The city's official name is a contraction of the (archaic) Dutch des Hertogen bosch — 'the forest of the duke'.

In the late 14th century, a much larger wall was erected to protect the greatly expanded settled area.

Artificial waterways were dug to serve as a city moat, through which the rivers Dommel and Aa were diverted.

Others held positions there: Matthaeus Pipelare was musical director at the Confraternity of Our Lady; and renowned Habsburg copyist and composer Pierre Alamire did much of his work at 's-Hertogenbosch.

During the Eighty Years' War, the city took the side of the Habsburg (Catholic) authorities and thwarted a Calvinist coup.

It was besieged several times by Prince Maurice of Orange, stadtholder of most of the Dutch Republic, who wanted to bring 's-Hertogenbosch under the rule of the rebel United Provinces.

The city was successfully defended against Prince Maurice in 1601 and again in 1603,[7] but it eventually fell in the 1629 siege led by his brother Frederick Henry.

The surrounding marshes made a siege of the conventional type impossible, and the fortress, deemed impregnable, was nicknamed moerasdraak, or the Swamp Dragon.

[9] The town was nevertheless finally conquered by Frederik Hendrik of Orange in 1629 in a typically Dutch stratagem: he diverted the rivers Dommel and Aa, created a polder by constructing a forty-kilometre (25 mile) dyke and then pumped out the water by mills.

After a siege of three months, the city had to surrender—an enormous blow to Habsburg geo-political strategy during the Thirty Years' War.

This surrender cut the town off from the rest of the duchy and the area was treated by the Republic as an occupation zone without political liberties (see also Generality Lands).

At the end of the 19th century, the very conservative city government prevented industrial investment to avoid an increase in the number of workers and the establishment of educational institutions: students were regarded as disorderly.

One of the few official Nazi concentration camp complexes in Western Europe outside Germany and Austria was named after 's-Hertogenbosch.

In 1956, the council wanted to demolish the Moriaan, the oldest brick building in the Netherlands, to give traffic better access to the market square.

[13] 's-Hertogenbosch is home to a variety of events such as the theatre festival Boulevard, Jazz in Duketown, and hip hop in duketown, the start of the Tour de France (1996), Tour Feminin (1997), the International Vocal Competition, November Music (a contemporary music festival) and the UNICEF Open (formerly the Ordina Open) grass court tennis tournament (in the nearby town of Rosmalen).

The city has its own food speciality, the Bossche Bol — effectively a giant profiterole, somewhat larger than a tennis ball, which is filled with whipped cream and coated with chocolate.

[citation needed] The house where the famous painter Hieronymus produced his paintings can be visited on the market square.

After World War II, plans were made to modernise the old city, by filling in the canals, removing or modifying some ramparts and redeveloping historic neighbourhoods.

Much of its historic heritage remains intact, and today there are always renovations going on in the city to preserve the many old buildings, fortifications, churches and statues for later generations.

On the central square is the oldest remaining brick house of the Netherlands, 'de Moriaan',[17] which was built at the beginning of the 13th century.

In the 1960s, de Moriaan was renovated to its former glory based on a famous 16th-century Dutch painting called 'De Lakenmarkt van 's-Hertogenbosch' ('The fabric market of 's-Hertogenbosch').

Due to a lack of space in the city, people started building their houses and roads over the river.

In recent decades, the remaining sixth part of the old waterway system has been renovated, and it is possible to take several guided subterranean boat trips through it.

It was made to profit from the city's strong defensive position, lying on a sandy hill in the center of a large swamp fed by many rivers.

In the north east of the old city, the hexagonal gunpowder magazine, called Kruithuis[19] is located close to the citadel.

On the inside it shows a unique wrought iron cannon, and an older bastion that was walled in by the current one.

The city is also the location of the Bolwoningen complex, an array of fifty experimental spherical houses designed by Dries Kreijkamp.

FC Den Bosch was the first club of Dutch international player Ruud van Nistelrooy.

The Parade is a historic square surrounded by high trees, situated at the foot of the nearly seven-hundred-year-old Saint John's Cathedral in the attractive center of 's-Hertogenbosch.

The details of the report were less jubilant and showed that it was really a prize meant to stimulate 's-Hertogenbosch to take further action; Hugo van der Steenhoven of the Fietsersbond: "In the past years Den Bosch has spent much energy, ambition, creativity and money to give cycling an enormous boost.