Constantijn Huygens
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Constantijn Huygens (September 4, 1596, The Hague - March 28, 1687, The Hague) was a Dutch poet and composer, Secretary to two Princes, and the father of the scientist Christiaan Huygens. He is often considered a member of what is known as the Muiderkring, a group of leading intellectuals gathered around Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, who met regularly at the castle of Muiden near Amsterdam. However, Huygens probably only visited on occasion.
Huygens is arguably one of the most prolific poets of the Dutch Golden Age. He was also Secretary to two Princes of Orange: Frederick Henry and William II.
Near the Hague in the neighboring town Voorburg, Huygens built a small villa, called Hofwijck (Vitaulium in Latin), meant as a get-away from the Royal Court in the Hague. As a man of his era, Huygens played a large number of instruments (lute, gamba, harpsichord) for which he wrote a large number of musical pieces. He saw his love for music as more important than his literary activities, which he wrote in his limited free time. He is buried in the Grote Kerk in the Hague, together with — among other relatives — his son, the notorious sciencist Christiaan Huygens.
In 1947 a literary award was created, the Constantijn Huygens Award, to honor his legacy.
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[edit] Biography
Constantijn Huygens was born on 4 September 1596 in the Hague, as the second son of Christiaan Huygens (senior) - secretary of the Council of State - and Suzanna Hoefnagel, and Susanna Hoefnagel, niece of the Antwerp painter Joris Hoefnagel, (Antwerp, 1542 - travels to England 1571 - Vienna, 1601).
The name Constantijn refers to the constantia, the steadfastness of the city in their freedom fight against oppression (Constantijn's godparents were various mayors of Breda).
[edit] Education
Constantijn received an in-depth education and was a gifted child in his youth. His father, who had his own ideas on educational methods, and homeschooled his children. They were educated partly by their father and partly by carefully instructed governors. When he was five years old, Constantijn and his brother Maurits received their first music education. They knew also through their parents the magnificent collection of paintings in the Antwerp house of diamonds and jewelery dealer Portuguese Jewish exiled Gaspar Duarte, (1584 - 1653), married to Portuguese Jewish woman Catharina Rodrigues, (1584 - 1644) and their six children. Gaspar Duarte, together with his son Jakob Duarte would open shop in London selling his splendid wares to King Charles I of England and finding for collectors paintings by former diplomat and traveler to Spain and Italy, between 1601 and 1609, Antwerp based Flemish Catholic Peter Paul Rubens, (1577 - 1640).
Duarte´s palace, demolished around 1900, was visited by famous English diarist John Evelyn, enjoying a concert, from the British Admiralty, on 6th October 1641 stating that Gaspar Duarte and family, lived as a Prince.
They started with singing lessons, and they learned their notes using gold colored buttons on their jackets. It is striking, that Christiaan senior imparted the 'modern' system of 7 note names to the boys, instead of the traditional, but much more complicated hexachord system. Two years later the first lessons on the viol started, followed by the lute and the harpsichord. Constantijn showed a particular acumen for the lute. At the age of eleven he was already asked to play for ensembles, and later — during his diplomatic travels — his lute playing was in demand, he was asked to play at the Danish Court and for James I of England, although they were not known for their musical abilities.
Constantijn also had a talent for languages. He learned French, Latin and Greek, and at a later age Italian and English. He learned by practice, the modern way of learning techniques.
At eleven he wrote his first verse in Latin, but his parents were keen that he would not become a bookworm. For them it was more important that he would become a well-educated citizen, versatile in various sports. For this reason he was also taught how to ride, fence, sign art and mould. This background brought his education up to the standards of a humanistic upbringing.
Constantijn's mother Suzanna was from Antwerp. In his play Trijntje Cornelis (1653) Huygens wrote of Antwerp, which he knew from his mother and the visits to Antwerp, and its very beautiful and striking weather.
In the period of the Twelve Years' Truce, Treaty of Antwerp, which initiated the Twelve Years Truce, was an armistice signed in Antwerp on April 9, 1609 between Spain and the Netherlands,name given later, to the 12-year period of ceasefire within the Eighty Years' War in the Netherlands lasting from March 1609-1621, between the United Provinces and the Spanish controlled southern states, mediated by France and England at The Hague, Constantijn received education in maths, law and logic and he learned how to handle a pike and a musket.
In 1614 he taught Pieter t Vooys how to play the Harpsichords/Spinet. Also in 1614 Constantijn wrote his first Dutch poem, inspired by the French poet Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, in which he praises rural life. In his early 20s, he fell in love with Dorothea, however their relationship did not last and Dorothea met someone else.
