Going Dutch_ How England Plundered Holland's Glory Part 5

Later Elizabeth described in detail how well-turned-out the leading ladies had been at the masque: Your Sister was very well dressed like an Amazone the Princess of Tarente like a shepeardess Madamoiselle d'Orenge a Nimph, they were all very well dressed Mistris Lane was a Suiters wife, but I wish of all the sights Your Majestie had seene Vander dous, there neuer was seene the like, he was a Gipsie Nan Hide [Anne Hyde, later first wife of James II] was his wife, he had pantalon close to him of red and yellow striped with huffled sleeues he looked iust like a Jack a lent, they were 26 in all and did dance till five in the morning.26

Elizabeth also boasted to her nephew that her 'fidlers were better' than his.27 It has been suggested that after 1650 Elizabeth of Bohemia's court was sustained largely by wishful thinking, and that its activities were severely curtailed by the exiled Queen's lack of secure financial support. However, the most recent study of her correspondence has revealed that Elizabeth's 'celebrity' reputation, as the beloved and glamorous figurehead of Protestant hopes in Europe, ensured that ample private funds were made available to her by Lord Craven and others, to support a continuing lavish lifestyle, and thereby to sustain an aura of royal ent.i.tlement around the house of OrangeStuart in the United Provinces.28 The The Ballet de la Carmesse Ballet de la Carmesse was a public demonstration that the extravagant AngloDutch social life at The Hague continued, apparently undaunted by current political difficulties. 'We serve you alone, and you are victorious,' the performers in the masque proclaim triumphantly to their royal audience. was a public demonstration that the extravagant AngloDutch social life at The Hague continued, apparently undaunted by current political difficulties. 'We serve you alone, and you are victorious,' the performers in the masque proclaim triumphantly to their royal audience.29 Although the musical counterpart for the text no longer survives, it is clear that musically the ballet La Carmesse La Carmesse was particularly accomplished. It was written and performed by the French violinist Guillaume Dumanoir, a prominent figure on the musical scene at the royal court in Paris. Dumanoir had held his first position as 'dancing master' at The Hague, but had subsequently moved to Paris, where he became a member of the 'King's twenty-four violins' the main string orchestra at court, which played at all court b.a.l.l.s and masques, and on all other royal formal occasions. He perhaps accompanied Mary back to The Hague in 1655, where he wrote and performed in Elizabeth of Bohemia's ballet on two consecutive nights, after which he returned to Paris. His presence and involvement make it certain that the ballet was of a standard which would have been recognised as equalling the best such occasions at the courts of Paris or (formerly) London. Other musicians partic.i.p.ating as string players, as voice soloists, or as members of the elaborately scored choruses for grouped men's voices can be recognised as outstanding performers in their own right, locally or abroad. was particularly accomplished. It was written and performed by the French violinist Guillaume Dumanoir, a prominent figure on the musical scene at the royal court in Paris. Dumanoir had held his first position as 'dancing master' at The Hague, but had subsequently moved to Paris, where he became a member of the 'King's twenty-four violins' the main string orchestra at court, which played at all court b.a.l.l.s and masques, and on all other royal formal occasions. He perhaps accompanied Mary back to The Hague in 1655, where he wrote and performed in Elizabeth of Bohemia's ballet on two consecutive nights, after which he returned to Paris. His presence and involvement make it certain that the ballet was of a standard which would have been recognised as equalling the best such occasions at the courts of Paris or (formerly) London. Other musicians partic.i.p.ating as string players, as voice soloists, or as members of the elaborately scored choruses for grouped men's voices can be recognised as outstanding performers in their own right, locally or abroad.30 The Ballet de la Carmesse Ballet de la Carmesse elegantly fulfils Constantijn Huygens's requirements for a successful contribution to the glamorous lifestyle of his Orange and Stuart employers. Although there is no record of his attendance, we may picture his delight at the quality of the musicians.h.i.+p, and the elegance of the dancing by the court figures who partic.i.p.ated. As Elizabeth reported to Charles II, 'the subject your Majestie will see was not extraordinarie but it was verie well danced'. elegantly fulfils Constantijn Huygens's requirements for a successful contribution to the glamorous lifestyle of his Orange and Stuart employers. Although there is no record of his attendance, we may picture his delight at the quality of the musicians.h.i.+p, and the elegance of the dancing by the court figures who partic.i.p.ated. As Elizabeth reported to Charles II, 'the subject your Majestie will see was not extraordinarie but it was verie well danced'.

At the conclusion of the ballet, the 'Ladies' ball' began. When Dumanoir and his musicians once again struck up, Mary herself, followed by the high-ranking ladies in attendance, took the floor, and proceeded to dance the night away until four in the morning. From Dumanoir's surviving suites of dance music we may imagine the gavottes, courantes, sarabandes, allemandes, bourrees and gigues they danced all vigorous dances carried out to the heavily rhythmic beat of the orchestra of violins.

As we watch Constantijn Huygens mediate the traffic in musicians and fine instruments between Paris, London, Brussels, Antwerp and The Hague, we experience the process of international exchange under his tutelage, which resulted in the flowering of a coherent, continuous musical taste spanning these locations.31 The illusion of separation of distinct centres of musical development to which we may attach the designations 'Dutch', 'English' or 'French' is belied by the easy commerce in taste-forming opinions, performers, composers and instruments between these locations, even (as we shall see) at times when officially the partic.i.p.ants' countries of residence were at war. Musical historians have seen fit to judge Huygens a minor talent as a lyricist and composer, but that is not really the point. He presided over a formidable network of musical connoisseurs and pract.i.tioners, whose tastes and talents he 'played' with every bit as much virtuosity as the viol or the theorbo. The illusion of separation of distinct centres of musical development to which we may attach the designations 'Dutch', 'English' or 'French' is belied by the easy commerce in taste-forming opinions, performers, composers and instruments between these locations, even (as we shall see) at times when officially the partic.i.p.ants' countries of residence were at war. Musical historians have seen fit to judge Huygens a minor talent as a lyricist and composer, but that is not really the point. He presided over a formidable network of musical connoisseurs and pract.i.tioners, whose tastes and talents he 'played' with every bit as much virtuosity as the viol or the theorbo.

To close this chapter, let us return to that other vibrant centre of cultural activity in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, Antwerp, and to probably the most famous, and certainly the most successful, of the artists working in the region at that time Pieter Paul Rubens. Rubens set style standards in Antwerp in fine art in the first half of the seventeenth century his influence extending to acceptable types of composition, and cost per figure by the hand of the master, rather than his studio and as a prominent member of the local community he also did so in other areas of luxury expenditure, in particular in architecture.

