The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 03: 1555

Guilds were established and markets developed as production exceeded local needs. Also, the introduction of currency made trading a much easier affair than it had been before. Existing towns grew and new towns sprang into existence around monasteries and castles , and a mercantile middle class began to develop in these urban areas. Commerce and town development increased as the population grew. At home, there was relative peace.

Viking pillaging had stopped. Both the Crusades and the relative peace at home contributed to trade and the growth in commerce. Cities arose and flourished, especially in Flanders and Brabant. As the cities grew in wealth and power, they started to buy certain privileges for themselves from the sovereign , including city rights , the right to self-government and the right to pass laws. In practice, this meant that the wealthiest cities became quasi-independent republics in their own right.

Two of the most important cities were Brugge and Antwerp in Flanders which would later develop into some of the most important cities and ports in Europe. The Hook and Cod Wars Dutch: Hoekse en Kabeljauwse twisten were a series of wars and battles in the County of Holland between and Most of these wars were fought over the title of count of Holland , but some have argued that the underlying reason was because of the power struggle of the bourgeois in the cities against the ruling nobility.

The Cod faction generally consisted of the more progressive cities of Holland. The Hook faction consisted for a large part of the conservative noblemen. But perhaps the most well known is Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut. Leading noblemen in Holland invited the duke to conquer Holland, even though he had no historical claim to it. Some historians [ who? Europe had been wracked by many civil wars in the 14th and 15th centuries, while Flanders had grown rich and enjoyed peace.

Most of what is now the Netherlands and Belgium was eventually united by the Duke of Burgundy in Before the Burgundian union, the Dutch identified themselves by the town they lived in, their local duchy or county or as subjects of the Holy Roman Empire. The Burgundian period is when the Dutch began the road to nationhood. Holland's trade developed rapidly, especially in the areas of shipping and transport. The new rulers defended Dutch trading interests.

The fleets of Holland defeated the fleets of the Hanseatic League several times. Amsterdam grew and in the 15th century became the primary trading port in Europe for grain from the Baltic region. Amsterdam distributed grain to the major cities of Belgium, Northern France and England. This trade was vital to the people of Holland, because Holland could no longer produce enough grain to feed itself. Land drainage had caused the peat of the former wetlands to reduce to a level that was too low for drainage to be maintained.

Charles V —58 was born and raised in the Flemish city of Ghent ; he spoke French. When he was a minor, his aunt Margaret acted as regent until France relinquished its ancient claim on Flanders in From to , Charles's government in the Netherlands had to contend with the rebellion of Frisian peasants led by Pier Gerlofs Donia and Wijard Jelckama. Gelre attempted to build up its own state in northeast Netherlands and northwest Germany.

Lacking funds in the 16th century, Gelre had its soldiers provide for themselves by pillaging enemy terrain. These soldiers were a great menace to the Burgundian Netherlands, as when they pillaged The Hague. The dukes of Burgundy over the years through astute marriages, purchases and wars, had taken control of the Seventeen Provinces that made up the Low Countries. They are now the Netherlands in the north, the Southern Netherlands now Belgium in the south, and Luxemburg in the southeast.

Known as the "Burgundian Circle," these lands came under the control of the Habsburg family. Charles —58 became the owner in , but in he left to become king of Spain and later became the Holy Roman Emperor. Charles turned over control to regents his close relatives , and in practice rule was exercised by Spaniards he controlled. The provinces each had their own governments and courts, controlled by the local nobility, and their own traditions and rights "liberties" dating back centuries.

Likewise the numerous cities had their own legal rights and local governments, usually controlled by the merchants, On top of this the Spanish had imposed an overall government, the Estates General of the Netherlands, with its own officials and courts. With the emergence of the Protestant Reformation, Charles—now the Emperor—was determined to crush Protestantism and never compromise with it. Unrest began in the south, centered in the large rich metropolis of Antwerp.

The Netherlands was an especially rich unit of the Spanish realm, especially after the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis of ; it ended four decades of warfare between France and Spain and allowed Spain to reposition its army. In , Charles granted the Netherlands status as an entity in which many of the laws of the Holy Roman Empire became obsolete. The "Transaction of Augsburg.

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A year later the Pragmatic Sanction of stated that the Seventeen Provinces could only be passed on to his heirs as a composite entity. During the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation rapidly gained ground in northern Europe, especially in its Lutheran and Calvinist forms. By the s, the Protestant community had become a significant influence in the Netherlands, although it clearly formed a minority then. Nevertheless, the Catholic rulers Charles V, and later Philip II , made it their mission to defeat Protestantism, which was considered a heresy by the Catholic Church and a threat to the stability of the whole hierarchical political system.

On the other hand, the intensely moralistic Dutch Protestants insisted their Biblical theology, sincere piety and humble lifestyle was morally superior to the luxurious habits and superficial religiosity of the ecclesiastical nobility. In the second half of the century, the situation escalated.

