EMLC Early Modern Low Countries 2543-1587 Stichting EMLC, supported by Utrecht University Library Open Access Journals The Netherlands emlc.19227 10.51750/emlc.19227 Article An Anglo-Dutch Power Couple: Lady Katherine Stanhope (1609-1667) and Jan Polyander van der Kerckhoven (1594-1660) Carlton Katharine Aynge

Katharine Carlton is a researcher and lecturer at the University of Huddersfield, specialising in early modern history. She is interested in the roles of English noble widows during the Tudor and Stuart periods, most recently collaborating with Professor Tim Thornton to co-author The Gentleman’s Mistress. Illegitimate Relationships and Children 1450-1640 (Manchester 2019; reprinted in paperback 2025).

 11 2025 9 2 369 389 Copyright: The Author(s). 2025 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

The marriage of William ii of Orange and Mary Stuart in 1641 has often been viewed as a social and dynastic alliance with far-reaching political consequences for the Houses of Orange and Stuart. The key appointments of the Anglo-Dutch couple Lady Katherine Stanhope and her husband Lord Heenvliet to supervise Princess Mary’s household have been seen as a deliberate power grab orchestrated by the couple themselves. This article argues a more nuanced view of their partnership, however, considering how intangible qualities such as status, motherhood, and widowhood shaped their diplomatic practices alongside more traditional advantages of political connections and access to wealth. The use of soft power and cultural exchange also shaped the couple’s reputation as they operated within the domestic realm of the princess’s household whilst juggling the political demands created by the exiled Stuarts and their supporters, highlighting the duality of their roles. Stanhope was also the wife of a Dutch diplomat and whilst appointed dame gouvernante and surintendant général respectively to the princess by Charles i, they operated without reference to Sir William Boswell, the king’s ambassador at The Hague until 1649. By examining concepts relevant to Stanhope’s agency, this article adds further perspectives to consider in relation to Anglo-Dutch diplomatic practice in the 1640s.

 Keywords Anglo-Dutch relations status diplomacy finance marriage gender

In 1641, two Anglo-Dutch marriages took place within weeks of one another. The marriage of Mary Stuart (1631-1660) to William ii (1626-1650), son and heir of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange (the leading politician, statesman and military commander in the Dutch Republic) took approximately eighteen months of painstaking diplomacy to negotiate and was celebrated on 2 May 1641 in the regal surroundings of the Chapel Royal, Whitehall. The bride and groom were children, aged nine and fifteen years respectively, and the long-term consequences of their union has been considered at length, and in great detail, by political historians from Pieter Geyl to Jonathan Israel.1 On the other hand, the marriage of Jan Polyander van der Kerckhoven, Lord Heenvliet, one of the diplomats sent to negotiate the Stuart-Orange marriage, to Lady Katherine Stanhope was a more rapidly navigated union of a widower and widow. It took place discreetly in a small village in Kent, and was largely responsible for their subsequent appointments to the princess’s household in the Dutch Republic.2 The Stanhope-Heenvliet marriage has not been considered in the same depth or from a gendered perspective, and it is important to address this politically and socially important union, because it established the couple’s influence upon Mary Stuart during her childhood and their guidance remained in place until the princess’s death in 1660. The dynamics surrounding this influence can be defined in terms of Stanhope and Heenvliet’s publicly visible roles, such as accompanying Mary Stuart (and later her exiled brothers) to court events and dealing with household appointments. Private activities were less overtly visible at the time and included concerns for their own children’s education and advancement. This poses questions around agency and motivations, particularly for Stanhope. While her marriage to Heenvliet was not part of the formal royal and princely processes of negotiation, it brought Stanhope access to key political figures such as the Princes of Orange and Queen Henrietta Maria. This prompts a number of questions: to what extent was her marriage a politically motivated union? Did she seek a politico-diplomatic role for herself? How did widowhood and motherhood shape Stanhope’s diplomatic and courtly practice and, on a more personal level, what wealth and intangible qualities did Stanhope and Heenvliet transfer across the North Sea in pursuit of their public and private agenda?3

A study of Stanhope and Heenvliet’s influence cuts across several historiographical categories, all of which have seen the impact of new thinking and ideas around female participation in international political activities. These also form a framework for thinking about the research questions posed above. Over a century ago, historians viewed the Stanhope-Heenvliet relationship in terms of how their own ambition and power played out within an explicitly political Orange-Stuart context.4 This approach assumed a unity of purpose and agency between Stanhope and Heenvliet from the beginning of their partnership; an assumption which can be questioned by examining the basis of their collaboration. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, Anglo-Dutch historiography has advanced significantly beyond the narrow hardline political approach. Helmers’s scholarship in particular draws attention to the importance of the many deeply connected interactions between the various Anglo-Scottish-Dutch public spheres and in maintaining a continental context for discussion of the conflict in the British Isles.5

An examination of ‘soft power’ has revealed the importance of princely and royal women to political discourse within the Dutch Republic and European diplomatic culture.6 The importance of portraiture can be seen in the inclusion of a portrait of Stanhope in Amalia van Solms’s rooms at Huis ten Bosch as part of a deliberate statement about status and gift exchange.7 This scholarship has driven forward an approach to Orange-Stuart court relationships and international ties which has advanced a great distance from the politically dynastic methodology of Geyl in the early twentieth century. Fresh approaches to the material culture of, and reading of, archival material are starting to reveal deep levels of Anglo-Dutch networking, suggesting increased significance and intimacy of such relationships.8

Stanhope and Heenvliet have featured as supporting characters within historiographical debates about Anglo-Dutch politics and soft power. By centring their experiences, this article seeks to bring disparate approaches together (e.g. art history and diplomacy) to suggest that Stanhope and Heenvliet shaped the courtly and politico-diplomatic cultures of Anglo-Dutch society in the 1640s. New Diplomatic History has broadened out the state-centric approach in order to focus attention upon personnel who were not formally appointed to ambassadorial roles using an ‘actor-centred approach’ under which designation ‘anyone involved in negotiating with others in order to maintain a position or to define future relations qualifies as a diplomatic actor’.9 Particularly relevant for Stanhope are further arguments that ‘status, rank, and age’ had roles to play in developing international social relationships.10 In more personal terms, the term Arbeitspaar (‘working couple’) describes a deliberately collaborative working partnership between husband and wife. Originally developed by Heide Wunder in relation to artisans and tradespeople, historians have applied the term to diplomatic couples, identifying three types of action – independent (i.e. husband or wife working individually), complementary, and as a team – which can also be applied to Stanhope and Heenvliet.11 This approach has also informed work focusing upon the roles of English diplomatic wives, placing them at the centre of international politics and intelligence networks, and is pertinent to Stanhope as it re-centres her connections and influence from England to the Dutch Republic.12 Stanhope and Heenvliet’s connections to international finance networks, and their ability to access money and credit for personal and political reasons are particularly overlooked aspects of their lives. Issues raised within private correspondence suggest that, at the intersection of politics and private finance, questions about financial literacy beyond traditional estate management and private economic settlements must be asked. By investigating her relationships with the international financier and arms dealer Jean Hoeufft and Dutch serial entrepreneur Samuel Sautijn, I will posit that Stanhope’s residence in the Dutch Republic facilitated her involvement in international high finance for political ends.