By 1615, Rubens and his family occupied one of the most architecturally distinguished houses in the whole of Antwerp. He had acquired what became known permanently as the Rubenshuis, on the Wapper ca.n.a.l, in 1610, thereby confirming and consolidating his reputation as the most successful artist in the area. Before he and his first wife Isabella moved in, he added an entire Italianate wing to the already extensive and fine-looking dwelling. The frontage of the resulting mansion stretched 120 feet, divided by a central gateway. To the left, the Flemish facade was broken by narrow rectangular windows, lead-paned and quartered. To the right, the middle- storey windows of the Italianate addition were handsomely arched and set in banded masonry frames. The large studio on the ground floor measured fully forty-six by thirty-four feet, and was thirty feet high an impressive s.p.a.ce in which to set up the large canvases on which Rubens and his artist- apprentices worked. The house also possessed the fas.h.i.+onably formal, cla.s.sically themed Dutch garden which has already been noted, incorporating architectural features and antique statuary.

Again, this architectural project connects with the English emigres in Antwerp. Between 1648 and 1660, an English family competed with the Duartes for the t.i.tle of most lavish in its hospitality towards the English emigre community. This was the household of the emigre William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, and his much younger second wife, Margaret.

Cavendish, a trusted military commander in Charles I's army, had been forced to leave England precipitately after the battle of Marston Moor, at which the Royalists suffered their most crus.h.i.+ng defeat of the entire Civil War, throwing into question Cavendish's competence as a general. He made his way to Henrietta Maria's court in exile in Paris, where in 1645 he contracted his second marriage, to Margaret Lucas, one of her ladies-in- waiting. From there the newlyweds had moved on to the Netherlands.32 Having lived in some splendour on vast estates in the north of England, Cavendish now found himself reduced to living with Margaret in temporary lodgings in Rotterdam. Having lived in some splendour on vast estates in the north of England, Cavendish now found himself reduced to living with Margaret in temporary lodgings in Rotterdam.

On a trip to Antwerp, probably in search of some art purchase, since he was in the company of the English agent Endymion Porter, Cavendish was shown Pieter Paul Rubens's elegant house on the Wapper ca.n.a.l, just around the corner from the Duartes' house on the Meir, which his widow was offering for rent (Rubens had died two years earlier). Although emptied of Rubens's own works, the room designated as his 'museum' may still have contained the many plaster casts of antique statues and friezes with which he had replaced the originals he had sold to the Duke of Buckingham twenty years earlier.33 Cavendish took a great liking to the baroque neocla.s.sical style of Rubens's remodelling of an already appropriately grand residence. Returning to The Hague, he notified Prince Charles at the end of September 1648 (as he was required by court protocol to do) that he was leaving the court in exile and moving his entire household to Antwerp.34 There he and Margaret would remain 'till it shall please G.o.d to reduce the sufferings of England to such a condition of peace or war as may become honest men to return home'.35 The Rubens House was certainly suitable in scale and conspicuously fas.h.i.+onable style for the emigre who was the grandson of Bess of Hardwick, and whose own remodelling of the family estate at Bolsover Castle in England subsequently gained him a considerable reputation for its ostentation in the 'baroque mannerist' architectural style.36 Here the Cavendishes installed themselves ostentatiously. Margaret, an intellectual and poet, held soirees and entertained lavishly. William established a highly esteemed indoor riding school, possibly in Rubens's studio itself. There he would entertain the grandees of Antwerp and the Spanish Netherlands, demonstrating how to perform 'manege', the art of elaborate formal patterned movement on horseback (still partially recollected in 'dressage' today), to the amazement of his audience which sometimes included the enthusiastic horsewoman Queen Christina of Sweden. The first edition of Cavendish's important work on horsemans.h.i.+p, Methode et invention nouvelle de dresser les chevaux Methode et invention nouvelle de dresser les chevaux, was published in 1658 in Antwerp, in French. Lavishly produced, with large ill.u.s.trative plates, it caused a sensation.37 The Cavendishes' household at the Antwerp Rubenshuis became a cultural magnet for displaced Royalists. By the mid-1650s, English emigres, including the exiled King himself, were habitually making their way there for cultural solace. The intellectual soirees, musical recitals and b.a.l.l.s there were also frequented by cultivated resident Dutch sympathisers like Huygens, who visited regularly. The Duarte family partic.i.p.ated, and Utricia Swann joined them whenever she was in town, sometimes performing songs written by William Cavendish, and set by herself. The Cavendishes entertained on as grand a scale as they could under the circ.u.mstances, their household financed by large loans taken out against lands and goods sequestered in England (when finally William Cavendish rushed home to be part of the welcoming party for Charles II in 1660, he had to leave Margaret behind as 'surety' for his Dutch creditors).

One entertainment at the Cavendishes' Antwerp home for which records survive may serve to capture the scale and sophistication of the diversions on offer there during the English Commonwealth years. It was a soiree of glamour and revelry staged for Charles II and his court in February 1658, shortly after the death of Oliver Cromwell, when Europe was buzzing with rumours of the possibility of the English King's return to the throne. In the event, it was to be another two years before the continuing Commonwealth failed under Cromwell's son Richard, and Charles II was restored to power, but the premature celebration reminds us that those who eventually returned had developed their own characteristic, lavish forms of recreation in exile, whose fas.h.i.+ons were closely linked to Dutch 'royal' circles in The Hague, and whose influence persisted when the partic.i.p.ants returned to London.38 The occasion for the entertainment at the Cavendishes' Antwerp home was the installing of General Marchin as a Knight of the Order of the Garter, followed by a ball in his honour. A verse panegyric 'of the highest hyperbole' written by Cavendish was delivered by a former actor, 'Major Mohun', who wore 'a black satin robe and garland of bays'. There was dancing, and a performance by sixteen of the King's gentlemen. The high point of the evening was a song by 'Lady Moore, dressed in feathers', who sang one of Cavendish's songs set to music by Nicholas Lanier.

Here, yet again, we have the threads of English and Dutch cultural activity becoming wound together in intricately complicated ways. As we saw in the previous chapter previous chapter, the English musician Nicholas Lanier was an old friend of Sir Constantijn Huygens, whom he had met in London at the home of Sir Robert Killigrew in 1622, when Huygens was a young diplomat, dazzled by the cultural and social life of James I's court in England, and Lanier was a rising court star as musician and instrumentalist, destined to become the Keeper of the King's Music when Charles I ascended the throne.

