Gerard van Velsen

Gerard (or Geeraerd) van Velsen (died 1296, at Leiden) was lord of Beverwijk, Noordwijk and Velsen.

He was the son of Albrecht van Velsen and Hildegonde. Gerard was married to Machteld van Woerden, a sister of Herman VI van Woerden. In 1275 Gerard was named schout of Wijk aan Zee.

In 1296 Gerard conspired together with Herman van Woerden, Gijsbrecht IV of Amstel, Jan van Kuyk and Arnold van Benschop to kidnap Floris V, Count of Holland. Eventually, together with van Woerden and van Amstel, they imprisoned the count in the Muiderslot. After Floris V attempted to escape, Gerard personally killed the count by stabbing him 20 times. Afterwards he fled to castle Kronenburg near Loenen aan de Vecht. A few days later he was arrested and brought to Leiden to stand trial. There he was tortured for three days long before being Quartered.

Gerard's motive for the murder of Floris V was his wife's supposed rape by Floris, after which she committed suicide.

References

Velsen

Velsen (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈvɛlzə(n)]) is a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is located on both sides of the North Sea Canal.

On the north side of the North Sea Canal, in IJmuiden, there is a major steel plant, Tata Steel IJmuiden, formerly known as Koninklijke Hoogovens. The headquarters of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Redding Maatschappij is located in IJmuiden.

The Kennemerstrand beach on the south side of the canal is at the end of the Kennemerboulevard, which runs south of the Seaport Marina.

To the south is the beach of Bloemendaal aan Zee. In between is a nude beach.

Population centres

The municipality of Velsen consists of the following cities, towns, villages and/or districts: