Andries Bicker, lord of Engelenburg (Amsterdam, 1586 – 24 June 1652 ibid) was a powerful Amsterdam burgomaster and Dutch politician and diplomat during the Dutch Golden Age. He was a prominent member of the Bicker family of Amsterdam regents who, together with the related De Graeff family, governed the city of Amsterdam and with it the province of Holland for about half a century and, at that time, effectively the Republic of the Netherlands when it was at the height of its power. 

He was the leader of the Bickerse league, and after Reynier Pauw's political end in 1627, the management of the Amsterdam city government fell into the hands of the Arminian clique around Bicker and his uncle Jacob Dircksz de Graeff. This also gave new impetus to the republican States Party, which had been weakened since the assassination of Land's Advocate Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, and was able to determine Amsterdam politics for a long period of time. At the time of the politically weak Grand Pensionaries Anthonie Duyck and Jacob Cats from the 1620s to the 1640s, Bicker was regarded as the head of the republican regents in Holland and as a politician who resolutely opposed the striving for power of the stadtholders Frederick Henry and William II of Orange. He was considered one of the greatest political opponents of the Frederik Henry. Andries Bicker, together with his brother Cornelis Bicker and Cornelis de Graeff, the so called Bicker-De Graeff clan, was one of the main initiators of peace with Spain during the Eighty Years' War and of the participation of the Dutch provinces in the Peace of Münster in 1648.

Biography

Bicker family 
The Bicker family was one of the oldest patrician families of Amsterdam and belonged to the leading regent-oligarchy. The Bickers were the most powerful family in Amsterdam and decisively determined the fortunes of the city. They were a major trading family involved in the pelt trade with Muscovy and supplying ships and silver to Spain. The Bicker-De Graeff family-faction became the strongest competitor in the years after the Dutch uprising. Through their work on the Amsterdam City Council and the Dutch East India Company, the Bickers gained enormous influence on politico-economic self-determination in the young Dutch Republic due to the city's position of economic power within the Republic. Andries Bicker was the eldest son of Gerrit Bicker and Aleyd Andriesdr Boelens Loen. Gerrit was a wealthy patrician, politician, international grain merchant and beer brewer. and threw his work in the Amsterdam Vroedschap and as one of the founders of the East India Company, he was able to launch the careers of his sons, grandchildren and nephews. Andries Bicker ruled the city administration for a long time and was mainly supported and carried by his three brothers Jacob, Jan and Cornelis Bicker, his uncle Jacob Dircksz de Graeff and his cousin Cornelis de Graeff. The Bicker brothers had a firm grip on world trade, trading on the East, the West, the North and the Mediterranean. Andries' uncle Laurens Bicker was one of the first to trade on Guinea and seized four Portuguese ships in 1604. 

Andries Bicker was married to Trijn Jansdr van Tengnagel (1595–1652). The couple had five children:
 Alida Bicker (1620-1702), lady of Engelenburg (she inherited the estate originally owned by her distant relative Pieter Dircksz Graeff through her cousin Jacob Bicker), married to another cousin of her named Jacob Bicker (1612–1676)
 Gerard Bicker (1622-1666), remained unmarried; baljuw of Muiden
 Jan Bicker (1626-1657), remained unmarried; advisor of the Admirality of Noorderkwartier (1655/1657)
 Cornelia Bicker (1629-1708), married to the Danish baron and wealthy landlord Joachim Irgens von Westervick in 1656. Between 1666 and 1675 Irgens owned the norwegian Irgens Estate, which was huge part of Northern Norway, as a private estate.
 Elisabeth Bicker (1631-1666), married to Salomon Sweers, younger brother of Admiral Isaac Sweers

One of Andries Bicker's granddaughters, Catharina Bicker (1642–1678) - daughter of Andries nephew Jacob Bicker (1612–1676) and his own daughter Alida Bicker - was married to a refugee, former Danish steward, councilor and chamberlain, imperial Count Palatine Jacob de Petersen.

Coat of arms 

The coat of arms of Andries Bickers was quartered:
 1 and 4 in gold, a red crossbar (van den Anxter); 2 and 3 in silver, three transverse black helmets placed one above the other (Helmer). Helmt.: a protruding bearded male figure in natural color, dressed in a red tabard with wide sleeves and provided with gold braids and braids, covered with a high pointed cap with a turned-back brim, and holding up a golden torch in each of the given hands, the bottom rests on the helmet. Andries, as owner of the lordship of Engelenburg, has increased this with a blue heart shield, charged with a silver castle, from which emerges a rising silver angel with outspread wings.