In addition to taking charge of Charles I's music and instruments, Lanier become one of his key art procurers, brokering international deals to build up his fabulous collection of Italianate paintings and statuary a lynchpin in the courtly web of patronage and acquisitions which shaped seventeenth-century European art connoisseurs.h.i.+p, shuttling around Europe in search of costly treasures to enhance the courtly magnificence of his royal employer.39 In the 1650s, the exiled Lanier frequented the emigre community in Antwerp, helping to provide cultural continuity between those fallen on hard times from the elites of the houses of Orange and Stuart together. The guest list on this occasion was impressive. 'Along with the King and his entourage were his sister Mary (the Princess Royal), the Duke of York (later James II) and the youngest royal brother, Henry, Duke of Gloucester. In addition to the Stuarts, Beatrice de Cusance and her two children attended, a Danish n.o.bleman, Hannibal Sehested and his wife (a Danish Princess), and members of the Duarte family.'40 The context for the entertainment, its conception and execution, were strictly Dutch, and closely related to comparable doc.u.mented performances at The Hague, at the court of Elizabeth of Bohemia, Charles I's widowed sister, of the kind we saw earlier. The occasion itself was resolutely 'English'. The context for the entertainment, its conception and execution, were strictly Dutch, and closely related to comparable doc.u.mented performances at The Hague, at the court of Elizabeth of Bohemia, Charles I's widowed sister, of the kind we saw earlier. The occasion itself was resolutely 'English'.

Not all the Cavendishes' entertaining was musical. During his frequent visits to the Rubens House in the 1650s, Sir Constantijn Huygens and Margaret Cavendish developed an intense intellectual friends.h.i.+p, spending hours absorbed in conversation on scientific and philosophical matters.

In 1653, Huygens was one of those to whom Margaret and William sent the poems she had published in London. 'A wonderful book, whose extravagant atoms kept me from sleeping a great part of last night in this my little solitude,' he wrote to Utricia Swann from his country house at Hofwijk.41 On his visits to Antwerp, Huygens often stayed at the Duarte family's house and kept the company of the d.u.c.h.ess of Lorraine. When he called at the Rubens House, conversation turned to learning, and in particular philosophy. He questioned Margaret closely about her own theory of natural philosophy, and joined her in her chemistry laboratory, where, he later recalled, her enthusiastic experiments led to her each week dirtying several of the white petticoats she wore there to protect her fine clothes: On his visits to Antwerp, Huygens often stayed at the Duarte family's house and kept the company of the d.u.c.h.ess of Lorraine. When he called at the Rubens House, conversation turned to learning, and in particular philosophy. He questioned Margaret closely about her own theory of natural philosophy, and joined her in her chemistry laboratory, where, he later recalled, her enthusiastic experiments led to her each week dirtying several of the white petticoats she wore there to protect her fine clothes: I could not forbeare to shew your Grace by these lines how verily mindfull I am of the many favours she hath been pleased to bestow upon me in former times, especially of those favours [in your laboratory], Madam, which I remember did cost you many a white petticoat a week.42

In the spring of 1657, following a visit to the Rubens House and an enjoyable session together discussing natural philosophy, Huygens sent Margaret some specimens of 'Prince Rupert's drops' small teardrop- shaped gla.s.s vessels, with extraordinary physical properties. The drops could withstand the pressure of considerable weights placed on them, and were unbreakable even when struck squarely with a hammer. Yet if even the smallest tip of their tails was snapped off with a finger, the whole thing exploded into powder with a loud report. Huygens requested Margaret to study the properties of these curious gla.s.s baubles and to offer him a scientific explanation: I had the honour to heare so good solutions given by your Excellencie upon divers questions moved in a whole afternoone, she was pleased to bestowe upon my unworthie conversation, that I am turning to schoole with all speede, humbly beseeching your Exellencie may be so bountifull towards my ignorance, as to instruct me about the natural reason of these wonderfull gla.s.ses, which, as I told you, Madam, will fly into powder, if one breakes but the least top of their tailes, whereas without that way they are hardly to be broken by any waight or strength. The King of France is as yet unresolved in the question, notwithstanding he hath been curious to move it to an a.s.sembly of the best philosophers of Paris, the microcosme of his kingdome.

With his customary exquisite decorum, Huygens explained in his letter how Margaret should handle the drops if her feminine sensibility made her nervous of the explosions caused when their tails were snapped off: Your Exellencie hath no cause to apprehend the cracking blow of these innoxious gunnes. If you did, Madam, a servant may hold them close in his fists, and yourselfe can break the little end of their taile without the least danger. But, as I was bold to tell your Exellencie, I should bee loth to beleeve, any female feare should reigne amongst so much over- masculine wisdom as the world doth admire in her. I pray G.o.d to blesse your Exellencie with a dayly increase of it, and your worthie selfe to graunt that amongst those admirers I may strive to deserve by way of my humble service the honour to be accounted.43

Margaret replied a week later. She thanked Huygens for his letter and accompanying poems in Dutch, and gave at length her views on the causes of the violent reactions when the drops were broken. In her view there was a tiny quant.i.ty of volatile material trapped inside each drop, which exploded on contact with the air: To myne outward sense these gla.s.ses doe appeare to have on the head, body or belly a liquid and oyly substance, which may be the oyly spirrits or essences of sulpher; alsoe the gla.s.ses doe appeare to my senses like the nature or arte of gunns and the spirrit of sulpher as the powder; where although they are charged, yet untill they bee discharged, give no report or sound; the discharging of these gla.s.ses is by the breakeinge of a piece or part or end of the tailes, where the discharging of guns are by much [match?] firelockes, scrues or the like, which setts fire or gives vent to the powder, but these sulpherousse spirrits, having as it seemes a more force- able nature, it doth viollently thrust itselfe out, where itt findes vent, like as wind, but rather like fire, being of a firy nature, and may have the effects of bright s.h.i.+ning fire, which, when it has noe vent, lyes as dead, but as soone as it can ease out a pa.s.sage, or findes a vent, it breakes forth in a violent crack or thundering noisse.

She suggested that the liquid was inserted into the drops using the same skill as that employed to make fas.h.i.+onable gla.s.s earrings: Weomen weares at there eares for pendents as great wounders, although they make not soe great report, which are gla.s.se bobbes with narrowe neckes as these gla.s.ses have tailes, and yet is filled with severall coullers silkes and coursse black cottonwooll, which to my senses is more difficult to putt into these gla.s.se pendants, then liquer into these gla.s.se gunnes.44

The explanation did not satisfy Huygens, who responded a week later. He did not detect any liquid inside the drops.45 A week later again, Margaret reiterated her belief that there was some kind of combustible material inside the drops, but conceded that it might simply be compressed air. A week later again, Margaret reiterated her belief that there was some kind of combustible material inside the drops, but conceded that it might simply be compressed air.46 This exchange of letters is fascinating in itself, both for what it tells us about the involvement of women in seventeenth-century science, and for the additional light it sheds on Sir Constantijn Huygens's varied and wide- ranging intellectual and artistic interests. It is particularly interesting to note that Prince Rupert's drops were one of the earliest curious phenomena explored at length experimentally at the Royal Society after the return of the English exiles. On 4 March 1661 'gla.s.s bubbles' were produced to a meeting of the Society: 'The King sent by Sir Paul Neile five little gla.s.s bubbles, two with liquor in them, and the other three solid, in order to have the judgement of the society concerning them.'47 Anxious to impress the King (whose active support for the Society was being sought), the members responded immediately. More drops were produced and experimented on two days later, and a full report of the experiments performed was given to the Society at its weekly meeting on 14 August by the President, Sir Robert Moray. Anxious to impress the King (whose active support for the Society was being sought), the members responded immediately. More drops were produced and experimented on two days later, and a full report of the experiments performed was given to the Society at its weekly meeting on 14 August by the President, Sir Robert Moray.48 Two years later Henry Oldenburg, secretary to the Society, lent Moray's account to the French traveller Balthasar de Monconys, who made his own translation into French of the method described for making the drops. Two years later Henry Oldenburg, secretary to the Society, lent Moray's account to the French traveller Balthasar de Monconys, who made his own translation into French of the method described for making the drops.

