TULIPMANIA AND THE CHOSEN MAN

The first recorded financial bubble became known as the Dutch tulip bubble or ‘tulipomania’. At its height, in the early spring of 1637, a Dutch merchant paid 6,650 guilders for a dozen tulip bulbs. At that time 300 guilders would have kept an entire family for a whole year. The merchant wasn’t simply a rich man buying outrageously expensive the bulbs to plant and enjoy for their colour, he intended to sell on, and make a profit – as his fellow Dutchmen had been doing for the past two years. Records document instances of farmers giving up their farms to acquire bulbs and men exchanging their homes for a just one single rare specimen. Artisans pawned or sold their tools to ‘invest’ in tulips. Between 1635 and 1637 everyone, it seemed, was trading in tulips. There were also connoisseurs, mostly belonging to the professional class, who spent huge sums on what they considered an object of art. All these people, merchants, artisans and lawyers, fell prey to this collective madness – why?

Various factors contributed to the phenomenon, but behind it all there was very likely a Hispano/Vatican conspiracy to undermine the booming economy of the Protestant United Provinces.  Europe was experiencing a mini ice-age at the time so exotic plants from Persia and Turkey became highly desirable; the plague was everywhere, serving to diminish normal constraints on risk-taking; and it was a period of intense political intrigue. Spain had lost its Dutch provinces and was engaged in a protracted war to regain them. Cardinal Richelieu in

France had signed a treaty with the Dutch, and was involved in ‘arrangements’ with the Vatican to hinder Spain in Flanders. The Vatican was playing a double game with the Spanish monarch Felipe IV of Spain, apparently supporting his attempt to regain lost territory but actually undermining him in attempt to limit the power of the Habsburg Empire.

King Felipe and his chief minister, the Conde-Duque de Olivares, were desperate to end the war in Flanders for financial reasons, but the Hapsburg Emperor Ferdinand was harrying them to pursue it to victory. Hence the Spanish need for a little skulduggery – a neat, vicious, little plot to reduce the money supporting the Dutch rebels. Enter Ludo da Portovenere, a charismatic Genoese silk and spice merchant and all thoroughgoing rogue.

Biography of the author

Jane G. Harlond Arredondo grew up in the English West Country. Author of ‘Local Resistance’, ‘The Empress Emerald’ and ‘The Chosen Man’ (all published by Penmore Press), Jane writes thoroughly-researched, page-turning historical crime fiction that weaves fictional characters into real events. She is particularly interested in aspects of power; international intrigue and domestic politics are significant elements in her stories.

‘Dark Night, Black Horse’, a short novella, is a true story about a young boy who rescues his father’s favourite black stallion during the Spanish Civil War. This is now available in Spanish as ‘Noche Oscuro, Caballo Negro’.

Jane is a member of the prestigious British Historical Writers’ Association, the Historical Novel Society, and the British Society of Authors. Apart from fiction, Jane also writes school text books for Oxford University Press under her married name. She has a large family now settled in diverse parts of Spain and Europe. After travelling widely, she and her husband, a retired Spanish naval officer, are now settled in Coín.

Website: www.jgharlond.com
Blog ‘Reading & Writing’
Find Jane on Twitter: JG Harlond @JaneGHarlond