Prince Maurits — Maurits van Oranje (Maurice of Orange, 1567–1625), stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands from 1585 to 1625 — was the addressee of the first Atjehnese embassy to the Netherlands of 1601, the recipient of the sultan of Atjeh’s letters and gifts in response to Maurits’s own letter and gifts of the same year, and the staff history’s principal Dutch royal actor of the school-textbook narrative of early Dutch-Atjehnese relations. aliases: [Maurits van Nassau, Maurits van Oranje, Maurice of Nassau, Prince Maurice, Prins Maurits, Maurits, Stadhouder Maurits] Prince Maurits — Maurits van Oranje (Maurice of Orange, 1567–1625), Stadhouder of Holland and Zeeland from 1585 and of all the United Provinces from 1590 — was the principal Dutch military commander of the Dutch Revolt against Spain, the principal political opponent of Johan van Oldenbarneveldt in the conflict over the Twelve Years’ Truce, and the principal Dutch royal correspondent of the Sultan of Atjeh. His letters and gifts to the Sultan produced the first Achehnese embassy to the Netherlands in 1602–1603 and inaugurated formal Dutch-Achehnese diplomatic relations. He is the principal Dutch royal actor of the school-textbook narrative of early Dutch-Atjehnese relations.
Maurits’s letters and gifts to the Sultan of Atjeh
Maurits’s first letter to the Sultan of Atjeh — Sultan Aloeddin — was transmitted by the Van Caerden visit of 1600. At the solemn reception of the Sultan by Van Caerden, who was to deliver gifts and the letter, a Portuguese monk was present who drew attention to the fact that the letter — written on parchment made from the skin of the unclean pig — could not lawfully be touched by a Mohammedan. “Zoo miste’s Prinsen brief zijn doel” — so the Prince’s letter missed its mark. The episode is the pigskin parchment letter incident that gives its name to chapter XXXII of Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie.
The Zeeland mission of August 1601 — four Zeeland ships — bore a second letter from Maurits, this time in Spanish, “waarin Prins Maurits aandrong op de vrijlating der gevangen Nederlanders, verzekerde dat de schepen hulp konden verleenen tegen vijanden van den Vorst, en men peper wilde koopen” — in which Prince Maurits pressed for the release of the imprisoned Dutchmen, assured [the Sultan] that the ships could lend help against his enemies, and proposed to buy pepper. The gifts accompanying the letter — like the letter itself — were welcome. The Sultan promised Frederik de Houtman “en zijn vrouw” (and his wife — for the prisoner’s fidelity to his wife in Holland had made a strong impression) compensation for his material losses, and sent three ambassadors — Abdoel Hamid, Sri Mohammed and Mir Hassan — to Europe on the returning Zeeland ships.
The Atjeh embassy at the siege of Grave, 1602
“Prins Maurits belegerde Grave, toen het gezantschap in zijn kamp aankwam” — Prince Maurits was besieging Grave when the embassy arrived in his camp. A staatsie-karos (state-coach), attended by a company of cavalry, brought the Oriental gentlemen to a house near the Prince’s tent, and after a meal Maurits received them surrounded by a brilliant company of nobles and military commanders.
After greeting the Prince in the Mohammedan manner, the ambassador — probably Sri Mohammed as the senior surviving envoy, after the death of Abdoel Hamid at Middelburg in August 1602 — delivered the Prince’s earlier letter (now marked with the King’s seal, “om te bewyzen, dat die brieven wel ontfangen, hem weert ende aenghenaem waren gheweest” — to prove that the letters had indeed been received, welcome and agreeable to him) together with two letters from Sultan Aloeddin to the Prince.
The gifts presented were:
- A costly kris
- A golden dish and cup, “hierin bevond zich omtrent twee pont Camphora van Borneo, wesende het pont gheestimeert honderd ducaten daer te lande” — about two pounds of Borneo camphor, the pound there valued at a hundred ducats
- A lance, which was on one of the still-sailing ships
The Prince thanked “haren Coningh voor de presenten ende Gode voor haar voorspoedighe reyse ende aencomste” — their King for the presents and God for their prosperous voyage and arrival — and regretted that a slight indisposition prevented him from conducting the guests around the camp.
The siege-works tour and the cannon-shots
Under the escort of the Counts Ernst and Lodewijk of Nassau, the Atjeh envoys inspected the siegeworks before Grave — “de belegeringsserrkuige, dat dinghen waren, weert om se te sien” — whereupon the principal ambassador discharged two cartouwen (cannon-shots) at the city in memory of the occasion. The Atjeh envoys thus participated actively in the Dutch war of independence from Spain. The Wijma school reader records Maurits’s role in the embassy: he sent his fine coach to fetch them, paid them great honours, and ordered a spiegelgevecht — a mock battle — to be staged in their honour.
