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There was no shortage of available funds at the Stadholder’s own court, across town from that of Elizabeth of Bohemia. The last project undertaken by Frederik Hendrik and Amalia as part of their carefully-contrived cultural enhancement programme was to design and build one last lavish princely retreat for themselves on the outskirts of The Hague. The Huis ten Bosch was begun in 1647, the year of Frederik Hendrik’s death. Designed by Pieter Post, it was adapted by Amalia van Solms, following the Stadholder’s demise, to become a grand memorial to her husband’s achievements. The entire undertaking was carefully supervised by Huygens and carried out over a period of five years with his customary commitment and dedication – a fabulous integration of architecture and painting, which was finally completed in 1652.

The Huis ten Bosch, uniquely among the seventeenth-century Orange royal palaces, has survived with the interior decoration of its imposing central room virtually intact, and can still be visited today. In close consultation with Huygens and van Campen, Amalia selected a set of themes and designs that showcased the work of an array of Dutch and Flemish painters into an iconographically organised, connected cycle of thirty wall paintings. Van Campen himself contributed several of the painted elements; others were executed by Gerard van Honthorst, Caesar van Everdingen, Jan Lievens, Pieter Soutman, Salomon de Bray, Christiaan van Couwenbergh, Pieter de Grebber, Jacob Jordaens, Gonzales Coques and Theodoor van Thulden. The decoration of the room effects the apotheosis of Frederik Hendrik, who is heroicised throughout – first as a warrior, then a bringer of peace, and finally as the founder of a Golden Age. The largest, most complex and most ‘Baroque’ of the series, The Triumph of Frederik Hendrik, was entrusted to the Antwerp Catholic artist Jacob Jordaens – remarkably, in the politically and doctrinally tolerant atmosphere of Flemish Antwerp, a Catholic artist could undertake a large-scale work celebrating the achievements of a Dutch Protestant Prince.10

This extraordinary compilation of celebratory memorial artworks by a wide range of Dutch and Flemish artists marks an important watershed in the fortunes of fine art and artists in the United Provinces in the course of the seventeenth century. Monumental in scale, the project was at once the apotheosis of Frederik Hendrik, and of the simply remarkable talent which could be assembled to mark his passing. The painters involved were drawn from all over the United Provinces, and from Antwerp (where freedom of expression allowed artists of all political and religious persuasions to congregate). But as Sir Constantijn Huygens, the originator and orchestrator of the entire piece, explained to Amalia van Solms in a letter, painters from Brussels had necessarily to be excluded, because, in spite of the artistic enlightenedness of the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm (himself a major collector of Italianate art), the climate of Catholic religious conformity would not allow artists to produce work celebrating the Protestant and Huguenot-sympathising house of Orange. Caspar de Crayer, whom otherwise Huygens would have wished to commission, was obliged to turn down his invitation:

Crayer, the great painter from Brussels, has declined by letter to make his contribution, using a number of pretexts. I think the true reason is that the subject is too Huguenot and Orangist, to be executed in Brussels. It was supposed to have been the expedition of Frederik Hendrik with Prince Maurits to the battle of Flanders. Someone else will have to take it in hand.11

Meanwhile, the two ‘English’ courts at The Hague received an unexpected injection of vitality, and gained significantly in international importance, as a result of the civil unrest and turbulent times in England. By the late 1640s there were plenty of refugees from the continuing civil wars semi-permanently installed at The Hague, who were prepared to accord Princess Mary