam, probably not before 1606.256 Through the 1619 edition of the Nassauschen lauren-crans the Mendoza poem also passed into its reprint, Wilhelm en Maurits, of 1651. The following are the Latin and Dutch texts from the Bloedige Belegeringhe / Beschrijvinghe and the French translation from La Nouvelle Troye: (a) [To Francisco de Mendoza, Admiral of Aragon] Regius Arragonum sanguis, quem Bructera tellus Horruit, & Rheni prima bicornis aqua,257 Captus in Auriaco258 traheris, Mendoza, Triumpho; Quàm subito fastus detumnêre tui! Te tenet AEolius carcer, te littore nostro Velifero in curru mobilis aura rapit. Qualem Pleumosiûm si tunc habuisset arena,259 Victorem poteras anticipasse fugâ. (b) Dat is: O Conincklijcke stam van Arragon, die Cleven En al’t Westfaelsche land nu laestmael hebt doen beven, En ’t water daer den Rhijn sijn eerste hoornen staen,257 Hoe haest is dijne pracht Mendoza nu vergaen? In onses Vorsts Triumph werdt ghy geleyt ghevangen: Die Wagen die u voert is met een zeyl behangen: En hadt ghy sulcken een ghehadt opt Vlaemsche strandt,259 Ghy hadt daer me [sic] seer wel ontvloon des Winners handt. (c) C’est a dire. O! sang Arragonois de descente Royale, Qui a esté l’horreur du pais de Westphale, Et des lieux ou le Rhin commence a se fourcher257 Combien tost on a veu ton orgueil trebuscher!

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Aeole te detient & sur nostre rivage Vn chariot t’emporte aussi prompt qu’un orage, Si sur le bord Flandrois259 tu eusses eu cest heur, Tu fusses en fuyant eschappé au vainqueur. ii. ‘Area parva ducum’ is the Ostend poem par excellence. It was first printed on a map by Floris Balthasarsz in 1604260 and its fame spread widely. Its influence can be felt in poems by other authors. It was explicitly translated and imitated by numerous poets, especially in France where a whole volume of such versions, entitled simply Ostende, appeared showing the date 1604 on its title-page, whether to indicate the date of the event, the date of publication, or both.261 Authorship by then was uncertain, but when Van Haestens printed it in the Beschrijvinghe in 1614, he at least no longer doubted that it was the work of Grotius. It was later also included in the first edition of Grotius’s collected poems which came from the press in 1616.262 The following are the texts (a) as printed in the Beschrijvinghe, (b) its most famous translation into French by François Malherbe,263 (c) its English translation by William Sotheby,264 and (d) another English translation by E.H. Bodkin.265 (a) Ostenda loquitur, necdum capta266 Area parva ducum, totus quam respicit Orbis, Altior267 una malis, & quam damnare ruinae Nunc quoque fata timent, alieno littore resto. Tertius annus abit, toties mutavimus hostem, Saevit hyems pelago, morbisque fluentibus aestas: Et minimum est quod fecit Iber, crudelior armis In nos orta lues, nullum est sine funere funus; Nec perimit mors una semel. Fortuna quid haeres? Qua mercede tenes mistos in sanguine manes? Qui tumulos moriens hos occupet hoste perempto Quaeritur, & sterili tantum268 de pulvere pugna est. (b) Prosopopée d’Ostende, Stances Trois ans desja passez, theatre de la guerre, J’exerce de deux chefs les funestes combas, Et fais esmerveiller tous les yeux de la terre,

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De voir que le malheur ne m’ose mettre à bas. A la mercy du ciel en ces rives je reste, Ou je souffre l’hiver, froid à l’extremité; Lorsque l’esté revient, il m’apporte la peste, Et le glaive est le moins de ma calamité. Tout ce dont la Fortune afflige ceste vie, Pesle-mesle assemblé, me presse tellement Que c’est parmi les miens estre digne d’envie Que de pouvoir mourir d’une mort seulement. Que tardez-vous, Destins? ceci n’est pas matiere Qu’avecque tant de doute il faille decider; Toute la question n’est que d’un cimetiere: Prononcez librement qui le doit posseder. (c) Scant battle-field of Chiefs, thro’ earth renown’d, Opprest, I loftier tow’r; - and, now, while Fate Dreads to destroy, in foreign soil I stand. Thrice chang’d the year, thrice have we chang’d the Foe. Fierce Winter chafes the Deep, the Summer burns With fell disease: less fell th’Iberian sword. Dire Pestilence spreads; - on funerals funerals swell: Nor does one death at once extirpate all. Why, Fortune! linger? why our souls detain With blood immingled? Who, the Foe extinct, Who, dying, shall these sepulchres possess, And in this sterile dust the conflict close? W.S. March 28, 1826. (d) “Prosopopoeia” or “Ostenda loquitur”269 A little stage for war, hallowed by death, Observed of all the world, which Fate e’en now Fears to betray, on alien shore I lie. The third year passes; thrice the foe have changed; Fierce winter’s storms, summer’s devouring plague And less than these the Spanish host. A scourge More cruel than arms devises double death;

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Each corpse demands a fellow; Haste, Ye Fates; What profit shades that haunt a stricken field? What last poor dying wretch, his foemen dead, Shall hold these barren sands, is all the fight.

III. MAERTEN BEHEYT Though represented in Karel van Mander’s poetry compilation, Den Nederduytschen Helicon,270 little is known about him, nor, as far as I know, have his poems been collected.271 It seems that those on the siege of Ostend had not been printed before, but they may have existed in manuscript and thus come into the hands of Van Haestens. Or Beheyt, a member of the Leiden Chamber of Rhetoric ‘Het Leydsch Orangien Lely-hof’ and thus, as a fellow refugee from the Spanish Netherlands, personally known to Van Haestens, may have specially written them for this book. After their appearance in 1613 and 1614 the whole of ‘Achtelijng’ - without the title - and the first six lines of the Bloedige Belegeringhe’s ‘Besluyt-reden’ - with a few changes - returned once more in the Nassauschen lauren-crans of 1619 and thus survived also in its 1651 reprint, Wilhelm en Maurits. i. Achtelijng. Lesers merckt hier ernst en vlijdt Int aenhoren weest verwondert, Veel gheschut, in weinig tijdt Vast ghestelt, heeft straff ghedondert Dach en nacht tot menich hondert Schoten, zeven weken, daer Leeuwen hertich uytghesondert Dronghen voorts int groot misbaer. Met Arbeyt heen. Eightliner. Readers note here drive and thrust, in the hearing be amazed, many guns, that only just were set up, their thunder blazed day and night, in hundreds sounded

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seven weeks without relief, lionhearted forward pounded, havoc caused and mounting grief. ii. Besluyt-reden.272 Hier eyndt de moortel-merckt,273 s’doods feest heeft een besluyt, De Spangiaert heeft gebraen den haring om de kuyt,274 Voor Doms en veel Seigneurs275 ghebleven hier ter plecken Krijght hy een plaets bestroyt, met schilpen,276 Puyn en slecken, Voor menich schoon stuk gout ghetelt in Werckmans hand Krijght hy onvruchtbaar houdt gheheyt in dorre zand, Hy queet hem eertijts kloeck int Oosten, Zuydt en westen, Hier heeft hy t’hooft bewaert, gaf elders t’lijff ten besten Te missen vier voor een, is sijn vierhoekich kruys Eerst Rhin-berck, dan de Graeff voorts Ardenburgh en Sluys,277 Den doorn waer uyt den voet, de pijne wijdt versonden Waer t’lichaem niet ghequetst met versche diepe wonden Int spitten van dit hoff vont hy ajuyn en loock Tis waer hy blusschet licht maer sluyt de keet vol roock, Hy docht met eeren kleedt hoochmoedich wech te treden, Maer heeft slechts Leeuwen-huyd, doorhackelt en doorsneden, Waer van hy hooft noch steert, noch rugge-stuck noch buyck En heeft te pas ghebracht tot sijn en s’Lands ghebruyck, Dus heeft hy seer ghefaelt, als acht hyt voor een sterck,,schoff, Hy heeft te dier betaelt t’Oostensche Geusen kerck,,hoff. Met Arbeyt heen. Epilogue272 Here ends the rubble mart,273 death’s feast has reached its close, the Spaniard has now roasted the herring for its roes,274 for Dons and Signors275 plenty now lying in this soil he gets a place encrusted with mussels,276 slugs and spoil, for many a golden guinea paid into workmen’s hands he gets infertile brambles rooted in barren sands, he who in far-off regions has shown him brave in strife, here has preserved his neck when elsewhere he gave his life. Let go of four to gain one, that is his four-square cross, first Rheinberg, then were Grave, Aardenburg, Sluis his loss.277

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The thorn would from the foot be, the pain have cleared off far, were not the body burdened with fresher, deeper scar. In digging of this garden onion he found and leek, t’is where he snuffs the candle but fills the cot with reek. He thought in robes of honour magnificent to strut, but got a hide of Lion, all ripped and rent and cut, from which not head nor tail-end, not belly, flank or back he could to his own measure or Spain’s use fit or tack, thus has he failed most gravely as if he thought it clear-shame, for Ostend’s Geuzen churchyard the price he paid too dearcame.

IV. RICHARD JEAN DE NERÉE According to the available biographical sketch,278 De Nerée was a student at Leiden at the time of the siege, which does not exclude the possibility that he should have visited the Dutch troops there, perhaps learning the duties of an army chaplain, a function he held for many years at a later stage in his life. His contribution to the books of Van Haestens and Orlers comes in the form not only of his translations,but also of compositions of his own.279 Those here reproduced are (1) his Latin poem from the Beschrijvinghe, (2) the French sonnet in praise of Maurice from La Nouvelle Troye and also found in the second French edition of the Nassauschen lauren-crans added to La Genealogie (1615),280 and (3) his French sonnet from La Nouvelle Troye on Ostend besieged, in which there are strong echoes of Grotius and Heinsius as well as the same classical allusions as in his own earlier sonnet. i. Epigramma Dialogismi forma propositum. Viator al[l]oquitur OSTENDAM. Si quis contulerit, quid sis fuerisque quid olim, Illi OSTENDA tui nominis281 omen erit. Quid tecta ostentas tua nunc Magalica282 quondam, Et piscatores283 quas coluere casas: Fossa cruenta, gemens es caesorumque sepulchrum: Plena cadaveribus carnificina tuis.

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Pestilis inficiat gravis unde vel halitus auras, Ipsi quo pisces, quo moriantur aves. Cum sint Oceani mersae tot fluctibus urbes, Neptuno innocuas tot superantur domus: Mirum, te caput hinc vel adhuc Ostendere caelo, Non ferro, flammis, non maris amne tegi. OSTENDA respondet. Cur mirare! Deo me debeo Servatori, Quales cunque meas ille tuetur opes. Portus eram, fateor, Piscatorumque receptus, Parvus, & ignoti littoris ante locus. Sed postquam BATAVI patriam coepere tueri, Immane adversus fulmen, Ibere, tuum. Portus pugnantum propugnaclumque legebar, Tres annos contra fulmina fortis eram. Immani donec superante licentius hoste, Austriaco cessi praeda petita Duci. PRINCIPE MAURITIO, Patrumque potentibus284 armis Sustinui hostiles per mala quaeque manus. Sic erat in fatis: rupto sic aggere torrens Involuit segetes, tecta domosque trahit. Quicquid eram quondam, sum nunc OSTENDA sepulchrum Pro patria fortes qui cecidere, virûm. Sed mihi quis probro vertat, quod saepe negatum Mille locis? Uni contigit esse mihi, Non tetros, gratos hinc spiro perennis odores, Et flores natos fundo cruore virûm. Et nunc Ostentis: mea gloria sanguine parta Quid mundi magnis, nescio majus habet. N. R. Epigram put forward in the form of a dispute. The Wayfarer adresses OSTEND. Comparing your state now with what you once have been, Your name, OSTEND,281 does like an omen sound. What roofs have you to show where once were seen Streets and the homes of fishermen283 were found:

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A gory ditch of sighs, the grave of men who fell Are you, full of the bones of those you slew. Whence foul airs blow their pestilential smell, Killing the fish that swam, the birds that flew. When under Ocean’s waves so many cities lie, So many innocuous homes are Neptune’s prey, I wonder to the sky you still dare show your face Rather than let steel, fire or flood hide your disgrace. OSTEND replies. Why wonder? God my Saviour is, I’m in His hand, He will protect my own such as it be. Yes, port I was, fishermen’s shelt’ring land, A small and unknown hamlet by the sea. But once the Dutch their country’s cause espoused Against your Spanish lightning’s vast array, I was elected port, their troops I housed And for three years the lightning held at bay. Until the foe at last prevailed in force and only then I fell, allowed the Archduke his long hoped-for win. MAURICE my PRINCE, the Senate’s mighty284 men Made me withstand those hordes through thick and thin. Thus did the fates decree; the dyke once burst, the wave Engulfed the fields and swept the town aside. Whatever I have been, now am, OSTEND, the grave Of those brave men who for their country died. Who dares to call it shame what I denied so oft In thousand places? Mine alone this right! Not foul, sweet are the scents I spread aloft And from blood-nourished soil raise flowers to the light. A portent still, my fame so dearly won: Of all the world acclaims, greater than this is none. ii. Sonet sur son Excell. Monseigneur le Prince Maurice de Nassau, &c. Au quel sont comparés les plus grands & signalés guerriers qui ayent iamais porté les armes. Parmi tant de lauriers, qu’au milieu des hasards Alexandre & Caesar ont gaigné par leurs armes,

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On n’en void [sic] point d’esgaux à ceux que nostre Mars A ravis au plus fort des plus chaudes alarmes. Alexandre n’a pas surmonté des soudarts Ains des femmes d’Asie ayant pour coeur des larmes: Caesar bande aux Gaulois les Gaulois estendarts, N’en pouvant triompher qu’en leurs propres vacarmes. Mais ce grand DE NASSAU, cet indomtable Mars, Ou chamaillant des camps ou forçant des rampars, A vaincu par son bras l’Espagne & l’Inde en Flandre, Disons donc qu’on le doibt croire icy sans esgal; Que pour Pyrrhe il seroit cogneu par Hannibal; Plus qu'en France un Caesar ou qu’en Perse Alexandre. DE NEREE.285 iii. Sur l’Ostende assigée. Ce tertre est le theatre, ou les foudres de Mars, Les durs fleaux de la faim, de la peste & l’orage, Ont long temps fait monter leurs guerriers estendars, Et engrossi des monts de meurtre & de carnage, Au lieu de terre on a, pour munir ses rampars, Et rehausser souvent son applani rivage, Entassé à monceaux mille et mille soudars, Alexandres en coeur, & Caesars en courage. Nonobstant les horreurs de ces cruels combats, Nul ne veut le premier mettre les armes bas: Tant & tant acharnés sont ces braves gensd’armes. L’Espagnol la prenant il ne l’a toutesfois: Ja la tient l’Ocean des mains des Hollandois: Et tard la vont forçant les Iberiques armes. DE NEREE.

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V. ANONYMA Anonymous verses in Latin and/or Dutch are scattered through the Bloedige Belegeringhe, the Beschrijvinghe, La Nouvelle Troye and Fleming Oostende (in part repeated), with one new short Ostend poem added to the 1619 edition of the Nassauschen lauren-crans, which makes use of several of the previously published poems as well.286 They are in part derived from the early chronicles of Flanders, in part probably found in existing records of the siege or were specially composed during its course or in its wake. Two ‘pasquils’, which may have had a Spanish or Dutch, but certainly no German source, are found in quite skilful German versions in the Belägerung. i. Verses from the chronicles of Flanders. Van Haestens quotes from the Groote Chronijcke, the Magnum Chronicon and La Grande Chronique, by which he describes one and the same work: the anonymous Dits die excellente cronike van Vlaenderen.287 References to the Corte Chronijck van Vlaenderen apply to De cronijcke van Vlaenderen in tcorte.288 The word ‘incarnacion’ describes a chronogram. (a) On an exceptional catch of whales in 1403: ‘Incarnacion in Latijne’ oCto CapIt Laetè praegranDIa FLanDrIa Cete. Chronogram in Latin Joyfully Flanders hails a catch of eight huge whales: 1403. Dit is ’t Incarnacion in Vlaemsche. OostenDe VVeet Dat Vp BrICtIVs naChte GheVanghen VVaren VVaLVIssen aChte. This is the Chronogram in Flemish On Brictius’ eve, let Ostend know eight whales were caught all in a row: 1403. See: Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.64; Beschrijvinghe, p.67 (‘Haec Chronicon magnum Twelck hier in volght de Corte Chronijck van Vlaenderen’);289 Nouvelle Troye, p.83 (Latin version only).

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(b) On a disastrous flood in 1477: Een fortseLIke Zee Vp SInte CosMas dach Den VoLke deed’ (o VVee!) bedryVen handtgesLaCh. High on St Cosmas’ Day rose up the sea, The people wrung their hands, oh woe is me: 1477. See: Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.65; Beschrijvinghe, p.68 (‘Magnum Chronicon Flandriae cap.66, fol.195’).290 (c) On storm damage in 1479: SVVare sChade rees Vp SInte IorIs naCht By bLIxeM en des donders CraCht. Much harm came on St George’s night through lightning and the thunder’s might: 1479. See: Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.67; Beschrijvinghe, p.70 (‘Idem Chronicon [= Groote Chronijck van Vlaenderen] cap. eod. [= cap.67] fol. 212’)291 ii. The verses composed by ‘a certain good gentleman’. Epigramma. Als achtensestich mael de Vyand heftich schoot, En brack de Turff aen tween; sprack yemand uyt de Vloot, Nu weet ick waer dat blijft sijn schat en swijdich gelt Voor Turven werden hem, siet britten aengetelt. Een ander. En soudt den Vyandt niet in sijn ghemoet verdrieten Nae een Carviel met Turff soo meenich mael te schieten! Wat soude hy niet doen om ’t lieve Hollands bloed, Die soo veel om den Turff en ’Tveen van Holland doet? Epigram. When eight and sixty times the foe with fury shot, And broke the peat in twain, a seaman spoke ‘I wot Now where remain his gold and coins so neat: For turves, you see, he gets no more than lumps of peat. Another one. And should the enemy not smoulder in his heart That on a load of peat he wasted so much art !

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What effort would he not attempt for Holland’s blood Who makes so much ado for Holland’s peat and mud? See: Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.l39; Beschrijvinghe, p.l36; Fleming Oostende, p.344. iii. The ‘Pasquils’ (a) De Spaignaerts sullen haest een liedeken singen in corten dagen Dat Albertus van Oostenrijck niet sal behaghen. The Spaniards will ere long intone a boist’rous song: To Archduke Albert’s ear it will bring little cheer. See: Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.107; Beschrijvinghe, p.106; Fleming Oostende, p.165. Pasquil oder Schmeschrifft Die Spanier vverden ein Liedlin singen in kurtzen tagen, Darauff der Pfaff292 vvider seinen vvillen vvirdt Alleluya sagen. The Spaniards will ere long intone a boist’rous song: The priest against his will shall ‘Hallelujah’trill. See: Belägerung, pt.1, f.16[D4]v. (b) ‘Desen Pasquil ofte t’samen-spraeck is ghestroyt deur des Erts-Hertoghen Legher’ [This Pasquil or dialogue was scattered through the Archduke’s camp]. Ick Ostende ostendo/bewijs dat ick niet ben Papau:293 Ghy Ostende ostendis/bewijst dat ghy zijt goed Nassau: Dit Ostende ostendit/bewijst sijn stantvasticheyt goet: Wy Ostendenaers ostendimus/bewijsen te hebben goeden moet: Ghy Ostendenaers ostenditis/bewijst dat u soldaten zijn afgericht: Sy Ostendenaers ostendunt/bewijsen Ostende te verlaten nicht: O Ostende ostende/bewijst getrouwicheyt tot den endt: So sal Ostende ostendens/bewijsende volstandicheyt zijn bekendt. See: Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.114; Beschrijvinghe, p.113. Disz nachfolgende Pasquil ist vber all vmb dise Zeitt zerstrowet worden Pasquil Ich Ostende, Ostendo, nicht zu sein Papavv.293

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Du Ostende, Ostendis, zu sein gut Nassavv Disz Ostende, Ostendit, seine standthafftigkeit guth Vvir Ostendeners, ostendimus, zu haben guten muth Ihr Ostendeners, ostenditis, zu sein Soldaten abg’richt, Sie Ostendeners, ostendunt, ostende zu verlassen nicht O Ostende, ostende, getravvigkeit bis zum endt So vvirdt Ostenden, ostendens, volstendigkeit sein bekendt.294 See: Belägerung, pt.l, f.19[E3]v. ‘Ce Pasquil ou Colloque fut semé au Camp de l’Archiduc.’ Je Ostende ostendo, que je ne suis point Papau:293 Toy Ostende ostendis, que tu es pour Nassau: Ceste Ostende ostendit, son tres constant visage: Nous Ostendois ostendimus, qu’avons tres bon courage: Vous Ostendois ostenditis, qu’estes tous bons soldats: Ces Ostendois ostendunt, qu’ils te ne quittrons pas: O Ostende ostende, ta foy jusqu’a l’issuë: Lors d’Ostende ostendens, l’ardeur sera cognuë. See : Nouvelle Troye, p.191. iv. A soldier’s battle song The passage preceding these verses tells of an impending attack by the Spanish forces for which the defenders of the town are preparing: ‘Die van der Stadt dit merckende, hebben op haer aencomste de Bancquetten ghereet ghemaeckt, om den Erts-Hertoch wellecom te heeten’ [Those of the town on becoming aware of this, prepared the banquets to welcome the Archduke]: Ick bleef veel liever t’huys, dan dat ick soud verbrast Mijn vrienden weygrich zijn, en nimmer gaen te gast: Want op alsulck Bancquet daer stael en yser blickt, Daer geeftmen wel een brock, daer menichman aenstickt I’d sooner ’ve stayed at home than that in idle rest I should refuse my friends and never go as guest: For at these banquets where bright steel and iron glow, There mouthfuls are dished out to choke both friend and foe. See: Bloedige Belegeringhe, p.153; Beschrijvinghe, p.l50.

