Holland HOLLAND I. POLITICAL HISTORY CHRONOLOGICAL SUMMARY 1555 Accession of Philip II. 1559 William of Orange appointed Stadholder of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht. 1568 Revolt of the Netherlands begins. 1572 The Sea Beggars capture Brill and Flushing. 1573 Alva attempts to suppress the Rebellion. Orange adopts Calvinism. 1574 Relief of Leyden. 66 1576 The Spanish Fury." Spanish Fury." Pacification of Ghent. Union of Brussels. 1577 The Perpetual Edict. Orange enters Brussels. 1578 Parma succeeds Don John of Austria as Governor-General. 1579 League of Arras. Union of Utrecht. 1581 Act of Abjuration by the Estates of Holland, Zeeland, Gelderland, Utrecht, Brabant, and Flanders. 1582 Anjou in the Netherlands. 66 1583 The French Fury." 1584 Deaths of Anjou and Orange. 1585 Fall of Antwerp. English intervention. Leicester in the Netherlands. Maurice of Nassau appointed Stadholder and Captain and Admiral-General of Holland and Zeeland. 1588 Maurice of Nassau becomes Stadholder of Utrecht, Gelderland, and Overyssel. 1589-1609 Dutch military and naval successes. 1599 The Archdukes (Isabel and Albert) at Brussels. 1602 Foundation of East India Company. 1609-1621 Twelve Years' Truce. 1617 Religious troubles. 1621 Renewal of War with Spain. Foundation of West India Company. Deaths of Albert and Philip III. 1625 Death of Maurice: he is succeeded by Frederick Henry. 1629 Capture of 's Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc). [2009] B 1641 Marriage of William with the English Princess Royal. 1647 Death of Frederick Henry. William II succeeds. 1648 Treaty of Münster. 1650 Submission of the Estates of Holland to the Stadholder. 1651 English Navigation Act. 1652-1654 First Anglo-Dutch War. 1653 De Witt becomes Grand Pensionary. 1654 Conclusion of Peace with England. Act of Exclusion. 1661 Conclusion of Peace with Portugal. 1665 Second Anglo-Dutch War. Death of Philip IV of Spain. 1667 Peace of Breda. 1672 1672 Murder of the De Witts. Captain-General. War with England and France. William III Stadholder and 1674 Peace with England. Treaty of Westminster. 1677 Marriage of William and Mary. 1678 Peace of Nymegen. 1688-1697 Nine Years' War. 1689 The English Revolution. 1697 Peace of Ryswyck. 1698 First Partition Treaty. 1700 Second Partition Treaty. Death of Charles II of Spain. 1702-1713 Spanish Succession. War. 1702 Death of William III. 1709 First Barrier Treaty. 1711 Death of John William Friso. 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. 1713 Second Barrier Treaty. 1714 Treaties of Rastatt and Baden. 1715 Third Barrier Treaty. 1717 Triple Alliance. 1734 William IV marries Anne, Princess Royal of England. 1744-1748 Austrian Succession War. 1744 William Stadholder of the Seven Provinces. 1748 Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. 1751 Death of William IV. Regency of Anne. 1759 Death of the Regent Anne. 1759-1766 Regency of Brunswick. 1766 William V comes of age. 1775-1783 War of American Independence. 1780 Holland joins the League of Armed Neutrality. England declares war on Holland. 1784-1787 The "Patriot "Agitation. 1787 Prussian intervention. Restoration of William V. Flight of William V. Foun dation of Batavian Republic. 1795-1813 Period of French domination. 1806 Louis Bonaparte made King. Death of William V. 1806-1810 Kingdom of Holland. 1810-1813 Period of incorporation with France. 1813 William, Prince of Orange (son of William V), acclaimed Sovereign-Prince of the Netherlands. 1814 Preliminary Treaty of Paris. The Eight Articles. Union of Holland and Belgium. 1815 Prince of Orange assumes title of King. Kingdom of the Netherlands. Establishment of 1830 Revolt of Belgium. Conference of London. 1831 The Eighteen Articles. The Ten Days' Campaign. The Twenty-four Articles. 1838 William I accepts the Twenty-four Articles. 1839 Treaty of separation between Holland and Belgium. William I abdicates. Succession of William II. 1840 1842 Supplementary Treaty between Holland and Belgium. 1848 New Dutch Constitution. 1849 Death of William II. His son, William III, becomes King. 1879 Second marriage of the King with Emma, Princess of Waldeck-Pyrmont. 1880 Birth of Princess Wilhelmina. 1884 Extinction of male line of the House of Orange-Nassau. 1890 Death of William III. 1890-1898 Regency of Queen Emma. 1898 Majority of Queen Wilhelmina. 1901 Queen Wilhelmina marries Prince Henry of MecklenburgSchwerin. 