Pieter van der Werf

Pieter van der Werf was the mayor of Leiden during the Seige of Leiden and it's subsequent Relief.

When the people of Leiden were on the verge of giving up and surrendering to the Spanish in September 1574, Van der Werf rallied the people by offering to let them eat one of his arms, to stave off starvation a little longer, in the belief that they would be saved if they persevered.  (They didn't take him up on it but they did decide to keep it up a little longer.)  Because he was such an influence, this statue was erected in 1881 to commemorate the Ontzet (Relief) of Leiden and Van der Werf's heroic efforts to keep the people of Leiden true.

There is a series of bas reliefs around the statute, with gilded inscriptions, which, if read counter-clockwise, tell the story of the Relief.

The main inscription, dedicating the monument says this:

"In remembrance of the defense and deliverance of Leiden, 

of the confirmation of the freedom of the Netherlands, 

and in honor of the Mayor Pieter Adriaansz, van der Werf."

The Grateful Fatherland

1574 -- 1881

Rejoice Holland that by Leiden's courage

Your reputation and your freedom were preserved

The Dutch inscription reads:
ter gedachtenis
van de verdediging en verlossing van Leiden,
de bevestiging van Neerlands vrijheid,
en ter eere van den burgemeester
Pieter Adriaansz, van der Werf.
Het dankbare vaderland
MDLXXIV
MDCCCLXXXI


Juich Holland dat door Leidens moed
uw roem, uw vrijheid zag behoed


The bas relief image on the front of the statue is this.  I am assuming that it represents the oath of fealty which the city of Leiden made, through the representation of Pieter van der Werf, when they decided to put their lot with William against the Spanish

In Dutch it reads:
Het vaderland getrouwe
blijf ik tot in den dood


And it means:

"I will remain faithful to the fatherland until death"

This relief shows the people of Leiden fighting off the noticably better equipped Spanish and references Van der Werf's famous offer.


The inscription reads:
Zoolang wij hebben handen ziet om t'eten een, een om te vechten, zoo komen wij tot schade niet

And means:
"As long as we have hands,

one to eat, one to fight,
we will come to no harm."

This image shows the Relief of Leiden and just how happy those poor folks were to get some herring.  I am impressed with these bas reliefs because it seems like such a difficult medium and the artist did a mighty good job of conveying emotion in it.

The inscription here reads:

Nu mogen wij afdrogen

ons lang bekreten oogen

want Leiden is ontzet

It means:

"Now we can dry

Our long tear-filled eyes

For Leiden is relieved" 

This final inscription reads:

ik zal met al mijn hart den Heer

blijmoedig geven lof en eer

It means:

"I will with all my heart give joyful praise and honor to the Lord"

It's not easy being not orange . . .

I have discovered that, by some sort of massive sartorial oversight, I have arrived in the Netherlands without one one single piece of blaze orange clothing to my name.  It is plenty tragic.  The enormity of this problem was brought home to me as I was traveling home from Leiden Friday evening.  The train was very crowded--surprisingly crowded, I thought, considering that one would have expected the rush hour to be leaving Rotterdam at that time of the day.  But, as we went through more and more train stations, more and more people started to climb on and it got more and more crowded.  Not only that, the closer we got to Rotterdam, the more orange people were wearing.  Blaze orange shirts.  Neon orange jackets.  Bright orange fluffy earmuffs bigger than their heads.  Blaze orange feather boas.  Neon orange foam cowboy hats (apparently this is a real Dutch thing.  I have no idea why).  Bright orange jeans.  I have run through my list of appropriate modifiers.  Suffice it to say, everyone was very bright, neon, blaze, brilliant (hey, there's another one) orange.  My giant blaze orange hunting jacket would have been perfect.

The reason for all of this orange, and for everyone heading to Rotterdam, was that the Netherlands were playing Moldova, in Rotterdam, in the EuroCup Soccer Qualifiers.  The Dutch national soccer team is called the Oranjes (which means "oranges" (as in multiples of the color, not as in the fruit) and is pronounced or-an-yus).  The Oranjes' fighting song is "Hup Holland Hup" (Go Holland Go) but, in looking for a good You Tube video it appears that most people don't even remember that part of the song and, instead, sing "Lo, lo, lo, lo, lo" to the tune of "Hup Holland Hup."  The fact that many of the people in the videos appear to have been partaking freely of spirituous beverages may be one of the reasons no one can remember the words.  If you go here, though, you can see a very short video of people wearing orange and funny hats, and forgetting the words to "Go Holland Go."

My very favorite Dutch football thing, though, is a picture of a guy that I found on a report from a big Dutch win over Italy a few years back.  You can see the whole video here, if you want, but it is almost 6 minutes long and the reporting is all in Dutch (although it does have some pretty fun footage mixed in there).  This photo, though, is priceless.  This fellow seems pleased with the way things have turned out.  His shirt says "We will make hamburger out of you" but I think it almost sounds better in Dutch.