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v. The chronograms set by Meuris at the head of Fleming Oostende. These are neither good verses nor do they add up as dates. Something seems to have gone wrong with them and Meuris would have done better not to accept them. Let the reader now judge and perhaps make sense of them. Incarnatie. Oostende VVIerde beLegert fel, DrII Iaren tVVee MaenDen VIIfthIen daghen, Daer VVert Veel VoLCk ghesChoten sneL. DIe s’doots Last hIer aL hebben ghedraghen. Chronogram. Ostend its siege so fierce did last Three years two months and fifteen days, Many a man was shot there fast Who’d borne death’s burden on earthly ways. This, even disregarding the three ‘D’s at the beginning of lines, comes in my reckoning to 2052 which is clearly nonsense. Een ander. VVaer hoorde Men oInt van soo straf beLegghen ALs Voor Oostende Is ghesChIet Dat so Langhe dVIIrde, VVilt nV DoCh segghen Soo bloedICh, in soo groot VerdrIet. Another. Did ever man besieging know As was around Ostend drawn taut, Which took so long, oh say it now, So bloody, with such anguish fraught. This comes to 2197, again nonsense. Een ander. Oostende VVIIt VerMaert, VVas der SoLdaten sChooL en graf,

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Voor haer tVChthVIs VerClaert. Het VIel hen aL te straf. Another. Ostend so widely famed, The soldiers’ school was and their grave, Their penitentiary also named, Too harsh a punishment it gave. In my reckoning this chronogram reads 1504, alas 100 short. Fleming Oostende, A4r. vi. ’t Belegh van Oostende passeert Troyen ende Carthago. Ostendens langh belegh, ’t ghewelt aldaer bedreven, Met al de listigheyt, en mannelijcke feyten: Soodanigh zijn, dat noch Troia, noch ’t hooch verheeven Carthago, met haer om d’eer sullen durven pleyten. The siege of Ostend surpasses Troy and Carthage. Ostend’s longlasting siege, the force exerted there, With so much cunning skill, and many a manly deed: Is such, not tow’ring Troy nor Carthage fair Would dare for glory’s crown against her plead. See: Nassauschen lauren-crans (1619), p.275. VI. FRANCISCUS VILLERIUS These poems, apparently sent by their author as a private thanksoffering in the letter to his ‘Maecenas’, may have been intended from the start as a contribution to Bilderbeke’s compilation - if he is the compiler, as seems likely. Their introductory phrase: ‘Habes carmen ad Crispini mei novitiam opus’ [Here you have a poem, done in the manner of my Crispinus’s newfangledness], is a rather farfetched allusion to the Stoic philosopher whose poem on the beliefs of his sect became known as a model of empty verbiage.295 Of course, Crispinus might have cropped up in conversation between Villerius and Bilderbeke and therefore be an in-joke between them, incomprehensible to outsiders, an assumption based on the adjective ‘meus’ given by Villerius to his alleged precursor; otherwise he

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could have chosen more easily understood words for the usual expression of self-deprecation.296 ALBERTVS AVSTRIACVS Belgica debetur stanti Victoria: stemus Mi genus, & series spondet fatalis habenas, Sic DEVS instingit: Quantumque ferociat hostis, Sperne, nihil refert. Vana est sine viribus ira. In DIVOS vis nulla valet. Quid Turnius ardor? Aeneae placidam peperit Victoria pacem, Quid Sullae Iulique furor ciuilibus armis. Alta reseruarunt Augusto fata salutem F. Villerius D.D. Mauritius Men’ Irà, studio regnique libidine ferri? Exitiumque ratâ fatorum lege manere? Illud difiteor PRINCEPS, hoc arma docento Impius accusor? Non est ea Martia cura, Nullaque religio tanti, quae sanguine foeda, Tu DEVS, hanc mentem nosti, tu Belgica, mores, Qui Patriae deceant, libertatisque parentem, En belli fortuna fauet: Mea Belgica, stemus F. Villerius D.D. Archduke Albert Victory here belongs to him who’ll stand; Then stand, my House, fated in turn to rule this land. Thus God ordained: to scorn the enemy’s e’en wildest roar. It matters not. Vain is a powerless ire. No force touches the Gods. What use was Turnus’s fire? Victory sweet peace to Aeneas bore. Their civil war not Sulla, Caesar won with all their rage; Augustus ’t was for whom high fate reserved a Golden Age. Maurice What, I be driv’n by rage, ambition, lust for power raw? The outcome fixed remain by fate’s immobile law?

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The one, Prince, I deny, t’other let arms decide. You call me impious? This has in war no part. Religion’s worthless if on murder’s side. Thou, God, knowest my mind, and thou, Belgium, my heart, In tune with Country, bearer of freedom’s wand. War’s fortune, lo, it smiles, My Belgium, let us stand.

Notes

200. For the two pasquils in German see pp.133-4 ; for the Villerius poems see pp.137-9 ; for those attributed to Heinsius see pp.119-21. 201. I.e. the copies in the British Library, London; the Royal Library, The Hague; Leiden University Library; and the three copies referred to by Ponjaert, p.47, as in the City Library, Ostend, all containing the Continuation des sieges with its map of the successive retrenchments made at Ostend. 202. The illustrations in this book are derived from those in the Continuation des sieges, but differ in several details. 203. Neither the title-page allegorical vignettes nor the arms and portrait of Maurice illustrate any particular event; their function is both decorative and generally patriotic, with those relating to Prince Maurice no doubt also serving ulterior ends by currying favour with him and the States General. The illustrations will be dealt with in more detail in ch.11,12. 204. FlO, A4v-Blv. 205. BlB, A1r, in the copy in the Royal Library, The Hague, and other recorded copies, which is the correct original arrangement. The British Library’s copy has been rebound and now has a different arrangement of the preliminary leaves in which this page is A2r. The confusion no doubt arose because the first leaf to bear a signature is signed A3. Once the leaves have for whatever reason come apart it is easily assumed that the titlepage has to be A1 and thus in this copy was bound to precede the leaf bearing the quotation used as a motto which thus became A2. 206. See below, p.117. 207. See below, pp.118-9. 208. This is obviously a quotation from Psalm 127, but I have not been able to trace the translation from which it has been taken. 209. See Ter Meulen & Diermanse, no.396, epigram XVI on the Currus veliferi plate of 1603 (Muller, Historieplaten, Suppl. no. 1157a) in Dutch translation. It is reproduced in Eyffinger, p.64, with reference to the Dutch translation’s authorship on pp.68-9. See above, p.123.

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210. See below, p.132. 211. See below, p.133. 212. See below, p.133. 213. See below, pp.126-7. 214. See below, p.134. 215. See below, pp.134-5. 216. See below, pp.133-4. 217. See below, p.135. 218. See below, pp.127-8. 219. NLcr (1619), p.235, pp.252-75; W&M, p.215. 220. The Psalm translation by Dathenus had become the standard one and the English translation given here is taken from the Authorised Version. 221. See below, pp.124-6. Van Haestens spells the name ‘Botereus’ rather than ‘Botereius’, the form in general use . For a reproduction of this page see Eyffinger, p.57. The quotation comes from De rebus in Gallia ... gestis, vol. 2, p.211 (cf. ch.5, list of works quoted no.14). 222. See below, pp.128-30. 223. See below, pp.132-3. 224. Willems, no.99. 225. The description in Willems refers to a copy of the book in private ownership in which the ‘author’s’ name has been replaced by that of the ‘translator’. It is not made clear whether this substitution was done in manuscript or print. I know of no other record of De la Haye’s connection with this work. 226. Ter Meulen & Diermanse, no.278. 227. See below, pp.130-1. The same poem concludes the second French edition of the Nlcr which is attached to the first French edition of Jan Orlers’s La Genealogie des Illustres Comtes de Nassau (cf. n.280). 228. See below, pp.123-4. 229. See below, pp.120-1. 230. See below, p.135. 231. See below, p.131. 232. On De la Haye see NNBW, vol. 2; also De Bie & Loosjes, vol. 3, pp.5912, with further literature. Neither of these mentions the NTr among his many translations. For his translation of Haren see Willems, no.592. 233. NTr, p.175. 234. On De Nerée see NNBW, vol. 5, and Biografisch lexicon, vol. 1, pp.207-8, neither of which mentions his contributions to the NTr. 235. See Biografisch lexicon, vol. 1, p.208. 236. E.g. Van Haestens in Baudius, Oratio ad studiosos Leidenses (1609); Elzevier in Baudius, Oratio funebris (1609) (published jointly with Andries Clouck); idem, Libri tres de Induciis Belli Belgici (1617), in which he wrote

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French verses, next to those of Heinsius in Latin. 237. See below, pp.136-7. 238. See above, pp.107-8. Beyond the one stanza there provided I consider the text worth neither reprinting nor translating. 239. The poem is printed without a title. The person and occasion celebrated are however made clear by the juxtaposition of the poem and Maurice’s arms incorporating the Garter to which an allusion is made in the last line. 240. The ‘peace’ is actually the Twelve Years’ Truce concluded in 1609. Many people hoped that it would later be turned into a proper peace treaty. 241. References to Maurice’s many successful operations against the Spanish army in various parts of the Netherlands. 242. This poem, in Dutch and English, has been published in Dutch Crossing, no. 49 (1993), pp.127-9. 243. mollenhoop, molehill: alluding to the underground shelters the defenders had to construct and use as their living quarters as more and more of the town became uninhabitable. 244. met menschen vlees gedijckt, another dike ... with human bodies filled: a particularly gruesome aspect of the siege was the recourse which was had to dead bodies for building more ramparts. See BlB, p.157: ‘In dit leste aff ofte deur snijden der Stadt/ het welck by de soldaten ghenaemt wierde nova Troya, als boven geseyt is, byde werck-meesters geordonneert wierde in het delven/ dat sy / so wel de doode lichamen as andere aerde/ inde nieuwe wallen brengen souden (het welck also geschiet is) ende de ghene die sulcx deden hadden van elck doode lichaem thien stuyvers/ soo dat de dooden geen rust hebben mochten/ maer de levendighe noch moesten helpen beschermen/ het welck in gheen Chronicken ghesien noch ghelesen is’ [During this last cutting off or through of the town, which, as has been said, the soldiers called New Troy, the order was given by the foremen that when digging they should use the dead bodies as well as fresh earth for the new ramparts - and so it was done - and those who did this received ten stuivers for every dead body, so that the dead were allowed no rest, but had to help protecting the living, something which is not to be seen or read in any chronicles]. 245. Spaniaert, Spaniard: the reading in Nederduytsche Poemata is ‘Vyandt’, ‘enemy’. 246. NTr, pp.92-3. 247. If Heinsius came to Ostend in 1604 he would have been 24 years old. He was appointed lecturer in Latin at Leiden University in 1602, in poetry in 1603 and was to become professor of Greek there in 1605. 248. All the books tell of visitors. See especially Van Meteren, bk.21, f.48v: ‘Hier door is het belegh van Oostende soo fameus geworden/ met den grooten ernst ende cost van weder-zyden/ dat van alle quartieren de

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belegghers ende de belegerde besocht sijn geweest ... Daar quamen binnen/ om de manieren ende fortificatien te besien/ den Broeder vanden Coning van Denemercken/ den Hertogh van Holsteyn/ met den Grave van Hohenloo/ Graef Jan van Nassou/ den Grave van Northumberland uyt Engelandt: den Grave van Sint Pol/ Gouverneur van Piccardien/ was oock op wege/ maer wert vanden Wint in Zeelandt versteken. Selve den Coning/ Hendrick de vierde/ van Vranckrijck/ quam in Augusto in Cales/ om de gelegentheyt van dit belegh te verstaen’ [Because of this the siege of Ostend became so famous, with the great seriousness and expense on both sides, that people came from all quarters to visit besiegers and besieged. There came, to study the methods and fortifications, the King of Denmark’s brother, the Duke of Holstein, with Count Hohenlohe; Count John of Nassau; the Earl of Northumberland from England. The Count de Saint-Paul, Governor of Picardy, also set out, but the wind carried him to Zeeland. Even King Henry IV of France went to Calais in August to understand the ins and outs of this siege]. BlB, p.22, adds that the Duke of Holstein and Count Hohenlohe spent two nights in the town and expressed their amazement at the siege, before returning unharmed to Zeeland. The description of various visitors ends: ‘Dese swaere Belegeringe gesien hebbende/ hebben niet lange haer plasier aldaer ghehadt/ want sy saghen dat alle ghebraden heet vant spit ghenomen wierde’ [Having seen this hard siege, they did not pursue their amusement there for any length of time, for they saw that all the roasts were eaten hot from the spit]. On the well-known story of the Earl of Northumberland’s bad behaviour at Ostend see Markham, pp.306-7. 249. Heinsius (1621), Eleg.IV. ‘Elegiarum iuvenilium reliquiae’, pp.418-20: ‘Elegias aliquot amissas deplorat’. 250. Although these lines are quoted in all versions of Baudaert’s history, only the Latin one names Heinsius as author of the couplet at the end of the description of the siege (Viva delineatio, pt. 2, p.27). It is part of the text, not inscribed below the plate belonging to it, as is customary with verses explaining the plates. If it was indeed Heinsius who wrote the two inseparable poems, he or his editor Scriverius did not include them in his Poemata. 251. In his chapter on Sluis Guicciardini mentions the castle (though not as built of marble!) belonging to the King of Spain and holding the garrison. It had at times served as prison for such distinguished enemies as the Duke of Bouillon and the Seigneur de Châtillon, Admiral of France. Less exalted prisoners, but more relevant to the progress of the Dutch Revolt, are recorded in the manuscript by A. Baltijnck preserved in Bruges Municipal Library, Hs.433, quoted by Dewitte, which tells the story of the aldermen of the Freedom of Bruges, imprisoned for a while at Sluis Castle after they had protested against William of Orange’s relaxed religious policies

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which they saw as a threat to the country’s Catholic religion: they were released only to be sent into exile. 252. On the problem of determining the correct date of this event see Eyffinger, p.64ff., esp.p.76. 253. According to Eyffinger (see n.252), the expedition with the larger of the two sand yachts built took place after mid-April and probably either on 7 or 23 May 1602. Grotius was born on 10 April 1583. 254. After providing a list of all the prisoners taken at Nieuwpoort, Van Haestens devotes a whole chapter to the exchange of prisoners in which he declares that in spite of the many misdeeds committed by the Admiral - for which the reader should consult the Spaenschen ende Arragoenschen Spiegel (Franckfoort [Netherlands?] 1599) - there is some virtue in the man, since owing to his enormous importance his release will ensure that of many Dutch prisoners in Spanish hands, including those who were made galley slaves. The list occurs in BlB, pp.23-41, BmH, pp.27-43, NTr, pp.23-53; it was not taken over in FlO. The negotiations for their release are reported in BlB, pp.51-53, BmH, pp.52-56, NTr, pp.66-72 and FlO, pp.55-61. In all of them, this report is followed by a character sketch of the Admiral. 255. See Muller, Historieplaten, no. 1157; Ter Meulen-Diemanse, nr.395-6; Eyffinger, pp. 64, 68. 256. See Simoni, Catalogue, no. S 150; Muller, Historieplaten, no. 1254 B; Forster, pp.65-8, as well as the frontispiece reproduction of the German version. A reproduction of the Dutch version is found in Eyffinger, p.66. 257. ‘Bructera tellus’, ‘Cleven’, ‘Westphale’, etc. refer to the campaign of terror conducted by Mendoza in Westphalia and the Rhineland, which had made him feared far and wide. 258. ‘Auriacus’: pertaining to the Prince of Orange. 259. The capture of Mendoza is related in the text: he was trying to flee, but his horse stumbled on the beach, throwing him. First kept under the strictest conditions in a fortress, he was later brought to The Hague and allowed an occasional walk or even an invitation to dinner. His inclusion in the sand yacht expedition is reminiscent of Queen Elizabeth’s invitations to foreign visitors to inspect her fleet, done more from political than polite considerations (cf. Hotson, passim). 260. For a reproduction of this map see Eyffinger, p.56, fig.22. Eyffinger’s reproduction is made from a copy in the library of the Peace Palace in The Hague and corresponds to other known copies. In these the poem is shown with its variant readings (see notes 267, 268), signed below the last line ‘H. Grotius’. The photograph of what seems to be an earlier state of the map, held at Hatfield House, is in the Map Library of the British Library. On this the poem has the same textual variants, but is unsigned. It was no doubt this state of the map which was more widely known and gave rise to

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the early authorship confusion. 261. The volume contains 24 versions by named and unnamed poets, mostly in French, with one in Greek. The introductory poem, which is not a translation, is signed: N.E.P., a signature which Ter Meulen-Diermanse (p.20) already suggested as possibly that of the printer or compiler. Although this description also refers to the analysis of the little book provided by Lachèvre, p.223, these distinguished bibliographers failed to connect the signature ‘N.E.P.’ with the ‘N.E.’ stated by Lachèvre to stand for Nicolas Ellain (1534-1621) who contributed two versions of Grotius’s poem to this book, not listed among the poet’s recorded works, for which see Cioranescu. Little is known of his life, but the use of the epithet of his place of birth, ‘Parisien’, in the title of his Oeuvres poétiques françoises indicates that it could easily have supplied the additional letter ‘P’ to the initials for that introductory quatrain. A qualified physician, he was never a printer. The book of 1604 has no place of publication or name of printerbookseller supplied, but the typography points to Paris. 262. Poemata, pp.341-2. The date on the title-page of this edition is 1617, but according to Eyffinger, pp.214-5, Grotius sent the first copies of the finished book to various friends already in September 1616. 263. Malherbe’s translation was first published by Despinelle in his Parnasse of 1607. In the belief that the original was the work of J.J. Scaliger, he had already sent him a manuscript copy of his version in 1605. It was republished in 1628 in Bonours, pp.578-9. The text reproduced here is that of the Oeuvres poétiques (1972), p.35. 264. This version is included in Butler, pp.67-8. 265. Reproduced from Bodkin, p.111. Bodkin (p.110) extols the original as ‘this fine piece, which has been described, not without truth, as “one of the best pieces of verse since the Augustan age”, with a footnote referring to ‘Bur. [i.e. Burigny], p.18’. 266. The title is that given to the poem in the Poemata of 1617. 267. The reading on the map quoted by Eyffinger and in the Poemata (1617) is ‘Celsior’. 268. The reading in the Poemata (1617) is ‘nimium’. 269. Bodkin, p.110, quotes these alternative titles for the poem to which he does not give a title in his translation. 270. Of the numerous poems in it signed with his motto ‘Met Arbeydt heen’, the ‘Seven nieu-ghemaeckte Klinck-dichten, ghestelt op de namen van elcken dagh van der Weke’ [Seven newly made sonnets, assigned to the names of every day of the week] have been sympathetically edited by Vermeer. 271. Apart from the references to modern literature given by Vermeer, very little and that all on parts of his oeuvre only, he is briefly mentioned in Van

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der Aa, vol. 1; Kalff quotes lines in praise of Jan van Hout from his ‘Refereyn op ’t Maetvinden’, which he says appeared long after its composition in a not further specified anthology of 1632 (but see below); Te Winkel, vol. 2, p. 22, describes Beheyt as member of the Brabantsche Kamer ‘De Orangie Lely’ at Leiden, but provides no source for this statement. Jacobsen, pp.215ff., assigns to him an ancillary role to Celosse and Bernaerds, all three again described as members of the Flemish Chamber of Rhetoric ‘De Orangie Lely’. The anthology Het Leydsch Vlaemsch Orangien Lely-Hof contains another large number of poems contributed by Beheyt, well beyond the one in praise of Jan van Hout mentioned by Kalff, as well as making it quite clear that Beheyt was still alive at the time of Celosse’s death in February 1631. To this meagre harvest can be added ‘Opt naghelaten werck genaemt den Olijfbergh’ [On the posthumous work entitled the Mount of Olives], a laudatory poem printed in Karel van Mander’s posthumously published Olijf-Bergh. 272. In Nlcr (1619) the poem has a specific title: ‘Oostendens Belegh is d’ondergangh der Krijgshelden’, ‘The siege of Ostend is the doom of warrior heroes’. 273. Instead of ‘moortel-merckt’, ‘rubble market’, which aptly describes the condition of the town at the end of the siege, Nlcr (1619) reads ‘moorder-merckt’, ‘murder market’, which fits the ‘doomed warrior heroes’ of the title. 274. ‘Roast the herring for its roes’: labour greatly for little, pay through the nose. 275. The titles stand for the Spaniards in general, including their Italian and other associates. ‘Seignor’ was also a nickname for the citizens of Antwerp. 276. Nlcr (1619): schulpen. 277. Towns previously taken from the Spaniards by Prince Maurice, of which the conquest of Sluis led directly to the surrender of Ostend. They are here perhaps also equated with the ‘four-square’ cross of the Burgundian flag used by the Archduke’s army. 278. See Biografisch lexicon, vol. 1, pp.207-8. For his Leiden studies see Album studiosorum, col.63. Van Haestens published his Inventaire general des inconvenients in 1610. 279. See above, pp.114-5, n.236. Apart from the pieces already mentioned in n.236 he also wrote poetry elsewhere, e.g. ‘Larmes a la memoire & regrets funebres sur la mort de ... François Du-Ion’ and ‘A lui mesme sonet’ in Gomarus’s funeral oration for Du Jon of 1609; ‘Elegie au mesme’ in Tuningius’s collection of Apophthegmata, also of 1609; the French version of Hooft’s Emblemata amatoria of 1611; ‘Sonet à M. Stevin’ and ‘Sonet auquel est fait jugement de ceux qui ont bien campé’ in Stevin’s La castrametation

