Going Dutch: How England Plundered Holland's Glory (21 page)

Six years after the hushed-up scandal of Elizabeth’s royal affair, her brother Thomas Killigrew, soldier and dramatist, also joined the English exiles in the northern Netherlands. His experiences on both sides of the Narrow Sea formed his later interests, and offer a compelling example of the easy commerce through the middle of the seventeenth century between English and Dutch social and cultural circles.
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A courtier and dramatist, Thomas Killigrew became a page of honour to Charles I in 1632, and began composing plays for performance by Henrietta Maria’s court circle in 1635. He married Cecilia Crofts, a maid of honour to the Queen, but she died, tragically, three years later (van Dyck’s 1638 double portrait of Thomas and Cecilia’s brother is a mourning picture). Thomas joined his brother-in-law Francis Boyle, his brother Robert and their tutor on their ‘grand tour’ of European cities.
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As the situation in England deteriorated for those with Royalist sympathies in the late 1640s, Thomas Killigrew again left for the Continent. In 1652 he was briefly in The Hague, in the entourage of Charles I’s third son, Henry, Duke of Gloucester. He returned there in 1654, when he met and married Charlotte van Hesse-Piershil, the eldest and well-provided-for daughter of Johan van Hesse, gentleman of the Prince of Orange. The couple were married on 28 January 1655 – she had the good sense to draw up a prenuptial agreement, to protect the greater part of her inheritance from her new English husband – and shortly afterwards moved to Maastricht. Thomas Killigrew spent the rest of the Commonwealth years in the United Provinces, enjoying the lifestyle of the prosperous, cultivated families who moved in the circles of the princely courts at The Hague. He owed his appointment in 1655 as a captain in the service of the States General to Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia’s intercession with Charles II, her nephew, and to the latter’s mediation with Willem Frederik of Nassau-Dietz, Stadholder of Friesland. He appears to have performed sensitive missions (including a spot of spying, perhaps for both sides) as groom of the bedchamber for the peripatetic, exiled Charles II.

In his diary for 24 May 1660, Pepys records meeting Thomas Killigrew, ‘a gentleman of great esteem with the King’, on board the
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, the boat on which Charles II returned in triumph to England. Thomas’s pregnant wife and the three children, however, prolonged their stay in Maastricht – Charlotte did not settle in England till after the birth in July of their son Robert. By the end of the year she and her three sons were naturalised, and in June 1662 Charlotte was made first lady of the privy chamber.

Thomas was less successful than his Dutch wife in securing royal employment, and for a while he retained his Maastricht connections (including obtaining formal citizenship there). In July 1660, however, the English King issued Killigrew and Sir William Davenant with a royal warrant ‘to erect two playhouses [in London], [and] to control the charges to be demanded, and the payments to actors … absolutely suppressing all other playhouses’. The two men thus obtained a virtual theatrical monopoly in London, authorised to form two companies of players, produce all and any dramatic entertainments, and license all plays submitted to them. This royal appointment marked the beginning of a successful career as a theatre manager for Thomas Killigrew, who enlisted the services of, among others, the poet John Dryden for his King’s Company. Killigrew died at Whitehall on 19 March 1683. Charlotte Killigrew outlived her husband, living on in London for more than thirty years.
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In 1655, Mary Killigrew herself (widowed, and now remarried to Sir Thomas Stafford) left London for the United Provinces. With no sign that the situation in England would improve for those with Royalist sympathies, she opted for a life of exile ‘amongst some of [her] obedient children’ there. It was Constantijn Huygens who offered to help find her a suitable house in which to live. He was ‘infinitly rejoyced to see your ladyship is in so good a health, that she hath the courage to thinke of a jorney beyond sea’:

In good faith, Madam, as the world goeth in your island, I doe imagine, you could as happily and quietly end your dayes in these parts amongst some of your obedient children as there, where publique and private troubles have agitated you till now. As for howses fit for such a family, I make account your ladyship may be served here at her ease for 60, 70 or 80 pounds a yeare, more or lesse, as she shall thinke fit herselfe. If it please your ladyship to let me know, of what and how many and how large roomes you would desire to bee accommodated, I will make your ladyship acquainted of what is to bee had here at the Haghe, which, you may beleeve, Madam, to bee one of the sweetest and handsomest dwellings of the world.
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On the other hand, he continued, she might understandably prefer to ‘live in one family with your sonne [Thomas Killigrew] and daughter in law’, who were installed in some comfort in Maastricht. The drawback to this plan was that she would find herself entirely cut off from the kinds of society and entertainment she was accustomed to in London:

