Cornelis van der Mijle

He also got into contact with Louise de Coligny, the widow of William the Silent and her son Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, the future stadtholder, who was also a student in Leiden at the time.

[Note 2] After completing his studies Cornelis made the Grand Tour of Europe, as was usual for young men of his aristocratic station at the time, and he visited France, Germany and Italy, and was enrolled in the university of the Republic of Geneva from 25 May 1597.

They would have six children: Adriaan, Jan and Cornelia (both died early), Arnold, Magdalena (who would marry Charles de Loges, captain in the guards of the Dutch States Army), and Geertruida.

[2] Van der Mijle was made a counselor of the stadtholder Maurice, Prince of Orange in 1603 and the States of Holland and West Friesland appointed him as a member of the board of regents of Leiden University in the same year.

After the Truce came in force he was sent to the Republic of Venice as a special envoy to try and establish diplomatic relations with that sister-republic, at the suggestion of the Venetian ambassador in France, Antonio Foscarini.

This was finally forced by the French ambassador Benjamin Aubery du Maurier, after which Oldenbarnevelt appointed Gideon van Boetzelaer as his successor.

That gentleman was not an experienced diplomat, so van der Mijle was sent as an envoy extraordinary to support him at the court of the new king Louis XIII of France in 1614.

In this period the Bestandstwisten (Truce Quarrels) reached a crescendo and van der Mijle became embroiled in a pamphlet war with Aarssens, who had become a mortal enemy of his father-in-law, Oldenbarnevelt, and attacked both with mostly anonymous polemics.

This made him suspect in the eyes of the new regime and he was successively driven from all of his offices (the Council of State, the ridderschap and the board of regents of Leiden University).