Andries Bicker

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Andries Bicker, painted by Bartholomeus van der Helst (1642), Rijksmuseum Amsterdam

Andries Bicker (* 1586 in Amsterdam  ? † June 24, 1652 ibid), Lord von Engelenburg , was one of the most important regents and mayors of Amsterdam in the Golden Age and an important member of the Dutch States General .

After Reinier Pauw's political end , the leadership of the city government came into the hands of the Armenian clique around Andries Bicker and Jakob Dircksz de Graeff . This gave the republican state party, weakened since the assassination of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt , new impulses and was able to determine Amsterdam politics for a long period of time.

During the time of the politically weak council pensioners Anthonie Duyck and Jacob Cats , Andries Bicker was considered the head of the republican rulers of Holland and a politician who resolutely opposed the governors Friedrich Heinrich and Wilhelm II. Of Orange's striving for power . Andries Bicker, together with his brother Cornelis Bicker and Cornelis de Graeff, was one of the main initiators for peace with Spain in the Eighty Years' War and for the participation of the Dutch provinces in the Peace of Munster .

biography

family

Overview of the main family relationships of the Amsterdam oligarchy around the families Boelens Loen , De Graeff , Bicker (van Swieten) , Witsen and Johan de Witt in the Golden Age .

Andries Bicker was born in the Bicker patrician family . At the beginning of the 17th century, Andries ran a company that was flourishing in world trade with his father Gerrit Bicker and his three brothers Jacob, Johan and Cornelis Bicker . He was related to the Boelens Loen family through his mother Aleyd Andriesdr Boelens Loen . Andries uncle Laurens Bicker was one of the first Dutch entrepreneurs to trade in Guinea . Relationships led Andries Bicker to the De Graeffs , with whom the Bickers could direct the fortunes of Amsterdam and the Netherlands. He was married to Trijn Jansdr va (o) n Tengnagel (1595–1652). This marriage had five children; Alida, Gerard, Jan, Cornelia (she was married to the Danish Baron Joachim Irgens av Vestervig ) and Elisabeth. One of Andries Bicker's grandchildren, Catharina Bicker (1642–1678), was married to former Danish chief dinners, councilors and chamberlains, Count Palatine Jakob de Petersen , who had fled .

Political career

A poem on Andries Bicker (before 1650) composed by Joost van den Vondel
Sub-article: Regent of Amsterdam

Andries Bicker became a member of the Amsterdam City Parliament in 1616 and represented the radical Republican Party. In matters of faith he also stood on the side of the radical-thinking followers of Arminianism . After the death of his political rival, the Calvinist Reinier Pauw , Bicker was elected as the ruling mayor of the city of Amsterdam for the first time in 1628 (his other appointments fell in the years 1629, 1631, 1633, 1634, 1636, 1640, 1641, 1645 and 1649). In the same year the Dutch States General sent him on a diplomatic mission to Stockholm to broker a peace between Sweden and Poland . Another diplomatic trip led to Brandenburg in 1628. In the 1630s he ruled the city together with his uncle Jakob Dircksz de Graeff and thus helped the Republicans and Remonstrants to regain influence and recognition for the first time since Johan van Oldenbarnevelt's death.

In 1635 Bicker undertook further diplomatic trips to Poland, Sweden and Denmark. During these years a strong bulwark against the ambitions of the House of Orange developed in Amsterdam . Since Bicker feared an economically strong Antwerp and Brabant , he supported the Spaniards in their fight against the southern Dutch provinces and sold them silver and ships. He was also a strong advocate of ending the Eighty Years' War with the Spanish Habsburgs . This brought him into conflict with the governor Friedrich Heinrich of Orange and the Reformed in Holland. In 1638 the regents around Bicker, Albert Burgh , Pieter Hasselaer , Antonie Oetgens van Waveren and Abraham Boom organized the magnificent entry of the former French Queen Maria de 'Medici into Amsterdam.

In 1643, the mayors Jan Cornelisz Geelvinck , Albert Burgh , Gerbrand Claesz Pancras and Cornelis de Graeff were able to secure the resignation of the now overpowering Andries Bicker by appointing him to the Council of the States of Holland . In the same year Andries Bicker traveled together with Jacob de Witt and the Zeeland council pensioner Cornelis van Stavenisse again on a diplomatic mission to Stockholm to secure Sweden's peace with Denmark . The end of the war and the Dutch dominance of the fleet under Admiral Witte de With in the Baltic Sea were based on the power of Andries Bicker and not on that of the governor Friedrich Heinrich von Orange. In 1647 Andries Bicker, Adriaan Pauw and the inner circle of power of the states of Holland came out for the first time for a drastic reduction of the Dutch armed forces (under the orders of the Orange governor). In the same year he inherited the rule and the Engelenburg castle from his brother Jacob Bicker .

Andries Bicker, together with his cousin Cornelis de Graeff, was the main initiator for the Dutch participation in the Peace of Munster in 1648. The reduction of the army, which Bicker demanded again afterwards, broke the barrel. Governor Wilhelm II of Orange wanted to make the Dutch city rulers submissive by means of a coup. Various leading figures such as Jacob de Witt were imprisoned at the Loevestein fortress , and the same was planned for the Bicker brothers. Andries and his brother Cornelis Bicker flooded the dikes of the Amstelland and closed the city gates of Amsterdam. The attack on the center of Holland failed because the governor's army was lured into the swamps in stormy and rainy weather. The pragmatically-minded Cornelis de Graeff, who was concerned about a balance between the two power blocs, arranged for the Bicker brothers to be removed from office in order to secure the still young republic. When Wilhelm II of Orange died of smallpox a short time later , no new governor was appointed.

outlook

These internal political upheavals ushered in the First Governorless Period in the Republic of the United Netherlands . One year after Andries Bicker's death, his niece Wendela Bicker married the young Johan de Witt - who was appointed councilor of the republic in the same year . In the following years, Holland and its center Amsterdam experienced their power and socio-political climax under their protagonists Johan de Witt and Cornelis de Graeff.

literature

  • Jonathan I. Israel: The Dutch Republic - Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall - 1477-1806 . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1995, ISBN 978-0-19-820734-4
  • Herbert H. Rowen: John de Witt - Statesman of the "True Freedom" . Cambridge University Press, 1986, ISBN 0-521-52708-2
  • P. Burke: Venetië en Amsterdam. One onderzoek naar de elites in de zentiende eeuw . 1974

Web links

Commons : Andries Bicker  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Google Book Search: Geschiedenis van Holland , Part 2, Volume 2, by Eelco Beukers
  2. ↑ Jonathan I. Israel: The Dutch Republic - Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall - 1477-1806 . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1995, p. 494. ISBN 978-0-19-820734-4
  3. ↑ Jonathan I. Israel: The Dutch Republic - Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall - 1477-1806 . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1995, p. 602. ISBN 978-0-19-820734-4
  4. ^ Amsterdam: a brief life of the city. Van Geert Mak, Harvill Press (1999), p 123
predecessor Office successor
Jacob Bicker Lord of Engelenburg
1647–1652 		Gerard Bicker
Jakob Dircksz de Graeff Regent and Mayor of Amsterdam
1627–1650 		Cornelis de Graeff
personal data
SURNAME Bicker, Andries
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mayor and Regent of Amsterdam
DATE OF BIRTH 1586
PLACE OF BIRTH unsure: Amsterdam
DATE OF DEATH June 24, 1652
Place of death Amsterdam