The Lawyer and the Fox: A Tale of Tricks and Treachery in New Amsterdam by Jaap Jacobs
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HE MOST IMPORTANT day of the year in the city of Leiden in the Netherlands is October 3rd, when Leiden commemorates Leids Ontzet: the lifting of the siege over four hundred years ago. In the second half of the sixteenth century, the Low Countries had started a rebellion against their ruler, Philip II, who happened to be also the King of Spain. By 1574, things were not going well for the rebellion. Leiden, strategically a key city in the province of Holland, was besieged by Spanish troops, and the inhabitants were dying from famine and disease. Prince William of Orange, the rebellion’s leader, tried to reach the city with his troops, the so-called Sea Beggars, on flat-bottomed ships, but he made slow progress. By early October, the situation in Leiden had become desperate. And then suddenly, the Spanish troops appeared to have left. As the traditional story goes, an orphan boy, Cornelis Joppensz, slipped out of the city, made his way toward the Spanish lines and found them deserted. What he did find was a large kettle with hutspot, a dish of mashed potato and vegetables. Soon afterward, the flatbottomed ships of the Sea Beggars reached the city and provided the starving inhabitants with bread and herring, which, with Jaap Jacobs is an Honorary Reader at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. This article is based on a lecture given for the New Amsterdam History Center on October 3, 2019. A short version appeared in the New Amsterdam History Center Newsletter, New Amsterdam Yesterday and Today, vol. II, no. 2 (Fall 2019) (http://newamsterdamhistorycenter.org/news/). For a much fuller version, see “‘Act with the Cunning of a Fox’: The Political Dimensions of the Struggle for Hegemony over New Netherland, 1647–1653,” Journal of Early American History 8 (2018), 2: 122–52.
Liberatio Urbis or De ontsetting der Stad Leyden, the lifting of the siege of the city of Leiden in 1574. Etching and engraving. Jan Jansz Orlers, Beschryvinge der stadt Leyden. Leiden, 1614. Wikimedia Commons. hutspot, are still traditional fare in Leiden on October 3rd. The people of Leiden were jubilant. And so was William of Orange. As a reward for its stout defense, he offered Leiden a choice between tax exemptions or the foundation of a university. Whether Leiden made the right choice is still questioned by some, but the university quickly acquired an excellent reputation as a seat of learning. It attracted such theologians as Jacobus Arminius and Franciscus Gomarus, who were able to discuss the finer points of predestination over their garden fence—in Latin of course. The faculty of law was of high quality too, with students such as the famous Hugo Grotius and the Leiden lawyer in the title of this article: Adriaen van der Donck.1 Adriaen van der Donck is best known as
the writer of A Description of New Netherland, which remains an important source for the history of the Dutch colony. He was born in Breda, only a few years before that city was conquered by Habsburg forces in 1625. Van der Donck and his parents fled northward and were only able to return after the army of the Dutch Republic captured the city in 1637. A year later, Van der Donck matriculated at Leiden University to read law. He was subsequently employed by Kiliaen van Rensselaer to serve as chief judicial officer at the patroonship of Rensselaerswijck in New Netherland. After leaving Van Rensselaer’s service, he started J. W. Marsilje ed., Leiden: De geschiedenis van een Hollandse Stad: Vol. 1, Leiden tot 1574 (Leiden, 2002); Willem Otterspeer, Groepsportret met dame. Het bolwerk van de vrijheid. De Leidse universiteit 1575–1672 (Amsterdam, 2000).
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