In 1616, Maurits and Constantijn started studies at Leiden University. Studying in Leiden was primarily seen as a way to build a social network. Shortly after, Maurits was called home to assist his father. Constantijn finished his studies in 1617 and returned home. This was followed by six weeks of training with Antonis de Hubert, a lawyer in Zierikzee. De Hubert was committed to the study of language and writing, having held consultations with Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, Laurens Reael and Joost van den Vondel concerning language and orthography in 1623.
[edit] Early career and first works
In the Spring of 1618 Constantijn found employment with Sir Dudley Carleton, the English envoy at the Court in The Hague. In the summer, Huygens stayed in London in the house of the Dutch ambassador, Noël de Caron. During his time in London his social circle widened and he also learned to speak English.
In 1620, towards the end of the Twelve Years' Truce, Huygens travelled as a secretary of ambassador François van Aerssen to Venice, to gain support against the threat of renewed war. He was the only member of the legation to speak Italian. In 1621 he travelled to England as the secretary of six envoys of the United Provinces.
In 1619 Constantijn came into contact with Anna Roemers Visscher and with Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft. Huygens exchanged many poems with Anna.
In 1621 a poetic exchange with Hooft also starts. Both would always try to exceed the other. In October of that year Huygens sent Jacob Cats a large poem in Dutch, 't Voorhout. In December he started writing 't Kostelick Mal, a satirical treatment of the nonsense of the current vogue. This is according to Huygens characterising the "inconstantia," with which sober, Christian people wanted nothing to do.
In 1622, when Constantijn stayed as a diplomat for more than one year in the United Kingdom, he was knighted by King James I.
It was just then that the Dutch West Indies Company was established, by, between others, Willem Usselincx, (1567-1647?), and Peter Minuit, Pierre Minuit or Peter Minnewit (Tournai, 1589 – August 5, 1638), Piet Pieterszoon Hein (or Pieter Pietersen Heyn) (November 25, 1577 – June 18, 1629), the Dutch Vice - Admiral attacking the silver bullion fleets of Imperial Spain in 1628, (with Portugal having then the same Spanish ruler, Felipe III of Spain) , and conquering some parts of Brazil, Pernambuco, in 1630, but by 1645, the Portuguese community at Pernambuco rebelled against their Dutch masters, and by 1654, they were ousted.
On June 3, 1621, they were granted a charter for a trade monopoly in the West Indies (meaning the Caribbean) by the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and given jurisdiction over the African slave trade, Brazil, the Caribbean, and North America. The area where the company could operate consisted of West Africa (between the Tropic of Cancer and the Cape of Good Hope) and the Americas, which included the Pacific Ocean and the eastern part of New Guinea.
In 1623 Huygens wrote his Printen, a description of several characteristics of people. This satirical, moralising work was one of the most difficult of Huygens poems.
In the same year Maria Tesselschade and Allard Crombalch were married. For this occasion verses were written by Huygens, Hooft and Vondel. During the festival, Constantijn flirted with Machteld of Camps. As a result of this he wrote the poem Vier en Vlam.
In 1625 the work Otia, or Ledige Uren, was published. This work showcased his collected poems.
This marked the end of Constantijn's formative years, and the end of his youth. Huygens was employed as a secretary to Prince Frederick Hendrick of Orange , who — after the death of Maurits of Orange — was appointed as stadtholder. In 1626 Constantijn fell in love with Suzanna van Baerle. Earlier courtship by the Huygens family to win her for Maurits, had failed. Constantijn wrote several sonnets for her, in which calls her Sterre (Star). They wed on 6 April 1627.
Huygens describes their marriage in Dagh-werck, a description of one day. He worked on this piece, which counts almost 2000 lines, during the entire time they were married.
The couple had five children: in 1628 their first son, Constantijn Jr., in 1629 Christiaan, in 1631 Lodewijk and in 1632 Philips. In 1637 their daughter Suzanna was born; shortly after her birth their mother died.
[edit] Later career
Huygens started a successful career despite his grief over the death of his wife (1638). In 1630 he was appointed to the Council and Exchequer, managing the estate of the Orange family. This job provided him with an income of about 1000 florins a year. In that same year he bought the estate Zuilichem and became known as Lord of Zuilichem. In 1632 Louis XIII of France, the protector of exiled famous jurist Hugo Grotius, appointed him as knight in the Order of Saint-Michel.
In 1643 Huygens was granted the honor of displaying a golden lily on a blue field in his coat of arms.