Using letters, diaries, property records, poetry, works of art, and cipher codes, the article begins with examining the politico-social origins of the Stanhope-Heenvliet marriage, then discusses how the couple navigated issues of nationality, land, and officeholding. The next section will consider the couple as diplomatic actors who provided a focus for the demands of exiled Stuarts and then how the reputations of Stanhope and Heenvliet were shaped by cultural factors in the Dutch Republic, and the accuracy or otherwise of these depictions. The essay argues that the dynamics of Stuart-Orange relationships were shaped as much by diplomatic marriages, such as the Stanhope-Heenvliet union, as they were by dynastic marriages such as that of Mary Stuart and Wiliam ii. This contention is expanded to argue that Stanhope’s position within this partnership has been overshadowed by Heenvliet’s, but after a hesitant approach to matrimony on the bride’s part and some opposition, their alliance created a strong courtly and diplomatic culture in which exiled Stuarts were able to operate in the 1640s.

The Genesis of the Marriage

In chronological terms, the origins of the Stanhope-Heenvliet marriage seem contingent upon their household appointments. This idea certainly fits a narrative that the couple were overly ambitious and grasping for power, evident in Worp’s analysis of Stanhope’s conduct as ‘an intriguer of the worst sort’.13 However, by considering the importance of Stanhope’s status as a widow and mother of young children, other explanations of the origins of this marriage present themselves.

The circumstances of Stanhope and Heenvliet’s first meeting is unknown, but it is likely that this took place in London during the Stuart-Orange marriage negotiations of 1640.14 Stanhope’s remarriage was naturally subject to the scrutiny of her family and friends and they considered the impact a second husband may have upon her landed, financial, and social interests. With no links to England prior to his marriage, Heenvliet’s foreign birth and status were a focus of interest for Stanhope’s advisors. The social disparity between bride and groom caused concern amongst her peers in England, as Heenvliet complained that Stanhope had been informed he was ‘from an obscure place and of a vulgar race’.15 Legally speaking, there was some basis for this in English law. Sir Edward Coke argued that there were several reasons the heir to an estate could refuse to marry a spouse, based on disparagement of vitium sanguinis, or blood. After listing villeins, tradespeople, the children of traitors, and bastards, Coke notes ‘aliens or children of aliens’.16 However, criticism of Heenvliet seems to have been as much about his status within the Dutch Republic as his foreign birth and was of long standing.17 In 1633, there was ‘a doubt amongst some nobles about his nobility’, when he acquired the Lordship of Sassenheim and, after presenting documentary evidence dating back to 1449, the Kerckhoven family was declared to be noble by established legal and academic authorities.18 The acquisition of the lordships and properties of Heenvliet, Sassenheim, and Teylingen by purchase rather than inheritance meant that Heenvliet faced questions about his social origins in the Dutch Republic, which resurfaced in England at the time of his second marriage. To allay Stanhope’s concerns specifically, the Leiden theologian Louis de Dieu investigated the Kerckhoven family’s noble lineage, including observations about the wealth and prestige of the Wesick family.19

Linda Porter has pointed to Stanhope having a ‘slightly racy past’, an opinion based upon a distinctly masculine reading of a gossipy letter exchanged by Lords Conway and Wentworth in 1636. The letter referred to Lord Cottington’s desire to marry the widowed Stanhope, her love for a married cousin, Carew Raleigh, and the artist Van Dyck’s ‘gallantery for that lady’.20 Unsurprisingly, Stanhope’s voice is missing within this letter written about elite men, by elite men, for the consumption of elite men: a more sensitive reading suggests a young, wealthy widow navigating a world of elite male (possibly unwelcome) attention. The six-year gap between the death of Henry Stanhope and his widow’s remarriage, coupled with the issues around status and nationality once Heenvliet declared his intention to marry her, do not suggest that she rushed into matrimony for a second time.

Stanhope did, however, have a strong incentive to accept Heenvliet. A letter written by Heenvliet in 1649 alluded to him settling the debts of the late Lord Stanhope before their marriage in 1641, as well as providing housing in Leiden and financial support for her children Philip and Catherine in subsequent years.21 Whilst longer-term financial considerations will be explored more deeply later in this article, the payment of large English debts with Heenvliet’s Dutch money or credit prior to the marriage points to an unequal financial relationship between the bride and groom in 1640-1641.

There is evidence to suggest that Stanhope was reluctant to accept the governess-ship of Mary Stuart and her appointment was a surprise to contemporaries. As Heenvliet wrote to Amalia van Solms, ‘my wife is visited every day by those of the Court (because she still keeps her room) as much out of curiosity as out of courtesy. My wife’s cousin had assured them that she had not wanted the charge of governess. Lady Dalkeith had requested her aunt Lady Denbigh and almost all the court solicited for her.’22

That Princess Mary would need a new governess after her marriage was hardly a surprise – the incumbent, Lady Roxburgh, was also responsible for the welfare of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Henry by 1641, so working internationally was not practical for her. Roxburgh and the other candidate for the governess-ship, Lady Denbigh, were in their mid- to late fifties by 1641 and married to noblemen in the British Isles, whereas Stanhope was thirty-two with children the same age as Princess Mary, two of whom also travelled to, and were educated in, the Dutch Republic. From the Stuart perspective, Stanhope’s relative youth, widowhood, remarriage, and motherhood enabled the development of a family structure for the princess. These factors, combined with Heenvliet’s existing household at Teylingen, provided an alternative and formative home for Mary Stuart, away from the politics and courts of The Hague. Alternatively, the Stanhope-Heenvliet marriage does not form a key part of surviving Dutch diplomatic correspondence, indicating it was not a strategic aim from the Orange point of view. Whilst evidence points to Stanhope’s reluctance to both remarry and assume office, Heenvliet’s actions demonstrate the opposite. De Dieu’s report was written and sent in November 1640, suggesting Heenvliet had proposed remarriage only six months after the death of his first wife. His payment of Stanhope’s debts, and, as will be demonstrated, generous dower provision in the event of his death, may have bought her consent alongside pressure from Charles I. Heenvliet’s comment, ‘the King of England, for the advancement of my marriage, contributed much’, infers a resolution of his status as an alien or royal pressure placed upon Stanhope to consent to the marriage.23 It appears, therefore, that the placing of Stanhope and Heenvliet into Princess Mary’s Dutch household was engineered by the monarch and the ambassador rather than bride and groom, and went ahead despite lobbying against it from influential English courtiers.

 Issues of Personal Finance and Status

The family-based financial and social issues faced by Stanhope and Heenvliet in the 1640s were affected by international personal relationships, status, office-holding, and landownership. Whilst her marriage settlement with Heenvliet confirmed ‘a joyncture of one thousand pounds p[er] ann[um]’, reinforcing a settlement made shortly before their marriage in February 1641, it is unclear how this would be paid, and which financial systems Stanhope would have to navigate in the event of Heenvliet’s death. The jointure could have been paid from landed income, where Stanhope would be dependant upon tenants paying their rents, or a contract-based cash annuity for example.24 As indicated previously, Heenvliet had settled Stanhope family debts prior to marriage. After the marriage, there was something of a reversal of the money flow, with Stanhope’s interests in England enabling them to form a basis for their politico-social activities in the Dutch Republic. This was important because it formed a key aspect of Heenvliet’s social and financial standing and reflected the couple’s financial liquidity at a time of civil disruption in England.