It was the Society's curator of experiments Robert Hooke who produced a plausible (and largely correct) explanation for the phenomenon of the gla.s.s drops, based on the compression of the gla.s.s itself, and drawing an a.n.a.logy with the way the locked stones in brick arches collapse instantaneously and violently once the keystone is removed.49 Historians of science are generally agreed that it was Prince Rupert (Elizabeth of Bohemia's son, and a prominent figure at the Restoration court) who brought the drops from mainland Europe, but are undecided as to where they originated. But a common name for the drops was 'Holland tears' lacrymae Batavicae lacrymae Batavicae and although the first known discussions of them come from the early scientific academies in France, it is suggested that they were brought to France from Holland in the 1650s. and although the first known discussions of them come from the early scientific academies in France, it is suggested that they were brought to France from Holland in the 1650s.

The exchange of letters between Margaret Cavendish and Constantijn Huygens shows that the drops were indeed known in the Dutch Republic in the 1650s, and were also being discussed in France. But I hope that the story indicates how overdetermined the connections are between the Dutch and the English in the history of 'Prince Rupert's drops', and how many strands there are to the development of a plausible explanation of the causes of the drops' spectacular properties. In particular, when we find Christiaan Huygens trying to manufacture drops with the help of local craftsmen (they were largely unsuccessful), and investigating their properties in The Hague in 1665, and corresponding about them with Adrien Auzout in Paris, we need to factor into our account his father's enthusiasm for the same drops almost ten years earlier.

During the 1650s, the elegant, restrained neocla.s.sical style of building cherished by Sir Constantijn Huygens in The Hague, and admired by him in the Rubenshuis in Antwerp, became the familiar backdrop to the complicated lives of exiled Englishmen and women. The Cavendishes' appreciation of their sumptuous rented home inspired them to remodel their own estate when they returned to England, replacing the late-Elizabethan of Robert Smythson's designs with more Continental cla.s.sical influences, and doubtless influenced the architectural views of the many English courtiers and hangers-on who visited the Rubenshuis while they were living there.

The returning English exiles carried their memories of ten years in the stylish material surroundings of Antwerp and the northern Netherlands home with them in 1660. In 165859, the exiled Charles II stayed for some time at Frederik Hendrik's favourite country palace, at Honselaarsdijk, just outside The Hague, while he helped his widowed sister Mary, the Princess Royal, to organise suitable educational arrangements for her eight-year- old son, William III. Following the announcement of his reinstatement as King of England in March 1660, Charles spent four hectic weeks lodged at the Mauritshuis in The Hague, whose design and construction by van Campen Huygens had supervised just before the building of his own elegantly neocla.s.sical house next door the one he discussed by correspondence with Rubens in Antwerp. It was these buildings which helped shape the architectural aspirations of Charles II's court in the second half of the seventeenth century.

In this area of culture as in so many others, the Huygens influence permeated the experience of those returning to rebuild lives interrupted by the Civil War and its aftermath. Accustomed to the Dutch architectural aesthetic, it is hardly surprising that in so many of the post-Restoration houses William III visited after his arrival in 1688 the new King should have felt perfectly at home.

8.

Masters of All They Survey: AngloDutch Pa.s.sion for Gardens and Gardening

In the course of the seventeenth century, English and Dutch townscapes and landscapes were transformed by an unprecedented surge of activity in house-building and garden design on the part of the newly prosperous business and merchant cla.s.ses, eager to show themselves au fait au fait with the very latest in styles and fas.h.i.+ons. And just as consumer goods and luxury items were traded with growing enthusiasm in both directions across the English Channel or Narrow Sea, so specialist services in architecture and horticulture were freely interchanged, threading styles in building and garden design to and fro, weaving reciprocal influence increasingly tightly into the fabric of both territories. with the very latest in styles and fas.h.i.+ons. And just as consumer goods and luxury items were traded with growing enthusiasm in both directions across the English Channel or Narrow Sea, so specialist services in architecture and horticulture were freely interchanged, threading styles in building and garden design to and fro, weaving reciprocal influence increasingly tightly into the fabric of both territories.1 In architecture, in the early decades of the century, the families of de Keyser and Stone serve as characteristic examples of the easy social and professional exchange between the two countries. In 1607 the Amsterdam master mason Hendrick de Keyser arrived in London to study Thomas Gresham's Royal Exchange in preparation for designing and building a similar centre for commercial activity in Amsterdam. While there he met Nicholas Stone, a mason and sculptor, who returned with him to Amsterdam, where he completed his training (he had just finished his apprentices.h.i.+p when he and de Keyser first met). Stone spent six years or so in Holland, and married de Keyser's only daughter. He and his wife then returned to England, where he established himself as a leading sculptor and architect.

The de Keysers became a dynasty of master masons three sons and a grandson of Hendrick's subsequently held the position. As well as being responsible for a large number of important buildings, both private and public, in Amsterdam, Hendrick de Keyser designed the tomb of William the Silent at Delft, for which the young Sir Constantijn Huygens provided the Latin inscription in the 1620s. Hendrick's son Thomas painted the portrait of Sir Constantijn and his clerk, a.s.sociated with his marriage to Susanna van Baerle in 1627. This means that all three of the best-known surviving portraits of Huygens were painted by artists with experience of patrons and studios on both sides of the Narrow Sea we might argue that Huygens chose them on purpose, as part of his agenda of taste-formation in common to the English and Dutch art-appreciating communities.2 The Stones and the de Keysers moved regularly and easily between England and the Dutch Republic, placing their considerable talents in art and design at the service of the cities of London and Amsterdam. Willem de Keyser, Hendrick's eldest son, was in England in the 1620s, probably shortly after his father's death, and married an Englishwoman. By 1640 he was back in Amsterdam, and became a member of the Stonemason's Guild there.3 The de Keysers and the Stones maintained close family contacts, corresponded regularly, and acted as agents for each other in the s.h.i.+pment of building materials between the two countries. They also provided training for each other's children: Nicholas Stone's son Henry studied paintings for several years in Amsterdam under his uncle, Thomas de Keyser. In return, two of Hendrik de Keyser's sons appear to have been apprenticed to Stone in London. The de Keysers and the Stones maintained close family contacts, corresponded regularly, and acted as agents for each other in the s.h.i.+pment of building materials between the two countries. They also provided training for each other's children: Nicholas Stone's son Henry studied paintings for several years in Amsterdam under his uncle, Thomas de Keyser. In return, two of Hendrik de Keyser's sons appear to have been apprenticed to Stone in London.