The envoys’ fifteen months in the Republic
For fifteen months the ambassadors stayed in the Republic as guests of the East India Company, “gemerckt zyluyden tot dienst ende confirmatie van de negocie gecomen zijn” — since they had come in the service and confirmation of the trade — and then returned to their country, full of wonder at what they had seen: “soms met menschen, sleden, paarden en wagens over de gestolde wateren trekt” — that one sometimes travels over frozen waters with people, sledges, horses and wagons; “dat daar elk man zijn eigen meester en heer is” — that there every man is his own master and lord; “dat daar geen slaven waren, maar vrije menschen” — that there were no slaves, but free men; “die reeds dertig jaar lang oorlog gevoerd hadden tegen den grooten Koning van Spanje” — who had already fought for thirty years against the great King of Spain; “en dat zij toch rijk waren gebleven” — and yet had remained rich. The Sultan was described in the report as “glinsterende als de zon op den middag en als de maan, wanneer zij vol is” — shining like the sun at midday and like the moon when it is full.
Maurits’s equestrian portrait at Kandi
Prince Maurits’s image also reached the inland courts of Asia by other routes. When Spilbergh went to Kandi in 1602, he gave the King of Kandi an equestrian portrait of the Prince at the Battle of Nieuwpoort — a painting that was still hanging in the audience hall when Sebald de Weert arrived later the same year. The King of Kandi was so impressed by Maurits’s success against the Spaniards that he declared himself willing, “als metselaar kalk en steen te willen sjouwen” (as a mason to haul lime and stone), for a joint fortification against the arch-enemies.
The Twelve Years’ Truce and the conflict with Oldenbarneveldt
The Twelve Years’ Truce of 1609 was the principal political conflict of Maurits’s career. He opposed the truce — particularly the colonial clause that limited Dutch trade in the East Indies — and used the theological-political conflict between Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants to undermine Oldenbarneveldt’s position. The execution of Oldenbarneveldt in 1619 and the resumption of the war with Spain in 1621 marked Maurits’s triumph and the prelude to the Coen programme of monopoly-by-force. The Verhoeff fleet of 1607 also bore a letter from Maurits to the Bandanese chiefs — a letter that, as Van der Woude notes, was “pasklaar gemaakt voor het beoogde doel” — drawn up for the purpose of demanding the spice monopoly and the right to build a fort.
Significance
For Atjeh’s history, Prince Maurits is the principal royal interlocutor of the Dutch Republic in the sultanate’s early-seventeenth-century diplomacy — the Prince whose letters were carried to Atjeh in 1600 and 1601, whose reception of the 1602 embassy at the siege of Grave placed Atjeh inside the Dutch war of independence from Spain, and whose alliance was sufficiently valued by Sultan Aloeddin to be marked by a state-embassy, a kris, a golden dish and cup, and two pounds of Borneo camphor. The reception of the Achehnese embassy at the siege of Grave is the principal Dutch instance of the early-modern practice of receiving non-European envoys in the field — a practice that linked the Dutch Revolt’s military culture to the emerging Dutch-Asian commercial diplomacy.
See Also
- Sultan Aloeddin of Atjeh
- Atjeh embassy to Prince Maurits at Grave (1602)
- Pigskin parchment letter incident at Atjeh (1600)
- Paulus van Caerden’s Atjeh visit (1600-1601)
- Zeeland Company’s Atjeh mission (1601)
- Abdoel Hamid
- Sri Mohammed
- Mir Hassan
- Leonard Werner
- Joris van Spilbergh
- Sebald de Weert
- Paulus van Caerden
- Johan van Oldenbarneveldt
- Twelve Years’ Truce (1609)
- De Kleine Oosterling
- Pieter Willemsz. Verhoeff
- 1600
- 1601
- 1602
Sources
Coen, Koopman van Heeren Zeventien. Geschiedenis van den Hollandshen Handel in Indië (1598-1614), by Johan van der Woude (Amsterdam: C.V. Uitgeverij v/h C. De Boer Jr., 1948), Hoofdstukken I-II, V (pp. 7-65, 108-140).
De Kleine Oosterling — Iets uit de Geschiedenis van Nederlandsch-Indië. Leesboekje voor de Lagere Scholen, door J. Wijma, Tweede Druk (Kampen: Laurens van Hulst, 1901), Les 3 (“Een gezantschap”).
Tijdens de O.I. Compagnie, by Dr. E. C. Godee Molsbergen, Oud-Hoogleeraar, Landsarchivaris te Batavia (Amsterdam: N.V. Swets & Zeitlinger Boekhandel en Uitgevers Mij., 1932), chapters XXXII–XXXIV (“Het Kasteel van Verre. De brief op varkensvel in Atjeh”; “Atjehers in het kamp van Maurits”; “Spilbergh’s succes op Ceylon”), pp. 114–125 of the numbered-letter sequence.