ACOUNT
EGMONT & HOORN
STATUE
Statuary Ancestral Mystery of Brussels
I
don’t
normally write about statues in parks. There are so many. When you’re
traveling in far away places, strolling through a park or along a city
boulevard, often you’ll come across a statue and
wonder who that is. The locals may know very well who their local personage
is, or some may not, just another lost bit of history. On a recent European
trip, I found my way to Brussels, partly to find one particular statue.
Part of a personal journey and a mystery - a genealogical mystery. When
my father died a few years ago, my mother produced a long forgotten family
genealogy fan chart, produced by whom in the family she did not know
for sure - likely her grandmother's handwriting, though. For those
unfamiliar, the chart traces ancestors back
through multiple generations, with the “fan” the shape of
ever widening mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, greats
and great-greats and whatever they’re called when so far back,
math comes into the equation, 2xgreat-great squared. This particular
remarkable document traced one line of the family back ten generations
to the first
Dutch settlers of America of the 1600s. One of the distant relatives
was a Van Egmont. And hence the mystery.
Following
one’s heritage in a family journey of genealogical exploration
is perhaps as good a reason as any to travel to a far away land, to discover
the path of those who felt compelled to get on a ship, leave home and
make their way to a new land, on their own search for a future. Seekers
of family
cultural heritage who travel to find something of a relative’s
past may through the use of genealogical research sources like Ancestry
or Rootsweb find a ship, a neighborhood, or even an address where
a key ancestor departed
the “old
country”. Going back 400 years is a little more difficult.
Which
brings me to the statue in a park in Brussels, the figures of National
heroes of Belgium and the Netherlands. I would
have thought having Dutch ancestors would take me to
Holland rather than Belgium, but in the long past, the origins of Belgium
are in the Dutch speaking “Low Countries”, Flanders, Hainaut
and Holland. Count Lamoral Egmont (also spelled Egmond) was a descendant
of one of
the oldest families of the lowlands. His grandfather John (or Jan) was
the first Count Egmont, holding a castle in Noord Holland near Amsterdam.
Lamoral was born in Hainaut the second of three sons. When his older
brother died he inherited the title, though he resided in Flanders.
Count Lamoral Egmont, a military hero and married to the daughter of
the German
Prince
Elector
of the Palatine, Frederick III (see Speyer
Cathedral), was educated in Spain and headed one
of the country's richest families. Still Catholic
at a time
when the Reformation was sweeping through Europe (see Martin
Luther at Worms),
he at first refused to join Prince William of
Orange against the Spanish and the house of Burgundy overlords in the
1500s (see Friday Market Square Ghent), but protested along with his
fellow royal and cousin, the Landgrave of
Hoorn
against
the Spanish church bringing the Inquisition to Flanders. Egmont and Hoorn
were arrested
by the Spanish Duke of Alva, held in the castle of Ghent (see Counts
Castle Ghent) until they were beheaded in Grand Place Square
in Brussels on the 5th of June, 1568. Seen as the last straw, the anger
of the populace to the unjust execution ultimately
brought
about
revolt
which
expelled
the Spanish in the Eighty Years War of succession and the rise
of the protestant House of Orange.
So,
why am I standing in front a statue in Brussels? After the execution,
the
properties
of the Egmonts were confiscated and the family and scattered.
About 40 years later, in the mid 1600s, a Van Egmont set sail for the
newly discovered land of America with his son, settling on an island
in the
Hudson
River just outside of present
day Albany, one of the first permanent lasting settlements in the New
World.
Much debate and conjecture has been made on the connection between the noble Count of Egmont and the Van Egmonts who settled in America. The royal Egmonts later regained some of their property and rights and traced a lineage, including the Count's cousin being married off to Henry III, the King of France, before that family eventually met equality and fraternity at the end of a sharp blade. Another Egmont line traced to Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots (see Westminster Abbey). While the Van Egmont who settled in America may have only come from the confiscated estates of the Egmonts and its decimated abbey, perhaps he was wary of the family's difficulty keeping a head on straight and decided to lay low. The record is a little foggy. The ancient castle of the Egmonts in Holland was destroyed in 1573, five years after the Count's death, on order of William of Orange to keep it from falling into the hands of the Spanish, and those who lived on that land dispersed to nearby towns and farm lands. The nobleman in the statue may not be a blood relative after all, but the personal connection to history is well worth the journey.
The Zavel Park in Brussels, located just in front of where Count Egmont's residence once stood, with the statue atop a water fountain commemorating the Counts of Egmont and Hoorn is quite lovely in a park of curly-cue hedges and people of Belgium and the Netherlands for whom the beheaded counts are national heroes, come to sit on benches and contemplate. Now, if you find yourself strolling through a park in Brussels and see this particular statue, you won’t have to wonder “who’s that?” © Bargain Travel Europe
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