1909 Birth of Princess Juliana. I. THE UNITED PROVINCES, 1579-1648 (i) The Revolt of the Netherlands The foundations of the Republic of the United Provinces, as a separate polity, were laid in the course of the eighth decade of the sixteenth century.' The 1 The earlier history of the Burgundian Netherlands has been given in Belgium (No. 26 of this Series), and is therefore not repeated here. [2009] B 2 revolt of the Netherlands in the previous decade against the tyranny of Philip II of Spain had been partly political, partly religious. In the southern provinces political grievances had the chief share in stirring up all classes of the people to resistance in defence of their chartered rights and liberties. In the provinces lying to the north of the mouths and lower courses of the Rhine and the Meuse it was religious persecution which had aroused the fiercest resentment against the bigoted intolerance of a foreign Sovereign. The doctrines of the Reformation had, indeed, before the accession of Philip II in 1555, spread far and wide over the whole of the Netherlands, but they had struck far deeper roots in the north than in the south, especially in the three maritime provinces. The seafaring population of Holland, of the islands of Zeeland, and of Friesland, had embraced Calvinism of the sternest type; and in North Holland and Friesland there were many Anabaptists. The opposition to the efforts of Philip to govern the Netherlands despotically on Spanish lines was in the first instance national and patriotic; and its leaders were the foremost members of the Belgian aristocracy, almost all of them good Catholics. During the reign of terror under Alva, Egmont and Hoorn died upon the scaffold; William, Prince of Orange, saved himself by flight from sharing their fate; and the (socalled) Blood Council set up by Alva pursued for a time without hindrance its appointed task of extirpating heresy by fire and sword. (ii) William, Prince of Orange, in Holland It was at this moment of despair, and in the face of overwhelming odds, that William of Orange resolved to dedicate his life and fortunes to the task of freeing his adopted country from the hateful fate that threatened it. All his early efforts ended in absolute failure. The first gleam of success came from the sea. William had in 1570, in his capacity as Sovereign of the little Provençal principality of Orange, issued letters of marque to a number of vessels, which, under the name of the Sea Beggars (Gueux de Mer), were in reality corsairs. Their raids were very destructive to Spanish commerce, and, in the lack of harbours of their own, at first they made use of English ports by the connivance of Queen Elizabeth. Owing to the strong representations of the Spanish Ambassador, Elizabeth at length refused the Sea Beggars admission to English waters. This prohibition led to their making themselves masters of Brill (April 1, 1572) and Flushing. The news that the rebel flag was floating over Brill and Flushing spread like wildfire through Holland and Zeeland, and the principal towns declared their readiness to submit to the authority and leadership of the Prince of Orange. Such was the beginning of the Dutch Republic. Philip, on leaving the Netherlands in 1559, had appointed Orange to the important post of Stadholder or Governor of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht. Orange now determined to throw in his lot with the revolted provinces, and took up his residence permanently at Delft in the early summer of 1572. As Stadholder he summoned in Philip's name the States of Holland to meet at Dordrecht on July 15. At this important meeting the States, by a unanimous vote, recognised William as their lawful Stadholder; and, having set on foot the machinery of a regular Government, clothed him with almost dictatorial authority. Thus the second step was taken in the creation of the future republic. It was a bold act of overt rebellion, and Alva was determined, with the powerful forces at his command, to crush it. After various alternations of fortune, the siege and apparently inevitable fall of Leyden seemed to threaten the success of the rebellion. The famous relief of that city on October 1, 1574, turned the tide. Holland was saved; and William at Delft found himself master of a tiny corner of half-submerged land, protected on all sides by the sea, the estuaries of the Rhine and Meuse, and the inundations. Its safety depended upon the maintenance of supremacy at sea, and, fortunately for the Hollanders, this never failed them. |