Person:Hendrik Van Deusen (1)

Was born in the old castle. Hendrik may have been the first protestant in the family, and the war against Spain was the reason for the loss of the family possessions. He became a "drossaert" (head magistrate) of Asperen, in Brabant. In Brabant, catholics, protestants, royalists, and republicans had mingled peacefully for years. But the troops sent by King Philip of Spain and the Duke of Parma for "pacification" had laid waste to the entire province. Spanish troops had gone unpaid and were authorized to plunder. Civil magistrates were under military pressure and kept, or had retaken, the side of the King and the old faith. The high nobility and great landowners sided with the King, but the younger branches of these families, who had kept magistrates in town and country and formed the most independent class of society, all took the side of the Republic. The Van Deusens had left the former class and joined the latter, just one generation before the trouble broke out. The Spanish troops under the Duke of Parma had replaced all such magistrates, who had not fled already, with loyalists. Commercial men, artists, and craftsmen were also banished along with protestants in general. This economic devastation meant continued emigration to Holland even after the Spanish had left.