Alexander van der Capellen

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Alexander van der Capellen between 1625 and 1649

Alexander van der Capellen (* late 16th century; † July 8, 1656 in Dordrecht ) was a Dutch politician. He was Lord of Boedelhof and Mervelt and, through marriage, also Lord of Aartsbergen.

Life

Alexander van der Capellen came from a respected old family that had lived in the County of Zutphen since the middle of the 14th century . He was the son of Gerlach van der Capellen van Rysselt and Margareta Schimmelpenninck van der Oye. He studied history and law at the University of Leiden and also made rapid progress in his free time in learning the Arabic language, as Gerhard Johannes Vossius praised in his funeral address given in 1624 in Leiden to Thomas Erpenius , Alexander van der Capellen's teacher.

After completing his studies, Alexander van der Capellen traveled to various foreign areas; in particular he lived in France for several years. In 1620 he returned to his homeland. Four years later, in 1624, he was accepted into the knighthood of the County of Zutphen, then a member of the Chamber of Accounts and judge in the Doesburg district . When he married Emilia van Zuylen van Nyevelt in 1626, she brought him the rule of Aartsbergen as a dowry in the marriage.

From 1635 Alexander van der Capellen was an advisor to Friedrich Heinrich , the governor of the United Netherlands , and a close friend of his son Wilhelm II , whose actions he nevertheless openly criticized at times. When the estates of the province of Holland decided in 1650 to reduce their troops and thereupon Wilhelm II and the other Dutch provinces resolutely opposed this measure, Alexander van der Capellen stood entirely on the side of the governor and admonished the Dutch in particular to Dordrecht, but other cities also directed manifestos to subordinate themselves again to Wilhelm's leadership. Jan Wagenaar and other early Dutch historians have accused him of being a completely obedient partisan of Wilhelm and of giving him some pernicious advice. He was supposed to have been the main initiator of the arrest of reluctant members of the Dutch estates and the governor's coup d'état against Amsterdam . He partially refuted these allegations in his memoirs, which reached from 1621 to 1654 and were published by his descendant Robert Jasper van der Capellen from 1777 to 1778, portraying him as a man loyal to the House of Orange, but also a very moderate and peace-loving man. His consistently credible memorabilia also sheds interesting light on the epoch in Dutch history when the Protestant republic successfully fought off the last onslaught of the Spanish Habsburgs . After Wilhelm's death (1650) Alexander van der Capellen lost his political influence and died in Dordrecht in 1656.

literature

personal data
SURNAME Capellen, Alexander van der
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Aartsbergen, Alexander van der Capellen Lord of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch politician
DATE OF BIRTH 16th Century
DATE OF DEATH July 8, 1656
Place of death Dordrecht