Dr. Laurens Reael was an employee of the VOC

Dutch East India Company

The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...

, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies

Dutch East Indies

The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....

 in 1616-1617 and an admiral of the Dutch navy from 1625-27.

Early life

Laurens Reael was the son of Laurens Jacobsz Reael, a merchant in Amsterdam named after the sign or gable stone of his house/shop In den gouden Reael ("In the Golden Real

Spanish real

The real was a unit of currency in Spain for several centuries after the mid-14th century, but changed in value relative to other units introduced...

") and an amateur poet known for writing Geuzenliederen (songs of the geuzen

Geuzen

Geuzen was a name assumed by the confederacy of Calvinist Dutch nobles and other malcontents, who from 1566 opposed Spanish rule in the Netherlands. The most successful group of them operated at sea, and so were called Watergeuzen...

). The Amsterdam neighborhood Gouden Reael

Gouden Reael

The Gouden Reael is a district of the city of Amsterdam in The Netherlands.A 'Gouden Reael' was a Spanish coin from the 16th century. The birth house of Laurens Reael , third Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, had a golden real on its signpost or gable stone, from which the family took its...

 is named after Laurens Reael's birth house, via a later (1648) warehouse of the Reael family on the Zandhoek that turned into a popular inn. Laurens Jr. had academic talents, excelling in math and languages. He studied law in Leiden, where he lived in the house of Jacobus Arminius

Jacobus Arminius

Jacobus Arminius , the Latinized name of the Dutch theologian Jakob Hermanszoon from the Protestant Reformation period, served from 1603 as professor in theology at the University of Leiden...

 who had married his older sister Lijsbet Reael in 1590. Laurens received his doctorate in 1608.

East Indies

In May 1611 he left as commandeur

Commandeur

Commandeur is a title in French and Dutch , usually rendered in English as Commander, with different uses. The literal meaning is he who commands, parallel to Commandant. In most senses the German equivalent is Kommandeur....

 of four ships for the East Indies. He quickly worked his way up to become the third Governor-General

Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies

The Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies represented the Dutch rule in the Dutch East Indies between 1610 and Dutch recognition of the independence of Indonesia in 1949.The first Governors-General were appointed by the Dutch East India Company...

 in 1616, where he was stationed at the VOC headquarters, at that time on Ternate

Ternate

Ternate is an island in the Maluku Islands of eastern Indonesia. It is located off the west coast of the larger island of Halmahera, the center of the powerful former Sultanate of Ternate....

 in the Moluccas. That year he could personally welcome both Joris van Spilbergen

Joris van Spilbergen

Joris van Spilbergen was a Dutch naval officer of the 17th century.His first major expedition was in 1596, when he sailed to Africa....

 (March 30) and Schouten & Le Maire

Jacob Le Maire

Jacob Le Maire was a Dutch mariner who circumnavigated the earth in 1615-16. The strait between Tierra del Fuego and Isla de los Estados was named the Le Maire Strait in his honor, though not without controversy...

 (September 12) upon their respective arrivals at Ternate from Holland via the Strait of Magellan

Strait of Magellan

The Strait of Magellan comprises a navigable sea route immediately south of mainland South America and north of Tierra del Fuego...

 and Cape Horn

Cape Horn

Cape Horn is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island...

. He was unaware that the VOC had ordered Schouten & Le Maire's ships to be confiscated for alleged infringement of its monopoly of trade to the Spice Islands

Maluku Islands

The Maluku Islands are an archipelago that is part of Indonesia, and part of the larger Maritime Southeast Asia region. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone...

.

Already after a year, on October 31 1617, Reael resigned following a dispute with the VOC's leadership (the Lords XVII) on the treatment of both the English competitors in the Moluccas and of the native people. The jurist Reael would only take action against the English if international law would allow that and had protested repeatedly against the incursions against the natives. He, like the local admiral Steven van der Haghen, was of the opinion that the VOC's goals should be achieved solely via commercial and diplomatic routes. In his official report to the Staten Generaal and the VOC's Lords XVII upon his return to Holland he made these points again very clear.

It would take however until March 21, 1619 until the decidedly less pacifistic Jan Pieterszoon Coen

Jan Pieterszoon Coen

Jan Pieterszoon Coen was a officer of the Dutch East India Company in the early seventeenth century, holding two terms as its Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies....

 would replace him as Governor-General, before which time Reael had fought the Spanish in 1617 in the Bay of Manila, the English at Bantam

Bantam (city)

Bantam in Banten province near the western end of Java was a strategically important site and formerly a major trading city, with a secure harbor on the Sunda Strait through which all ocean-going traffic passed, at the mouth of Banten River that provided a navigable passage for light craft into...

 and in the Mollucas, and the Mataram Sultanate

Mataram Sultanate

The Sultanate of Mataram was the last major independent Javanese empire on Java before the island was colonized by the Dutch. It was the dominant political force in interior Central Java from the late 16th century until the beginning of the 18th century....

 at Japara on Java

Java

Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...

