Grote Kerk, Den Haag

Grote of Sint-Jacobskerk, which is usually just shorted to Grote Kerk, is a large and imposing edifice peering over the rooftops of The Hague. It is an example of a hall church, a concept hitherto unknown to me, whereby a church has several naves, each with its own gable and pitched roof, which seems to be common in the Low Countries. Its current hexagonal tower, which is owned by the local council rather than the church, was built in 1542 and is topped by a cast-iron spire nicknamed ‘the nightcap’.

The insides are rather splendid, though I fear that, like some of its British equivalents, it is more accustomed to the sounds of concerts and exhibitions than public worship. Interestingly, it was from here that the Dutch King delivered his annual speeches to his parliament instead of the usual location of Ridderzaal at the Binnenhof, which was deemed unsafe during the ‘Covid times’.

At the spot at which the Roman Catholic altar would once have stood is an elaborate mausoleum of Admiral van Wassenaer van Obdam, our opponent during the Second Anglo-Dutch War when we fought the Republic of the United Netherlands. It seems a pity than Europe’s two Protestant powers should have been at each other’s throats during the seventeenth century. Van Obdam was initially successful, but was then thoroughly defeated and killed at the Battle of Lowestoft in 1665. Perhaps the Dutch obtained their share of poetic justice in the end, however; it was in the Grote Kerk that little William Henry of Orange was baptised, the Dutchman who took the British throne as King William III in 1689, and to whose banner and colour the loyal people of Ulster are drawn each year.

Grote Kerk: an old church, splendid and grand despite the plain Calvinistic flavour of its Protestantism, and tightly bound up with the history of both England and Holland. The Dutch are a friendly, kind race, and possibly one of the few European peoples who still hold the British in high regard. I pray the day comes when they call again upon the name of the Lord, that the Netherlands’ churches will once again be full of people seeking salvation in Jesus Christ, that their walls may again echo with the gospel’s bold proclamation:

Want wie de naam van de Heer aanroept, zal gered worden.

-Romeinen 10:13

Moge God Nederland zegenen. Moge God de Koning redden.