Philip sent troops to crush the rebellion and make the Netherlands once more a Catholic region. In the first wave of the Reformation, Lutheranism won over the elites in Antwerp and the South. The Spanish successfully suppressed it there, and Lutheranism only flourished in east Friesland. The second wave of the Reformation, came in the form of Anabaptism , that was popular among ordinary farmers in Holland and Friesland.

Anabaptists were socially very radical and equalitarian; they believed that the apocalypse was very near. They refused to live the old way, and began new communities, creating considerable chaos. The movement was allowed in the north, but never grew to a large scale.

The third wave of the Reformation, that ultimately proved to be permanent, was Calvinism. It arrived in the Netherlands in the s, attracting both the elite and the common population, especially in Flanders. The Catholic Spanish responded with harsh persecution and introduced the Inquisition of the Netherlands.

First there was the iconoclasm in , which was the systematic destruction of statues of saints and other Catholic devotional depictions in churches. Blum says, "His patience, tolerance, determination, concern for his people, and belief in government by consent held the Dutch together and kept alive their spirit of revolt. The other states remained almost entirely Catholic. This treaty ended a forty-year period of warfare between France and Spain conducted in Italy from to Spain had been keeping troops in the Netherlands to be ready to attack France from the north as well as from the south.

With the settlement of so many major issues between France and Spain by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, there was no longer any reason to keep Spanish troops in the Netherlands. Thus, the people of the Netherlands could get on with their peacetime pursuits. As they did so they found that there was a great deal of demand for their products. Fishing had long been an important part of the economy of the Netherlands. However, now the fishing of herring alone came to occupy 2, boats operating out of Dutch ports. Spain, still the Dutch trader's best customer, was buying fifty large ships full of furniture and household utensils from Flanders merchants.

Additionally, Dutch woolen goods were desired everywhere. The Netherlands bought and processed enough Spanish wool to sell four million florins of wool products through merchants in Bruges. So strong was the Dutch appetite for raw wool at this time that they bought nearly as much English wool as they did Spanish wool. Total commerce with England alone amounted to 24 million florins. Much of the export going to England resulted in pure profit to the Dutch because the exported items were of their own manufacture.

The Netherlands was just starting to enter its "Golden Age. The population reached 3 million in , with 25 cities of 10, people or more, by far the largest urban presence in Europe; with the trading and financial center of Antwerp being especially important population , Spain could not afford to lose this rich land, nor allow it to fall from Catholic control. Thus came 80 years of warfare. A devout Catholic, Philip was appalled by the success of the Reformation in the Low Countries , which had led to an increasing number of Calvinists. His attempts to enforce religious persecution of the Protestants, and his centralization of government, law enforcement, and taxes, made him unpopular and led to a revolt.

With the approach of Alba and the Spanish army, William the Silent of Orange fled to Germany with his three brothers and his whole family on 11 April The Duke of Alba sought to meet and negotiate with the nobles that now faced him with armies. However, when the nobles arrived in Brussels they were all arrested and Egmont and Horn were executed. The first fifty years through were uniquely a war between Spain and the Netherlands. During the last thirty years — the conflict between Spain and the Netherlands was submerged in the general European War that became known as the Thirty Years' War.

The Act of Abjuration or Plakkaat van Verlatinghe was signed on 26 July , and was the formal declaration of independence of the northern Low Countries from the Spanish king. William of Orange Slot Dillenburg, 24 April — Delft, 10 July , the founder of the Dutch royal family, led the Dutch during the first part of the war, following the death of Egmont and Horn in The very first years were a success for the Spanish troops. However, the Dutch countered subsequent sieges in Holland. In November and December , all the citizens of Zutphen and Naarden were slaughtered by the Spanish.

From 11 December that year the city of Haarlem was besieged, holding out for seven months until 13 July Oudewater was conquered by the Spanish on 7 August , and most of its inhabitants were killed. Maastricht was besieged, sacked and destroyed twice in succession in and by the Spanish. In a war composed mostly of sieges rather than battles, Governor-General Alexander Farnese proved his mettle. His strategy was to offer generous terms for the surrender of a city: The conservative Catholics in the south and east supported the Spanish.

Farnese recaptured Antwerp and nearly all of what became Belgium. Flanders was the most radical anti-Spanish territory. The war dragged on for another half century, but the main fighting was over. The Peace of Westphalia , signed in , confirmed the independence of the United Provinces from Spain. The Dutch people started to develop a national identity since the 15th century, but they officially remained a part of the Holy Roman Empire until National identity was mainly formed by the province people came from.

Holland was the most important province by far. The republic of the Seven Provinces came to be known as Holland across Europe. The Catholics in the Netherlands were an outlawed minority that had been suppressed by the Calvinists. After , however, they made a striking comeback also as part of the Catholic Counter-Reformation , setting up seminaries, reforming their Church, and sending missionaries into Protestant districts. Laity often took the lead; the Calvinist government often arrested or harassed priests who seemed too effective.