In 1634 Huygens received from Frederick Hendrick of Orange a piece of property in The Hague on the North side of Binnenhof. The land was near the property of a good friend of Huygens, Count Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, who built his house, the Mauritshuis, around the same time.
Constantijn's house, the Mauritshuis, has three statues on the pediment; three women who portray the standards of good construction: symmetry, strength and ease.
It was around this time that the lows of the Orange Dynasty, headed at the time with Prince Frederick Hendrick, since 1625, with Imperial Spain, were higher.
The 19,000 combined troops of Protestant Swedish factotum Axel Oxenstierna, together with those of Swedish conquered Prussia had to face, and be crushed by the 25,000 soldiers headed by a 24 years old, cadet son of King Philip III of Spain and Princess Margaret of Austria, known in History as the Cardinal-Infante, Ferdinand of Austria, El Escorial, Spain, 1609 - Brussels,Belgium, 1641, aged 32, probably poisoned). He was also the brother of the Spanish Princess known as Anne of Austria, (1601 - 1666), the staunch and devout Dowager Queen Regent of France, married to Louis XIII of France, (1601 - 1643) and therefore also the Mother Tutor of King Louis XIV of France, (1638 - 1715).
This event, known as Battle of Nördlingen, on 6 September (Gregorian calendar), 1634, during the European Thirty Years War (1618 - 1648), was fought between Catholics, (mainly Spanish, Italians, Austrians including Croatians) and Protestants, (mainly Dutch, North Germans and Swedish Protestant Lords) .
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In this period Huygens was in contact with several kindred spirits. At the start of the 1630s he was in touch with René Descartes. He also was in touch with P.C. Hooft (he assessed his Historiën) and famous Leyden born painter Rembrandt, Rembrandt van Rijn, (1606 - 1669), the son of a grain miller, (1606 - 1669), launched into social appreciation, together with painter Jan Lievens, the son of an embroiderer, by rather wealthy and powerful Constantijn . He wrote poetry, and because of his interest in the poetry of John Donne, translated Donne's poems into Dutch. Huygens also continued to compose music.
After the death of his wife, Suzanna, his cousin Catharina Sweerius took over the management of the household. Constantijn was unable to write poetry for months because of his anguish over his wife's death. Eventually he composed, inspired by Petrarch, the sonnet Op de dood van Sterre (On the death of Sterre). He added the poem to his Dagh-werck, which he left unfinished: the day he has described has not ended yet, but his Sterre is already dead. After sending the unfinished work to different friends for approval, he eventually published it in 1658 as part of his Koren-bloemen.
After a couple of years as a widower, Huygens bought a piece of land in Voorburg and commissioned the building of Hofwijck. Hofwijck was inaugurated in 1642 in the company of friends and relatives.
Here Huygens hoped to escape the activities of The Hague, indicated by the name of the house: Hof (=Court) Wijck (=avoid). In that same year, his brother Maurits died. Due to his grief Huygens wrote little Dutch poetry, but he continued to write epigrams in Latin. Shortly afterwards, he began writing Dutch pun poems, which are very playful by nature.
In 1644-'45 Huygens began more serious work. As a new year's present for Leonore Hellemans, he composed the Heilige Daghen, a series of sonnets on the Christian holidays. In 1647 he published another work, in which play and seriousness are united, Ooghentroost, addressed to Lucretia of Trello, who was losing her sight and who was already half-blind. The poem was offered as consolation.
In 1645, his sons Constantijn Jr. and Christiaan began their studies in Leiden. In these years Prince Frederick Henry of Orange, Huygens' confidante and protector, became increasingly ill, and died in 1647. The new stadtholder, William II of Orange, greatly appreciated Huygens and gave him the estate of Zeelhem. In 1650, two years after the end of the Eighty Years' War, with the Spaniards recognizing, after 8 decades of fights, the State of Holland by the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, William II died.
Constantijn had substantial dealings at the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, the term Peace of Westphalia referring to the two peace treaties of Osnabrück and Münster, Peace of Münster, signed on May 15 and October 24, 1648, respectively, and written in French.
As a purchaser of fine art for many wealthy persons, including the British and Dutch royalty, he must have had political and artistic contacts with Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, (Wiener Neustadt, January 5 1614 -Vienna, November 20 1662), the youngest son of the Austrian Emperor Ferdinand II of Habsburg, and the brother of his succesor Emperor Ferdinand III, (1608 - 1657), being then military commander, Governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1647 to 1656, and a patron of the Flemish - Dutch arts.
