Willem van Haecht, sometimes also Willem van Haecht the elder to distinguish him from the painter Willem van Haecht[1] (ca 1530 – after 1585) was a Flemish poet writing in the Dutch language. He was also a cloth merchant, draughtsman, a bookseller and publisher.[2][3] He was a member since 1552 and from 1558 a factor of the chamber of rhetoric De Violieren in Antwerp.[2] In that role he played an important part in the transition of the development of theatre in Flanders from plays mainly dealing with epic, moralising or allegorising themes towards plays expressing the humanist ideas of the Renaissance.[4] He published the Psalms of the Bible in Dutch verse and also wrote poems and songs.[5]
A supporter of the Calvinist cause, he fled to Aachen in 1567 when the religious persecution of Calvinists in the Low Countries intensified upon the arrival of the new governor, the Duke of Alva. Van Haecht returned to Antwerp in the early 1570s, but left his home town again after the Fall of Antwerp in 1585 as Calvinists were then forced to choose between renouncing their religious allegiance or leaving the Spanish Netherlands.[2]