You are standing on the roof of a castle. Beneath this square lie the remains of the Vredenburg, and in the bicycle park and the car park below you can still see pieces of it.
had it built after he annexed the city, the very takeover you heard about at the guilds. The monastery of the on the Catharijneveld was cleared away for it, fifteen hundred men worked on it at the peak, and after a hundred and thirty-two days the garrison could move in. The castle was called Vredeborch, meaning castle of peace, and that peace was to come from holding the people of Utrecht down.
It stood for forty-eight years. After a siege of seven weeks the Spanish garrison surrendered and left with their wives, children, weapons and household goods. The fortress then stood empty for months, because the were still loyal to the king and would not demolish it without permission from .
On the evening of the second of May 1577 and a group of other women began the work themselves, according to tradition with a blue apron tied to a broomstick as their banner. Official permission only came in August, and it took another four years before nothing of it stood above ground.
We stay right here, because four hundred years later this city had something to celebrate on this very square again.
Sources. Story: Erfgoed gemeente Utrecht (Bouw en sloop van kasteel Vredenburg, Zoeken naar kasteel Vredenburg); Huygens Instituut, Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland (Trijn van Leemput); Canon van Nederland Photos: Anonymous, Bird's-eye View of the Vredenburg Castle in Utrecht, c. 1550-1599, object number SK-A-1728, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, public domain
