Godart van Roadstead

Godart van Roadstead

Godart van Reede (actually Godard , born September 30, 1588 in Utrecht ; † June 25, 1648 ibid), Freiherr von Amerongen and Heer van Nederhorst (lord of the manor of Nederhorst) was a Dutch statesman, president of the knighthood of the province of Utrecht and at the age of thirty War envoy of the States General in Munster .

He opposed the peace treaty until the end and was also absent from the signing on January 30, 1648 . His refusal to sign the treaty posed a serious threat to the peace process and the risk of the Peace of Westphalia failing , as unanimity was made a condition.

Training and activities

Van Reede completed a law degree at the universities of Franeker and Poitiers and subsequently earned services as a deputy to the States General for the construction of canals and shipping lanes in the province of Utrecht. He then became an associate professor in the council at the court of Utrecht and controlled the court of Utrecht on behalf of the knighthood. In 1618, Van Reede renounced a claim as canon of Utrecht in order to become president of the Utrecht knighthood. In 1619 he took part in the Synod of Utrecht , where Remonstrant and counter-Protestant preachers were preparing for the Dordrecht Synod . In 1626 he was appointed chief administrator of the Utrecht women's monasteries, in 1628 their treasurer and asset manager of the women's monastery.

1644 van Reede was governor of Utrecht fief appointed and Paul Abbey and dominated with his brothers Johan and Ernst soon to eerste een tweede lid (the first and second state ) of the province.

In the same year he was sent from the province of Utrecht to Munster as a negotiator and representative of the Orange War Party of the Thirty Years' War.

Van Reede was not only a politician, but also an active entrepreneur. Again and again he founded new companies, invested in the war economy and arms industry and did overseas business. He was also economically active within the Netherlands. He participated, among other things, in the reclamation of land through dry polders, the drainage of wetlands and lakes (in Dutch: sea) through windmills, which promised investors rich profits at the beginning of the 17th century. Among other things, Van Reede invested in the drainage of the Horster and Naardermeer , two large lakes near Nederhorst Castle. When the Spaniards fell into the country in 1629, the two new polders on Horstermeer and Naardermeer were flooded again to defend Amsterdam . Because of the high costs of the renewed drainage, more and more shareholders withdrew from the project, which resulted in massive financial losses for Van Reede, a circumstance that could have influenced his later position in the negotiations on the Peace of Westphalia .

Private life

Van Reede was married twice. In 1617 he married Emerentia van Wijngaarden, the daughter of the wealthy president at the court of Holland, who owned extensive estates. The couple had two sons and six daughters. The eldest son, Gerard, succeeded his father as lord of the knightly seat in Nederhorst. The second son was Frederik Hendrik. His second marriage to Catharina van Utenhove, which Godard entered after Emerentia's death, remained childless.

Despite this and other severe financial losses and a steadily increasing financial shortage, Van Reede continued to live on a large scale and lavishly furnished his houses and Nederhorst Castle. In addition, there were the costs for the mission to Münster, because the expense allowance of 400 guilders was by far not sufficient. How serious van Reede's situation really was only became clear after his death. He left far more debt than value.

Bribery?

This lack of money is interesting because in his day there were the first rumors that van Reede had been bribed by the French to prevent a separate peace with Spain. However, these assumptions could not be confirmed at the time and cannot be conclusively proven today, although there are some indications.

Peace of Westphalia

When van Reede was the only one who refused to sign the peace treaty on January 30, 1648, he believed he was in a strong position, because due to the unanimity rule, Utrecht could not be outvoted. However, the mood in Utrecht soon changed, especially since the Hague accused them of deliberately breaking the Union. Members of the Dutch knighthood urged their peers in Utrecht to join the peace party.

At the beginning of March, a majority of the knighthood ordered van Reede to sign the final peace treaty and on April 16, the Utrecht Estates officially commissioned him to ratify the peace.

However, he continued to refuse to sign and in the meantime struggled with serious health problems. Nothing is known about the nature of the disease. When he arrived in Munster on April 21, 1648, he was so weak that he had to stay in bed. Since the Spaniards feared his death, which would delay ratification again, Spanish envoys paid him several sick visits in the hope of being able to get van Reede to sign it. Finally, on April 30th, he signed on the hospital bed.

He could no longer take part in the ratification of the treaty itself. He died a month later.

literature

• Herbert Langer: The Diary of Europe, sixteen hundred and forty-eight, the Peace of Westphalia. Brandenburger Verlag 1994. ISBN 3894880708

• RE de Bruin and DEA Faber, en edelman centraal in de Dom, nav een tentoonstelling over Godard van Reede van Nederhorst. Virtus (Dutch journal for the history of nobility) 1998 No. 1, pp. 25-27

Web links

Commons : Godart van Reede  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• 350 years of the Peace of Westphalia: the actors
• Utrecht as an opponent of the Munster peace process