Adrian Damman
Adrian or Adriaan Damman of Bysterveldt (died 1605) a native of Ghent, was a diplomatic agent of the Dutch Republic in Scotland in the 1590s.[1][2] Damman was an author, and taught at the University of Edinburgh.[3][4] He was knighted at the baptism of Prince Robert in May 1602.[5]
Diplomacy and community in Scotland
[edit]An account of royal expenses made around November 1588 includes a payment of £266 Scots to "Adriane Dammane and some workmen Flemings".[6] Damman wrote a poem De Introitu describing the royal entry and coronation of Anne of Denmark in June 1590.[7]
In June 1592, the Parliament of Scotland created a new office, the Master of Metals to be in charge of mines and refining, and John Lindsay of Menmuir was appointed. Pressure was exerted on a prospector, Eustachius Roche, to resign his rights. Information damaging his reputation was collected from the Dutch Republic and Flanders by the means of the Adrian Damman and a Scottish merchant in Antwerp, Jacob Barron (who was involved in lead mining in Scotland, and it was said that Eustachius was of "evil fame".[8]
Damman's position as resident agent in Scotland was confirmed by the ambassadors William Keith of Delny and William Murray of Pitcarleis on 19 June 1594.[9][10]
Damman was godfather or a baptismal witness in 1596 to a son of Adrian Vanson, a Flemish portrait painter working in Edinburgh, and a daughter of Jacques de Bousie a confectioner,[11] and in October 1600 a witness to the baptism of Adrian, a son of a Flemish clockmaker in Edinburgh Adrian Bowdowingis.[12] The Lord Chancellor of Scotland, John Maitland died on 3 October 1595. James VI composed an epitaph and Damman translated it into Latin.[13]
Damman was not Edinburgh in December 1596 when there was a protest at the tolbooth about religious and political issues.[14] He wrote reports about the events and David Black, who had called the royal court the "devil's house", and subsequent occurrences after his return to Scotland on 19 February 1597 for the States General, apparently based on "official" versions supplied by James VI. The King imprisoned the laird of Buccleuch in Edinburgh Castle to please Elizabeth I which made people "rumble in their teeth" (grondée entre les dents) and caused bad feelings against England. Meanwhile, King James was involved in a witch hunt in Aberdeen and Dundee, and was nearly drowned in a ferry boat in a storm on the Tay.[15]
In February 1598, Damman became involved in controversy when he contributed to a succession tract, a pamphlet arguing that James VI of Scotland should become King of England. The English diplomat George Nicholson reported that David Foulis had directed the printer Robert Waldegrave to publish a Latin succession tract written by Walter Quinn, a tutor to Prince Henry and corrected and edited by Damman. Such works argued that James VI should be Elizabeth's successor. Waldegrave was reluctant to print it. No copies of this work are known to have survived.[16] This work was A Pithie Exhortation to her Majesty for Establishing a Successor to the Crown, printed by Waldegrave in 1598.[17]
On 11 August 1600, Adrian Damman wrote an account of the Gowrie House affair including the presence of the Ruthven sisters in the household of Anne of Denmark. He wrote that Anne was distraught and welcomed James' late return to Falkland with a page carrying a flaming torch.[18]
Family
[edit]Adrian Damman was married to Margaret Stewart. In January 1604, his daughter Sara Damman (died 1611) married Jacques de Labarge or Labare (died 1613), a Flemish merchant based in Edinburgh and Leith as an "indweller".[19] Jacques de Labarge was also a witnesss at the baptism of a son of Adrian Bowdowingis the clockmaker, at the christening of Jacob in October 1601.[20]
Adrian Damman died on 21 August 1605 in Edinburgh's Canongate. Margaret Stewart was his executor. His three younger children, Adrian, Frederick, and Sophia died within four years of his death. Adrian junior was a posthumous child. Damman had owned "papers, brods, and cairts" - papers, pictures and charts. Sophia was recorded as the owner of her father's golden chain and its pendant gold tablet (a locket or medallion) together worth £74 Scots, and the will or executry mentions that the children received a pension from the estates of Holland because of their father's honourable service.[21]
Works
[edit]Published works of Ardrian Damman include:[22]
- Schediasmata Hadr. Damanis a Bisterveld gandavensis (Edinburgh, Robert Waldegrave, 1590), a description of the voyages of James VI of Scotland and Anne of Denmark and their wedding.
- Bartasias; de mundi creatione (Edinburgh, Robert Waldegrave, 1600), a translation of works by Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, a poet admired by James VI.
