As a reward, Roland was given a Flemish princess in marriage that died giving birth to his only son. The boy, Willem, was all but ignored by his father and raised by others at the court in Brussels, which proved a blessing. He received not only the standard training in the military arts but a good academic education. When Willem was eighteen, his father got into a dispute with another knight over a courtesan. It led to Roland’s death in an unauthorized duel. Since the circumstances tarnished the van Weir name, Willem was ordered by the Regent to leave court and return home to assume his duties as Lord of the Droger Land.
The stranger lord came back to a Duchy that was facing great challenges. A general lawlessness had arisen across Europe, fueled by adverse weather, brutal warfare, consistent famine and a series of horrific plagues. This time, the Droger Land’s isolation had not allowed it to escape the chaos. The integrity of its borders had been breached during the rule of the “absentee lords.” It was now attracting multitudes of unwanted visitors. Each summer, during the hungry months of July and August, small bands of homeless men and starving peasants from the interior German States made a wretched journey across the wide swamp seeking refuge and work in the more prosperous Droger Land. Most were desperate people who came in search of food. While some did find employment at harvest time, others simply stole what they could of the farmers’ crops and livestock. The buildup of sediment on the shallow lake floor made the distant island settlements extremely vulnerable to intrusions from the nearby swamp. The summer threat from Germany was more benign than the serious intrusions that came each winter from the Dutch coast.
Beginning in December, a more violent group of invaders entered the Droger Land over frozen footpaths in the marshland created by the arriving Little Ice Age. These winter trespassers were led by well-armed criminals who were banned from the coastal cities and walled towns of Holland. They would not only steal from the rural population but sometimes rape and murder. When Lord Willem arrived at his castle, he found it occupied by only a few servants and a small garrison of ineffective men-at-arms. These foot soldiers and the small force of mounted sheriffs could not protect the borders. Lord Willem recognized that his subjects were primarily being threatened during the coldest months of winter and the warmest ones of summer, by two very different intruders.
Willem’s first act as Lord was to reinstitute mandated military training for his farmers and tradesmen suspended by Lady Hester. That summer, interlopers caught intruding from the south were tried by the magistrate and sentenced to three months of hard labor. Once convicted, they were forced to dredge the lake to remove the excess layers of sediment that provided easy access to the settlements. The soaking soil was collected and moved on flat bottom barges to the islands or the mainland. Those caught late in the summer truly suffered, for they were forced to perform labor into the cooler months of autumn. Lord Willem demanded all serve their full sentence to discourage trespassers in the future. Yet, desperate people continued to test the Lord’s Will, and the dredging operation became routine each summer. The Droger Land benefited from the rich soil collected, and the southern part of the realm began to resemble the blue lake, Lady Hester had envisioned in her painting that still hung in the castle. The picture was one of the few worthy remembrances of her rule.
Lord Willem, well trained for war in Brussels, ordered a much harsher approach for the hardened criminals who crossed the frozen marshlands from the north. His soldiers, reinforced by a trained force of formerly victimized farmers, put all male winter trespassers to the sword. No man was spared. Only captured women, after being branded on the cheek, were allowed to return to the coast. The mark told others the fate of those who attempted to invade the land of this new warrior lord. After a host of summary executions and brandings, only the most hardened outlaws attempted to gain entrance. Within a few years, Lord Willem had secured the borders and had re-established the territorial integrity of the Droger Land.
Willem’s strong leadership was popular with his previously victimized people. Unlike his predecessors who governed remotely from Brussels, this bachelor lord made himself visible to all. He attended meetings of the Town’s Estate and returned full power to their deliberations. Education again became a priority, and he funded the construction of new schools. He instituted public works projects and championed any idea that improved the realm, even when the suggestions came from commoners. The people felt safer and the Duchy more prosperous under Willem’s rule. His subjects looked upon their new lord with affection.
It was a time of religious upheaval in the Low Countries and the Reformation was beginning to win converts across the Netherlands. Many became Sacramentarians, the forerunners of the Calvinist faith. Lord Willem, like his predecessors, was a practicing Catholic with private aversion to the Church and the excesses of its clergy. Willem promised Sacramentarians they could privately worship freely as long as they did not disrupt public order or cause unnecessary conflict with their Catholic neighbors. His tolerance would later speed the Calvinist conversion of the Dry Land. Yet Willem was a pragmatist and carefully and publicly protected the rights of the Catholic Church that were being firmly upheld by his new sovereign, Charles V. To show support for his King, he expelled the more militant elements among the new religions, such as the Anabaptists, whose outlandish behavior was considered a problem, even by fellow Protestants.
The recent invention of the printing press made books readily available in Holland. The most important book, the Bible, had been translated into the Dutch language and could be found in many homes. Willem purchased a wider assortment of reading material and built a reading room at the secondary school. It was the first library, and the public was encouraged to use the room. The increasingly literate population was glad to have more books available. Every year, Lord Willem added to the collection; he bought scientific texts that helped farmers and tradesmen, and a wonderful collection of world maps that excited even those who couldn’t read. In these early years of his rein Willem restored harmony and security to his realm and won the hearts of his people, who referred to him as “Willem the Good.”
