Kasteel de Marnix de Sainte Aldegonde

The castle stands on the Oude Schelde, a side arm of the Scheldt cut off from the main river in the thirteenth century. Its foundations belong to a stronghold of the tenth or eleventh century, dated to about the year 1000 and raised to give shelter against the incursions of the Norsemen. It is a water castle of stone, brick and sandstone, set behind a double enceinte.

By the later sixteenth century the old fortress had fallen into decay, and it was stripped by Spanish soldiers during the Geuzen wars. In 1587 the Land of Bornem was sold.

The buyer was Pedro Coloma, a Spanish nobleman, lord of Bobadilla and afterwards Baron of Bornhem, who had come to the Low Countries with the army of Alexander Farnese and ranked among the richest of the Spanish nobility. He had the castle rebuilt on the foundations of the older building, the manor house of 1587 that stood on the site until the nineteenth century.

Coloma also worked the water around it. In 1592 he had a sluice built to regulate the flow of the Oude Schelde, a drainage work still reckoned the second oldest hydraulic work in Belgium and the oldest in Flanders, and in 1612 he improved the duck decoy on the bank, which dated back to 1314. He died on 27 December 1621 and was buried at Bornem. The monastery he founded in the village housed exiled English Dominicans from 1658, who taught there.

Pedro's son Alexandre followed him as second baron, then Pierre Coloma, Viscount of Dourlens, as third. Pedro's grandson Jean-François, fourth baron, became the first Count of Bornem after Philip IV of Spain raised the land of Bornem to a county in 1658. The fighting of the seventeenth century left the castle badly damaged, and in 1687 the central keep was pulled down. François-Claude Coloma held it as second count, Charles-Joseph-François as third until his death in 1724, and Marie-Florence Coloma as fourth countess. Aldegonde-Eleonore de Lannoy, Lady of Bornem, married Baudry-Adelbert de Marnix. The de Marnix family leased the estate before becoming its outright owners in 1773.

The name the house now carries belonged to a man who never lived in it. Filips van Marnix van Sint-Aldegonde, named by some as the author of the Wilhelmus, served from 1583 as outer burgomaster of Antwerp and defended the city, without much success, against Alexander Farnese, son of Margaret of Parma. His family did not acquire the Bornem domain until 1773, long after his day.

Count Karel de Marnix, eighth Count of Bornem, fled with his mother to the Netherlands to escape the French Revolution. The castle and the domain were declared forfeit and sold by public auction in Antwerp in 1799. In 1802 Karel bought back the castle and part of the estate, settled there, and served as mayor of Bornem until 1832.

In 1880 what was left of the old castle was demolished on the orders of Count Ferdinand de Marnix de Sainte-Aldegonde (1837-1913), who commissioned the architect Hendrik Beyaert (1823-1894) to design its replacement. Beyaert died before the work was finished and E. Janlet completed it. The watchtowers on the bridge were built in 1895.

From 24 April 1881 some members of the family also carried the name de Sainte-Aldegonde. The domain has stayed in Marnix hands since 1773 and remains so today; the resident is John de Marnix de Sainte-Aldegonde, fourteenth Count of Bornem. The castle is a protected monument. In April 2013 the chatelain was given an award by the Royal Association of Historic Residences and Gardens of Belgium for his work on its preservation.

The count holds the largest private collection in the world of engravings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, ninety-one in all, among them The Big Fish Eat the Little Fish and a first state of The Dirty Bride. The house can be visited by appointment and on four Sundays in August and September, with a visitor centre set up in one of the outbuildings.