Sir Willem Boreel, 1st Baronet (2 March 1591 – 29 September 1668) was a Dutch diplomat.

Biography

Willem Boreel was born in

Middelburg, Zeeland Middelburg () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the south-western Netherlands serving as the Capital (political), capital of the Provinces of the Netherlands, ...

on 2 March 1591 into the Boreel baronets, the son of Jacob Boreel (1552–1636), burgomaster of

Bergen-op-Zoom Bergen op Zoom (; called ''Berrege'' in the Brabantian dialect, local dialect) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in southwestern Netherlands. It is located in the Province ...

Adam Boreel Adam Boreel (2 November 1602 in Middelburg, Zeeland, Middelburg – 20 June 1665 in Sloterdijk, Amsterdam) was a Dutch theologian and Hebraist. He was one of the founders of the Amsterdam College; the Collegiants were also often called Boreelis ...

and the jurist Abraham Boreel were brothers; Johan Boreel was a half-brother. From 1618 Boreel worked for the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

as a lawyer, and was part of a mission to resolve the Dutch and British commercial rivalry in the East Indies by a treaty. He was knighted by

James I of England James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 unti ...

. Boreel became Baron of Vreendijk and Vreenhove. From 1627 to 1649 he was Pensionary of

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

. During that period he travelled to England, with Johan van Reede van Renswouden, in an attempt to mediate in the

First English Civil War The First English Civil War took place in England and Wales from 1642 to 1646, and forms part of the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms. An estimated 15% to 20% of adult males in England and Wales served in the military at some point b ...

. Then, from 1650, until his death in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

on 29 September 1668 he served as Ambassador of the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands ...

to France.

Telescope investigation

In 1655, Boreel assisted in the controversy over trying to figure out who invented the

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption, or Reflection (physics), reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally, it was an optical instrument using len ...

. He had a local magistrate in

Middelburg Middelburg may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Europe * Middelburg, Zeeland, the capital city of the province of Zeeland, southwestern Netherlands ** Roman Catholic Diocese of Middelburg, a former Catholic diocese with its see in the Zeeland ...

in the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

follow up on his recollection of a spectacle maker who told Boreel in 1610 about inventing the telescope. The magistrate was contacted by a then unknown claimant, Middelburg spectacle maker Johannes Zachariassen, who testified that his father,

Zacharias Janssen Zacharias Janssen; also Zacharias Jansen or Sacharias Jansen; 1585 – pre-1632) was a Dutch spectacle-maker who lived most of his life in Middelburg. He is associated with the invention of the first optical telescope and/or the first truly ...

invented the telescope and the microscope as early as 1590. This testimony seemed to convincing to Boreel, who now recollected that Zacharias must have been who he remembered. Boreel's conclusion that Zacharias Janssen invented the telescope a little ahead of another spectacle maker,

Hans Lippershey Hans Lipperhey ( – buried 29 September 1619), also known as Johann Lippershey or simply Lippershey, was a Germany, German-Netherlands, Dutch Glasses, spectacle-maker. He is commonly associated with the invention of the telescope, because he was ...

, was adopted by

Pierre Borel Pierre Borel (; – 1671) was a French chemist, alchemist, physician, and botanist. Biography Borel was born in Castres . He became a doctor of medicine at the University of Montpellier in 1640. In 1654, he became physician to the King ...

in his 1656 book on the subject.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boreel, Willem 1591 births 1668 deaths 17th-century Dutch diplomats 17th-century Dutch lawyers Ambassadors to France People from Middelburg, Zeeland Baronets in the Baronetage of England Dutch barons