Meteren, Emanuel De

a protestant historian, was born at Antwerp July 9, 1535. His father, Jacob de Meteren, was of Balda; his mother, Ortelia, was the daughter of William Ortelis, or Ortelius, of Augsburgh, grandfather of the celebrated geographer, Abraham Ortelins. He was carefully educated in the languages and sciences, and when a youth, is reported to have attempted to translate the Bible into English, which, says Bullart, made his religious principles to be suspected. His father, who had embraced the protestant religion, being obliged to take refuge in England, took this son with him, and gave him the choice of continuing his studies, or embarking in commerce. Emanuel, having preferred the latter, was sent to Antwerp, and engaged with a merchant in that city, where he continued about ten years, but his father had not the happiness to witness his progress, as he and his wife were drowned in their passage from Antwerp to London. Emanuel, during his residence at Antwerp, after this disaster, employed his leisure hours in collecting information respecting the history of the Netherlands; and having acquired the confidence of various persons of eminence in the government, he succeeded in obtaining much secret history of the times, which he published under the title of “Historia rerum potissimum in Belgio gestarum,” &c. It appears that he had sent some copies of this work in German to a friend, who was to procure engravings for it, but who caused it to be printed for his own benefit in Latin and German, yet with the name of the author, whose reputation he did not value so much as the profits of the work. Meteren, on hearing this, procured an order from the States to suppress this edition, which is dated 1599, | and afterwards published it himself. He was enabled to revisit London again in the reign of James I. as consul for the Flemings. In this office he acquitted himself with spirit and ability, and wrote an ample volume of the treaties of commerce which formerly subsisted betwixt the English nation, the house of Burgundy, and the states of Holland. He died at London, April 8, 1612, and was interred in the church of St. Dionis Back-Church, Fenchurch-street, where his relict erected a monument to his memory, which was destroyed in the great fire.¹