HABSBURG RULE IN THE NETHERLANDS
Maximilian, on the death of Mary, found himself in a very difficult
position. The archduke was a man of high-soaring ideas, chivalrous,
brave even to the point of audacity, full of expedients and never
daunted by failure, but he was deficient in stability of character, and
always hampered throughout his life by lack of funds. He had in 1477 set
himself to the task of defending Flanders and the southern provinces of
the Netherlands against French attack, and not without considerable
success. In 1482, as guardian of his four-year old son Philip, the heir
to the domains of the house of Burgundy, he became regent of the
Netherlands. His authority however was little recognised. Gelderland and
Utrecht fell away altogether. Liège acknowledged William de la Marck as
its ruler. Holland and Zeeland were torn by contending factions.
Flanders, the centre of the Burgundian power, was specially hostile to
its new governor. The burghers of Ghent refused to surrender to him his
children, Philip and Margaret, who were held as hostages to secure
themselves against any attempted infringement of their liberties. The
Flemings even entered into negotiations with Louis XI; and the archduke
found himself compelled to sign a treaty with France (December 23,
1482), one of the conditions being the betrothal of his infant daughter
to the dauphin. Maximilian, however, found that for a time he must leave
Flanders to put down the rising of the Hook faction in Holland, who,
led by Frans van Brederode, and in alliance with the anti-Burgundian
party in Utrecht, had made themselves masters of Leyden. Beaten in a
bloody fight by the regent, Brederode nevertheless managed to seize
Sluis and Rotterdam; and from these ports he and his daring
companion-in-arms, Jan van Naaldwijk, carried on a guerrilla warfare for
some years. Brederode was killed in a fight at Brouwershaven (1490), but
Sluis still held out and was not taken till two years later.
Meanwhile Maximilian had to undertake a campaign against the Flemings,
who were again in arms at the instigation of the turbulent burghers of
Ghent and Bruges. Entering the province at the head of a large force he
compelled the rebel towns to submit and obtained possession of the
person of his son Philip (July, 1485). Elected in the following year
King of the Romans, Maximilian left the Netherlands to be crowned at
Aachen (April, 1486). A war with France called him back, in the course
of which he suffered a severe defeat at Bethune. At the beginning of
1488 Ghent and Bruges once more rebelled; and the Roman king, enticed to
enter Bruges, was there seized and compelled to see his friends executed
in the market-place beneath his prison window. For seven months he was
held a prisoner; nor was he released until he had sworn to surrender his
powers, as regent, to a council of Flemings and to withdraw all his
foreign troops from the Netherlands. He was forced to give hostages as a
pledge of his good faith, among them his general, Philip of Cleef, who
presently joined his captors.
Maximilian, on arriving at the camp of the Emperor Frederick III, who
had gathered together an army to release his imprisoned son, was
persuaded to break an oath given under duress. He advanced therefore at
the head of his German mercenaries into Flanders, but was able to
achieve little success against the Flemings, who found in Philip of
Cleef an able commander. Despairing of success, he now determined to
retire into Germany, leaving Duke Albert of Saxe-Meissen, a capable and
tried soldier of fortune, as general-in-chief of his forces and
Stadholder of the Netherlands. With the coming of Duke Albert order was
at length to be restored, though not without a severe struggle.
Slowly but surely Duke Albert took town after town and reduced province
after province into submission. The Hook party in Holland and Zeeland,
and their anti-Burgundian allies in Utrecht, and Robert de la Marck in
Liège, in turn felt the force of his arm. An insurrection of the
peasants in West Friesland and Kennemerland--the "Bread and Cheese
Folk," as they were called--was easily put down. Philip of Cleef with
his Flemings was unable to make head against him; and, with the fall of
Ghent and Sluis in the summer of 1492, the duke was able to announce to
Maximilian that the Netherlands, except Gelderland, were pacified. The
treaty of Senlis in 1493 ended the war with France. In the following
year, after his accession to the imperial throne, Maximilian retired to
his ancestral dominions in Germany, and his son, Philip the Fair, took
in his hands the reins of government. The young sovereign, who was a
Netherlander by birth and had spent all his life in the country, was
more popular than his father; and his succession to the larger part of
the Burgundian inheritance was not disputed. He received the homage of
Zeeland at Roemerswaal, of Holland at Geertruidenburg, and seized the
occasion to announce the abrogation of the Great Privilege, and at the
same time restored the Grand Council at Mechlin.
