historical and political thought in the seventeenth - RePub - Erasmus ...

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Chapter 3. Biography
Hendrik Boxhorn’s zealousness did not win him the hearts of the other
Reformed ministers at Breda, who suspected him of still adhering to Catholic
doctrines. 17 It also made him an easy target for mockery. When the Spaniards
captured Breda for a second time in 1625, a cartoon and satirical poems
appeared in which Hendrik Boxhorn and his wife Sibylla Styls were ridiculed.
And that was not the end of it. Boxhorn’s grandmother Sibylla became a hated
figure among Catholics in Brabant after the Jesuit Herman Hugo (1588-1629),
in his history of the siege of Breda, had accused her of being the main instigator
behind the destruction of an image of the Virgin Mary. 18
It was to the care of this feisty but not undisputed Calvinist minister that
young Marcus’s education was entrusted. Trained as a priest at Louvain and
an expert in Latin, Greek and Hebrew, Hendrik Boxhorn was in the perfect
position to educate his grandsons in ‘the knowledge of at one time the truth,
at another the elegance of the Latin language’. 19 He probably gave his grandsons
a thorough introduction into Scripture, Latin, and classical literature in
accordance with the curriculum taught at the Latin school of Breda, which the
twin brothers most likely also attended. This meant that like pupils at other
Latin schools in the Dutch Republic Marcus and his twin brother Hendrik
learned the Ten Commandments, the Heidelberg Catechism, and Cato’s Distichs
by heart. They digested the letters of Erasmus and the works of Cicero
and Terentius (c.195-c.159 BC) to learn Latin grammar and to enhance their
knowledge of Latin words. In the spirit of the ideal of imitatio, the imitation
of the classics in language and style, they trained themselves in writing let-
17 Van Dooren, “De kerken van de Reformatie”, pp. 216-19.
18 Herman Hugo, The Seige of Breda by the Armes of Philip the Fourt vnder the Gouernment of Isabella
atchiued by the Conduct of Ambr. Spinola (Hastenius; Louvain, 1627), p. 147, and Maurits Sabbe, Brabant
in ’t verweer: bijdrage tot de studie der Zuid-Nederlandsche strijdliteratuur in de eerste helft der 17de eeuw (Resseler;
Antwerp, 1933), pp. 144-47, 156. Boxhorn would not forget the accusation. In his history of the
capture of Breda by Frederik Hendrik in 1637 he defended his grandmother’s honour against Hugo’s
accusation. Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Historia obsidionis Bredae et Rerum Anni M DC XXXVII (Isaac Com-
melinus; Leiden, 1640), p. 165. ‘Tradit Hermannus Hugo, caetera diligens scriptor & accuratus, alterum
eorum direpta Mariana statua mutilatum, Sibyllae Stylsiae, conjugis Henrici Boxhornii, instinctu. Ad
quae memoranda sinistra fama, aut factionis studium, a vero eum deflexere. Quod civium, qui supersunt,
conscientiae, & fidei rerum, pietati denique in aviam maternam debui.’
19 Baselius, “Historia vitae & obitus”, iii. ‘Avo materno in disciplinam traditus est. Quo insuper ut
praeceptore usus multum profecit in cognitione tum veritatis, tum elegantiae linguae Latinae.’ Barlaeus,
“Oratio Funebris In Excessum Clarissimi Viri, Marci Zuerii Boxhornii”, p. 145. ‘Huic verò tam praeclarae
domui non minimum splendorem intulit avus Defuncti nostri, Henricus Boxhornius vir eximiae
doctrinae, & ardentis in Deum zeli. Hic cum Pontificiae relligioni initiatus esset, eamque diu, qua voce,
qua calamo asseruisset, summae inter Suos fuit existimationis, et dignitatis. Etenim Lovanii cum studiis
operam navasset, et Latinis, Graecis, Hebraicisque litteris haut leviter esset tinctus, ad sacram Theologiam
se contulit, in qua tantos brevi tempore fecit profectus, ut dignus fuerit iudicatus, qui Licentiae
gradum in eadem consequeretur: cumque idem Romanae Sedis tunc vindex esset acerrimus, eam ab
Episcopo suo dignitatem obtinuit, ut Tinensi Ecclesiae praeficeretur Decanus, & haereticae, ut vocant,
pravitatis Inquisitor.’ ‘Tinensi’ probably refers to Tienen, a town some 18 kilometres to the southeast of
Louvain.