At the Siege of Breda of 1637 the city was finally recaptured by Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, and in 1646 he founded the college, modelling it on Saumur, Geneva, and Oxford, to train young men of good family for the army and the civil service.

[3] André Rivet, the learned French Huguenot tutor of the future William II of Orange, was the first Rector of the college.

[4] In the event, it proved to be "a general training-centre for young men of quality, many of whom were to be officers or already held that rank in the Prince's army".

[1] The Englishman John Pell was professor of mathematics at the college from 1646, having been lured away from Amsterdam by Frederick Henry's offer of a salary of one thousand guilders a year.

[11] By the Declaration of Breda of April 1660, Charles II offered terms for a settlement which would restore him to the thrones of England, Ireland, and Scotland.