In order to understand the linguistic framework of Van der Noot, D’Heere, and Radermacher, it is useful to briefly reiterate the complex language situation they left behind. The Franco-Dutch language border was highly permeable: in the areas where Dutch was the native tongue of the local population, French nevertheless held an important position. As the interregional language of diplomacy and trade, French would often be heard in the streets of commercial centres such as Ghent – D’Heere’s hometown – and Antwerp, home of Van der Noot and Radermacher.10 The inhabitants of these cities had at least a passive knowledge of French that should not be underestimated.11

Praise from the Italian traveller Lodovico Guicciardini and others for the ability of Netherlandish boys and girls to speak several languages has become commonplace in literature on the topic.12 Although this testimony should not be taken at face value, it does hold a grain of truth when it comes to the French language.13 Many schools, especially in the larger cities of Brabant and Flanders, provided French lessons, mostly to children from mercantile environments. In 1576, a total of eighty schoolmasters and seventy schoolmistresses were registered in Antwerp. Seventy-five of the men and fifty-two of the women taught French.14 Clearly, there was ample opportunity to learn French in Antwerp at this time.15

French was not only a commercial and diplomatic language, but also the language of the Netherlandish nobility, although for members of the lower noble classes, such as Van der Noot, it was generally not their native tongue. The use of French by the aristocracy was also connected to its high cultural prestige. Poets like Van der Noot and D’Heere were inspired by French poetic developments, leading them to be among the first to write sonnets in Dutch – they probably started practicing in French before inventing their own Dutch sonnets.16 In general, French was an important intermediary between Greek, Latin, and Italian on the one hand, and Dutch on the other. Many works, such as Moortje, Bredero’s adaptation of Terence’s Eunuchus, were translated into Dutch with the help of existing French translations.17

While the French language played an important role in regions that were primarily Dutch-speaking, this did not hold true for English. As John Florio, the son of an Italian refugee, pointed out: the English tongue ‘wyl do you good in England, but passe Dover, it is worth nothing’.18 Again, although this statement might be somewhat exaggerated, it does contain an element of truth. It was rare for native speakers of Dutch to learn English, even though some did so for commercial purposes.19 The English language simply did not enjoy the same prestige as French.

The hierarchy of languages was a much-debated topic in the international Republic of Letters in this period. Although diverging views of course existed, the general consensus was that Hebrew was in the leading position, followed by the classical languages, the Romance tongues, and finally the Germanic languages.20 As English was considered a mixture of Romance and Germanic forms, it was, by many, esteemed even less than the Germanic languages.21 The hierarchy of languages was in part based on their presumed familial ties, which were equally debated. According to some, such as Richard Verstegan (also known as Richard Rowlands), there was a connection between English and Dutch: the two languages were thought to share Germanic roots.22 Emanuel van Meteren, a refugee himself and close to Radermacher, actually argued that English was ‘broken Dutch, estranged and mixed with French and Breton terms and words’.23

Because of its lowly reputation, it is understandable that English was not a popular language in the Low Countries. In Antwerp, for example, only one schoolmaster was registered as an English teacher in 1576, compared to the 127 who taught French. The first English-Dutch language manual was not published until 1586.24 George Whetstone’s The honourable reputation of a souldier was printed by Thomas Basson, an Englishman who settled in Antwerp and then moved to Cologne and finally Leiden for religious reasons.25 At least in theory, the book could be used both to learn Dutch and to learn English, and its creators wished that through their manual ‘either lande, eche others tonge may learne’.26

The need for such an instructional manual had increased considerably during the 1580s, which saw many English soldiers stationed in the Low Countries to aid the Dutch in their revolt against Spain.27 It is well known that Sir Philip Sidney was among them, who died in 1586 from wounds inflicted during the Battle of Zutphen.28 That same year, Basson printed another English-Dutch language manual: a grammar. Its author, Gabriel Meurier, affirmed the importance of learning English: ‘What trouble hath bin between the one Nation, and the other sythence the comming of his Excell. into this countrie, by reason that the one can not understande the other.’29 It is difficult to determine to what extent the difficulties described in these manuals reflect the historical reality of encounters between speakers of English and Dutch, and to what extent this concerns a topos meant to increase the saleability of their manual.

