tee a Catholic succession in England. The Protestant world was in uproar.
Jardine now describes how a well-oiled machine was set in motion. Spurred on by leading British Protestants, William III assembled a fleet and an army of invasion, and in November, in great secrecy, 500 ships with ten thousand sailors and hundreds of horses set sail from Hellevoetsluis. The soldiers, horses, cannon, munitions and provisions landed in Torbay on the south coast of England and, although delayed by torrential rain, finally made their way to London. James took to his heels and went into exile in France. In the following year William and Mary were proclaimed King and Queen of England, and until his death in 1702 William remained the successful leader of Protestant Europe against the constant expansionism of Louis XIV.
Lisa Jardine is surprised at how easily this Dutch military invasion was papered over and forgotten. She concludes that it was because of the careful preparation and the refined propaganda of William III. The underlying power politics and the military action were cleverly legitimised. A political manifesto had been drawn up beforehand to justify the whole operation: England was being threatened, the laws were being trampled on and the invasion was in fact a liberation. Ten thousand copies of this manifesto were printed in the greatest secrecy and distributed immediately after the invasion. Triumphant propaganda pamphlets also helped to seal its success.
After this political introduction, Jardine guides us into the field of culture, which is what the book is really about. We read about important painters such as Van Dyck, Jan Lievens, Honthorst and Peter Lely who all crossed the Channel to make their living in England. The Commonwealth period between 1642 and 1660 when England was ruled by Oliver Cromwell and later by his son receives a great deal of attention. Many leading royalists fled to the Netherlands, including the heir apparent himself, later Charles II, and many of the nobility, with or without their art collections. There they absorbed Dutch culture and exploited it in England after the Restoration.
A second period of intensive cultural exchange began
William iii, King of England (1650-1702). Frontispiece from Life and Times of William the Third and History of Orangeism (1890).
after William became King, when hundreds of courtiers and practising artists followed him to England. Jardine discusses the artists' commissions, gardens that were laid out, houses that were built in the classic Dutch style and art collections that were brought over from the Netherlands.
One of the later chapters is devoted to the natural sciences. Among the Dutchmen who were members or correspondents of the Royal Society, founded in 1660, were Anthony van Leeuwenhoek, Jan Swammerdam and Christian Huygens. Jardine considers that Huygens' reputation has been somewhat exaggerated by historians. In the development of the pendulum clock and the pocket watch more credit should be given to her hero, Robert Hooke.
The book closes with a somewhat unrelated chapter on the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam, which was conquered by the English in 1664 and has been