Dutch Crossing
Contents and Abstracts of Volume 29 (2005)

Number 1

Papers from the 'Williamite Scotland and the United Provinces' Symposium

Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH)

University of Edinburgh, June 2004

Guest editors: Esther Mijers and Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart

Esther Mijers and Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart, Introduction, pp. 3-4

David Onnekink, 'Dutch Councils': The Foreign Entourage of William III, pp. 5-20

During and after the Glorious Revolution a number of foreigners entered England. Some were part of William of Orange's army, others followed later to seek their fortune across the Channel. A small number of them would come to form an inner circle of advisers to the King-Stadholder. Their presence at court and in the army incited nationwide protests, however, and throughout the 1690s numerous pamphleteers and MPs fulminated against these so-called 'Dutch Counclis'. Nevertheless, little is known about the activities and influence of this circle at William's court, which was in fact surprisingly small. Moreover, there is reason to believe that the apparent outbursts of xenophobia were channelled into a regular opposition rhetoric, and were not so much related to the actual role of the foreign councillors. This article seeks firstly to provide a prosopographic analysis of William's foreign entourage and sub-sequently to explain the nature of criticism against the Dutch councils.

Alasdair Raffe, Propaganda, Religious Controversy and the Williamite Revolution in Scotland, pp. 21-42

This article argues that religious controversy ­ particularly presbyterian allegations of 'persecution' by episcopalian governments ­ contributed a critique of Restoration politics that was used to justify the Williamite revolution in Scotland. The article distinguishes between 'official'propaganda sanctioned by the Prince of Orange and 'unofficial'propaganda written independently of his authority by his supporters. The historiography of propaganda in the English revolution shows that 'official'propaganda ­ in particular William's Declaration of Reasons ­ was explicable within the context provided by 'unofficial' propaganda, notably the anti-Catholic writings of Gilbert Burnet. William's separate Scottish declaration was contextualised by presbyterian arguments from Restoration religious controversy. The article shows the uses to which a distinct vocabulary of 'persecution' was put by Dissenting presbyterians in the 1680s, and the presbyterian Church of Scotland and its episcopalian adversaries from 1690.

Patsy Campbell, Paintings for Princes and People in Williamite Scotland: Scottish Artists and their Anglo-Dutch Competitors, pp. 43-68

It is immediately clear from a brief consideration of the Williamite works of art on display in the National Galleries of Scotland that most were neither painted by Scots nor created in Scotland. This article looks at some of the issues facing artists at this time and identifies some of the reasons which caused Scottish artists to be sidelined in the race for prestigious commissions. Art is dependent on patronage for survival, and the impact on Scotland of the removal of the court to London was disastrous. The taste of William and Mary themselves, the imitation of that taste by Scottish patrons and the resulting works of art that were commissioned by the King and Queen from Continental artists, are surveyed. No Academy of Art offered professional training or education to artists in Edinburgh until 1729, and the effect on the ability of Scottish artists to compete for commissions was profound. The monopoly of the London market by the studio of Godfrey Kneller, the influential Painter to the King, reduced opportunities for British artists at the highest level, and Continental artists got most of the commissions for medal design. The discussion centres on a group of Williamite images from the national collections: it concludes with a case history which draws many of the threads together. Most of the tercentennial exhibitions of 1989 have emphasised the Dutch Crossing between England and the United Provinces: this paper picks up some of the threads of Scottish commissions, patrons and artists working north of the border during the reign of William and Mary.

Esther Mijers, 'For the Cause of Religion and [Academic] Liberty': Connected Political and Academic Networks in Late 17th-Century Utrecht, pp. 69-78

In the 1680s, Utrecht was the Dutch city of choice for many Scottish exiles. It was a different town, and certainly a different university from its main rival Leiden, which is usually associated with the Scottish academic presence in the United Provinces. This article discusses the specific composition and nature of the Scottish community at Utrecht in the late seventeenth century, suggesting that its particular identity was closely related to the unique position of both the town and its university within the United Provinces. It points out that the specific appeal of Utrecht in the late seventeenth century consisted of a number of reasons not usually associated with the traditional view of the United Provinces as a progressive and tolerant country. Moreover, it describes the dual presence of an academic and a political network of Scots, which could only have existed in Utrecht and not in any of the other Dutch cities due to a unique situation in Utrecht, which tied politics and academia together.

