Maria van Utrecht by Paulus Moreelse - 1615

Maria van Utrecht (c.1551, possibly in

Rodenrijs 270px, Town sign Berkel en Rodenrijs () is a town and former municipality in the municipality of Lansingerland, in the province of South Holland, The Netherlands. The town is very close to ROTTERDAM History Berkel en Rodenrijs was founded in t ...

- 19 March 1629,

Amersfoort Amersfoort () is a city and municipality in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands, about 20 km from the city of Utrecht and 40 km south east of Amsterdam. As of 1 December 2021, the municipality had a population of 158,531, making it the second- ...

) was a notable figure in the Dutch Revolt and the history of the Netherlands.

Life

Born as the illegitimate daughter of Magdalene Jansdr van Utrecht, Maria grew up in Delft with and kept house for Jacob and Paul van Utrecht, her unmarried maternal uncle and aunt. Jacob was a powerful

regent A regent (from Latin : ruling, governing) is a person appointed to govern a state '' pro tempore'' (Latin: 'for the time being') because the monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge the powers and duties of the monarchy ...

in Delft, owning forty ships and later becoming 'dijkgraaf' and 'hoogheemraad' for Delfland. He wished to make Maria his sole heir but first she needed to become legitimate - she was therefore adopted by Adriaan Willemsz Plas, a barge owner from

Vlaardingen Vlaardingen () is a city in South Holland in the Netherlands. It is located on the north bank of the Nieuwe Maas river at the confluence with the Oude Maas. The municipality administers an area of , of which is land, with residents in . Geog ...

. Plas may also have been her biological father, since he had already drawn up a statement in 1569 stating he was her father and had it witnessed by a notary. Jacob van Utrecht died in 1575 and the same year Maria married

Johan van Oldenbarnevelt Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (), Heer van Berkel en Rodenrijs (1600), Gunterstein (1611) and Bakkum (1613) (14 September 1547 – 13 May 1619) was a Dutch statesman and revolutionary who played an important role in the Dutch struggle for indepen ...

, thus transferring her inherited estate to him. They lived in her Delft house with her uncle Paul until in 1576 Johan was appointed

pensionary A pensionary was a name given to the leading functionary and legal adviser of the principal town corporations in the Low Countries because they received a salary or pension. History The office originated in Flanders. Initially, the role was refe ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"Ne ...

, to which they then moved. Maria and Johan had two daughters (Geertruid and Maria) and three sons (Jan, who died young,

Willem Willem () is a Dutch and West FrisianRienk de Haan, ''Fryske Foarnammen'', Leeuwarden, 2002 (Friese Pers Boekerij), , p. 158. masculine given name. The name is Germanic, and can be seen as the Dutch equivalent of the name William in English, ...

and

Reinier Reinier is the Dutch form of the Germanic masculine given name ''Raginheri'', composed of the two elements ''ragin'' ("advice") and ''heri'' ("army"). It is equivalent to Scandinavian ''Ragnar'', German '' Rainer'', French '' Rainier'', and Spanis ...

). Geertruid married Reinout van Brederode and Maria married Cornelis van der Mijle. Maria and Johan's sons were educated in law and so when her husband was arrested she attempted to have his sentence commuted to house arrest to have his trial transferred from the special court of the States General of the Netherlands to the

States of Holland The States of Holland and West Frisia ( nl, Staten van Holland en West-Friesland) were the representation of the two Estates (''standen'') to the court of the Count of Holland. After the United Provinces were formed — and there no longer was a c ...

. These efforts proved fruitless and her subsequent protests against the refusal to provide a proper defence counsel for Johan and requests to visit him in prison were all also ignored or refused. Johan maintained his innocence and so no reprieve or pardon was offered, which also applied to his wife and children. After Johan's execution, Maria asked to bury his body in their house at

Berkel The Berkel () is a river in the Netherlands and Germany. It is a right tributary of the IJssel. The river rises in Billerbeck, near the German city of Münster in North Rhine-Westphalia, and crosses the border with the Netherlands near Vr ...

, but instead he was buried in the chapel of the Hof van Holland without his family present. Many of what had been Maria's estates were also confiscated by the States General on Johan's death. Johan's sons plotted revenge and in 1623 made a failed assassination attempt against Maurice, Prince of Orange. Willem managed to flee but Reinier was arrested. Maria sent Maurice a request for clemency, but he replied by asking why she asked for a pardon for him but had never requested one for her husband - she replied that "My husband was innocent, my son was not".

Sources

*http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/Utrecht

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Utrecht, Maria van 1550s births 1629 deaths Dutch people of the Eighty Years' War People from Lansingerland