Catholic numbers stabilized at about a third of the population in the Netherlands; they were strongest in the southeast. During the Eighty Years' War the Dutch provinces became the most important trading centre of Northern Europe, replacing Flanders in this respect. During the Golden Age, there was a great flowering of trade, industry, the arts and the sciences in the Netherlands.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Dutch were arguably the most economically wealthy and scientifically advanced of all European nations. This new, officially Calvinist nation flourished culturally and economically, creating what historian Simon Schama has called an "embarrassment of riches". Due to these developments the 17th century has been dubbed the Golden Age of the Netherlands. The invention [81] of the sawmill enabled the construction of a massive fleet of ships for worldwide trading and for defence of the republic's economic interests by military means.

National industries such as shipyards and sugar refineries expanded as well. The Dutch, traditionally able seafarers and keen mapmakers, [82] obtained an increasingly dominant position in world trade, a position which before had been occupied by the Portuguese and Spaniards. It was the first-ever multinational corporation , financed by shares that established the first modern stock exchange. It became the world's largest commercial enterprise of the 17th century. To finance the growing trade within the region, the Bank of Amsterdam was established in , the precursor to, if not the first true central bank.

The Dutch also dominated trade between European countries. The Low Countries were favorably positioned on a crossing of east-west and north-south trade routes and connected to a large German hinterland through the Rhine river. Dutch traders shipped wine from France and Portugal to the Baltic lands and returned with grain destined for countries around the Mediterranean Sea.

By the s, an average of nearly Dutch ships entered the Baltic Sea each year. Renaissance Humanism , of which Desiderius Erasmus c. Overall, levels of tolerance were sufficiently high to attract religious refugees from other countries, notably Jewish merchants from Portugal who brought much wealth with them. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France in resulted in the immigration of many French Huguenots , many of whom were shopkeepers or scientists.

Still tolerance had its limits, as philosopher Baruch de Spinoza — would find out. Due to its climate of intellectual tolerance the Dutch Republic attracted scientists and other thinkers from all over Europe. Especially the renowned University of Leiden established in by the Dutch stadtholder , William of Oranje , as a token of gratitude for Leiden's fierce resistance against Spain during the Eighty Years' War became a gathering place for these people. Dutch lawyers were famous for their knowledge of international law of the sea and commercial law.

Hugo Grotius — played a leading part in the foundation of international law. Again due to the Dutch climate of tolerance, book publishers flourished. Many books about religion, philosophy and science that might have been deemed controversial abroad were printed in the Netherlands and secretly exported to other countries. Thus during the 17th century the Dutch Republic became more and more Europe's publishing house.

Christiaan Huygens — was a famous astronomer , physicist and mathematician. He invented the pendulum clock , which was a major step forward towards exact timekeeping. He contributed to the fields of optics. The most famous Dutch scientist in the area of optics is certainly Anton van Leeuwenhoek , who invented or greatly improved the microscope opinions differ and was the first to methodically study microscopic life, thus laying the foundations for the field of microbiology.

Famous Dutch hydraulic engineer Jan Leeghwater — gained important victories in The Netherlands's eternal battle against the sea. Leeghwater added a considerable amount of land to the republic by converting several large lakes into polders , pumping all water out with windmills. The painting was the dominant art form in 17th-century Holland.

Dutch Golden Age painting followed many of the tendencies that dominated Baroque art in other parts of Europe, as with the Utrecht Caravaggisti , but was the leader in developing the subjects of still life , landscape , and genre painting. Portraiture were also popular, but history painting — traditionally the most-elevated genre struggled to find buyers. Church art was virtually non-existent, and little sculpture of any kind produced.

While art collecting and painting for the open market was also common elsewhere, art historians point to the growing number of wealthy Dutch middle-class and successful mercantile patrons as driving forces in the popularity of certain pictorial subjects. Some notable artistic styles and trends include Haarlem Mannerism , Utrecht Caravaggism , the School of Delft , the Leiden fijnschilders , and Dutch classicism.

Due to the thriving economy, cities expanded greatly. New town halls, weighhouses and storehouses were built. In the countryside, many new castles and stately homes were built. Most of them have not survived. Starting at Reformed churches were commissioned, many of which are still landmarks today. Overall, Dutch architecture, which generally combined traditional building styles with some foreign elements, did not develop to the level of painting. The Golden Age was also an important time for developments in literature.

Since Latin was the lingua franca of education, relatively few men could speak, write, and read Dutch all at the same time. Music did not develop very much in the Netherlands since the Calvinists considered it an unnecessary extravagance, and organ music was forbidden in Reformed Church services, although it remained common at secular functions.

On 2 June , it was granted a charter for a trade monopoly in the West Indies meaning the Caribbean by the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands and given jurisdiction over the African slave trade , Brazil, the Caribbean , and North America. Its area of operations stretched from West Africa to the Americas, and the Pacific islands.

The company became instrumental in the Dutch colonization of the Americas. The first forts and settlements in Guyana and on the Amazon River date from the s. Actual colonization, with Dutch settling in the new lands, was not as common as with England and France. Many of the Dutch settlements were lost or abandoned by the end of that century, but the Netherlands managed to retain possession of Suriname and a number of Dutch Caribbean islands.

