Goejanverwellesluis

The Goejanverwellesluis is a lock in Hekendorp, Netherlands. The 'Goejannen' - the men from the surrounding polders who went to sea - said their last farewells by this channel.

According to the tradition, Wilhelmina of Prussia, wife of stadholder William V was captured here on 28 June 1787 by the Patriots from Gouda. In reality, her entourage were arrested at Bonrepas on the river Vlist, on the way to Schoonhoven near Haastrecht. Wilhelmina was at a farm overhanging the Goejanverwellesluis, where Cornelis Johan de Lange, commander of the free corps of Gouda, had been billeted. Informed of her plans by the gentleman Martinus van Toulon, old-baljuw of Gouda, the Commission of Defense stopped her from driving on to Gouda that night. The princess left the very same evening after 10pm in the direction of Schoonhoven and turned back to her spouse stadholder William V at Nijmegen. This event formed the main reason for the Prussians' raid into Holland, with Frederick William II of Prussia coming his sister Wilhelmina's aid and so making possible William's return to the Hague. This raid led to an exodus of the Patriots from the United Republic of the Seven Netherlands in 1787.

By Goejanverwellesluis lay a foot ferry that in 1992 was replaced by a bridge, the Wilhelmina van Pruisen Bridge.

Literature

*Wildschut, A., Goejanverwellesluis; de strijd tussen patriotten en prinsgezinden, 1780-1787 (2005; ISBN 9065504508)
*Smit, dr.mr.J., Een regentendagboek uit de achttiende eeuw, Oudheidkundige kring "Die Goude", 1957

External links

* [http://www.euronet.nl/users/temagm/wpruisen/wpruisen.html New light on the arrest of Wilhelmina of Prussia]