History books tell us much about William of Orange, his four successive wives, and his fine old family from Dillenburg. Count Brederode also marches across the pages of those books, along with his ragtag army of Beggars. So do Dirck Coornhert, William Tyndale, and the flock of Beguine sisters in Breda.
In the history books, however, you will not find the van den Gardes nor the Engelshofen family. Tante Lysbet, Yaap, Barthelemeus, and Meister Laurens are not there, nor Oma and her weaver-preacher son Hans with their mysterious origin protected in Emden, city of refuge.
But as you take up imaginative residence in the world of William of Orange and Philip II, you will meet these colorful friends coming at you from among the masses of nameless individuals that lend depth and perspective to the well-named and respected leaders.
Their thinking processes may perplex, 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 or Dark Ages. The sixteenth century saw the first great flowering of an artistic and scientific Renaissance, a massive religious Reformation spawned in large measure by the availability of Scriptures at every level of society, and an unprecedented series of political revolts.
The characters in this book knew little about time constraints and historical perspective. Glass windows and garbage collection were new innovations, and life was expected to be a perpetual struggle for existence. Medicine was a mixture of primitive herbalism and cultic superstition. Life was both violent and religious, crude and mystical. As church leaders of all kinds wrestled to unlock the secrets of biblical hermeneutics, they still resorted to the old practices of casting horoscopes and pronouncing curses.
As you read, search between the lines and beneath the naive attitudes and sometimes strangely worded phrases and you will recognize in them an amazing brotherhood of souls. For they are all significant ancestors of our own struggles with life and freedom and faith in a sometimes violent, always dangerous world.