The colony was a private business venture to exploit the fur trade in beaver pelts. During the s, the colony experienced dramatic growth and became a major port for trade in the Atlantic World , tolerating a highly diverse ethnic mix. Descendants of the original settlers played a prominent role in the History of the United States , as typified by the Roosevelt and Vanderbilt families.

The Hudson Valley still boasts a Dutch heritage. The concepts of civil liberties and pluralism introduced in the province became mainstays of American political and social life. Although slavery was illegal inside the Netherlands it flourished in the Dutch Empire, and helped support the economy. It was overtaken by Britain around Historians agree that in all the Dutch shipped about , African slaves across the Atlantic, about 75, of whom died on board before reaching their destinations. From —, the Dutch traders sold , slaves in the Dutch Guianas, , in the Dutch Caribbean islands, and 28, in Dutch Brazil.

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It had many world firsts—the first multinational corporation , the first company to issue stock, and was the first megacorporation , possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, negotiate treaties, coin money, and establish colonial settlements. England and France soon copied its model but could not match its record. Between and the VOC sent almost a million Europeans to work in the Asia trade on 4, ships.

It returned over 2. The VOC enjoyed huge profits from its spice monopoly through most of the 17th century. Afterward, they established ports in Dutch occupied Malabar , leading to Dutch settlements and trading posts in India. However, their expansion into India was halted, after their defeat in the Battle of Colachel by the Kingdom of Travancore , during the Travancore-Dutch War.

The Dutch never recovered from the defeat and no longer posed a large colonial threat to India. Its possessions were taken over by the government and turned into the Dutch East Indies. The marooned crew, the first Europeans to attempt settlement in the area, built a fort and stayed for a year until they were rescued.

The VOC, one of the major European trading houses sailing the spice route to East Asia, had no intention of colonizing the area, instead wanting only to establish a secure base camp where passing ships could shelter, and where hungry sailors could stock up on fresh supplies of meat, fruit, and vegetables. To remedy a labour shortage, the VOC released a small number of VOC employees from their contracts and permitted them to establish farms with which they would supply the VOC settlement from their harvests.

This arrangement proved highly successful, producing abundant supplies of fruit, vegetables, wheat, and wine; they also later raised livestock. The small initial group of "free burghers", as these farmers were known, steadily increased in number and began to expand their farms further north and east.

The majority of burghers had Dutch ancestry and belonged to the Calvinist Reformed Church of the Netherlands , but there were also numerous Germans as well as some Scandinavians. The Huguenots in South Africa were absorbed into the Dutch population but they played a prominent role in South Africa's history. There was a close association between the cape and these Dutch possessions in the far east. These slaves often married Dutch settlers, and their descendants became known as the Cape Coloureds and the Cape Malays.

During the 18th century, the Dutch settlement in the area of the cape grew and prospered. By the late s, the Cape Colony was one of the best developed European settlements outside Europe or the Americas.

History of the Netherlands

Its strategic position meant that almost every ship sailing between Europe and Asia stopped off at the colony's capital Cape Town. The supplying of these ships with fresh provisions, fruit, and wine provided a very large market for the surplus produce of the colony. Some free burghers continued to expand into the rugged hinterlands of the north and east, many began to take up a semi-nomadic pastoralist lifestyle, in some ways not far removed from that of the Khoikhoi they had displaced.

In addition to its herds, a family might have a wagon , a tent , a Bible, and a few guns. As they became more settled, they would build a mud -walled cottage , frequently located, by choice, days of travel from the nearest European settlement. These were the first of the Trekboers Wandering Farmers, later shortened to Boers , completely independent of official controls, extraordinarily self-sufficient, and isolated from the government and the main settlement in Cape Town. Dutch was the official language, but a dialect had formed that was quite distinct from Dutch.

The Afrikaans language originated mainly from 17th-century Dutch dialects. This Dutch dialect sometimes referred to as the "kitchen language" kombuistaal , [97] would eventually in the late 19th century be recognised as a distinct language called Afrikaans and replace Dutch as the official language of the Afrikaners. As the 18th century drew to a close, Dutch mercantile power began to fade and the British moved in to fill the vacuum. They seized the Cape Colony in to prevent it from falling into French hands, then briefly relinquished it back to the Dutch , before definitively conquering it in British sovereignty of the area was recognised at the Congress of Vienna in By the time the Dutch colony was seized by the British in , it had grown into an established settlement with 25, slaves, 20, white colonists, 15, Khoisan , and 1, freed black slaves.

Outside Cape Town and the immediate hinterland, isolated black and white pastoralists populated the country. Yet in the 17th and 18th centuries the Dutch created the foundation of the modern state of South Africa. The Dutch legacy in South Africa is evident everywhere, but particularly in the Afrikaner people and the Afrikaans language. As the Netherlands was a republic, it was largely governed by an aristocracy of city-merchants called the regents , rather than by a king.

Every city and province had its own government and laws, and a large degree of autonomy. After attempts to find a competent sovereign proved unsuccessful, it was decided that sovereignty would be vested in the various provincial Estates, the governing bodies of the provinces. The Estates-General , with its representatives from all the provinces, would decide on matters important to the Republic as a whole. However, at the head of each province was the stadtholder of that province, a position held by a descendant of the House of Orange.