The bachelor lord developed many warm relationships with young men from successful farm and merchant families. Willem made certain each was trained in the military arts and from them learned the mind-set of his most successful subjects. In the 1530’s, Henry V, now Holy Roman Emperor, moved to protect his holdings in Flanders against the rapprochements of Francis I of France. Willem, as a loyal vassal, felt compelled to assist his emperor. He gathered a force of well-armed, mounted men, including many of his Burger subjects, and joined Charles V’s Army in an invasion of French territory. It soon became apparent to Willem that the king’s expedition lacked competent planning.
On the withdrawal from France, after a disastrous campaign, Willem was part of the rear guard covering the Emperor’s retreat. He led his small cavalry band, along with others, in three charges that stunned the forward elements of the French Army and halted their pursuit. The pure ferocity of the charges allowed the Emperor’s other Hapsburg forces to escape to Flanders. Willem’s personal bravery gained him the respect of his French foes and the gratitude of his emperor. It also cost him the use of his sword arm, mangled by a French battle axe. His companions rallied and carried off their fallen commander. Upon reaching safe territory, the seriously wounded Lord was transported to a nearby castle, where he convalesced and grew fond of his host’s daughter.
Marion of Lille had Burgundian ancestry that could be traced to the Emperor’s own family tree. She was by all accounts a plain looking maid with a kind and gentle personality. Willem credited Marion for rejuvenating his spirit from the deep depression that accompanied the new limitations to his sword arm. With the blessing of the Emperor, they were married, and Marion retuned with him to begin their family in the Droger Land. During the campaign, Willem’s horsemen suffered many losses and their numbers were depleted by the brutal combat. However he had won the ador
ation of the battle-hardened men who survived and he would soon need each one of them. Another period of famine and war in Europe had created turmoil and new intrusions into his realm. Willem, after learning to wield a sword in his left hand, again began to police his domain. This time he hired a professional to supervise the ongoing dredging in the south. The engineer brought an assortment of new sophisticated tools to remove silt and complete the transformation of the southern landscape. Lord Derick’s canal was re-dredged using flat bottom boats with oak stakes attached to the hull to stir up the sediment on the bottom. Once stirred up, the natural current, influenced by gravity, carried the sediment north, allowing nature and his hard working pastoral farmers to deposit it across the northern grazing lands.
The deeper lake slowed the individual intrusions in the south, but it was no barrier against the more determined, organized, bandit gangs that sometimes crossed the swamp from Lower Saxony. Many German states were imploding with the social unrest brought on by Reformation. Luther’s ideas had sparked an ongoing conflict between the Catholic emperor and Protestant princes. It had also ignited peasant revolts and continuous secular violence throughout Germany. The brutality bred a new breed of thugs, former soldiers, better armed and much more dangerous than previous intruders. It concerned Lord Willem that far too often he found himself arriving late before being able to drive off gangs that already left too much death and destruction in their wake.
It also troubled Willem that his wife, Lady Marion, had been sickly since her arrival. She suffered from recurring high fevers and feelings of physical weakness. The illness led to their first two children being stillborn at birth. Marion did not recover her strength until a frustrated Willem, banished the male healer who was treating her illnesses with bleeding. He replaced the bleeder with a women healer who successfully treated her malaise with fruit juices and herbal potions. Once her health had returned, Marion gave birth to their first son Clifford and less than two years later, his brother Karl. William and Marion had no idea that Clifford would one day become a great Dutch Warlord in the coming conflict with Spain. Nor could they foresee that Karl would remold the family’s style of leadership, making it palatable to the new wave of democratic ideals that would soon sweep across Holland. Yet, they were able to watch their sons grow into bright, handsome and headstrong teenagers, inseparable, despite very different personalities. Willem saw to it that he trained both well in the art of war with help from his realm’s best men-at-arms.
Clifford was a natural leader and by the time he was fifteen commanded a detachment of mounted men against interlopers. He demonstrated skill and bravery during a few bloody engagements. He had a tendency to be vain and self-righteous, with occasional hints of aristocratic arrogance; well aware of his position as the next Lord of the Droger Land. Karl was a more relaxed young man; he a mellower disposition and, like his father, a natural political instinct which allowed him to get along well with everyone, including his conceited older brother. While both attended the secondary school in the Duchy, their mother had supplemented their education with a series of private tutors to prepare them for their future leadership roles. It was said that young Clifford, who loved history, once complained that Alexander the Great had Aristotle and he had to make do with an assortment of lesser mentoring.
The southern swamp was their playground and a place to escape the scrutiny of their father and his always watchful men-at-arms. The adventurous pair often hunted, fished, and explored this dangerous border of the realm alone. The bow was their weapon of choice, though Clifford once killed a wild boar with a lance. Lady Marion tried to curb these hazardous trips, but her husband often over-ruled her objections because he felt adventure enhanced their son’s warrior spirit. At least he did until the two teenagers returned one summer evening with a captured brigand and a number of visible injuries. It seems the boys were trapping more than fish and game during these tramps through the swamp.
