Texts concerning the Revolt of the Netherlands E.H. Kossmann en A.F. Mellink bron E.H. Kossmann en A.F. Mellink, Texts concerning the Revolt of the Netherlands. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1974 Zie voor verantwoording: http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/koss002text01_01/colofon.htm © 2007 dbnl / erven E.H. Kossmann & erven A.F. Mellink xi Preface The purpose of this book is to introduce the reader to material which although not easily accessible ought to be more widely known. Most of the texts published in the following pages were written in Dutch and it was evident from the start that they should appear in translation. We were less certain about the French and Latin texts. When we decided to translate these too we did not underrate the erudition of those who will use this book but merely hoped to achieve a greater measure of uniformity. As we have only in twelve cases thought it necessary to print documents in full (Documents 3, 4, 7, 8, 15, 23, 24, 28, 29, 37, 49, 66), specialists may want to know more than we can offer and thus in any case have to turn to the originals. The series in which our collection appears is devoted to the history and theory of politics. This obliged us to touch upon the religious issues which played, we think, a decisive part in the Revolt of the Netherlands only in their political form, that is, only insofar as they caused the problem of toleration to be discussed. It obliged us, in the second place, to concentrate on theoretical aspects and to reduce to a minimum the factual and narrative elements that make the history of the Revolt so absorbing an epic. Obviously the selection of fragments remains somewhat arbitrary. W.P.C. Knuttel's catalogue of pamphlets in the Royal Library at The Hague shows how overwhelming the quantity of available material is. There are hundreds of catalogued pamphlets covering the years 1565 to 1588, many of them rare, some unique. We have read a large number of them and tried to select only those fragments that pertained to the subject matter of the series. If the reader feels nevertheless that he has to struggle through a mass of facts and dates he must not accuse us too hastily of an insufficiently developed power of abstraction. It was not always easy and sometimes impossible to separate narrative and theory for contemporaries did not distinguish these categories as neatly as we do. The first draft of most of the translations was prepared by Mrs A.C. Mellink. We have tried to translate into readable English texts which are sometimes complicated and long-winded. The reader who finds himself stumbling over some English passages may take comfort in the fact that in the original the going is harder. We are grateful for the help of our friend and colleague Mrs Alice C. Carter of the London School of Economics, E.H. Kossmann en A.F. Mellink, Texts concerning the Revolt of the Netherlands xii and we would like to thank the staff of the Cambridge University Press for their assistance in preparing the typescript. Groningen E.H.K. A.F.M. E.H. Kossmann en A.F. Mellink, Texts concerning the Revolt of the Netherlands 1 Introduction Like most historical discussions, that on the Revolt of the Netherlands is complicated, even chaotic, and inconclusive. It remains extremely difficult to assess the impact of such factors as religion, economic depression, nationalism and so forth on the long series of disturbances which we are accustomed to include under the general label of the ‘Revolt of the Netherlands’. Even this term, incidentally, is open to criticism. It would, in the first place, not have appealed at all to sixteenth- or seventeenth-century Netherlanders. Revolt, after all, was an activity which most sixteenth-century people, educated in the discipline of strict loyalty to the natural sovereign and suspicious of systematic attempts to change the existing pattern of society, regarded as impermissible, ungodly and bound to be disastrous. The opposition to Charles V's successor in the government of the Netherlands emphatically denied being rebellious. Moreover, even if we permit ourselves to use the word ‘revolt’ as such, we may doubt whether we are justified in using it in the singular. In fact, it would perhaps be better to revert to the practice of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century historians many of whom, whether pro- or anti-Dutch, whether writing in Latin, Spanish, Dutch or French, entitled the books bearing on this much studied subject: The Wars (or: The Civil Wars) in the Netherlands. This terminology has the additional merit of avoiding the third fallacy inherent in the conventional usage. For not the whole of the Netherlands rose in revolt; some men, some groups, some towns, some areas did, at different times and for different reasons. Some persisted in their opposition; others submitted again to the legal sovereign after a short while. Some were Roman Catholic; others were Protestant. Their motives were as varied as their actions. At no time was it possible to distinguish an openly insurrectionary party that could truly make the claim that it was supported by the majority of the people and in which all the regions constituting the Netherlands were fairly, even if at all, represented. After age-long discussions about whether the fundamental motives of the Revolt were religious, economic or political, today's sceptical historians tend to give up the search for ‘main causes’. A series of disturbances stretching over various decades cannot, they think, be explained in such a simple way. The opposition of the 1560s was essentially different from that of the 1580s, inspired by other ideals, prompted by E.H. Kossmann en A.F. Mellink, Texts concerning the Revolt of the Netherlands 2 other resentments. And it is equally vain to distinguish in the Revolt the ‘stages’ which, on the analogy of the French Revolution, we have come to expect in all other revolutions. It may be that in some areas of the Netherlands there was a development away from moderation through extremism and terrorism towards the compromise represented by the final settlement; in other areas there was nothing like it and it would be most arbitrary to take one or another region as typical and the rest as exceptional. The Revolt was a long drawn out process of estrangement not only between the Low Countries and the sovereign residing in Spain, between Protestants and the established Church, between the poor and the bourgeoisie or the bourgeoisie and the landed aristocracy, but also between the various areas of the Netherlands. The result was anarchy, disintegration, and civil war. It was to these challenges that small groups of people reacted by setting up orderly governments of their own in some provinces, capable of organising life more satisfactorily in the compass of a reduced territory and with more limited responsibilities. They broke away from Spain as well as from their neighbours, entrenching themselves in an old-fashioned particularism that it would be far-fetched to characterise as the climax and fulfilment of revolutionary endeavour. The discussion which started in the nineteenth century as to whether the Revolt was modern and revolutionary or conservative in its nature has led us nowhere. The antithesis makes no sense in a sixteenth-century context. Insofar as the events of the 1570s and 1580s praduced a new state out of which the Dutch Republic gradually developed, the disturbances were decidedly revolutionary. But of course it cannot be said that the leaders of the movement consciously set out to build up a new nation. It just happened to emerge out of failures and mistakes, as a pis aller rather than as the realisation of a positive ideal. Conservative and revolutionary elements were inextricably mixed. Misinterpretation of historical precedent, moreover, enabled the opposition to feel perfectly safe in their conservative attitudes, although in the light of modern research it is clear that they were innovating. But this much is certain: the Revolt was not made by theorists; it was not based upon a solid set of political doctrines. If in fact it was at times revolutionary and produced in some areas a form of society and government which might be called modern in comparison with those of other states such as the Southern Netherlands or Spain, this was a result of economic and social forces not controlled, nor even clearly distinguished by the opposition. The abdication of Charles V in 1555 represented the end of an era. His E.H. Kossmann en A.F. Mellink, Texts concerning the Revolt of the Netherlands 3 son and successor as sovereign of the Netherlands, Philip II, was not only quite a different personality, educated in Spain instead of in Flanders, more naïve and self-centred than his father, whose constant travelling and endlessly varied responsibilities had prevented him from becoming doctrinaire; his functions and the possibilities open to him were also different. Of course it mattered greatly to the inhabitants of the Low Countries that their sovereign was no longer German emperor, for the imperial dignity had shed lustre on Charles and on his subjects. Moreover, Charles's handling of religious affairs in Germany had given Dutch dissidents room to hope that in their country too some measure of toleration would perhaps be granted. Under Philip II however there was little chance that the non-conformists would be left the means of survival which were then, or were soon to become, available in a major part of Central and Western Europe: in Germany, in France (where from 1562 various edicts were issued defining limited religious freedom), and in England.