Henri de Fleury de Coulan

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Henri de Fleury de Coulan, known as Henri Buat, Sieur de Buat, was a French-born Dutch cavalry captain who played a key role in a famous plot during the First Stadtholderless Period. He died on 11 October 1666 after being convicted of treason.

Background and career
- He was the son of Philippe Henri de Fleury de Coulan, a Huguenot officer, and Esther de Flins. Not much is known about his early life.
- He started as a page at the courts of the Stadtholder Frederick Henry and then William II, before becoming a soldier.
- He rose to captain of the Eskadron Gardes du Corps (Life Guards of the Stadtholder) on 16 November 1646. In 1660 this unit became the Gardes te paard van de Staten van Zeeland (Horse Guards of the States of Zeeland), based in Bergen op Zoom.
- Zeeland’s ambivalence toward the Orangist cause helped Buat work with the future Stadtholder William III in the early 1660s, even as the central government frowned on Orangist aims.
- He took part in notable military actions, including a 1659 expedition with de Ruyter to the Sound and a landing on Funen, where he distinguished himself. In 1660 he promoted William III’s interests in Zeeland, and in 1662 he secured an annuity from Charles II for the Dowager Princess of Orange.

Marriage and politics
- In 1664 he married Elisabeth Musch, daughter of Cornelis Musch and Elisabeth Cats, tying him to powerful Orangist families.
- In 1665, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, he accompanied the French army in its Munster campaign to help with provisions.

The conspiracy
- In late 1665 Buat carried on unofficial talks with Sir Gabriel Sylvius at the court of Charles II, acting for Lord Arlington, about possible peace between England and the Dutch Republic. He also stayed in touch with Orangist circles.
- Arlington and Sylvius hoped to use the talks to plot an Orangist coup to overthrow Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt, restore the stadtholderate, end the war, and renew Anglo-Dutch friendship.
- Sylvius sent Buat a letter with full details of the plot. Buat, thinking he was helping the state, handed this compromising letter to de Witt along with other correspondence.
- De Witt used the documents to expose the plot. Buat was arrested; two Rotterdam regents, Johan Kievit and Ewout van der Horst, were also implicated and fled to England, where they were tried in absentia.

The trial and execution
- Buat was tried by the Hof van Holland (the main court of Holland) for treason against the Generality. Many contemporaries and later historians view the case as unequal: Buat may have been entangled by more powerful plans and not truly treasonous, and some believe de Witt manipulated the affair.
- The sentence passed in October 1666 was death. Buat was executed on 11 October 1666 by the Hague executioner Christiaan Hals.

Legacy
- The Buat conspiracy was later romanticized in the 1850 novel Elisabeth Musch by Jacob van Lennep.
- It also inspired Dutch cultural works, including the 1968 TV series Ritmeester Buat, with actor Coen Flink.
- The epitaph by the poet Constantijn Huygens is noted in historical references.