Genealogical and political Legacy 

Andries and his brother Cornelis Bicker, together with their cousins Cornelis and Andries de Graeff, saw themselves as the political heirs of the old regent family Boelens, whose main lineage, which had remained catholic, had died out in the male line in 1647. They had received the very significant first names Andries and Cornelis from their Boelens ancestors. As in a real dynasty, members of the two families frequently intermarried in the 17th century in order to keep their political and commercial capital together. Its great historical ancestor was Andries Boelens (1455-1519), the city's most influential medieval mayor. Both families, Bicker and De Graeff, descend in the female line from Boelens. He was allowed to hold the highest office in Amsterdam fifteen times.

Political career

Beginning 
Andries Bicker was a wealthy merchant who trade with Russia. He became a member of the Amsterdam Vroedschap in 1616 and represented the radical Republican party. In questions of faith, too, he was on the side of the radically thinking followers of Arminianism. In 1620 he was appointed schepen of Amsterdam and in 1627, just over forty years old, mayor of Amsterdam (his further appointments fell in the years 1629, 1631, 1633, 1634, 1636, 1640, 1641, 1645 and 1649). Bicker came to the fore through his knowledge and moderation. In 1627 and 1628 Andries Bicker served as an envoy of the Dutch States-General at the courts of Poland, Sweden and Brandenburg to represent Dutch commercial interests and close negotiations between these two countries, mediate a peace (culminating in the Treaty of Sztumska Wieś) and at the same time set up new Baltic trade agreements. Apart from Bicker, this delegation included Rochus van den Honert, Simon van Beaumont and Gijsbert van Boetselaar. While diplomats were received with great honor at the Swedish court, this was not the case in Poland; they returned to The Hague without having achieved anything.

Bickerse league 

The Bicker family, also known as the Bickerse ligue, was strictly Protestant and focused on Amsterdam's economic boom. In the 1630s, Andries Bicker ruled the city together with his uncle Jacob Dircksz de Graeff as the so called arminian clique, helping the Republicans and Remonstrants regain influence and recognition for the first time since Johan van Oldenbarnevelt's death. Bicker and De Graeff shared a liberal attitude that set them apart from other city politicians. From the later 1630s they came into opposition to the stadtholders who came from the House of Orange. The Bickerse league political group comprised seven members of the Bicker family, all of whom held political offices at that time. In addition to Andries Bicker, his brothers Jan, Jacob and Cornelis Bicker also belonged to that league, as well as Andries' son Gerard Bicker and their more distant cousins, the brothers Jacob Jacobsz Bicker (1612–1676; he was also the husband of Andries' daughter Alida Bicker) and Hendrick Jacobsz Bicker (1615–1651). They opposed the stadtholder Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, who intended the centralize the five admiralties, which would cause the Admiralty of Amsterdam to lose influence. 

In 1631 Andries Bicker was the owner of a few plots in Spanderswoud in 's-Graveland, the site where now the fine Trompenburgh house stands. The Bicker family also had concerns in peat-digging in Drenthe. In 1635 he was on a diplomatic mission to Poland, Sweden and Denmark together with Van den Honert and Joachim Andreae. They reached an extension of the expiring armistice between Poland and Sweden. In 1635 Bicker was one of the Dutch envoys at the Treaty of Stuhmsdorf.

A strong bulwark against the ambitions of the House of Orange also developed in Amsterdam during these years. Since Bicker feared an economically strong Antwerp and Brabant, he supported the Spaniards in their fight against the southern Dutch provinces and sold them silver and ships. He was also a vehement supporter of ending the Eighty Years' War with the Spanish Habsburgs. This intensified the conflict with the Stadtholder Frederick Henry and the Reformed in Holland. Between 1637 and 1639 he was appointed councilor of the Admiralty of Amsterdam. At the solemn entry of Maria de Medici into Amsterdam in 1638, he and the regents Albert Burgh, Pieter Hasselaer, Antonie Oetgens van Waveren and Abraham Boom welcomed her in the name of the city's government. Bicker worked also as an administrator of the VOC, representative of the States-General of the Netherlands and as a colonel in the Civic guard.

During the 1640s the republican elite of the province of Holland, the brothers Andries and Cornelis Bicker, their cousins the brothers Cornelis and Andries de Graeff and Jacob de Witt from Dordrecht, advocated an end to the war with the Spanish Kingdom of Spain and a reduction in land forces. This ongoing state of war prevented the economic growth and social development of the United Netherlands. Also, this state of war strengthened the stadtholder's power as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, something the Republicans did not want.

