The November rains let up today, and between the perusals of two reports I hastened in a not unpleasant shallow sun across a couple of busy streets and down another to saunter a bit in the Prinsentuin not far from my office. The Prince's Garden is a small and quiet brick-walled domain in the centre of the bustling city of Groningen. Through these berceaux you can see the building of the former 'Grand House'. It was built around 1490 by the Brethren of the Common Life, adherents of the Modern Devotion. Perhaps a bit too devout, their number decreased and by the middle of the sixteenth century the building was enlarged to house the newly appointed bishop of Groningen, the Franciscan Johannes Knijff (Cnyf) (?-1576). These Yellows remind us of the colors of the Church... Knijff died of the plague, and his palace soon became that of George de Lalaing (ca. 1550-1581), count Rennenberg, 'stadtholder' for the King of Spain of the northern territories of the Lowlands: Friesland, Groningen and Drenthe. Although he and the City had initially joined the Prince of Orange in the Revolt against the Catholic Spanish King Philip II, they thought better of this in 1580 and reaffirmed their loyalty. In Dutch history this conspiracy - hatched in or very near this Yellowed garden - is called 'Het Verraad (= betrayal) van Rennenberg'. This was to be the first great test for the new Dutch (Protestant) Union until Groningen fell into the hands of the Prince of Orange's forces in 1594. In the middle of the seventeenth century the 'Grand House' became a residence of the princely Nassau-Dietz family. 'Stadtholder' Willem Frederik van Nassau-Dietz (1613-1654), and his second-cousin wife Albertine Agnes van Nassau (1634-1696) are memorialised in the garden by knee-high hedges which spell out the letters 'W' and 'A'. In later years, the Prinsentuin and the palace were neglected. They served various purposes among which as a military hospital for most of the nineteenth century and after World War II until 2005 as a studio for a radio station broadcasting to the North. The Garden is a delightful park in which to amble about, and - as is clear from the above - it's a good place to ponder the vagaries of local history and its wider repercussions, in this season also admiring the freshly planted Winter pansies.