Christiaan Huygens – A family affair - Proeven van Vroeger

1627 to approximately f 300.000 in 1674, showing a social boost from the ranks of the wealthy
patricians and average public servants to the “grand-capitalists” (“groot-kapitalisten”) while
fulfilling the task of secretary to the Stadholder. 117 Effectively, it would come close to an insult to
suspect that Huygens, ending his life as one of the richest men of the Dutch Republic, had not
anticipated the socio-economic possibilities of service under the Stadholder.
In fact, patronage of a prince was lucrative business, patronage of the Prince of
Orange no less than that of other European princes at the time. Though it was important and
profitable to obtain a stipend from the prince, there was a lot more to raise expectations about
and to direct one’s ambitions to. While receiving only f 500 as an annual salary for his
secretariat, he earned an extra f 1000 annually when he became a member of the Nassau
Estate Council in 1630. 118 On top of this came extra payments for the drafting of letters,
patents and other documents 119 – which may have stimulated Constantijn Sr. to be extra active
in his correspondence for the prince and in his intensive contact with writers and academics.
Compared to other high officers in the Republic his annual income was somewhat modest: the
country’s advocate, Oldenbarnevelt, had made f 1,200, but Adriaen Duyck in the years 1621 –
1631 earned f 3,000; De Witt, the grandpensionary during the Stadholderless years (1650 –
1672), was paid f 6,000 in the last years of his reign, and Gaspar Fagel (de Witt’s successor) a
modest f 12,000. 120
However, serving under the prince was profitable in many other ways – Constantijn
Sr. knew many different channels for obtaining fortune: gifts, exonerations and “discounts” of
the Stadholders and his many friends, correspondents, contacts and clients. Where those with
a high salary received this “in part at least to limit the incumbent’s dependence on such sources
of income [“gifts from various sources”]” – in the case of de Witt this was explicated in his
instruction 121 – Huygens knew no such restrictions. With a “Maitre” as Frederik Hendrik, who
“probably had more money to spend on his artistic fancies than many ruling princes, although
his resources could not compare with those of the French or English royal houses” and who
“felt the need to use these financial resources to build up his prestige by giving his court a
117 Ibid., p221-2
118 Ibid., p137, 143
119 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., p62
120 PRICE, J. L. (1994) Holland and the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century : the politics of particularism,
Oxford; New York, Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press., p130
121 Ibid., p130
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