Governor Leopold Wilhelm of Austria got as a Director of his Painting Collection none the less than [[David Teniers the Younger], (December 15, 1610 - April 25, 1690), a Flemish artist born in Antwerp, who was the more celebrated son of David Teniers the Elder, almost ranking in celebrity with Rubens and Van Dyck. His son David Teniers III and his grandson David Teniers IV were also painters. His wife Anna née, Anna Breughel was the daughter of Jan Brueghel the Elder and the granddaughter of Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
Many paintings by this talented family group are found today at the Kunsthistoriches Museum at Vienna, and at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, including works and engravings by famous Nuremberg painter and engraver Albrecht Dürer, an earlier resident at Antwerp in 1520 when he was seeking contacts with Ghent born King Charles I of Spain, Emperor Charles V. Some of them were purchased from the collections of the beheaded King Charles I of England, though.
This Peace of Westphalia, November 1648, ended both the Thirty Years' War in the Holy Roman Empire (today mostly Germany) and the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, the Seven Provinces of the Spanish Diplomats. The treaties involved the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand III (Habsburg), the Kingdoms of Spain, France and Sweden, the Netherlands and their respective allies among the princes and the Republican Imperial States of the Holy Roman Empire.
William II of Orange successor, William III, (November 1650 - 1702), "King Billy", for his supposed Irish and Scots subjects, later, was born a week later. William II's death is the beginning of the "First Stadtholderless Period."
Sometimes, some historians have mentioned it as the Dutch Republic period.
In 1650-1652 Huygens wrote the poem Hofwijck in which he described the joys of living outside the city. It is thought that Huygens wrote his poetry was written as a testament to himself, a memento mori, because Huygens lost so many dear friends and family during this time: Hooft (1647), Barlaeus (1648), Maria Tesschelschade (1649) and Descartes (1650).
With the start of the stadtholderless period, there was less work for Huygens as a secretary. The widow of Prince Frederik Hendrik, Amalia van Solms, the mother of brief William II of Orange, was decreasingly impressed by him.
The emphasis of Huygens' activities moved more and more to his presidency of the Council of the house of Orange, then continued by a supposedly Prince inheritor, a small baby. He traveled frequently during that time, in connection with his work. There were however strong disagreements between mother in law Amalia van Solms, and widower daughter in law Mary, Princess Royal, (4 November 1631 – 24 December 1660, aged 29) on even the name for christening the Dutch-English new Royal born.
It had been just Constantijn Huygens the canvasser of the "diamond deal", valued at some 23000 sterling pounds, an incredible amount at that time, equivalent to some 9,000 Kg of silver ingots, in the name of exiled Portuguese friend diamond dealer, Gaspar Duarte, above mentioned, who had negotiated the British Princess diamonds heirloom bought in Antwerp on behalf of William II of Orange-Nassau in one of his visits to England. We do not know the commission Jewish jeweller Gaspar Duarte probably gave him however.
Protestant England - Orange - Nassau King William III memory, to which Constantijn dedicated a good part of his time, is kept today with great respect by North of Ireland Protestants, through The Orange Institution, more commonly known as the Orange Order or the Orange Lodge, a Protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland with lodges throughout the Commonwealth and the United States, because of the so called Battle of the Boyne, on July 1, 1690 (Old Style), against the destitute since 1688 and supposedly Catholic King James II of England.
He still tried to find time to publish more of his work. In 1647 a number of Huygens' musical creations, Pathodia sacra et profana, was published in Paris. It contained some compositions in Latin on the words of psalms in French, and Italian amorous worldly texts. The work was dedicated to the pretty niece, Utricia Ogle, of an English diplomat.
In 1648 Huygens wrote Twee ongepaerde handen for a harpsichord. This work was connected with Marietje Casembroot, a twenty-five-year-old harpsichord player, with whom he could share his love for music.
During this time Huygens tried to find governmental jobs for his sons. Christiaan, however, did not aspire to administrative work, having put his mind to science and having gained a global reputation in that field.
In 1657, his son Philips died after a short sickness during a Grand Tour in Prussia. In that same year Huygens became seriously ill, but healed in a miraculous manner.
Around Christmas the collected work of his Dutch poems, the Koren-bloemen appears. Some of its contents contain: Heilighe Daghen (1645), Ooghen-troost (1647), Hofwijck (1653) and Trijntje Cornelis (1653). This last work, Trijntje Cornelis, is an explosion of Huygens' creativity. It testifies to the rare language - and expressive capacity - of the author. Considering that the piece was written in a rather short time, it can be considered work of an enormous performance.