In Utrecht the authority of Bishop David of Burgundy was now firmly
re-established; and on his death, Philip of Baden, an obsequious
adherent of the house of Austria, was elected. These results of the
pacification carried out so successfully by Duke Albert had, however,
left Maximilian and Philip deeply in debt to the Saxon; and there was no
money wherewith to meet the claim, which amounted to 300,000 guilders.
After many negotiations extending over several years, compensation was
found for Albert in Friesland. That unhappy province and the adjoining
territory of Groningen had for a long time been torn by internal
dissensions between the two parties, the _Schieringers_ and the
_Vetkoopers_, who were the counterparts of the Hooks and Cods of
Holland. The Schieringers called in the aid of the Saxon duke, who
brought the land into subjection. Maximilian now recognised Albert as
hereditary Podesta or governor of Friesland on condition that the House
of Austria reserved the right of redeeming the territory for 100,000
guilders; and Philip acquiesced in the bargain by which Frisian freedom
was sold in exchange for the cancelling of a debt. The struggle with
Charles of Egmont in Gelderland was not so easily terminated. Not till
1505 was Philip able to overcome this crafty and skilful adversary.
Charles was compelled to do homage and to accompany Philip to Brussels
(October, 1505). It was, however, but a brief submission. Charles made
his escape once more into Gelderland and renewed the war of
independence.
Before these events had taken place, the marriage of Philip with Juana,
the daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile, had brought
about a complete change in his fortunes. Maximilian, always full of
ambitious projects for the aggrandisement of his House, had planned with
Ferdinand of Aragon a double marriage between their families, prompted
by a common hatred and fear of the growing power of France. The
Archduke Philip was to wed the Infanta Juana, the second daughter of
Ferdinand and Isabel; the Infante Juan, the heir to the thrones of
Aragon and Castile, Philip's sister, Margaret. Margaret had in 1483,
aged then three years, been betrothed to the Dauphin Charles, aged
twelve, and she was brought up at the French Court, and after the death
of Louis XI (August 30, 1483) had borne the title of Queen and had lived
at Amboise with other children of the French royal house, under the care
of the Regent, Anne de Beaujeu. The marriage, however, of Charles VIII
and Margaret was never to be consummated. In August, 1488, the male line
of the Dukes of Brittany became extinct; and the hand of the heiress,
Anne of Brittany, a girl of twelve, attracted many suitors. It was
clearly a matter of supreme importance to the King of France that this
important territory should not pass by marriage into the hands of an
enemy. The Bretons, on the other hand, clung to their independence and
dreaded absorption in the unifying French state. After many intrigues
her council advised the young duchess to accept Maximilian as her
husband, and she was married to him by proxy in March, 1490. Charles
VIII immediately entered Brittany at the head of a strong force and,
despite a fierce and prolonged resistance, conquered the country, and
gained possession of Anne's person (August, 1491). The temptation was
too strong to be resisted. Margaret, after residing in France as his
affianced wife for eight years, was repudiated and finally, two years
later, sent back to the Netherlands, while Anne was compelled to break
off her marriage with Margaret's father, and became Charles' queen. This
double slight was never forgiven either by Maximilian or by Margaret,
and was the direct cause of the negotiations for the double Spanish
marriage, which, though delayed by the suspicious caution of the two
chief negotiators, Ferdinand and Maximilian, was at length arranged. In
August, 1496, an imposing fleet conveyed the Infanta Juana to Antwerp
and she was married to Philip at Lille. In the following April Margaret
and Don Juan were wedded in the cathedral of Burgos. The union was
followed by a series of catastrophes in the Spanish royal family. While
on his way with his wife to attend the marriage of his older sister
Isabel with the King of Portugal, Juan caught a malignant fever and
expired at Salamanca in October, 1497.
The newly-married Queen of Portugal now became the heiress to the crowns
of Aragon and Castile, but she died a year later and shortly afterwards
her infant son. The succession therefore passed to the younger sister,
Juana; and Philip the Fair, the heir of the House of Austria and already
through his mother the ruler of the rich Burgundian domain, became
through his wife the prospective sovereign of the Spanish kingdoms of
Ferdinand and Isabel. Fortune seemed to have reserved all her smiles for
the young prince, when on February 24, 1500, a son was born to him at
Ghent, who received the name Charles. But dark days were soon to follow.
Philip was pleasure-loving and dissolute, and he showed little affection
for his wife, who had already begun to exhibit symptoms of that weakness
of mind which was before long to develop into insanity. However in 1501,
they journeyed together to Spain, in order to secure Juana's rights to
the Castilian succession and also to that of Aragon should King
Ferdinand die without an heir-male.