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Usually the stadtholdership of several provinces was held by a single man. After having gained its independence in , the Netherlands tried in various coalitions to help to contain France, which had replaced Spain as the strongest nation of Europe. The end of the War of the Spanish Succession marked the end of the Dutch Republic as a major player.

In the 18th century, it just tried to maintain its independence and stuck to a policy of neutrality. The economy, based on Amsterdam's role as the center of world trade, remained robust. In the Dutch merchant marine totalled , tons of shipping—about half the European total. Its nobility was small and closed and had little influence, for it was numerically small, politically weak, and formed a strictly closed caste. Most land in the province of Holland was commercialized for cash crops and was owned by urban capitalists, not nobles; there were few links between Holland's nobility and the merchants.

By the burgher families which had grown wealthy through commerce and become influential in government controlled the province of Holland, and to a large extent shaped national policies. The other six provinces were more rural and traditional in life style, had an active nobility, and played a small role in commerce and national politics.

Instead they concentrated on their flood protections and land reclamation projects. Many immigrants came to the cities of Holland in the 17th and 18th century from the Protestant parts of Germany and elsewhere. Indeed, Amsterdam's population consisted primarily of immigrants, if one includes second and third generation immigrants and migrants from the Dutch countryside. People in most parts of Europe were poor and many were unemployed. But in Amsterdam there was always work.

Tolerance was important, because a continuous influx of immigrants was necessary for the economy. Travellers visiting Amsterdam reported their surprise at the lack of control over the influx. The era of explosive economic growth is roughly coterminous with the period of social and cultural bloom that has been called the Dutch Golden Age , and that actually formed the material basis for that cultural era. Amsterdam became the hub of world trade, the center into which staples and luxuries flowed for sorting, processing, and distribution, and then reexported around Europe and the world.

During through there was the rapid accumulation of trade capital, often brought in by refugee merchantes from Antwerp and other ports. The money was typically invested in high-risk ventures like pioneering expeditions to the East Indies to engage in the spice trade. There were similar ventures in different fields however, like the trade on Russia and the Levant.

The profits of these ventures were ploughed back in the financing of new trade, which led to its exponential growth. Rapid industrialization led to the rapid growth of the nonagricultural labor force and the increase in real wages during the same time.

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In the half-century between and this labor supply increased 3 percent per annum, a truly phenomenal growth. Despite this, nominal wages were repeatedly increased, outstripping price increases. In consequence, real wages for unskilled laborers were 62 percent higher in — than in — By the mids Amsterdam had reached the optimum population about , for the level of trade, commerce and agriculture then available to support it. The city contributed the largest quota in taxes to the States of Holland which in turn contributed over half the quota to the States General.

Amsterdam was also one of the most reliable in settling tax demands and therefore was able to use the threat to withhold such payments to good effect. Amsterdam was governed by a body of regents, a large, but closed, oligarchy with control over all aspects of the city's life, and a dominant voice in the foreign affairs of Holland. Only men with sufficient wealth and a long enough residence within the city could join the ruling class.

The first step for an ambitious and wealthy merchant family was to arrange a marriage with a long-established regent family. In the s one such union, that of the Trip family the Amsterdam branch of the Swedish arms makers with the son of Burgomaster Valckenier, extended the influence and patronage available to the latter and strengthened his dominance of the council. The oligarchy in Amsterdam thus gained strength from its breadth and openness.

In the smaller towns family interest could unite members on policy decisions but contraction through intermarriage could lead to the degeneration of the quality of the members. In Amsterdam the network was so large that members of the same family could be related to opposing factions and pursue widely separated interests. The young men who had risen to positions of authority in the s and s consolidated their hold on office well into the s and even the new century. Amsterdam's regents provided good services to residents.

They spent heavily on the water-ways and other essential infrastructure, as well as municipal almshouses for the elderly, hospitals and churches. Amsterdam's wealth was generated by its commerce, which was in turn sustained by the judicious encouragement of entrepreneurs whatever their origin. This open door policy has been interpreted as proof of a tolerant ruling class. But toleration was practiced for the convenience of the city.

Therefore, the wealthy Sephardic Jews from Portugal were welcomed and accorded all privileges except those of citizenship, but the poor Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe were far more carefully vetted and those who became dependent on the city were encouraged to move on.

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The regents encouraged immigrants to build churches and provided sites or buildings for churches and temples for all except the most radical sects and the Catholics by the s [] although even the Catholics could practice quietly in a chapel within the Beguinhof. During the wars a tension had arisen between the Orange-Nassau leaders and the patrician merchants. The former—the Orangists—were soldiers and centralizers who seldom spoke of compromise with the enemy and looked for military solutions. They included many rural gentry as well as ordinary folk attached to the banner of the House of Orange.