If so bee, another course is to be taken, for they seeme to have a mind to live at Maestricht, which is more than a hundred mile from hence, in an excellent aire indeed, but as far from the Queen of Bohemia as the Haghe from thence, and no such conversation there, nor such pictures, nor such performes, nor such musicke as we are able to afford you here.
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7
Consorts of Viols, Theorbos and Anglo–Dutch Voices

A
lthough The Hague was the destination of choice and the centre of gravity in the lives of English Royalist exiles between the later 1640s and the Restoration of 1660, another important émigré English community established itself in Antwerp. After 1656, when Prince Charles was excluded entirely from the United Provinces (under an agreement between the English Commonwealth regime and the Dutch States General) and moved to Bruges, Antwerp’s convenient access to the English court in exile drew itinerant Royalists to it. But even before that, its location gave its residents comparatively easy access to both the northern and southern Netherlands, making it an attractive place for those keeping an eye on the changing fortunes of exiled English political players (they were also exempt from taxes there). Throughout the 1650s, Antwerp acted as a gateway for those following the fortunes of the itinerant Stuarts. Mary Stuart, Princess Royal, and her entourage stopped regularly in the city on their way to take the medicinal waters – and meet up with her brother Charles – at fashionable Spa, a day’s ride south of Maastricht.

Besides, it was a pleasant town to live in. John Evelyn, travelling through it in 1641, wrote in his diary: ‘[Antwerp is] one of the sweetest places in Europe. Nor did I ever observe a more quiet, clean, elegantly built, and civil place than this magnificent and famous city.’ William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, found Antwerp’s inhabitants ‘the civilest and best-behaved people that ever I saw’.

Traditionally it has been taken as a given that the economy of Antwerp declined sharply after the treaty of Münster (between the Dutch and the Spanish) in 1648, with international trade shifting to Amsterdam in the United Provinces because of the blockading of shipping in the Scheldt estuary. In fact, the city’s wealth did not vanish overnight (and indeed, movement of shipping and goods was significantly less severely constrained than is often implied). ‘Antwerp was still affluent, still home to a number of families who had held on to considerable fortunes generated in better days. They led a princely lifestyle which they were more than happy to demonstrate in the form of large houses, fine art collections and country estates.’
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Indeed, Antwerp enjoyed a minor economic boom in the years after 1648. ‘In these years Antwerp’s merchants were jubilant at the prospect of new economic opportunities. The riddertol, a tax levied on shipping on the Scheldt and a reliable fiscal parameter for gauging the volume of trade, particularly trade with the United Provinces, indeed points to a significant increase in harbour activity compared to the first half of the seventeenth century.’
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In particular, a market in luxury goods (small in bulk, and easy to transport) continued to thrive, with art dealers and dealers in precious stones and jewels enjoying a particularly buoyant period between 1648 and the 1680s. There remained in Antwerp a core community of extremely wealthy individuals – their wealth primarily established on trade – who continued to spend extravagantly.