Stanhope’s marriage to a Dutch national, her residence in the Dutch Republic, and the birth of their two children meant that the questions of financial support for her and all her children took on international dimensions. The flow of money between England and the Dutch Republic and vice versa can be detected through examining Stanhope’s income streams in addition to revenue from their household appointments, made by Charles i but paid for by the Dutch.25

Her position as widow of Henry, Lord Stanhope, entitled her to dower or jointure income from the Stanhope’s Nottinghamshire estates, an entitlement negotiated with his father, Philip Stanhope, 1st Earl of Chesterfield, at the time of her first marriage. Despite her remarriage, Stanhope retained this jointure and whilst it was, in theory, worth approximately £1000 in 1650, by that time rents were not paid in full and there were substantial arrears.26 John Boughton, Stanhope’s servant, had to petition the House of Lords in March 1643 for payment to be made directly to his mistress, rather than via Chesterfield.27 That this payment (when it was forthcoming) was to be made directly to Stanhope suggests that the money was transferred to her in the Dutch Republic, where she was preparing for the birth of her son, Charles Henry.

Stanhope was also a co-heiress of her father’s extensive Wotton inheritance in Kent, along with her three sisters Hester, Margaret, and Anne. Despite the existence of the elder Stanhope children, attention was focused upon some of these lands as providing an income for Heenvliet and his children by Stanhope in the event of her death. Heenvliet raised this issue in a letter to his father, connecting his legal status in England to his (in)ability to access income from the Wotton estates: ‘I begged His Majesty to grant me denization and to be able to enjoy the revenue that my wife had made me if she were to die.’28 However, due to his permanent residence in the Dutch Republic, the issue of Heenvliet’s successive legal statuses of alien, denizen, and naturalized subject in England affected his right to hold, buy, and sell land there and remained problematic until 1660.29 Stanhope’s financial settlement of May 1641 was signed before Heenvliet’s denization had been granted and he had certainly been involved with transactions involving the Wotton inheritance after his marriage but before denization.30 When Heenvliet settled the £1000 annual payment upon Stanhope in May 1641, he described himself in terms of his Dutch office-holding, including his role as ‘Ambassador of the States general of the United Provinces to his Maty of great Brittaine’. It would be March 1642, immediately prior to Heenvliet’s departure from England to the Dutch Republic, before he apparently gained denization, along with his appointment to the princess’s household.31 Two events in quick succession concentrated Heenvliet’s mind upon his status. The first was the hasty departure of the princess’s suite from England to the Dutch Republic, followed by Stanhope’s pregnancy.32 Applying for English denization or naturalization yet committing to service to the Orange family in the Dutch Republic was a reversal of usual migration practice, where the alien intended to stay primarily in his or her adopted country. Heenvliet indicated that the promise of office, a title, and landed income were tied into his application for English status and were clearly more pertinent to him than integrating into English life. This is even more striking considering his ambassadorial role representing Prince Frederick Henry in 1640-1641, suggesting a flexible approach to nationality and loyalty. The conundrum of exercising English-based status and authority whilst residing and operating in the Dutch Republic were at the heart of Heenvliet’s continual efforts to clarify his rights throughout the 1640s. As he put it, ‘I and my children would be strangers here’ [in the Dutch Republic], and thus unable to serve the Prince of Orange. Frederick Henry advised that the English barony could be bestowed upon a son instead of the father, thereby circumventing the immediate need for a change of Heenvliet’s status. Nevertheless, Heenvliet raised the problem of his status with royal officials in November 1642, March 1645, during Charles I’s imprisonment in late 1648, and later with the exiled Charles Stuart in June 1649.33

Heenvliet’s desire for an English title may have focused upon his son with Stanhope, Charles Henry, but the possibility of his (and Anna Wesick’s) daughter Walberg becoming an English countess in 1646 has been overlooked, even by historians keen to emphasize Heenvliet’s social ambitions.34 To promote a marriage between Walberg and Thomas Howard, younger brother of the Earl of Suffolk, Howard’s uncle, the Earl of Berkshire, appealed to Heenvliet’s sense of status, telling him ‘that my daughter, to all appearances, was born to be the Countess of Siffolck’.35 Financial issues were also important with monetary support from Stanhope’s Wotton estates due to arrive in the Dutch Republic the day after the marriage. It is unclear, however, whether this refers to costs associated with the wedding ceremony or was part of a marriage settlement.36

Heenvliet’s nationality, social and financial ambitions were clearly interlinked, and the problems surrounding his denization were in themselves representative of an English constitutional problem in microcosm – the challenge and curtailment of the Royal Prerogative (and therefore Charles I’s authority) by Parliament. His ambitions to hold office in the Dutch Republic whilst also acquiring an English title via Stanhope were only partially fulfilled throughout the 1640s. As it turned out, Heenvliet’s death two months before the Restoration brought Charles Stuart to the throne in England, rendered his status in England somewhat academic; it was the regranting of the Wotton titles and lands to, and naturalization of, Charles Henry after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 that proved to be permanent.37 In terms of the Stanhope-Heenvliet working partnership, her social status, her landholding in England, her access to money and credit from both sides of the North Sea, coupled with their landed interests and service in the Dutch Republic, provided the bases of their twenty-year personal and professional collaboration.

 The Benefits to the Stuart Cause

Once established in the Dutch Republic, Stanhope and Heenvliet provided a structured household within which exiled members of the Stuart family and Royalists could operate. Their duties extended, temporarily, in Spring 1648 to include responsibility for the welfare of the fourteen-year-old Duke of York immediately after his escape from England.38 The couple were required to balance a parental concern for the princess’s health and welfare within the contexts of the changing political fortunes of the English monarchy and questioning of the value of the Stuart-Orange alliance in The Hague. These factors, along with domestic tensions within the household, presented fault lines that could have either challenged the unity of the couple’s approach or reinforced their working partnership. Tying together the household issues and the support for the Stuart cause throughout the 1640s enables a deeper examination of the foundations for Stuart activity in the Dutch Republic.

