Eighty Years' War
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The Eighty Years' War, or Dutch Revolt, was the war of secession between the Netherlands and the Spanish king, that lasted from 1568 to 1648. The war resulted in the Seven United Provinces being recognized as an independent state. The region now known as Belgium and Luxembourg also became established as the Southern Netherlands, part of the Seventeen Provinces that remained under royal Habsburg rule.
The United Provinces of the Netherlands, or the Dutch Republic, became a world power for a time through its merchant shipping and experienced a period of economic, scientific and cultural growth.
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Background to the War
Spanish interests
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, was born in Ghent in 1500, and raised in the County of Flanders. He abdicated in 1556, in favour of his son Philip II of Spain who was mainly interested in the Spanish side of the empire. Calvinism had been becoming prevalent in the Netherlands. On Assumption of the Virgin day in 1566 a small incident outside Antwerp cathedral started a massive riot by Calvinists, who stormed the churches to destroy statues and images of Catholic saints, which they felt were heretical. The disorders continued, and as a counter measure, Philip II sent the Duke of Alva, nicknamed the Iron Duke, to the Netherlands with an army. Soon after Alva arrived, the counts of Egmont and Horne, were arested and decapitated on the Grand Place of Brussels. They were sentenced for their part leading to the relaxation of the heresy laws letting the Calvinists gather for the day the revolt started, angering their compatrot William I of Orange, who survived as he had fled to the lands ruled by his wife's father - the Elector Count of Saxony. However he did lose all his lands and titles in the Netherlands and was branded an outlaw.
There were several underlying causes for the war but the condemnation of the entire population to death in 1568 on the part of the Holy See and confirmed by the king was a significant one. "On February 16, 1568 a sentence of the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom only a few persons, especially named, were acquitted. A proclamation of the king, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition and ordered it to be carried out into instant execution without regard to age, sex, and children. This is the most concise death warrant that had ever been framed. Three million people - men, women and children - were sentenced to the scaffold" (from The Rise of the Dutch Republic, by John Lathrop Motley, Volume 1, Part 2, Chapter 2, par. 12, p. 2).
Taxation
During the fifteenth century, the Netherlands became an entrepreneurial and wealthy region in the Habsburg empire. Charles V and Philip II began to tax the Dutch when they needed to raise funds for military expeditions, leading to the widespread Dutch perception of Spain as an exploitative ruling power. Before the Battle of Lepanto (1571) the Habsburgs taxed the Netherlands to finance war against the Turks. After Lepanto, Philip II used the Dutch to finance new wars in the Atlantic. Dutch noblemen objected to these wars against some of their most important trading partners. These noblemen were not landed aristocrats, but had risen through trade and finance. They were alienated by Philip II's actions, putting their fortunes at risk.
Protestantism
The Dutch nobles were not Protestants at first. However, Dutch demands for freedom of conscience were added to their grievances. As the Habsburg empire was informed by a politicized Catholicism, Dutch demands grew increasingly repugnant to Philip II. Ruthless Count Alva was thus sent to suppress the Dutch rebellion. The Dutch resented Spanish taxation, and feared the methods of the Inquisition. The resentments fuelled Dutch protests about their rights, liberties, and religious toleration upon which their wealth from free trade relied.
The Dutch compared their Calvinist values favorably with the luxurious habits of Spain’s Catholic nobility. Symbolic stories from the New Testament, featuring fisherman, shipbuilders and simple occupations resonated among the Dutch. The Calvinist movement emphasized Christian virtues of modesty, cleanliness, frugality and hard work. The Protestant and Calvinist elements of the rebellion represented a moral challenge to the Spanish empire.
Centralisation
Dutch nobles also objected to the limiting of their powers in favor of those of civil servants in Brussels. Philip II wanted the central government to have more authority in matters like law and taxes.
The War
William the Silent
In 1568, William I of Orange (William the Silent), stadtholder of the provinces Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht, tried to drive the highly unpopular Alva from Brussels. He did not see this as an act of treason against Philip II, and his view is reflected in today's Dutch national anthem, the Wilhelmus, in which the last lines of the first stanza read: de koning van Spanje heb ik altijd geëerd (I have always honoured the king of Spain). The Battle of Rheindalen on 23 April 1568 near Roermond is often seen as the unofficial start of the Eighty Years' War. The Battle of Heiligerlee, commonly regarded as the beginning of the war, was fought on 23 May 1568.
Despite the initial success of his brother Louis of Nassau in Heiligerlee, William received little support, and had to flee back to the Holy Roman Empire, in retailation Alva had the counts of Egmont and Horne beheaded. Alva also introduced an unapproved tax (tiende penning in Dutch).
Unions of Atrecht and Utrecht
On January 6, 1579, prompted by the new Spanish governor Alexander Farnese (Duke of Parma), the southern states (today mostly in France and part of Wallonia) signed the Union of Atrecht (Arras), expressing their loyalty to the Spanish king.