The population of Antwerp in the mid-seventeenth century was around seventy thousand. The city was diverse, and impressively multicultural. Although it found itself on the threshold of the Catholic Netherlands, it was unusually tolerant of the religious observance of its Protestant population. The English Anglican divine, George Morley, canon of Christ Church, and later Bishop of Worcester, records that he ‘read the Divine Service of our Church twice a day’ at Antwerp in the 1650s (during which period he was also Elizabeth of Bohemia’s private chaplain). He ‘celebrated the Sacrament of the Eucharist once a month’, ‘did there bury the dead’ and ‘baptize children according to the form prescribed in our liturgy’; and ‘besides this did once a week, at least, catechize the whole family wherein I lived, in the principles of Christian doctrine as they are taught in our Church Catechism’.
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Antwerp was also quietly tolerant of the Sephardic Jewish merchants who lived and conducted their successful businesses there.
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Visitors commented on the freedom with which Jews observed their festivals (for example, they were able openly to set up huts in their gardens for the feast of Succoth). Prominent merchants like the diamond dealer Gaspar Duarte (who also dealt in paintings) were officially registered as Catholic, but they and their families seem to have continued discreetly to practise their Judaism reasonably freely, under the tolerant eye of their Christian neighbours.
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Gaspar Duarte was born in Antwerp, the son of Diego Duarte and Leonor Rodrigues, who had come to the city as refugees, escaping religious persecution in Lisbon, around 1591. He built a flourishing business in gems and artworks, which was subsequently continued by his family. Around 1632 Gaspar established a business outlet in London, where he and his sons Diego and Jacob were granted ‘denizen’ status as nationalised Englishmen in 1634. From 1632 to 1639 Gaspar Duarte was jeweller (and gem procurer and supplier) to Charles I – a position which effectively made him agent for Charles’s purchases and disposals of gemstones. He relocated the business to Antwerp after the outbreak of the Civil War, but remained in touch with many of his old clients from London.
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The imposing Duarte house on the broad boulevard which is still Antwerp’s main shopping street today, the Meir, a family home that John Evelyn described as more like a palace, was the focus for the extravagant entertainment of visitors from all over Europe between 1650 and 1680 (when Gaspar died in 1653, Diego took over both the family business and the social networking). Gaspar’s three daughters were virtuoso musicians, and close friends with Utricia Swann, who often performed with them. Those fortunate enough to spend an evening in the Duarte musical salon were dazzled by the ostentation of the family’s wealth, and enchanted by the quality of the lifestyle and the entertainment.

In 1641, John Evelyn recorded in his diary a concert held at the Duartes’ home: ‘In the evening I was invited to Signor Duerts [Duarte], a Portuguese by nation, an exceeding rich merchant, whose palace I found to be furnish’d like a prince’s; and here his three daughters, entertain’d us with rare musick, both vocal and instrumental, which was finish’d with a handsome collation.’

More palatial than any other house in Antwerp, the home of the Duartes was where both Mary Stuart, Princess Royal, and her brother Prince Charles stayed when they were visiting, as befitting their royal status, although they might be lavishly entertained by the English community elsewhere in town.

Gaspar Duarte and his family’s musical virtuosity made of their house and its circle a genuine ‘salon’ where connoisseurs assembled for concerts. Occasions on which Duarte’s musically gifted daughters performed with voice and instruments brought together cultivated and influential individuals like Sir Constantijn Huygens, Frederik Hendrik and his wife Amalia van Solms, and subsequently their son Prince William and his wife Princess Mary Stuart. Huygens senior became a good personal friend of Gaspar Duarte, and his sons became equally close to the diamond merchant’s children (one of Diego Duarte’s daughters was named Constantia, after Sir Constantijn).

The intimate friendship and the musical soirées were part of an elaborate system of interdependencies among the individuals and families involved, which also extended to include a much more robustly commercial relationship between Huygens (representing the house of Orange) and Duarte as a powerful and extremely influential Antwerp merchant and international businessman.

Huygens regularly did business with the Duartes on behalf of his Stadholder employer. A single, delightful example of a transaction organised and carried out by them on Frederik Hendrik’s behalf begins to reveal the hidden tendrils of influence in matters of cultural exchange in the 1640s, originating in Antwerp, and extending across the water between England and the United Provinces – and, indeed, back again.

In March 1641, Gaspar Duarte wrote from Antwerp to Sir Constantijn Huygens in The Hague. The letter (in French) contains an appropriate amount of musical small talk (the two men are exchanging the scores of Italian songs for one or more voices), but a substantive item of Stadholder business occupies most of its space.

Duarte writes to let Huygens know that, as requested by representatives of Frederik Hendrik, his son Jacob in London has located a particularly striking (and expensive) piece of jewellery – an elaborate brooch in the latest fashionable style, comprising four individual diamonds in a complicated setting, and designed to be worn on the stomacher of a woman’s dress.