Mary Stuart’s new household in The Hague took some time to establish, and Stanhope played an active role in the recruitment of key personnel in addition to the English servants retained as part of the Stuart-Orange marriage contract.39 In February 1642, Heenvliet reported to Amalia van Solms that the couple were recruiting a secretary for the princess and that Stanhope’s preferred candidate was Isaac Doreslaus, a Dutch national recommended by her physician Mayerne and Heenvliet’s diplomatic colleague Joachimi.40 The secretarial appointment was still unresolved in April 1643, when Queen Henrietta Maria made clear her objection to Doreslaus and by which time Stanhope argued that the appointee should be English, otherwise the princess will ‘forget the affection of her nation’.41

Further issues arose with court colleagues within the first twelve months of Stanhope’s residence there. Mary Stuart’s chaplain John Drury initially hoped that Stanhope would bring order to the ‘unsettled’ state of the household once Lady Roxburgh had returned to England and he offered to help find a tutor for her son Philip. Their relationship broke down completely in March 1644, when Drury wrote a letter to her which ‘incensed hir & hir husband Monsieur de Heenvliet irreconciliablely against me’.42 Drury’s future wife, Dorothy Moore, wrote that in addition to opposing his religious teachings, Stanhope spread false information about his political leanings at a sensitive time in England.43 At a more domestic level, a scandal involving Mademoiselle La Garde, one of Princess Mary’s ladies-in-waiting, peaked in mid-June 1643 with her hurried withdrawal to Heenvliet’s property at Teylingen, where she sought Stanhope’s advice.44 Stanhope also had to accommodate the secretary of the French embassy, Monsieur Brasset and his family, as he proved influential in persuading her to return to France.45

As Heenvliet pointed out, the La Garde incident also coincided with Stanhope’s ‘accouchement’ and the baptism of the couple’s son Charles Henry, adding further tension and domestic difficulties to Stanhope’s recovery from the birth.46 Summer 1643 brought further controversy when Alexander Hume, the master of the princess’s household, took exception to Stanhope dining separately from the rest of the household, voicing his concerns to Huygens and Amalia van Solms that this separation was deemed acceptable during her pregnancy in 1642-1643, but not afterwards.47 By 1644 Stanhope was confident enough to take independent action when William ii first spent the night in his wife’s bedroom before the agreed date of consummation. Stanhope unilaterally complained to Princess Amalia, who informed her she was worrying unnecessarily.48 Despite her protestations, there was little an unappeased Stanhope could do, apart from writing a letter to Goring about how to broach the delicate matter with the queen.

It is against this difficult initial background – her possible reluctance to remarry and the settling of the fractious court of a young girl transplanted from her accustomed surroundings, all the while dealing with her own ill health, pregnancy, and child-rearing in an unfamiliar country exacerbated by the escalating political situation in England – that Stanhope may be considered dependent upon Heenvliet’s support. Whilst she seems to have had limited agency in the initial appointment, Stanhope was ultimately proactive in shaping the princess’s household, mediating between the different courtly cultures within the Dutch Republic, England, and the English court in exile. Her pregnancy and the birth of Charles Henry arguably enabled Stanhope (with the support of Heenvliet) to structure the hierarchy of the princess’s court to her own advantage. The La Garde scandal highlights that recovery from childbirth was not a barrier to Stanhope’s involvement in court politics and that the couple’s castle at Teylingen had started to be a focus for courtly business by June 1643. Their reputation for working as a united partnership was cemented by 1644, when William Frederick, the stadtholder of Friesland, Groningen, and Drenthe referenced a conversation he had in 1644 about the Orange-Stuart marriage, ‘very free from Heenvliet and Madame Stanhope’, implying that they acted as a political unit and that had the discussion taken place in their presence, it would have been far more guarded.49 Their response to domestic opposition within the princess’ household united Stanhope and Heenvliet and reinforced their practice as a working partnership approximately two years after the arrival of the princess in the Dutch Republic. This provided a secure alliance and physical base for the support of exiled Royalists, which grew in importance throughout the 1640s.

Within this context it is interesting to note that following his escape from England in 1648, James, Duke of York made his first landfall in the Dutch Republic rather than France, home to his mother (as would Henry, Duke of Gloucester in 1652). Nevertheless, support for the Stuart position began as soon as Princess Mary and Queen Henrietta Maria arrived in the Dutch Republic and Heenvliet played a consistent role in fundraising for the Royalist war effort. As an intermediary between the Royalists and the Prince of Orange, he was ideally placed to broker credit deals between the two and provide support for those selling assets to raise cash, as he wrote to Prince Frederick Henry:

Mr Goring has returned and […] raised some money in Antwerp on the pearls and smaller stones, but not so much the big ones, so much that on Saturday night we started again to talk about finding money on the large pieces by the authority and credit of Your Highness.50

Stanhope’s role in fundraising and financial dealing is more difficult to pin down, as her letters do not survive in the same quantities as Heenvliet’s, and it is through his references to her activities that it is possible to assess her contribution to the Stuart cause.51 In a letter dated March 1644, Heenvliet expressed concern that Stanhope’s English property would be sequestrated due to her correspondence with the queen.52 The implication of Stanhope’s active involvement in supporting the Stuart cause is made more concrete in a ciphered letter written to Jermyn a couple of months later: it concerns Stanhope’s involvement in securing a weapons deal with the serial entrepreneur Samuel Sautijn, which also involved the pledge of some jewels.53 This deal stands in contrast with Boughton’s profession of Stanhope’s loyalty to Parliament a year earlier. Heenvliet was familiar with Sautijn’s involvement in a journey to Morocco, on behalf of the States-General in 1639, and it was presumably his knowledge of the merchant’s business skills that established the connection to exiled Royalists.54 Sautijn proved to be an intermittent presence in Stanhope’s personal business dealings, as she turned to him to provide credit and finance for Philip Stanhope’s journey across Europe to Italy in 1650, extending their involvement from political to personal credit.55 The intermingling of professional and personal finance can also be seen in relation to the La Garde scandal of 1643. In July 1644, Heenvliet wrote to Jean Hoeufft in Paris about La Garde’s finances, mentioning an intermediary ‘Mr Santin’ (possibly Samuel Sautijn). Hoeufft was also assured of Stanhope’s greetings and service, suggesting she was on friendly terms with him by this date.56 Stanhope and Heenvliet’s proximity to entrepreneurs associated with brokering military deals throughout the 1640s is striking. Although correspondence does not suggest they approached Hoeufft for military reasons, they were certainly well placed to do so by the mid-1640s. For Stanhope, her residence in the Dutch Republic had an impact beyond national boundaries: it enabled direct access to international finance and dissembling to Parliament about her real activities.

In intelligence terms, Stanhope’s name is listed in a handful of cipher codes captured by Parliamentarians after the Battle of Sherburn-in-Elmet in 1645; the need to protect her identity indicates involvement in secret Royalist dealings.57 The survival of these sensitive documents suggests that she would feature in other ciphered correspondence, but although Stanhope corresponded directly with Henrietta Maria throughout the 1640s, her name does not feature in the queen’s cipher keys that were taken in 1645. At present the intelligence aspect of Stanhope’s activities remains circumstantial, but Nadine Akkerman links Stanhope’s later appointment as postmaster-general in 1664 to espionage, and as implying a degree of familiarity and competence with spycraft.58 Further, Carolyn James suggests convincingly that Stanhope’s success at covering her tracks means historians struggle to reconstruct her espionage work.59

Under the supervision of Heenvliet and Stanhope, Mary Stuart’s household in the Dutch Republic became a base for a very young princess centred on concerns around her health, education, and development. Extending to Heenvliet’s property at Teylingen, the household also developed into a focus for international financial dealings, arms trading, spycraft, and place of political asylum during the 1640s. The personnel were therefore diplomatic and political actors connecting The Hague courts and the Stuart exiles across Europe outside conventional diplomatic norms. By connecting these concepts to those of age and status in section one, it is possible to frame Stanhope and Heenvliet’s activities within the ‘New Diplomatic History’ and as a successful Arbeitspaar working on an international scale.