The latter group were the Republicans, led by the Grand Pensionary a sort of prime minister and the regents stood for localism, municipal rights, commerce, and peace. The regents seized the opportunity: Johan de Witt , a brilliant politician and diplomat, emerged as the dominant figure. Princes of Orange became the stadtholder and an almost hereditary ruler in and The Dutch Republic of the United Provinces was a true republic from — and — The Republic and England were major rivals in world trade and naval power. Halfway through the 17th century the Republic's navy was the rival of Britain's Royal Navy as the most powerful navy in the world.

The Republic fought a series of three naval wars against England in — In , England imposed its first Navigation Act , which severely hurt Dutch trade interests. An incident at sea concerning the Act resulted in the First Anglo-Dutch War , which lasted from to , ending in the Treaty of Westminster , which left the Navigation Act in effect. King Charles thought a naval war would weaken the Dutch traders and strengthen the English economy and empire, so the Second Anglo-Dutch War was launched in At first many Dutch ships were captured and the English scored great victories.

However, the Raid on the Medway , in June , ended the war with a Dutch victory. The Dutch recovered their trade, while the English economy was seriously hurt and its treasury nearly bankrupt. The Dutch Republic was at the zenith of its power. The year is known in the Netherlands as the "Disaster Year" Rampjaar. Johan de Witt and his brother Cornelis, who had accomplished a diplomatic balancing act for a long time, were now the obvious scapegoats.

They were lynched, and a new stadtholder , William III, was appointed. An Anglo-French attempt to land on the Dutch shore was barely repelled in three desperate naval battles under command of Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. The advance of French troops from the south was halted by a costly inundation of its own heartland, by breaching river dikes. Peace was signed with England as well, in Second Treaty of Westminster. In , peace was made with France at the Treaty of Nijmegen , although France's Spanish and German allies felt betrayed by this.

In , the relations with England reached crisis level once again. This led to the Glorious Revolution and cemented the principle of parliamentary rule and Protestant ascendency in England. James fled to France, and William ascended to the English throne as co-monarch with his wife Mary, James' eldest daughter. William was the commander of the Dutch and English armies and fleets until his death in During William's reign as King of England, his primary focus was leveraging British manpower and finances to aid the Dutch against the French.

The combination continued after his death as the combined Dutch, British, and mercenary army conquered Flanders and Brabant, and invaded French territory before the alliance collapsed in due to British political infighting. The Second Stadtholderless Period Dutch: Tweede Stadhouderloze Tijdperk is the designation in Dutch historiography of the period between the death of stadtholder William III on 19 March [] and the appointment of William IV, Prince of Orange as stadtholder and captain general in all provinces of the Dutch Republic on 2 May During this period the office of stadtholder was left vacant in the provinces of Holland , Zeeland , and Utrecht , though in other provinces that office was filled by members of the House of Nassau-Dietz later called Orange-Nassau during various periods.

During the period, the Republic lost its Great-Power status and its primacy in world trade, processes that went hand-in-hand, the latter causing the former. Though the economy declined considerably, causing deindustralization and deurbanization in the maritime provinces, a rentier -class kept accumulating a large capital fund that formed the basis for the leading position the Republic achieved in the international capital market. A military crisis at the end of the period caused the fall of the States-Party regime and the restoration of the Stadtholderate in all provinces.

However, though the new stadtholder acquired near-dictatorial powers, this did not improve the situation. The slow economic decline after was relative: Wilson identifies three causes. Holland lost its world dominance in trade as competitors emerged and copied its practices, built their own ships and ports, and traded on their own account directly without going through Dutch intermediaries. Second, there was no growth in manufacturing, due perhaps to a weaker sense of industrial entrepreneurship and to the high wage scale. Third the wealthy turned their investments to foreign loans.

This helped jump-start other nations and provided the Dutch with a steady income from collecting interest, but leaving them with few domestic sectors with a potential for rapid growth. After the Dutch fleet declined, merchant interests became dependent on the goodwill of Britain. The main focus of Dutch leaders was reducing the country's considerable budget deficits. Dutch trade and shipping remained at a fairly steady level through the 18th century, but no longer had a near monopoly and also could not match growing English and French competition.

The Netherlands lost its position as the trading centre of Northern Europe to London. Although the Netherlands remained wealthy, investors for the nation's money became more difficult to find. Some investment went into purchases of land for estates, but most went to foreign bonds and Amsterdam remained one of Europe's banking capitals. Dutch culture also declined both in the arts and sciences.

Literature for example largely imitated English and French styles with little in the way of innovation or originality. The most influential intellectual was Pierre Bayle — , a Protestant refugee from France who settled in Rotterdam where he wrote the massive Dictionnaire Historique et Critique Historical and Critical Dictionary , It had a major impact on the thinking of The Enlightenment across Europe, giving an arsenal of weapons to critics who wanted to attack religion.

It was an encyclopaedia of ideas that argued that most "truths" were merely opinions, and that gullibility and stubbornness were prevalent. Life for the average Dutchman became slower and more relaxed than in the 18th century. The upper and middle classes continued to enjoy prosperity and high living standards. The drive to succeed seemed less urgent. Unskilled laborers remained locked in poverty and hardship.

