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‘To Attract the Attention of that Snobbish
Queen’
Dousa's Latin Ode to Elizabeth (1573) in its historical
context
Chris L. Heesakkers
Dominico Britanno suo Almam matrem
Amstelodamensem relicturo hoc qualecunque
munusculum ad commercia Britannico-
Theotiscas spectans necnon et amici communis
Joannis Adriani manes commemorans
l.m. d.d.
Christianus Belgico-Batavus
In his second collection of Latin poetry, entitled Nova
poemata and published in the spring of 1575, the young Dutch
humanist
Janus Dousa inserted an Alcaic Ode, D.
Elisabethae, Britanniarum Reginae, Principi Opt. Max., ‘To the
godly Elisabeth, Queen of England, the best and
greatest sovereign’. It is followed by a second ode, Ad Gulielmum
Cecillum Borlaei Regulum, regioque apud Anglos aerario Praefectum, cum ei Odam
praecedentem mitteret, ‘To
William Cecil, Lord Burghlei, High Treasurer
in England, when he sent him the preceding Ode’ (Nova poemata
[=NP], sign. Gi verso /G iij verso and G iiij verso / G vj recto). The contents
of the latter poem leave no doubt that the Odes were written in England, in the
vicinity of Cecil's house or office. It is known from other sources that Dousa
had sailed to England three years earlier, towards the end of 1572, on a
diplomatic mission to Elizabeth to persuade her to support the Dutch resistance
against the Spanish governor, the
Duke of Alva.
The mission appears to have been rather informal, since no archival
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known. There seems to be no evidence in Dutch
archives, and the only trace in the State Papers of the British Public Record
Office is a letter of recommendation by Dousa's friend
Hadrianus Junius to Cecil, containing the
names of the delegates Dousa and
Theodorus Neopyrgus (Nieuwburg). Junius
was familiar with England and English circumstances, since he had stayed in
England for several years and had dedicated works of his own hand to three
successive English monarchs. The letter has been published by our regretted
friend, the late
J.A. van Dorsten (Poets, Leiden
1962, p. 25), who, for that matter, did not notice it had already been
published in Junius' Epistolae (Dordrecht 1652, p.
255-256), be it with the date November 13, while Van Dorsten gives October 17,
and with only the two delegates' initials.
Most early monographs on the Dutch Revolt, such as those by E. van
Meteren, Ev. van Reyd,
Pieter Bor and
Hugo Grotius, describe the year 1572
without even hinting to the mission. A few words are devoted to it in the works
by Johannes Meursius and
Pieter Cornelisz Hooft.
Meursius'Auriacus as well as his
Albanus mention as its members Dousa,
Niveldius (Willem van Zuylen van Nyeveld)
‘and others’, and summarizes the contents of their message as
follows: ‘They had to inform Queen Elisabeth about the distresses of the
fatherland; how the Duke of Alva, against all divine and human law, was going
to crush The Netherlands; that they, therefore, had taken up arms in order to
protect themselves, their wives and their children, and had come to pray her to
help the distressed with military and financial support out of pity for such an
unjust fortune’ (Gulielmus Auriacus, Leiden 1621,
p. 285: Per hoc tempus legati in Angliam abiere, Ianus Dousa Nordouicus,
Gulielmus Niueldius Arentsbergius, alijque: qui reginae Elizabethae patriae
aerumnas repraesentarent: Albanum praeter ius omne, fasque, Belgium
oppressum ire; ideoque arma sumpsisse, vt vxores, liberosque contra vim,
libidinemque tutarentur. ac venisse suplicatum, vti sortem tam iniquam
commiserata, milite afflictos, et stipendio, adiuuaret.). Meursius may not
be the most trustworthy historian of the events, since he mentions a second
mission of Dousa and others to Elizabeth in 1575-1576, which contradicts the
biographical facts of Dousa's life. The Dutch monograph by the famous
P.C. Hooft incidentally refers to the mission and adds three names to
the two mentioned by Meursius (Nederlandsche Historien,
in Werken IV, 1703, p. 299). The name
Neopyrgus, found in
Hadrianus Junius' letter to Cecil, may be a
mistake for
Niveldius. The mission is also recorded in a
contemporary manuscript chronicle, which I have not been able to consult
(Utrechtse kroniek over 1566-1576), fragments of which have been
published by
H. Brugmans, (Bijdragen en Mededelingen
van het Historisch Genootschap 25, 1904, p. 102, referring to fol. 93v of
the manuscript).
