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

Chapter 3. Biography
ters and in translating classical Latin texts into Dutch and then back again
into Latin. Greek was also a part of the curriculum and maybe the two boys
also made an early acquaintance with logic and ethics, although these subjects
were only officially introduced at Latin schools in the Dutch Republic with the
‘Schoolorder’ that the States of Holland issued in October 1625. 20
By that time Boxhorn had perhaps already left Breda to study at the University
of Leiden. His departure, however, had not been voluntary but had been
forced upon him by the surrender of Breda, after an eleven months’ siege, to
Ambrogio Spinola (1569-1630) on June 2, 1625. The surrender, immortalised
on canvas by Diego Velázquez (1599-1660), gave a great boost to Spain’s military
reputation although the town’s low strategic value scarcely justified the
high price the Spaniards paid for this military victory. 21 For Boxhorn and his
family the surrender meant forced exile; the new Spanish regime put a ban on
Protestant services and gave Protestants two years to leave the town. 22 And
so, ‘because of religion’, Hendrik Boxhorn left Breda and moved to Leiden,
taking his two grandsons Marcus and Hendrik – Boxhorn’s mother had by
then passed away – with him for further education in preparation for their
future tasks in the service of the Lord. 23
1. The town and the university
Student (1626-1631)
In 1632 Boxhorn published the Theatrum Hollandiae (Theatre of Holland), a historical-topographical
description of Holland and the province’s most important
towns and villages. 24 Of all the towns that Boxhorn discusses in the book
20 Nauwelaerts, De oude Latijnse school van Breda, pp. 51-53. See also Willem Frijhoff and Marijke
Spies, Dutch Culture in a European Perspective, Vol. 1: 1650: Hard-Won Unity (Palgrave Macmillan; Basingstoke,
2004), pp. 243-46, and Anna Frank-van Westrienen, Het schoolschrift van Pieter Teding van Berkhout:
vergezicht op het gymnasiaal onderwijs in de zeventiende-eeuwse Nederlanden (Uitgeverij Verloren; Hilversum,
2007), passim.
21 Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic and the Hispanic World (Clarendon Press; Oxford, 1982), pp.
106-9, and Henry Kamen, Spain’s Road to Empire: The Making of a World Power, 1492-1763 (Penguin Books;
London, 1 st ed. 2002, 2003), pp. 321-23.
22 Van Dooren, “De kerken van de Reformatie”, pp. 218-19.
23 Barlaeus, “Oratio Funebris In Excessum Clarissimi Viri, Marci Zuerii Boxhornii”, p. 148. ‘Breda
igitur ad hostibus capta, vel potius fame dedita, postquam religionis causa cum avo suo Leidam concessisset,
quae deerant sibi studia, pari diligentia et ardore pertexuit.’ Baselius, “Historia vitae & obitus”,
iii. ‘Itaque Henricus Boxhornius cum Nepotibus suis & reliquâ familiâ, matre ipsâ jam vita functa,
Lugdunum in Batavis, quietem ministerii quidem, non studiorum & institutionis, quaesivit & invenit.’
24 Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn, Theatrum sive Hollandiae comitatus et urbium Nova Descriptio (Hendrik
Hondius; Amsterdam, 1632). For a more elaborate discussion of this book, see chapter 7.
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