It was in 1641 that Vondel openly embraced the Catholic faith, though his tendency in that direction had been apparent in his poems many years before. We have already referred to the report that his love for a beautiful and wealthy widow, Tesselschade, had been the main instrument in drawing him from his Protestant moorings, and this was doubtless to some extent true. And yet it is almost certain that Vondel would have embraced the cause of Rome even without the alluring wiles of this fair enchantress.
Many of his relatives, including his brother William, belonged to that faith. Many of his dearest friends also were of that denomination. His daughter Anna, furthermore, had not only entered that church, but had also taken the veil. Moreover, he had long been drifting away from the creed of his early childhood, the Anabaptism of his parents. The severe pietism of that belief had never strongly appealed to him. True, he had espoused the cause of the Arminians, as against their enemies the Gomarists; but it was only because they were the under side, and because their cause was also the cause of civil liberty, that he had entered the lists with them.
The perpetual discord, the disunion, the bickerings, the bitterness, and the persecutions among the different Protestant sects of the period were exceedingly repulsive to him. He did not forget that under the banner of Protestantism his country had triumphed over the common foe. He did not forget that Calvin had been the herald of science and the apostle of liberty. He did not fail to remember the glories of the past. But the contemplation of that proud past only increased his abhorrence of the petty present.
Calvinism had indeed done much for Holland; but the inevitable reaction had come, and its excesses could not be justified. Calvinism had come to mean dogma; and dogma had no attraction for his poetic mind. Calvinism had become the foe of freedom; and freedom was the very breath of this flaming patriot. Calvinism had shown itself an enemy of the arts, of poetry, and of the drama; and these were as the very soul of Vondel.
How could he know that this was only a fleeting gloom, from which the sun of Calvinism would again emerge, radiant with all of its original glory? He was weary--weary of the discord, and longed for peace.