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of 1618; ‘A Mr De Mors’ in Szymonowicz’s Poematia aurea of 1619; and a long separately published poem, Avant-panegyric ou Trophees rares de son Excellence Monseigneur le Prince d’Orange, also of 1619 (Petit no.1215). More hidden poems may yet come to light. 280. As both books appeared in 1615, it is impossible to know for which of them this sonnet was first intended. In any event it seems to have been too late for inclusion in one of the regular gatherings of NTr and was therefore printed on an extra leaf to be inserted by the binder in the place indicated (see p.114). There are no poems in the 1612 French edition of Nlcr. 281. In Latin ‘Ostenda’ lends itself to punning with ‘ostendere’, to show, and ‘ostentare’, to show off (cf. the ‘Pasquil’, below, pp.134-5); no such pun is possible in English. 282. Magalica: not classical, but artificially derived from magalia = huts, tents and also used as name of suburbs of Carthage (see Lewis & Short, p.1096 with a reference to Virgil, Aeneis I, 421), a double meaning perhaps here intentionally chosen (cf. the poem comparing Ostend with Troy and Carthage, below, p.137). 283. In his description of Ostend before the siege, Van Haestens stresses its importance as a fishing village, in particular with regard to the herring industry (BlB, pp.61-3). 284. A reference to the States General of whose army Prince Maurice was commander-in-chief. ‘Potentes’, ‘mighty’, usually applied to the States General, is here transferred to their army. 285. The same poem as printed in La Genealogie of 1615 shows, apart from a few spelling differences, some minor variants. These are: l.1: ... qu’au plus fort des hasards; l.3: On n’en void d’esgaux ...; l.4: ... au milieu des plus chaudes alarmes; l.6: ... des femmes barbues ... . 286. E.g. the Dutch version of Grotius’s Mendoza poem, ‘O Conincklijcke stam van Arragon’ on p.235; ‘Ick Ostende ostendo’, printed as prose, on p.263, introduced by the lines ‘Wy sullen de voornaemste gheschiedenissen van den Jaere 1601 besluyten, met een Pasquilleken, dat in het Leger vande Eerts-Hertoghen ghestroyt was: zynde van desen Inhoudt:’ [We shall end the main events of the year 1601 with a little pasquil which was scattered in the Archdukes’ camp: consisting of this:]; the ‘Epigrammata’, but without this title and attributed simply to ‘een Nederduyts Poeet’ (a Dutch poet), on p.269. 287. See ch. 5, booklist no.2: Dits die excellente Cronicke van Vlaenderen, Tantwerpen 1531. 288. See ch. 5, booklist no.5: De croonijcke van Vlaenderen int corte, Ghendt 1557. 289. The text in the Excellente Cronike van Vlaenderen (cap.33, fol. 77v, col.a, ll.10-13) is printed as prose and reads: ‘Dit es tincarnacion in latijne, ne-

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mende die ghetal letteren, Octo capit lete pre grandia flandria cete, elck d dye doet vC. Dit es tincarnacion in vlaemsche. Ende hier so maken ij dd oock een duyst. Oosthend weet dat Brictius nachte, gheuanghen waren waluisschen achte’ [This is the chronogram in Latin, observing the letter numbers ... every “d” makes 500. This is the chronogram in Flemish. And here as well 2 “dd” make a thousand ...]. BlB explains the working of a chronogram between the two versions: ‘Elcke letter D die doet vijf-hondert’, and after the Dutch version: ‘Ende hier soo maken oock twee DD een Duyst’, which is therefore also literally quoted from the same source. 290. The original text (cap. 66, fol.195r, col.b, ll.10-11 from foot of page) reads: ‘Een foortselicke zee vp Cosmas dach | Dede den volcke bedrijuen groot hantgeslach.’ 291. After a graphic description of the disaster along the coast, the original text (cap.67, fol.212r, col.b, ll.4-5 from foot of page) is introduced ‘Alst wel blijct in dit Incarnacioen’ [As is made perfectly clear in this chronogram], and reads: ‘Sware schade rees vp sint Joris nacht | Bij blixem ende des donders cracht’. 292. The preceding text consists of part of a Spanish report on discontent in the Spanish army, written by a deserting ensign, in which the Archduke is accused of keeping his troops on short rations, even adulterating their beer as if it was Communion wine and thereby betraying his ‘Pfaffische art’ [priestly nature]. 293. ‘Papau’, also ‘Papou’ (Nlcr 1619): Popish = Catholic. 294. The German version is also found on the composite broadsheet published by Cornelis Claesz, Amsterdam, in 1603 (see pp.51-3 and n.72), to be further described below, pp.158-9 n.303. Apart from some differences in spelling the textual variants in that edition are: l.2: Ihr Ostende ...; l.6: Sie ... Ostendant ...; l.8: So werdt Ostende ... behendt. With thanks to Dr R. Schoch of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg, for kindly sending me a transcript of the broadsheet version. 295. No text by this poet/philosopher has come down to us. He is known from Horace, Sermones 1, ll.120-121: ‘iam satis est. ne me Crispini scrinia lippi |compilasse putes, verbum non amplius addam’ [Enough. I shan’t add another word or you will think I’m amassing boxes like the ones bleary-eyed Crispinus keeps for his screeds], and the scholiasts’ comments to them. Smith, vol. 1, p.391, even doubts whether ‘Crispinus’ is not perhaps a name Horace invented to ridicule a contemporary ‘philosophical poetaster’. The adjective ‘lippus’, bleary-eyed, would here mean blind to his own faults. 296. For a reproduction of the prose text of the Villerius letter see Appendix II.

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If verse is able to contribute to the effect of the story, so is illustration, and even more powerfully. An illustration, whether intended primarily to be factual like a map (though even this can have all kinds of overtones, allegorical, political, even satirical, and so be far from quite as ingenuous as it might seem at first) or emblematic like a title-page or its vignette, stops the reader in his tracks and makes him ponder its significance. Only the text will reveal this fully, but with the help of a picture the meaning of the text will in turn gain in clarity and emphasis.297 The seventeenth-century reader was expected to be aware of all the possibilities inherent in illustrations and to be willing to linger over them until he had extracted their full flavour. The higher the quality of illustration, the greater the strength of its message. The engravings in the Belägerung must have been recognised as so outstandingly successful that they became the basis for much pictorial material in later publications, be it by imitation or by the direct use of the original copperplates when available. As has already been stated,298 the earliest translation of the Belägerung, the Histoire remarquable, either did not keep its promise of an accompanying illustration,299 or just the copies known to me have lost them, which makes it impossible for me to relate them to those of the Belägerung. Instead, its sequel, the Continuation des sieges, has kept its plate, at least in some copies.300 This ‘description’ tallies with the plate in the True Historie (fig.15) which has obviously been copied from it. It shows the defences of Ostend in their various stages and is accompanied by a key whose numbering continues that given in the Histoire remarquable. The True Historie also shows the assault bridge (on which more later), which, if not directly derived from, is still reminiscent of the one in the Belägerung and is not found as an independent plate in the Continuation. There is however a very detailed representation of it in the Second livre du siege d’Ostende. The plate in this book consists of a large map of Ostend and its adjacent coast, serving the same purpose as Balthasarsz’s map in the Belägerung.301 The enormous siege engine is shown in

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Fig. 15 Plan of Ostend (A True Historie).

both its quiescent and operational states, just as it is on the engraving in the True Historie. Finely done, these plates serve immediate didactic ends, though they could not fail to confront their readers with respectively the diminishing area held by the Protestants against Catholic odds and the terrifying threat this crafty and resourceful enemy had mounted against the defenders. The English plate however, though on the whole faithful to its model, has omitted the trajectory lines from the Spanish artillery positions shown on its model, which reinforced the sense of menace. When Van Haestens took up the story he certainly employed all the means at his disposal. His use of poetry has already been discussed. In the visual field too he pulled out all the stops, making the fullest use of the plates he owned. He must, in one way or another, have come into possession of most of the original copperplates of the Belägerung. Plates had a habit of moving from one printer-pub-

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lisher to another and new ownership was a powerful stimulus to republication.302 It seems to me perfectly reasonable to suppose that Van Haestens had a chance of acquiring the plates from his Arnhem publisher friend Jan Jansz to whom they could have come down the Rhine from the earlier owners who had no further need of them.303 Van Haestens would then have been tempted to recoup his costs by producing a new - or adapted - text in which to include them. In this regard it may be significant that none of these plates was used to illustrate the Nassauschen lauren-crans of 1610/1611 or its other editions. The illustrations in that work, good as they are, fail to return in the Bloedige Belegeringhe, the Beschrijvinghe or La Nouvelle Troye, all three of which draw almost exclusively upon the plates from the Belägerung.304 When in 1612, the year between the Lauren-crans and the Bloedige Belegeringhe, Van Haestens printed two Dutch histories for Jansz,305 they could have exchanged ideas on other publications, perhaps even, who knows, discussed the viability of a book on the siege of Ostend! Having decided to publish the story of the siege, his problem was how to employ the plates he now had, what changes might be necessary and what further engravings, if any, he should add. To begin with the last of these, he had a vignette made for the title-page (fig.2) and the arms of Prince Maurice to follow it (fig.16), both beautifully done. Furthermore, he added his plate no.1, plates 2 and 3,306 and his plate of the Spanish siege instruments.307 In the Beschrijvinghe the legend is added to the titlepage vignette (fig.3) and some plates are transposed.308 For La Nouvelle Troye the titlepage vignette (fig.4) and Maurice’s arms on its verso were redesigned309 and a portrait of Maurice added as well, showing the great general on horseback, surrounded by scenes of war, but very inferior in quality to all the rest (fig.17).310 Also, some of the plates are there omitted, others again transposed.311 The original plates from the Belägerung were unnumbered,312 nor does it appear as if Van Haestens saw a copy of that work on which to base his own arrangement of them. Even had he seen it, he would not have been bound to adopt the same order - and the differences are clear. The title engravings of the Belägerung, in so far as they were now in Van Haestens’s hands,313 came like the others to be inserted in the text in their prop-

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Fig. 16 Prince Maurice’s coat of arms (De bloedige Belegeringhe).

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Fig. 17 Prince Maurice, equestrian portrait (La Nouuelle Troye).

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er chronological places, easily ascertainable from the Histoire remarquable as he translated it into Dutch. In place of their original accompanying letterpress text Van Haestens provided explanations and keys which he inserted into the corresponding chapters. Cumulatively, their visual power, strong already in each plate considered separately, builds up to an overwhelming whole which not only ignores, but completely overturns the impartiality of the narrative alleged in the prefaces to all the editions.314 Battle scenes show the savagery both inflicted and endured by either side (e.g. figs.18, 19); yet, by the very nature of their encirclement, so vividly set before the reader’s eyes, it is the defenders’ heroism which becomes the more evident. Again, plans of successive retrenchments exemplify not only the difficulties they had to contend with, but also their perseverance, those ancient virtues of constantia and fortitudo which the philosophers of the time prized so highly. Here the reader would see, marvel and himself be fortified in his determination to defend the good cause if ever fate were to call upon him to follow so illustrious an example. Of course this is propaganda of sorts, a conscious interpretation of the truth as perceived by one side in the struggle, but this is as the artists, of the Belägerung and the others, saw it and therein equalled the text; their skill and expressive power cannot be faulted. There are pictures of special events and their protagonists, e.g. the engraving dealing with the negotiations for the proposed Christmas truce in 1601.315 It is numbered ‘7’ in the Bloedige Belegeringhe and the Beschrijvinghe (fig.11). Its engraved caption is: ‘Comprehendens 24 et 25 Decembris praesentibus S M Alberto et Isabella, sed cum in pacando non poterant conuenire propter suppetias militum ex Zelandia missas, quapropter ingens multitudo nouitatis cupidorum in fumum abierunt’ [Representing 24 and 25 December, while Their Highnesses Albert and Isabella were there, but when they could not agree to make peace because of the arrival of reinforcements sent from Zeeland, because of which the immense crowd of sightseers went off into thin air]. The governor316 of Sluis, which was still in Spanish hands, is shown being met by Vere inside the bastion called Rijbas to which he and his sergeant-major317 had come as hostages, and two English officers, i.e. ‘Farfax’ and ‘Ogley’,318 are sent in turn as hostages for the Dutch side to the Span-

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Fig. 18 Truce negotiations, Christmas 1601 (De bloedige Belegeringhe, pl. 6).

Fig. 19 The great assault, 7 January 1602, with ‘Femina Hispanica’ inset (De bloedige Belegeringhe, pl. 9). 154

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ish camp.319 The relevant text will do better than the Latin legend on the plate did to inform the reader of the elaborate ruse all this had been: Vere knew of an impending enemy attack which with his reduced strength he had no hope of being able to withstand. In order to gain time to await the reinforcements he had urgently requested, he arranged this ‘parley’, planning it to be no more than a pretence. As soon as the supply ships arrived he abruptly ended negotiations. He returned the hostages with a letter to Albert excusing himself in terms implying that all is fair in war, to Albert’s understandable anger.320 What hopes had thus been raised only to be dashed is the subject of the preceding plate which shows the crowds of sightseers come to Ostend from the surrounding countryside (fig.18).321 But no sympathy for them is expressed in either text or illustration, on the contrary, their alleged mockery of the town earns them mockery in return.322 Of course, matters were not as simple as that. Vere had got himself into very deep water with the States General for his unauthorised procedures and was recalled from the command of Ostend. In spite of his distinguished service under Prince Maurice his reputation had suffered a grave blow, thus provoking the pamphlet Extremities, written as an apologia for him, which has been referred to earlier.323 That there was also a favourable opinion of him in England, not only excusing his conduct, but fully approving of it, can be inferred from a letter Van Meteren wrote to Bernardus Paludanus in March/April 1602.324 The relevant passage in it runs: ‘Van Oostende hooren niet dan goet. Dat Parlamenteren325 van Vere mits het goet succes vanden storm326 aghten sy welgedaen syn wtcomen wtter stadt dunckt hun hier een ondanckbaerheijt ofte benijdinge is. De Ertshertogen continueren haer obstinatien ...’ [From Ostend we hear only good news. Those negotiations of Vere’s together with the great success of the assault are considered well done, his departure from the town is thought to be due to ingratitude or spite. The Archdukes remain as obstinate as ever].327 The plates are not used equally in the books under discussion. Muller made a painstaking comparison between the plates in the Belägerung and the Bloedige Belegeringhe.328 Van Rijn then describes the plates in Fleming Oostende, comparing them accurately with those in La Nouvelle Troye.329 It may nevertheless be useful to flesh out

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some of these descriptions to exemplify their application in the different editions.330 A couple of paragraphs in the Atlas van Stolk mention differences between La Nouvelle Troye and Fleming Oostende,331 such as the transposition of the respective plates 1 and 2, said to be chronologically more correct in Fleming,332 and the removal from pl.9 of the Spanish woman (figs.19-20).333 There is then a reference to an ‘additional pl.6’ bearing the inscription ‘Induciae et cessatio armorum, inter capitulationes cum Ostendanis factas coram innumera civium Flandricorum multitudine eo accurentium 25 Decembris’ [Truce and cease-fire at the time of the articles discussed with those of Ostend, in sight of an immense crowd of Flemish citizens hastening there on 25 December].334 This is said to correspond to pl.2 in no.1128. That item gives the title of the first plate in a set of four, the first of which refers to the truce negotiations under the title ‘Verclaringhe vant bespreck / ende onderhandelinge van Vrede tusschen de Eerts Hertoge / ende de stadt Oostende’ [Description of the peace talks and negotiation between the Archduke and the town of Ostend], etc.,335 the third shows the great assault of 7 January 1602, the fourth having been removed, whereas the second has no title and Van Rijn does not offer a description of the event it represents. From his reference to Muller however336 it must be the print on which the visit of Albert and Isabella among a crowd of spectators to the siege works around Ostend is shown (fig.18). The same print is of course already present in the Belägerung on leaf A2 of Appendix I (and Ponjaert found it inserted into the text in two copies of the main work).337 It is numbered ‘6’ in both the Bloedige Belegeringhe and the Beschrijvinghe, but is not present in La Nouvelle Troye. To call it ‘additional’ in Fleming is therefore only justified in comparison with La Nouvelle Troye, but not if this plate had remained in Van Haestens’s stock until Meuris acquired the material once used for the Beschrijvinghe. Can the other print numbered ‘6’ in Fleming then be justly called additional? Van Rijn ranks it among plates 3-14 which ‘are alike in both books’. But pl.6 in La Nouvelle Troye was the view of Ostend under assault in November l601, previously numbered 5 in the two Dutch Van Haestens books and once gracing the title-page of the first part of the Belägerung and repeated on f.4.2 of Appendix II, its last plate (fig.8).

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Fig. 20 The same print as fig.19, with inset erased (Oostende, pl. 9).

It is surely better to allow for an oversight in the numbering in Meuris’s or his plate-printer’s workshop which left the earlier numeration for both prints as found, causing this confusion. A similar mistake had already arisen with Fleming’s pl.3, noted by Van Rijn after his description of Fleming’s pl.[15].338 Van Rijn suggests that this ‘new’ pl.3 is the work of a different engraver and he may well be right. But it is not really new at all. Entitled ‘Combustio habitaculi Celsitudinis su(a)e, in fortificatione Alberti ante Ostendam’ [The fire in the lodge of His Highness in the Albertus bastion before Ostend], it occurs on f.B2 of Appendix I of the Belägerung and as pl.3 in the Bloedige Belegeringhe and the Beschrijvinghe, though not in La Nouvelle Troye, which of course is the edition Van Rijn used for his comparison and where pl.3 is the one entitled ‘Eicon Urbis Ostenda’ [Image of Ostend city], etc.339 The vivid depiction of the fire

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in Fort Albertus refers to an event described in the Bloedige Belegeringhe340 as having happened on 13 November 1601, its cause said to be an act of God: ‘it was said to have fallen from heaven’. The print shows the burning building which was used by the Archduke when in residence. Rumour had it that in it was treasure worth more than ‘15 hondert duysent’ [1,500,000] guilders!341 The picture shows what the text also mentions: a bucket chain right from the seashore and a religious procession going on, all to no effect. The description in the Beschrijvinghe342 is to all intents and purposes the same as in the Bloedige Belegeringhe. La Nouvelle Troye follows the Histoire remarquable, but adds details missing in the Perier issue and not found in the True Historie either.343 Fleming’s account344 is more sober: although rumour had it that the fire had fallen from heaven and the damage ran to ‘so many hundred thousand guilders,’ yet certain prisoners had told that the fire started in the kitchen through carelessness of the cooks, spreading from there, and while the damage was great, it was not as great as ‘sommighe schrijven’ [some, i.e. Van Haestens?, write].

Notes

297 See e.g. Simoni, ‘1598’, passim. 298 See above, p.107. 299 Not only does the title-page say: ‘ ... auec le portrait de la ville’, the book itself has a key to such a plan, numbered 1-49. No corresponding illustration is present in or mentioned for the copies in the British Library, the Royal Library, The Hague (Kn no.1268), Ghent University Library (Van der Wulp 1004), or the three copies in Ostend Municipal Library listed by Ponjaert, p. 47. 300 On the title-page ‘Auec la description des nouueaux retranchemens d’Ostende’. The copy in the British Library lacks it, that in the Royal Library, The Hague (Kn no.1269), has it. 301 See p.53 and n.69. 302 See Croiset van Uchelen, especially pp.24-5,38-9. See also the whole of Van der Coelen where particular plates are shown to have been used for over a century. 303 On Jansz see pp.53, 64. Living so close to the border and having practically no local competition, it was natural that he should maintain strong ties with booksellers in Germany. Simoni, ‘A German-Dutch tapestry’ lists

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inter alia books he published containing engravings by Crispijn van de Passe, both while the artist was resident in Cologne and after his move to Utrecht. Jansz may even have had a particular interest in the siege and its visual description: in 1603 he issued the map of Ostend already referred to earlier, surrounded by views of separate events of 1601 and 1602, which Cornelis Claesz published in Amsterdam also in 1603 (Paas no.P-33). Instead of seven, the Jansz map only had four views and the typography is different. Like Claesz’s map, it has a German language imprint which in his case reads: ‘Getruckt für Johan Johansz. Buchhendler zu Arnhem’ (cf. Fauser, no.10318; Paas no.P-17). To what degree his interest in the German market could have influenced him one or more years later to obtain the copperplates of the German production in book form of the story of this siege, including the six views used by Claesz, it is of course impossible to know; but picking up an earlier strand of our lives, whether personal or professional, is common enough. 304. To begin with, only two out of the original fourteen numbered plates are unconnected with them. 305. I.e. the works of Duym and Scriverius mentioned on pp.63-4. 306. Pl.1 illustrates the Dutch fleet approaching the coast before the battle of Nieuwpoort. For the later pl.2 and 3 see n.311. 307. See below, p.165. 308. The plates have not been renumbered, but pl.13 and 14 now precede pl.12. 309. By then the earlier vignette had text in Dutch, not suitable for the international market aimed at by Elzevier. Rather than simply having this inscription erased, the new, oblong, vignette with its Latin inscription was ordered. There is no immediately obvious reason for the newly designed arms. One could speculate whether the first plate had been mislaid or been damaged or did not satisfy Elzevier. It now measures 116 x 98 mm as against the 92 x 92 mm of the earlier version. Differences of design appear in the crest, the arrangement of the heraldic details within the shield and the Garter surrounding it, but there had been no change in Maurice’s circumstances necessitating a new formulation of the heraldry and there are therefore no new elements in the new design. 310. It is described by Van Someren, vol. 2, no.194, with the remark that the drawing is unusually bad. Van Someren only names Fleming’s book as its source. There is a discrepancy between everything else and Maurice’s recognisable features: his face, no doubt copied from one of the large number of portraits in circulation (see De Wit), seems to have been added to the work of an untalented beginner. 311. Pl.2 has become 4, pl.4 has become 5 and pl.5 is now 6; pl.10 and 11 have changed places, pl.14 has become 12 and pl.12 is now 14. The ‘No. I’ on pl.1 has been overwritten with ‘Fol.6.7', its actual place in the book, but with the left top serif of the ‘N’ still in place; where pl.2 had been there is a

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new one inscribed ‘Eicon urbis Ostenda [sic]’, etc. and the original pl.3,6 have been omitted. 312. That is to say, almost all of them: the plate printed on f.A4 of the first Appendix, depicting the great assault of 7 January 1602 with the inset of the ‘Hispanica femina’ is numbered ‘NO.3’ in the top left-hand corner, above the inscription ‘Maris Germanici Pars’. This number had been given it for earlier use (see below). The numeral came to be changed to ‘9’, but careful examination still reveals a trace of the ‘3’. 313. If the engraving used on the title-page of pt.3 of the Belägerung passed to him at all, he did not use it here or elsewhere, perhaps because it could not logically be fitted into the story. 314. See pp.38, 40, 61-2. 315. This was printed on f.A3 of the first Appendix and before then on the Jansz and Claesz broadsheets (Paas no.P-17, 33). The event has been referred to earlier, see pp.47, 57 n.59. 316. The governor of Sluis is elsewhere named Mattheo Serrano or Cerano. He is unknown to the relevant biographical dictionaries. Cf. n. 317. 317. Where his name is supplied at all, and he is only described as ‘the Spanish Sergeant-Major’ in the Belägerung and the books derived from it, it is given rather confusingly as ‘Matheo Anthonis Gouverneur van Antwerpen’ (FlO, p.180), ‘Matheo Anthonis Sargant Majoor vant Regiment, van Don Symen Anthonis Gouverneur van Antwerpen’ (ibid., p.801), ‘Matheo Anthonias Sargant Maior to Anthuzino Gouvernour of Antwerp towne’ (Extremities, p.9), ‘Simon Antonio’ (Markham, p.321), but ‘Ot(t)anes’ (in Dillingham’s added text, Vere, pp.155-57), let alone the descriptions given in the Breefe Declaration (see p.100). One can see the confusion arising from resemblances between the names, functions and titles of various personages, and Otanes was perhaps a title rather than a surname. The governor of Antwerp also played a role in the abortive truce negotiations by taking charge, together with one Gamboletti, of the English hostages in Albert’s camp (see Vere, ibid.). 318. I.e. Sir Charles Fairfax and Sir John Ogle, on whom see DNB and Markham. 319. The two English hostages were treated with respect by the Spanish officers, in contrast to the two Spaniards who were deliberately made to walk through the mud and destruction of Ostend and then given poor quarters and little food, with ample beer - to make them talk, presumably, while expected to admire their hosts for putting up so bravely with conditions which, even if one allows for exaggeration, were still horrendous enough. 320. All the versions mention his anger at having been deceived. The most elaborate version is however given by Bonours, p.175.