 Poetry and Portraiture

The presence of Stanhope and Heenvliet was also notable in portraiture, poetry, and on stage as fictionalised characters in a play presented to members of Dutch courtly society. Drawing upon elite cultural understandings of symbolism and allusion, such material provides subtle evidence of soft power and influence which complemented that of explicit political office holding and wealth explored in previous sections. It is therefore worth reflecting upon how these representations affected their reputations or vice versa.60

Stanhope’s portrait was included as one of a series of twelve Anglo-Scottish noblewomen that Henrietta Maria possibly gave to Amalia van Solms upon her arrival in the Dutch Republic and were listed as on display in Huis ten Bosch between 1654-1668.61 As a collection, the portraits served as diplomatic gifts highlighting the Stuart alliance and were also part of an extensive collection of portraiture owned by Frederick Henry and Amalia van Solms and displayed in the latter’s private apartments.62 The inventory lists the portraits as being in gilded frames designed to be displayed together, but the painted company does not include Ladies Richmond, Roxburgh, or Denbigh, all of whom accompanied the queen and princess to the Dutch Republic in March 1642.63 This collection of women was therefore not a representation of those who accompanied the royal party, nor does Stanhope’s portrait imagery suggest that she was deliberately depicted as the wife of one of the diplomats who negotiated the Stuart-Orange marriage. Saskia Beranek argues convincingly that hanging a portrait collection of courtly women in Amalia van Solms’s gallery ‘might situate the resident within the circle of courtly feminine graces in a gallery of beauties’.64 This is reminiscent of the description of a visit made by Henrietta Maria to Marie de’ Medici during the latter’s visit to London: ‘The Queen of Great Britain was waiting in the bedroom of the Queen her mother, with the greatest and most beautiful ladies of the Court.’65

At a more personal level, writers associated with Heenvliet’s father, the theologian Jan Polyander van der Kerckhoven and therefore possibly commissioned by him and consumed by his contemporaries, composed epithalamia in celebration of the Stanhope-Heenvliet marriage. Caspar Barlaeus, Daniel Heinsius, Peter Scriverio, Marcus Boxhornius, and Nicholas Heinsius wrote in praise of the couple, referencing their illustrious ancestry, widowhoods, and the international nature of their relationship. More traditionally, the poems also referenced classical allusions to Aphrodite/Cytherea and the theme of love.66 These poems were also printed and published, but whether they were read at the wedding, given as gifts to guests, or offered as presents once Stanhope and Heenvliet arrived together in the Dutch Republic for the first time is unknown. At the very least there was a Kerckhoven family interest in epithalamia during the 1640s, as the same poets produced verses to celebrate the marriages of Heenvliet’s daughters Anna and Walberg in 1640 and 1646 respectively.67 The epithalamia were also part of a wider Dutch vernacular tradition of wedding poetry which became more fashionable throughout the seventeenth century, reaching a peak in the early eighteenth.68 Such poems were a deliberate social statement about the high status of the couple and indicate the intellectual circles in which they moved, especially as they were written in Latin rather than Dutch. A further poem in celebration of Stanhope, also in Latin, was produced in 1645 by Constantijn Huygens, statesman and secretary to the Prince of Orange. Interestingly, this saluted her as ‘Brave Sir Henry Wotton’s niece’, referring to her great uncle, the English diplomat, who was appointed Stuart ambassador to The Hague in 1614-1615.69

In a less celebratory context, Marika Keblusek has drawn attention to a play dated 1643, which was associated with the court of Elizabeth Stuart, describing it as ‘a biting, sometimes malevolent satire’. Entitled L’ Acteonisation du Grand Veneur d’Hollande, it was based upon the myth of Diana and Acteon, with Heenvliet clearly identified as the focus.70 Freed from the constraints of Heenvliet‘s friendship or patronage, the playwright portrays him as a dissembling liar who had to purchase his position within society, who relied upon his marriage to an English noblewoman in order to advance his career, and who was eventually destroyed by his own ambition. As demonstrated in the section about the genesis of the marriage, and as Keblusek indicates, this was a view familiar to the educated, elite audience at Elizabeth Stuart’s court.

Whilst widowhood left Stanhope vulnerable to accusations of sexual incontinence, her depiction as an adulteress escaping scandal by marrying a wealthy foreign diplomat whom she then cuckolded in L’ Acteonisation is in contradiction to her position within the princess’s household. It is unlikely that Charles i and Henrietta Maria would have appointed a disreputable woman of questionable morals to supervise the development and education of their very young, newly married daughter. Furthermore, as outlined above, Stanhope had to be persuaded to remarry in 1640-1641 and also faced pressure from the king rather than escaping a personal scandal. This soft power agenda spoke to the elite political classes of The Hague and positioned Stanhope as both transgressive adulterer and idealised vision of feminine courtly grace.

 Conclusion

Adopting an interdisciplinary approach focused upon the Stanhope-Heenvliet relationship raises questions about the dynamics of international marriages beyond the Anglo-Dutch world. Investigating widowhood, motherhood, cross-border financial networks, and wealth transmission expands understanding of women’s competence, political capital, and soft power, positing the question of their relevance to similar relationships in other territories.

The international nature of Stanhope and Heenvliet’s personal relationship fed into their political activities with cultural capital, social status, and finance crossing the North Sea between her landed interests in England and his patrimony in the Dutch Republic and vice-versa. In the 1640s Heenvliet did not appear prepared to relinquish his Dutch lands or titles to acquire English property; a dilemma that would be faced by Charles Henry in later decades. Likewise, Heenvliet’s inter-generational pursuit of English social status via marriage, influence, and financial manoeuvring can be seen as a continuation of his purchase of Dutch landed estates and his office-holding, and was arguably more ambitious than his most hostile critics have argued. Throughout the 1640s Heenvliet’s social pretentions became more contemporary, dependent upon Stanhope’s social capital, reflective of service to the English crown, and on matrimonial connections to England, and less retrospective or dependent upon the nobility of his forebears. These pretensions were, however, manifested in the Dutch Republic rather than England.

For Stanhope, the six-year widowhood prior to remarriage does not indicate an enthusiasm for remarriage in general, and whilst her marriage to Heenvliet was promoted by a politically motivated ambassador and monarch, it seems unlikely that Stanhope initially sought a political role for herself. As she lacked the experience of the Stuart court that her rivals enjoyed, her practice as a governess was shaped by motherhood in its various formats (e.g., as mother of younger children or teenagers, as stepmother). Her role as a mother figure to Mary Stuart cannot be underestimated, shaping as it did the structure and personnel of the princess’s household, her education, religious practice, and personal development. With reference to her Dutch family, motherhood and step-motherhood meant Charles Henry’s English ambitions were shaped from birth by his parents, and Stanhope’s financial and social influence can be seen clearly in relation to Walberg Kerckhoven’s marriage. Widowhood allowed Stanhope to be a respectable maternal figure, well-versed in transacting financial affairs independently, but also added weight to her depiction in L’Acteonisation.