The large underclass of unemployed beggars and riffraff required government and private charity to survive. Religious life became more relaxed as well. They became divided by the feud between moralistic Jansenists who denied free will and orthodox believers. One group of Jansenists formed a splinter sect, the Old Catholic Church in The upper classes willingly embraced the ideas of the Enlightenment, tempered by the tolerance that meant less hostility to organized religion compared to France.

This started as a Prusso-Austrian conflict, but eventually all the neighbours of the Dutch Republic became involved. On one side were Prussia, France and their allies and on the other Austria, Britain after and their allies. At first the Republic strove to remain neutral in this European conflict, but it maintained garrisons in a number of fortresses in the Austrian Netherlands. French grievances and threats spurred the Republic into bring its army up to European standards 84, men in In and the French attacked Dutch fortresses at Menen and Tournai.

This prompted the Dutch Republic in to join the Quadruple Alliance , but this alliance was severely defeated at the Battle of Fontenoy in May In the French occupied most of the large cities in the Austrian Netherlands. Then, in April , apparently as an exercise in armed diplomacy, a relatively small French military force occupied Zeelandic Flanders , part of the Dutch Republic. This relatively innocuous invasion fully exposed the rot underlying the Dutch defences. The consequences were spectacular. Still mindful of the French invasion in the "Disaster Year" of , many fearful people clamored for the restoration of the stadtholderate.

Over the next year he and his supporters engaged in a number of political battles in various provinces and towns in the Netherlands to wrest control from the regents. The aim was for William IV to obtain a firm grip on government patronage and place loyal officials in all strategic government positions. Eventually he managed to achieve this aim in all provinces. Willem Bentinck van Rhoon was a prominent Orangist. People like Bentinck hoped that gathering the reins of power in the hands of a single "eminent head" would soon help restore the state of the Dutch economy and finances.

This popular revolt had religious, anti-Catholic and democratic overtones and sometimes involved mob violence. It eventually involved political agitation by Daniel Raap , Jean Rousset de Missy and the Doelisten , attacks on tax farmers pachtersoproer , religious agitation for enforcement of the Sabbath laws and preference for followers of Gisbertus Voetius and various demands by the civil militia. The war against the French was itself brought to a not-too-devastating end for the Dutch Republic with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle The French retreated of their own accord from the Dutch frontier.

William IV died unexpectedly, at the age of 40, on 22 October His son, William V , was 3 years old when his father died, and a long regency characterised by corruption and misrule began. All power was concentrated in the hands of an unaccountable few, including the Frisian nobleman Douwe Sirtema van Grovestins. The position of the Dutch during the American War of Independence was one of neutrality. William V, leading the pro-British faction within the government, blocked attempts by pro-independence, and later pro-French, elements to drag the government to war. However, things came to a head with the Dutch attempt to join the Russian-led League of Armed Neutrality , leading to the outbreak of the disastrous Fourth Anglo-Dutch War in After the signing of the Treaty of Paris , the impoverished nation grew restless under William's rule.

An English historian summed him up uncharitably as "a Prince of the profoundest lethargy and most abysmal stupidity. The war, tangentially related to the American Revolutionary War , broke out over British and Dutch disagreements on the legality and conduct of Dutch trade with Britain's enemies in that war. Although the Dutch Republic did not enter into a formal alliance with the United States and their allies, U. In October , a treaty of amity and commerce was concluded as well. Most of the war consisted of a series of largely successful British operations against Dutch colonial economic interests, although British and Dutch naval forces also met once off the Dutch coast.

The war ended disastrously for the Dutch and exposed the weakness of the political and economic foundations of the country. After the war with Great Britain ended disastrously in , there was growing unrest and a rebellion by the anti-Orangist Patriots. The French Revolution resulted first in the establishment of a pro-French Batavian Republic — , then the creation of the Kingdom of Holland , ruled by a member of the House of Bonaparte — , and finally annexation by the French Empire — Influenced by the American Revolution , the Patriots sought a more democratic form of government.

The opening shot of this revolution is often considered to be the publication of a manifesto called Aan het Volk van Nederland "To the People of the Netherlands" by Joan van der Capellen tot den Pol , who would become an influential leader of the Patriot movement. Their aim was to reduce corruption and the power held by the stadtholder , William V, Prince of Orange. Support for the Patriots came mostly from the middle class. They formed militias called exercitiegenootschappen. In , there was an open Patriot rebellion, which took the form of an armed insurrection by local militias in certain Dutch towns, Freedom being the rallying cry.

Herman Willem Daendels attempted to organise an overthrow of various municipal governments vroedschap. The goal was to oust government officials and force new elections. In the stadholder left The Hague and moved his court to Nijmegen in Guelders , a city remote from the heart of Dutch political life. Outside Schoonhoven , she was stopped by Patriot militiamen and taken to a farm near Goejanverwellesluis. Within two days she was forced to return to Nijmegen, an insult not unnoticed in Prussia. The House of Orange reacted with severity, relying on Prussian troops led by Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick and a small contingent of British troops to suppress the rebellion.