As the century drew to a close, opportunities to learn English thus became available in the Low Countries, but some historians of language have questioned the need for such lessons. Jonathan Hsy and Chris Joby have pointed to the possibility that English-Dutch pidgins emerged in contact situations.30 Speakers of these languages might have used a mix of the two tongues in combination with gestures in order to communicate. This was a well-known practice in the Hanseatic context, where speakers could build on the Germanic language continuum, but there is little evidence of this happening between the English and the Dutch.31 Some literary sources, such as the plays of Thomas Dekker and the anonymous fifteenth-century poem London Lickpenny, do contain Netherlandish characters uttering mixed sentences such as ‘Mastar, what will ye copen [buy] or by’.32

While in some situations, such mixed language forms might certainly have been used, this article argues that the role of French should not be underestimated either. In England, French was valued for its aforementioned cultural and social prestige.33 Historically, it was a key language at the English court, and the cultural radiance of French literature was also felt across the Channel. As in the case of the Dutch language, French constituted an important go-between that connected English with continental literature: many works were translated from Latin, Greek, or Italian into English with the help of a French translation.34 In general, French was essential to Englishmen who wished to converse with non-English speakers.

The importance of French to the inhabitants of the British Isles is reflected in the printed works that were produced there. As John Gallagher has shown, numerous conversation manuals teaching French were available in England in this period, while only a small selection taught Dutch.35 In general, these manuals were focused on assisting the Englishman abroad, but the wave of European migration that washed over England over the course of the sixteenth century made them increasingly useful at home, too. With the arrival of Netherlandish and especially Huguenot refugees from France, French schools flourished in England, with many refugees taking up positions as schoolmasters.36 Huguenot refugees such as Claudius Hollyband (also known as Claude de Sainliens) and Jacques Bellot are among the most famous schoolmasters in sixteenth-century England.37 Netherlandish migrants wishing to make use of their knowledge of French must certainly have experienced competition from the Huguenot population in England, who were native speakers of the language. It is telling that, in one of his publications, Hollyband mocked an Antwerp competitor – probably the aforementioned Gabriel Meurier, who was born in Hainaut – for his French dialect.38 Apparently, Huguenots took the competition from the Low Countries seriously enough to engage with it.

Migrants from the Low Countries started arriving in England in the 1520s, but the largest influx followed the troubles of 1567. After the Iconoclastic Fury had raged over the Low Countries, the Duke of Alba was sent there to restore order: thousands, including Van der Noot, D’Heere, and Radermacher, left. Most of them fled in order to avoid persecution, some had other reasons related to the religious and political troubles.39 The three men all settled down in London, where refugees from France, the Low Countries, and Italy had established their own so-called stranger churches to worship in their own language.40 These churches were not necessarily visited by native speakers only. The local English population is known to have attended French and Italian services for religious reasons or to improve their language skills.41 Migrants such as the individuals studied here had their own reasons to choose a particular linguistic religious community, as becomes clear when we take a closer look at their particular cases.

Jan van der Noot was born in Brecht, near Antwerp, into a family belonging to the lower aristocracy. His social status probably explains his competence in Dutch and French, although several researchers have remarked that his French was not flawless.42 In 1566, van der Noot joined a confessionally-motivated group of political agitators which, in the following March, decided to occupy the Meir, Antwerp’s main thoroughfare, demanding, amongst other things, that Van der Noot be named Marquis of Antwerp. These demands met with short shrift, and by the end of the month Van der Noot had sold his house and left the city.43 He fled to London, where he lived with a servant near London Bridge, and attended the French church.44 His English sojourn was relatively short, as he moved on to the Rhineland in 1571, roughly three years later.

There are few sources that document Van der Noot’s activities in the three years he spent in England. This does not mean that the nobleman was not productive, as he published two poetic works in England, one of which, the Theatre, appeared in three languages: Dutch, French, and English. While Van der Noot continued his poetic career after his return to the Low Countries in 1578, he changed his publication strategy: from this point he would publish in both French and Dutch, with the two languages presented side by side.45 Karel Bostoen has argued that he wrote in the two languages of his native province of Brabant in order to increase his chances of obtaining financial support from the States of Brabant.46 Van der Noot developed the practice of printing individual sheets that contained poems in a variety of languages while in the Rhineland. This practice allowed him to select specific sheets for each individual patron, thus creating a unique volume for every occasion. He clearly saw the financial value of using particular languages in particular contexts.

The nobleman’s linguistic strategy during his stay in London has not yet been studied to a satisfying degree. Upon closer scrutiny, his very first publications already resulted from very conscious decisions regarding language that were meant to benefit his social standing. This can be demonstrated, firstly, by looking at the case of the Theatre, which knew a Dutch, French, and English edition. This text has been studied for two main reasons: because the young Edmund Spenser was responsible for part of the English translation, and because the Theatre combines epigrams and images in such a way that it caused discussion on whether it could be called the first emblem book published on English soil.47 The linguistic strategy underlying this multilingual project, however, remains obscure.

The Theatre is a composite work that contains a collection of poems: six Petrarchan epigrams, eleven sonnets by the French Pléiade poet Joachim Du Bellay, and four sonnets written by Van der Noot himself. The poems are followed by a religious prose text which is largely based on Dutch translations of John Bale’s The Image of Both Churches and Heinrich Bullinger’s commentary on the Apocalypse.48 The Dutch edition, Het Theatre, contains translations of the poems by Petrarch and Du Bellay made by Van der Noot himself, as well as Dutch versions of his own sonnets and the prose text. Each poem is illustrated with a high-quality engraving, made by fellow refugee Marcus Gheeraerts.49

The French edition contains the French translations of Petrarch’s epigrams by Clément Marot. Du Bellay’s sonnets appear in their original French, and Van der Noot added French sonnets of his own making. The edition also includes a French version of the prose commentary. Gheeraert’s etchings again adorn the poetry section. They do not appear in the English edition, which instead contains woodcuts with similar imagery.50 While the poetry was translated into English by Spenser, Theodore Roest – probably a refugee himself – appears to have been responsible for the prose.51

Although there has been discussion among scholars on the order in which the Dutch and French editions appeared, it seems that the Dutch edition was printed first, in 1568.52 The printer, John Day, collaborated with the Netherlandish refugee community on multiple occasions, and actually employed several French and Netherlandish migrants.53 Surprisingly, Van der Noot dedicated the Dutch text to Roger Martin, the Lord Mayor of London, who does not appear to have had any knowledge of the language. Nonetheless, Van der Noot wrote his dedication in Dutch, too. Martin was relatively generous towards the Netherlandish and French refugee communities, supporting them financially.54 Van der Noot’s remarkable language choice makes it unlikely that he was hoping to acquire the Lord Mayor’s sponsorship. Moreover, the dedication itself does not really seem to address or thank Martin. Rather, the poet fills up page after page with complaints about his exile and the presence of the ‘Spanish executioner and his masters the Inquisitors’ in the Low Countries.55 He actually seems to engage with the diasporic community here, appealing to their shared feelings of loss and betrayal. This would also explain Van der Noot’s choice to write in Dutch: he might have been hoping to find a patron amongst his fellow refugees. Dedicating the work to Martin, who was esteemed by the refugee community, would have authorised his message.

For the French edition, which was published shortly after the Dutch one, Van der Noot aimed higher: the dedication, in French, addresses none other than Queen Elizabeth I, and, this time, the poet really seems to have written it for her eyes – or those of her courtiers. He repeats some of the phrases on his exile and the situation in the Low Countries from the Dutch dedication, but soon continues with an appraisal of his dedicatee. He mentions all of her virtues, and emphasizes the topos that she is a polyglot: he compares her to Mercury, and praises her for allegedly answering all of her ambassadors in their own language.56 Van der Noot then returns to the horrors that take place in the Low Countries, but expresses his joy that he has arrived safely in her country, where he can praise God in both French and Dutch. In doing so, Van der Noot highlights his own bilingualism.