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321. This plate, used on f.A2 of the first Appendix and before then on the Jansz and Claesz broadsheets (Paas no.P-17, 33), is numbered ‘6’ in the Bloedige Belegeringhe and subsequently. The gesticulating crowd around ‘Isabella’ and ‘Albertus’ in what seems to be a holiday mood is seen surrounding the walls of Ostend. 322. Among the phrases the spectators are said to have shouted at the defenders the most objectionable seems to have been their mocking assertion that ‘tomorrow’ they would be feasting within. Their plight, mentioned, though without noticeable compassion, in the Copye van twe brieven, finds no place in the histories, where their departure ‘in fumum’ is the Dutch side’s derisory description for their bitter disappointment. The manuscript quoted by Dewitte, written by A. Baltijnck and preserved at Bruges Municipal Library (Hs.433, ff.6v-7), paints a much stronger picture of the pitiful condition of the population around Bruges, anxiously awaiting the fall of Ostend, the cause of their ruin: ‘... Oostende, daer duere t’selve landt alleene t’onder ghehouden wordt, met groot beclaegh ende regardt van soo veele goede onderdaenen van sijne majesteijt, die daer duere gheruwineert sijn gheweest, ende noch daeghelijcx worden’ [Ostend, by which alone this land is held down, to the great distress and awe of so many good subjects of His Majesty [Philip III] who have been ruined thereby and continue daily so to be]. 323. See p.57 n.59. On the authorship attribution of this pamphlet to Cyril Tourneur see Schrickx, ‘Cyril Tourneur’; idem, ‘Elizabethan drama’, pp.2629; idem, Foreign envoys, pp.146-57. But cf. n.131. 324. Van Meteren’s letter, whose manuscript is preserved in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München (Cod. lat. 10354, f.l9), is reproduced in Brummel, pp.178-80. 325. This corresponds beautifully with the word ‘anti-parle’ of the Extremities, the ‘parleying’ between two sides. 326. I.e. the great assault of 7 January 1602. 327. On Vere’s departure from Ostend in February 1602 see Markham, pp.306-7, and especially p.317. 328. Muller, Historieplaten, Suppl. no.1215A. 329. Van Rijn, no.1162. 330. Idem, no.1161 mentions the 1613 and 1614 editions, but does not discuss changes made to the plates of the latter. 331. Idem, vol.2. p.28. 332. According to Van Rijn the battle of Nieuwpoort preceded the arrival of the fleet. However, this may depend on which fleet is understood to be represented: the encounter at sea explicitly referred to in the text accompanying this print mentions the precise date as 25 June 1600; the battle of Nieuwpoort took place on 2 July 1600; therefore it is Van Haestens who

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adopted the correct sequence of illustrations. But Van Rijn believes the print to relate to another engagement in which Frederico Spinola took part. 333. On the Spanish woman see pp.98-102. 334. This is the inscription on the print on leaf A2r of the first Appendix to the Belägerung, whence it became no.6 in BlB and BmH; not adopted in NTr. 335. Van Rijn assumes that the Dutch text is the original one, which is plausible. The change to Latin would enable the plate to be used in any translated version. On other plates bearing Latin inscriptions in these books the Latin text appears at times to have been squeezed untidily into the existing space: possibly another proof for the precedence of the Dutch text. 336. Van Rijn’s reference, made at the end of no.1161, is from no.1162/6 to his no.1128 which sends the reader to Muller, Historieplaten, Suppl. no.1177A,B. 337. Ponjaert, p.51. 338. Van Rijn, vol.2. p.28: FlO, pl.[15], showing the ‘shotproof’ pontoon bridge invented by Prince Maurice to storm Sluis, though in the end not needed. This plate was part of Van Haestens’s stock (coming from the Belägerung, although he did not use it himself (see pp.175-8, 179 n.369). 339. This plate is described as a separate print by Muller, Historieplaten, no.1163C where it is tentatively assigned to FlO, but the copy Muller saw could as easily have come from NTr. The reproduction in Ponjaert, in the form of a photocopy of this print taken from an unspecified copy, is numbered ‘No.2’; it is too faint to allow any conclusions as to the condition of its original, but I seem to detect traces of a ‘3’ beneath the ‘2’, which would make it later than its appearances in NTr and the Fleming Oostende copy in the British Library or that known to Van Rijn in Rotterdam. The plate of the fire in Albert’s lodgings is one of those accompanying the Doetecum map in the Claesz broadsheet (Paas no.P-33; cf. n.72) before entering the Belägerung. It still remains to be discovered how Van Haestens obtained the ‘Eicon’ in time for NTr and eventual transfer to Meuris. 340. BlB, p.103. 341.The obvious error in the number of noughts was made already in the Belägerung, pt.1, f.D2v, and was simply copied into its descendants. It would suit the Dutch and their sympathisers in any case to exaggerate the extent of the disaster. The text accompanying the print on leaf B2 of the first Appendix states the financial loss as estimated at 15000 guilders which would have been bad enough. One wonders why Albert should have had ‘Kleinodien’, i.e. jewels, of such value with him at all, for which the States of Flanders then gave him ‘a ton of gold’ in compensation! 342. BmH, p.102. 343. NTr, p.l65; Hist. rem., f.45r-v; True Hist., p.75. 344. FlO, p.157.

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‘Le Chariot de Pompée’ was the ingenious name given by the French translator to the great assault bridge, designed by one Pompeo, when he had come to the passage in the Belägerung describing this new invention, and from there Edward Grimstone adapted it in the True Historie to ‘the Chariot or Pompees bridge’.345 The Dutch editions refer to it much more prosaically as a ‘wagen’, although it is also said to have been nicknamed ‘helwaghen’, [Hell-cart] or ‘luywaghen’ [corrupted from ‘leiwagen’, ‘traveller’]346 by its intended victims.347 It is a machine of formidable menace, set on a wheeled base equipped with heavy ropes to be pulled by horses. Once attached to the city wall by powerful hooks, a platform was to be raised by pulleys from a high pole or mast and opened out to allow soldiers to cross above wall height. But it was far too cumbersome in practice, the ropes did not hold and the whole elaborate structure ended in ridiculous failure when the defenders kept it at bay and utterly destroyed it by demolishing one of the wheels with a wellaimed shot from a cannon.348 Its inventor was the Italian engineer and architect Pompeo Targone (1575-1630?)349 who, having first taken up his father’s craft as a goldsmith, was employed by Pope Clement VIII to make a ciborium for the Basilica of St. John in Lateran.350 His great claim to fame as a siege architect led Albert to call upon him in 1603 to assist with the siege of Ostend. The assault bridge which cast terror upon those who came to hear of it, let alone those who saw it turned upon their walls, was only one of the machines he proposed. As his experience in the field was actually limited or at any rate belonged to the past, he was in the event apparently unable to foresee either the reaction of the enemy or the effect of general conditions and his grandiose schemes proved less decisive than his own side had hoped or the other feared.351 Nevertheless, his name was attached to this particular assault bridge and thus entered history. As has been stated above, this bridge is shown on illustrations dating back to 1604, the year it was made. Bearing the title ‘Fabrica nova versatilis pontis, auctore Italo, architecto Pontificis, ad propugnacula

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vel valla invadenda aptissimi: hoc modo delineata mense Februario l604’ [The new construction of a mobile bridge made by an Italian, the Pope’s architect, very suitable for invading bastions and ramparts; drawn in this guise in February 1604], it is the print on leaf C3 in the first Appendix of the Belägerung, plate 13 in the Bloedige Belegeringhe, the Beschrijvinghe and La Nouvelle Troye, as well as in Fleming Oostende (fig.21a). ‘Aptissimi’ here expresses hope rather than experience: the word may have been used on the design laid before Spinola352 or even Albert to impress them.353 The drawing for the print on which it was first shown to a wider public and from which the later illustrations are derived must also be of a date preceding its eventual application in the siege when its inadequacy soon became all too evident. But in its progress from the Belägerung to the Bloedige Belegeringhe the ‘Fabrica nova’ image underwent a subtle but remarkable change, the only one of the plates which reached Van Haestens to have been thus reworked (fig.21b). In it the bastion on the left now has railings surrounding it and is defended by many more men and an additional cannon; the upper one of the two trains of six horses on the right is led, not by one man as on the print in the Belägerung, but by three, one to each pair of horses. Also the previously empty sky has had hatched lines added to enliven it. The bridge itself has however not been touched. It was not Van Haestens who was responsible for the more elaborate illustration, but another owner/printer who issued it as a broadside with the title of Frembde vnd neuw erfundene practyck einer wunderbärlichen SturmBruggen/ genant Hell oder Luijwagen. [Strange and newly invented practice of an amazing assault bridge, called hell-cart or traveller].354 The key above and the descriptive text below the engraving on it are taken over literally from the illustration in the Belägerung, though with some small changes to the phrasing, especially in the title which in the Belägerung was ‘Frembde vnd nieuw erfundene Practyck einer wunderbärlichen Sturmbruggen/ genant Hell oder Loywagen’, and, of course, the omission of the last sentence there: ‘Diss alles ist im Buch weiter zu sehen’ [For more information see the book]. Perhaps Bilderbeke’s printer is behind this broadside or another printer borrowed the original plate, giving it an in his opinion better finish and copying the text, which looks as if it had come originally

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from a Dutch source, improving its German as he did so. The copperplate in its second state would then have rejoined the whole set as assembled in the Belägerung and thus have eventually come to Van Haestens. In 1609 the Italian officer Pompeo Giustiniano’s book Delle guerre di Fiandra was published in Antwerp.355 Less a history of the war than an account of the actions in which the author himself participated, it was edited and added to by his friend and companion-inarms, the military engineer Gioseppe Gamurini, who left his personal stamp on this work. His responsibility for the illustrations is plainly told in the editor’s dedication of the book to Ambrogio Spinola. And one of the plates there, its no.X (fig.22), shows a whole array of siege works as used at Ostend. It became the model for Van Haestens’s plate of the same works, no.14 in the Bloedige Belegeringhe, 13 in the Beschrijvinghe, La Nouvelle Troye and Fleming Oostende (fig.23). When Muller356 states that this plate was lacking in his copy of the Belägerung and presumably the whole edition of that work, he was of course right: its model only appeared in 1609! Van Rijn recognised its provenance and offers a full list of the illustrations in Giustiniano’s book as a complement to his description of the plates in Fleming Oostende.357 Giustiniano’s, or rather Gamurini’s plates did not come to Van Haestens,358 but he probably saw the copy of the book which belonged to Petrus Scriverius.359 He then had it copied in reduced size to fit the smaller format of his book and, omitting from this copy the view of ‘Pompees bridge’ of which he had the ‘Fabrica nova’ plate, added it to the Bloedige Belegeringhe and its successors. The artist copied the Italian inscriptions, not always well,360 but nonetheless wisely, I would say, as Van Haestens, who nowhere gives signs of a working knowledge of the language and was certainly not skilled in engineering either, might have found it difficult to translate them. The names of the siege engines taken from the 1609 representation in Delle guerre di Fiandra are nothing if not colourful. We find ‘salsicce’, i.e. sausages; a ‘salsicione’, i.e. a big sausage; ‘candellieri’, i.e. candlesticks; a ‘troccio’, i.e. a basket; and a ‘dicco’, i.e. dyke or causeway; the ‘gabionata’, i.e. cage construction, here built on top of ‘tonelli’, barrels, for use in the river, has left its name as a technical

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Fig. 21a ‘Pompee’s Chariot’ (Belägerung der Statt Ostende, first Appendix, f. C3).

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Fig. 21b ‘Pompee’s Chariot’ (Bloedige Belegeringhe, pl. 13).

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...

term in the English ‘gabion’ and ‘gabionade’, while the ‘blinda sopra cavaletti’ is a screen or fence set on trestles. All these are so clearly drawn that the beholder does not need to learn Italian to understand their import. The ‘dicco’ on this print, as on the original one, is attributed to Bucquoy361 who had it built before Spinola succeeded him as siege commander. Three works, among them the two largest and most conspicuous, are identified as ‘di Targone’: the ‘troccio’, the ‘ponte’ - which became ‘Pompey’s Chariot’ - and the ‘Castello di Targone che no serui’ [Targone’s castle which was no good].This, as Giustiniano, or more probably Gamurini, explained in the text, was a tower built on floats which was anchored in the river estuary whence it was intended to prevent Dutch ships from entering and thus supplying the besieged town with men and provisions. Its fate was no less ignominious than that which befell the bridge: the tower was duly installed in position only to become the plaything of waves and tides and a sitting duck for the Dutch artillery nearest the shore. No, the ‘castle’ did not serve its purpose and the phrase surely expresses Gamurini’s resentment at the disregard shown by the commanders to warnings given by the engineers on the spot about the armchair engineer Targone’s wild ideas.362

Notes

345. Of all the siege engines brought to bear on Ostend by the Spaniards and especially their Italian regiment, this was the most fearsome. It was a vehicle in so far as it had wheels, whilst its purpose was to be an assault bridge. Its representation is accompanied by a key lettered A-H. 346. See WNT, vol. 8/2, coll.3300-1, s.v. ‘Leiwagen’. The description in Muller, Historieplaten, Supplement no.1215Aa, App. pl.8, calls it ‘rolbrug’, rolling bridge. For ‘traveller’ in engineering, see OED, 18, p.445, s.v. Traveller 5a and b, which would describe the action of raising the bridge rather than its whole mechanism. 347. The Belägerung devotes only a short paragraph to describing it on f.I3r of part 1, where it follows on the rather scanty reports of events in early January 1604 and the extract from an intercepted letter written in Antwerp at the end of the preceding December in which brief mention is made of two new ‘wercken’ the Spaniards intended to erect to the east of Ostend. The heading given to the paragraph, ‘Vmb diese Sturmbrugge der hell-

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...

Fig. 22 Siege engines (P. Giustiniano, Delle querre di Fiandra libri VI, Anversa 1609, pl. X).

Fig. 23 Siege engines (De bloedige Belegeringhe, pl. 14). 169

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...

wagen genant / recht zu verstehen’ [in order correctly to understand this assault bridge, called the hell-cart], declares it to be an explanation of the print shown in the first Appendix on leaf C3. This, as usual, has its own explanatory text, ending with the phrase: ‘Disz alles ist im Buch weiter zu sehen’ [All this can be seen further in the book, i.e. the text], a good example of counter cross-references. The translator must have taken his information from both (Hist.rem., p.123), nicely translated in True Hist., A4v, p.191, but its story is told later (pp.192-3) from another source, ending: ‘This chariot hath beene once tryed but after they [i.e. the besiegers] had well observed it, they carried it back to the downes’. It is then described in BlB, pp.153-4; BmH, p.150; NTr, p.266 (as in Hist.rem.); FlO, p.438, wrongly attributing the ‘groote Brugghe’ (big bridge) to ‘Pompeo Iustiniano ingenieur’ and with more and better details about the defensive measures taken by the defenders, but without mentioning the outcome. The date of this monstrous attack, as stated in the engraved text on the ‘Fabrica nova’ print, was February 1604. 348. Baudaert, pt. 2, p.273, under a print of the siege engines clearly derived from Giustiniano, numbered (252), quotes suitably mocking but anonymous verses: ‘Machina quam quondam meditaverat Itala tellus, | Flandria clara opibus seclis quam norat avitis, | Ostendae frustra haec tentavit solvere muros | Riserunt Batavi, simul et Neptunus, amici’ [The engine which the land of Italy hatched out long ago, unknown to Flanders famed for wealth in times gone by, it now attempted to breach the walls of Ostend, to the laughter of the Batavians as well as of Neptune their friend]. 349. See Simoni, ‘Soldiers’ tales’, p.263. According to Promis, pp.799-812, who refers to Bentivoglio, Targone arrived at Ostend in 1603. Westra, p.19, claims he was there from 1601 onward which I doubt as that was before Spinola took over the command there from Bucquoy. Belleroche, pp.95-7, reproduces evidence to the effect that it was Jean de Richardot, son of the President of the Council and then at Rome, who strongly recommended Targone to the Archduke, at last persuading him to send for this miracle worker who would soon conquer Ostend. He adds that it appears as if on his way to Brussels Targone had been captured by the French and thus been delayed by a year. 350. Westra, p.19. 351. Among these the ‘Castle’ was to present a particular threat to Dutch shipping. Having brushed aside objections relating to tides and winds, Targone had it put in place only to witness its destruction. Its failure is represented in the print (see below) where it is characterised with the words ‘che no(n) serui’ [which was useless]. 352. On Spinola’s command of the siege of Ostend see Rodriguez Villa, pp.63-90.

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353. Promis, p.801, describes Targone as ‘romano, ingegnere di molta stima ... Ma nell’opere militari non essendo egli mai della teorica sino a quel giorno passato alla pratica, si cominciò a veder ben tosto che molti de’ suoi pensieri non riuscivano così nella prova, com’ egli prima se ne prometteva nell’apparenza’ [a Roman, an engineer of great reputation; but never to that day having passed from theory to practice in matters of military works, it soon became clear that many of his ideas did not succeed in the execution as he had been led to believe in anticipation]. The wonder, he says, is that his ideas were ever accepted by the War Council. On the ‘carro’, pp.805-7, he quotes, among others, Pompeo Giustiniano, Bosio, Pondini and G. Le Blond. 354. For the full title of this print (Ghent University Library, Mss 3385 no.1491) see the List of sources. The added news from Ostend relates to events from 11 February to 6 March and perhaps one or two days beyond. Two paragraphs in very small print then report Dutch naval successes in the East Indies and off Dunkirk, matters important to the Dutch, but unconnected with the siege of Ostend, probably derived from original Dutch letterpress text which accompanied the engraving before it came to be translated into German. None of these additional news items has been incorporated in the text of the Belägerung. 355. See Simoni, Catalogue, G93, and idem, ‘Soldiers’ tales’, pp.259-66. That Giustiniano’s exploits were appreciated also by others than himself and his engineer Gamurini is attested by a letter to Rome from a Bruges canon which was found by the wayside and taken to Prince Maurice before Sluis. Dated 22 June 1604 and originally written in Spanish, the Belägerung quotes it (pt.2, f.C4v) as follows: ‘ ... es scheint/ das wir zum fewr vnd schwert durch die bose Regirung vnd vnordnung vnser obrigkeit gestelt sind ... Nichts desto weniger Mons: Pompeius Iustinianus Romischer Capitan vnderm fürgemelten Spinola, richt hier wünder auss in des Kriegs sachen/ also das es scheint das vnser lieber Gott solch einen man in diese Landen gesandt habe/ vmb vns zu helffen auf das wir nicht gantz von der Tyrannigen Geusen aufgefressen werden’ [it seems that our bad government and the disorder of our authorities have exposed us to fire and sword. Nevertheless, Pompeo Giustiniano, Roman captain under the aforesaid Spinola, is performing miracles here in matters of war so that it seems that our Lord God has sent such a man into our land to help us not to be altogether swallowed up by the tyrannical Geusen]. 356. Muller, Historieplaten, no.1215A. 357. Van Rijn, vol.2, pp.29-32, attached to no.1161. 358. Even had he obtained the copperplates he would have found them too large for his own book. But Van Haestens had obviously no connections with Giustiniano or his Antwerp publisher Joachim Trognaesius.

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...

359. See ch.5, list of books no.15. 360. His mistakes indicate total ignorance of the language, e.g, among other howlers he transcribes ‘castello’ as ‘castelle’. 361. On Bucquoy and his command at Ostend see BNB s.v. Longueval. 362. See Simoni, ‘Soldiers’ tales’, p.263.

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Van Haestens’s ‘Italian’ plate quite naturally lived on in Fleming Oostende. Meuris had simply taken it over together with the other plates, those that had come from the Belägerung and the ones Van Haestens had added to them. Among the latter was the equestrian portrait of Prince Maurice which had joined the text of the French edition in 1615363 and had obviously remained in the printer’s possession. It was the only individual portrait of one of the actors in the events around Ostend which Van Haestens included, and then Maurice had not been one of the actual defenders cooped up in that dangerous disease-ridden hole. He was however the highest officer in the Dutch forces with a considerable influence on the States General to whom these same forces were subject. The book also described Maurice’s campaign in Flanders and victory at Nieuwpoort as preliminaries to the siege and his second campaign in the summer. Finally, his conquest of Sluis in August 1604 made it less essential for the Republic to hold on to Ostend and thus led directly to its surrender the following month. Nor could some flattery extended to Maurice in 1615 do the book any harm. This edition, unlike its Dutch-language predecessors, was no longer dedicated to the States General and thus did not carry the praise of Maurice in the dedicatory epistle. Instead it is dedicated to King Louis XIII of France, with the intention perhaps of increasing its export potential to that country. Whether it was then Louis Elzevier who decided on this portrait or Van Haestens who suggested it, is impossible to say. Its quality is certainly below anything in any other illustrated book produced by Van Haestens that I have seen. Other and better portrait prints of the Prince exist, but whether they were available to printer or publisher for reproduction at the time is equally uncertain.364 Its advantage over other portraits, however military the sitter’s equipment and the general symbolism added to him might have been, was that it showed him in action on his alas rather wooden-looking horse, with his poorly drawn army in the background engaged in battle or at least exercise (fig.24).365

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Fig. 24 Prince Maurice, equestrian portrait (Oostende Vermaerde Belegeringhe).