In 1643, Andries Bicker went with Jacob de Witt as an envoy to Sweden to mediate between Sweden and Polen. In 1643 the Amsterdam burgomasters Jan Cornelisz Geelvinck, Albert Burgh, Gerbrand Claesz Pancras and Cornelis de Graeff were able to get Andries Bicker, who had become overpowering, to resign by appointing him to the Council of States of Holland. He held this position until 1645. In the same year, Andries Bicker traveled to Stockholm together with Jacob de Witt, the Zeeland Pensionary Cornelis van Stavenisse and Joachim Andreae, again on a diplomatic mission, to secure Sweden's peace with Denmark. The end of the war and the Dutch naval dominance under Admiral Witte de With in the Baltic Sea rested on the power of Andries Bicker and not on that of the stadtholder. Between 1646 and 1648 he was a deputy in the States General. In 1646 the seven members of the "Bickerse league", simultaneously held some political position or other. This brought them again in conflict with the stadtholder, some provinces, like Zeeland and Utrecht, and the Reformed preachers. In 1647 Andries Bicker, former Grand Pensionary Adriaan Pauw and the inner power circle of the States of Holland first advocated a drastic reduction in Dutch forces (under the orders of the Orange stadtholder). In the same year [and not in 1646] he inherited the dominion and Engelenburg castle from his brother Jacob Bicker.

Conflict with William II of Orange 

During the 1640s, the influence of Andries Bicker and the city grew even greater as the end of the Eighty Years' War drew nearer. Amsterdam's trade interests pointed in the direction of peace and she was able to push through under Bicker's leadership. The position of the Bicker family was then more powerful than any generation of mayors before or after them. Andries Bicker represented a growing authority both from his membership in the States General, over the States of Holland, and from his frequent diplomatic mission trips to Sweden, Poland, Brandenburg and Denmark.

In 1648, due to the immense political pressure from the entire Bicker-De Graeff Clan the United Netherlands entered into peace negotiations with Spain in order to end the Eighty Years' War with the Peace of Münster. After the peStates Generalace treaties and the reduction of the land forces, the political opposition to the House of Orange and in particular to the new stadtholder William II, who had succeeded his father Frederick Henry as stadtholder in 1647, wanted to make the city of Amsterdam docile in 1650 by means of a coup d'etat, deepened. In May 1650 he supported a proposal that suggested military cutbacks to encourage peace efforts. On 30 July 1650 the brothers old-burgomaster Andries and burgomaster Cornelis Bicker activated the militia to defend against an attack on Amsterdam by the new stadholder William II after being warned of William's approach by a postman travelling from Hamburg to Amsterdam, who passed on the news to Bicker's son Gerard Bicker, then the bailiff or drost of Muiden. Gerard set off for Amsterdam immediately and after receiving the news Cornelis and Andries together with burgomaster Joan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen raised the bridges, shut the gates and deployed artillery. The attack failed but after the attack burgomaster De Graeff passed on a message from William II that Cornelis and Andries must resign from their posts on the town council. As result Andries Bicker was purged from the Vroedschap, as was his brother Cornelis Bicker, as one of the conditions of the treaty that followed, led by De Graeff and Huydecoper van Maarsseveen. However, they were restored to them on 22 November the same year afterwards William died shortly of smallpox. Afterwards Andries Bicker was appointed councilor of the Admiralty of Amsterdam, as well as deputy in the Chambre Mi-partie. On May 11, 1652, he requested his discharge from the last unction for health reasons, and died the following 24 June.

Outlook 
After the death of Andries Bicker and the other Bicker brothers, the family's influence ended. None of Andries descendants achieved a seat in the Amsterdam vroedschap.

Henceforth, it was the equally republican-minded brothers Cornelis and Andries de Graeff, and their following, who dominated Amsterdam and the States of Holland. His niece Wendela Bicker married the powerful raadspensionaris Johan de Witt, who dominated the Dutch politic of the later Golden Age until the Rampjaar 1672.

Notes and references

External links

 Andries Bicker Biography I at Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek
 Andries Bicker Biography II at Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden
 Andries and Cornelis Bicker at Letterkundig woordenboek voor Noord en Zuid
 Pictures of Dutch voyage to Guinea, Argentina and Brazil

1586 births
1652 deaths
17th-century Dutch businesspeople
17th-century Dutch politicians
17th-century merchants
Arminian writers
Andries
Burials at the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam
Dutch merchants
Dutch States Party politicians
History of Amsterdam
Mayors of Amsterdam
Businesspeople from Amsterdam
Remonstrants
Dutch people of the Eighty Years' War (United Provinces)