LEEUWARDEN, or Leuwarden (in Frisian Liev>erd, and Latinized as Leovardia), a town of Holland, at the head of the province of Friesland, 17 miles inland from Harlingen and 32 west of Groningen. It is one of the most prosperous of the secondary towns in the country, and, thanks in great measure to the opening of the railway to Harlingen (1863) and Groningen (1866), full of life and enterprise. To the name of the Frisian Hague it is entitled as well by similarity of history as by similarity of appearance. As the Hague grew up round the court of the counts of Holland, so Leeuwarden round the court of the Frisian stadtholders; and, like the Hague, it is an exceptionally clean, tasteful, and attractive town, with parks, pleasure grounds, and drives. The old gates have been somewhat ruthlessly cleared away, and the site of the town walls on the north and west competes with the Prince’s Garden as a public pleasure ground. Besides the town-house (dating from 1715, and interesting mainly for the value of the archives admirably arranged by the Dutch antiquarian Eekhoff), the Prince Frederick barracks, capable of containing one thousand men, the corn exchange, and the beautiful weighhouse (dating from 1546), Leeuwarden contains a royal palace, originally the residence of the Frisian stadholders; the provincial courts, erected in 1850; the so-called chancery (Kanselarij), a fine red brick mansion built in 1502 for the chancellor of Duke George of Saxony, and now used as a house of detention; the penitentiary, rebuilt since 1870, and the largest establishment of the kind in Holland; and, somewhat oddly, the communal buildings of the neighbouring commune of Leeuwarderadeel. The church of the Jacobins deserves mention as perhaps the largest monastic church in the country, and as the ...burial-place of the Frisian stadtholders (Louis of Nassau, Anne of Orange, &c.), whose splendid tombs, however, were destroyed in the revolution of 1795. Unlike the Hague, Leeuwarden is by nature and tradition the centre of an extensive and flourishing trade (in grain, cattle, flax, chicory, &c.). Its present distance from the sea is made up for by abundant means of communication by road, railway, and canal. The canal to Dokkum opens up the rich clay districts of the province; the canal to Harlingen (dating from 1507) furnishes a channel for the trade with England; and other canals give access to the province of Groningen and the Zuyder Zee, and so to Amsterdam and the provinces of Holland. And, though the industrial development is far from keeping pace with the commercial, Leeuwarden possesses large timber and boat-building yards, iron-foundries, copper-works, and lead-works; manufactures sewing machines, safes, organs, cardboard, oil, and tobacco; and enjoys a wide reputation for its gold and silver wares. The population of the town in 1869 was 24,862; that of the commune increased from 15,686 in 1714 to 27,003 in 1875 (5217 Roman Catholics, 1124 Jews).
Leeuwarden, or that part of it which was called Nijehove, appears as early as 1149, and received the rank of a town in 1190. At that time it had free command of the sea; but the estuary of the Middelzee on which it stood had already silted up by about 1300. In 1398 we find the town bestowed by Duke Albert of Holland on Gerrolt Cammingha, whose family residence is still one of the notable mansions of the place. During the 15th and 16th centuries it plays a considerable part in Frisian history. The year 1499 saw the erection of a stronghold in the town, which enabled Albert of Saxony to bring the country under, and which made Leeuwarden a place of military importance till it was destroyed in 1580. When in 1559 Utrecht was raised to the rank of an archbishopric, Leeuwarden was made a bishopric, but only one occupant of the see was actually consecrated before the Reformation got mastery of the town in 1580.
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