The
Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (or "of
the Seven United Provinces") (Republiek der Zeven Verenigde
Nederlanden/Provinciën; also Dutch Republic
or United Provinces in short, Foederatae
Belgii Provinciae or Belgica Foederata in Latin) was
a European republic
between 1581 and 1795, in about the same location as the modern
Kingdom of the Netherlands
, which is the successor
state.
History
Before 1581, the area of the
Low
Countries consisted of a number of
duchies,
counties, and
independent
bishopric, some but not
all of them part of the
Holy Roman
Empire.
Today that area is divided between the
Netherlands
, Belgium
, Luxembourg
and parts of France
and Germany
. The
Low Countries in the 16th century roughly corresponded to the
Seventeen Provinces covered by the
Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 of
Holy Roman Emperor Charles
V.
Through marriage, war or sale, these states were acquired by the
Habsburg emperor
Charles V and his son, king
Philip II of Spain. In 1568, the
Netherlands, led by
William I of
Orange, revolted against Philip II because of high taxes,
persecution of
Protestants by the
government, and Philip's efforts to modernize and
centralize the
devolved medieval government structures of
the provinces. This was the start of the
Eighty Years' War.
In 1579, a number of the northern provinces of the Netherlands
signed the
Union of Utrecht, in
which they promised to support each other in their defence against
the Spanish army. This was followed in 1581 by the
Act of Abjuration, the declaration of
independence in which the provinces officially deposed Philip
II.
The United Provinces first tried to choose their own lord, and they
asked the
Duke of Anjou
(sovereign from 1581-1583) to rule them. Later, after the
assassination of
William of
Orange (July 10, 1584), both
Henry III of France and
Elizabeth I of England declined the
offer of sovereignty. However, the latter agreed to turn the United
Provinces into a
protectorate of
England (
Treaty of Nonsuch, 1585),
and sent the
Earl of
Leicester as governor-general. This was not a success, and in
1588 the provinces became a
Republic.
Economic perspective
From an economic perspective, the Republic of the United Provinces
completely out-performed all expectations; it was a surprise to
many that a nation, not based on the church or on a single royal
leader, could be so successful.
This time period is known in the Netherlands
as the Golden
Age. The Dutch dominated
world trade in the 17th
century, conquering a vast
colonial empire and operating the
largest fleet of
merchantmen of all
western nations. The County of Holland was the wealthiest and most
urbanized region of Europe. The free trade spirit of the time
received a strong augmentation through the development of a
modern—much better functioning—
stock
market in the Low Countries.
They established a stock market first in
Rotterdam
and later in Amsterdam
. In Amsterdam, the modernization of the
financial institution took place, and the oldest stock market based
on modern trading principles is found here. While the banking
system evolved in the Low Countries, it was quickly incorporated
into the well-connected English, stimulating the English economic
output.
The
Republic of the United Provinces was officially recognized in the
Peace of Westphalia (1648), and
lasted until French
revolutionary forces invaded in 1795 and set up a new republic, called the Batavian Republic, which would be replaced
by the French-controlledKingdom of Holland.
The Netherlands regained independence from France in 1813. In the
Anglo-Dutch Treaty of
1814 the names "United Provinces of the Netherlands" and
"United Netherlands" are used.
In 1815 it was rejoined with Austrian Netherlands, Luxemburg
and Liège
(before that
the 'Southern provinces') to become the United Kingdom of the
Netherlands, in order to create a strong buffer state north of France
.
After Belgium became independent, the state finally became known as
the
Kingdom of the
Netherlands, as it remains today.
Between 1590-1712, the Dutch also enjoyed having one of the
strongest navies in the world. This allowed for their varied
conquests, including breaking the Portuguese sphere of influence on
the Indian Ocean and on the Orient.
Politics
The republic was a
confederation of
seven provinces, which had their own governments and were very
independent, and a number of so-called
Generality Lands. These latter were
governed directly by the
States-General
(
Staten-Generaal in Dutch), the federal government.
The
States-General were seated in The Hague
and consisted of representatives of each of the
seven provinces.The provinces of the republic were, in
official feudal order: the duchy of Guelders (Gelre in Dutch), the counties of
Holland
and Zealand
, the former
bishopric of Utrecht
, the lordship of
Overijssel and the free (i.e. never
feudalised) provinces of Friesland and
Groningen
. In fact there was an eighth province, the
lordship of
Drenthe, but this area was so
poor it was exempt from paying confederal taxes and as a corollary
was denied representation in the States-General. Each province was
governed by the Provincial States; the main executive official was
a
stadtholder (
stadhouder in
Dutch). In theory the stadtholders were freely appointed by and
subordinate to the States of each province. However in practice the
Princes of
Orange-Nassau, beginning
with
William the Silent, were
always chosen as stadtholders of most of the provinces, and Zeeland
and usually also Utrecht had the same stadtholder as Holland .
There was a constant power struggle between the Orangists, who
supported the stadtholders, and the Regents' supporters.
After the
Peace of Westphalia
several border territories were assigned to the United Provinces.
They were federally governed
Generality
Lands (
Generaliteitslanden).
They were Staats-Brabant (present North Brabant
), Staats-Vlaanderen (present Zeeuws-Vlaanderen
), Staats-Limburg
(around Maastricht
) and Staats-Oppergelre (around Venlo
, after
1715).
The States-General of the United Provinces were in control of the
Dutch East India Company
(VOC) and the
Dutch West India
Company (WIC), although some shipping expeditions were
initiated by some of the Provinces, mostly Holland and/or
Zeeland.
