"Den Bosch or 's-Hertogenbosch" a Den Bosch Travel Page by ultchuk

The Dutch usually call this city 'Den Bosch', but its official name is 's-Hertogenbosch. This literally means 'the woods of the Duke'. That duke was Hendrik I of Brabant, who gave 's-Hertogenbosch its city rights and all its associated trading privileges in 1185.

Through the centuries, 's-Hertogenbosch successfully fought off attacks from Holland and Gelderland, other provinces with power in Holland as well as from the far north and the south, which was under the control of the Spanish.

Until 1520, the city flourished, after that it came under Spanish rule for 50 years, while it was besieged several times by Prince Maurice of Orange, who wanted to put 's-Hertogenbosch under his rule. The town was finally conquered in 1629, cutting the town off from the rest of the duchy. In 1794, French troops took the city; it was liberated by the Prussians in 1814. The next year, when the Kingdom of the Netherlands was established, it became the political and cultural capital of Brabant and the city has grown considerably since that time. The current population is about 125,000 people.

Den Bosch or 's-Hertogenbosch ('Duke's Wood') is the place where I work (the Districts Court at 'the Palace of Justice' (Paleis van Justitie). Den Bosch is a far more beautiful town then Tilburg where I live. The centre of the Town, in fact the oldest part of the town, has that old city quality with a lot of little streets and little bridges and the little river 'De Dieze' (originally used as a sewage system) that runs through and also under the centre of the town.

The painter Hieronymus Bosch or Jeroen Bosch (c. 1453 - 1516) probably remains the best known citizen of 's-Hertogenbosch. There is a statue of H. Bosch on the Central Market Square.

H. Bosch produced several triptychs, works of three paintings on wooden panels that are attached to each other. Among his most famous is The Garden of Earthly Delight which was created 1504-1505. This triptych depicts paradise with Adam and Eve and many wonderous animals on the left panel, the earthly delights with numerous nude figures and tremendous amount of fruits and birds on the middle panel, and further hell with depictions of fantastic punishments of the various types of sinners on the right panel.
Most paintings of Bosch were bought by Philip II of Spain after Bosch' Death and are in the Prado in Madrid nowadays.