Pieter Cornelisz Brederode (1559–1637)

Pieter Cornelisz Brederode (1559–1637) was one of the first and most active diplomatic agents of the Dutch Republic. Between 1602 and his death in 1637, Brederode served the States General and the princes of Orange as envoy in Frankfurt, Heidelberg, and Basel, carrying out numerous missions to other places in the Holy Roman Empire and Switzerland. For decades, Brederode was in effect the States General’s liaison with the Protestant princes and cities in the German-speaking world.

Born in The Hague as the son of the local tinsmith, Cornelis Sybrandtsz, and Rocha Jansdr, Brederode was of burgher descent, and lacked the noble pedigree his name suggests. His family was prominent in The Hague, however, and various members of it, including his father, occupied high office in local government. In one of his letters, Scaliger suggested that the name had been given to him to ridicule his ‘presumptuousness’ and grand manners; this was manifestly untrue. Both father and son openly adopted the name and even the coat-of-arms of the most prominent noble family in the Northern Netherlands, which perhaps signifies that either Pieter Cornelisz’s father or his grandfather was the natural son of one of the lords of that name. On various occasions, Brederode’s relatively humble background affected his reputation. The French ambassador Buzanval, for example, in 1602 called him ‘a pure schoolboy with zero credibility’. Yet the illustrious name must also have acted as a shield in the German context, where the noble Brederode family was well known and respected.

In the 1580s, Brederode studied in Leiden (with Justus Lipsius), Orléans, and Geneva (with Theodore Beza and Denys Godefroy). While in Geneva, he socialized not only with prominent scholars such as Isaac Causabon, Jacob Lectius, and Simon Goulart, but also with noblemen such as Karl Zierotin. From 1589 onwards, he taught law at the University of Basel, publishing various scholarly works, and corresponding with scholars such as Lipsius, his Godefroy in-laws, and Scipio Gentili, before moving to Paris in March 1595. Here, in April, he married his first wife, Marie Guerreau (Denys Godefroy’s niece), and became an advocate at the Parliament and master of requests for Catherine de Bourbon, the sister of King Henri III of France, who was also the Calvinist regent of Béarn. At the age of thirty-six, Brederode had achieved the prominence and the impressive network matching his manners and his name, and his political career began.

Throughout his professional life, this career was geared—as it had been in Paris—towards serving the cause of international political Calvinism, as both his network and his understanding of his mission were deeply affected by his Calvinist outlook. While in Paris, he served as an unofficial agent for the States of Holland and Maurice of Nassau, and also represented the city of Strasbourg at the court of Henry IV. In the latter capacity, he successfully conducted long and difficult negotiations concerning the Carthusian monastery near Strasbourg, which Henry IV had ceded to the city in lieu of payment of a loan. During these negotiations, he worked with Jacques Bongars, the French Huguenot diplomat with a similar profile, who was a kindred spirit. These and other diplomatic services likely brought him to the attention of the States General, who appointed him in September 1602 as their official agent in Frankfurt. For almost two decades, Brederode occupied this important diplomatic post, which, as the Protestant German princes collectively represented potentially significant military and economic support to the Dutch war against Spain, was crucial to the Dutch Republic’s interests in the period. Working closely with John VI of Nassau in Dillenburg, and with his son John VII of Nassau-Siegen, Brederode contributed to the shaping of the Protestant Union with negotiations and publications. In the 1610s, Brederode reached the height of his influence. He was on very close terms with Frederick V of the Palatinate and his entourage, and was extremely well connected within the Union. His embassy contributed, therefore, to the alliance between the Protestant Union and the Dutch Republic. When the Bohemian Revolt broke out in 1618, Brederode was in a key position, and both the States General and the Prince of Orange eagerly sought his advice.

The rapid collapse of the Protestant cause in the Empire combined with the death in 1625 of his patron Maurice of Orange contributed to the dimming of Brederode’s political importance. Forced by the States General to stay in Heidelberg when this was no longer advisable, Brederode had to flee the city when it fell to Tilly’s forces in 1622, leaving behind his large and precious library, as well as, presumably, the greater part of his archive. His household settled briefly in the safe and familiar environment of Strasbourg, but within two years had to flee again: fearing arrest by the emperor, who now regarded the Dutch Republic as an enemy state, Brederode relocated to Basel, where he had lived before, and where he was provided with new instructions to work towards a closer union between the Dutch Republic and the Protestant Swiss Cantons for half his previous salary. He continued to be a prolific correspondent, however, and maintained close ties with other Dutch ambassadors of his generation (such as Cornelius Haga and Noël de Caron) and with protestant scholars in Switzerland and beyond. He retained also his connections with the Orange court, still being consulted late in his life by Constantijn Huygens on the argument of an otherwise unknown polemical writing in favour of the Prince of Orange.

Brederode died childless at the age of 77 or 78 in March 1637, outliving his first wife by no more than a year. He had married for a second time, only half a year earlier, the much younger Renée Godefroy, the widow of his friend Philip Camerarius and the daughter of his former professor Denys Godefroy. After three-and-a-half decades of service to the Dutch Republic, he signed his final letter to the States General only a week before his death, leaving his new library to his nephew Cornelius. In Basel, Brederode’s friend Theodore Zwinger praised him in his funeral oration to the packed reformed church, the text of which was published in German, testifying to his great reputation. Brederode’s political mission, however, was in shambles: dreams of the powerful Protestant union he had projected with John of Nassau had died long before him, and his diplomatic post with the Swiss cantons, to which he had devoted his final years, was discontinued.