The Role of Town Governments in Holland's
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BURGHER LENDERS AND PUBLIC CREDIT: THE ROLE OF TOWN GOVERNMENTS IN HOLLAND’S STATE DEBT, 1572–1588* James D. Tracy In languages other than Dutch, Holland is the name for a country whose history begins with a great rebellion against the kings of Spain, in which seven provinces of the one-time Habsburg Netherlands, lying mainly to the north of the Waal-Maas line,1 broke away to form the United Provinces, or Dutch Republic (1568–1648).2 In Dutch, Holland is the name of a single province that bore the scal brunt of this long war. Holland’s tax-payers accounted for roughly 60% of the revenues of the Republic, and its burgher-lenders were even more vital to the war effort. By 1648, a debt of some 8,000,000 orins or Dutch guilders stood to the charge of the States General, made up of delegates from the States of all seven provinces. The debt carried by the States of Holland 3— representing only the one province—was between 127,000,000 and * This essay, with the accompanying Table, is loosely based on a Dutch-language lecture I gave for the Centrum voor de Studie van de Gouden Eeuw at the University of Amsterdam (September, 2004). 1 East of Nijmegen the Rhine divides into the Waal (the main channel, ] owing west) and the Nederrijn (Lower Rhine), owing northwest, of which there are other branches downstream. A bit south of the Waal, the Maas (Meuse), after a great turn to the west, ows into the Waal upstream from the Holland towns of Gorcum and Woudrichem. This was the east-west line to which contemporary sources refer when they speak of events happening “above the rivers” or “below the rivers.” 2 In Dutch, the name of the country is Nederland. The former county or province of Holland is now two provinces: Zuid-Holland (of which the capital is The Hague), and Noord-Holland (of which the capital is Haarlem). 3 Prior to 1572 there were seven votes in the States of Holland, one for the college of nobles, and one each for the six “great cities,” which were, in order of precedence, Dordrecht, Delft, Leiden, Haarlem, Amsterdam and Gouda. All these cities lay south of the IJ, an extension of what was then the Zuider Zee, running east from Amsterdam. When Spanish forces captured Haarlem (1573), rebel towns north of the IJ were cut off, and began meeting among themselves. By the 1580s the States had eighteen urban votes, now including Rotterdam, Brill, Gorcum and Schiedam (south of the IJ), and Hoorn, Alkmaar, Enkhuizen, Edam, Monnikendam, Medemblik and Purmerend (north of the IJ). See J.W. Koopmans, De Staten van Holland en de Opstand. De ontwikkeling van hun functies en organisatie in de periode 1544–1588 (The Hague. 1990). 408 james d. tracy 145,000,000 ] orins.4 Holland had of course a nancial history that predates the Revolt, as a Habsburg province, but what happened later becomes all the more interesting if one grasps the fact that Holland’s well-established credit nearly collapsed in the crisis of the early years of the Revolt.5 (-1-) In these dire circumstances, Holland’s political elite—the nobles and burghers who appeared regularly at meetings of the States6—laid the foundations for a new provincial debt, based on the credit of the town corporations. This was the structure of state debt that would prove strong enough to match the cash-raising capacities of the mighty Spanish monarchy (-2-). 1. The credit of Holland as a Habsburg province In Europe of the 1500s, governments paid for their wars with borrowed money. While each state had reliable revenues, collection was slow, and receipts were invariably pledged to other purposes. By contrast, the mercenary companies employed in most armies demanded cash: without at least a month’s pay “in the hand” they would not march. Moreover, in an age of “military revolution,”7 not even the greatest of European princes had enough current income for the needs of an up- to-date campaign. The Habsburg Netherlands were ruled in the name 4 Marjolein C. ‘t Hart, The making of a bourgeois state. War, politics and \ nance during the Dutch Revolt (Manchester and New York, 1993), 80, 166–169. 5 The Revolt rst gained a permanent foothold in the Low Countries when many towns in the seafaring provinces of Holland and Zeeland raised the standard of Wil- liam of Orange during the spring and summer of 1572. These rebel enclaves were then hard pressed by Spain’s forces, until Spanish discipline broke in the great and terrifying mutiny of 1576. There followed a brief respite when it seemed that provinces divided by religion (Holland and Zeeland permnitted only Reformed worship, thought this was then the creed of only a small minority) might join forces in opposing Spanish troops. But then Alexander of Parma restored the king’s authority in the Walloon lands (1579–1582), and gave a texbook demonstration of siege warfare (1583–1587). 6 See the very useful appendix in Koopmans, De Staten van Holland en de Opstand, giving short sketches of the seventy-three men who, between 1544 and 1588, appeared most often as delegates of their towns, or as members of the college of nobles. 7 Geoffrey Parker, The military revolution. Military innovation and the rise of the West, 1500–1800 (Cambridge, 1988). While Prof. Parker’s volume has shaped subsequent discussion, it seems fair to say that the accent has shifted from the sixteenth century (siege artillery, the bastion trace, larger armies) to the seventeenth century (the profes- sionalization of armies). This trend was evident at a recent conference on “War and Society in the Dutch Golden Age” (Instituut Defensie Leergangen, Rijswijk, December 2005)..