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Meuris, nevertheless, rounded off the illustration of his Ostend story by adding the portraits of the commanders of the town, the real heroes of its defence, each inserted to coincide with the notice in the text of his arrival. The List of illustrations found at the end of Fleming Oostende (fig.5), needed to assist the binder, separates the portraits from the plates he had taken over from the Belägerung/Van Haestens. Their cohesion as a series is further evident in their similar style: each governor is shown in an oval frame bearing his name in Latin or Dutch and has an engraved inscription at its foot with his name and title in French (fig.25).366 The artist or artists have left no trace of their identity. It looks very likely that these portraits were specially made for this book, nor to my knowledge was the series ever used again.367 We can be certain that another additional portrait, that of Philips Fleming himself which introduces the text (fig.26), was made specifically for this publication. It shows the author, aged 64, his features marked with the long years of responsibility under dreadful conditions, as he was when fulfilling the same functions of secretaryauditor to the governor of Sluis at the time his memoirs appeared. The inscription below the portrait and such autobiographical details as he reveals in his book are the only known source to his life and career. It is not even known when and where he died.368 He might have deserved better, but then, who at that time took much notice of subordinate soldiers, even if they were also authors? It is then perhaps a fitting irony that his book as it came from Meuris’s press, with so much added text and illustration taken largely from Fleming’s despised ‘scribbler’, became the most widely accepted historical source for the history of the siege of Ostend for nearly four centuries and will no doubt remain so. No hero to his contemporaries, his toughness and resilience, his loyalty and unselfish service are thus nevertheless preserved for all time through his book. The final addition that Meuris made to Fleming Oostende is the print showing the assault bridge constructed under Maurice’s command for the attack on Sluis. It was a memorable piece of engineering whose invention is credited to Maurice himself.369 The print shows the bridge from left to right, one outer protective wall removed as it were to present it from within, with the legend ‘Dese bruggen sijn 32 deelen (dat is stijf 400 voeten) lang’ [This bridge con-

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Fig. 25 Sir Francis Vere (Oostende Vermaerde Belegheringe).

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Fig. 26 Philippe Fleming (Oostende Vermaerde Belegeringhe).

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sists of 32 sections, i.e. when fixed it is 400 ft long] inscribed along its roof. A single section is shown in the top left-hand corner; the double walls of Sluis appear with a tower on the inner wall situated to the right; much shooting is taking place by both attackers and defenders. The only probable source for this print is the Belägerung,370 and though he did not use it, its copperplate must have been in Van Haestens’s possession. There exists also another view, possibly derived from it, in which the bridge is shown from right to left, and between them the bridge lives on in historical print collections.371 This is however the story of the siege of Ostend, not of Sluis, and therefore not the place for a closer discussion of it beyond its progress from the earliest to the latest of interrelated books devoted to that siege here examined.

Notes 363. See De Wit, esp. pp.28-9 and its fig.14, a print published following the battle of Nieuwpoort showing the Prince from the waist up, surrounded by symbols of his victories. The face in the equestrian portrait may be derived from it, but by the time Louis Elzevier published it, Michiel van Mierevelt’s much better portrait of 1607 was known not only in its original at Delft, but also in numerous copies (De Wit, pp.31-2). For the NTr portrait as described by Van Someren see n.310. Van Someren unavoidably fails to mention the change Meuris made to the inscription naming the Prince which for NTr had been engraved on a separate strip added below the portrait, but which Meuris seems not to have received and therefore replaced with a letterpress inscription superimposed on the top edge of the print. 364. Other, earlier portraits of Maurice in print are listed by Van Someren, vol.1, no.177-183, with reference to Muller, Portretten, no.107-140. From the descriptions it is obvious that none of them was copied for NTr. 365. Cf. also fig.17. 366. The portraits are listed in Van Someren, vol.l, no.223. As a typical example I have chosen that of Sir Francis Vere for reproduction (fig.25) because of the special importance given him in the stories of the siege. Its place in the book is opposite p.74, thus facing the description of his arrival at Ostend on 16 July 1601. The marginal inscription reads: ‘Sr Francis Veer, Coronel. ende. Gouverneur. van Oostende’, the one engraved below: ‘Sr Francis Veer Colonel et Gouverneur d’Ostende’. 367. Vere’s portrait in his Commentaries, listed by Van Someren, vol. 1, no.224, is completely different. His portrait in Bor, vol.4, pp.180-1, may be a

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copy in mirror image of that in FlO, but for that very reason could certainly not have been printed from the same copperplate. For other portrait prints of Sir Francis Vere see also Muller, Historieplaten, no.5575-6 and Van Someren, vol.3, p.644. 368. The inscription on this portrait reads: ‘Philippe vleming, Auditeur ende Secretaris binnen d’Oostende iegenwoordich auditeur in Sluys ende quartieren in vlaenderen aetatis 64. Spes longa, dolor’ [P.F., Auditor and Secretary in Ostend, at present auditor in Sluis and quarters in Flanders, aged 64. Deferred hope equals grief]. For references to himself and family see pp.103, 105 n.192. 369. Already the letterpress text accompanying the engraving of this assault bridge on f.A3v of the second Appendix in the Belägerung has the title: ‘Abbildung der wunderlichen Sturm-bruggen/von jhre Excell. inventirt / mit jhren bedeutungen’ [Representation of the amazing assault bridge, invented by His Excellency, with its explanations]. Maurice was a keen mathematician and engineer, having studied these subjects with Simon Stevin. The plan for such a bridge to allow his troops to move forward to the attack without danger to themselves may well have been his. 370. The print with engraved text in Dutch was no doubt first produced with also its accompanying letterpress text in Dutch, as were the others which made their way to the compiler and printer of the Belägerung, but that is where its copperplate also came to be employed. It would be a very strange coincidence if Meuris had obtained it separately from the others rather than through Van Haestens. 371. See Muller, Historieplaten, no.1214, where it is said to belong to a ‘contemporary book’, and Supplement no.1215Aa, App. dl.2, no.3 (i.e. the print on the left side of the opening of the second bifolium in Appendix II in the Belägerung); Van Rijn, no.1162 (vol.2, p.28, the paragraph beginning ‘Aan het eind van het werk’). A smaller copy is found in the collection of prints formed by Christoffel Beudeker in the first half of the eighteenth century of which there is as yet no catalogue worth the name (see Simoni, ‘Terra incognita’, p.175, n.18).

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As we have seen, the story of the siege of Ostend exercised the minds of Dutch, and not only Dutch, historiographers sufficiently to devote not only chapters in general histories to it, but also separate books dealing exclusively with the bitter but heroic events of those few years. There have of course been separate books about other, similar sieges which occurred during the Eighty Years War, of which those of Grol (Grolle, Groenlo), Breda and ’s-Hertogenbosch spring most readily to mind.372 The remarkable side to the literature concerning the siege of Ostend is however that there were so many books about it and that, apart from separate news reports, maps and prints and justificatory pamphlets like the Extremities of 1602, they were compiled and published from the immediate date of 1604 onward,373 when memory would be sharpest and interest strongest, right through the Twelve Years’ Truce to its very end in 1621 and far beyond. Indeed, after the German, French and English editions of the prose narrative, all dated 1604, the Latin and Dutch verses commemorating it and the French poetic engagement with it in the Grotius imitations also of 1604, the Dutch historical books to be published in the Republic all appeared after 1609. Is it possible to read any political purpose into this or is it accidental that Van Haestens sent forth his own book in its various guises from 1613 to 1615? In view of my theory regarding his acquisition of the plates and his resulting wish to put them to use,374 I tend to the latter view as regards Van Haestens. But his primarily commercial intention, not forgetting his scholarly aspirations and ambitions, would no doubt have found support in the mood of the nation, or that of its intellectual and ruling elite whom he must have envisaged as his readers. Or why would he have bought the copperplates in the first place? There is in his text no explicit political statement in favour either of the Truce itself and possible peace thereafter, or of a resumption of the war. The horrors described could be seen as antiwar arguments. The emphasis on the heroism displayed by the defenders of Ostend, from the commanders to the ordinary soldiers

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and such civilians as were present, while not underrating the valour of the enemy, and the interspersed poetry underlining these aspects, can on the other hand be seen as supporting an opinion in favour of an eventual resumption of the fight against Spain. Did Van Haestens then sit on the fence? If so, he was surely not alone and he would have been very conscious of his position outside real political influence. The Ostend books written, or rather adapted from existing sources by Henrick van Haestens, printed by him and, as far as the Dutch language editions go, also published by him, fit well into his other publications at this stage of his career.375 The various editions of the Nassauschen lauren-crans, in which venture he had collaborated with Jan Orlers, directly preceded and accompanied publication of the Ostend books; he printed historical drama some years earlier and historical narrative just before the Bloedige Belegeringhe.376 These books would all have caught the contemporary mood among the citizens of the Dutch Republic. Whether the lavish illustration made them too expensive for the ordinary citizen is another matter. Louis Elzevier’s investment in the French edition may have been very welcome to the printer. It seems likely that he sold the copperplates used in these volumes to Aert Meuris between 1615 and 1621: he must surely have suspected that they would be used once more and then without any further profit to himself. In 1621 he went bankrupt and left for Leuven. His adherence to Maurice and the whole House of Nassau, his belief in the just cause of the Protestant side in the long conflict, his relations with fellow printers and booksellers in Leiden and other Dutch towns were at an end and he transferred himself and his craft to, of all things, the conquerors of Ostend. A suitable subject for moral reflection or even a literary excursion? Philip Fleming’s position was very different. His experience and his important function in the army, both at Ostend itself and later at Sluis, must have allowed him considerable weight at least in military councils and in political circles perhaps as well. If not officially, then through his private talks with his commanders, his views may have percolated even to the highest decision-makers like Prince Maurice and his advisers. What is more, the publication of his diary, which had lain dormant for so long, at the moment when the Truce

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was running out, was hardly fortuitous. It has been put forward that no less a person than Constantijn Huygens encouraged Aert Meuris to publish Fleming’s book,377 and it was Meuris, perhaps acting on Huygens’s instigation, who then added so many passages, including poems, and in particular the plates from the editions of Van Haestens to bring further shape and substance to Fleming’s rather limited and monotonous journal. As Huygens was closely allied to the Prince378 whose opposition to Spain was total and who in 1618 had so forcefully rejected any real or alleged rapprochement,379 the idea behind this publication could only have been that of strengthening the readers’ determination to resist possible attempts at extending the Truce, let alone at making peace, and rather to fight again, as in fact happened. How much if any influence the book had towards this end it is of course impossible now to discover. It was however not the only book with a war propaganda purpose and may cumulatively have helped to convince, if not opponents of such a policy, then a good many ‘waverers’ among the delegates of the cities who decided these matters in the States General. The war then dragged on till the peace of Westphalia in 1648, when both Spain and the Empire finally officially recognised the Republic’s independence. The Southern and Northern Provinces were to remain separate entities, except for their brief union in the Kingdom of Holland following the Napoleonic wars. This proved untenable and the once Spanish, then Austrian and briefly French Netherlands freed themselves from what to them was oppression by the North in a short sharp war in 1830. Since then, although there has sometimes been rivalry and even mistrust, good will and much fruitful cooperation have been very evident too, or, to say it with Vondel in his ‘Vredewensch aen Constantyn Huigens’ of 1633: ‘T’olyf behaeght my boven den laurier’ [The olive to the laurel I prefer].

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Notes

372. Hugo Grotius, Grollae obsidio cum annexis anni MDCXXVII (Amstelredami 1629); Hermannus Hugo, Obsidio Bredana armis Philippi IIII. auspiciis Isabellae ductu Ambr. Spinolae perfecta (Antverpiae 1626), famous for its Rubens title-page; Daniel Heinsius, Rerum ad Sylvam-Ducis atque alibi in Belgio aut a Belgis Anno MDCXXIX gestarum historia (Lugd. Bat. 1631). 373. The international character of this literature is another factor. It includes translations, not only of home-produced versions of prints to make them suitable for foreign consumption - a method of spreading opinion which had long been in vogue -, but the deliberate search by publishers in one country for items from another to translate for the use of their fellow countrymen. This interest in the fate of Ostend could lead, for instance, to the publication in French of the Palhstra Ostendana, which deals with the defenders’ final struggle. On p.B1r, where it reaches ‘FIN’, it freely admits to a German original: ‘... comme nous trouuons à la coppie & relation en Allemand, où nous auons extraict ce que dessus’, to be followed on pp.Blv-2r by the names of forts, numbered 1-36, and text derived from elsewhere which names the last commander of Ostend ‘le Noble Seigneur le Sieur Stand(!)’. On p.B3r the French text shows that it was written before the actual capitulation of the town: ‘... cela donna occasion aux assiegez de parlementer, priant le Lecteur veoir la carte qui en a esté faicte, & qui est compris au liure de l’histoire d’Ostende que nous auons cy deuant imprimé auec ladicte carte ... ’, obviously the Histoire remarquable, or rather its Continuation. This, the writer goes on, will enable the reader to follow events also as described ‘a nostre liure en Alleman intitulé Palestra Ostendana’ (a copy of which, as Mr Christoph Boveland has kindly informed me, exists in the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel). A last minute reference to news for which there was no time any more to print a translation, sends the reader to ‘le cinquiesme liure du Mercurius Gallobelgicus venu de cette derniere faire de Francfort & qui A est [sic] nouuellemant imprimé . FIN’. The reference is actually to the fourth book of the fifth volume of the Mercurius Gallobelgicus, published at the autumn fair 1604 and still not including the surrender of Ostend which is reported only on pp.93101 of the sixth volume, dated 1605. 374. See p.64. 375. His earlier publication of Copye van twe verscheyden brieven (see p.63) does not appear to have left any trace in BlB. 376. See pp.63-4. 377. See p.78 and p.24 n.5. If true, as seems highly probable, there is still no telling which of them decided on the interpolations from Van Haestens,

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though it was certainly Meuris who implemented them. 378. The literature on Huygens is legion. For a short biographical sketch see NNBW. 379. His so-called coup d’état, in which elected Remonstrant town councils were replaced with Contra-Remonstrant orthodox Calvinist nominees, took place under the pretext that otherwise the Protestant cause was going to be betrayed by submission to Spain. The same fear, or trumped-up charge, was the reason for the arrest and imprisonment of inter alios Hugo Grotius and the barbarous execution of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, actions which left an indelible stain on Maurice’s once so respected name.

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Appendix I. Wolff tracks in Flanders380

‘WOLFF. INVENT: FLOR. BALT. SCVLP. ET IMPREs:’ [Wolff designer, Flor. Balt. engraver and printer], declares the great map of Ostend (frontispiece)381. But whereas its engraver-printer Floris Balthasarsz van Berckenrode is well known and documented,382 the original designer of this map has long remained unidentified, nor this map been integrated into his work. And since the name ‘Wolf’ in all its possible spellings is found in a number of countries all over northern Europe, even his nationality remained obscure.383 However, there is a clue in Campbell which after ‘Woulfe, Vincent, 1543?’ repeats this surname with the Christian names ‘Walter Morgan’ and the date ‘1588- ’, leading to two maps in the British Library’s Department of Manuscripts.These are of fortified places in the Low Countries, i.e. Bergen-op-Zoom and Flushing, both dated 1588.384 His handwriting, including his signature, is beautifully clear. The inscription on the map of Bergen, enclosed in a cartouche, reads: ‘the scituacion fortificacion and true platteforme of the towne of bergen vp zome in Brabande ... sett downe by walter morgan wooullphe proffesor of Arms: nouember 25: Anno: 1588:’.385 The map of Flushing, though not signed, has an even longer inscription in the same hand, in the same cartouche: ‘Beying at Vlyshinge embarkyd for englande And the wynde Crossinge: myne intente: in whiche intermission vnderstandinge of the late practys ther pretendyd for the: surprisinge of the same: Conceuynge the intente detestable: And the seruis necessarye for the honor of her maiestie And the generall beneffytt of all her domynions: I tooke vyewe of the strengthe of the towne As hyt ys At thys presents ... 1588’.386 The long explanation of the origin of this map makes it quite clear in my opinion that he was working for a superior at a distance and not for a military officer to whom he could talk. An entry in the Calendar of State Papers387 then reveals his employer: headed ‘June 19 [1587]. W. Morgan Wollphe to Walsingham’, it contains the greater part of a long letter describing the most recent fortifications constructed at Bergen, with other military intelligence. There are reports of a foray by English soldiers into enemy-

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held territory where they attacked the house of the Count de Lalaing, taking the Countess prisoner;388 of the planned rendezvous of new Dutch officers and the cavalry already in the field; of intercepted letters from the Duke of Parma’s camp to the governor of Breda and ‘those of ’s-Hertogen-bosch’, exhorting them to resist any siege by ‘Count Morys’; of Anglo-Dutch plans to engage the Archduke’s army then surrounding Sluis, while the fortresses of Ostend, Axel and Terneuzen were to hold his local forces occupied, creating overwhelming odds in favour of the Dutch, aided by flooding the land and allowing movement only over the dykes. There is a paragraph on the common soldiers’ love for Prince Maurice and one on Maurice’s habit of careful planning, with the help of ‘plats’ or ‘platforms’ of an area, i.e. maps. He is enclosing such a ‘platform’ of Sluis, adding a lengthy assessment of the chances this town would have to resist the siege now in progress and even enemy penetration through as many as three breaches of the ramparts, referring to spot G on his map where a defence could then still be successfully mounted. ‘If his Excellency [the Earl of Leicester, then Governor of the United Provinces] were comed over with some officers of judgment and reasonable forces withal, what effects he could work ...’.389 When extolling the strength of Sluis in Republican hands, Wolff refers to the valour of the soldiers defending the town and especially to ‘sufficient captons of dyscression ... who are gentyllmen off proper Judgement and marvelus necessarye too haue’ and even supplies a list of names, not transferred to the text in the Calendar, among them ‘Capton Veare’, ‘Capton Pauyier’, ‘Capton Jorrijs Couture’ and ‘Capton Vdall’, all officers later to be found again among the defenders of Ostend. ‘Veare’ of course denotes Sir Francis, since his brother Horace had then not yet joined him. Wolff’s familiarity with the English officers may well have facilitated his later stay in the town when it was in its last agony. Apart from these maps already known to be Wolff’s, other maps preserved in the same collection and elsewhere, if drawn in a similar style, can perhaps also be assigned to him.390 If belonging to the same years of 1587, 1588 they would not be immediately relevant to the siege of Ostend, but maps of a later date could also still be waiting to be ascribed to Wolff. If he was a spy he would have acted in this capacity only occa-

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sionally. And whereas spies are commonly shadowy figures, some more information on Wolff as a person can be had from this and other documents. First, the letter of 19 June 1587. Speaking of maps made for the Prince of Orange he writes: ‘When I and my brother Mons. Epooyett [sic] were with the Prince of Orange after our return from France... we made plats... of such towns as lay in his way where he bent his forces’. The gentleman was a certain De Poyet,391 but whether they were half-brothers, brothers-in-law or only brothers-in-arms, is beyond this enquiry; what is of interest is the revelation that his journey to the Low Countries in the late 1580s was not his only excursion to foreign parts and that, besides being employed by Walsingham, he once worked also for William of Orange. The name of ‘Captain Morgan’ is mentioned as the bearer of a letter from Edward Horsey, a courtier of Queen Elizabeth, at Windsor to William Davison at Antwerp, dated 8 November 1577.392 Horsey describes Morgan as a soldier and active adherent of William of Orange and requests Davison to treat Morgan as he would himself. While there is already another pointer to his personality in the signature to the map of Bergen, where he describes himself, surely with pride, as ‘proffesor of Arms’ and offers advice on matters of defending a town, evidence of military professionalism lies even more strongly in the manuscript account of events in the Dutch wars which he sent to Lord Burghley in 1574 under the name of Water [sic] Morgan.393 In his dedicatory letter he states that he enjoyed military training from childhood days and had been a soldier all his life. He again mentions De Poyet,394 and this, if confirmation is needed, surely confirms the identity of Walter Morgan and Walter Morgan Wolff. Nor, as the map of Ostend shows, was the trip of 1588 his last. If one assumes that he spent some time back in England following on the crossing from Flushing which more favourable winds must eventually have allowed, he returned to the Netherlands not later than 1604 where he made the triple drawing of Ostend under siege which Balthasarsz then engraved.395 Most of the latter’s known maps are engraved from his own designs and we can only guess why for once he did not prepare his own drawing: he may not have fancied going to this exceedingly dangerous and uncomfortable place, he may have been too busy with other maps for Maurice or

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the States General, or for some reason it may have been easier for Wolff to undertake the preliminary work.396 The real origin of the map obviously lies with Maurice, for whom according to the title of the first Belägerung von Ostende it was made,397 who perhaps divided the work between them. Balthasarsz himself had a great reputation by then and commanded large fees for the maps he officially supplied for the use of the army.398 But Wolff too must have been well known and respected to make it possible that no more than his surname as designer of a ‘plat’ was then needed to ensure its acceptance and approval. Whatever the procedure, we may presume that Maurice was well satisfied with the finished article.

