Pieterskerk, Leiden

The Pieterskerk is a late-Gothic Dutch Protestant church in Leiden dedicated to Saint Peter.

The beautiful stained-glass windows already took a terrible blow during the Beeldenstorm, but were completely destroyed a couple of centuries later, in the gunpowder explosion of 12 January 1807.

It was nicknamed "Coningh der Zee" (king of the sea), and was completed in stages, eventually reaching 110 metres (including the 35-metre-tall wooden spire).

Not only the stained glass windows were vandalised during the Beeldenstorm, many other beautiful statues and paintings were made victim of the Reformation.

[3] Before 1811 many prominent people were buried in the Pieterskerk, such as the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius (known for Arminianism), Herman Boerhaave, Jan Steen, the botanist Rembert Dodoens, Johannes de Laet, and John Robinson, pastor of the "Pilgrim Fathers".