A volume in DOCUMENTARY HISTORY of WESTERN CIVILIZATION The Low Countries in Early Modern Times The Low Countries in Early Modern Times edited by HERBERT H. ROWEN Palgrave Macmillan THE LOW COUNTRIES IN EARLY MODERN TIMES Introduction, editorial notes, translation and compilation Copyright © 1972 by Herbert H. Rowen Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1972 978-0-333-09188-3 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission First published in the United States 1972 First published in the United Kingdom by The Macmillan Press Ltd 1972 London Basingstoke Associated companies in New York Toronto Dublin Melbourne Johannesburg and Madras ISBN 978-1-349-00614-4 ISBN 978-1-349-00612-0 (eBook) DOl 10.1007/978-1-349-00612-0 Contents Preface Xlll Introduction XV I Land and People 1 1. The Dutch Seen by a Dutchman (Erasmus, A uris Batava) 1 2. The Low Countries Seen by an Italian (L. Guicciardini, Description of the Low Countries) 3 II Shadows Cast Before: The Reign of Charles V 12 3. Privileges of Subjects Confirmed (The Joyous Entry of Charles V, 1515) 12 4. A Rebellious City Crushed (Anonymous, Account of the Troubles in Ghent under Charles V) 17 III Origins of the "Troubles" 26 5. The "Troubles" Begin ( Granvelle, Sources and Causes of the "Troubles") 27 6. A Band of Beggarly Nobles (Philip of Marnix, "Compromise" of the Confederation of Nobles) 29 7. The Beggarly Poor (G. Brandt, The Image-Breaking of 1566) 33 8. Against Spain, in the King's Name (William of Orange, Commission to Count Louis of Nassau) 37 9. The "Beggars" Take the Offensive (William of Orange, Proclamation to the People of the Netherlands) 39 viii CONTENTS 10. A New Regime Starts (William of Orange, Declaration to the States of Holland) 42 11. The Goals of the Prince of Orange (William of Orange, Letter on Peace Terms) 45 IV For Religion and Liberty 4 7 12. The Stings of Religious Hatred (Philip of Marnix, The Bee Hive of the Romish Church) 48 13. A New Monkery? (The Prince of Orange and the Mennonites) 54 14. A Moment of Unity: Accord at Ghent (The Pacification of Ghent, November 8, 1576) 58 15. A Second Attempt at Religious Peace (The "Peace of Religion," 1578) 64 V The Creation of the Dutch Republic 67 16. As if a Single Province (The Union of Utrecht, 1579) 68 17. The Need for Effective Central Power 74 (William of Orange, Remonstrance to the States General, 15 80) 18. The Proscription of William the Silent 77 (Philip II, Ban on William of Orange) 19. The Prince's Powers Extended and Continued 79 a. (The States General, Resolution upon the Government of Friesland, 15 80) b. (The States General, Resolution on the Lieutenancy-General, 15 82) 20. The Prince's Reply to the King: The Apology 80 (William of Orange, The Apology or De­ fense) 21. The Renunciation of the King's Sovereignty 92 (The States General, Act of Abjuration, 1581) 22. Sovereignty of the Provinces 105 (Frans:ois V ranck, Brief Demonstration) CONTENTS IX 23. Terms for Peace, if Only for a Time (Oldenbarnevelt, Notes on the Negotiations for a Truce) 109 24. Twelve Years' Truce (The Treaty of T wei ve Years' Truce, 1609) 112 VI A Test of Power, a Test of Faith 114 25. The Estrangement of Maurice and Olden- barnevelt (Oldenbarnevelt, Letter to Prince Maurice of Orange, 1618) 116 26. Oldenbarnevelt, About to Die, to His Family (Oldenbarnevelt, Letters to His Family, May 12, 13, 1619) 125 27. An Apology of the Remonstrants (Appeal of the Remonstrants to Maurice, 1619) 127 28. The Contra-Remonstrant Program of Action (Synod of Dordrecht to the States General, 1619) 133 29. The Remonstrant Doctrine Denounced (Synod of Dordrecht, Sentence Against the Doctrine of the Remonstrants) 138 VII A Land of Traders 143 30. Foundation of the Dutch East India Company (Van Dam, Description of the East India Company) 144 31. Freedom of the Seas for People Who Trade (Grotius, The Freedom of the Seas) 149 32. French Merchants Complain against Dutch Competition (The Merchants of Nantes' Complaint) 157 33. A Defense of Dutch Traders Abroad (Memoir on Dutch-French Trade, 1661) 162 34. Trading in the Wind: The Tulip Speculation (A Pamphlet on the Tulip Speculation) 164 35. A Tragic Business: The Slave Trade (Contract of the West India Company to Deliver Two Thousand Slaves to Cura<;ao) 170 X CONTENTS VIII The House of Orange and Dutch Republicanism 176 36. The Peace of Munster: Capstone of Indepen- dence (The Peace Treaty with Spain) 178 37. The Saucy Servant a New Master? (A Brief Relation) 187 38. Holland's Vindication against Orange (De Witt, Demonstration) 191 39. A Vindication of Orange against Holland (States of Zeeland, Statement to Holland) 197 40. The Grounds of Holland's Welfare (De la Court, The Interest of Holland) 200 