Notes 380. I am retaining the form Wolff as it appears in print, though its bearer seems not to have used it for his signature. 381. Resolving the abbreviations the text reads: ‘Wolff inventor, Florens Balthasarsz sculptor et impressor’. 382. See NNBW and Bodel Nijenhuis. 383. For a more exhaustive account of the designer and the map see Simoni, ‘Walter Morgan Wolff’. 384. Campbell, p.701, leading to Manuscripts, Cotton Aug.I.ii. 107, which is of Bergen, and Cotton Aug.I.ii.115, of Flushing. These maps, like that of Ostend which of course has also passed through the hands of a great engraver, are finely enough drawn for a map expert to describe them as ‘works of art in themselves’ (cf. Barber, pp.75-6). 385. For the full text of this cartouche see Simoni, ‘Walter Morgan Wolff’, p.64. 386. For the full text within the cartouche on this map see Simoni, ‘Walter Morgan Wolff’, pp.64-65. 387. Calendar of State Papers Foreign series, Elizabeth I, 21/3, pp.118-20. 388. This refers to Willem de Lalaing, Count of Hoogstraten (1563-90), and his wife Maria Christina, daughter of the Count Egmont executed in Brussels in 1568, whose second marriage this was. After Willem’s death she married the notorious Count Karl von Mansfeld whom she also survived. The episode of her capture in 1587 is not mentioned by Jonkheer. 389. Wolff was too optimistic. The Spanish army did take Sluis and held it until 20 August 1604. 390. There may be possible maps among those in Hatfield House of which the Map Library of the British Library has photographic reproductions and

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there may well be others in Dutch or Belgian archives. (An enquiry at the General State Archives in The Hague unfortunately revealed no maps signed by him, which does not of course exclude anonymous maps.) However, I do not feel qualified to make any judgment, especially on material which it is as good as impossible to place side by side with the known maps. 391. For the little which is known of De Poyet see Simoni, ‘Walter Morgan Wolff’, p.66, n.14, p.67, n.16. His moment of glory came in 1573 when William of Orange put him in command of the troops which took Geertruidenberg from the Spaniards. 392. Cf. Calendar of State Papers Foreign series, Elizabeth I, 12, p.314, no.417. I thank Mr David Trim for drawing my attention to this document. 393. The form ‘Water’ was common at the time. For the illustrated chronicle see Oman, Baird and Simoni, ‘Walter Morgan Wolff’, p.67, n.15. For accounts of this manuscript see Baird and Oman. 394. See especially Williams, passim. 395. The map exists in two states: with and without the small insets demonstrating the final retrenchments (see Simoni, ‘Walter Morgan Wolff’, pp.756). The earlier state, without the insets, relates to April 1604, the insets to July and August of that year. Although there is no definite statement linking Wolff to all of them, it is probable that he delivered drawings of all three. Another mapmaker in Ostend in 1604 was Ralph Dexter who also stayed to the bitter end, in fact, he was responsible for the final defence works and would, I believe, not have had the time to make two sets of drawings with so much fine detail. For a signed Ostend map by Dexter see n.396. 396. Part of the famous map of Ostend with the Grotius poem on it (see p.124 and n.260), which Balthasarsz signed as ‘Delineator, Descriptor, Editor’ (designer, engraver, publisher), is closely related to Wolff’s, which is perhaps not surprising as it is of the same subject. Both states clearly display the name of its true designer, if not of the whole map, then at least of part of it, probably the small map of the last stand: ‘Loci Ichno-graphiam expressit Ravo Dexter Centurio et Machinarius Principis’ [Ralph Dexter, Captain and Engineer of the Prince [i.e. Maurice], drew the likeness of this place’]. Dexter, who served at Ostend for a long time, is recorded as the engineer responsible precisely for the earthworks around ‘Parva Troia’ (See BlB, p.157: ‘Tegen dit verlies [i.e. of the bastion Santhil] hadden de belegerde ... hun voorsien / door haer cloecke Crijchsconstighe meesters ofte Ingenieurs (onder andere Raeff Dexter Engelsman ...) want achter de verloren bolwercken Zanthil/Helmont/etc. maeckten sy eenen nieuwen Zanthil/ ende nieu Helmont: daer nae sneden sy noch de Stadt ten halven aff ... dwers de stadt over/ ende achter datte sneden sy meer als een vierendeel vande stadt aff ... als voor de laetste retraicte/ dat sy nova Troya, ofte nieu Troyen noemden ...’ [Against this loss the besieged had made their

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plans through their skilled military masters or engineers (among others Ralph Dexter Englishman), for behind the lost ramparts Santhil, Helmont, etc. they made a new Santhil and a new Helmont: after this they also cut the town in half, right across the town, and behind this they cut off more than a quarter of the town, as for a last retreat which they called New Troy], and FlO, pp.429,441,539, where ‘Raef Dester’ is listed among various specialists as the only engineer. The last date in the Dutch text accompanying the copy of the map at Hatfield House is 17 June 1604. A copy of the later state, that is to say with the poet’s name below the verse, is described by Muller, Historieplaten, no.1204, reproduced in Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish etchings, vol. 2, p.10, and in Eyffinger, p.56. 397. See p.45. The map available for possible publication in the spring of 1604 was the earlier state of that inserted in the definitive edition. It naturally lacked the small inserts only drawn in July and August of that year. A copy of the map in the earlier state, without attached text, exists in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, München, and is reproduced in Simoni, ‘Walter Morgan Wolff’, p.73. The same map also forms part of a copy of the Belägerung von Ostende preserved in the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel, where it is given a key in German, Dutch and French. The map is lacking from the copy of the Belägerung von Ostende described in Muller, Historieplaten, Supplement, no.1215A,b. It may have been the map in its first state which Maurice sent to Ferdinand. Maps of Ostend under siege abounded. Apart from those in the Belägerung and its successors and the Dexter-Balthasarsz-Grotius map, there were other maps in other historical works, e.g. at least two by Georg Keller in the Mercurius Gallobelgicus, vol.5, bk.4, explained on pp.84 and 183-4 (unfortunately during rebinding the plates in the British Library’s copy of the Mercurius Gallobelgicus have been bound in the wrong places). Other maps, including one of Sluis with the storm bridge below, are listed as separates in Muller, Historieplaten, no.1213, ff.., without mention of their source. Nor does Hollstein, German engravings, pp.19-40, refer to these and the many other illustrations by Keller in this publication. Keller, known as a great copier (see Nagler, pp.657-8, without reference to these maps), must have had an original not otherwise recorded for one of the Ostend maps, whereas the other seems influenced by that of Wolff-Balthasarsz in its first state. Surprisingly, considering the choice of material (cf. Muller, Van Rijn, Fauser), it is another German-printed map, one of the great assault, which is reproduced in All about Ostend!, p.11, entitled: ‘Oostende, mit dem gewaltigen generalen Sturm so darauff gehalten den 7. Jan: Anno 1602’, whose spelling of the placename again points to an original with text in Dutch. 398. See Bodel Nijenhuis, passim; Laboranter, ‘Kaartenmakers’, pp.449-50.

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Franciscus Villerius Henrico Bilderbeke V.C. Salutem dicit. Quatriduum ecce labitur, postquam Colonia soluimus, nec Vveseliam etiam appulimus; Ea tamen in oculis est, & commendatitias illas expedimus, spero vsui fore, Rhimbergi399 pernoctauimus, oppidum peruidimus, atque munitiones, O pullos Martios ! qui expugnarunt ! Sed nimis me hercules Martios, nam de pietate, verbis fortasse an aliquid factis a Papistis haud longissime de veritate discreti, comessatio, scortatio, & quae armis annexa, nondum etiam ad glacialem Oceanum ablegata sunt. Huc exemplis opus, mi Maecenas, huc viris, vt quam Hurnen400 Religionem expurgauit, sordescere tandem non ingemiscamus. Habes carmen ad Crispini mei nouitiam opus, cui vnà amicissimam salutem Vale. [Franciscus Villerius sends greetings to Henricus Bilderbeke. Four days have passed since we set sail from Cologne, nor have we yet reached Wesel; but it is in sight, and we are sending the introductory letters, I hope they will be useful. We spent the night at Rheinberg399 and toured the town and fortifications: oh chicks of Mars who took them! And too much so, by Jove, for in truth, as far as humanity is concerned, they were not so very far removed in words or deeds from the Papists; drunkenness, rapes and whatever goes with arms have not yet been dismissed to the frozen seas. There is need here of examples, my Maecenas, of men such as when Hurnen400 purged religion, however let us not complain of getting filthy. Here is a poem for you, a work in the manner of my own Crispinus, together with which I send you my most affectionate greeting. Farewell.]

Notes

399. Rheinberg changed hands several times during the Eighty Years War. The last time it did so before August 1604, latest possible date for the letter, was on 1 August 1601 when it was taken by the Dutch. 400. I have been unable to discover this character’s identity.

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Appendix III: Compiler’s Comment

A particular facet of the Belägerung which the French translator failed to include in the Histoire remarquable and which therefore has left no trace in the later Ostend books, consists of the passages in that first detailed history of the siege which hold the whole together and also offer interesting reflections of the compiler’s own attitude to his story. This Appendix is intended to allow the reader of this comparative exercise an insight into them. It will make matters easier if instead of constantly referring to the anonymous compiler we assume that this was indeed Henricus Bilderbeke. There may be no certainty on this point, but the probability is strong and the comments he made to this compilation, if indeed it was he who made them, may add some further touches to the character already largely portrayed by Stolp. By early 1604 Bilderbeke would have had a large file of various reports in manuscript, broadsides with or without engravings to them and some other printed material waiting to be knitted together into a unified whole. One very simple and also traditional device presented itself quite naturally to him: the strict chronological arrangement of facts by year, month and day. This leads occasionally to awkward moments, especially where different but simultaneous events have to be described, but on the whole it worked well enough with all the Ostend books under examination. A mere string of dates and events could however easily have become tedious to the reader. The illustrations then provided spice, and typographical means were applied to add variety to the pages. Bilderbeke also employed further structural elements to weld the story into a coherent narrative. To begin with, there is an introduction which merges almost imperceptibly into the account of the beginnings of the siege. It starts with a geographical description of Ostend’s situation between ‘Newpforth’ [Nieuwpoort] and ‘Brugghe’, its waterways and harbour, now cut both by the enemy and by the defenders’ own measures. This is followed by a sketch of the town itself, its size, the nature of its population in peacetime. Next the fortifications are

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traced through their history from 1572 onward, the importance of the town to the United Provinces and the countermeasures attempted by ‘Die von Flandern’ [Those of Flanders] to protect themselves from constant sorties and much burning and plundering. The States of Flanders were indeed encouraging Albert to besiege and eventually take the town, this ‘dorn in jhren fussen’ [thorn in their foot], offering him very large financial contributions to this end. This introduction occupies all of f.2r (following the title-page which is unfoliated, but represents A1 and is therefore f.1) and almost all of f.2v where the story of the actual siege begins very quietly, without any typographical break, seven lines from the bottom. How Bilderbeke got his facts is difficult to say. Some of them may have come from Guicciardini, others from his correspondent on the spot, whom he may indeed have asked for such information. The beginning of the siege is certainly taken from this kind of material. The narrative is then allowed to pursue its course, with special typographical divisions at the turn of each year, for quoted letters and the like, where a change of typeface or the use of borders and decorative initials indicate a change of character. Thus, the year 1601 ends on f.E4r401 with 31 December when, unusually, the artillery on both sides remained quiet, no one on either side was killed or wounded and ‘zwei Schifflein’ [two small boats] managed to leave unmolested. But there is a warning of impending trouble which will be fully related under the date of 7 January. A narrow border about two thirds down the page separates 1601 from ‘Anfang des Jars 1602’ [Beginning of the year 1602]. Short paragraphs dealing with the first six days of January fill the last third of f.E4r and the first third of f.E4v. A marginal note quickly allows the reader to spot the beginning of the report of the great assault which carries on to the top of f.F1v, ending with a paragraph listing the ‘Namen der Herrn vnd Obersten, so disen vorgedachten sturm auff der Statt haben verrichtet, den 7. Ianuarij Anno 1602’ [Names of the gentlemen and colonels who carried out this planned assault on the town on 7 January 1602], a heading printed in roman and centred over two lines, again to make it stand out. Bilderbeke then seems to fear that his tale of military action could attract the wrong sort of people to try and join the fight. He prints a letter describing conditions which he introduces as follows: ‘Dem-

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nach allerley losz gesindlin ausz Italien, Spangien, Teudtschland vnd andere frembde Ortren nach Niderlandt kombt gelauffen/ vnd vermeint das die Niederlandische Geldt-kasten auff jhrer zukunfft402 warten vnd offen stehen/ so wollen wir zu jhrer warnung ... hie die Copei eines Brieffs für augen legen/ welcher bey einen todten403 ist gefunden wurden/ wor innen sie klerlich werden konnen anschawen/ zu welchen Gestmahl sie geladen kommen’ [Since all kinds of rag tag and bobtail from Italy, Spain, Germany and other foreign parts come running to the Low Countries believing that the Dutch treasure chest is waiting for them wide open, I want to warn them by laying before their eyes the copy of a letter found on a dead body by which they can clearly recognise to what banquet they come as guests]. This is surely Bilderbeke’s voice, moved by what he read in his correspondent’s communication. And this poor soldier’s letter paints a grim picture indeed of the hardships suffered. But the oddest part of this page is its final paragraph which follows on the text of this letter and again allows us to observe Bilderbeke at work, interrupting the chronicling of events with a piece of his own mind. It runs: ‘Merckt vnd erwegt bey euch selbst gutwilliger Leser/ ob der Keiser Augustus, so er jetzt lebete (der domahls da er horete von die grosse Mörderey die der Konig Herodes vnter die vnschuldige Kinder zu Bethlehem hatte lassen thun/ sagte/ das es besser war Herodes Schwein zu wesen/ dan ([sic] ein Kindt) nun nicht sagen wurde/ das es besser war/ Herodes Hundt zu wesen als sein Soldat? Denn in dise kalte Lander bey Wintersche zeiten ein Lager ins feldt zu halten/ ist zwar404 ein vhnmenschliche vnd vnbermhertzige verschlindung der menschen/ nemblich meist der Italianer vnd Spanier/ die solchs nicht gewön seind’ [Note and consider yourself, gentle reader, whether the Emperor Augustus, if he were living now - who then, when he heard of the great massacre which King Herod had ordered to be carried out among the innocent children at Bethlehem, said that it was better to be Herod’s pig rather than a child - would not say now that it was better to be Herod’s dog rather than his soldier? For to keep an army in the field in wintertime in these cold countries is surely an inhuman and merciless waste of men, in particular mostly Italians and Spaniards who are not used to such conditions].

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Was Bilderbeke exceptional in his, or in any time, to pity the enemy soldiers and even the riff-raff among them, mentioned in his heading to the dead soldier’s letter? True, he tempered this pity by strong condemnation of the ruler who was to blame for exposing them to misery, comparing him to King Herod himself, but this short paragraph inserted in the tale of unending human disaster declares him to have had a heart as well as a head. And so he moves on through 1602 and 1603, until on f.I2v he has reached the beginning of 1604. The chronological matter only covers 1-6 January, ending with the arrival of three ships on the latter date. Here a short paragraph follows which may again be Bilderbeke’s own: ‘Nun aber vmb nichts da hinden zu lassen das den news pflichtigen leser gefallen muchte / so wollen wir hie die ausz copey eines brieffs stellen der aus Antorff geschrieben ist/ da er solchen vortheil mit thun mag als sein genegenheit zu einer der beiden parteyen jhm zu leszt’ [But now, so as not to withhold anything of possible interest to the reader devoted to news, I am going to set down here the transcript of a letter from Antwerp, from which he may draw such advantage as his inclination towards one or the other party allows him]. The text of this letter then runs from midway on f.I2v to midway on f.I3r, where the last part of the page bears the explanation of the assault bridge,405 before it is concluded with a wide pictorial border featuring satyrs, snails, rabbits, snakes, herms in the shape of horses, flowers and cornucopias. Why the book should have been finished at exactly this point is not at all clear. Obviously, though the definitive issue was retained until the autumn, it was originally meant to go on sale at the Frankfurt spring fair, which made it necessary to complete the text in good time. But why then not do so with 31 December 1603, or go on to the end of January 1604 which should still have been possible? The calculation of the paper needed would have presented no difficulty as in the end a whole leaf, f.I4, remained blank. Perhaps Bilderbeke’s source or sources had dried up, which, considering the daily danger to any correspondent of death or injury, not to mention the diseases that were rampant there, could easily have happened. All this is however guesswork and the only knowledge we have is that, although there is no mention of another instalment to come, not one but two such were prepared for the autumn fair of the same and the

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spring fair of the following year. The way in which these parts were joined to their predecessors will be discussed below. The first part of the story really finishes with the description of the ‘Sturmbrugge der hellwagen genant’. But although it ends on a high note itself: ‘Wir aber haben vns dagegen gewaffent mit allerley mitteln (schrieben die in Ostende) vnd vertrewen auff Gott der aller trewlosen rath kan zu nichte machen’ [But we have armed ourselves against this with various means, wrote those of Ostend, trusting in God who can overthrow the counsels of all the impious], it is no true conclusion, leaving the reader very much aware that the siege goes on and he will have to wait to satisfy his curiosity until such a time as a sequel to the present book may be published, if ever. Bilderbeke no doubt felt the unsatisfactory nature of this ending. He had also a full page to spare on f.I3v ! He therefore uses it for a text of his own making underneath a nice wide border and a heading which reads: ‘Zum Beschluss auff disz furgedacht Journal der gantschen Belägerung vnd Vniversiteit Ostende’ [In conclusion to this intended written journal of the whole siege and university of Ostend].406 This epilogue then fills the page, ending with the same pictorial border as was used at the foot of the recto page of this leaf. But what has he got to say? He takes a deep breath, evidently, and begins with a nice classical reference: ‘Gleich in vorzeiten Cicero vnd mehr andere Schribenten/ die warhaftige erzehelungen vnd Historien/ als gezeugen der furgehenden zeiten/ Regulen vnd Richtschüren [sic] des Menschleichen lebens gehalten haben/ vnd das da durch meist alle Nationen gar sorgfeltig gewesen sein/ vmb die gedenckwürdigste geschichten jhren Nachkommen zu hinder lassen: Also ist es auch mit diser Historia beschaffen/ weil sie ein gedencke zeichen wirt sein für alle Nachkommen’ [Just as in times gone by Cicero and many other writers took true stories and histories, being witnesses of the past, for rules and guidelines of human life and that therefore almost all nations have been careful to pass the most memorable histories on to their descendants, so it is the case also with this history, because it will be a monument for all future generations]. He explains this further by stating that it is for very good reasons that Ostend has been given the name of University or Academy for governors, engineers, captains, surgeons and

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masters of medicine. Experience, so he says, has shown that after a stay of no more than three or four months in Ostend a man is as well qualified as if he had studied many years elsewhere. He supplies detailed general examples of the value of this experience, to which he then adds the names of two particular medical men, ‘Mr. Moerbeke’ from The Hague whose reputation was ‘als ein Phoenix’, and the Antwerp surgeon called Alexander Courtmans, who in the years 1598-1601 had circumnavigated the world with Olivier van Noort407 and was still alive, who between them had amputated more than 1700 arms and legs at Ostend, as could be verified in their registers. And not only professional men had achieved such great expertise: the common soldier too proved himself so valiant that the enemy himself declared ‘Das sie keine Menschen waren ... vnd musten jeder noch einen leib in der kisten haben’ [That they were no [ordinary] men ... and each one must have had a spare body in his kitbag]. But then, how to provide a suitable finish? Bilderbeke chooses to be perfectly honest. He says it had been his hope that Ostend should one day be delivered from the siege which has now been going on for over two years and eight months, ‘den also es God [sic] dem Almachtigen noch nicht beliebet noch gefallen/ mussen wir jhm die Sache hin furt befolen haben’ [for since it has not yet thus pleased Almighty God nor been His will, we must entrust the matter henceforth to Him]. Nothing can be fairer than that. These last three lines have been given visual appeal by means of successive diminution and are separated from the finishing border by a wider than usual space. A blank leaf, f.I4, divides the text from the Appendix containing the illustrations which were published together with this first part and have been described earlier.408 The ‘Ander theil’ with its own Appendix had to be prepared through the spring and summer of 1604, but Bilderbeke was now an old hand at this job. Leaf A1 is again the title-page which promises the reader all the latest excitements. Its verso is blank. The recto of leaf A2, foliated f.2, bears a preface ‘An den Leser’ [To the reader], which consists largely of a pious reflection on the inscrutability of divine providence as seen so often in the war between the Dutch Republic and Spain, with a long list of examples where the results

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differed from expectation. This leads to Ostend where the final outcome still hangs in the balance. ‘Was vnkosten bisz anhero dar zu gangen/ was fur gewelt darauff geubt vnd versucht/ was newer pracktiken vnd Inventionen dazu bedacht/ was fur listen vnd schalckheiten/ vmb das jawort von diser Braut zu bekommen/ sein gebraucht werden/ hat der Leser in vorigem Buch weittlaufftig verstanden. Vnd also wir nicht zweiffeln oder der guthwillige Leser habe durst vnd verlangen nach dem verfolg vnd auszgang gemelter sachen: So ists das wir keine kosten/ muhe noch arbeydt haben sparen wollen/ aller dingen gewiszheyt, so viel muglich/ zu vberkommen/ vnd jhme die mittzutheilen/ gleich wir dann in meinung sein dasselbige bisz zur entsetzung oder eröberung gemelter Statt Ostende zu erfolgen/ so ferne es der Herr wirt zulassen/ Vale’ [What expense has gone into it, what force has been exerted and attempted against it, what new practices and inventions have been thought up for it, what ruses and tricks have been applied in order to bring this bride to say ‘yes’, the reader has gathered at length from the earlier book. And as I do not doubt the reader’s thirst and desire for the continuation and result of these matters, I have decided to spare no expense, effort or labour to obtain as much certainty as possible and communicate it to him, just as it is my intention to continue it right unto the relief or conquest of the aforesaid town of Ostend in so far as the Lord will allow. Farewell]. If only then Bilderbeke had set his name underneath! Instead he continues to weave the parts of his book together by means of a new couple of paragraphs separated from the above by a wide space. He now refers the reader to the first book for information on the situation, fortifications, defence works and attacks which he will not now repeat. The only news to be communicated here is a brief mention of the assault bridge known as the ‘Louvvagen’, i.e. the machine known in the True Historie as ‘Pompees Chariot’, recently described,409 which has since been ‘vnnutz gemacht’ [rendered unserviceable], and ‘die Anschlage da man so gewaltig auff bliese/ sein all zu mahl verschwunden vnd die Draumers aus dem schlaff ermuntert’ [The attacks announced with such mighty sounding of fanfares have all of them vanished away and the dreamers been awakened from their slumbers]. It is a very good transition which at the same time makes it necessary for the

