The merchant family De la Torre was originally from Spain and had settled in Bruges in the fifteenth century, where two members would hold the office of consul of the Spanish Empire.

Descendant Philip de la Torre moved to The Hague in the early seventeenth century.

The possession of the lordship of Valkenisse inherited on the brother of Jacobus, François de la Torre, married to Maria van Poelgeest, descendant of the noble Van Poelgeest family.

[1] Jacobus de la Torre studied in Leuven, and was ordained priest in 1633.

To the dismay of the secular clergy he set up 11 new Jesuit stations in his Concessiones Ephesinae (1652).