SOURCE: van Strien, Kees. “Sir John Suckling in Holland.” English Studies 76, no. 5 (September 1995): 443-54.

In the following essay, van Strien examines Suckling's letters in an attempt to piece together Suckling's time in Holland as a young man in his early twenties.

Sir John Suckling (1609-1642) is one of the numerous British tourists who travelled in the Low Countries in the first half of the seventeenth century.¹ Unlike Sir William Brereton (1634), Peter Mundy (1640) and John Evelyn (1641) Suckling has left no extensive account of his journeys. Only one letter seems to reflect his impressions of Holland and the Dutch.² Suckling appears to have been one of the numerous soldiers and scholars who specifically set out for the United Provinces, where in ‘the Cockpit of Christendome, the Schoole of Armes, and Rendezvous of all adventurous Spirits, and Cadets’,³ experience in warfare could be gained. Moreover there were excellent educational opportunities at...