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

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Chapter 3. Biography
also strengthened his ties with Zeeland. Before his marriage Boxhorn already
stood in contact with Adriaen Hoffer, a regent from Zierikzee, Rochus Mogge
(1609-1657), who was a burgomaster of Zierikzee from 1646 onwards, and
Adriaen Veth (1608-1663), the son of a regent of Middelburg, who after Boxhorn’s
death would become pensionary of Zeeland. Other people connecting
Boxhorn to Zeeland were Hoffer’s son Rochus, who would follow in his
father’s footsteps, and Herman Anthoniszoon de Huybert (1593-1650), secretary
and pensionary of Zierikzee and later councillor at the Court of Holland.
Both were friends with Boxhorn. 179
Adriaen Hoffer is one of the three main recipients of Boxhorn’s letters that
are collected in the Epistolae et poemata (Letters and Poems). Boxhorn and Hoffer,
who besides being a Zeeland regent was also a poet, seem to have had a
good and friendly relationship. Boxhorn housed Hoffer’s son Rochus when
the latter studied at Leiden, while Hoffer helped Boxhorn with his work on
the Chroniick van Zeelandt (Chronicle of Zeeland, 1644) of Jan van Reygersberch
(sixteenth century). 180
The other two main recipients of Boxhorn’s letters are Johannes Isacius
Pontanus and Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687). Pontanus was a relative of
Boxhorn and a friend of Scriverius. Two times a student at Leiden University,
Pontanus spent the second part of his life as a professor at Harderwijk, a town
in the province of Gelderland in the Dutch Republic. He wrote a number of
historical works, including a history of Amsterdam (Rerum et urbis Amstelo-
damensium historia, 1611), a history of Gelderland (Historiae Gelricae libri XIV, XIV
1639), and, as historiographer of the Danish king Christian IV (1588-1648), a
history of Denmark (Rerum Danicarum historia, 1631). 181 Boxhorn sought Pon-
Zeeland inzake vredesonderhandelingen met Spanje tijdens de Tachtigjarige Oorlog tegen de achtergrond van de
positie van Zeeland in de Republiek (De Zwarte Arend; Middelburg, 1998), pp. 15, 18, 22-24, with quote on
p. 23, and Israel, The Dutch Republic, pp. 295, 328, 332.
179 For Boxhorn’s connections to Zeeland, see Meertens, Letterkundig leven in Zeeland in de zestiende
en eerste helft der zeventiende eeuw, pp. 364-66, 368-69. Adriaen Veth and Boxhorn had once seen each
other in the presence of Scriverius. Boxhorn in a letter to Pontanus and Scriverius, April 1632. Boxhorn,
Epistolae et poemata, p. 24. ‘Memini adhuc ejus diei, quo de Hollandicorum Comitum primis initiis, atque
adeo historia eorum universa non ex aliorum judicio, sed ex tua sententia libere & graviter disserebas.
Testabitur id mecum, qui tunc aderat, Adrianus Vettius noster, novum Zeelandiae suae decus …’ The
Epistolae et poemata contain one letter of Boxhorn to Veth. The letter is dated November 1632. Ibidem, pp.
28-29.
180 Boxhorn to Adriaen Hoffer, November 19, 1641. Boxhorn, Epistolae et poemata, p. 187. The first
letter of Boxhorn to Adriaen Hoffer in the Epistolae et poemata dates November 11, 1636, four days after
Hoffer’s son Rochus had enrolled as a student of the arts at Leiden University. Rochus’s stay at Leiden,
where Rochus lodged at Boxhorn’s house, can be said to be the start of the friendly relationship between
Adriaen Hoffer and Boxhorn. Ibidem, p. 79. ‘Ego certè de amicitia tua, quam adeo prolixe mihi offerre
voluisti, vehementer mihi gratulor. Meum erit omni obsequio huic benivolentiae tuae respondere.’ See
also Meertens, Letterkundig leven in Zeeland in de zestiende en eerste helft der zeventiende eeuw, p. 365.
181 See in general Karen Skovgaard-Petersen, Historiography at the Court of Christian IV (1588-1648):
Studies in the Latin Histories of Denmark by Johannes Pontanus and Johannes Meursius (Museum Tusculanum