Willem's younger brother Hendrick joined Nicholas Stone's workshop around 1634, and a few years later was carrying out alterations on behalf of Stone at Newstead Abbey in Nottinghams.h.i.+re. There he married a local girl in 1639, remaining in Nottingham until at least 1643. He was in Holland in 164647, and as far as we know, never returned to England. However, Willem was back in 1658, and lived and worked there with his family for the next twenty years. When Charles II returned to London, and embarked on rebuilding his palace at Greenwich in 1661, he was keen to emulate the Dutch neocla.s.sical architecture that he had encountered during his years of exile. It was Willem de Keyser who drew elevations of a proposed new scheme for the new King. In January 1661 Charles discussed de Keyser's ideas with John Evelyn, although the scheme was never built. Members of the de Keyser family were active in England and in Ireland until as late as the 1680s.

This kind of migration of artists and skilled craftsmen from one side of the Narrow Sea to the other was clearly market-led. Architects and masons went where the clients were. The ostentatious expenditure of the English n.o.bility under Charles I contrasted with the well-doc.u.mented 'embarra.s.sment' at too obvious a show of wealth in the Dutch Republic. The fact that members of skilled dynasties like the de Keysers married local women during their visits to England meant that they raised bilingual families of children who could work easily in either country. So the interchange in masons and architects became amplified in each successive generation. Whether we should call the buildings and carvings the de Keysers were responsible for 'Dutch' or 'AngloDutch' is perhaps a moot point: local styles and guild skills had become intertwined to the point at which it is probably unhelpful to try to separate them.

Huygens's negotiations with Rubens for the acquisition of works of art for Frederik Hendrik and Amalia van Solms during the 1630s meant frequent exchanges on behalf of the Stadholder with the artist, by letter and via trusted intermediaries. They most likely involved one or more visits in person to the studio on the first floor of the new wing of the Rubens House in Antwerp, though a late letter suggests that Huygens and Rubens had never actually met face to face. Huygens certainly knew the house from its magnificent exterior, since he was in Antwerp regularly, and he was aware of Rubens's scrupulously antique-influenced plans for a neocla.s.sical house befitting his status as Antwerp's most successful painter. An enthusiast for architecture, Huygens was evidently almost as impressed by Rubens's Antwerp house, and by the artist's expertise in ancient and modern architectural theory, as he was by his talent as a painter.

In 1633 Frederik Hendrik presented two lots of land he had recently acquired, in a prime location in The Hague, to Constantijn Huygens.4When Huygens set about building a substantial family home there under the direction of Jacob van Campen, next door to his uncle's much-admired Mauritshuis, he wrote to Rubens requesting his opinion on the design: Sir, I am building a house at The Hague, and it would give me great pleasure to hear your advice on my plans, even though they are almost completed there remaining just two small galleries to be completed, which are intended to enclose a courtyard [ba.s.secour] 70 feet in length, and to be attached to a main facade [front de logis] of approximately 90 feet. You would not be disappointed to learn that in my building I intend to revive in some part the architecture of antiquity, for which I nourish a pa.s.sion.This was to be no palace, Huygens hastened to add:It will only be on a small scale, and to the extent that the climate and my coffers will allow. But the fact remains that, in the heat of these considerations, I hardly need tell you how eager I am to steer you in my direction here, since you excel in the knowledge of this ill.u.s.trious field of study, as you do in everything else, and could give me many lessons in it. But the fates intend otherwise ... If I manage to realise my plans successfully, I will in any case inform you further, on paper or in person.5

Huygens was true to his word. On 2 July 1639 (a year before the artist's death), he sent Rubens a set of engravings of his completed house: 'Here as I promised is the bit of brick that I have built at The Hague.'6 His pride in the gracious home he has created is palpable, as is his respect for Rubens as a connoisseur of antique and modern buildings. At the end of the letter, almost as an afterthought, Huygens added the real business of his communication a commission from Frederik Hendrik for a painting to be placed above the hearth in his palace, the subject to be of Rubens's choosing, but with three, 'at most four', figures, 'the beauty of whom should be elaborated con amore, studio e diligenza'. His pride in the gracious home he has created is palpable, as is his respect for Rubens as a connoisseur of antique and modern buildings. At the end of the letter, almost as an afterthought, Huygens added the real business of his communication a commission from Frederik Hendrik for a painting to be placed above the hearth in his palace, the subject to be of Rubens's choosing, but with three, 'at most four', figures, 'the beauty of whom should be elaborated con amore, studio e diligenza'.7 So when, in the 1650s, on his frequent visits to Antwerp, Sir Constantijn Huygens attended musical soirees at the home of William and Margaret Cavendish, or spent the afternoon with Margaret in her chemistry laboratory, he was able to take a particularly keen pleasure in frequenting the very house about which he and Rubens had corresponded the home created by a kindred architectural spirit in his heyday. And the Cavendishes and Sir Constantijn undoubtedly carried back with them, upon their return to England and the United Provinces, an enhanced and deepened understanding of Rubens's carefully reconstructed architectural neocla.s.sicism, to feed into future projects of their own.