Van der Noot ends his dedication by stating that he wishes to thank the queen by offering her this ‘booklet, as the best that I can at this moment find in my bookcase’.57 Readers would have seen through this modesty, as the French Theatre is clearly, as Werner Waterschoot has called it, a luxury edition.58 Van der Noot showed off his poetic qualities in French, placing himself in the tradition of Petrarch, Marot, and Du Bellay. Moreover, the detail and quality of Gheeraert’s engravings was unlike anything that was produced in England at the time, and, as mentioned above, the combination of text and image constitutes an early example of the influence of the emblem tradition that still captures the attention of emblem scholars today.59

Waterschoot has concluded that the target audience of the French Theatre was confined to the refugees from French- and Dutch-speaking regions residing in London who could read French.60 However, the value of the French language on the English social marketplace should not be overlooked. The choice of French might very well have been a conscious one, directed at finding a patron in Elizabeth herself, or one of the members of her court, where both the French language and its literature enjoyed considerable prestige.

The English translation of the Theatre appeared in the following year, 1569, and was printed by Day’s colleague Henry Bynneman. It was again dedicated to Elizabeth, by means of an English translation of the French dedication. It seems that Van der Noot made a second attempt at appealing to the English public, this time through their native tongue. There is one significant difference from the French edition, however: the English text opens with an illustration of the emblem and the French motto of the Order of the Garter. The poet once again makes clear that he is aiming for the social circle that surrounds the queen. If Van der Noot was harbouring dreams of capturing a noble, if not royal, patron, the English edition of the Theatre would seemingly reap the same, meagre rewards as had its French forebear.

After three virtually monolingual – but parallel – productions in Dutch, French, and English, Van der Noot changed his strategy. His last work to be printed in England was Het Bosken (‘The Little Forest’, 1570-1571), a collection of his juvenile poetry that follows French models to experiment with new poetic forms in Dutch.61 Het Bosken is primarily a Dutch text, but it also includes poems in French, Latin, and Spanish. French was used in poems glorifying members of the Nassau dynasty, as it was a language appropriate to their status. The book becomes truly multilingual through the addition of two laudatory poems in Latin and one in Spanish, written by poets in Van der Noot’s network. English is conspicuously absent.62 Het Bosken is thus the first work in which Van der Noot applies the linguistic strategy that is now considered a characteristic of his later oeuvre: impressing his audience through the multilingual character of his publications.

Codicological studies of extant copies of Het Bosken have revealed that not one, but two printers worked on it simultaneously: Bynneman and possibly Day.63 Werner Waterschoot has suggested that Van der Noot was hoping to speed up the printing process by dividing the labour.64 Moreover, Waterschoot discovered that each of the extant copies was compiled in a slightly different way, which suggests that they have been individualized for particular addressees. For example, the poems about the Nassaus have been omitted from one copy, possibly because they were politically problematic for the patron the poet had in mind.65 Van der Noot is known for this practice of individualising his works for his sponsors, which he later also applied in his Poeticsche Wercken (‘Poetic Works’). According to Waterschoot, all three remaining copies of Het Bosken have been tailor-made for specific patrons in the Rhineland, where Van der Noot settled in 1571.66 He suggested that Van der Noot was in a hurry to have this poetry compilation printed: he wanted to bring something with him to his new host country, hoping to find a patron there.67

However, the dedication once again complicates the story. Van der Noot addressed it to William Parr, Marquess of Northampton, who was known for his Protestant sentiments.68 In accordance with the aristocratic title of the dedicatee, Van der Noot wrote it in French, addressing Parr as ‘tres-honorable & vertueus seigneur, Monseig. le Marquis de Northampton, &c. du conseil privé de sa Ma. & Chevalier de l’ordre de La Jartiere’.69 Besides the language chosen by Van der Noot, the reference to Parr’s membership of the Order of the Garter is striking.

A closer look at the content of the dedication to Parr suggests that the two men knew each other, and that Van der Noot had indeed found a patron in him. The poet addresses Parr with the informal tu, and praises his skill with the harpsichord, with brush and easel, and even with the astrolabe.70 Van der Noot asks that Parr ‘honour[s] all the arts’, which might allude to a potential patronage.71 Parr had previously supported several other authors, and most of the works dedicated to him are translations into English, including a Spanish work on country life, Antonio de Guevara’s Menosprecio. In his dedication, the translator, Sir Francis Bryan, writes that Parr had lent him a French version of the book, so that he might put it into English.72 As with Dutch translations from Latin and other languages, the French language appears to have been an intermediary language between English and, in this case, Spanish.