References
[edit]- ^ Katrien A. L. Daemen-de Gelder, "The Letters of Adriaan Damman, Dutch Ambassador at the Court of James VI and I, Lias, 31 (2004), pp. 239–248.
- ^ Esther Mijers, 'Diplomatic Visit', Steven J. Reid, Rethinking the Renaissance and Reformation in Scotland (Boydell, 2014), 266: Esther Mijers, "Addicted to Puritanism: Philosophical and Theological Relations between Scotland and the United Provinces in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century", in A. Broadie, History of Universities, XXIX, Number 2 (2016), pp. 69-95.
- ^ James Maidment, Letters and State Papers during the Reign of James the Sixth (Edinburgh, 1838), p. 23.
- ^ Jacques Alexandre de Chalmot, Biographisch woordenboek der Nederlanden, vol. 5 (Amsterdam, 1800), pp. 206-8.
- ^ John Duncan Mackie, Calendar State Papers Scotland, 13:1 (Edinburgh: HMSO, 1969), pp. lxv, 977.
- ^ Miles Kerr-Peterson & Michael Pearce, "James VI's English Subsidy and Danish Dowry Accounts", Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, XVI (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2020), p. 21.
- ^ Jamie Reid Baxter, 'Politics, Passion and Poetry in the Circle of Lennox: John Burel and his surviving works', L. A. J. R. Houwen, Alasdair A. MacDonald, Sally Mapstone, A Palace in the Wild: Essays on Vernacular Culture and Humanism in Late-medieval and Renaissance Scotland (Peeters, 2000), pp. 227. 232.
- ^ Robert William Cochran-Patrick, Early Records Relating to Mining in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1878), pp. 48-50.
- ^ Register van Holland, 1593–1594, p. 397.
- ^ Esther Mijers, 'Diplomatic Visit', Steven J. Reid, Rethinking the Renaissance and Reformation in Scotland (Boydell, 2024), p. 265: Annie Cameron, Warrender Papers, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1932), pp. 242-5.
- ^ 'Extracts from the Register of Baptisms', Edinburgh', The Scottish Antiquary, vol. 4 (Edinburgh, 1888), p. 174: Michael Apted & Susan Hannabuss, Dictionary of Painters in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1978), p. 98, citing National Records of Scotland, Old Parish Records, Edinburgh, vol. 1, fols. 9, 32, 59, 101.
- ^ 'Extracts from the Register of Baptisms, Edinburgh', The Scottish Antiquary, vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1891), p. 90.
- ^ Thomas Thomson,Historie and Life of James the Sext (Edinburgh, 1826), p. 350-1
- ^ Julian Goodare, "The Attempted Scottish Coup of 1596", Julian Goodare & Alasdair A. MacDonald, Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Brill, 2008), pp. 311-336.
- ^ Thomas McCrie, The Life of Andrew Melville, 2, p. 86: Jacobus Arminius, Praestantium ac eruditorum virorum epistolae ecclesiasticae et theologicae (Amsterdam, 1704), pp. 35-38, in French.
- ^ John Duncan Mackie, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1597–1603, 13:1 (Edinburgh, 1969), p. 167: Nicholas Tyacke, 'Puritan Politicians and King James VI and I', Thomas Cogswell, Richard Cust, Peter Lake, Politics, Religion and Popularity in Early Stuart Britain: Essays in Honour of Conrad Russell (Cambridge, 2002), p. 35.
- ^ Tara L. Lyons, 'Male Birth Fantasies and Maternal Monarchs', in Helen Ostovich, Holger Schott Syme, Andrew Griffin, Locating the Queen's Men, 1583–1603 (Ashgate, 2009), pp. 196, 259.
- ^ Georg Willem Vreede, Inleiding tot eene Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche Diplomatie, 2 (Utrecht: Broese, 1858), pp. 182–185, in French, from a Utrecht archive.
- ^ David Dobson, Huguenot and Scots Links, 1575–1775 (Baltimore, 2005), p. 23: National Records of Scotland, wills and testaments, CC8/8/52 pp. 15–16.
- ^ 'Extracts from the Register of Baptisms, Edinburgh', The Scottish Antiquary, vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1891), p. 90.
- ^ National Records of Scotland wills and testaments, CC8/8/46 pp. 61–62, 269–270.
- ^ Peter Auger, 'Translation and Cultural Convergence', Tracey A. Sowerby & Joanna Craigwood, Cultures of Diplomacy and Literary Writing in the Early Modern World (Oxford, 2019), p. 125.