In November, 1504, Isabel the Catholic had died; and Philip and his
consort at once assumed the titles of King and Queen of Castile, in
spite of the opposition of Ferdinand, who claimed the right of regency
during his life-time. Both parties were anxious to obtain the support of
Henry VII. Already since the accession of Philip the commercial
relations between England and the Netherlands had been placed on what
proved to be a permanently friendly basis by the treaty known as the
_Magnus Intercursus_ of 1496. Flanders and Brabant were dependent upon
the supply of English wool for their staple industries, Holland and
Zeeland for that freedom of fishery on which a large part of their
population was employed and subsisted. In reprisals for the support
formerly given by the Burgundian government to the house of York, Henry
had forbidden the exportation of wool and of cloth to the Netherlands,
had removed the staple from Bruges to Calais, and had withdrawn the
fishing rights enjoyed by the Hollanders since the reign of Edward I.
But this state of commercial war was ruinous to both countries; and, on
condition that Philip henceforth undertook not to allow any enemies of
the English government to reside in his dominions, a good understanding
was reached, and the _Magnus Intercursus_, which re-established
something like freedom of trade between the countries, was duly signed
in February, 1496. The treaty was solemnly renewed in 1501, but shortly
afterwards fresh difficulties arose concerning Yorkist refugees, and a
stoppage of trade was once more threatened. At this juncture a storm
drove Philip and Juana, who had set sail in January, 1506, for Spain, to
take refuge in an English harbour. For three months they were hospitably
entertained by Henry, but he did not fail to take advantage of the
situation to negotiate three treaties with his unwilling guest: (1) a
treaty of alliance, (2) a treaty of marriage with Philip's sister, the
Archduchess Margaret, already at the age of 25 a widow for the second
time, (3) a revision of the treaty of commerce of 1496, named from its
unfavourable conditions, _Malus Intercursus_. The marriage treaty came
to nothing through the absolute refusal of Margaret to accept the hand
of the English king.
Philip and Juana left England for Spain, April 23, to assume the
government of the three kingdoms, Castile, Leon and Granada, which Juana
had inherited from her mother. Owing to his wife's mental incapacity
Philip in her name exercised all the powers of sovereignty, but his
reign was very short, for he was suddenly taken ill and died at Burgos,
September 25, 1506. His hapless wife, after the birth of a posthumous
child, sank into a state of hopeless insanity and passed the rest of her
long life in confinement. Charles, the heir to so vast an inheritance,
was but six years old. The representatives of the provinces, assembled
at Mechlin (October 18), offered the regency of the Burgundian dominions
to the Emperor Maximilian; he in his turn nominated his daughter,
Margaret, to be regent in his place and guardian of his grandson during
Charles' minority, and she with the assent of the States-General took
the oath on her installation as _Mambour_ or Governor-General of the
Netherlands, March, 1507. Margaret was but 27 years of age, and for
twenty-four years she continued to administer the affairs of the
Netherlands with singular discretion, firmness and Statesmanlike
ability. The superintendence and training of the young archduke could
have been placed in no better hands. Charles, who with his three sisters
lived with his aunt at Mechlin, was thus both by birth and education a
Netherlander.
One of the first acts of Margaret was a refusal to ratify the _Malus
Intercursus_ and the revival of the _Magnus Intercursus_ of 1496. This
important commercial treaty from that time forward continued in force
for more than a century. The great difficulty that Margaret encountered
in her government was the lack of adequate financial resources. The
extensive privileges accorded to the various provinces and their mutual
jealousies and diverse interests made the task of levying taxes arduous
and often fruitless. Margaret found that the granting of supplies, even
for so necessary a purpose as the raising of troops to resist the raids
of Charles of Gelderland, aided by the French king, into Utrecht and
Holland, was refused. She fortunately possessed in a high degree those
qualities of persuasive address and sound judgment, which gave to her a
foremost place among the diplomatists and rulers of her time. Such was
the confidence that her brilliant abilities inspired that she was
deputed both by the Emperor Maximilian and by Ferdinand of Aragon to be
their plenipotentiary at the Peace Congress that assembled at Cambray in
November, 1508. Chiefly through her exertions the negotiations had a
speedy and successful issue, and the famous treaty known as the League
of Cambray was signed on December 10. By this treaty many of the
disputes concerning the rights and prerogatives of the French crown in
the Burgundian Netherlands were amicably settled; and it was arranged
that Charles of Egmont should be provisionally recognised as Duke of
Gelderland on condition that he should give up the towns in Holland that
he had captured and withdraw his troops within his own borders.
