Hieronymus van Beverningh
Hieronymus van Beverningh (born April 25, 1614 in Gouda , † October 30, 1690 in Oud-Teylingen) was a successful statesman and diplomat from the Dutch Golden Age .
Van Beverningh was the son of Melchior Beverningh, a captain in the Dutch army, and the grandson of Johan Beverningh, a Prussian officer who made it to the artillery general in the Netherlands.
Early years
Hieronymus van Beverningh studied at the University of Leiden , and after graduating went on a gentlemanly tour of France. Beverningh started his political career in 1645 as a member of the vroedschap of the city of Gouda. Since this showed his diplomatic skills, he quickly made a career. In the next few years he became a deputy for the States of Holland. In 1651 Van Beverningh represented the province of Holland in the Groote Vergadering (the "Great Negotiation"). After the death of the councilor Adriaan Pauw in 1653, Van Beverningh was considered as his successor, but with the political power of Amsterdam and its regent Cornelis de Graeff behind him, Johan de Witt was appointed as the new councilor. Van Beverningh became a delegate of the States General of the Republic of the United Netherlands in the same year . The two rising politicians began to work together well.
As the first diplomat of the Republic of the United Netherlands
A joint work by De Witt and Van Beverningh was the drafting of the Peace of Westminster , which ended the First Anglo-Dutch War . Since in the Netherlands, as in England under Oliver Cromwell , there were monarchist counter-currents, Cromwell and Van Beverningh worked out the so-called act of seclusion , which provided for the exclusion of the Orange from all state offices. In 1657 he was also appointed Minister of Finance of the Republic. Hieronymus van Beverningh was, together with Coenraad van Beuningen, the most successful diplomat of the republic, and represented them in various negotiations with foreign countries. In 1665 he made a trip to Berlin to see Elector Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg in order to secure his support for the republic in the Second Anglo-Dutch War . For the Netherlands he organized the Peace of Breda together with De Witt , which ended the war with England. The triple alliance with England and Sweden, jointly worked out by Van Beverningh and Johan de Witt on the Dutch side in 1668, was intended to put a stop to the predatory wars of Louis XIV of France. After the fall of the De Witt regime, Van Beverningh changed sides, and was also under Wilhelm III. of Orange in the first place of the Dutch statesmen. After the events in the rampjaar , Van Beverningh became mayor of his hometown Gouda. He welcomed the new Dutch governor Willem III. and continued to carry out diplomatic missions, including in 1674 the Peace of Westminster for the republic to end the Third Anglo-Dutch War . In the following years he held Dutch diplomacy firmly in his hands, the Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678 , which was to end the war with France, and a year later he concluded an alliance treaty with Sweden.
literature
- Israel, Jonathan I. (1995) The dutch Republic - Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall - 1477-1806. Clarendon Press, Oxford, ISBN 978-0-19-820734-4 .
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Beverningh, Hieronymus van |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Dutch diplomat and mayor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 25, 1614 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Gouda cheese |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 30, 1690 |
| Place of death | Oud-Teylingen |