It emerges that the piece is to be a sensational gift for Frederik Hendrik’s teenaged son William to present to his bride-to-be, the nine-year-old Mary Stuart, on the occasion of their marriage in London in May, the details of which have just been negotiated and settled in London by Dutch ambassadors. Duarte in Antwerp tells Huygens in The Hague that he has identified the perfect piece for this purpose in London:

One of my friends, Sir Arnout Lundi, has asked me for an important jewel [‘joiau’] worth 80,000 florins, on behalf of His Highness, the Prince of Orange. I had delivered to the said Sir Lundi a mock-up [plomb] and pattern of a rich jewel, a fortnight ago, to show to His Highness, by way of a gentleman, a friend of the aforementioned Lundi, called Mr. Joachim Fiqfort. So far I have received no response. So your cousin advised me that it would be a good thing if I let yourself know about this, so that you could alert His Highness not to buy any other piece of equivalent value until he has seen this one. It is in London in the control of my son, who, if I instruct him to do so, will himself convey it to you. Their honours the Holland ambassadors saw it in London, and also told His Highness about it, because they were so delighted to see so magnificent a piece. For the four diamonds in combination have the impact of a single diamond of value 1 million florins.
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On 7 April, Gaspar Duarte’s son Jacob arrived in Antwerp with the jewel, and the following day Huygens examined it.
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A fortnight later, with Huygens discreetly facilitating the process, the deal had made progress. Huygens has agreed to take the jewel to The Hague, but the Stadholder’s suggested best offer for it is still too low to be acceptable:

I remain greatly indebted to you [Duarte wrote to Huygens] for the great affection you have shown towards my son Jacob Duarte, by tomorrow showing His Highness that beautiful jewel which I mentioned to you previously. And although I understand that Mr. Alonse de Lope has already managed to sell His Highness four other pieces [of expensive jewellery], nevertheless I hope that your particular favour will have the power to be successful in this matter, since this is such an extraordinarily rare piece. It would be most gracious of you to represent [to His Highness] how thus far I see small appearance [of successful completion], not having been made an offer which is reasonable, [but] one much lower than what it cost me.

Which disappoints me, not thereby being able to serve His Highness. I was assured that His Majesty [the King] of England would have been more delighted with this piece than with all the other jewels, since he had already made an offer for it himself to my younger son, by way of Milord Chamberlain, if his brother had arrived in time. For His Majesty had even offered 6,500 pounds sterling, and would never imagine that His Highness could have acquired it for less.
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Duarte’s suggestion that the English King had almost obtained the piece himself, and that he had offered a sum in excess of the one being proposed by the Dutch Stadholder, was a shrewd piece of commercial pressuring. It apparently clinched the deal. On 9 May, Duarte acknowledged receipt of payment by Huygens on the Stadholder’s behalf.
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These exchanges of letters present us with the intriguing picture of a luxury object whose value – both financial and in terms of current taste and fashion – is being established by reference to the object’s desirability in two locations, inside two fashionable societies. The Dutch Stadholder needs a gift which will greatly impress the English King. His agent has identified a suitable candidate which is actually in London, conveniently in the possession of a Dutch diamond dealer who also operates out of England. The piece has already been seen and admired by the English King, who has allegedly tried to acquire it.

The Duartes are suppliers of gems and made-up pieces of jewellery to Charles I in London and Frederik Hendrik in The Hague. They also, again conveniently, have close family friends in place to help facilitate the deal – Joachim of Wicquefort, otherwise known as Joachim Factor, was a friend of Gaspar Duarte’s daughter Francesca, and part of the ‘firm’.
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Huygens, who moves freely between England and the United Provinces, is fluent in English, and frequents the English and Dutch courts, provides his expert imprimatur to the deal.

On 19 April 1641, Prince William, with an entourage of 250 people, arrived at Gravesend for his ‘royal’ wedding. Some days later he was received in Whitehall Palace, where he presented members of the royal party with diamonds, pearls and other jewellery, worth close on £23,000.
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These included the spectacular jewel for his bride which Huygens had helped negotiate the purchase of in London, and which she wore on the front of her silver wedding dress.
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Less than a year later, when Princess Mary and her mother joined her husband in The Hague, the jewel went with them. Thus in the space of a year, this distinctive, exquisitely crafted, expensive piece of jewellery crossed the Narrow Sea three times.