Gorinchem: the town that mastered flooding as a defence

Gorinchem and the Fortress Triangle had the capability to flood land around towns and fortresses, making a unique defence system that was effective until the development of modern artillery, the introduction of the railroad and the invention of the airplane.

Gorinchem is Netherland’s largest fortified city located along the Waal river, an extension of the Rhine, in the province of South Holland. This historic town together with the village of Woudrichem, Loevestein Castle and Fort Vuren form the Vestingdriehoek (The Fortress Triangle). The threesome was a critical part of the Old and the New Dutch Water Lines that defended Holland for centuries from invaders.

An Undiscovered Historical Nook

Still undiscovered by most tourists, Gorinchem, also known as Gorkum or Gorcum, is over a 1000 years old and worth a day trip before the hordes discover it. Gorinchem’s rich history is reflected in its many preserved heritage structures, warehouses, townhouses and other buildings.

The town was first mentioned in a document in 1224, which granted people from Gorinchem exemption of toll payments throughout Holland. That was quite a perk in those days.

In 1273 the town was purchased by the Lords of Arkel who were wealthy landowners. At the end of the 13th century, the town was fortified to protect against nasty neighbouring counties and dukedoms of Holland and Guelders, a historical county that later became a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire. This time also saw the construction of the first public buildings such as churches, inns, a city hall and a Holland casino.

Gorinchem Main Square. Image: Jim Goyjer Photography/Supplied

Halfway through the fourteenth century, the city’s ramparts were reinforced with stone walls with seven gates and 23 towers. The city gained city rights in 1382 and became a part of the County of Holland in 1417.

Martyrs of Gorcum

European history is complicated and the history of the Netherlands is confusing. Since the Middle Ages the Netherlands was part of the Holy Roman Empire. No matter who married whom and what family dynasty ruled the Empire throughout Western Europe, they were all Roman Catholics.

Holy Roman rule ended with the liberation of the Netherlands from the Spanish in 1648. But, in the meantime during the Dutch revolt against the Spanish, certain Dutch rebel Calvinists known at Watergeuzen (Sea Beggars) captured numerous towns along the rivers in the south, including Gorinchem. They went on a rampage against any catholic cleric in sight.

Although the leader of the Dutch Revolt, Prince of Orange, William I, sent a letter to this group to leave the priests alone, these nasty protestant privateers hanged 19 Catholic members of the clergy. This group came to be known as the “Martyrs of Gorcum.”

A permanent exhibition about the Martyrs and the history of Gorinchem can be seen in the Gorcums Museum, a former city hall on the Grote Markt. It also has a collection of art from Gorinchem, ranging from the 17th century to works by 20th-century artists who lived and worked in Gorinchem.

Notable Historic Figures of a Different Kind

Two of Gorinchem’s famous historical figures are Hugo de Groot and Hendrick Hamel.  Hugo de Groot, also known as Hugo Grotius, was a famous Dutch jurist who laid the foundation for international law based on natural law, which is independent of the laws imposed by political order, society or a nation-state.

Natural law is objective, universal and inalienable. Hugo was one of the first to define the concept of one society of states, governed not by force or warfare but by actual laws and mutual agreement to enforce those laws. It was known as a social contract.

He also advocated for freedom of the seas stating that the sea was international territory and all nations were free to use it for seafaring trade.

Born in 1583 in Delft, he was a child prodigy. By the age of eight, he was writing poems in Latin and translating books from Greek and Latin. He entered the University of Leiden at the age of eleven and publishing his first book at age sixteen, a scholarly work on the seven liberal arts essential for a free person to know in order to take an active part in civic and civil life. Heavy stuff for a teenager who was appointed a lawyer shortly thereafter in The Hague.

Hugo eventually got entangled in a dispute battling religious and civil authority over public matters, such as separation of church and state and religious tolerance. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when Hugo supported local authorities to be given the power to organize their own troops. That undermined the authority of the current stadholder Captain-General of the republic, Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange.

The Hugo De Groot Poort. Image: Jim Goyjer Photography/Supplied

Hugo was arrested in 1618 along with former Dutch patriot and freedom fighter Johan van Oldenbarnevelt who led the current insurrection. Johan lost his head and Hugo was sent to life imprisonment in Loevestein Castle.

While in prison, guards would sometimes deliver large trunks full of books between Hugo and his family in Gorinchem. On March 22, 1621, Hugo managed to stuff himself into the trunk.

His unsuspecting guards carried him outside to the home of a Gorinchem merchant on the town’s main square. Dressed as a bricklayer, Hugo emerged through a small portal and fled to Paris.

The portal in the town’s square, which can be seen today, is called the Hugo de Groot portal. De Groot’s concept of natural law had a strong impact on the political developments of the 17th and 18th centuries. His philosophy influenced the start of the American Revolution.

Hendrick Hamel was born in Gorinchem in 1630. In 1650, he sailed to the Dutch East Indies where he found work as a bookkeeper with the Dutch East India Company.  While sailing to Japan in 1653 on the ship “De Sperwer” (The Sparrowhawk), Hamel and thirty-five other crewmates survived a deadly shipwreck on Jeju Island in South Korea.

After a year on the island he and the others were taken to Seoul, the capital of Joseon Korea. Shortly after his arrival in Seoul, Hendrick met up with fellow Dutchman Jan Janse de Weltevree from De Rijp who, after having been shipwrecked on the Korean shore 27 years earlier, became an advisor to the King. The King assigned Jan to be Hendrick’s translator. Good idea.

Wilhelmina fountain in Gorinchem. Image: Jim Goyjer Photography/Supplied

Hendrick and a few crew members were then transferred to the city of Gangjin in 1656. Korean King Hyojong forbade all of them to leave the country, as was the custom with illegal aliens, but they were given the freedom to live relatively normal lives.

After thirteen years of confinement, Hendrick and seven crew mates escaped to Nagasaki, Japan, where there was a small Dutch trading post. Here Hendrick wrote his famous journal of living in Korea, which gave the Europeans their first glimpse of life in the Kingdom of Korea. “Hamel’s Journal and a Description of the Kingdom of Korea, 1653-1666,” was published in 1668.  Hendrick returned to the Netherlands in 1670 where he died in 1692. Jan was never heard from again.

To pay homage to its famous world traveler, the town of Gorinchem dedicated a statue of Hamel and established the Hendrick Hamel Museum.  A second, similar statue, was added to the Hamel Memorial Museum in the South Korean town of Gangjin, where he is regarded as a hero.

Waterlines’ Key Stronghold in the Netherlands

The Oude Hollandse Waterlinie was the backbone of Dutch defence in the 17th and 18th centuries and is closely linked to the Dutch hydraulic engineering tradition. This military line of defence lay from Amsterdam south to Gorinchem and beyond. When the enemy approached, extensive areas of low lying land could be flooded and submerged under water too deep for horses and humans to walk around and not deep enough for enemy ships.

The Oude Hollandse

Gorinchem: the town that mastered flooding as a defence