That summer the family visited relatives who lived just outside Rotterdam. The two boys quickly grew tired of the city until their aunt suggested they sail on the estuary. Her husband owned one of the converted Rudderman Kaags built by Henri Roulfs. The boys taught themselves to handle the fast little boat whose speed and maneuverability amazed them. The Kaag was a far different craft than the canoes and barges available on Lake Derick. One day they insisted their father sail with them. As they had done on the previous sails, the brothers raced past every ship on the estuary. Their father Willem immediately enjoyed the pure speed of the little craft, often taking the tiller in his good hand. The Kaag had pulled away from every ship it encountered, until it met a larger vessel with a similar yellow cabin. There were two younger boys on that ship who laughingly kept letting the Kaag nearly catch them before pulling away. They soon tired of the game and pulled alongside a dock. Lord Willem told his sons to tie up at the same mooring.
Henri Roulfs was watching his own sons’ antics and was scolding the boys when Lord William disembarked and introduced himself. Henry knew of Lord Willem as the man who ruled his ancestral homeland. Willem had already made enough inquiries regarding shipwrights to know Henri was considered the most creative builder in Holland. The two men bonded immediately and Henri took Willem on a tour of his shipyard. He also sent word to Reylana that they would have three additional guests for the mid-day meal. While Reylana scampered about catering to their noble guests, Willem told Henri of his need for a new type of craft to guard his southern territories. After lunch, Henri suggested the boys take the Jacht for a sail while they continued their conversation. Young Clifford chose to remain, while Karl, Teewes and Petrus went sailing.
Henri sat at his writing table and questioned Lord Willem about the craft he needed. As he spoke, Henri listened to Willem’s needs and carefully drew a sketch of a vessel that was far different from anything he had ever designed. It had a stubby triangular keel and an oak hull strong enough to beach on any terrain. It was an open craft, with the bottom angled to displace the maximum amount of water on a shallow lake. The boat could be driven by the wind, using a single trapezoid sail, or, it could be rowed by ten men sitting two abreast. The bow area was re-enforced to allow for the placement of a small swivel gun with room for a gunner. The stern area could accommodate a tillermen and the vessel’s commander. Henri felt it would be faster than a canoe and capable of delivering fourteen heavily armed men to any location. Lord Willem was delighted with the design.
Henri gave Willem a rough estimate of the cost of building the vessel and suggested a few shipbuilders capable of the task, since his own allocation of timber was already committed to other projects. Lord Willem explained he wanted six of these vessels and would provide the quality and quantity of oak needed to build such a flotilla. Without further discussion, the two men bound the agreement with a handshake. During the earlier conversations, young Clifford impressed Henri when he told of the need for a strong hull to protect the crew against enemy projectiles and argued unsuccessfully for an additional swivel gun mounted at the stern. Henri incorporated the young lord’s idea about a sturdy hull into his final design.
Upon his return, Willem and his soldiers spent a few days wresting control of higher ground far out in the swamp from a band of trespassing Germans. That drier patch of ground had the perfect cluster of the oak trees needed. After the Germans were driven away, his men rapidly downed the trees and floated them to the Duchy’s sawmill. At the mill, the great windmill-driven saw blade struggled with the dense wet oak as it turned the logs into transportable timber. The timber was stacked on grain barges allowing the wood to dry on the trip to Henri’s shipyard. Lord Willem generously sent enough timber to build five flotillas and Henri returned his kindness by building a sailboat designed for shallower water as a gift to the family. That winter, Clifford was a frequent visitor to the Roulf’s home and participated in the fleet’s construction. Clifford made suggestions that ranged from beneficial to foolish. One of his best ideas was
to paint each boat light blue so they would blend into the color of the lake: a vainer proposal was to add a small top mast capable of flying his family’s crest.
On a calm sunny day in late April, when the waters of the estuary were tranquil enough to avoid swamping the small boats, the fleet began its journey to the Droger Land. The flotilla, led by the sailboat headed up the estuary. Henri hired the entire crew of a ship being overhauled in Rotterdam to deliver the gunboats. He brought along the ship’s captain, a friend, well seasoned in naval warfare. Henri hoped the French captain would teach Lord Willem basic naval tactics, while his sailors taught his men to row in unison, use the sail, and load and fire each swivel. With good wind, the oars were not needed until the boats reached the canal that led to the Droger Land. As they entered the canal, the winds diminished and the sailboat had to be towed. As the wind returned, Clifford halted the fleet just out of sight of the Keep and had the swivel guns loaded with powder. He returned the sailboat to the head of the column and had each gunboat raise a green banner which contained the family crest to each topmast. While his family and hundreds of residents looked on from the Keep, Clifford ordered the swivel guns to fire a salute as the little fleet floated past the stone fortification. Clifford’s parents and the crowd enjoyed the pageantry. No one enjoyed it more than young Clifford.
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