Breda was the seat in the Netherlands of the House of Orange-Nassau, although the city was several times lost to the Spanish. At the Siege of Breda of 1637 the city was finally recaptured by Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, and in 1646 he founded the college, modelling it on Saumur, Geneva, and Oxford, to train young men of good family for the army and the civil service. As its home he provided the "Kloosterkazerne", previously a nunnery. Jan van Vliet travelled to Breda, taking his whole family with him, to be present at the inauguration of the college on 16 September 1646. André Rivet, the learned French Huguenot tutor of the future William II of Orange, was the first Rector of the college.