On January 23, 1579, in response, William united the northern states of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland and the province of Groningen in the Union of Utrecht. Southern cities like Ghent, Brussels and Antwerp joined the Union. This union later (1581) led to the abjuration of the king, forming the United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the Dutch Republic, after they failed to find a new sovereign and the States General took his place.
The fall of Antwerp
In 1581, the Spanish sent an army to attempt to recapture the United Provinces, with some success, and on July 10 1584, William was assassinated. Over the following years Parma reconquered the major part of Flanders and Brabant, as well as large parts of the northeastern provinces, and restored the Roman Catholic religion to much of the area. The major Dutch city, Antwerp, fell into his hands and most of the population fled to the north; see also siege of Antwerp (1584-1585).
Because of the more or less uninterrupted rule of the calvinist dominated "rebels", the northern provinces were to be thoroughly protestantized in the next decades.
French and English assistance
With the war going against them the United Provinces sought overseas help from France and England even offering them the monarchy of the Netherlands, which both declined.
England had been unofficially supporting the Dutch for years, and now decided to intervene directly. In 1585, under the Treaty of Nonsuch, Elizabeth I sent the Earl of Leicester to assist, with 5,000 to 6,000 troops and 1,000 horses. William's son, Maurice of Nassau, soon bypassed the Earl and took charge of the armies in 1587, so Leicester returned to England. The presence of the English, who were to stay until 1604, was a major reason for sending the Spanish Armada against England in 1588.
Under Maurice's leadership, the whole north-eastern part of the present day Netherlands was captured by the United Provinces. Spain was hampered by the financial cost resulting from the loss of the Armada and the need to refit its navy so as to recover control of the sea after defeating an English counter armada. In 1595, with the declaration of war against Spain by Henri IV of France, Spain became financially bankrupt the following year, not for the first time. However, by regaining control of the sea, Spain was able to greatly increase the supply of gold and silver from America, which allowed it to increase military pressure on England and France.
The Truce
Under financial and military pressure in 1598, Philip ceded the southern states of the Netherlands to Archduke Albert of Austria and his wife Isabella, following the conclusion of the Treaty of Vervins with France. This roughly recreated the territories of the Empire of Burgundy.
In 1601, the Spanish sent a small expeditionary force to Ireland, where they were defeated by the English at the Battle of Kinsale.
In 1604, after James I became King of England, he concluded peace with Spain in the Treaty of London, 1604.
1609 saw the start of a cease-fire, afterwards called the Twelve Years' Truce, between the United Provinces and the southern states, mediated by France and England at The Hague. It was during this cease-fire the Dutch made great efforts to build their navy. It was this that was to later have a crucial bearing on the course of the war.
War resumes
Following the death of Maurice in 1625, and in the absence of a permanent peace, his half-brother Frederick Henry resumed the conflict against the south.
In 1622, a Spanish attack on the important fortress town of Bergen op Zoom was repelled. In 1625, however, the Spanish commander Ambrosio Spinola succeeded in conquering the city of Breda (an episode immortalized by the Spanish painter Velasquez in his famous painting "Las Lanzas"). Then the tide started to change in favour of the Dutch Republic. The conquest by Frederick Henry, in 1629, of 's-Hertogenbosch (Bois-le-Duc), the largest town in the northern part of Brabant, which had been considered to be inexpugnable, was a serious blow to the Spanish. In 1632 the Dutch Stadhouder conquered Venlo, Roermond and Maastricht during his famous "March along the Meuse". Attempts in the next years to attack Antwerp and Brussels failed, however. The Dutch were disappointed by the lack of support they received from the local population. It was clear that by now a new generation had grown up in Flanders and Brabant, that had been thoroughly reconverted to Roman catholicism and now distrusted the Calvinist Dutch even more than they loathed the Spanish occupants.
It became increasingly clear to all parties in the conflict that the Spanish would never succeed in restoring their rule to the territories north of the Meuse-Rhine delta and that the Dutch Republic did not have the strength to reconquer the South.
To assist a last attempt to defeat the northern "rebels", in 1639 Spain sent an armada bound for Flanders, with 20,000 troops, which was defeated by Lieutenant-Admiral Maarten Tromp in the Battle of the Downs. This victory had historic consequences far beyond the Eighty Years War as it marked the end of Spain as the dominant sea power, though Dutch attacks on Spain's vital shipping had already been undermining that position after the war's resumption.
Colonial theatre
The war between the countries extended to the colonies as well as far away as Macao, East Indies, Ceylon, Formosa, the Philippines, and Brazil, and others.
Peace
On January 30, 1648, the war ended with the Treaty of Münster, which was part of the Peace of Westphalia that also ended the Thirty Years' War.
Battles
- Battle of Heiligerlee: May 23, 1568
- Battle of Jemmingen: July 21, 1568
- Siege of Haarlem: 1572-1573
- Battle of Mookerheyde: April 14, 1574
- Siege of Antwerp: 1584-1585
- Battle of Nieuwpoort: July 2, 1600
- Battle of Gibraltar: April 25, 1607
- Battle of the Downs: October 31, 1639
- Battle of Puerto de Cavite: June 10, 1647