.

Later life in Holland

Reael left the East Indies in January 1620 for Holland where for several years he focused on poetry, partially because his sympathies for the remonstrants

Remonstrants

The Remonstrants are the Dutch Protestants who, after the death of Jacobus Arminius, maintained the views associated with his name. In 1610 they presented to the States of Holland and Friesland a remonstrance in five articles formulating their points of disagreement from Calvinism.-History:The five...

 (Arminius

Jacobus Arminius

Jacobus Arminius , the Latinized name of the Dutch theologian Jakob Hermanszoon from the Protestant Reformation period, served from 1603 as professor in theology at the University of Leiden...

 had been his brother in law after all) prevented him from holding public office. He acquainted, among others, the poets Pieter Cornelisz Hooft and Joost van den Vondel

Joost van den Vondel

Joost van den Vondel was a Dutch writer and playwright. He is considered the most prominent Dutch poet and playwright of the 17th century. His plays are the ones from that period that are still most frequently performed, and his epic Joannes de Boetgezant , on the life of John the Baptist, has...

 and became part of the Muiderkring

Muiderkring

In the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic, roughly equivalent to the later half of the 17th century, the Muiderkring was the name given to a group of figures in the arts and sciences who regularly met at the castle of Muiden near Amsterdam...

. In 1623 Vondel dedicated his poem Lof der Zeevaart (Ode to Seafaring) to him.

After the death of Maurice of Nassau, Reael's standings were restored, and on June 9 1625 he became a member of the Amsterdam Chamber of the VOC, which he would remain until the end of his life. From 1625 - 1627 he was Vice-Admiral of Holland and West-Friesland with the Amsterdam Admiralty, and he commanded a fleet of ships fighting the Spanish at the Barbary Coast

Barbary Coast

The Barbary Coast, or Barbary, was the term used by Europeans from the 16th until the 19th century to refer to much of the collective land of the Berber people. Today, the terms Maghreb and "Tamazgha" correspond roughly to "Barbary"...

 alongside the English (the "second expedition to Spain" from 12 November 1626 to 10 July 1627). In 1626 he represented the Dutch Republic

Dutch Republic

The Dutch Republic — officially known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands , the Republic of the United Netherlands, or the Republic of the Seven United Provinces — was a republic in Europe existing from 1581 to 1795, preceding the Batavian Republic and ultimately...

 at the crowning of Charles I of England

Charles I of England

Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...

, who knighted him at the occasion. From 18 August 1627 he was acting Lieutenant-Admiral of Holland and West-Friesland after the death of Lieutenant-Admiral Willem van Nassau.

At the end of 1627, he was sent as a diplomat to Denmark, which at that time was at war with Ferdinand II of Austria. On his way back early in 1628, he suffered a shipwreck of the coast of Jutland

Jutland

Jutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...

, where Austrian imperial troops happened to be camped. These captured him and sent him to Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, where he would remain imprisoned until February 1629. On his return he was not reinstated in his naval functions. In the summer of that year he married, and in 1630 he became councillor

Councillor

A councillor or councilor is a member of a local government council, such as a city council.Often in the United States, the title is councilman or councilwoman.-United Kingdom:...

 and in 1632 alderman

Alderman

An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members themselves rather than by popular vote, or a council...

 (schepen) of the city of Amsterdam.

In 1637 he was considered for the function of Fleet Admiral of the confederate Dutch fleet to replace the incompetent Philips van Dorp, but in October, after losing his two young sons earlier in the year, he died of bubonic plague

Bubonic plague

Plague is a deadly infectious disease that is caused by the enterobacteria Yersinia pestis, named after the French-Swiss bacteriologist Alexandre Yersin. Primarily carried by rodents and spread to humans via fleas, the disease is notorious throughout history, due to the unrivaled scale of death...

 in Amsterdam. He was buried in the Westerkerk

Westerkerk

The Westerkerk is a church of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands denomination in Amsterdam, built in 1620-1631 after a design by Hendrick de Keyser. It is next to Amsterdam's Jordaan district, on the bank of the Prinsengracht canal....

.

Sources

• Gouverneurs-Generaal (Dutch)
• VOCsite : personalia, Laurens Reael (Dutch)