A View of Delft

Goededag!

The historic center of Delft is charming and very easy for tourists.  I enjoyed the beauty, but I was also there for some hard core history.

“As long as he lived he was the guiding star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little children cried in the streets.”  Thus the historian John Lathrop Motley summed up the life and death of William the Silent.  Because the self-serving nature of people in power is not exactly a recent phenomenon, it might do us some good to contemplate the nobility and self-sacrifice—even to his life, of the Prince of Orange.  The famed Dutch tolerance owes much and perhaps everything to their leader in the revolt that gained the Dutch Republic its independence.  The Prince insisted their war was about politics and freedom, not religion, and by a miracle at the end of the Sixteenth Century he got Protestants and Roman Catholics to work together most of the time.

William the Silent was murdered in Deft in 1584 at the instigation of Philip II of Spain.  We will visit both the site of his murder and his grave.

Uh, Pil.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this guy.  Why was he "Silent”?

It’s a mistranslation actually.  It should be William the Discreet.  He was known for keeping his own counsel in tight spots.

Why “Prince of Orange”?

William inherited the title from a distant cousin.  Orange is the anglicized name of a once-independent principality in the Provence region until it was absorbed by Louis “I’m not greedy I just want the land next to mine” XIV.  It’s just a coincidence that the name is the same word in English as the color and fruit.  Nevertheless, orange is the national color of the Netherlands and the name has much resonance here.

That’s actually more than I wanted to know, but thanks anyway.

I had some rain along with my breakfast, but it actually turned out to be a reasonable day.  Yes, it rained, but it was not cold or windy.  I set out pretty early and had a very pleasant day.

The place I had “lunch” advertised itself as a gelato bar, but I don’t think it was really gelato at all, but Dutch ice cream.  I had butterscotch, and boy could I taste the butter (!) and something called caramel crunch.  Sublimity in a paper cup.

After all these days I had to pay admission to the churches.  They don’t accept the Museum Karte, but one ticket worked for both.  I visited the Old Church first and paid my respects to Vermeer, and then the New Church.  Both are Protestantized gothic.  They are very beautiful but somewhat bare compared to Roman Catholic churches.

The grave and memorial of William the Silent is in the New Church.   A dog lies at the foot of his effigy to symbolize his fidelity to his people.  The epitaph is “Pater patriae.” I cannot think of anyone who deserves it more.

Then I strolled along the canals to the Princeshof.   A former convent, this was William’s home in Delft.  The building is worth visiting just as a preserved historical building, but it has become a shrine to the Prince and a lesson in Dutch History.

One afternoon William the Silent descended a broad staircase in order to receive his people as was his custom.  A man in the crowd stepped out and fired a pistol at nearly point blank range.  The bullets passed through William’s body.  You can see the gouge marks they made in the plaster wall.

As William fell and died his last words were, “God help my poor people!”

Ok.  Enough tragedy.  Let’s go shopping!

The central market of Delft is packed with touristy shops, all flogging the local product.

Yeah, Pil, so we’re wondering.  Why did you buy your Delftware in Amsterdam and not Delft itself since you seem to like the place so much?

Good question!   I did investigate those shops very carefully.  I told myself that if I found some of the traditional blue and white candlesticks that I really liked, I could shell out for them.  But it turns out that the selection and quality of the wares are better in Amsterdam.

A lot of the purported Delftware was not from the “royal” workshops (I checked the hallmarks) and was of inferior quality.  Some was frankly fake.  None of it was as gorgeous as what I’d seen in the Amsterdam shops.

If you Really Need a plate with Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, get the fake cheapo ones because at least they use a photo of the painting.  The hand-painted versions are truly awful.  One I saw made her look like she’d been patronizing a coffee shop, if you know what I mean.

Dag.