Jean was the son of Dismas de Glymes, one of the thirty-six recognised bastards of John III of Glymes, lord of Bergen op Zoom.
[1] After graduating in canon and civil law, he became an alderman of Bergen op Zoom, serving as mayor in 1545.
[2] From 1543 to 1554 he was a member of the council of John IV of Glymes, Marquis of Bergen; he was also appointed to the Court of Holland and, in 1548, to the Great Council of Mechelen (the highest court of appeal in the Habsburg Netherlands).
[1] His brother, Maximilian de Berghes, became the first archbishop of Cambrai, while their sister, Cécile, married Louis Vilain, another member of the Great Council.
[1] After the Calvinist seizure of power in Mechelen in 1580, the Great Council was reconstituted in Namur, where Glymes died on 24 August 1583.