In 1660 his daughter Suzanna married her cousin, Philips Doublet, son of Huygens' sister Geertruijd. In 1661, a grandfather by now, Huygens was sent to France by the circle of tutors of William III, to recover possession of the county of Orange. The county was returned to the family of Orange-Nassau in 1665 and Huygens returned to the Netherlands.
On his return, Huygens designed the new sand road in The Hague, running through the dunes to Scheveningen. He had already planned this road in 1653, and wrote about it in his work the Zee-straet. The road was made according to Huygens' design.
In 1667 the States of Holland abolished the stadtholdership with an Eternal Edict, a solution which Huygens did not favor. In the next year, William III was created the First Noble in the Provincial States of Zeeland.
The year 1672 was an Annus horribilis for the Netherlands. From the south, the states were attacked by the French king, who managed to penetrate to Utrecht where he was stopped by The Dutch Water Line. From sea, England and France attacked, but were stopped by the fleet of Holland. And from the east, the Bishop of Münster attacked the Northeast and besieged the city of Groningen in the summer.
Under the guidance of the Prince of Orange, the enemies were dissipated in two years. The jobless sons of Huygens now had the chance of obtaining positions. Constantijn Jr. was appointed as a secretary of William III and Lodewijk was appointed as Landdrost of Gorcum, but he was accused in 1676 of exactions. During the this year the second edition of the Koren-bloemen appeared, a collected work containing 27 books. New in this edition were the Zee-straet, the Mengelingh (a section of serious poems written after 1657) and seven books with snel-dichten (quick poems). As he was older now, Huygens found refuge in music. He wrote around 769 compositions during in his life.
In 1676 efficient Dutch Admiral Michiel de Ruyter dies. In March 1677 his embalmed body was added to a grave in the Nieuwe Kerk (Amsterdam). Huygens was present as a president of the princely field Council and as representative of the House of Orange. In that same year William III married Mary II of England, daughter of the Duke of York.
In 1680 Constantijn Jr. moved with his family out of the house of his father. To stop the gossiping which started shortly afterwards, Huygens write the poem Cluijs-werck, in which he shows a glimpse of the latter stages of his life.
Constantijn Huygens died on Good Friday, March 28, 1687 at the age of 90. A week later he was buried in the Grote Kerk in the Hague.
[edit] Bibliography
- Spaense wijsheit (without year)
- 1621 Batava Tempe, dat is 't Voor-hout van 's-Gravenhage
- 1623 De uytlandighe herder
- 1622 Kerkuria mastix, satyra, Dat is, 't costelick mal
- 1624 Stede-stemmen en dorpen
- 1624 Zedeprinten
- 1625 Otiorum libri sex
- 1638 Dagh-werck
- 1641 Ghebruyck en onghebryck van 't orgel
- 1644 Momenta desultoria (republished in 1655)
- 1647 Eufrasia, Ooghentroost. Aen Parthenine, bejaerde maecht, over de verduysteringh van haer een ooghe
- 1647 Heilighe daghen
- 1647 Pathodia sacra et profana
- 1653 Trijntje Cornelis'
- 1653 Vitaulium. Hofwijck, Hofstede vanden Heere van Zuylichem onder Voorburgh
- 1656-1657 translated proverbs
- 1658 Korenbloemen (republished in 1672)
- 1667 Zee-straet
- 1841 Cluys-werck (published by W. J. A. Jonckbloet)
[edit] External links
- http://www.phil.uu.nl/HPS/theses/BramStoffele.pdf, 145 pages, Master Thesis titled Chrystiaan Huygens . A family affair, fashioning a family in early-modern cport-culture, University of Utrecht, Holland, August 2006, by Bram Stoffele.
- The Constantijn Huygens Web - collection of poems
- [http://www.inghist.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/Huygens Correspondence of Constantijn Huygens
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutherland_Loan . The Sutherland Loan or Bridgewater Loan is based on what is known as The Orleans Collection, a very important collection of over 500 paintings formed by the French prince of the blood Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, mostly acquired between about 1700 and his death in 1723. Apart from the great royal-become-national collections of Europe it is reputed to be the greatest private collection of Western art, especially Italian, ever assembled, and probably the most famous,[2] helped by the fact that most of the collection has been accessible to the public since it was formed, whether in Paris, or subsequently in London, Edinburgh and elsewhere.
A very good piece of information to track the WWW, (When, Where and by Who), of many important paintings assembled, disassembled, inherited, bought, sold, robbed as war booty over three centuries ago and so on. A must for History of Art Students.