Huygens took a connoisseur's interest in architecture throughout his life. The country house he designed for himself at Hofwijk, completed in 1642, was his pride and joy, and he loved to invite close friends there to enjoy the beauty of the location, and to savour the elegance and congeniality of the building.8 He worked tirelessly advising Frederik Hendrik and Amalia van Solms on their extensive and ambitious building works at the Dutch royal palaces Frederik Hendrik had a reputation as a knowledgeable amateur of architecture himself, and involved himself closely in the design process. He worked tirelessly advising Frederik Hendrik and Amalia van Solms on their extensive and ambitious building works at the Dutch royal palaces Frederik Hendrik had a reputation as a knowledgeable amateur of architecture himself, and involved himself closely in the design process.9 It was Huygens, too, who, in consultation with van Campen, completed the careful integrated programme of architecture and painting for the Oranjezaal of the Huis ten Bosch on the outskirts of The Hague (designed by Pieter Post), where an elaborate cycle of paintings and decoration commemorated and glorified the achievements of Frederik Hendrik for his widow Amalia van Solms, following Frederik Hendrik's death in 1647 (the project was completed in 1652). It was Huygens, too, who, in consultation with van Campen, completed the careful integrated programme of architecture and painting for the Oranjezaal of the Huis ten Bosch on the outskirts of The Hague (designed by Pieter Post), where an elaborate cycle of paintings and decoration commemorated and glorified the achievements of Frederik Hendrik for his widow Amalia van Solms, following Frederik Hendrik's death in 1647 (the project was completed in 1652).10 The Cavendishes, once back in England after the Restoration, retired from public life and devoted themselves almost entirely to architectural projects for William's hereditary seats at his main Nottinghams.h.i.+re home, Welbeck Abbey, and at Bolsover. The Cavendishes, once back in England after the Restoration, retired from public life and devoted themselves almost entirely to architectural projects for William's hereditary seats at his main Nottinghams.h.i.+re home, Welbeck Abbey, and at Bolsover.11 The story of the interchange of talent and expertise in architecture between England and the Dutch Republic has been told a number of times. That of the close relations.h.i.+p between horticulture and garden design in the two countries, less often. In the case of Dutch and English gardens it is also possible to see that the similarities in practice are overlaid on a subtly different set of a.s.sumptions about the meaning and function of a pleasure garden. For the elites in the two countries with time and money to indulge their pa.s.sion for plants and parterres, gardens represent different kinds of att.i.tudes towards the labour needed to create a garden, and the leisure required to enjoy it.

Early in February 1642, Sir Constantijn Huygens invited a select company of close family and friends to a small celebratory gathering at his country house, Hofwijk, at Voorburg, just outside The Hague. His career was at its peak. He was secretary and chief adviser on all types of cultural and artistic matters to the Dutch Stadholder, Frederik Hendrik, consulted and deferred to whenever a matter of taste or aesthetic judgement was required.

The occasion was the completion of the garden design project that had comforted and consoled him in his leisure hours since the sudden death of his beloved wife Susanna less than two months after the birth, on 13 March 1637, of their only daughter (also named Susanna). That was the very year in which Huygens completed the imposing neocla.s.sical house to whose detailed design he had given so much personal attention, alongside his architect van Campen, and he and his family moved in next door to the Mauritshuis on Het Plein. The loss of his wife had spoiled his pleasure at the completion of this ambitious architectural project, which had been intended to crown his glittering career at court.

Constantijn's beloved partner was gone, and for more than a year his poems in Latin and Dutch reveal him as mentally tormented by his loss, and virtually inconsolable. Instead of enjoying the family home he and Susanna had planned together, he had turned his mind to a country retreat a place where he could recover, reflect upon his loss and begin to rebuild his personal life.12 The small gathering in early 1642 marked the end of this painful phase in his life, and the celebration was a muted and reflective one. The small gathering in early 1642 marked the end of this painful phase in his life, and the celebration was a muted and reflective one.

The party of visitors consisted of his older brother Maurits, his sisters Gertruyd and Constantia, their husbands, Philips Doublet (or Doubleth) and David de Wilhem, and an unnamed 'friend from The Hague'. There was a tour of the modest, cla.s.sically inspired country house (whose designer, Pieter Post, was to become the Stadholder's official court architect in 1645, on Huygens's recommendation), and a much more extensive exploration of the garden, with its tree-lined avenues and ca.n.a.l-side walks, freshly planted ornamental flowerbeds and geometrically laid-out areas of what would one day be shady groves of trees. Over a generous meal, Huygens extolled the virtues of his garden as a source of emotional solace and a refuge from the cares of office.

Huygens's little garden launch-party was a small event in the studied programme of activities he had begun to orchestrate for Frederik Hendrik and his circle since 1625 the year Frederik Henrik became Stadholder of the seven provinces, and the year of his marriage to Amalia van Solms. Huygens's efforts were designed to set the tone for a Dutch courtly culture which would earn the respect and attention of the royal houses of Europe.

In the summer of that same year, ten-year-old Princess Mary Stuart arrived in The Hague with her mother, Queen Henrietta Maria.13 Mary's father, Charles I, had given Huygens a warm welcome when as a youth he had visited Charles's father, James I's court in the 1620s. Huygens pa.s.sionate anglophile, personally acquainted with the Stuart royals, fluent in English and French had played a major part in brokering the AngloDutch marriage, as a member of van Aerssen's emba.s.sy to London in 1639. As the fortunes of the English royal family declined and the international standing of the house of Orange improved, he continued to proclaim his absolute loyalty and commitment to the Stuarts 'an utterly committed and extremely pa.s.sionate servant of the Royal House of Great Britain' (' Mary's father, Charles I, had given Huygens a warm welcome when as a youth he had visited Charles's father, James I's court in the 1620s. Huygens pa.s.sionate anglophile, personally acquainted with the Stuart royals, fluent in English and French had played a major part in brokering the AngloDutch marriage, as a member of van Aerssen's emba.s.sy to London in 1639. As the fortunes of the English royal family declined and the international standing of the house of Orange improved, he continued to proclaim his absolute loyalty and commitment to the Stuarts 'an utterly committed and extremely pa.s.sionate servant of the Royal House of Great Britain' ('tres-acquis et tres-pa.s.sionne serviteur de la Maison Royale de la Grande Bretaigne'), as he described himself to Princess Mary's governess Lady Stanhope.14 Now Huygens found himself, as secretary to the Dutch 'royals', in charge of providing suitable entertainment for the refugee royals and their large train of followers. The royal palaces at The Hague and nearby Honselaarsdijk provided accommodation and recreation. Excursions to nearby Hofwijk for a select few were part of the programme on offer.

Although we have no explicit account of Princess Mary or her mother being among the earliest visitors to Hofwijk, we do learn from Huygens's correspondence that on at least one occasion during her several subsequent visits to the northern Netherlands in the course of the 1640s, trying to raise money for her husband King Charles I's doomed military offensive against his people, Henrietta Maria spent an enjoyable afternoon there. She joined her host in an entertaining game of quilles an ancient cross between skittles and bowls on the beautifully manicured bowling green, and consumed a bowl of freshly picked, home-grown cherries in a spontaneous dejeuner sur l'herbe dejeuner sur l'herbe a high-cla.s.s picnic. According to Huygens, she p.r.o.nounced the garden a delight. a high-cla.s.s picnic. According to Huygens, she p.r.o.nounced the garden a delight.15 Charming though the records make royal visits like Henrietta Maria's to Hofwijk appear, there were social niceties to be observed which hampered the easy, informal atmosphere for which Huygens yearned. The house of Orange, although the most prominent family in the Northern Provinces, with claims to royal status, nevertheless ranked below the English royal Stuarts, as both Henrietta Maria and Mary were always quick to point out on Dutch formal occasions.