Contemporaries commented upon Heenvliet’s ambition and reputation as a social climber, so his portrayal has a firm basis. Stanhope’s silent, painted presence within the princely household also speaks to Anglo-Dutch relationships and soft power politics. Both fictional and painted Stanhope were figures of narratives created and consumed by others. As a member of a gilded group, the painted Stanhope was an idealised version of the real person, communicating figurative and literal messages of beauty, virtue, and international influence transmitted by Princess Amalia and Queen Henrietta Maria. As such, and coupled with her fictional portrayal, she has become subsumed within the reputations of her second husband and exiled Royalists, but surviving letters and ciphered correspondence demonstrate her independence of mind.

At a time of conflict, Stanhope and Heenvliet were able to access funds in England. Stanhope inherited her Wotton estates in 1630 and had been a widow for six years by 1640; this independence meant that she was accustomed to negotiating financial issues such as debt, wardship, and jointure provision. This experience developed very quickly in the Dutch Republic, as her network of financial contacts expanded to Paris and later, Italy. By 1650, Stanhope and Heenvliet were well positioned to deal with future crises on behalf of their families and Stuart exiles, both of whom would look to them for support during the English Republic and early years of the first stadtholderless period in the Dutch Republic.

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Geyl, Orange and Stuart; Israel, The Dutch Republic. I would like to thank Prof Tim Thornton and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and guidance.

Kerckhoven married Anna Wesick of Amsterdam in 1620. For the date of their marriage see The correspondence of James Ussher, 831. See Briefwisseling van Hugo Grotius, xi, 137, in which Wesick’s death was dated 12 March 1640; Katherine Wotton married Henry, Lord Stanhope in 1628, by whom she had three surviving children: Mary, Catherine, and Philip, born 1629-1633. Henry Stanhope died in 1634: Poynting, ‘Stanhope’.

By concentrating on the 1640s, this article focuses upon a period of civil war in the British Isles and the governance of the Orange stadtholders in the Dutch Republic. The deaths of Frederick Henry, Charles i, and William ii within a short time (1647-1650) brought significant political changes and issues relating to the stadtholderless period after 1650 but which are beyond the scope of this work.

De briefwisseling van Constantijn Huygens, iii, 159. Geyl, Orange and Stuart, 11, implies that Heenvliet ‘pledged his allegiance’ to the Stuarts by marrying Stanhope, rather than accepting the position of head of Mary Stuart’s household.

Helmers, The Royalist Republic; Helmers, ‘The Spanish Match’; Helmers and Lamal, ‘Dutch Diplomacy’.

See Jardine, Going Dutch. For the royal and princely courts at The Hague headed by Elizabeth Stuart, Amalia van Solms, and Mary Stuart, see Akkerman, Courtly Rivals; Tiethoff-Spliethoff, ‘Role-Play and Representation’,174. Amalia van Solms (1602-1675) was married to Prince Frederick Henry and therefore mother-in-law of Mary Stuart. She had also been lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth Stuart (1596-1662), sometime queen of Bohemia, who lived in exile in the Hague between 1621 and 1661, and was the sister of King Charles i and therefore aunt of Mary Stuart.

Beranek, ‘Strategies of Display’. Hughes and Sanders, ‘Disruptions and Evocations of Family’, examines the Stuart courts in the Hague as foci for employment and networking opportunities for English women.

Bol et al., ‘Making Scents of the Past’. Frederick Henry’s secretary, Huygens, gave perfumed gifts to his network of correspondents, indicating close friendships, for example with Utricia Ogle, a lady-in-waiting to Mary Stuart, and mentioned in Stanhope’s will of 1667. These links were discussed by Nadine Akkerman at the occasion of The Lisa Jardine Memorial Lecture 2023: Akkerman, ‘Archival Pursuits’.

Tremml-Werner and Goetzee, ‘A Multitude of Actors’, 411. See also Lamal and Van Gelder, ‘Addressing Audiences Abroad’, 368, for the importance of ‘soft power’ and ‘cultural diplomacy’ to diplomatic work, which resonates with Akkerman, Tiethoff-Spliethoff and Beranek’s research into the use of artistic and cultural display at the Princely courts.

Pohlig, ‘Gender and the Formalisation of Diplomacy’, 1063.

See Santaliestra, ‘Gender, Work and Diplomacy’, for the application of this theory to ambassadorial couples in seventeenth-century Spain. See also Aikin, A Ruler’s Consort, for the role of Amelia Juliana of Schwartzberg-Rudolstadt within this context.

Allen, ‘The Rise of the Ambassadress’. See also Kühnel, ‘The Ambassador is Dead’, for the 1685 example of Madame Guilleragues, whose status as the noble widow of a serving ambassador enabled her to conduct diplomatic business on behalf of the French king.

De briefwisseling van Constantijn Huygens, iii, 159: ‘eene intriguante van de allerergste soort.’ Unless otherwise noted, all translations are the author’s.

Bodl, Clarendon State Papers (hereafter csp), Clarendon Manuscripts (hereafter Clarendon) 95, Letter from Heenvliet to Amalia van Solms, London, 21 January 1642, fols. 8v-10r. For the date of the marriage see: Archives ou correspondance, ii.3, 411.

Cited in Poynting, ‘Stanhope’: ‘issu d’un lieu obscur, et d’une race vulgaire’. See also the concerns raised by Lady Roxburgh, the princess’s governess until 1642, about the nature of the Dutch court: Archives ou correspondance, ii.3, 416.

Coke, The first part of the institutes of the laws of England, 80.

Girolamo Giustinian, the Venetian ambassador at The Hague, described Heenvliet as ‘a person of base origin’, in Calendar of State Papers Venice, 15 December 1640.

The correspondence of James Ussher, 832. According to Louis de Dieu this process involved convincing ‘the King of Arms of the Southern Netherlands’, the magistracies of the cities of Ghent and Bruges, the historian Peter Scriverius, and five leading lawyers from the Hague.

The correspondence of James Ussher, 831. Interestingly, this paralleled some of the discussion of William ii’s rank in Stuart diplomatic and aristocratic circles. Elizabeth Stuart referred to him as ‘our little Prince’ and stated ‘my Neece has a great place of it that her housband must be an Ambassadour to mend his ranck’. See The correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart, i, 959, 964; Pert, ‘Pride and Precedence’. There was also a row between William ii and the Elector Palatine over precedence at the wedding, for which Elizabeth blamed Heenvliet.

Porter, Royal Renegades, 100; Sheffield, Sheffield City Archives, Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments, Strafford Papers, Letterbook 8, fols. 427-428, Letter from Lord Conway and Kilulta to Sir Thomas Wentworth, Sion, 22 January 1636. All these men had business connections to Stanhope rather than romantic ones: Cottington was thirty years older than Stanhope, and as Master of the Court of Wards and Liveries was involved in the wardship of her son Philip following the death of Henry Stanhope; Raleigh was a cousin via Stanhope’s mother and later signed business papers for her; and she was a customer of Van Dyck, paying him to paint her portrait. Maddicott, ‘Sir Anthony Van Dyck’, 76, makes the point that the artist ‘occasionally paid court’ to wealthy ladies who arrived at his studio for portrait sittings.

Bodl, csp, Clarendon 95, fols. 253v-254r, Letter from Heenvliet to Oudart, The Hague, 6 May 1649. The amount paid by Heenvliet in settlement of Lord Stanhope’s debts is unspecified but probably included the purchase of Philip Stanhope’s wardship, sold for the large sum of £2000 on 4 March 1636.

