The fourth of a regular series of columns from the other side of the Atlantic discussing the people, places and events that led to the Mayflower voyage from an English perspective. Today a detour across the North Sea to Holland and the ‘faire and beautiful city’ of Leiden. Home of the pilgrims from 1609 until 1620.
The first place to visit in Leiden is Stink Alley. A narrow gap between a soft furnishings shop and a silver maker it is lined with plastic refuse bins and bicycles. To call it nondescript is to give it a glamor it does not deserve.
It was here that William Brewster and his wife Mary lived and where the pilgrim elder and his young apprentice Edward Winslow published their radical pamphlets. Today it is better known as William Brewstersteeg (alley).
To reach this unprepossessing spot stroll along cobbled streets and by canals, past noble churches and fine gabled homes of warm red brick, and as you walk you will understand that of all the places on the Mayflower trail Leiden is the loveliest. In fact, it could be argued, the most significant because it was here that the pilgrims decided to sail to freedom.
What makes it all the more beguiling is that the pilgrims would recognize the place. Only look at the map to see how unchanged it is.
Of course, everything is in lockdown but the enterprising tourist board is refusing to abandon all their plans for Mayflower 400 and have set up a virtual program of talks, walks and museum visits to be broadcast on Saturday, May 16.
I’m lucky enough to have been on the Pilgrims Route with one of the guides, historian Marike Hoogduin, who brought the place alive for me, even in a howling gale.
Through the old cattle market we trudged, along the Galgewater where gallows stood and bodies swung, to the National Museum of Ethnology, (the Volkekunde), where its plan to explain the role of the Wampanoag in the Mayflower story will be told online. We stopped by an unimposing apartment block where a plaque announces that the artist Rembrandt was born in a house on that site. The story goes that the painter, who was born in 1606, used to play with the English children and might even have become friendly with a young Mary Chilton. Who knows? They were about the same age. It’s a nice story.
To lower the tone we paused in the old red light district and admired a pretty, pink dwelling which was once owned by a notorious prostitute nicknamed Groene Haasje (Little Green Hare). No wonder the God-fearing pilgrims were outraged by the ‘temptations’ of their new home.
Next, the Rapenburg, the most delightful of streets with its canal lined by elegant gable houses, and the site of the university where Brewster taught. Next door the Botanical Gardens where he might have acquired a book by herbalist Rembert Dodoens which he took with him to Plymouth. The pilgrims must have noticed the golden foliage of a laburnum tree planted in 1601 and maybe heard the story of the single tulip bulb which had been brought from Turkey in the early 16th century and became the progenitor of Holland’s tulip trade.
On the Rapenburg there is a beguiling cluster of bars such as the Grand Cafe Barrera - try the croquettes - and over the bridge, L’Esperance, a bruin cafe - brown café or pub - which opened to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon in 1814. A slogan on the wall reads; cold beer gives you warm blood.
Hard to disagree.
The God-fearing of the city, however, would have been drawn by duty and belief to the vast stony edifice of St Peter’s Church a few steps away. Inside, a small chapel in memory of the pilgrims and outside a plaque which poignantly lists the families who were buried there, including the community’s guiding light John Robinson who lived in a house opposite.
It was replaced in 1683, but behind the present building’s door is an unexpected delight - a courtyard of almshouses, one of 35 flower-filled squares tucked away in the city, all of them oases of calm.
Retrace our steps along the banks of the River Vliet and, in the lee of a bridge, we find a small statue, leaning forward, one hand reaching out, as if taking the first step to an unknown destination. It was hereabouts, that the pilgrims stepped on the boats which took them to Delfshaven and the Speedwell which transported them to the rendezvous with the Mayflower in Southampton.
The moment is vividly recorded by Adam Willaerts, a painter of the Dutch Golden Age, in Departure of the Pilgrim Fathers From Delfshaven. which was painted in the same year. It is striking how many of the passengers carry arms, even some women are holding pikes, and this apparently militant display has been used by some to promote the argument that the pilgrims were invaders, eager to conquer and kill.
I rather think it has more to do with defending themselves against the ‘wild lions’ they feared they would encounter.
The painting can be found in the Lakenhal Museum, built in 1640 as a hall for cloth merchants, along with classic depictions of the city in the 17th century. Curator Jori Zijlmans had plans to stage an exhibition which traced the story of the pilgrims from 1604 with paintings, documents and artefacts and is keen to frame their lives in the context of refugees and freedom today - something she will discuss online.
The camera will also go behind the door of the American Pilgrims House, a tiny museum given over to recreating life in the early 17th century. The creation of Jeremy Bangs, the pre-eminent historian on the Mayflower story, his work Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners is the definitive account of life in Leiden in those years, and his museum one of the oldest houses in Holland. It is a dusty treasure trove of ancient books, chests, cooking implements and tools, all cluttered around a fireplace and a tiny bed. Apparently people slept sitting up. Who knew!
However, Leiden is not lost in the past. It’s lively where you want it to be - the cafes and restaurants are usually abuzz - but the streets are quiet. Cyclists, not cars, rule here.
Quirky too. More than 100 poems by such as Rimbaud, Pablo Neruda and Shakespeare have been inscribed on city walls but this, Travel Safely, by an Iranian poet Shafi'i Kadkani tells of a refugee fleeing his homeland and speaks to centuries of fugitives - and pilgrims.
It ends:
‘Travel safely then! But my friend, I beg you,
When you have passed safely from this brutal wasteland,
And reached blossoms, and the rain,
Greet them from me.’
For the pilgrims, the days of blossoms were a long way off.
This month’s Wicked insult: Jobbernol goosecap. Jobbernol is a misshapen head, a blockhead. Goosecap is a silly person especially a flighty young girl.
Info: virtual guide on Facebook and You Tube at 4pm European time, 10 am Eastern Time.
Contacts: Leiden Tourist Office (VVV Leiden), Stationsweg 26, 2312 AV Leiden, +31 71 516 6000. info@mayflower400tours.com.
To stay: Hotel Steenhof Suites, a converted house with handsome stepped gables, rooms with beams and original fireplaces. Spectacular breakfast of eggs cocotte, nutty yoghurt, cold meat, cheese and croissants.
To eat: The Waag, a cavernous brasserie, once the old weigh station on the site where the pilgrims landed after leaving Amsterdam. More sophisticated, the Sabor on St Peter’s Square. Best in summer when you can sit outdoors.
Along the Galgewater - then and now
Leiden in the pilgrims’ day