Christiaan Huygens – A family affair - Proeven van Vroeger

of his poems published in The Hague, even needing a reprint. Also in these same years (1619-
1620), Constantijn wrote another wedding poem, an “Entrée de ballet” for the Princess of
Chimay, and expressed his excitement that the great Dutch writer and internationally-
acclaimed law-theorist Hugo de Groot (Hugo Grotius, 1583 – 1645) and Prince Frederik
Hendrik (1584 – 1647, brother of the Dutch Stadholder Maurits) had read some of his
poems. 25 When his father’s influential neighbor in The Hague, the diplomat François van
Aerssen, eventually gave a start to Constantijn’s public service by taking him to the Republic
of Venice on a diplomatic mission (spring 1620) Constantijn Sr. fulfilled his tasks to such
contentment that Van Aerssen recommended him formally to the Dutch States General.
One can clearly sense the socio-professional plans that accompanied the time and
energy that was put in writing verses – fatherly plans that seemed to crystallize when, after
Huygens’ return from Venice, he was assigned by the Stadholder to write a Latin epitaph for
the monument to the Oranges in the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church) in Delft. The epitaph
“summarizes the great contribution of the Orange family to the country’s history” 26 – a
statement that came to fit nicely in the broader representation strategy of the House of Orange
(see Chapter III, section iv). This emblematic assignment also shows the level of appreciation
that Huygens had already established for his poetry and the door it opened in social and
professional terms. Constantijn had become highly visible through frequent and strategic
publication and by dedicating his poems to people of increasingly higher social positions. His
publication of his English tribute to the University of Oxford in 1622 – the most important
English university at the time, with strong bonds to the Royal House – should be understood
in this respect. It achieved the effect it needed to: Huygens received several responses of
Oxford professors and a higher visibility at court. 27
25 Ibid., Vol. 15, Introduction, xxxvii. HUYGENS, C. & HEESAKKERS, C. L. (1987) Mijn jeugd,
Amsterdam, Querido., p121-2. The second verse (of seven) of Huygens’s jubilating poem on the fact
that Prince Frederik Hendrik has read his poetic work (Feb. 27, 1619 – “Monseignr. Le Prince Henrij
de Nassau m’ayant faict l’Honneur de Lire quelques miens escrits.”) expresses relief that from now on a
Prince instead of savants would judge his writings:
“Volumes animez, peres-grands des sciences,
(10) Pedantes de Papier, magasins de sentences,
Ne vous presumez plus de faire des sçavants
A peser mes escrits: s’il a esté un temps
Qu’innocence me fit trembler à la censure,
Le bon-heur m’a rendu la cervelle plus dure;
(15) Ie n’apprehende plus les yeulx de l’ univers;
Un prince a veu mes vers.”
26 MÖRKE, O. (1997) The Orange Court as a Centre of Political and Social Life during the Republic
IN KEBLUSEK, M., ZIJLMANS, J. & MUSEUM, H. H. (Eds.) Princely display: the court of Frederik
Hendrik of Orange and Amalia van Solms. The Hague; Zwolle, Historical Museum; Waanders., p63
27 HUYGENS, C. (1911) BW., Vol. I, xlii
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