Henry Hudson and the Sea Beggars (Assisted by Francis and Jean Devos)
Alfred H. Marks
Well before Henry Hudson set out on his voyages, the “sea beggars” were a force to be reckoned with along the eastern coast of the North Sea. They were instrumental in the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and their earlier capture of Brielle, a small port city at the gates of Rotterdam, in 1572, is often looked at as the turning point of the Dutch war for independence from Spain.
William Elliot Griffis, in his important book, The Story of the Walloons, brings Hudson and the “Beggars” together:
“The East India Company, formed in 1595, had no jurisdiction over America, nor any intent to colonize it. In 1609, their great purpose was to find a shorter route to Japan, China, and the East Indies. To this end, encouraged by the Walloon, Peter Plancius, they commissioned the intrepid English pilot, Henry Hudson, in the Half Moon. This ship, named after the silver omen of victory of the invincible, self-named Beggars, entered the waters of what was to be [Terra] Nova Belgica. To this day the Dutch speak of the crescent as "halve maen."
The beggars’ name needs explanation – not a short one – which takes us back to 1566, 50 years before Hudson’s first visit to the river that bears his name. Let us visit the nation known as the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands, or Pays Bas XVII Provinces, ruled from Spain by the very Catholic member of the Hapsburg family named King Philip II, intent on wiping out all non–Catholic believers and at the same time wresting control of his rich nation from the affluent body of noblemen who had ruled it for centuries.
One summer day, a body of several hundred disgruntled noblemen, mounted and serious, arrived at the entrance to the Brussels palace of the Regent, Margaret, King Philip’s sister, and presented a document named simply “Compromis.” As they read and discussed their carefully prepared text, a nobleman on her staff, loyal to the administration, said to her, “Madame, votre Alteze a t’elle crainte de ces Gueux?” or “Your grace is not afraid of these beggars!”
These were the principal nobles of the land!
At the end of a banquet a few days later, during which the wine flowed more heavily than usual, the lords swore a solemn oath of mutual support and unity under the cry “Long live the beggars!” [“Vive les gueux”]. It would become the rallying cry of the coming revolt. The beggar’s purse (la Besace) and clasped hands would be the symbols.
"Vive les Gueux."
“Long Live the Beggars”
Numerous were the badges and symbols carried by the various “Beggars.” Two examples are the badge above, and the medal below that read on one side, “En tout fidelles au roy,” (In all, faithful to the King) and, on the reverse, “Jusques à porter la Besace,” “Until we carry the beggar’s purse.” The purse refers to the heavy taxes or, for protesters, the penalty of surrendering all one’s property to the “profit of the crown” that came after capital punishment, banishment, or flight from the country
The sobriquet “Beggars” will remain a powerful unifying force for decades, as guerilla bands, or ‘wood–beggars” roamed the countryside and “sea–beggars” roamed the seas and played a key role in the liberation of the northern provinces, our present–day Netherlands. In fact, according to Griffis, “the brave Netherlanders, called Beggars of the Sea...wore a silver crescent, or half moon, with the motto ‘Better Turk than Pope.’” Griffis goes on to say that Henry Hudson’s ship was named for that half–moon crescent symbol, perhaps the one shown below:
"Liever Turx den Paus," "Better Turk than Pope."
The “Turk” reference is to the warfare waged by Turkish forces along the coasts of the Mediterranean that ended in 1571 with the Battle of Lepanto. Philip II played a leading role in organizing the international forces that won the battle and permanently ended the Turkish threat.
Unfortunately for the “Gueux,” Philip II was also too strong for them. Now, after four centuries have passed, their neighbors are catching up with their doings, as in La révolte des Gueux, published in 2008 by Alain Lottin, where all are told: “When the army intervened and the repressive and bloody regime of the Duke of Alva took over, the Gueux were smashed, massacred, executed, or forced to flee, losing their families and their fortunes.” But the sea–beggars crescent–in Dutch “Halve Maen,” – still recalls their defiance in the land Henry Hudson opened to exploration.
“En tout fidelles au roy,” (In all, faithful to the King) and, on the reverse, “Jusques à porter la Besace,” “Until we carry the beggar’s purse.”