Religion
The denomination linked closely to the official States, and adopted
as de facto state religion, was the
Lower German Dutch Reformed Church,
the later Reformed Church of the Netherlands. The public exercise
of
Catholicism was strictly forbidden,
Catholics were viewed by the government with suspicion and were
supervised, Catholic chapels and road-side crosses were all
destroyed, shrines demolished, and even in the southern and utmost
eastern parts of the country, which remained almost entirely
Catholic during the whole period of existence of the Dutch
Republic, public servants had to be
Calvinist Protestants (or
Jewish) and take an oath which ordered them to act
against the
"papist religion".
However after the end of the 17th century the situation changed to
a state of restricted toleration of Catholic worship, as long as it
took place secretly in non-recognizable churches or in sheds.
However until 1795 the Catholics of the Netherlands had to pay huge
taxes and large sums of "recognition money" in order to make local
government tolerate them. All ancient churches, monastery buildings
and stripped cathedrals remained in the hands of the Protestants,
even in entirely Catholic provinces and regions of the
Netherlands.
Because of the enormous shortage of priests—most had fled, were
expelled or defected to the Protestant religion—and the fact that
the entire Dutch Republic's Catholics were very inefficiently
governed by an
Apostolic Vicariate
as the so-called
Dutch Mission, during
the late 17th century and even onwards more and more badly
catechized and economically discriminated Catholics in the north
and west slowly fell away to the Protestant state church and even
to
Anabaptist communities. In the
provinces of Holland and Zeeland, the majority however had become
officially Calvinist, but in 1648 some regions in the northern and
western parts of the country, and many in the centre and the
centre-east, had very confused but still mostly Roman Catholic
populations.
By this also can be explained why during the
Franco-Dutch War occupation (1670s)
of huge parts of the Netherlands by Catholic troops of the Prince-Bishopric of Münster
and France
, and the
temporary restoration of Catholicism in the parish churches and
cathedrals, still huge masses of Dutch faithful attended the
celebrations of Mass conducted by
foreign priests, serving as chaplains in the invading armies. However by
1795 Calvinist Protestant policies dominating the country for
almost two hundred years, had left their marks: vast previously
Catholic regions—even during the
Protestant Reformation—had been
converted to Reformed Protestantism, while Catholic
shrines,
monasteries,
abbeys and other cultural institutions
associated with the
papacy and Catholic
doctrine, had been razed to the ground—mostly from 1630 to
1690.
The Dutch
Republic did not allow public exercise of Anabaptism and Lutheranism either, except in foreign embassies
and in isolated villages, like Giethoorn
(Anabaptists) and among the German traders in major
cities of the Republic. Public policy against non-Calvinist
Protestants however was less harsh than policy towards native Dutch
Catholics.
In the Union of Utrecht, January 20, 1579 personal freedom of
religion was declared. The union of Utrecht was an important step
in the establishment of the Dutch Republic. As mentioned above
establishing a complete freedom of religion took more time. The
establishment of a Jewish community in the Netherlands and New
Amsterdam during the Dutch republic is an example of the freedom of
religion.
Freedom of religion and redistributing the amassed church wealth
should not be confused. In many parts of Europe the amassed church
wealth was regularly confiscated by the rulers.
Influence
The framers of the
U.S. Constitution were influenced by the
Constitution of the Republic of the United Provinces. In addition,
the
Act of Abjuration, essentially
the declaration of independence of the United Provinces, is
strikingly similar to the later
American Declaration of
Independence though concrete evidence that the former directly
influenced the latter is absent.
John Adams went so far as to say that
“The origins of the two republics are so much alike that the
history of one seems but a transcript from that of the other.” The
seven arrows in the lion's left claw in the Republic's coat of
arms, representing the seven provinces, was a precedent for the
thirteen arrows in the eagle's left claw in the
Great Seal of the United
States.
Decline
Long term rivalry between the two main factions in Dutch society,
the
Staatsgezinden (Republicans) and the
Prinsgezinden (Royalists or
Orangists) sapped the strength and unity of the
country.
Johan de Witt and the
Republicans did reign supreme for a time at the middle of the
Seventeenth century (the
First Stadtholderless Period)
until his overthrow and murder in 1672. Subsequently,
William III of Orange became
stadtholder, after a stadtholderless era of 22 years, and the
Orangists regained power; his first problem was to survive the
Franco-Dutch War (which was related
to the
Third Anglo-Dutch war),
when France, England,
Münster and
Cologne united against his
country.
Wars to contain the expansionist policies of France in various
coalitions, after the
Glorious
Revolution mostly including England, burdened the Republic with
huge debts, although little of the fighting after 1673 took place
on its own territory. After William III's death in 1702 the
Second Stadtholderless
Period was inaugurated. The end of the
War of Spanish Succession in 1713
marked the end of the Republic as a major military power.
Fierce competition for trade and colonies, especially from England,
furthered the economic downturn of the country. The three
Anglo-Dutch Wars and the rise of
Mercantilism hurt Dutch shipping and
commerce.
The establishment of the Bank of England, at a time when the Dutch
were fighting against the French on Dutch soil, meant that money
could be borrowed from London at lower interest rates , and at
greater reliability and protection. Gradually, London displaced
Amsterdam as the leading European financial centre.
See also
References
Further reading
- Israël, J.I. The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and
Fall 1477-1806 Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995
- Reynolds, Clark G. Navies in History. Annapolis: Naval
Institute Press, 1998
- Schama, Simon The Embarrassment of Riches: An
Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age. New York:
Random House USA, 1988