Spreekt u het Nederlands?

My original intention in coming to Leiden was to learn more about the English non-conformists. I could hardly have hoped to find a better friend than Bridget Robinson. I had hoped that perhaps a few inquiries among the market traders might point me in the right direction, but at the third stall a short woman was negotiating the purchase of a brace of pheasant in an odd mixture of English and Dutch, in an unmistakeably English accent.
Once it looked as though the trade was completed I asked whether she knew of any church congregations where I might be able to worship.
"God be thanked!" she exclaimed, and proceeded to ask me about my beliefs, whether I would consider myself a true catholic, or a Calvinist.
I admitted that my own beliefs were closer to those of Calvinist teachings, but that in honesty before God, I should be called a Brownist, believing that neither the catholic church, nor Calvinism gave liberty to the Holy Spirit to move freely in the hearts and lives of men.
For a frightening moment I wasn't sure whether her expression was veering towards outrage or astonishment but when she seized me in a warm embrace and insisted I accompany her back to her home my doubts were banished.
Home, for Bridget and the reverend John Robinson is Grone Point house, only a few minutes walk from Leiden University. And while Grone Point is clearly larger than needed for a single family it also serves as a meeting-place for the English separatist assembly in Leiden.
Although I don't have any pictures of Amsterdam or Leiden when the Robinsons lived there, a couple of paintings by Jan Vermeer from later in the century should give a fair impression of the way the towns looked.

A Delft Street, by Jan Vermeer	Delft, by Jan Vermeer

Comfortably settled in the kitchen of the house, Bridget fills me in on the background to their move to Holland.
She had married John the year before the Gunpowder Plot in London, which had been intended to remove the King from power, and which might, had the conspirators succeeded, have resulted in the Church of England being brought once more under the supremacy of the Pope. John Robinson had been granted the preferment of Saint Andrew's Church in Norwich, a town with a strong connection to the Dutch wool trade and several expatriate Dutch families. When King James issued his proclamation insisting on conformity with the Thirty-Nine Articles of Faith following the Hampton Court Conference, John felt that he could no longer continue in his position as a priest in the Church of England and they returned to live with Bridget's parents at Sturton-Le-Steeple. It was as a result of the move that the couple had joined the non-conformist assembly meeting at the home of William Brewster, at Scrooby in Northamptonshire.
While the assembly had hoped to be permitted to continue to worship privately in their own unique way, the laws of England in 1606 were such that they were liable to fines, imprisonment, and in some cases torture, and it was these conditions that prompted many of the assembly to move to Amsterdam three years after Bridget married.
The move to Amsterdam was no minor undertaking. Those members who had determined to make the move pooled their resources, hiring horses and a couple of carts which were loaded with such possessions as they intended to take to their new homes. It seemed as though the whole undertaking was in jeopardy when, on arrival in the town of Boston, the captain whose ship had been chartered for the voyage to Holland, was waiting by the quay with the town constables and a priest, ready to arrest the footsore travellers for sedition. (The picture on the left shows Boston as it looked from the air in the 20th century)
Rather than discouraging them, once the fines were paid and jailed members released, the majority of the travellers joined to watch in prayer while a couple of the menfolk were sent to the quay to find another vessel for the voyage.
Bridget tells me that the Brownist congregations that they had found in Amsterdam were not in harmony amongst themselves, let alone with the Church of England which they had shunned, and before the end of the year, the Scrooby assembly had determined that perhaps the least harmful course would be for them to move elsewhere in Holland.
Nearly four years after coming to Holland, in January 1611, John Robinson, William Jepson, Henry Wood, and his brother-in-law, Randall Thickins jointly purchased on behalf of the assembly, a large house called Grone Point, near the Leyden University. Although it would be May 1612 before they could begin to make use of the property.
While she was showing me the rooms in the house that are commonly used by the assembly I couldn't help but admire the virginals used to accompany the singing. The case of the instrument was unusually plain, without even the customary decorative papers, but to me, the sound when Bridget played a few short phrases of a typical foursquare hymn, was beautiful. With music in mind, I asked Bridget about the attitude of the assembly toward music and dancing as forms of recreation.
Although Bridget herself regards music as a perfectly acceptable form of recreation, she tells me that all too often dance is the back door through which the devil tempts innocent souls, and she presents me with a pamphlet (a treatise against daunses) which I am advised to read and consider prayerfully, for the benefit of my soul, although, she concedes that during a visit to Utrecht, not above two years ago, her husband and herself "were greatly entertained at some length" by a blind man who played upon a flute, sitting in the churchyard of the Cathedral, by name, Jacob van Eyck.

X:14                          % number
T:De lof-zangh Marie         % title
C:Anon (arr. J.van Eyck      % composer
O:Der Fluiten Lust-hof (1646) % origin. M:C|                         % meter
L:1/2                        % length of shortest note
Q:                           % tempo
K:C                          % key
V:1                          % voice 1
P:THEMA
d2 | d ^c | d e | f2 | f2 | g f | e d | ^c2 | e2 | f a | g f | e2 | d2 |
A2 | d ^c | d _B | A2 | d2 | f e | f g | e2 | a2 | e2 | g2 | f g | e2 | d2-|d2 |]
P:VARIATIE I
[L:1/8] d2 AB ^c2 A2 | d2 ed ^c2 A2 | d2 gf e2 c2 | f8 | f2 de fdef | g2 ag f2 gf |
e2 fe d2 ed | ^c8 | e2 AB cd e2 | fefg a2 ef | g2 ag f2 gf | e2 d2 eAB^c |
d8 | A2 B2 ^c2 A2 | d2 ed ^c2 A2 | d3 c _B2 AG | A8 | d3 ^c d2 e2 | f2 gf e2 de |
f2 ef gafg | e8 | a2 FGABcd | e2 ABcdef | g2 GABcde | f2 efgafg | e2 d2 eAB^c | d8-|d8 |]
P:VARIATIE II
dDEF GAB^c | dFGF ^cEFE | dFGF eGce | f8 | fFA_B cdef | gceg fadf | eA^ce dDAd |
^cAec A4 | eagf ed^cA | fefg aAFa | gGEg fDdf | eAdF GeA^c | d4 D4 | Aagf ed^cA |
dDFd ^cEAc | dDdc _BG c/d/B/c/ | A8 | dadf ecAe | fDdf eAce | fD de/f/ gGgf | e4 z a fg |
aAFG Aagf | [L:1/16] edcB AGFE FGAB cdef | g2fe dcBA G2g2d2e2 | f2AB cdef g2ag f2gf |
e2A2 d2^cd edcB A2Bc | d2c2 _B2AG FEFG A2D2 | d16-|d16 |]

To be continued...
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