Cornelis Bicker

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Cornelis Bicker, painted in 1654 by Govert Flinck
Cornelis Bicker, painted in 1618 by Cornelis van der Voort

Cornelis Bicker van Swieten (born October 25, 1592 in Amsterdam ; † September 15, 1654 ibid), Heer van Swieten , was a politician in Holland and Amsterdam.

Cornelis Bicker, together with his brother Andries 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 .

Live and act

See also: Regent of Amsterdam

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 .

Corneli's parents were Gerrit Bicker and Aleyd Andriesdr Boelens Loen, a descendant of the Boelens Loen . In the Golden Age , the Bicker family belonged to the patrician families of the Dutch state . In 1617 he married Aertge Witsen (1599-1652), daughter of Gerrit Jacobsz Witsen . The couple had five children together who joined the republican ruling elite of Amsterdam; Margaretha (∞ with Gerard van Hellemond and afterwards with Cornelis Geelvinck ), Alida (∞ with Lambert Reynst ), Elisabeth (∞ with Andries de Graeff ), Maria (∞ with Gerbrand Ornia) and Gerard Bicker (I) van Swieten (∞ with Catharina van Sypesteyn).

Cornelis Bicker held various offices, for example in 1622 he became one of the directors of the Dutch West India Company (WIC). Bicker had already taken his place in the government of Amsterdam in 1620. In 1628 he became Schepen . In 1632 Bicker bought the manor Swieten and Swieten Castle , located near Leiden , and from then on he called himself Bicker van Swieten . In addition to his activities as treasurer of Amsterdam and as the Dutch envoy to East Friesland (1634), he was a member of the State Council of the Republic of the United Netherlands from 1651 to 1653 .

Cornelis Bicker was elected the governing mayor of Amsterdam three times , his first appointment in 1646. His second appointment to this was in the year 1650. After the Dutch participation in the Peace of Munster - for which Cornelis, his older brother Andries Bicker and their cousin Cornelis de Graeff were the main initiators - demanded the members of the family Bicker, the Bickerse ligue called , the reduction of the army, this broke the barrel. Governor Wilhelm II of Orange wanted to make the Dutch city rulers submissive by means of a coup. The Bicker brothers, in collaboration with Mayor Johan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen , flooded the Amstelland dikes 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 brothers Cornelis, Andries and Johan Bicker 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.

His last appointment as head of the city took place in 1654, in which Cornelis Bicker died. He was buried in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam .

literature

  • Jonathan I. Israel: The dutch Republic - It's Rise, Greatness, and Fall - 1477-1806 . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1995, ISBN 978-0-19-820734-4
  • P. Burke: Venetië en Amsterdam. One onderzoek naar de elites in de zentiende eeuw . 1974
  • Kernkamp, ​​GW (1977) Prins Willem II 1626-1650
  • Zandvliet, Kees De 250 rijksten van de Gouden Eeuw - Kapitaal, power, familie en levensstijl (2006 Amsterdam; Nieuw Amsterdam Uitgevers)
  • JE Elias, De Vroedschap van Amsterdam 1578-1795 , part 1 (Haarlem 1903) p. 175

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Amsterdam: a brief life of the city. Van Geert Mak, Harvill Press (1999), p 123