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purchaser of only part two to find a copy of part one as well and whets the appetite of the owner of part one only to acquire part two. The verso of this leaf is again blank. Resuming the story on f.A3r, the heading once more pulls the reader along. It reads: ‘Journal: Oder weitere Erzehelung der Belägerung der Statt Ostende, darinn neben anderen/ der Zug Mauritij vnd Belägerung der Statt Sluys erkläret wirt’ [Journal: or further report of the siege of the town of Ostend, in which inter alia the campaign of Prince Maurice and the siege of the town of Sluis are set out]. Nor does he immediately jump into medias res, rather, as he has done before, he takes a deep breath and plunges into moral reflections on Dutch history: ‘Der jenige welcher die Niderlandische geschichten mit verstant vber lieset vnd betrachtet/ wirt befinden/ das inden Inlandischen Kriegen mehr Spanische Soldaten vmgebracht als in eröberung der Konigreichen in Ost vnd WestIndien/ von den einwohnern ermordet vnd vmbs leben gebracht sein’ [He who intelligently reads and reflects on the history of the Low Countries will conclude that more Spanish soldiers have been slain in the internal wars than were murdered and killed by the natives during the conquest of the kingdoms of the East and West Indies]. This is a fierce attack on Spain whose misdeeds against the American natives had given the Dutch much propaganda material.410 Bilderbeke continues with a discussion of the vast amount of money spent by Spain, money from their colonies, from tolls and taxes of all kinds, and still it is insufficient and the soldiers before Ostend are kept so short they have to mutiny to get paid. How much better does the Dutch Republic manage its affairs! Sure, money has to be raised there too, but people pay willingly, nor, stranger, had you witnessed the intolerable behaviour of the Spanish troops, would you be surprised at this.411 He will then not waste any more time on this, but tell what has actually happened with the siege. This he does, beginning with 20 March 1604. Evidently, the supply of news had been scarce for nearly three months, but was now flowing again. In one of the occasional passages, in which Bilderbeke leads the reader from one subject to another (pt.2, f.B4v), telling of Maurice’s exploits preceding the siege of Sluis, he then writes: ‘Wir wollen vns in der Handlung der statt Sluys nicht so gahr tief einlassen/ damit wir die sache der statt Ostende desto bäsz

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solten eingedenck sein’ [I shall not deal with the action of the town of Sluis in particular detail so that I can the better commemorate the matter of the town of Ostend], and so returns at once to where he had left off with that matter: on 28 May. The story is carried forward until 23 July 1604. The narrative ends with a paragraph: ‘Kumpt auch Zeitung aus dem Lager/ dass jhre Excell. widervmb 4000. Soldaten nach Ostende geschickt/ durchdem der Feind die statt mit gwalt angreifft vnd vermeint zu vbermeistern / man hatt sich mehr furm Wasser vnd Sturm als furm Feind zu furchten’ [News has also come from the camp that his Excellency has again sent 4000 soldiers to Ostend wherewith the enemy is attacking the town with force and is hoping to conquer it; water and storm are more to be feared than the enemy]. But the last sentence of the text is: ‘Dierweill wir aber gehofft/ diszselb mit einem friede zu beschiessen [sic]/ vnd solches biszhero nit geschehen/ musten wir hinfurt Gott dem Almachtigen die sache befohlen haben/ Vale’ [But although I had hoped to end with a peace and this has not yet come about, I have had to entrust the matter henceforth to Almighty God. Farewell]. As has been stated before, the verso of this leaf bears the title for the second Appendix.412 The text of part three begins on f.A2r with the heading ‘Journal/ Oder weitere erzehelung der belagerung der statt Ostende darin auch von die ergebung gemelter statt erzehelet vnd gehandelt wirt’ [Journal, or further report of the siege of the town of Ostend in which also the surrender of the aforesaid town is told and dealt with]. Once again the first paragraph provides the link with what has gone before: ‘Dieweil wir aber/ in die Vörige Relation vnd Beschreibung der statt vnd kriegs Vniversiteit Ostende mit vnserm schreiben ... von dem 28. Augusti 1604 aufgehalten haben: mussen wir weiter erzehelen was sich in des Ertzhertzogs Läger vnd in der Statt zu getragen hatt’ [Since however I ended my previous relation and description of the town and war university of Ostend with my report of 28 August 1604, I must now go on to tell what has happened in the Archduke’s camp and within the town]. He then reports on the celebration of the conquest of Sluis as held in the by now very restricted fortified area of the town, which as he says he had already described once before, but only briefly,413 and now does at length. There were fireworks and other ‘freuwden instrument’

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[joyful instruments], all done in good order, indeed, ‘Onangesehen ob der feind schon ein grosz theill der statt in seim gewalt hatte/ vnd bereit 46. grosse Metalen stucke/414 von dem Polder/ bisz an vnd auf die westpforte ... gestelt/ vnd dapfer damit in die Statt hinein schosz/ welches mancher armer Soldatt an beiden seitten/ mit seim leben hatt mussen bezalen/ vnd furm Triumph den todt empfangen’ [Notwithstanding that the enemy had already a large part of the town in his power and had set up 46 large bronze cannons from the polder to the West Gate and were firing fiercely with them into the town, which many a poor soldier on either side had to pay for with his life, receiving death instead of victory]. Having taken up a few other threads as well, the actual chronicle resumes with reports of 27, 29, 30 and 31 August, then runs all through September until the fateful 19th when, resistance having become hopeless, permission arrived from the States General to sue for surrender. All available ships were loaded with material and such officers and men as the enemy might be least inclined to spare, to be sent to Flushing. Early in the morning of 20 September the meeting took place at which terms were agreed and the Archduke’s troops came in unopposed to occupy some of the remaining fortifications. On the 21st people from the surrounding area visited Ostend. Most of them stayed outside, but some entered and marvelled at the desolation they found which they compared to the destruction of Jerusalem. The whole story of the end of the siege, told over leaves A2r to A4v, is presented in more detail here than anywhere else, with only Fleming approaching it, but of course the French translator and his successors relied on different sources for their accounts of the final weeks. Bilderbeke’s printed text ends with a formal arrangement of five lines of diminishing length above a small cartouche around the word ‘Finis’, about a third down the page, the remainder of which is blank: reader, sit still and reflect. But the facing page, f.A5, shows again the broad border at its head, balancing the little cartouche on A4v, followed by the words ‘Zum Beschluss’ [In conclusion] in the largest Gothic type used throughout. This epilogue is the compiler’s last word. As on similar earlier occasions, he looks upon his story from a humanist historian’s point of view, but now so as to recommend his work to the reader as a complete history: ‘Polybius der alte

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geschicht schreiber/ vergleichet ein gantze Histori menschlichen geschlechts/ einem lebendigen thier/ das gantz ist/ vnd an keinem glid mangel hatt. Aber die Historien vnd beschreibungen die stuck werck sind/ vnd allein von etlichen historien sagen/ vergleichet er einem thier/ das in vil stuck zertheilet/ vnd zerrissen ist/ da dann niemand mag ausz den zerrissenen stucken/ soo woll die figur/ gestalt, hupsche/415 vnd vermöglichkeit des thiers erkenen/ so es zerzerret/ als so es gantz ist. Darumb ich die Beschreibungen vnd geschichten von anfang der loblichen vnd dapferen belägerung der statt vnd kriegs Vniversiteyt Oostende, so vill mir muglich von tag zu tag bisz auf die eroberung gemelter statt ordentlich vnd warhafftig zu sammen getragen vnd bey ein gefügt habe. Verhoffe das alle vnd iede liebhaber hirinn ein guth wolgefallen tragen werde/ vnd dise vnsere Historia in danck auf vnd annemmen/ vnd dises gantz buch vnd Journall; wie auch Cicero von der Historia schreibet/ ia etlich masz sein mochte/ denen die gern Teutsch lesen/ als in der mutter spraach/ ein zeug der zeit/ ein liecht der warheit/ eyn leben der gedachtnus/ ein Meisterin des lebens/ ein verkunderin der alten geschichten/ vnd sollich [sic] sagen/ ein seugamme vnd ernarerin der fursichtigkeit’ [The ancient historian Polybius compares a complete history of mankind to a living animal which is whole and not deficient in a single limb. But the histories and descriptions which are only piecemeal and talk only of a few stories he compares to an animal which is divided and torn into many pieces so that nobody can then from the torn bits recognise the size, figure, shape, appearance and ability of the animal in its torn state as when it is whole. Therefore I have gathered together and joined up the descriptions and stories from the beginning of the praiseworthy and brave siege of the town and war university of Ostend as best I could from day to day, carefully and truthfully until the conquest of the aforesaid town. I hope that each and every interested reader will graciously agree and will take up and accept this my history gratefully and so this whole book and Journal; as Cicero also writes about history - ah let there be some accommodation for those who like to read German, it being their mother tongue: [history is] a witness to the times, a light to the truth, a life for memory, a mistress of life, a teller of ancient tales and, may I say it, a nurse and nourisher of prudence].

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To sum up the rest of this long piece of fine prose: after more generalities about history Bilderbeke concentrates again on Ostend. Once more he reflects on its well-deserved fame as having been the university of war, where even the most uncouth soldier was turned into an expert and, what is more, learned to talk of his experiences. It has cost incredible sums of money and untold lives of honest and brave men; muskets and cannons have been emptied onto it in their hundred thousands; ploys and stratagems, fire, attacks and all sorts of new inventions have been thrust against it… ‘Somma der disz alles beschreiben wolte/ werde ihm an fedder vnd tinte gebrechen/ so das durch ausz nit muglich ist alles zu erzehlen’ [In short, anyone wanting to describe it all will find himself short of pens and ink, wherefore it is absolutely impossible to report everything]. All this, what was it for and who proved himself the better man? ‘Durch alle diese gewalt wie vorg: Kriegslisten, sturmen, Flotzwergken/ vnd vnerhortes schiessen/ ist noch durchausz wenich ausz gerichtet/ durch dem die statt noch im dritten Jar der belagerung in seinem vorigen stanntt/ vnd wie zuvor vnwinlich eracht wurde. Wo sie nit auf die Hollander gute achtung geben/ fleiszig zu schul gangen/ vnd die kunst zu graben vnd minieren gelernet hatten/ welches sie dan mit sollicher gewalt gethan vnd angefangen/ das alzeit vngefehr funff tausent graber vnd Minatoren in die arbeidt waren’ [With all this force as well as the aforesaid tricks of war, assaults, floating works and unheard-of bombardments, really very little has been achieved, seeing that even in the third year of the siege the town maintained its earlier state and was considered as unconquerable as before. Had they not carefully observed the Dutch, diligently gone to school and learned the art of digging and mining, which they then executed and undertook with such strength that there were always some five thousand sappers and miners at work]. Clearly, the Spanish army only took Ostend because they had gone to school with the Dutch, and if the pupil then beat the master at his own game, it was due to superior numbers and was really unfair. The final paragraph of six again graduated lines once more recommends the work to the reader with expressions of modesty and apologies for any failings on his part. The two Latin poems presumably by Heinsius416 occupy the verso of this leaf in final tribute.

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To bring the examination of the Ostend books to an end I shall quote Bilderbeke’s own last captatio benevolentiae: ‘Verhoffe vnd versiehe mich also zu dem gunstigen leser/ vnd sonderlich zu denen/ so kriegshandlungen zu lesen begirig/ die werden jhnen solche meine geringfugige Historia der geschichten vnd handlungen in Oostende (den ich mich gegen anderen vil zu gering achte) gelieben vnd gefallen lassen/ vnd da ich in einem oder dem anderen zu vill gethan/ meiner schwacheit vnd vnvermugen zumessen/ auch solche meine wolgemeinte arbeit gunstig an vnd aufnemmen’ [I therefore hope and rely on the gentle reader and especially those who are keen readers of military actions that they will graciously consent to enjoy this my modest history of the events and actions at Ostend (for I consider myself much inferior in comparison with others) and if in one thing or another I have overdone it, attribute it to my weakness and lack of skill and therefore nonetheless accept and welcome this my well-meant labour]. Which, mutatis mutandis, can apply to this Ostend story too, reading: I hope and expect from the generous reader, and especially those who delight in reading historico-bibliographical studies, that they will incline to approve and enjoy this my modest story of Ostend in its early books, for in comparison with others I know myself very much their inferior; and if in one thing or another I have gone too far, let them attribute this to my weakness and inability and still accept and admit this my well-intentioned labour.

Notes 401. The foliation as supplied by the printer is totally erroneous and I shall therefore list pages by their place in the collation only. 402. ‘zukunfft’, here ‘arrival’ rather than ‘future’. 403. i.e. among the attackers. 404. ‘zwar’, here not so much limiting the statement as underlining it: ‘indeed, surely’ rather than ‘admittedly’. 405. See pp.164 and 168 n.347. 406. The nickname of Krijgsuniversiteit, University of War, was widely applied to Ostend. A little further on Bilderbeke himself provides an explanation, see below. 407. Not unnaturally, the Dutch were very excited and proud of their

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recent great voyages. The Beschryvinghe vande Voyagie om den geheelen Werelt Cloot, ghedaen door Olivier van Noort and its French version, Description du penible voyage faict entour de l’vnivers ou globe terrestre, were both published by Cornelis Claesz at Amsterdam in 1602. 408. See pp.51-3; ch.11. 409. I.e. at the end of part 1. 410. Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas first condemned Spanish brutality in the West Indies in his Brevissima relacion de la destruycion de las Indias, published in Seville in 1552. Before 1604 two Dutch, one French, two German and one Latin translations had been published (see List of sources), some of them illustrated, and many more, especially in Dutch, were to follow. 411. This may be a reference to the sequence of prints depicting the Dutch revolt produced by Frans Hogenberg in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Like Bilderbeke, he had found refuge in Cologne where the two must surely have met. 412. See p.53. 413. See pt.2, f.E2v, the paragraph beginning ‘Vber diese Victorien ...’, and FlO, p.527, where, in addition to fireworks and the firing of celebratory cannons, also a service of thanksgiving is mentioned. See also the reference to Van Meteren, p.95 n.146. 414. I.e. cannon made of bronze. 415. I.e. ‘Hübschheit’, ‘looks’. 416. See p.121.

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— , La Genealogie des Illustres Comtes de Nassau … Avec La description de toutes les Victoires … Deuxsiesme edition (Leiden, H. van Haestens for J.J.Orlers, 1615). Only the Description is in second edition. — , Warachtige beschrijvinghe van alle de belegeringen ende victorien … (Leiden, H. van Haestens for J.J.Orlers, 1619). Ostende (ed. N.E.P. = Nicolas Ellain Parisien?) ([Paris] 1604). Oxford English dictionary, see OED. Paas, J.R., The German political broadsheet 1600-1700. Vol.1 (Wiesbaden 1985). Palestra [Greek] Ostendana ou Relations des derniers combats d’Ostende, avec la reduction d’icelle. Traduit de l’Alleman en François (Paris 1604) (Kn 1278). Pasquini, J.-N., Histoire de la ville d’Ostende (Brussels 1843). Petit, L.D., Bibliotheek van Nederlandsche pamfletten. Verzamelingen van Joannes Thysius en de Bibliotheek der Rijks-Universiteit te Leiden (The Hague 1882). Pietersz, J., ‘De belegering van Oostende’, in: Het Vaderland. Tydschrift voor letterkunde en geschiedenis. Vol.1/1 (1844), pp.1-25. Pollard, A.W. & R.G. Redgrave, A short-title catalogue of books printed in England, Scotland & Ireland and of English books printed abroad 1475-1640. (2nd ed. rev. & enl.). 3 vols. (London 1976-91). Ponjaert, S., The siege of Ostend (1601-1604) in English literature and in contemporary books and pamphlets (unpubl. Lic. thesis, Univ. of Ghent, 1973). Promis, C., Biografie di ingegneri militari italiani del secolo XIV alla metà del XVIII (Torino 1874) [=Miscellanea di storia italiana edita per cura della Regia Deputazione di Storia Patria, 14]. Raa, F.J.G. ten & F. de Bas, Het Staatsche leger 1568-1795. 11 vols. (Breda 1911-64). Reduction de la ville de l’Escluse … (Paris 1604). Rijn, G. van, Atlas van Stolk: katalogus der historie- spot- en zinneprenten betrekkelijk de geschiedenis van Nederland verzameld door A. van Stolk. Vol.2 (Amsterdam 1897). Saint-Genois, L.D.G.J. Baron de, Le château de Wildenborg, ou Les mutinés du siége d’Ostende (1604) (Brussels 1846).

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Schopper, Jacob, the Younger, Neuwe Chorographia vnd Histori Teutscher Nation (Frankfurt a/M 1582). Schrickx, W., ‘Cyril Tourneur, war correspondent, spy and author of Extremities urging Sir Francis Vere to the anti-parle’, in: Neophilologus, 78 (1994), pp.315-27. — , ‘Elizabethan drama and Anglo-Dutch relations’, in: Reclamations of Shakespeare (ed. A.J. Hoenselaars), (Amsterdam, etc. 1994) [=Studies in literature, 15], pp.21-32. — , Foreign envoys and travelling players in the age of Shakespeare and Jonson (Gent 1986), pp.146-57. Scriverius, Petrus, Bibliotheca Scriveriana, see Bibliotheca. Second livre du siege d’Ostende (Paris 1604) (Kn 1279). Sellin, P.R., Daniel Heinsius and Stuart England. With a short checklist of the works of Daniel Heinsius (Leiden, etc. 1968) [=Publications of the Sir Thomas Browne Institute. General series, 3]. Selm, B. van, Een menighte treffelijcke Boecken. Nederlandse boekhandelscatalogi in het begin van de zeventiende eeuw. With a summary in English (Utrecht 1987). Simoni, A.E.C., Catalogue of books from the Low Countries 1601-1621 in the British Library (London 1990). — , ‘1598: an exchange of Dutch pamphlets and their repercussions in England’, in: From revolt to riches. Culture and history of the Low Countries 1500-1700. International and interdisciplinary perspectives (eds. Th. Hermans & R. Salverda) (London 1993) [=Crossways, 2], pp.129-62. — , ‘A German-Dutch tapestry: some early 17th-century Dutch publications with German connections: Henrick van Haestens, Leiden, and Jan Jansz, Arnhem’, in: The German book 1500-1800. Studies presented to David L. Paisey (eds. J.F. Flood & W.A. Kelly) (London 1995) [=British Library studies in bibliography, 2], pp.16183. — , ‘Henrick van Haestens, from Leiden to Louvain via “Cologne”’, in: Quaerendo, 15 (1985), pp. 187-94. — , ‘Soldiers’ tales: observations on Italian military books published at Antwerp in the early 17th century’, in: The Italian book 14651800. Studies presented to Dennis E. Rhodes on his 70th birthday (ed. D.V. Reidy) (London 1993) [=British Library studies in bibliography, 1], pp.255-90.

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217

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218

LIST OF SOURCES AND WORKS CONSULTED

geschiedenis van Nederland, aanwezig in de bibliotheek van Isaac Meulman. Vol.1 (Amsterdam 1866). Zijlstra, W.C., Den Zeusen beesem. Catalogus van de Nederlandse pamfletten ... tot en met 1795, aanwezig in de Zeeuwse Bibliotheek. Vol.1 (Middelburg 1994).

219

List of illustrations

Frontispiece: Plan of Ostend by Walter Morgan Wolff and Florens Balthasarsz, from Belägerung der Statt Ostende (1604) (Phot. D. Parker). 1. P. Fleming, Oostende Vermaerde Belegeringhe (The Hague 1621), title-page (By permission of the British Library, London, from the copy at 1055.h.20). 2. H.L. van Haestens, De bloedige Belegeringhe (Leiden 1613), titlepage (University Library, Amsterdam). 3. H.L. van Haestens, Beschrijvinghe, Des machtigen Heyrtochts (Leiden 1614), title-page (By permission of the British Library, London, from the copy at RB.23.a.299). 4. H.L. van Haestens, La Nouvelle Troye (Leiden 1615), title-page (By permission of the British Library, London, from the copy at 150.d.16). 5. Instructions to the binder, (Fleming, Oostende Vermaerde Belegheringhe) (By permission of the British Library, London, from the copy at 1055.h.20). 6. Histoire remarquable de ce qui s’est passé (Paris, Jérémie Perier 1604), title-page (By permission of the British Library, London, from the copy at 1055.a.20). 7. A true Historie of the Memorable Siege of Ostend (London 1604), titlepage (By permission of the British Library, London, from the copy at 1055.h.18). 8. Belägerung der Statt Ostende, part 1 (n.p. 1604) title-page with engraving, cf. Van Haestens, De bloedige Belegeringhe, pl. 5 (Royal Library, The Hague). 9. Belägerung der Statt Ostende, part 2 (n.p. 1604), title-page with engraving, cf. Van Haestens, De bloedige Belegeringhe, pl. 11 (Royal Library, The Hague). 10. Belägerung der Statt Ostende, part 3 (n.p. 1605) title-page with engraving (Phot. W.A. Harvey). 11. Belägerung von Ostende (n.p. 1604) title-page with engraving, cf. Van Haestens, De bloedige Belegeringhe, pl. 7) (University Library, Amsterdam).

220

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

12. Belägerung von Ostende (n.p. 1604). Appendix. Title-page with engraving, cf. Belägerung der Statt Ostende, title-page of the first Appendix, and De bloedige Belegeringhe, pl.11 (Royal Library, The Hague). 13. ‘Ick Ostende ostendo’ (De bloedige Belegeringhe, p. 114) (University Library, Amsterdam). 14. ‘Viator aloquitur Ostendam’ (Beschrijvinghe des machtingen Heyrtochts, p. 60) (By permission of the British Library, London, from the copy at RB.23.a.299). 15. Plan of Ostend (A True Historie) (By permission of the British Library, London, from the copy at 1055.h.18). 16. Prince Maurice’s coat of arms (De bloedige Belegeringhe) (University Library, Amsterdam). 17. Prince Maurice, equestrian portrait (La Nouvelle Troye) (By permission of the British Library, London, from the copy at 150.d.16). 18. Truce negotiations, Christmas 1601 (De bloedige Belegeringhe, pl. 6) (University Library, Amsterdam). 19. The great assault, 7 January 1602, with ‘Femina Hispanica’ inset (De bloedige Belegeringhe, pl. 9) (University Library, Amsterdam). 20. The same print, with inset erased (Oostende Vermaerde Belegeringhe, pl. 9) (By permission of the British Library, London, from the copy at 1055.h.20). 21a. ‘Pompee’s Chariot’ (Belägerung der Statt Ostende, first Appendix, f. C3) (Phot. D. Parker). 21b. ‘Pompee’s Chariot’ (De bloedige Belegeringhe, pl. 13) (Phot. D. Parker). 22. Siege engines (P. Giustiniano, Delle guerre di Fiandra libri VI, Antwerp 1609, pl. X) (By permission of the British Library, London, from the copy at 591.e.13). 23. Siege engines (De bloedige Belegeringhe, pl. 14) (University Library, Amsterdam). 24. Prince Maurice, equestrian portrait (Oostende Vermaerde Belegeringhe) (By permission of the British Library, London, from the copy at 1055.h.20). 25. Sir Francis Vere (Oostende Vermaerde Belegheringhe) (By permission of the British Library, London, from the copy at 1055.h.20). 26. Philippe Fleming (Oostende Vermaerde Belegheringhe) (By permission of the British Library, London, from the copy at 1055.h.20).