Much earlier and much more concrete information about the mission
is hidden in the Latin poetry of Dousa's Nova poemata. This booklet
reflects the political developments of the preceding years, particularly in the
town of Leiden, which had endured a suffocating and almost fatal
siege in 1574 with a happy ending on October 3rd, and had soon afterwards
enjoyed the foundation of the first Dutch university. Several months
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after these great events, in which Dousa had played an essential
part as the commander of the defence of the town and as the first member of the
future university board, he had his Nova poemata published,
‘Printed in our new Leiden University in 1575’ (In nova academia
nostra Lugdunensi excusum). An enlarged second edition followed the next year.
There is, firstly, a vague reference to the stay in England in an iambic poem
addressed to a certain ‘Guillelmus Erlaeus
Britannus’. This Englishman (it is tempting to speculate whether
the name Erlaeus has something to do with
Borlaeus, i.e. Cecil) had been exceedingly
kind to the ‘overseas guests’ (NP, sign. M i verso: transmarinos
hospites) and had honoured Dousa's poetical genius with a laurel wreath,
obviously under the influence of
Daniel Rogers, Dousa's former fellow
student in Paris, without really knowing the poet. Within the poem Dousa
introduces himself as ‘being from Noordwijk and called Jan
by his parents’, and declares himself willing to accept Erlaeus'
friendship, provided undeserved praise be dropped in the future.
A more explicit reference is found in Dousa's extensive satire to
his kinsman and fellow delegate Niveldius, whom Dousa reminds of their joint
trip to England, ‘when they both had left their fatherland, had been
driving for a long time not on land, but on the high sea, and finally, after a
warm welcome at Gravesend, had been sent by rowing boat to London and from
their to Kingston, to see the face of that souvereign, that Augustan sovereign
who does not have, has never had and will never have her equal in learning,
eloquence, beauty and piety’ (NP, sign. I i-r: ... cum patria simul a
tellure profectos,/Iactatosque diu non terris dico, sed alto,/ Exceptos tandem
hospitio Grauesanda Britanno / Remige Londinum porro transmisit, et inde /
Kinstonum, illius visuros Principis ora, / Principis Augustae: cui vt est nil
...). In a letter to Daniel Rogers, who had travelled from Kingston to London
to welcome him (NP, sign. Q vj recto: ad me Londinum Kinstono advolaris), Dousa
modestly refers to the mission as a ‘legatiuncula’, an
unpretentious mission which had been more favourable for himself in private
than for the commonwealth (NP, 1576, sign. Q v-v: ... vsque ad annum LXXII quo
felici meo magis, quam publico fato, in Britanniam vestram legatiunculam
communi nomine obiui).
Some other scanty allusions to the mission can be found in another
satire, addressed to his former teacher
Henricus Junius (NP, sign. I vij recto :
Non quia Londini me dum spe longius illinc / Invida tempestas, hinc publica
causa moratur) and in a poem to Daniel Rogers (NP, sign. N iij recto: medijs vt
in Britannis, / Londinique Lutetiam inuenirem).
Van Dorsten has suggested that Dousa's Ode to Elizabeth was his
solution to the problem how ‘to attract the attention of that snobbish
Queen’ (summary of Van Dorsten's paper at the International Congress for
Neo-Latin Studies at Amsterdam, in its Acta, München 1979, p.