Clearly, Parr seems to have wished to promote translations into English. He would therefore have been a suitable candidate to sponsor Van der Noot, whose French Theatre had been translated into English. Karel Bostoen has questioned why Van der Noot would dedicate a primarily Dutch work to an English nobleman, rightfully proposing that it is not known to what extent Parr might have had a passive knowledge of Dutch. Perhaps it was the multilingual aspect of Het Bosken that Van der Noot hoped would please this potential patron. Just like the Dutch and French versions of the Theatre, Het Bosken was a luxury work that was as good for putting on display as it was for reading experimental poetry. Whether or not Van der Noot had found a potential sponsor in Parr, their relationship appears not to have moved beyond the one-way traffic of publicly-expressed admiration in the form of dedicatory letters: Parr died on 28 October 1571, the same year that Van der Noot left England and made his way to the Rhineland.73

Van der Noot’s publishing strategy during his three years in England illustrates that French was a convenient second language: he used it as an intermediary between his native Dutch and the English language. Moreover, he recognised that French was a language with no little cultural prestige at court, and so sought to use his linguistic abilities to find a patron who would help finance his life in England. He may well have found such a patron in Parr, but circumstances dictated that he try his luck elsewhere.

Van der Noot’s Dutch Theatre contains a few laudatory poems by poets who were part of his social network. One Dutch ode actually comments on Van der Noot’s use of language:

These words were written by Lucas d’Heere, a painter and poet from Ghent who had fled to England. Although Van der Noot relied primarily on his knowledge of French in his attempts to secure a stable financial position in England, D’Heere points to the importance of his Dutch poetry. Both Van der Noot and D’Heere wrote some of the earliest sonnets and alexandrines in Dutch, which was an important literary development that strengthened the prestige of Dutch.75 Nevertheless, in his attempts to rebuild his own professional life in exile, D’Heere, just like Van der Noot, relied on his knowledge of French, a commodity far more valuable in England than knowledge of Dutch. D’Heere was more successful than Van der Noot in this respect.

To get some insight into D’Heere’s life before and during exile, it is useful to look at the writings of his pupil Carel van Mander, who devotes several pages of his Schilder-boeck to his teacher.76 According to Van Mander, D’Heere was born in 1534 in Ghent. His father, a sculptor, sent him to Antwerp to learn the art of painting in the workshop of Frans Floris, after which D’Heere became a respected artist, and started his own school.77 Another of his pupils, Marcus Gheeraerts, would later provide Van der Noot with the engravings for his Theatre.78 Van Mander relates that D’Heere spent some time in France, drawing tapestry designs for Queen Mother Catharine de’ Medici.79

D’Heere not only knew French, but also took an interest in French literary developments, including the sonnet form, and went on to become an important go-between in connecting French and Dutch literature. In 1565, he published his Hof en Boomgaard der Poesien (‘Garden and Orchard of Poetry’), which contained translations of poems by Clément Marot and a French sonnet of his own, which had been translated into Dutch by his wife Eleonora Carboniers.80 In that same year, he also published his Dutch translation of Marot and Beza’s French Calvinist psalms, which leaves little doubt as to his religious leanings.81

According to Van Mander, D’Heere saved some of Frans Floris’s works from the worst of the Iconoclastic Fury of 1566 by moving them to his workshop, an action which failed to prevent his banishment by the Council of Troubles for participating in the religious upheavals in Ghent.82 D’Heere was not present to hear his sentence pronounced, however, having already fled the Low Countries.83 He moved to London with his wife, her sister, and a servant, and lived near London Bridge.84 He joined the Dutch Church of London, where he became an elder.85 D’Heere stayed in England for about a decade, and returned in 1577 following the Pacification of Ghent.86

