Michiel de Ruyter's House on the Prins Hendrikkade
Why is it significant?
Stop in front of this tall, narrow house on the waterfront and look for the plaque beside the door. It tells you, in a single line, that Michiel de Ruyter lived here... and in the Netherlands that name still makes people stand a little straighter, or argue a little louder.
Key Facts
| Place | Michiel de Ruyter's House on the Prins Hendrikkade |
|---|---|
| Address | Prins Hendrikkade 131, 1011 AS Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.37360, 4.90540 |
| Part of Walk | Spice, Ships and Shadows: Amsterdam's Golden Age Harbour and the Dutch East India Company |
| Generated | Generated |
Stop in front of this tall, narrow house on the waterfront and look for the plaque beside the door. It tells you, in a single line, that Michiel de Ruyter lived here... and in the Netherlands that name still makes people stand a little straighter, or argue a little louder.
De Ruyter was born in Vlissingen in 1607, the son of a beer porter. As a boy, the story goes, he turned the great wheel in a rope works and once climbed the church tower of his town for a dare. He went to sea at about eleven, rose from ship's boy to merchant captain, and grew rich in trade before the Republic called him into the navy. In time he settled in Amsterdam, in a house on this harbour front.
His greatest triumph came in June 1667, during the war with England. De Ruyter's fleet sailed up the Thames estuary into the Medway, burned English warships at anchor and towed the pride of the Royal Navy, the Royal Charles, all the way home. Its carved stern still hangs in the Rijksmuseum. In England it was a national humiliation; here it was the stuff of songs.
But there is another chapter. In 1664 and 1665 De Ruyter led an expedition to West Africa, where he retook forts and trading posts for the West India Company, including posts at the heart of the Atlantic slave trade. For centuries the textbooks left that out. Today Dutch schools and museums tell both stories, and De Ruyter has become a symbol of how the country is learning to look at its Golden Age with both eyes open.
He died in 1676 after being wounded in a battle off Sicily, and his body was brought home to be buried in the Nieuwe Kerk on the Dam, under a huge marble tomb. Imagine the procession passing these houses, sailors lining the quay. Now walk on just a little further east along the waterfront, to a great warehouse that belonged to the other Dutch company, the one that traded across the Atlantic.