John Motley, a noted late nineteenth-century historian, called the Dutch Revolt “one of the most complicated and imposing dramas ever enacted by man.”
Pieter-Lucas and Aletta didn’t have the benefit of his perspective when they were dragged irresistibly into the conflict. Nor did they need it to tell them that war was ugly. How it complicated their lives in spite of every effort to achieve simplicity and faith is the story of book two in The Seekers series.
Once more, a few words are in order to help the reader sort out the history from the story. History books tell us much about William of Orange, his four successive wives, and his fine old family. His mother, Juliana von Stolberg, raised seventeen children (including Willem, Jan, Ludwig, Adolph, and Juliana) in the imposing old castle atop the hill of Dillenburg. We can find Dirck Coornhert, too, in the pages of those books, along with Ludwig’s ragtag army of Beggars and their opponents, King Philip II of Spain and his infamous Duke of Alva. Counts Egmont, Hoorne, and Aremberg were colleagues of Willem and gave their lives in the conflict. Lucas van Leyden was a recognized artist whose paintings and engravings survive to this day. In the city archives of Breda, we find the names of Bailiff Van den Kessel, goldsmith Pieter van Keulen, and his housekeeper, Lysbet (Betteke) de Vriend. Jan van Leyden will long live in the recorded history of both political and religious infamy.
The rest of the characters did not step directly from the history books. The van den Gardes, Engelshofens, Laurenses, and de Smids were born in my imagination. So were Tante Lysbet, Yaap, Barthelemeus, Oma and her son Hans, the colorful street thief Mieke, and Alfonso the Spanish soldier. Add to this the host of named and unnamed servants, church members, boatmen, soldiers, and official personages.
I trust, though, that as you join me in taking up imaginative residence in the world of William of Orange, you will discover each character to be as real as your family, friends, and neighbors.
The thinking processes of these new friends may perplex and even annoy you at times. When they do, simply recall that European society was just beginning to shake itself awake from the long sleep of the Middle (Dark) Ages. The sixteenth century saw the first flowering of an artistic and scientific Renaissance, a massive religious Reformation, and an unprecedented series of political revolts.
Sixteenth-century residents knew little about time constraints and historical perspective. Glass windows and garbage collection were new innovations, and life was expected to be a perpetual painful struggle hovering on the edge of sudden unexpected death. Executions were tragedies only to the families and close friends of the condemned. To the rest, they provided entertaining spectacles and graphic warnings. Medicine was a mixture of primitive herbalism and cultic superstition. Life was both violent and religious, crude and mystical. Church leaders of all kinds were wrestling to unlock the secrets of biblical hermeneutics and still resorted to the old practices of casting horoscopes and pronouncing curses.
As you read, search between the lines and beneath the naive-sounding attitudes, the sometimes strangely worded phrases, and look expectantly for an amazing brotherhood of souls. You will not be disappointed. For the new friends you make here are all significant ancestors of our own struggles with life and freedom and faith in a constantly changing and unpredictably violent world.