It was while in England that D’Heere wrote the Corte beschryvinghe van d’Enghelandsche gheschiedenissen vergadert uut de beste Chronijcschrijvers (‘A Brief Description of the English Histories Compiled from the Best Chroniclers’), a history of the British Isles designed for an audience of fellow exiles.87 It was never printed.88 The sole surviving manuscript is adorned with the coat of arms of Elizabeth i, of whom D’Heere also added a portrait.89 However, it is unlikely that he intended to present it to her, as the preface explicitly addresses a Netherlandish audience. In fact, it seems that he had produced another manuscript for her eyes, the Théâtre de tous les peuples et nations de la terre (‘Theatre of All the People and Nations on Earth’), a costume book that contains a large number of watercolours that portray the fashion styles of different peoples during various periods.90 This manuscript contains several French poems, and the captions accompanying the watercolours are all written in French. While the title page originally contained a Tudor emblem, which suggests that D’Heere made it for Elizabeth, it never reached her, and D’Heere would later paste over it with the coat of arms of Antoon of Burgundy-Wakken and add a dedicatory poem for him.91 At first glance, it therefore seems as if D’Heere was just as unlucky as Van der Noot in finding a new patron to support his poetic activities at Elizabeth’s court.

However, D’Heere was relatively successful as a painter during his exile to England: Van Mander claims that his teacher painted a gallery for Admiral Edward Fiennes de Clinton.92 Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth’s Principal Secretary, might have owned a painting by his hand, and D’Heere may have produced some work for sir Thomas Gresham.93 Frederica Van Dam has recently discovered a privately-owned manuscript that reveals more details of his career. It shows that D’Heere was not only appreciated for his artistic work, but also for his knowledge of French.94

The manuscript in question, which is dated 8 January 1572, bears the title Tableau poétique (‘Poetic Painting’) and is written in French. It is a carefully crafted work: the hand is that of Clement Paret, a calligrapher from Brussels, but the language is D’Heere’s. He dedicated the manuscript to Edward Seymour, first Earl of Hertford, who apparently acted as his patron for some time. Van Dam, who has edited the manuscript together with Werner Waterschoot, suggests that it was a showpiece for Seymour to put on display, a display that would simultaneously trumpet D’Heere’s poetic abilities to Seymour’s network.95 In these aristocratic circles, such a high-end manuscript collection of French poetry would certainly have been appreciated. It contains laudatory poems aimed at Seymour himself, such as those which drew on his French mottos ‘Foy pour debvoir’ and ‘Fort d’heur e’d’art’.96 Perhaps at Seymour’s request, D’Heere also wrote poems for other notable courtiers such as William Cecil and Robert Dudley, as well as for George Buchanan.97 There are also poems addressing individuals from the artist’s own network, including the ‘Ode a ses amis pardela la mer’, in which D’Heere recounts his sea voyage to England.

D’Heere’s knowledge of French and his poetic skills in this language were valuable to Seymour, and not only because they could present him as a cultural patron: D’Heere may also have been employed to teach French to Seymour’s children. The Tableau poétique ends with an abecedarium, which contains a moralizing distich for each letter of the alphabet, addressed to Seymour’s sons Edward and Thomas.98 Such poems were popular in this period for teaching both calligraphy and French.99 D’Heere had previous experience in teaching painting, but language lessons were a new trade that he might have picked up in order to make a living in exile.100

D’Heere’s knowledge of French was valuable starting capital for multiple reasons: the fact that it enjoyed cultural prestige among the English aristocracy meant that they wanted to support the creation of French poems, but it also meant that their children needed to be taught the language, which offered plenty of opportunities to French-speaking migrants from France and the Low Countries.

Some of the poems in D’Heere’s Tableau poétique were already known through other sources before Van Dam recovered the Seymour manuscript. Most of these were included in a manuscript compiled by D’Heere’s friend and mercator doctus Johannes Radermacher.101 Radermacher, who also moved to London, collected short texts and poems that interested him, including one of D’Heere’s poems on Queen Elizabeth that he had written in Dutch, French, and Latin.102 Radermacher’s story differs in multiple ways from that of D’Heere and Van der Noot: he occasionally wrote some poetry himself, but he did not depend on his poetic skill in multiple languages during his time in England. However, he did put his linguistic abilities to work in his commercial career, and therefore it remains useful to compare his case with theirs. Finally, Radermacher’s personal background is much more complex: he had already moved abroad before he traded Antwerp for London.