Dutch banks at this time still held much of the world's capital. The stadholder had supported British policies after the American Revolution. This severe military response overwhelmed the Patriots and put the stadholder firmly back in control. A small unpaid Prussian army was billeted in the Netherlands and supported themselves by looting and extortion.

The exercitiegenootschappen continued urging citizens to resist the government. They distributed pamphlets, formed "Patriot Clubs" and held public demonstrations. The government responded by pillaging those towns where opposition continued. Five leaders were sentenced to death but fled first. For a while, no one dared appear in public without an orange cockade to show their support for Orangism. However, before long the French became involved in Dutch politics and the tide turned.

The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 03: 1555

The French Revolution was popular, and numerous underground clubs were promoting it when in January the French army invaded. The underground rose up, overthrew the municipal and provincial governments, and proclaimed the Batavian Republic Dutch: Bataafse Republiek in Amsterdam. The new government was virtually a puppet of France. Nevertheless, Napoleon replaced it because the regime of Grand Pensionary Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck —06 was insufficiently docile.

The confederal structure of the old Dutch Republic was permanently replaced by a unitary state. Ministerial government was introduced for the first time in Dutch history and many of the current government departments date their history back to this period. Meanwhile, the exiled stadholder handed over the Dutch colonies in "safekeeping" to Great Britain and ordered the colonial governors to comply. This permanently ended the colonial empire in Guyana, Ceylon and the Cape Colony. In Napoleon restyled the Netherlands along with a small part of what is now Germany into the Kingdom of Holland , putting his brother Louis Bonaparte — , on the throne.

The new king was unpopular, but he was willing to cross his brother for the benefit of his new kingdom. Napoleon forced his abdication in and incorporated the Netherlands directly into the French empire , imposing economic controls and conscription of all young men as soldiers. When the French retreated from the northern provinces in , a Triumvirate took over at the helm of a provisional government. Although most members of the provisional government had been among the men who had driven out William V 18 years earlier, the leaders of the provisional government knew that any new regime would have to be headed by his son, William Frederick.

They also knew that it would be better in the long term if the Dutch people themselves installed the prince, rather than have him imposed on the country by the anti-French alliance. Accordingly, the Triumvirate called William Frederick back on 30 November and offered him the crown. He refused, but instead proclaimed himself " hereditary sovereign prince " on 6 December. Having a stronger country on France's northern border was considered especially by Tsar Alexander to be an important part of the strategy to keep France's power in check.

Thus, William Frederick had fulfilled his family's three-century quest to unite the Low Countries under a single rule. On 15 March ; with the encouragement of the powers gathered at the Congress of Vienna , William Frederick raised the Netherlands to the status of a kingdom and proclaimed himself King William I. This was made official later in , when the Low Countries were formally recognized as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The crown was made a hereditary office of the House of Orange-Nassau. William I became king and also became the hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg , that was part of the Netherlands but at the same time part of the German Confederation. The newly created country had two capitals: The new nation had two equal parts.

The north Netherlands proper had 2 million people. They spoke chiefly Dutch but were divided religiously between a Protestant majority and a large Catholic minority. The south which would be known as "Belgium" after had a population of 3. Nearly all were Catholic, but it was divided between French-speaking Walloons and Dutch-speaking Flemings.

The termination of his own career, the opening of his beloved Philip's, were to be dramatized in a manner worthy the august character of the actors, and the importance of the great stage where they played their parts.

The eyes of the whole world were directed upon that day towards Brussels; for an imperial abdication was an event which had not, in the sixteenth century, been staled by custom. The gay capital of Brabant—of that province which rejoiced in the liberal constitution known by the cheerful title of the "joyful entrance," was worthy to be the scene of the imposing show.

Brussels had been a city for more than five centuries, and, at that day, numbered about one hundred thousand inhabitants. Its walls, six miles in circumference, were already two hundred years old. Unlike most Netherland cities, lying usually upon extensive plains, it was built along the sides of an abrupt promontory. A wide expanse of living verdure, cultivated gardens, shady groves, fertile cornfields, flowed round it like a sea.

The foot of the town was washed by the little river Senne, while the irregular but picturesque streets rose up the steep sides of the hill like the semicircles and stairways of an amphitheatre. Nearly in the heart of the place rose the audacious and exquisitely embroidered tower of the townhouse, three hundred and sixty-six feet in height, a miracle of needlework in stone, rivalling in its intricate carving the cobweb tracery of that lace which has for centuries been synonymous with the city, and rearing itself above a facade of profusely decorated and brocaded architecture.

The crest of the elevation was crowned by the towers of the old ducal palace of Brabant, with its extensive and thickly-wooded park on the left, and by the stately mansions of Orange, Egmont, Aremberg, Culemburg, and other Flemish grandees, on the right.. The great forest of Soignies, dotted with monasteries and convents, swarming with every variety of game, whither the citizens made their summer pilgrimages, and where the nobles chased the wild boar and the stag, extended to within a quarter of a mile of the city walls Toggle navigation Digi Libraries.

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