336-7). Since the Dutch opponents of
Philipp II and his governor the Duke of
Alva could not but be considered rebels against their legitimate king, a Dutch
mission had no political and diplomatic status and consequently no admission to
foreign monarchs. Therefore, in order to approach other governments in search
of sup- | |
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port for their desperate cause, the Dutch had to make use
of other channels of international contacts. As for the erudite English queen,
it would be a possibility to address her as a citizen of the ‘Republic of
Letters’, the supranational humanist community of scholars and poets devoted to
studying and writing classical and particularly Latin literature and culture.
So, the best latinist among the members of the States of Holland, the
twenty-seven-year-old nobleman
Janus Dousa, was chosen to be their
spokesman to the English government. Dousa, aware of what was expected from
him, wrote the elaborate Latin Ode for the queen and sent it to her Treasurer
Cecil, who was asked by means of another Ode to hand it to her Majesty. The
erudite Elizabeth was supposed to appreciate such a cultural present, to read
the Latin text and will thus become acquainted with the reasons of the presence
of the Dutch mission, the miserable situation of the Netherlands and their need
of help. So far Van Dorsten's intrigueing view on the poem and its background.
However, the contents of the Ode to Cecil, seem to imply a slightly
different interpretation of the aim and the context of the Ode to the queen.
The Ode to Cecil may be summarized as follows:
Dousa will never forget the excellent meal and the day that made
him Cecil's guest. A better New Year's Day seems impossible. Impressed by
Cecil's sweet eloquence, he listened to him as to another Solon. However,
immediately after the meal, Cecil's account of the queen's answer plunged
Dousa's mind into sadness and darkness. He forgot the delicious food and was
not able to get to sleep. His only refuge were the Muses, and he wrote this
poem for the benefit of the Dutch and the commonwealth, so that the queen,
Cecil and all who love justice understand Holland's misery and consider the
people worthy of English support, and be willing to sacrifice Alva and his
Spanish army to the souls of the pious. May Cecil listen to him and his poetry
and cure his anxiety, even though this poetry does not herald Cecil's heroic
achievements. Such may be left to more gifted poets. Dousa has experienced
Cecil's efficient eloquence. Small wonder that the queen finds joy and comfort
in it, as well as other learned Daughters of the Sea, among whom Cecil's wife
is the most brilliant. How blessed is Cecil, for his noble birth, his trophies
and most of all for his life companion. Lack of talent prevents the poet to go
on in this vein.
If we take Dousa's text literally, it would imply, that a first
appeal of the delegates to the queen had been unsuccessful, that Cecil informed
Dousa about the queen's negative answer after a supper with him, which took
place on or around New Year's day 1573, and that this disappointing reply
caused Dousa a sleepless night as well as the composition of the Ode to
Elizabeth. So the Ode is not the delegates' first, but their second appeal to
the English queen for help, and it was not composed before the delegates left
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or during their travel, but in England, to be more
specific, in Kingston. Dousa's suggestion that it had been written within one
night, should not, of course, be taken too literally, since such indications of
limited time to compose a poem are very topical in Neo-Latin as well as other
literary texts.
Dousa opens his poem for the Queen with an allusion to the famous
first line of Horace's first book of
Odes: Regina magnis edita regibus, ‘O
Queen, offspring of great kings’. After this homage to her noble birth,
Dousa hails Elizabeth as raised by the Muses. Many other Horation phrases
throughout the poem prove that she is addressed indeed as a citizen of the
Republic of Letters and a connoisseur of ancient Latin literature, a humanist,
in short. In this sense ‘every reference is topical’ (Van Dorsten).
On the other hand, however, Dousa's numerous historical details and references
to the actual situation make the poem an effective justification of the revolt
against Philip's governor Alva, who had so impudently and cruelly violated the
legitimate ancestral rights of the Dutch population, which had been guaranteed
once again by Philip himself when he had left the Netherlands in 1559.
