A Dutch token to commemorate the protest of Hendrik van Brederode, Lord of Vianen against the Spanish Inquisition.
Hendrik van Brederode, Lord of Brederode, Vianen, Schoorl, 't Oog, Bergen NH and Viscount of Utrecht, was the eldest son of Reinoud III van Brederode and Philippote van der Marck. In 1557 he married Amelia van Nieuwenaar-Alpen in Vianen. They remained childless.
He became a member of the Oath Covenant of Nobles in 1565 and on April 5, 1566 offered the first Supplication to Margaret of Parma. Van Brederode convened the meeting in Sint-Truiden (July 14, 1566) and belonged to the Compromis of Breda (1567).
He recruited troops in Antwerp, brought some of them by ship to Vianen, while his commander Bombergen captured 's-Hertogenbosch. Hendrik tried unsuccessfully to master Utrecht and Amsterdam, but the army that he brought together at Antwerp under Jan van Marnix was defeated on 13 March 1567 at the battle of Oosterweel by General Beauvoir while the support by the Antwerp Calvinists was personally given by Willem van Oranje was stopped.
Brederode was appointed captain general of Amsterdam in March of that year. Brederode was deposed by the Spanish general Philip of Noircarmes in April, together with his friend Lenaert Jansz de Graeff, who was his adjutant.
When the resistance collapsed after the fall of Valencijn, his troops left Vianen and went to Germany. After Hendrik van Brederode had tried unsuccessfully to regain favor with Margaret of Parma, he fled to Emden on April 27, 1567.
In June 1567 he visited William of Orange in his castle at Dillenburg. Disappointed with his refusal to join the armed rebellion, he removed him from his will.
On May 28, 1568 he was sentenced in absentia by the Council of Strokes, but he had already died in exile on February 15, 1568 at castle Horneburg near Recklinghausen.
The token:
Obverse: The arm of Mucius Scevola with sword in fire.
Legend: AGERE . AVT . PATI . FORTIORA . 1566 (
ACTION OR EXPERIENCE MUST BE ENDURED)
Mucius Scevola was a legendary Roman youth, who is said to have distinguished himself in the early history of Rome.
He entered the enemy army with the permission of the Roman Senate during the war with the Etruscan king Lars Porsenna, to liberate Rome by murdering that king (508 BC). After the last king, Tarquinius Superbus, was deposed, he returned with the help of Porsenna and his army to capture the city of Rome. After a quick end to the war was foiled by destroying the bridge over the Tiber and the deeds of Horace Cocles, the Etruscans besieged the city. The siege lasted so long that Rome's supplies ran out and Mucius' proposal was met with much support.
Arriving in the Etruscan army camp - under disguise - while it was just payment of wages, he stabbed the writer of Porsenna, whom he confused with the unknown king, who - at least in Mucius' eyes - wore more expensive clothes than the king himself.
In the uproar that followed he was arrested, brought before Porsenna and threatened with death, he is said to have held his left hand burning over a brazier there to make offerings, to show the angry King he didn't feared death, and had it consumed in the fire, without giving a sign of sorrow. He went on to tell the astonished king that 300 young men had committed themselves under oath to kill him, for which he had first been appointed by lot.
Porsenna was frightened by this, made peace with the Romans and withdrew with his army. Since then, Mucius carried the cogna Scaevola, meaning "the left-handed". He was also assigned a piece of land by the Senate, later named after him the Mucia prata ("Mucian Meadow")
Reverse: ETSI . MORTVVS : VRIT . / CALC . VIAN (ALTHOUGH DEATH HE BURNS)
Diameter: 30mm
Mass:4,2 gram
The pictures below:
- Daalder of Hendrik Van Bréderode
- Oil on canvas painting: Mucius Scevola in the presence of Lars Porsenna by Matthias Stomer, early 1640's
Posted 07/11/2020 7:56 pm