221

222

Index

A.V. 31-2, 62 Aardenburg 127 Admiralty of North Holland 32 n.35, 68 n.91 Admiralty of Zeeland 67 Aeneas 138 Albert, Archduke 10, 25 n.20, 35, 38, 43, 45, 49, 51, 61, 63, 80, 83, 106 n.195, 134-5, 138, 153, 155-7, 161 n.321, 162 n.341, 163-4, 170 n.349, 200-1 Alexander the Great 131 Amsterdam 53, 76 n.113 and 115, 205 n.407 Anthonias (Ant(h)onio, Ant(h)onis, Anthuzino, Anthony), Mattheo (Simon) 100, 160 n.317 Antwerp 100, 145 n.275, 161 n.317, 165, 171 n.358, 187, 195, 197 Aragon 109 Arnhem 53, 64, 150, 159 n.303 Augustus, Emperor 138, 194 Axel 186

Belleroche, Edward 31, 34 n. 44, 58 n.59, 87 n.131, 170 n.349 Bentivoglio, Guido 170 n.349 Berckenrode, F.B. van 50, 53, 124, 148, 185, 187-8, 189 n.396, 190 n.397 Bergen op Zoom 185, 187 Bericht und Erzehlung 100-1 Bernaerds, Jasper 145 n.271 Bethlehem 194 Beudeker, Christoffel 179 n.371 Bevry, De, see Buvrii, De Beys, Adrian 33 Bibliotheca Scriveriana 73, 75 Bilderbeke, Henricus 49-50, 137, 164, 191-204 Blaeu, Willem Jansz. 71, 73 Blundell, C. 8 Bodkin, E.H. 124-6 Bonours, Christophe 106 n.195, 144 n.263, 160 n.320 Bor, Pieter 178 n.367 Bosio, Giacomo 171 n.353 Bosscha, J. 22 Botereius,Rodolphus, see Boutrays, Raoul Boudicca 99 Bouillon, Duke of 142 n.251 Bourbon, Henri de, see Henri de Bourbon Boutrays, Raoul 71, 74, 111 Boveland Chr. 8, 136 Brant, Sebastian 76 n.113 Breda 180 Breefe Declaration, A 100, 160 n.317 Breugelmans, R. 7 Briels, J.G.C.A. 66 Brünhilde 99

Balin, Jean 71, 74 Balthasarsz, Floris, see Berckenrode, F.B. van Baltijnck, A. 142 n.251, 161 n.322 Basing, P. 8 Baudaert, Willem 72, 94, 101, 121, 142 n.250, 170 n.348 Baudius, Dominicus 111, 140 nt 236 Beheyt, Maerten 109, 111, 116, 126, 145 n.271 Belägerung der Statt Ostende 35, then passim Belägerung von Ostende 43, then passim

223

INDEX

Bruges 142 n.251, 161 n.322, 192 Brussels 83, 93, 170 n.349 Buchler, J. 59 n.66 Buck, H. de 23 Bucquoy, Count of, see Longueval, Charles Bonaventura de Burghley, Lord, see Cecil, William, Lord Burghley Burgundy 38 Burigny, Jean, see Lévesque de Burigny, Jean Butler, Charles 144 n.264 Buvrii (Buurij), de 95 Cadsant 55 Caesar 131, 138 Calais 51, 92-3, 142 n. 248 Calvinists 9, 48, 50, 63 Campbell, Tony 185 Carpent(i)er (Carpontier), Louis de 24, 96 n.157 Carthage 121-2, 137, 146 n.282 Casas, Bartholomé de las 205 n.410 Catholics, Catholicism 9, 143 n.251, 147 n.293, 149, and passim Cecil, William, Lord Burghley 87, n.131, 187 Celosse, Jacob 145 n.271 Cerano, Mattheo, see Serrano, Mattheo Chariot de Pompee, see Pompees chariot Châtillon, Seigneur de 142 n.251 Chro(o)nijcke van Vlaenderen in tcorte, see Salenson, Gerard van Chronograms 112-3, 132-3, 136-7 Cicero 196, 202 Claesz, Cornelis 53, 68 n.77, 104 n.177, 147 n.294, 159 n.303, 160 n.315, 161 n.321, 162 n.339, 205 n.407

Clement VIII, Pope 163 Cleve 123 Clorinda 99 Clouck, Andries 140 n.236 Cockx-Indestege, E. 7 Cologne 48-50, 58 n. 59, 83, 159 n.303, 191, 205 n.411 Commelin, Isaak 68 n.83 Con(n)esbey (Conisby), Simon 856 Continuation des sieges d Ostende 57 n.56, 62, 68, 139 n.200-2, 148 Contrere (Contuere, Coutiere), Louis de 94; see also Couture Coppens, C. 7 Copye van twe verscheyden brieven 63, 161 n.322, 183 n.375 Corte chronijck van Vlaenderen, see Salenson, Gerard van Courtmans, Alexander 197 Couture, Jorrijs (=Louis?) 186; see also Contrere Crispinus 137, 191 Cro(c)kus, Hubertus 73 Dathenus, Petrus 111 Davison, William 187 Dekker, R. & L. van de Pol 102 Delft 130 n.363 Derolez, A. 7 Despinelle, M. 144 n.263 Dewitte, A. 142 n.251, 161 n.322 Dexter, Ralph 189 n.395-6 Dillingham, William 85, 160 n.317 Dits die excellente Cronike van Vlaenderen 70, 109, 113, 132-3, 146 n.287 and 289 Doetecum, Baptista van 51, 162 n.339 Dordrecht 33 n.35, 57 n.55, 66, 68 n.91 Dover 51, 92

224

INDEX

Du Jon, François, see Junius Dudley, Robert, Earl of Leicester, see Leicester 186 Dunkirk 10, 171 n.354 Dutch Republic, see Netherlands, Northern Dutch Revolt, see Eighty Years’ War Duym, Jacob 63-4, 159 n.305

28-9, 31-2, 57 n.59, 75 n.109, 77-81, 83-5, 89-95, 99, 101-2, 107-8, 116, 156-7, 159 n.310, 175, 177, 181-2, 201 Fleming-Moraels, Catharina 1023 Florence 53 Florence, Duke of, see Ferdinand I de’ Medici Flushing 67, 84, 185, 187, 201 France 10-11, 42 Frankfurt 38, 43, 45, 48, 53, 183 n.373, 195 Frederick V, Count Palatine 117 Frembde vnd neuw erfundene practyck 164 Fruin, R. 34 n.44, 57 n.59

East Indies 171 n.354, 199 Egmond, Lamoral van 188 n.388 Eighty Year’s War 10, 142 n.251, 180-1, and passim Elizabeth Stuart, Princess 117 Elisabeth I, Queen 10, 83-6, 143 n.259, 187 Ellain, Nicolas 144 n.261 Elzevier, Louis 15, 17, 64, 66, 115, 120, 140 n.236, 159 n. 309, 173, 178 n.363, 181 England 11, 42, 84-6, 155, 185-6 Éowyn 99 Epooyett, see Poyet Everberg, Baron d’, see Rubempré, Antoine de Extremeties vrging .. Sir Fra. Veare 57 n.59, 88 n.131, 155, 160 n.317, 161 n.325, 180 Eyffinger, A. 143 n.253, 144 n.262

Galley slaves 29, 93, 143 n.254 Gamboletti, Colonel 160 n.317 Gamurini, Gioseppe 32, 165, 168 Geertruidenberg 189 n.391 Geldern 9 George(son), William 85 Germany 10, 194 Ghent 50 Gheyn, Jacques de 122 G(h)istelles, Pieter 103 Giustiniano, Pompeo 32, 71, 74, 80, 165, 168, 170 n.347-8, 171 n.353 Godwel, Thomas 85 Gomarus, Franciscus 145 n.279 Gouda 66 Gramberg, J. 69 n.101 Grande Chronique, La, see Dits die excellente cronike Grave 38, 40, 127 Grimstone, Edward 35, 62, 89, 102, 163 Groenlo (Grol(le)) 180 Groote chronijck van Vlaendren, see Dits die excellente cronike

Fairfax, Charles 153 Farnese, Alexander, see Parma Federmann, Daniel 59 n.74 Ferdinand I de’ Medici, Duke of Tuscany 45, 190 n. 397 Flanders 17, 29, 38, 53-5, 67, 173, 185-8, 193, and passim Fleming, Anna Maria 103 Fleming, Oostende Vermaerde Belegeringhe passim Fleming, Philippe 13, 17, 20, 22-4,

225

INDEX

Grotius, Hugo 109, 111, 113-5, 122, 124, 128, 180, 183 n.372, 189 n.396, 190 n.397 Gruys, J.A. 7, 68 n.90 Guicciardini, Lodovico 54, 70, 73, 193 Gunpowder plot 86 Haarlem 66 Haeffren (Haeften), Captain 94 Haestens, Captain 94 Haestens, Henrick van passim Hague, The 84, 143 n.259, 197 Haitsma Mulier, E.O.G. 23 Handschoenwerckers, Catharina 102 Hannibal 131 Haren, Jean 115 Harskamp, J. 8 Hartaing, see Hertaing Harvey, W.A. 8 Haston, Captain 94 Haye, Jean de la 113-4 Heertum, C. van 7, 57 n.58 Heinsius, Daniel 107-21, 128, 141 n. 236, 183 n. 372, 203 Henry IV, King 86, 142 n.248 Henri de Bourbon, Prince de Condé 61 Herod 194-5 Hertaing, Daniel de, Seigneur de Marquette 95, 183 n.373 Hertogenbosch, ‘s- 180, 186 Hexham, Henry 23, 88 n. 138, 100-1 Heye, J. de la, see Haye, J. de la Histoire remarquable 31, and passim Hoftijzer, P.G. 69 n.95 Hogenberg, Frans 205 n.411 Hohenlohe, Count of 142 n.248 Holland 63-4, 133-4, 182 Holstein, Duke of, see John, Duke of

226

Holstein Hondius, Petrus 67 Hood, Gervase 8 Hooft, Pieter Cornelisz. 145 n. 279 Horace 147 n. 295 Horsey, Edward 187 Hout, Jan van 76 n.112, 145 n.271 Hugo, Hermannus 183 n.372 Huijssen, Johan 67 Hurnen 191 Huygens, Constantijn 78-9, 182 Isabella Clara Eugenia, Archduchess 10, 45, 153, 161 n.321 Italy 168 n.345, 170 n.349, 194 J.S. 45, 47-8, 50 Jacobsen, R. 145 n.271 James I, King 10, 67, 117 Jan van Nassau, 142 n.248 Janssonius, Johannes 68 n.83 Jansz, Jan 53, 64, 68 n.77, 104 n.177, 150, 158, 159 n.303, 160 n.315, 161 n.321 Jansz, Willem, see Blaeu, Willem Jansz. Jerusalem 121-2, 201 Joan of Arc 99 John, Duke of Holstein 142 n.248 Jonckheere, K.J.B. 104 n.182 Jonkheer, L. 188 n.388 Joris, Willem, see George, William Journal du siege d’Ostende 57 n.56 Junius, Franciscus 145 n.279 Justiniano, Pompeo, see Giustiniano Kaerius, Petrus, see Keere, Pieter van de Kalff, G. 145 n.271 Keere, Pieter van de 54-5

INDEX

Keller, Georg 190 n.397 Kellisson, Matthew 85 Kempen, Gottfried van 58 n.62 Kempers, E. 8 Kerpen 59 n.66 Kiliaen, Cornelis 71, 73 Knuttel, W.P.C. 31, 77

Magnum chronicon Flandriae, see Dits die excellente cronike Malherbe, François 124 Mander, Karel van 126, 145 n.271 Mansfeld, Karl van 188 n.388 Marchantius, Jacobus 70 Markham, Clement R. 23-4, 25 n.7, 57 n.59, 88 n.139, 101 Marquette, Seigneur de, see Hertaing, Daniel de Maurice, Prince of Orange 29, 45, 49-50, 53, 55, 58 n.64, 61, 63, 75 n.109, 78, 83, 86, 108, 113-4, 117, 122, 128-130, 138, 139 n.203, 145 n.277, 146 n.279 and 284, 150-2, 155, 159 n. 309, 162 n.338, 171 n.355, 173-5, 179 n.369, 1812, 186-8, 190 n. 397, 199 Mendoza, Francisco de, Admiral de Aragon 109, 122-3 Mercurius Gallobelgicus 26 n.29, 183, n.373, 190 n.397 Meteren, Emanuel van 28-9, 703, 96 n.146, 105 n.193, 115, 155 Meulen, J. ter & P.J.J. Diermanse 113, 144 n.261 Meuris, Aert 13, 15, 17, 20, 23, 27, 31, 58 n.59, 76 n.109, 77-9, 84, 93-5, 107, 136, 156-7, 162 n.339, 173, 175, 178 n.363, 179 n.370, 181-2 Meyerus, Jacobus 71, 73-4 Middelburg 33 n.35, 67, 84, 102 Mierevelt, Michiel van 178 n.363 Moerbeke, Mr. 197 Montanus, Petrus 71, 73 Moraels, Catharina, see Fleming, Catharina Morgan, Walter, see Wolff, Walter Morgan

La Coutiere, see Contrere La Haye, Jean de, see Haye, Jean de la Lachèvre, F. 144 n.261 Lalaing, Maria Christina, Countess of Hoogstraten 186 Lalaing, Willem de, Count of Hoogstraten 186 Le Blond, G. 171, n.353 Leerintveld, A. 7, 24 n.5, 78 Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl of 186 Leiden 9, 15, 20, 59 n.66, 67, 70, 126, 128, 145 n.271, 181 Lem, G.A.C. van der 23 Leroy, R. 7 Leuven 9, 15 Lévesque de Burigny, Jean 144 n.265 Leydsch Vlaems Orangien LelyHof, Het 145 n.271 Lipsius, Justus 25 n.20, 49-50, 60, 72, 78-9 Longueval, Charles Bonaventura de, Count of Bucquoy 168, 170 n.348 Lorchanus, Caspar 26 n.29 Louis XIII, King 66-7, 173 Louvain, see Leuven Loyseleur de Villiers, Pierre de 59 n.66 Lützenkirchen, Wilhelm 48, 104 n.180

227

INDEX

Mors(ius), Joachim de 146 n.279 Motley, J.L. 23, 31-2, 57 n.59 Muller, F. 154, 162 n.339, 165

Parma, Alexander Farnese, Duke of 186 Pasquini, J.-N. 101 Passe, Chrispijn de, the Elder 159 n.303 Pavier (Paviour), Captain 186 Penthesilea 99 Percy, Henry, Earl of Northumberland 102, 142 n.248 Perier, Jérémie 33 n.41 and 44, 158 Pesch, P. 7 Philip III, King of Spain 161 n.322 Pietersz, J. 101 Polybius 201 Pompees chariot 69 n.92, 79-80, 163-8, 198 Pondini 171 n.353 Ponjaert, S. 7, 23, 31, 35, 48, 50, 57 n.52, 60, 104 n.180, 156, 158 n.299, 162 n.339 Poulet, Edward 85 Poyet, De 187 Promis, C. 170 n.349, 171 n.353 Pyrrhus, King of Epirus 130

Nassauschen Lauren-crans, Den 20, 57 n.55, 63-4, 67, 72, 84, 111, 123, 126, 128, 132, 137, 150, 181 Nerée, Richard Jean de 111, 113-6, 119-20, 128, 131 Netherlands, Northern 9-10, 17, 63, 173, 182, 199, and passim Netherlands, Southern 9-10, 83, 182, and passim Newezeitung, Von Eroberung der Stadt … Ostende 12 n.2 Nicolai, Adriaan 67 Nieuwpoort 13, 57 n.55, 77, 109, 122, 143 n.254, 159 n.306, 161 n.332, 173, 178 n.363, 192 Noort, Olivier van 197 Noot(h), Karel (Charles) van der 104 n.189 Norris, Edward 83-4, 86 Northumberland, Earl of, see Percy, Henry Nova Troja 40, 42, 53-4, 56, 141 n.244, 190 n.396

Rheims 88 n.135 Rheinberg 49, 127, 191 Rhine 117, 123, 150 Rhodes, D.E. 8 Richardot, Jean de 170 n.349 Rijbas 153 Rijn, G. van 155-7, 161 n.330-2, 335-6 and 338, 165 Roach, S.R. 8 Rome 50, 121-2, 170 n.349 Rooij, Adriaen de 67 Roovere, Antonis de 70 Rouberghen, J. van 67 Rubempré, Anthoine de (de Vertaing), Baron d’Everberg 25 n. 20, 49, 58 n.63 Rubens, Pieter Paul 183 n.372

Ogle, John 57 n.59, 88 n.138, 101, 153 Oldenbarnbevelt, Johan van 184 n.379 Orlers, Jan 20, 63, 67, 72, 128, 140 n.227, 181 Ostend (see also University of War) passim Ot(t)anes, Colonel 160 n.317 Paisey, D.L. 8 Palestra Ostendana 183 n. 373 Paludanus, Bernardus 155 Paris 33 n.40 and 44, 61, 144 n.261

228

INDEX

Saint-Genois, L.G.D.J. Baron de 101 Saint-Pol, Count of 142 n.248 Salenson, Gerard van 71, 73, 132, 146 n.288 Sand Yacht 122, 139 n.209 Scaliger, Joseph Juste 111, 144 n.263 Schepper, M. de 7, 33 n.35, 69 n.96 Schoch, R. 147 n.294 Schopper, Jacob, the Younger 59 n.74 Schrickx, W. 87 n.131, 155 Schuytvlot, A. 7 Scriverius, Petrus 64, 73-5, 159 n.305, 165 Second livre du siege d’Ostende 57 n. 56, 148 Serrano, Mattheo 160, n.316 Sichem, Hans Christoffel van 123 Siege engines 32, 54, 69 n.92, 7980, 148-50, 162 n.338, 163-9, 175, 195-6, 198 Sluis 25 n.20, 38, 49, 53, 55, 61, 72, 78-9, 84, 87 n.126-7, 121-2, 127, 145 n.277, 153, 160 n.316, 162 n.338, 171, n.355, 173, 175, 177, 179 n.368, 181, 186, 188 n.389, 190 n.397, 199, 200 Smet, Andries de 70-1 Someren, J.F. van 159 n.310, 178 n.363 Sotheby, William 124 Spaenschen ende Arragoenschen spiegel, Den 143 n.254 Spain (Spaniards) 9-10, 42, 145 n.275, 168 n.345, 194, 199, and passim Spanish woman, see Women soldiers Spieghel der Nederlandscher audheyt, see Vaernewijck, Marcus van

Spinola, Ambrogio 164-5, 168, 170, n.349, 171 n.355 Spinola, Frederico 93, 162 n.332 Stand, le Sieur (=Hertaing?) 183 n.373 States General 27-8, 33 n.35, 4950, 55, 66-7, 69 n.91, 87 n.130, 139 n.203, 146 n.284, 155, 173, 182, 188, 201 Stevin, Simon 122, 145 n.279, 179 n.369 Stockwell, R. 8 Stolp, A. 192 Storm, Hans 72, 83-6 Storm, Jan, see Storm, Hans Suetonius 72 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius 138 Swanenburgh, Willem 122 Sypesteyn, C.A. van 31, 33 n.40 Szymonowicz, S. 146 n.279 Targone, Pompeo 32, 79-80, 163, 168, 170 n.351, 171 n.353 Tasso, Torquato 99 Teellinck, Eewoud 67 Terneuzen 186 Thebes 121-2 Tolkien, J.R. 99 Tourneur, Cyril 87 n.131, 161 n.323 Trim, D. 8, 189 n.392 Trognaesius, Joachim 171 n.358 Troy 42, 137, 146 n.282 True Historie, A 27, 56 n.50, 62, 148, 158, 163, 170 n.347, 198 Tuningius, G. 145 n. 279 Twelve Years’ Truce 48, 64, 141 n.240, 154, 180, 182 Tyre 121-2 Udall, Captain 186 University of War (= Ostend) 38,

229

INDEX

40, 42, 47, 196-7, 200-4 Utrecht 159 n.303

Zuijdland 67

Vaernewijck, Marcus van 71, 73 Velpius, Rutger 71, 74 Vere, Francis 23, 31, 34 n. 44, 57 n.59, 65, 86, 100-1, 106 n.195, 153, 155, 176, 178 n.366, 179 n.367, 186 Vere, Horace 23, 186 Verkruijsse, P.J. 7, 33 n.35, 69 n.96 Vermeer, W. 144 n.270 Vertering d’Everberge, see Rubempré, Antoine de Vienna 50, 83 Villerius, Franciscus 49-50, 68 n.78, 137-8, 191, 197 Vivere, Adriaen van den 67 Vondel Joost van den 182 Vorsterman, Willem 74 Waerachtighe historie van Carolus de Vijfste 71 Walsingham Francis 185, 187 Wesel 49, 191 West Indies 199 Westphalia 123, 182 Wilhelm en Maurits, princen van Orangien 68 n.83, 84, 123, 126 Willems , A. 113 William I, Prince of Orange 86, 143 n.251, 187 Wind, S. de 20, 22 Windsor 187 Winkel. J. te 145 n.271 Wolff, Walter Morgan 50, 53, 1858 Women soldiers 98-103, 154 Wulp, J.K. van der 31, 77 Wijnhoven, J. 7, 59 n.67 Zeeland 43, 63, 67, 102, 104 n.189, 142 n.248, 153

230