Free The Dutch by Richard E. Schultz

felt uncomfortable around such women who often requested a coin for their companionship. He thought little about girls during his apprenticeship and had always been shy in their presence. Henri even felt awkward in the company of his master’s daughters, who looked upon him as a member of the family. The premature death of his parents made the ordinary arranged marriage of the era a difficult issue to overcome. Yet Henri was optimistic he would one day marry and acquire the necessary skills to interact with a wife. He just didn’t know who or when and at eighteen wasn’t quite sure why.
    That summer, influenza returned to the city, randomly spreading death among the population. The epidemic continued until the Rotterdam Estate was forced to use its power by invoking the laws of quarantine to close the city to commerce for a period of time. Henri, ever the optimist, knew that the immediate horrors of such plague events were usually followed by unique opportunities for survivors. The true value of individual’s talent and skill always rose after such events. He well understood that the disease that had taken his parents might now create a unique opportunity for him and it did. One of those stricken was the highly successful shipwright Claus Rudderman, who found a specialized niche in the shipbuilding industry. For thirty years, Claus had specialized in building river craft, primarily the small round-sterned kaags which moved the majority of people and goods along the inland waterways. Those little boats were extremely popular with the wealthy, which used them to move their families and goods on rivers and canals. Claus Rudderman and his wife Johanna were raised in Hoorn by devout Roman Catholic shipbuilding families. Their families traditionally sent their children to Catholic school to learn to read and write. Once this brief education was completed, the sons began work at the shipyards and their daughters became wives, mothers and occasionally nuns. Many of Hoorn’s Catholic families were followers of the Dutch Catholic humanists Desiderius Erasmus and well aware of the clerical abuses within the Roman Church. These families, like Martin Luther, saw the church practice of selling indulgences as an abomination of God’s law. Common sense and not religious doctrine, told them one could never buy their way into salvation. Yet like Erasmus, and unlike Luther, these families felt reform must come within the Roman Catholic Church. Yet even then, Protestant ideas were filtering from Germany into Catholic Hoorn. As always, these new ideas were best received by young people who are usually the first to question the existing order. Both Claus and Johanna were two of the young people most affected by the new Christian dogma and both felt, like Luther, that reform within the Catholic Church was impossible. Their dinner tables at home became a battleground of constant and heated debate with relatives about whether the Catholic Church could change. Those discussions with relatives became even more heated after the couple married. When Claus completed his apprenticeship, the couple suddenly severed ties with their families and abruptly moved to Rotterdam. Upon their arrival, Claus began building river craft which required a smaller initial capital investment than larger sea going vessels. The urban setting and less restrictive atmosphere allowed the couple to explore religious alternatives generated from the Reformation in Germany.
    Johanna was an intelligent young woman who developed a feel for her husband’s business. She had an excellent understanding of the laws of supply and demand. Claus Rudderman’s little boats soon became highly popular as a fast means of transportation. It was Johanna who suggested to her husband that he limit rather than increase the numbers of kaags he built each year. She had sailed on each maiden voyage helping Claus to evaluate each new boat’s performance. She knew the true