Elf van Popma

Descendants of Elf POPMA

Popma Ancestors and the Island of Terschelling 'Skylge'

Until the Saint Hubert Flood of 1287 Terschelling was not an island at all and could be reached on foot from Frisia. Soon after the island became important for the Hanseatic fleets. For centuries the city of Zwolle was in charge of keeping the searoute of the Koggediep. In 1322 count William III of Holland gave Terschelling as a fief, including the low and high jurisdiction, to Claes (Klaas) Popma, a scion from a mighty Frisian family. From 1322 to 1615 Terschelling remained a fief of Holland. Terschelling was ruled as a grietenij, a Frisian district. In 1482 Rienck Popma concluded a commercial treaty with the English king Edward IV. The Popma family was not the only claimant to the jurisdiction of Terschelling: the provost of the Saint Donatus at Brugge and Cornelis van Bergen competed with them in the early sixteenth century. The final possessor at the end of the sixteenth century, Charles of Aremberg, discovered he owned an impoverished island. In 1499 troops of a Frisian warlord had plundered the island, and in 1569 the castle of the Arembergs had been burnt down. In 1615 Aremberg sold Terschelling to the States of Holland. In 1666 West-Terschelling was devastated by the English. The English fleet originally planned to attack the Dutch merchant fleet which was moored before the coast of Vlieland, the next island to the west. When the Dutch vessels retreated towards Terschelling, the English followed, destroyed 150 Dutch vessels, and landed in the harbour of West-Terschelling. The town was burnt to the ground by the English only leaving the Brandaris light house undamaged this attack would become known as 'Holmes's Bonfire' after the English admiral Holmes. The Great Fire of London later that year was considered by the Dutch to have been God's retribution. The next year, in 1667, the Dutch under command of De Ruyter executed a retaliatory expedition, and dealt the English navy a heavy blow at the Raid on the Medway (also known as the Battle of Chatham), in effect ending the Second Anglo-Dutch War. In the eighteenth century whaling helped the islanders to gain some prosperity.