Still, away from the court, in the rural idyll of Hofwijk, studied informality prevailed, and mitigated courtly anxieties concerning rank, status and the ostentatious expenditure involved in fine living. The presence in Huygens's garden of royal Princesses and other English ladies of quality, enjoying its rustic pleasures, placed the seal of aristocratic approval on his scrupulously conceived and executed, yet comparatively modest, country retreat. Hofwijk came to stand, for him, for the difficult balancing act of remaining a person of modest aspirations and high ethical principles, a true Dutchman of integrity, while nevertheless striving to emulate and match the lifestyle of the increasingly 'royal' Stadholder he served. In Simon Schama's memorable terms, it allayed his characteristically mid- century Dutch 'embarra.s.sment' at his own material good fortune.16 By a deliberate and self-conscious play on words that is entirely typical of the linguistically sharp-eared Huygens, 'Hofwijk', whose simplest meaning is 'a house with a garden', also means a place where one can 'avoid' (wijck) the 'court' (hof) of the Prince of Orange that Huygens served. The country seat's Latin name, 'Vitaulium', likewise means both 'vitae aula' the garden of life, or Garden of Eden and also 'Vitruvii aula', the garden of Vitruvius, the ultimate cla.s.sically designed garden. For the rest of Huygens's long life, Hofwijk was where he went to recover from the buffetings of life in the political spotlight. It was where his family gathered and spent time at leisure together, to escape the summer heat of The Hague. It was also where his son Christiaan, the distinguished scientist, who had a tendency to periods of depressive collapse, found refuge in retirement, when his fragile health finally broke and he was obliged to give up his salaried place at the head of the French King Louis XIV's Academie des sciences. Christiaan died at Hofwijk in 1695.

We know a good deal about how intensely Sir Constantijn Huygens senior felt about his garden, because around 1650 he completed a three- thousand-line Latin poem celebrating it in loving topographical detail. When he published this in 1653, Hofwijk was still a project in process, a ten- year-old planted paradise of shrubs and young trees whose glory lay in the future, an as-yet unrealised promise of mature, shaded avenues, secluded walks walled by espaliered shrubs, parterres patterned in box, and a densely wooded wilderness landscape stretching away before the gaze of the visitor. (The delightful pen and wash drawings of the Huygens family in Hofwijk's shady groves, by Constantijn junior and others, date from the late 1660s, by which time the trees were well-established, as Huygens senior had hoped.) In his poem, it is Hofwijk's promise of future luxuriance that Huygens imagines with satisfaction and pride: I want to show you Hofwijk, as if it sprang by night, Grown sudden, like a mushroom, to maturity.And more than this, I want to make us walk it round As if our yesterday a century were past.17

A century on (in Huygens's poetic imagination), the trees which in 1650 have not yet fully developed into their mature splendour have become the glory of Hofwijk a medley of varieties, framing views, providing elegant markers along the walks and avenues, and bestowing their welcome shade on the summer visitor. Huygens's poetic emphasis is one of pleasurable investment storing up family emotional and commercial capital for the future. No man-made work of art will stand the test of time, according to Huygens: even a garden will eventually perish. His poem, though, will preserve the memory of its prime: So frail are human works, paper outlasts them all, Time wears the shrub and stone: in time it will be said, 'Here once his Hofwijk stood, now rubble, weeds and spoil.'18

Still, insofar as the garden will outlast its creator, standing, it is to be hoped, for several generations thereafter, the trees in particular represent an enviable durability: So the desire for tameness is answered by four rides Of serviceable oaks, my avenues complete In thickness at their root, in eminence in air, For spread of branches round, for cool green murmuring.Perhaps I called them timber: but let n.o.body dare To break my faithful refuge, fell my avenues.Think of invested gold, this planted capital Matures in centuries; grandchildren, let them stand And never burn the trees I planted for you here.19

Here, according to Huygens, is art and artistry that outdoes the creations of the painter or the tapestry-maker. He describes taking his ease among the splendid trees which have grown tall and proud, sheltered from sun and sharp winds alike, surrounded by family and friends, reflecting on the important issues in life and revelling in the time for thought afforded, away from his office: Here I may laugh secure at sweat the mower sheds, Here with my canopy of elmcloth over me.My roof of leaves protects me from full moons And from the scorching sun, and from the tears of heaven.Here do I flee for refuge, sheltered here and cool, I suffer without harm the rages of the skies.Here is my pleasure, knowing how close my joy.20

As in Andrew Marvell's 'The Garden' and 'On Appleton House' (written at roughly the same time as Huygens's 'Hofwijk'), the out-of-town garden estate is a refuge from care, a pastoral idyll. A gentleman's garden is a paradise of calm and tranquillity, a place of consolidation and stability. There a man can reflect, can engage in reposeful conversation and reverie, alone or with friends. There too, urban pride, pomp and ceremony are trans.m.u.ted into areas for modest recreation shaded ca.n.a.ls, limpid pools, green arbours and simple foods are gathered from the kitchen garden (in his poem at least, Huygens shows comparatively little interest in ornamental flower gardens).

Hospitality is a recurrent theme in Huygens's Hofwijk poem, as also throughout his prolific correspondence. He retains a particular place in his affection for garden-lovers like himself who have shared his enjoyment of his woods and walks: in 1680, when Huygens was an octogenarian, in a letter to the former English Amba.s.sador to the Northern Netherlands and fellow gardener Sir William Temple, he refers to his old friend as 'an ancient Hofwijkist', a kindred spirit who has shared his garden pleasures over many years.21 Accordingly, making provision for the owner's table, and for his guests, was one of the duties made explicit in the contracts of the gardeners who kept the entire project going. A mid-seventeenth-century contract for the gardener at one of the Dutch Royal Palaces specifies: The gardener shall take care that sections pointed out to him in the gardens will be sowed and planted with all kinds of vegetables and Aertvruchten [fruits of the earth, perhaps the newly fas.h.i.+onable potato] in such a way that, depending on the season and time of year, they will daily provide the kitchen with fresh produce. The gardener is allowed to take his own share of all the Aertvruchten which the gardens and orchards will yield above the quant.i.ty necessary for the Table and Kitchen of Her Highness. But when it comes to the Artichokes, Melons, Strawberries and Asparagus, these will entirely be at the disposal of Her Highness and the gardener will not be able to enjoy them, except for what is allowed by Her Highness.22

Huygens's 'Hofwijk' includes all the familiar tropes of garden poetry, as they developed in England and Holland in the seventeenth century. But although the poem gives the illusion that the garden's walks and groves largely maintain themselves, in fact armies of labourers were required to create the illusion of rural simplicity.

