Going Dutch_ How England Plundered Holland's Glory - Lisa Jardine [42]
On several occasions already we have encountered the figure of the Dutch diplomat and poet Sir Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687), who died eighteen months before the 1688 invasion, in his ninety-first year, having been the foremost, loyal adviser to the House of Orange for almost fifty years. It is no exaggeration to suggest that over the course of his exceptionally long career, Sir Constantijn Huygens carefully shaped every aspect of the affairs of the house of Orange, from diplomacy and dynastic liaisons to interior décor. He was a man of erudition, taste, discernment and diplomatic skill, a poet, musician, art connoisseur and courtier. From his youth he was a passionate lover of England and all things English (not least its monarchy), and the intimate understanding he acquired of the attitudes and mores of the English élite made him an invaluable adviser to three generations of Stadholders.
Sir Constantijn was born at The Hague in 1596. His family on his father’s side came from Brabant, while his mother was one of the Hoefnagels – distinguished artists, displaced from the important mercantile community at Antwerp by political events at the end of the sixteenth century. Constantijn Huygens senior was thoroughly educated in languages, law and social forms and practices, as part of an intensive grooming to equip him to follow a career in public life. He fulfilled this role assiduously, remaining a loyal servant of the house of Orange throughout the long period when it was excluded from political power, between 1650 and 1672.
The extraordinarily pervasive influence of Sir Constantijn across Europe throughout the seventeenth century extended beyond himself, to include the prominent roles played in fields as diverse as politics, garden design and natural science by his children. In my opening chapter we encountered Sir Constantijn’s eldest son, Constantijn Huygens junior, secretary to William of Orange, the future King William III of England, who was a prominent Dutch witness to the events of November–December 1688. His place at the side of Prince William III had been assured over ten years earlier, when he succeeded his father (who had previously succeeded his) in taking up that sensitive and key role. Constantijn junior, though less talented than his father, discharged his duties as secretary to the Stadholder-King impeccably, and, via his prolific diary in French and Dutch, is one of the most important sources of information about William’s private thoughts and state of mind at all stages in the unfolding of the story of the Glorious Revolution.
Probably the most renowned (at least in the eyes of posterity) of Sir Constantijn’s sons who lived to maturity was the distinguished scientist Christiaan Huygens, who spent much of his working life in Paris, in the service of Louis XIV, and of whom we shall hear more.12 Sir Constantijn’s only daughter Susanna married well, and with her husband Philips Doublet became an influential figure in seventeenth-century Dutch garden design. Son Lodewijk also became a government administrator, though he appears to have been somewhat less reliable in office than his elder brother.
Sir Constantijn Huygens is a pivotal figure in the history of seventeenth-century Anglo–Dutch relations. For three-quarters of a century he was the éminence grise behind vital decision-making in political and diplomatic circles, polite society, art connoisseurship and music appreciation on both sides of the Narrow Sea. What history treats as an unexpected agreement in aesthetic matters in the fields of art and music between two supposedly separate nations turns out to be the result of his assiduous taste-formation and opinion-forming within the two cultural communities. Since he plays such a vital part in the story I am telling here, it is worthwhile