I went to Delft and Rotterdam, and two days after back to the Hague, to bespeak a suit of horseman’s armor, which I caused to be made to fit me. I now rode out of town to see the monument of the woman, pretended to have been a countess of Holland ((Margaret of Holland, Countess of Henneberg)), reported to have had as many children at one birth, as there are days in the year ((The legend of the 365 children)). The basins were hung up in which they were baptized, together with a large description of the matter-of-fact in a frame of carved work, in the church of Lysdun ((Loosduiden – GS)), a desolate place.

Detail from print “Paleis Honselaarsdijk”, A. Bega and Abraham Blooteling (circa 1683)

As I returned, I diverted to see one of the Prince’s Palaces, called the Hoff Van Hounsler’s Dyck ((Huis Honselaarsdijk -GS)) , a very fair cloistered and quadrangular building. The gallery is prettily painted with several huntings, and at one end a gordian knot, with rustical instruments so artificially represented, as to deceive an accurate eye to distinguish it from actual relievo ((Sculpture consisting of shapes carved on a surface so as to stand out from the surrounding background -GS)).. The ceiling of the staircase is painted with the “Rape of Ganymede,” and other pendant figures, the work of F. Covenberg ((Christiaen van Couwenbergh -GS)), of whose hand I bought an excellent drollery, which I afterward parted with to my brother George of Wotton, where it now hangs. To this palace join a fair garden and park, curiously planted with limes.