Now, I am off to find something orange to wear.

(P.S.--"Gehakt" just means chopped.  An alternate translation of the vest (or possibly a butcher's apron?) would be "We'll make minced meat out of you."  However, if you are in the grocery store, looking at the meat section, hamburger is just labeled "gehakt" so that it is also a legitimate translation.  Plus, I like it better that way.)

(P.P.S.--I am sure you are dying to know:  the Oranjes won!  Now they have to play some one else at a different qualifying match but they are the official winners of the group E qualifiers.  Whatever that means.)

(P.P.P.S.--That win resulted in a lot of late night fireworks and carrying on.  As near as I can figure, the stadium is 2 or 3 miles away from my house and I was still able to hear the chanting and screaming during the game.)

(P.P.P.P.S.--Now, I think that I know why the "van ze" is in a larger font than the rest of the font although, I will freely admit, puns are one of those things you probably need more experience to get for sure and it could be just to make the point more emphatic but, the Dutch name for Venice (which, as far as I can tell, is the most popular vacation place for Dutch folk) is "venitie" which is pronounced kind of like van-i-tse, which, especially if you are kind of drunk, could sound like a pun on "van ze" and, since this was a game against Italy, it is just possible that that was what he was going for.  Or maybe he was just trying to make it fit width wise.)

Leiden Ontzet

On October 3, 1574, Leiden was delivered dramatically from the Spanish.  The Dutch saw it is a stamp of Divine approval on their endeavor to create a new nation and to free themselves from the religious and spiritual tyranny of Spanish rule.

Since his ascension to the Spanish throne in 1555, Philip II had enacted a series of taxes, religious persecutions (including the resurrection of the Inquisition), and oppressive political policies, which infuriated the Dutch populace, especially the Calvinists and other Protestants in the north of the country.  Beginning in 1572, the scattered defensive actions of the Dutch, and the ubiquitous but ephemeral actions of the Sea Beggars were consolidated to create a more or less united Dutch revolutionary force.  The Spanish response was brutal, and focused on making an example of those who had revolted.  By the fall of 1574, the Spanish had had Leiden under siege, off and on, for almost a year and the residents of the city were starving and disheartened.  Spanish policy toward surrendering cities made surrender an unattractive option.

The Dutch forces, under the guidance of William of Orange (William the Silent), were at a disadvantage because their greatest strength lay in their navy.  On land they were outnumbered, out-gunned, and out-trained.  While it was possible to get to Leiden through the canals, it would have left anyone approaching completely at the mercy of the Spanish troops who were waiting for just such an attempt.  Advised by Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, among others, it was decided that the best plan would be to cut through the dikes which protected the Low Countries' dry land, thus enabling the Dutch fleet to sail up to Leiden and meet the Spanish with greater strength.  They broke the dike in September but the land was high enough and tides and winds were strong enough against them that the Dutch ships were not able to sail to Leiden.  At the beginning of October, however, the winds changed and a storm came in, flooding the polders between the North Sea and Leiden enough that the Dutch ships were able to sail in, sending the Spanish fleeing.

The arriving Dutch ships brought with them herring and white bread, which is apparently Dutch sailor food.  And, I suppose, if you're hungry enough, swallowing a herring whole starts to seem like a pretty good idea.  The Relief of Leiden was also the origin, at least according to legend, of the Dutch Stampot--the height of Dutch cuisine and also a traditional 3 October dish.  The Spanish, fleeing the storm and the incoming Dutch fleet, ran away, leaving their suppers still cooking on their camp-fires and, apparently, Spanish troops at the time where eating mainly boiled root vegetables.  Maybe the Spanish  were looking for an excuse to go somewhere else for dinner?

On a related note, not everyone was pleased about the piercing of the dikes.  I suppose there must be a visceral disinclination to letting the sea in when you live your life below sea level.  Also, if you consider how much water would have to be let in to allow ships, with presumably substantial drafts to sail through (the "shallow" drafts of the Dutch ships seems like a relative term when you are sailing through someone's living room), there must have been substantial damage to the intervening polders.  And it is a pretty long way from the North Sea to Leiden.  My squinty interpretation of this Google map puts it at about 7 miles of houses and towns and fields that had to be flooded several feet deep to let the ships come through.

In a minor set of coincidences, this 3 of October was the first Monday of the month.  The first Monday of the month, at noon, is the time for testing the warning sirens which would be used to alert the Dutch of flooding polders and incoming Germans, presumably.  What was funny, though, is that this month there was something wrong with the sirens at Leiden and they didn't go off when they were supposed to.   They ended up going off a little later on and I wonder how many people, presumably fairly inebriated as they celebrated the flooding which had saved Leiden, heard the siren, thought "must be noon", looked at their watch, and panicked a little.