Radermacher was born in Aachen, but after his father’s death his mother sent him to Antwerp to become an apprentice to the merchant Gillis Hooftman. Radermacher was around sixteen years old at the time.103 He had probably been raised as a Lutheran, but became increasingly interested in Calvinism.104 Hooftman sent Radermacher on a short trading mission to London around 1560, and Radermacher recorded the minutes of a meeting between English and Netherlandish merchants in Bruges in 1565.105 This means that he had already established some contacts in England before moving there for a longer period in 1567, officially on another trading mission: he became Hooftman’s representative in London.

There has been some discussion about Radermacher’s true intentions – did he flee to London, or was his decision to cross the North Sea a voluntary and professional one?106 The answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. He did not explain his exact reasons in any extant documentation, but he was involved in the Protestant Church in London, and in the 1570s he actively supported the Dutch Revolt.107 The move to England was certainly a profitable one, but staying in Antwerp was probably not an option because of his Protestant beliefs. Radermacher left after the Iconoclastic Fury and would not return to Antwerp until 1580, when the situation there had become less dangerous for Calvinists. After Antwerp was retaken by Philip ii in 1585, he moved back to his hometown of Aachen, where he stayed until it too was invaded by Spanish troops. He then made a final move to Middelburg, where he passed away in 1617.108

Radermacher was proficient in several languages. He was a native speaker of German and Dutch, but he also appears to have been fluent in French, as he wrote at least one French sonnet.109 Radermacher’s friend, the artist Joris Hoefnagel, made a set of drawings on the theme of patience for him, accompanied by poems in Dutch, French, and Spanish, a language also mastered by Radermacher.110 Radermacher himself left behind some Latin poetry, and in his aforementioned miscellany he collected texts in Dutch, French, English, Italian, Spanish, and German, as well as some in Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic.111 He seems to have been particularly interested in Italian literature.112 When, after his death, his personal library was sold, the auction catalogue mentioned works in Dutch, German, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Spanish, French, and English.113 Even though the fact that he possessed these books does not attest to Radermacher’s actual proficiency in the listed languages, it is indicative of his interest in languages in general.

In 1568, shortly after his arrival in London, Radermacher joined the Italian Church. He was not the only non-Italian who attended services there.114 The French and Italian Churches in London frequently received visitors who wished to learn the language through immersion or who were attracted by their cultural prestige.115 This might have been Radermacher’s main goal as well, as it offered him an excellent opportunity to practice the language. Chris Joby has suggested another, even more opportunistic explanation. According to him, Radermacher might have hoped to meet Italian merchants at the church and thus improve his commercial position in London.116 This is an interesting idea, as it would mean that Radermacher consciously used his knowledge of Italian to generate social capital, that is, to establish new trading contacts. For the Italian merchants in London, it would have been quite appealing to be able to do business with someone fluent in their language.

It seems that Radermacher’s time in England also inspired him to put his knowledge of Dutch to good use. He started writing a Dutch grammar, and though it remained uncompleted, it is the oldest known example.117 It is possible that Radermacher had been inspired by the Italian grammar produced by Michael Florio, a minister of the Italian Church and a refugee.118 Radermacher would later edit and publish another, previously unedited, Italian text by Florio, whose work he apparently knew quite well.119 In any case, Radermacher compares Dutch to English on multiple occasions: ‘Take for example the English sound th, which they pronounce in a softer way than we do our d.’120

It is not entirely clear either for whom or for what purpose Radermacher began his grammar. He states that he wished to ‘come to the aid of simple, unlearned people who do not have the power nor the time to learn other languages’.121 However, he does not specify who these people are. Karel Bostoen has suggested that he wrote it for his fellow refugees in England, who wished to teach Dutch to their children.122 Nevertheless, it cannot be excluded that Radermacher had an adult foreign audience in mind: ‘But also adults who know their language well, whenever they wish to speak a foreign tongue, as we notice clearly when foreign nations want to speak our Dutch tongue, and cannot repeat what we say.’123 Perhaps he wanted to provide a tool for Englishmen who wanted to learn the language of the refugees.

