Coat of Arms.

(See: Familiewapen van Michiel de Ruyter ).
De Ruyter was of humble origin and did not have a Coat of Arms, However, when he was send to assist the Danes in 1660 in their war against the Swedes, he managed to defeat the Swedisch occupational force and oust them from Danish soil. 
For this the Danish King knighted him and had a Coat of Arms designed for the occasion.

De Ruyter's original Coat of Arms, as it was bestowed on him by the Danish King in 1660. It is shown here  as it is used by the NRN as an escutcheon for the ships that bear the name.  Without the tabard and the supporters,  but on a background of naval accoutrements.

 The Coat of Arms is quartered and reads as a rebus,  from right (= heraldic left) to left.
1. Azure, a knight in armour on a horse rampant, argent            DE RUYTER (horseman)
2. Gules, a cross argent                                                  helps  DENMARK  (Danish Flag)
3. Gules, a cannon, mounted, with three balls, or.                     ON LAND
4. Azure, fully rigged ship of the line, argent                   and on SEA.
                                                                                               de Ruyter helps Denmark  
                                                                                               on land and on sea.

The third quarter, with the cannon, refers to an innovation in naval warfare that de Ruyter used for the first time during this campaign. 
The Swedes had occupied the town of Nyborg, and refused to come out, where de Ruyter was waiting for them with his fleet.
 
Until then navies fought on sea and armies fought on land, and "The twain shall never meet" 
However, the deadlock made de Ruyter to decide to try something that was not done on that scale before, He decided to perform a landing operation.
This proved to be very successfull, as he managed to defeat the Swedish garison and force the foreign troops to leave Danish soil.

He immediately recogtnised the value of his innovation and he ordered his second in command. Jozef Baron van Ghent, to found and train a regiment of (sea)soldiers for that purpose. 
English spies on the Dutch fleet had witnessed the operation and reported the success of de Ruyter's innovative tactics to their London admiralty. These saw the importance of the action and likewise ordered a similar regiment to be formed. The Dutch were a little slow in executing de Ruyter's orders so the English beat the Dutch with two years with the foundation of the Royal Marine Corps in 1663, while Dutch came second in 1665..

It is a acknowledged fact, that these oldest marine Corps in the world  came from a tactical idea by de Ruyter, who is therefore the founder of the English as well as of the Dutch Royal Marines.  

In 1676 de Ruyter assisted the Spanish against the French fleet in the Mediterranean, 
In  that encounter he was mortally wounded and died of his injuries on 29th April (Gregorian Calender). 

The Spanish King elevated de Ruyter to the rank of duke, and added an escutcheon to de Ruyter's existing Coat of Arms, but the news reached the Dutch fleet two days after de Ruyter's death. He has therefore never used the arms that are displayed on the marble tomb in the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam.

The ducal Coat of Arms                     on the	marble tomb in the Nieuwe Kerk

Since the Dutch Republic did not recognize a Dukedom, the title was later changed into that of a Baron. 
De Ruyter's son Engel - was already a captain of a frigate at the age of nineteen,  - was the first to use the Coat of Arms to which the escutcheon (gules, crowned lion, rampant, or.) was added. Engel  died a vice-admiral, but has always lived under the shadow of his famous father. after his father's body was returned to Amsterdam, Engel was supervising the building of the marble tomb in De Nieuwe Kerk, and he must have decided that the posthumous embellishment of his father's arms should be shown on his marble tomb

Upon Engel's death in 1683 an armorial cushion was found in his estate. He must have had it made by the famous Cracht tapestries workshops. This particular cushion is now in the custody of F.C. de Ruyter de Wildt, a 12th generation descendant of Engel's eldest sister Alida, (The male line of descent has died out)
Most of de Ruyter's descendants who are of salic descent, use the original coat of Arms without the escutcheon.

The Coat of Arms as it was used by Engel de Ruyter, and that is shown on the tomb, with the escutcheon  a crowned lion, rampant, and a horse, rampant with acrown around its collar, or.  and the crowned lion and horse as supporters,

Terug naar de vorige pagina