Cover Page The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/26493 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation. Author: Steen, Jasper Andreas van der Title: Memory wars in the Low Countries, 1566-1700 Issue Date: 2014-06-24 MEMORY WARS IN THE LOW COUNTRIES, 1566-1700 Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van Doctor aan de Universiteit Leiden, op gezag van Rector Magnificus prof.mr. C.J.J.M. Stolker, volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties te verdedigen op dinsdag 24 juni 2014 klokke 16.15 uur door Jasper Andreas van der Steen Geboren op 21 juli 1986 te Rotterdam ii Promotiecommissie Promotor Prof. dr. J.S. Pollmann Overige leden Prof. dr. L. Duerloo Prof. dr. J.F.J. Duindam Dr. D. Haks Prof. dr. H.F.K. van Nierop Dit proefschrift kwam tot stand met financiële steun van de Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek. iii CONTENTS Acknowledgements v List of Abbreviations vii List of Illustrations ix A Note on Terminology xi Introduction 1 1. Memory in the making: The first decades 27 2. Two historical canons 57 3. Dynastic identity and the Revolt 99 4. A contested past 129 5. Stakeholders 165 6. Memories after Westphalia 199 7. Remediating the war 237 Conclusion 265 Summary in Dutch 335 Curriculum vitae 341 iv v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study has benefitted greatly from the help of many people, some of whom I would like to mention by name. First of all, Judith Pollmann conceived of the NWO VICI-project: Tales of the Revolt: Memory, Oblivion and Identity in the Low Countries, 1566-1700. This dissertation is a product of that project. As a supervisor and project director Judith has provided invaluable feedback, generously shared her ideas, and challenged me throughout my research. I could not have wished for a better supervisor. Erika Kuijpers encouraged me continuously to think critically about the structure of my arguments and the points I make. Fellow PhD candidates Marianne Eekhout and Johannes Müller improved my work by their critical comments. In general I would like to thank Jeroen Duindam, Maurits Ebben, Anton van der Lem, and Donald Haks for their help at different stages of my work. The research team Tales of the Revolt gained from the exceptional help of a committed advisory board. I would like to thank Philip Benedict, Luc Duerloo, Raingard Esser, Geert Janssen, Elmer Kolfin, Mark Greengrass, Henk van Nierop, and René Vermeir for their expert advice, suggestions and critical comments during two symposia that the team organized in 2009 and 2011. At the Huizinga Institute of Cultural History, David van der Linden, Ingmar Vroomen, my colleague Marianne Eekhout and myself formed an informal early modern group. The discussions with these fellow historians helped me to place my own research into perspective. My paranimf Anita Boele has been a friend from the very beginning of this project. She has advised and supported me for the last six years. As a kind of third paranimf Roos Danse deserves mention also because of her friendship and help with Latin translations. I thank my brother, paranimf, and close follower of my work Bart van der Steen for reading chapters and giving advice. Finally I would like to thank my parents Clara van der Wel and Piet van der Steen. Their genuine interest in my work contributed to the successful completion of this book. vi vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ARA Algemeen Rijksarchief, Brussels BL British Library BMGN Bijdragen en mededelingen betreffende de geschiedenis der Nederlanden / Low Countries Historical Review KB National Library of the Netherlands KBR Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels Knuttel [number] Pamphlet in the Royal Library in The Hague, ordered according to the catalogue: W.P.C. Knuttel, Catalogus van de pamfletten- verzameling berustende in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Utrecht: HES Publishers, 1978) NA Nationaal Archief, The Netherlands TNA The National Archives at Kew, United Kingdom viii ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1. Romeyn de Hooghe. Allegory of the Eighty Years’ War (1704). Rijkmuseum Amsterdam, RP-P-OB-55.156. Figures 2 and 3. The Low Countries in 1579 and in 1585: the rebellious territory in shades of orange and the Habsburg-controlled lands in yellow. Wikipedia / Creative Commons. Figure 4. Column of Culemborg. Algemeen Rijksarchief, Brussels. Kaarten en plannen in handschrift, nr 2.810. Figure 5. Frans Hogenberg. The nobles offer their petition to Margaret of Parma (1566). Rijksmuseum RP-P-OB-78.623-2. Figure 6. Display of the War of Nassau (1625). Rijksmuseum, RP-P-OB-81.112A. Figure 7. Allegory of the Deceptive Peace Proposals in 1598 (1598). Rijksmuseum, RP- P-OB-80.731. Figure 8. Jan Peeters. preparations for the Battle of Lepanto (1671). Sint Pauluskerk, Antwerpen. Figure 9. An image of Jesus Christ on the gallows at Brill. Print in: Richard Verstegan, Theatre des Cruautez des Heretiques de nostre temps (Antwerp: Adrien Hubert, 1588), p. 59. Figure 10. Hendrik de Clerck. An Allegory of the Netherlandish War (c. 1599). Hermitage, St Petersburg, GE-15123. Figure 11. Rudolf I of Habsburg worships the viaticum. Print from: Théodore Piespordius. Serenissimorvm Potentissimorvmqve Principvm Habsbvrgi- Avstriacorvm Stemma (Brussels: s.n., 1616). Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Saxony-Anhalt. Figure 12. William of Orange’s grave in Delft’s New Church, before the completion of Hendrick de Keyser’s ornate tomb. Leiden University Library. Figures 13 and 14. Image of the Old and New Time. Rijksmuseum RP-P-OB-50.584-585. By flipping over the top half the duke of Alba appears in conference with his Council of Troubles. Figure 15. Upper stories of the Arcus Caroli. Rijkmuseum, RP-P-OB-76.440. x xi A NOTE ON TERMINOLOGY In this study the Seventeen Provinces, the Low Countries and the adjective ‘Netherlandish’ refer to the provinces before the Revolt against Philip II of Spain that split the Netherlands in two broke out in 1566. It also refers to the ideal of reunification, to which some people continued to aspire far into the seventeenth century. The Habsburg Netherlands, the Southern Netherlands, or simply ‘the South’ all refer to that part of the Low Countries which returned under the authority of the Habsburg overlord. I use the adjectives Southern or South Netherlandish when I refer to this part of the Low Countries. The Dutch Republic, the United Provinces, the Northern Netherlands, or ‘the North’ refers to the lands that successfully continued their rebellion against the Habsburg overlord. North Netherlandish and Dutch are the adjectives I use when referring to these lands. I use Holland to refer only to the province of that name, which is one out of seven provinces that make up the United Provinces. The modern usage of Holland as a pars pro toto for the Netherlands in general is not adopted. For purposes of readability I have anglicized the names of most nobles and princes. It was contemporary practice to translate names so I do not consider my approach ahistorical. Overall, I have adopted a pragmatic approach to the spelling and translation of names. 1 INTRODUCTION In 1690, Judocus de Grieck – a Catholic bookseller in Brussels – wrote an account of his life and travels. He recounted how he had visited the Northern part of the Low Countries and soon after crossing the border had found it remarkably foreign.1 He was struck by the different interpretations of the communal past in the North compared to his native South. In particular, memories of the major rebellion against the overlord of the Netherlands, Philip II of Spain, diverged. De Grieck touched on this rebellion that had erupted more than a century before. The conflict, known in historiography as the Revolt of the Netherlands, the Dutch Revolt or the Eighty Years’ War, tore apart the Seventeen Provinces of the Low Countries and created two polities: the Dutch Republic in the North, which corresponds roughly to the modern-day Netherlands, and the Habsburg Netherlands in the South, the predecessor of modern-day Belgium. An enthusiastic supporter of Habsburg rule, De Grieck clearly knew whom to blame for the past troubles. Compiling and summarising existing histories of the Revolt, he reached the conclusion that evil heretics had brought the country to disaster.2 He wrote that as a result ‘our pleasant and fertile “Nederlandt”, which had previously flourished so wonderfully, was now so abused by the vitriol of heresies and domestic troubles that it seemed about to give up the ghost.’3 Not all inhabitants of the Low Countries viewed the Revolt so negatively. On the other side of the border, in the Northern Netherlands, engraver Romeyn de Hooghe looked back in 1704 on the rebellion against Philip II of Spain from a very different perspective. In his triumphant print Allegory of the Eighty Years’ War [Allegorie rond de Tachtigjarige Oorlog], De Hooghe glorified the Revolt while blaming the conflict on the bellicosity of Spanish rulers and their soldiers (Figure 1). On the left hand, a man closely resembling the Spanish army commander Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, duke of Alba (1507-1582), is about 1 Judocus de Grieck, Den pelgrim van dese wereldt. Verhaelende, tot een ieders onderrichtinghe ende eerlyck vermaeck, het ghedenckweerdighste dat hy in syn Levens-pilgrimagie ghesien, ghehoort, ende ghelesen heeft (Brussels: Ian de Grieck, 1690), pp. 31-34. 2 Ibid., pp. 1-14; De Grieck cited (and annotated) works of well-known Catholic historians such as Franciscus Haraeus, Cornelius Hazart, Nicolaus Burgundus, Michael ab Isselt, and Willem Estius; about the authorship of Den pelgrim, see: Albertine Van Loven, ‘Joan de Grieck. Onderzoek naar het vaderschap over zijn werken’, Verslagen en mededelingen van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Taal- en Letterkunde 1928 (1928), pp. 556-558.