Whomever Radermacher felt might comprise his grammar’s audience, they were never afforded the opportunity to benefit from it, as it was not only never printed, but appears never to have been finished. Rather than affording him a form of linguistic capital that aided him in his professional life in exile, Radermacher’s use of Dutch here might ensue from another linguistic coping device: his interest in Dutch might have been sparked by nostalgic feelings as he resided on the other side of the North Sea. It is certainly remarkable that, around the same time, the philosopher Dirk Volckertsz. Coornhert started working on a Dutch grammar while he was a refugee in the Rhineland.124

Van der Noot, D’Heere, and Radermacher all used their linguistic skills in order to rebuild their social and professional lives abroad. They all used their knowledge of languages to gain access to particular social and professional environments. Both D’Heere and Radermacher were also involved in language instruction. Such linguistic strategies were not foolproof, as illustrated by the fact that Van der Noot decided to leave England in order to make another attempt at a career in the Rhineland.

Although these three cases cannot simply be taken as representations of the Netherlandish community in England as a whole, they certainly do not stand alone. There are numerous known cases of early modern migrants – especially those belonging to the intellectual or economic elite – who, in some way or another, used their language skills abroad, but the specific linguistic strategies they may have employed often remain implicit in the extant research. A larger overview of early modern migrants’ linguistic strategies is yet to be written, but this article has highlighted specific domains in which polyglotism seems to have been particularly valuable: religion (especially in the stranger churches), commercial contexts, aristocratic social interaction, and education.

For the elite of the Netherlandish community, it would have been relatively easy to ascend the social and professional ladder by using their language skills in the listed areas. However, these domains would also have offered interesting opportunities for other, less fortunate migrants. As John Gallagher has pointed out, multilingual servants were in high demand among the English aristocracy.125 A merchant in need of an employee who could communicate with foreign clients might have visited the Dutch or French Church to find one. The role of Netherlandish migrants in the multilingual social context of early modern England deserves further scrutiny, and the cases of Van der Noot, D’Heere, and Radermacher give important clues on where to start.

Furthermore, Radermacher’s case serves to demonstrate the diversity and indefinability of the large group of migrants who moved from the Low Countries to England: for him, the mercantile and religious motives to cross the North Sea were probably strongly intertwined, as were his religious and professional practices in London, for which he used his knowledge of Italian. Moreover, although he departed for London from Antwerp, he was not born in the Low Countries, which means that his linguistic profile was slightly different from many of his fellow migrants. The fact that his native language was German did not make him less interested in Dutch, however, as is illustrated by his attempts to write a Dutch grammar.

This essay has underlined the extent to which French was a valuable language for the migrant community in England. Knowledge of French was much less common in England than in the Low Countries, where it was widespread. The fact that the Netherlandish community therefore had a better overall command of French than the English host community is an element that deserves to be taken into account in research on the exile experience and the attitudes of the host community towards migrants. Of course, there was strong competition from Huguenot refugees, but this did not prevent multilinguals such as Van der Noot and D’Heere from benefitting from the demand for French, even though they occasionally excused themselves for the imperfections in their writing. In the case of D’Heere, it was the combination of his artistic and linguistic skills that made him a valuable workforce in aristocratic circles.

It would also be useful to compare the situation in England to that in Germany, where French was valued differently. For example, Johannes Müller has already shown that refugees from the Low Countries played a key role in Frankfurt’s publishing industry.126 Cornel Zwierlein’s work on Cologne further shows that the founding of the city’s first French schools was a consequence of the exodus from the Low Countries.127 More research needs to be conducted on the linguistic strategies of early modern migrants from the Low Countries and the impact these strategies had on the language situation in northwestern Europe.

It remains unclear to what extent Van der Noot, D’Heere, and Radermacher made an effort to learn the local English language, and what problems they might have faced because of their potential lack of English skills. However, this closer look into their linguistic strategies does show that language was not only an obstacle for early modern migrants, but that it also offered a range of opportunities.