41. The United Provinces: A Description and an Analysis (Temple, Observations) 213 IX The Golden Age Loses Its Glitter 224 42. Decline Begins in the Dutch Republic ( Helvetius, The Dutch Situation in 17 0 5) 226 43. The New Patriots 232 a. (Van der Capell en tot den Pol, Corre- spondence) b. (Van der Capellen tot den Pol, Appeal to the People of the Netherlands) 44. Conservative Suggestions for Reform (Van de Spiegel, The Intrinsic and Relative Strength of the Dutch Republic) 241 45. An Argument against Popular Rule, by a Former Patriot (Rendorp, Memoirs) 249 46. Reform of the State: A Patriot Vision (Capellen van der Marsch and Abbema, Sketch for a New Constitution) 254 X The Southern Netherlands: Spanish and Austrian 260 47. A Separate Union in the South (The Treaty of Reconciliation, Arras, 1579) 260 48. The Spanish and the Dutch Netherlands CONTENTS ri (Herman Gijsen, The Situation of the Spanish Netherlands) 267 49. A Forward and Backward Revolution 2 7 4 a. (The Union of Flanders and Brabant, 1789) b. (Union of the States of Flanders and Brabant) c. (The Establishment of the United Bel­ gian States) Suggestions for Further Reading 283 Index 287 Preface In our own day the three countries which have emerged out of the late medieval and early modern complex of provinces in the Netherlands-Holland, Belgium and Luxemburg-are all obsessed by a sense of smallness. They know that they are not and cannot be powers of the first rank, whatever the abilities and endeavors of their people and whatever the policies of their governments, simply because they have too little territory and too few people as com­ pared to such states as France and Germany, not to speak of the giants like the United States and the U.S.S.R. Yet both Belgium and Holland have a keen awareness of past greatness; they remem­ ber when these provinces by the North Sea were economically and politically among the giants of Europe. It is the purpose of this book to give a glimpse of that past through documents; but the scope of the work compels the editor to accept a series of self­ imposed limitations. The medieval period, when the provinces of Flanders and Brabant-the heart of what is now Belgium-were at their most prosperous and most powerful, is not included, partly for reasons of space and partly because it lies outside the editor's field of competence. The origins and significance of the separation of the country into the Dutch Republic and the Spanish (later Austrian) Netherlands during the Revolt of the Low Countries are observed; but once it has occurred, the history of the United Provinces in the North is stressed, for it was there that the Dutch Republic became a great power during the seventeenth century. The separate history of the South is only sketched after the break of 1579. Within these limits, the editor has sought to give a view of a variety of historical events and developments, and the documents are as divergent in character as he has been able to manage, extend- XIV PREFACE ing from state papers to satirical pamphlets, from general accounts and histories to personal correspondence. Only the briefer docu­ ments could always be given in full; others, even when quite exten­ sive, are often selections. Only two of the documents were origi­ nally written in English; the others have been translated from Dutch and French, in several cases from Latin, and in one from the Italian. Generally, where a published translation was available, it has been used; but some of the sixteenth century translations would require a modern reader virtually to re-translate them, and the editor has preferred to give a version in modern English, sacrificing authenticity of tone to clarity of meaning. About three-fourths of the translations have been made by the editor especially for this collection. H.H.R. Introduction The Low Countries in the early modern era were at the center of historical events of the greatest importance. Out of the congeries of provinces and lands that lay athwart the lower reaches of the three great rivers-Rhine, Meuse, Scheldt1-that run into the North Sea through Europe's greatest delta, the Burgundian dukes in the late Middle Ages had created a major power; modern his­ torians call it the "Burgundian state" although its strength lay primarily in the Netherlands and not in ancestral Burgundy, in eastern France. Its strength came from the wealth created by its productive activities-shipping and fishing, trading and manufac­ turing, and the most advanced agriculture in Europe. But the Burgundian state was a political structure with dubious stability; it lacked a history, its constituent elements had loose interconnections of interest, or, put another way, a particularly vigorous localism.