28 augustus 2019

Today is August 28th, and we people of Groningen are celebrating the lifting of the siege of the city of Groningen in 1672.

There's a fair going on, a horse show, and some re-enactors are moving around the city.

Dutch Blue Guard 1701

German historian Klaus Roider was kind enough to share a find he made in the Neurenberg Archives (!) on the dutch Blue Guards. Their uniforms are reported as being in "full blue", the sword belt in gold, the cartridge (?) pouch embroided in gold as well.

A report from 1701 by Gottfried Jahnus von Eberstatt.

Mr Roider is the author on a book on Frankish troops in the late 17th century, which you can buy here:

https://www.amazon.de/fr%C3%A4nkischen-Kreistr…/…/3945706157

De Garde van Willem III ~ William III's Guard

De redactie kreeg de ingeving eens te kijken in het Marineblad van 1917, waar een referentie stond naar onder andere Colonel Decker, maar ook naar het uniform van de Garde van Stadhouder Willem III. Na enig speurwerk werd de bron, van het artikel gevonden, zijnde het nieuwsblad "De Oprechte Haerlemmer Courant" van 10 januari 1673, welke meldt dat de compagnieën van de Garde "blauwe rokken" droegen. Dit vermoeden hadden we la, maar het wordt nu bevestigd!

~

The editors, in their continuing search in 17th century sources, were researching a lead, found in Het Marineblad, 1917 about uniforms of the Stadholder. After some digging we found the source, being the Harlem (the real one, in the Province of Holland) "true Newspaper", or in Dutch "De oprechte Haerlemse Courant" from, 10th januari 1673, in which 8 companies of the Guard are described wearing "blauwe rokken", being blue coats. We always had the idea that the Guards uniforms were blue, but this is a nice confirmation.

Helperlinie Groningen

Link to a video file

Above a link to the video file by local TV, in the Helperline, an extra defense line that was build to protect the town of Groningen from the south. The white building is built on a place where there used to be a hill with gallows, which was in 1672 the headquarters of Bishop van Galen.

D' ontroerde Leeuw ~ The distressed Lion

"In January 1671 a certain High German Prince, wrote to one of the Dutch Princesses that he was amazed about the silence in Holland about France's preparations for war" 

 These are the first swords and the title page of the second edition of a book series called "The distressed Lion", which gives in detail in Dutch a review of what happeneid in the Dutch Republic in the period from 1671 up to around 1675.

There's also a an English version but I haven't found it online yet. The author is Johannes Grybius and the printer is Steven Swart. Maybe one of our readers can hjelp mout?

These books are great, the author is very good informed and his writings are incredible detailed.

This is the link for the book!