A nice detail about the house itself at Hofwijk is to be gleaned from a letter Huygens wrote to his musical friend Utricia Ogle in 1653. He has, he writes, added two gla.s.s extensions to the original house, in which he spends most of his days. These allow him to spend even his time indoors in full sight of the garden (these 'gla.s.s-windowed cabinets' no longer survive): In this my little solitude ... since your ladys.h.i.+p hath seene it, I have built two lovely gla.s.s-windowed cabinets at the waterside, making now more use of them than the whole castle of Hofwijck, which by this meanes is growen to a mighty and stately building, as everything in this world is great or small onely by comparison.23

So far we have focused attention on the Dutch garden as it responded to Europe-wide initiatives in garden design in its own specific terms. But as we have already seen, the garden designers employed in the United Provinces, and particularly by the aspirational house of Orange, had already worked for similarly elite patrons in England, where the formative cultural currents influencing garden design were significantly different.

At the very same time Constantijn Huygens was celebrating the healing effects of time spent in a well-ordered garden, lovingly salvaged from a waterlogged landscape, across the water the fame of an English garden on a far grander scale was being broadcast in a series of dramatic engraved views. First published around 1645, Thomas Rowlett's elegant volume consisted of a series of twenty-six etchings showing the glories of the garden at Wilton, laid out between 1632 and 1635 by Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke. In 1630 Pembroke had married the notable heiress Anne Clifford (a Baroness in her own right), thereby coming into possession of her vast estates in the north of England. Although the marriage had broken down by the time work began on the house at Wilton in 1636, and its plan was much reduced in scale, the magnificent gardens went ahead as planned.24 There are obvious affinities between the coffee-table-book version of Pembroke's Wilton and Huygens's literary version of Hofwijk. For one thing, we should notice that both are trying to stabilise the image and memory of what are, on the authors' and garden-owners' own admission, evanescent phenomena. Neither Hofwijk nor Wilton ever looked as depicted in its engraved or textual versions. As Huygens allows himself poetic licence to imagine his garden mature and fully grown, so de Caus's Wilton is an ideal snapshot, with everything orderly and neat, and simultaneously at its optimal state of growth and flowering. In fact, it is quite possible that the Wilton garden engravings include versions of garden features that were never actually completed.

The Wilton volume was reissued in 1654, by Peter Stent, during the English Commonwealth, with a new t.i.tle page. By this time ostentatious expenditure on private 'pleasure gardens' was entirely out of fas.h.i.+on, and we may suppose that one of the points of the publication was nostalgically to recall for Royalists the 'good old days', when the n.o.bility's political and economic power was mirrored symbolically in the visible way in which they exerted control over vast tracts of the English countryside.

The engravings of the garden at Wilton certainly recall an era of calm, leisurely pursuits and elite diversions that was by that time (as far as anyone could know in the 1650s) permanently a thing of the past. The 4th Earl of Pembroke died in 1649, and even by the time of the first issue of the Wilton garden engravings, Charles I and his close courtiers no longer visited to divert themselves, away from the pressures of London court life. (The 4th Earl had in fact taken the Parliamentary side in the Civil Wars, but like Lord Fairfax, the owner of Nunappleton House and garden in Yorks.h.i.+re celebrated in Marvell's poem he had retired to his country estate during the Commonwealth Period.) A still closer publis.h.i.+ng parallel than Huygens's 'Hofwijk' is Salomon de Caus's book of engravings of the Palatinate gardens at Heidelberg, which came out in that same year under the t.i.tle Hortus Palatinus Hortus Palatinus. In the very year in which Frederick and Elizabeth forfeited their claim to the Crown of Bohemia and were driven from the Palatinate, a lavish volume of engravings of that garden was published, which circulated widely across the Continent. By the time these popular engravings were on the market in northern Europe, the gardens they depicted had been devastated and the castle plundered. The engravings were permanent memorials to the lost hope of Protestants in the region, and were purchased as such by those loyal to the memory of the Winter King and Queen.

By the date of the second issue of the Wilton engravings, Wilton too was no longer a stately home, controlled by its n.o.ble owner. Lacking much of its former glory, it was now one stop on the circuit of visitors around England, who could visit it for a not insignificant sum.

In 1651, while Sir Constantijn Huygens's third son, Lodewijk, was in England as part of the diplomatic initiative led by Jacob Cats to negotiate with the new Parliamentary government, he made the horticultural pilgrimage to Wilton. On 11 May, on his way home from a visit to Stonehenge, he paid 2s.3d to visit the house and tour its gardens, now open to the public (1 to visit the house and tour its gardens, now open to the public (1s.3d for the house, 1 for the house, 1s for the garden): for the garden): We entered the garden, which was indeed very beautiful and symmetrical, except for the fact that it did not correspond well with the house. Near the house it was all flower garden with beautiful fountains, which, however, did not work all the time. There were cypress trees some 18 or 20 feet high in all the avenues and stone statues everywhere. On the other side of the house were groves on either side with a lovely wide stream running through them, besides ponds with fountains. At the end of all this, however, there was a little house. On its roof reached by outside steps, was a pond with fish in it filled with fresh water running in through a pipe and running out through another continually. In this house was one of the finest and most charming grottos I recall ever seeing. We entered the garden, which was indeed very beautiful and symmetrical, except for the fact that it did not correspond well with the house. Near the house it was all flower garden with beautiful fountains, which, however, did not work all the time. There were cypress trees some 18 or 20 feet high in all the avenues and stone statues everywhere. On the other side of the house were groves on either side with a lovely wide stream running through them, besides ponds with fountains. At the end of all this, however, there was a little house. On its roof reached by outside steps, was a pond with fish in it filled with fresh water running in through a pipe and running out through another continually. In this house was one of the finest and most charming grottos I recall ever seeing.25

At Wilton, once again, then, the emphasis is on a genteel struggle for stability and control of the land. But in the English case the battle is with political forces rather than with sea and sand. Driven into retirement on their country estates, deprived of office, and taxed severely for their Royalist involvement, old Royalists focused their energies into ambitious plans for their gardens. On their country estates, at least, they could continue to be masters of all they surveyed though, fallen on hard times, they now charged the public for entrance to view their horticultural delights.

There are, nevertheless, significant differences in emphasis between the Dutch tradition and developing garden styles in England. It is striking how much attention is paid, both in Dutch garden poems and in gardening handbooks, to trees and shrubs as the most significant and admired features of any well-planned garden, taking precedence over gorgeous displays of flowers in ingeniously intricate arrangements of beds, or even exotic fruits and unfamiliar vegetables. Avenues of elms or limes (fast-growing, and producing a desirably strong, erect tree, with the foliage high and spreading) were p.r.o.nounced by visitors to be the glory of many a European garden, and particularly of Dutch ones. Andre Mollet gardener to Charles I and Charles II in England, Frederik Hendrik in Holland, and Queen Christina of Sweden makes it a first requirement of any royal garden that the a.s.sociated house 'be situated in an advantageous location, so that it can be adorned wi