I was curious about this street because it is named after someone who is described simply as the wife of someone else.
Surely that cannot have been the only thing noteworthy about Maria van Reigersbergen.
So who was she, really?
The story is set out here, but the long and short of it is that she was the wife of Hugo Grotius (rendered in the plaque as ‘Hugo de Groot’), a notable lawyer who found himself in hot water with the authorities – treason charges which led to him being locked up. Maria managed to spring him from jail – smuggled him out in a crate of books, and propped up some pillows in his bed to make it look like he was still in it, just like we used to do in boarding school. While I can imagine our school matron being deceived by that, you wouldn’t expect a hardened prison guard to fall for it. But there you are …
Jailbreaking activities aside, Maria did other noteworthy things. She certainly deserves the plaque, but should have been given a better description.
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