Mark Jardine, Scottish Presbyterian Radicals in the Northern United Provinces 1682­84, pp. 79-106

Between 1682 and 1684 the United Societies, a secretive lay organisation of militant presbyterian radicals opposed to the Restoration settlement of church and state in Scotland, launched a mission to obtain ordination for their students to Friesland in the United Provinces. Building on the earlier contacts of Robert MacWard, a former minister of the Scots Congregation at Rotterdam, with Voetian divines and ministers, such as Jacob Koelman, the United Societies created crucial international financial and ecclesiastical support networks for their cause in Scotland with William Brackel, the minister at Leeuwarden, the Consistory at Emden, and the Consistory and University at Groningen. However, due to the Societies propensity for factionalism and schism and the inept handling of their Dutch contacts by Robert Hamilton, their commissioner in the United Provinces, the Societies'networks in Friesland had either collapsed or defected to more moderate Scottish presbyterian exiles in by the middle of 1684.

Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart, Highlanders in the low countries, pp. 107-124

Massive levels of recruitment in Britain for the protracted Flanders campaigns, to say nothing of the cultural fallout in England, suggest that these first stages of the 'Second Hundred Years War'against the French were far from 'limited'in nature or effect. Absence of substantial literary patronage, or for that matter a sizeable urban literary readership, mean that the traces these campaigns have left upon contemporary Scottish literature are rather less prominent. The following speculative article briefly and tentatively surveys some of the surviving material, oral and printed, poetry and prose, in Gaelic, Scots and English. Although the Flanders campaigns may have had an impact at home, clearly their greatest effect was felt by those Scots who fought in them. Military service could provide soldiers with an opportunity to add a new British identity to existing allegiances, and, somewhat surprisingly, to make claims to civility and social distinction at home based on their experiences abroad.

Douglas Watt, The Dutch and the Company of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies, pp. 125-143

The Company of Scotland trading to Africa and the Indies (Darien Company) was established by an act of parliament in 1695 as an overseas trading vehicle to boost the Scottish economy. Between 1698 and 1700 the Company unsuccessfully attempted to establish a colony at Darien on the isthmus of Central America. There were a number of Dutch influences on the Company and contacts between the Company and the Dutch. The economic success of the Dutch provided a model for the Scots and Dutch capital markets influenced Scottish exiles who became shareholders and directors of the Company. Amsterdam was a magnet for a significant amount of the Company's capital, a centre where ships were bought and constructed, a source of manpower, the centre of the Company payment system on the continent and a potential source of capital. Paradoxically the Dutch benefited from the cash of Scottish investors and facilitated the construction of the Company's fleet but frustrated its efforts to raise more capital.

Number 2

Roland WIllemyns, Dutch: One language divided by two countries, p. 153

Michael Perraudin, Comings of age: Aspects of writing of adolescence in post-war Dutch literature, p. 175

Maarten Klein, Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Dutch novelist Louis Couperus (1863-1923), p. 188

Ellen van Impe, "Un art aux principes rationnels les plus anciens, aux formes les plus traditionnelles": The Belgian catholic Gothic revival and the reception of the English arts and crafts movement (1890-1914), p. 204

Bas Jongenelen, The influence of Le chevalier délibéré on late mediaeval Dutch literature, p. 229

Gijs Rommelse, Dutch radical republicanism and English Restoration politics during the 1660s, p. 241

Jochai Rosen, On the question of portraits in some Dutch 17th-century genre paintings, p. 265

William Woods, The Norfolk Rembrandts, p. 289

William Kelly, The importance of dissertations for DUtch university history, p. 294

Translation

Benedict Schofield and Hafid Bouazza, A collaborative translation project: Hafid Bouazza's Schrijven als geluk, p. 305

Reviews

[Ad Putter] Dutch Romances, ed. and trans. by David F. Johnson and Geert H.M. Claasens, Arthurian Archives VI, VII, X (Cambridge, D.S. Brewer), p. 315

[Inez Hollander] Learning Dutch the Fast Way. A review of home in on Holland, the direct Dutch methodology of Ruud Hisgen and Mark Vernim, p. 317

top of page