According to the poem, Elizabeth has been the only monarch who, with
God's help, dared resist the threatening decrees of the papal Council (of
Trent). In the Netherlands it is not allowed to be a real christian. The
Spaniards, who first attacked the kingdom of the Valois and caused the French
massacre of St. Bartholomew, now ravage The Netherlands with all kinds of
violence, and the Duke of Alva is devising worse cruelties. This tyranny of
Philip's substitute is the reverse of the peace and golden age and the
observance of the laws which the King had promised his subjects in the
Netherlands.
In such a situation, the poet states, it is only logical that the
Dutch people turn to the eloquent and just British monach, who had always been
the refuge of exiled christians. He hurries to add, however, that the Dutch do
not want her ‘to remove us from the laws of the King, to which we want to
be faithful, but to snatch us from the jaws of the foreign robber who is to
devour us’ (NP G iij verso: Non Regis vt nos legibus eximas / Nostri,
esse cuius nos iuvat in fide: / Sed vt peregrini latronis Faucibus eripias
vorandos). To underline his statement, Dousa turns once again to examples of
cruelty, this time the execution of the Counts of Egmont and Horne and Alva's
pressure on the French
king Charles to stop his favouring the
Huguenots, all machinations which resulted in the massacre and the murder
of Gaspard de Coligny. And what is even more, the
attempts on Elizabeth's life with arms and poison were also the Duke's work.
However, Heaven decided that the attempts missed their target.
Without any further argumentation Dousa adds that Heaven protected
the Queen against those attempts so that there be a lady (G iiij recto: vt
esset ... quae) to relieve the Dutch from the slavish yoke and restore their
ancestral rights. And confidently he ends his poem with the prayer that he soon
may see his fatherland restored to its former prosperity by God and ‘the queen
of the rich island’. Then she will be praised in more dignified poetry which
will survive the ages to come.
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There is no indication whatsoever that Dousa's
eloquent and strong plea for help had any success. As we have seen, he himself
considered his ‘legatiuncula’ more fruitful for himself in private than for his
country. Dousa could not foresee that his mission had indeed some use for the
benefit of his fatherland. The intensity of the Anglo-Dutch relations, both
political and cultural, was to increase substantially in the following years.
It was, therefore, important for Holland to have spokesmen with English
experience, and from then on Dousa was one of these. Small wonder that he was
sent to England for deliberation in the hectic days after the murder of
William of Orange in July 1584. In 1585 he
was among the members of an embassy to Elizabeth, guided by the pensionary of
Holland himself, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt. Many
promising Leiden students, among them his oldest son, had joined Dousa, whom
they knew as the prestigious trustee and, since some weeks, the librarian of
their university. On the Queen's request Dousa stayed in England for several
months after Oldenbarnevelt's return to Holland.
To thank the queen for her hospitality and benevolence, Dousa did
not content himself this time with one Ode, but composed a complete collection
for the queen, his Odarum Britannicarum Liber Ad D. Elisabetham
Britanniarum Franciae Hiberniaeque Reginam. Obviously, Dousa's
15-year-old son prepared the edition, since he wrote the dedicatory letter to
Daniel Rogers on behalf of his father. He also added his own
Britannicorum Carminum Silua to his father's collection (Leiden
1586). The collection opens with Dousa's Ode congratulating Elizabeth with her
birthday on September 7, 1585. Besides the Queen, we count among the adressees
of individual poems in the collection old friends such as
William Cecil and new ones such as
Robert Dudley, count of Leicester,
Philip Sidney, and many others.
As late as 1603, thirty years after his first trip to England,
Dousa still gives air to his admiration for the English queen by inserting a
Diuae Elisabethae Serenissimae Britannorum Reginae Elogium in his last
collection of Poetry, his
Echo (fol. 31). Indeed, his
‘legatiuncula’ had been most fruitful, at least for himself in
private.
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