Bodl, Clarendon 95, fols. 8v-10r, Letter from Heenvliet to Amalia van Solms, London, 21 January 1642: ‘Ma femme, la quelle est visité tous les jours de ceux de la Cour (a cause qu’elle garde encore sa chambre) tant par curiosité que par courtoisie […]. L’une dit que Le Cousin de ma femme Les avoit asseuré, qu’elle n’avoit poins voulu La charge de Gouvernante […]. Madame d’Alquyf l’avois sollicité, que le tante Madame Denbÿ et Presque toute La Cour sollicitoit pour elle.’ Susan Villiers (1583-1652) was a Lady of the Bedchamber to the queen and married to the Earl of Denbigh. See Wolfson, ‘The Female Bedchamber of Queen Henrietta Maria’, for the court connections and political experience of the Villiers family, which Stanhope seemingly lacked.

Bodl, csp, Clarendon 95, fols. 87v-88r, Letter from Heenvliet to his father Jan Polyander van den Kerckhoven, The Hague, 8 November 1642.

The Hague, Nationaal Archief, Huis Offem en de families Van Limburg Stirum, Doys en Van der Does, Van den Kerckhove, fol. 534v, Deed of grant from Prince Frederick Henry to Heenvliet.

Bodl, Rawlinson, H: Letters 115, fols. 391-394, Copy of Charles I’s appointment of Heenvliet as surintendant general and instructions to Stanhope as Dame Gouvernante to Princess Mary, Dover, 3 March 1642.

Calendar of State Papers Domestic 1636-1637, 281-306; Calendar of the Committee for Compounding, 2566-2595.

Journal of the House of Lords, 679-682. Chesterfield’s tenants had not paid their rents due to his military support for Charles i in 1642-1643. Chesterfield then failed to pay Stanhope her jointure. Interestingly, in his submission, Boughton stressed Stanhope’s support for Parliament.

Bodl, csp, Clarendon 95, fols. 87v-88r, Letter from Heenvliet to his father Jan Polyander van den Kerckhoven, The Hague, 8 November 1642: ‘Je suppliois Sa Mate m’accorder La denization pour en pouuoir jouÿr du bien & reueni, que ma femme m’en auoit faict, si elle venoit a mourir.’

See Blackstone, Commentaries, i, 373-374 for the definitions of denization and naturalization. Denization was obtained by Royal prerogative but ‘A denizen is in a kind of middle state […]. He may take lands by purchase or devise, which an alien may not, but cannot take by inheritance,’ and relevant to this case, ‘the issue of a denizen born before denization, cannot inherit to him; but his issue born after may. No denizen could or can […] be capable of any grant of lands etc from the crown.’ Naturalization was granted by Act of Parliament and ‘by this an alien is put in exactly the same state as if he had been born in the king’s ligeance.’ The process of naturalization could be long during the 1640s and 1650s, and Heenvliet’s situation was not unique. Nicholas Oudart was born in Mechelen, Brabant, became secretary to Charles i and, after the king’s death, Princess Mary. He gained denization in 1643 but was not naturalized until 1660. In an intriguing connection, Oudart first arrived in England in the employ of the diplomat Sir Henry Wotton, Stanhope’s great uncle. See Shaw, Letters of Denization, 63, 76.

See for example transactions referenced in Kent Archives, Romney of the Mote mss, U1515/T17, Indenture between John Pay, John van den Kirkhoven, Lady Katherine his wife and others, 1652.

Shaw, Letters of Denization, 64.

Bodl, csp, Clarendon ms 95, fol. 46r, Letter from Heenvliet to Isaac Doreslaus, The Hague, 1 May 1642.

For November 1642, see Bodl, csp, Clarendon ms 95, fols. 87v-88r, Letter from Heenvliet to his father Jan Polyander van der Kerckhoven, The Hague, 8 November 1642. For March 1645 see Purnell, Report on the Pepys Manuscripts, 203; for 1648 see Bodl, csp, Clarendon 95, 244r-245v, Letter from Heenvliet to Queen Henrietta Maria, The Hague, 16 December 1648; and for 1649 see Calendar of Clarendon State Papers, ii, 445-446. Note the importance of Stanhope’s land holding and service to Heenvliet’s denization and vice versa.

Thomas Howard was the second son of Theophilus Howard, second Earl of Suffolk (1584-1640) and younger brother of James, the third earl (1619-1689), whose marriage to Susannah Rich produced several short-lived children. Therefore, Thomas’s succession to the earldom was not out of the question by 1646, but ultimately, his younger brothers George and Henry became the fourth and fifth Earls of Suffolk respectively.

Bodl, csp, Clarendon ms 95, fols. 173r-174r, Letter from Heenvliet to Amalia van Solms, The Hague, September 1646: ‘Que ma fille selon toutes apparences estoit ne pour estre Contesse de Siffolck’. The marriage was not a personal success, and Howard was associated intimately with Lucy Walter in 1655-1656. See Harris, ‘Scott, (formerly Crofts), James, duke of Monmouth’ and Kew, The National Archives, Records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (prob) 11/323/510, Carr, Quire numbers 1-58, 1667, for Stanhope’s will, where she left Walberg an annuity of £200, ‘in such sort as that her said husband may not in any sort have receive or intermeddle with it dispose of the same or any part thereof’.

Bodl, csp, Clarendon ms 95, fols. 173r-174r, Letter from Heenvliet to Amalia van Solms, The Hague, September 1646. Stone, Family and Fortune, 268-294, gives details of the debts inherited by Earl James and is cited in Stater, ‘Howard, Theophilus’.

Charles Henry inherited his father’s Heenvliet estates, and for the 1627 purchase of the Lordship and lands see Van Nierop, The Nobility of Holland, 15, 145; ‘t Hart, Historische Beschrijving, 207.

See Bodl, Rawlinson, H: Letters 115, fols. 38r, 41r, 44r, and 46r, Letters from Queen Henrietta Maria to Stanhope, St. Germain-en-Laye, 23 May 1648; Queen Henrietta Maria to Heenvliet, St. Germain-en-Laye, 3 June 1648; Queen Henrietta Maria to Stanhope, St. Germain-en-Laye, 3 June 1648; and Queen Henrietta Maria to Heenvliet, St. Germain-en-Laye, 24 July 1648. See Keblusek, ‘Mary, princess royal’, for an indication of the attitude of Amalia van Solms and her supporters towards the English in The Hague by 1648.

Keblusek, ‘Mary, princess royal’.

Bodl, csp, Clarendon ms 95, fols 34r-35r, Letter from Heenvliet to Amalia van Solms, London, 20 February 1642. Doreslaus was, in retrospect, a surprising choice given his opposition to Charles i by 1643 and his murder by Royalists in 1649, but Doreslaus’s late wife had been English, and the couple knew him professionally, as he had dealings with Stanhope’s servant John Boughton and financier Philip Burlamachi in 1642: Bodl, csp, Clarendon 95, fols. 45r-46r, Letter from Heenvliet to Isaac Doreslaus, The Hague, 1 May 1642. Mayerne’s marriage to Joachimi’s daughter Isabella would also have brought him within Heenvliet and Stanhope’s politico-social orbit.

