Sources for Scottish History in the Records of Veere1
In Search of Scotland in a Zeelandic Town: sources for Scottish history in the records of Veere1 Peter Blom2 At the end of the seventeenth century, a remarkable legal battle took place. It all started because of a woman and almost escalated into the annulment of a trade contract the Scots and the community of Veere had signed one hundred and fifty years before. The protagonists were Isaac den Heldt, the mayor of Veere, and John Gordon, a merchant from Aberdeen. All manner of accusations were made in writing, and a lively correspondence ensued between the relevant parties in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Veere, and The Hague. As the following letter shows, documents could sometimes take a long time to reach their destination. On February 6th, the mayor of Veere wrote a letter to his attorney: Dear sir, please find enclosed a report from Scotland, and from Edinburgh and Aberdeen, as well as the Dutch translation thereof. The reason it has taken so long, is that ships carrying the letters were struck by storms and head-on winds which drove them to the north of Scotland where they were taken ashore; our documents of proof were 40 days old before they were delivered (…)3 This document can be found in a letter book dating from 1695 until 1701 which is housed in the archives of the ‘Orphan Chamber’ in the town of Veere. It is labelled ‘estate documents belonging to Isaac den Heldt’, which does not immediately tell you that this is where you should look if you are trying to gather information on postal traffic between the Netherlands and Scotland in the seventeenth century.
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