The Chief Sheriff Fooled

Johannes Tangena was a seller of books and prints in Leiden with a shop on the corner of Kloksteeg and Rapenburg, facing the Academy. He was a key player in the web of publishers churning out visual propaganda for William iii's activities in Britain. He had issued many of Romeyn's prints about the events of 1688–1689, as well as at least two of the lampoons against Amsterdam's regents. After his death in 1692, his widow Apollonia van Hoeck continued his enterprise. She had two brothers, Claes and Pieter. At Romeyn's request, Apollonia and Claes van Hoeck had moved to Haarlem in order to set up an intaglio press, probably a branch of the Leiden firm dedicated to printing the illicit satires. Having become a poorter of Haarlem, in October 1688 Claes lodged a complaint with the burgomasters, because the guilds had harassed him ‘up to twelve times’ for illegally selling prints without joining the local St Luke’s guild. Merely polishing copper plates, he claimed, did not yield enough income, and selling a few prints on the side was an activity inseparably linked to plate-printing. The burgomasters decided to ask the guild's governors for advice, which suggests that Claes did not get his way. Perhaps that was the reason why relations between Claes and Romeyn soured. As we have seen, Claes testified in April before notary Paerslaken that his master was responsible for the satirical prints against the burgomasters.

On 13 May 1690, Apollonia arranged a meeting at the Rechthuis (courthouse) of the village of Overveen near Haarlem between her brothers, Pieter and Claes, and three associates of Romeyn named Nicolaes Assendelft, Abraham van der Bent, and Jan van Vianen. Van Vianen, nineteen years old, was an apprentice and assistant of Romeyn, an accomplished etcher who worked in his master's style. Assendelft, 29 years old, and van der Bent, aged twenty, were probably Romeyn's servants. The aim of the meeting soon became apparent. Pieter van Hoeck told the men they had received their orders from Huydecoper and Boreel: could they ‘testify, bring forward, or make up’ anything against Romeyn de Hooghe?