Bodl, csp, Clarendon 95, fol. 100, Letter from Heenvliet to the Marquis de la Vieuville, The Hague, 24 April 1643: ‘oublier l’affection de sa nation’.

Sheffield, Sheffield University Library (herafer sul), The Hartlib Papers (hereafter hp), Bundle 2, 2/9/24A-2/9/25B, Letter from John Drury to Samuel Hartlib, The Hague, 18 September 1642; hp, Bundle 3, 3/1/16A-16B, Letter from John Drury to Samuel Hartlib, The Hague, 3 December 1643; and 3/2/1A-B, Letter from John Drury to Samuel Hartlib, Delft, 3 March 1644.

sul, hp, Bundle 21, 21/5/17, Letter from Dorothy Moore to Samuel Hartlib, The Hague, 13 October 1644?, and Bundle 3, 3/2/2A-3B, Letter from John Drury to Samuel Hartlib, Delft, 3 March 1644.

Bodl, csp, Clarendon 95, fols. 104v-105r, Letter from Heenvliet to Amalia van Solms, The Hague, 13 June 1643. It is unclear exactly what advice La Garde sought.

The reasons for La Garde leaving the Hague are unclear but were serious enough for Prince Frederick Henry to offer to pay her three thousand francs if she left ‘sans bruict et sans disorder.’ See Bodl, csp, Clarendon 95, fol. 107r, Letter from Heenvliet to Brasset, Teylingen, 15 June 1643, for Brasset’s visit to Teylingen, and fol. 108r, Letter from Heenvliet to Prince Frederick Henry, Teylingen, 21 June 1643, for an interview between La Garde and Brasset and the prince’s financial offer. See also Keblusek, ‘Playing by the Rules’, 248, for La Garde’s background.

Heenvliet’s correspondence also reveals evidence of the couple’s involvement in La Garde’s settlement and payments, which will be dealt with in more detail later: Bodl, csp, Clarendon 95, fols. 110v-111v, Letter from Heenvliet to Prince Frederick Henry, Teylingen, 13 July 1643, and fol. 115, Letter from Heenvliet to the Marquis de La Vieuville, The Hague, 27 August 1643.

De briefwisseling van Constantijn Huygens, iii, 408-410. Heenvliet also wrote to Huygens and a compromise was reached.

Bodl, csp, Clarendon ms 95, fols. 135r-135v, Letter from Stanhope to Lord Goring, The Hague, 28 February 1644.

Visser and van der Plaat, Gloria parendi, 45: ‘heel vrie, van Heenvliet, madame Stennop’.

Archives ou correspondance, ii.4, 46: ‘Monsieur Goring est revenue, et […] a bien trouvé de l’argent à Anvers sur les perles et quelque autres petit joyaux [… mais non pas sur les grandes, tellement que samedy au soir on recommend çoit de me parler de trouver de l’argent sur les grand pieces par l’authorité et credit de va.’

For example, in the corpus of letters in Bodl, csp, Clarendon 95, covering the years 1642-1651 inclusive, 38 were written by Stanhope, and 567 by Heenvliet.

Bodl, csp, Clarendon 95, fol. 136v, Letter from Heenvliet to Lord Jermyn, The Hague, 3 March 1644.

Bodl, csp, Clarendon 95, fols. 138v-139r, Ciphered letter from Heenvliet to Lord Jermyn, Buren, 14 June 1644. Note that Heenvliet’s cipher code in London, British Library (hereafter bl), Additional Manuscripts (hereafter Add. Mss.) 72438, fol. 89v, can be used to decipher this letter.

De briefwisseling van Constantijn Huygens, ii, 477.

Bodl, csp, Clarendon 95, fols. 341v-342r, Letter from Heenvliet to Monsieur Hoeufft, The Hague, 28 September 1650.

Bodl, csp, Clarendon 95, fol. 145v, Letter from Heenvliet to Monsieur Hoeufft, Buren, 18 July 1644. See fol. 296v, Letter from Heenvliet to Philip, Lord Stanhope, The Hague, 10 January 1650, where Stanhope’s servant Boughton was also involved in paying La Garde in 1650 via ‘Santin’. Hoeufft was particularly experienced in war finance on a large scale: Thomson, ‘Jan Houefft’. See also Bodl, csp, Clarendon 95, fol. 293v, Letter from Heenvliet to Monsieur Hoeufft, The Hague, 23 November 1649, for Hoeufft’s involvement in financing Philip Stanhope’s education in Paris. It is noteworthy here that Stanhope was forced to pay a large composition fine to Parliament in 1651-1652. How she obtained this money is unknown, but these connections, forged in the 1640s Dutch Republic, should not be overlooked.

bl, Add. Mss. 72438, Cipher-keys and intercepted royalist correspondence from the papers of Georg Rudolph Weckherlin, fols. 76r and 89v; bl, Add. Mss. 33596, Royalist cipher keys, fol. 38v.

Akkerman, Invisible Agents, 13.

James, ‘Women and Diplomacy’, 550.

For the politics of courtly rivalry in The Hague see Akkerman, Courtly Rivals; Keblusek and Zijlmans, Princely Display; Hughes and Sanders, ‘The Hague Courts’.

Savelsberg, ‘Eine “Beauty Gallery” ’, 185-204. Although note that in Hearn, Sharp, and Barber, Van Dyck and Britain, 121, the acquisition of the portrait set is associated with the Stuart-Orange marriage, but not specifically with Henrietta Maria.

See Inventarissen, i, 281, no. 1184; Tiethoff-Spliethoff, ‘Role-Play and Representation’, 174.

Inventarissen, i, 281.

Beranek, ‘Strategies of Display’, 5.

Puget de la Serre, Histoire, unpaginated: ‘La Reyne de la Grande-Bretaigne étoit en attante dans la chamber de la Reyne sa Mere, auec toutes les plus grandes & les plus belles Dames de la Court.’

Bodl, Rawlinson ms 76A, Copies of Letters and Papers relating to Johan van Kerckhoven and his father, fols. 452-459.

See Heinsius, Scriverius, and Boxhornius, Somnium nuptiale, for the epithalamia published for the marriage of Thomas Howard and Walberg van der Kerckhoven, and Barlaeus, Daniel Heinsius, Scriverius, Boxhornius, and Nicholas Heinsius, Epithalamia in nvptias, for the printed version of those for Stanhope and Heenvliet. The epithalamia for Anna van der Kerckhoven and Wigbold van der Does are referenced at Arenberg Auctions, Auction of Books, 198, lot no. 1350.

See Geerdink and Lassche, ‘Social and Economic Imperatives,’ 91; Pettegree and der Weduwen, The Bookshop of the World, 232. Yang, ‘Prayers at the Nuptial Bed’, demonstrates how epithalamia and emblematic representations were used to convey instructive messages to the newly wedded couple.

De gedichten van Constantijn Huygens, iv, 27. Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639) was appointed to The Hague in 1614-1615 and in contact with Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia to whom he may have sent a portrait of Stanhope in 1629. See Pearsall Smith, The Life and Letters, i, 321-322.

Keblusek, ‘Playing by the Rules’. One of Heenvliet’s titles granted by Frederick Henry was Grand Veneur d’Hollande or Great Forester of Holland.