The extant correspondence between Maximilian and Margaret, which is of
the most confidential character, on matters of high policy, is a proof
of the high opinion the emperor entertained of his daughter's
intelligence and capacity. In nothing was his confidence more justified
than in the assiduous care and interest that the regent took in the
education of the Archduke Charles and his three sisters, who had been
placed in her charge. In 1515 Charles, on entering his sixteenth year,
was declared by Maximilian to be of age; Margaret accordingly handed
over to him the reins of government and withdrew for the time into
private life. Her retirement was not, however, to be of long
continuance. On January 23, 1516, King Ferdinand of Aragon died, and
Charles, who now became King of Castile and of Aragon, was obliged to
leave the Netherlands to take possession of his Spanish dominions.
Before sailing he reinstated his aunt as governess, and appointed a
council to assist her. This post she continued to hold till the day of
her death, for Charles was never again able to take up his permanent
residence in the Netherlands. During the first years after his
accession to the thrones of Ferdinand and Isabel he was much occupied
with Spanish affairs; and the death of Maximilian, January 12, 1519,
opened out to him a still wider field of ambition and activity. On June
28 Charles was elected emperor, a result which he owed in no small
degree to the diplomatic skill and activity of Margaret. Just a year
later the emperor visited the Netherlands, where Charles of Gelderland
was again giving trouble, and his presence was required both for the
purpose of dealing with the affairs of the provinces and also for
securing a grant of supply, for he was sorely in need of funds. Margaret
had at his request summoned the States-General to meet at Brussels,
where Charles personally addressed them, and explained at some length
the reasons which led him to ask his loyal and devoted Netherland
subjects for their aid on his election to the imperial dignity. The
States-General on this, as on other occasions, showed no niggardliness
in responding to the request of a sovereign who, though almost always
absent, appealed to their patriotism as a born Netherlander, who had
been brought up in their midst and spoke their tongue. Charles was
crowned at Aachen, October 23, 1520, and some three months later
presided at the famous diet of Worms, where he met Martin Luther face to
face. Before starting on his momentous journey he again appointed
Margaret regent, and gave to her Council, which he nominated, large
powers; the Council of Mechlin, the Court of Holland and other
provincial tribunals being subjected to its superior authority and
jurisdiction. By this action the privileges of the provinces were
infringed, but Charles was resolute in carrying out the centralising
policy of his ancestors, the Dukes of Burgundy, and he had the power to
enforce his will in spite of the protests that were raised. And so
under the wise and conciliatory but firm administration of Margaret
during a decade of almost continuous religious and international
strife--a decade marked by such great events as the rapid growth of the
Reformation in Germany, the defeat and capture of Francis I at Pavia,
the sack of Rome by the troops of Bourbon and the victorious advance of
the Turks in Hungary and along the eastern frontier of the empire--the
Netherland provinces remained at peace, save for the restless intrigues
of Charles of Egmont in Gelderland, and prospered. Their wealth
furnished indeed no small portion of the funds which enabled Charles to
face successfully so many adversaries and to humble the power of
France. The last important act of Margaret, like her first, was
connected with the town of Cambray. In this town, as the representative
and plenipotentiary of her nephew the emperor, she met, July, 1529,
Louise of Savoy, who had been granted similar powers by her son Francis
I, to negotiate a treaty of peace. The two princesses proved worthy of
the trust that had been placed in them, and a general treaty of peace,
often spoken of as "the Ladies' Peace," was speedily drawn up and
ratified. The conditions were highly advantageous to the interests of
Spain and the Netherlands. On November 30 of the following year Margaret
died, as the result of a slight accident to her foot which the medical
science of the day did not know how to treat properly, in the 50th year
of her age and the 24th of her regency.
Charles, who had a few months previously reached the zenith of his power
by being crowned with the iron crown of Lombardy and with the imperial
crown at the hands of Pope Clement VII at Bologna (February 22 and 24,
1530), appointed as governess in Margaret's place his sister Mary, the
widowed queen of Louis, King of Hungary, who had been slain by the Turks
at the battle of Mohacs, August 29, 1526.
Mary, who had passed her early life in the Netherlands under the care of
her aunt Margaret, proved herself in every way her worthy successor. She
possessed, like Margaret, a strong character, statesmanlike qualities
and singular capacity in the administration of affairs. She filled the
difficult post of regent for the whole period of twenty-four years
between the death of Margaret and the abdication of Charles V in 1555.
It was fortunate indeed for that great sovereign that these two eminent
women of his house should, each in turn for one half of his long reign,
have so admirably conducted the government of this important portion of
his dominions, as to leave him free for the carrying out of his
far-reaching political projects and constant military campaigns in other
lands. Two years after Mary entered upon her regency Charles appointed
three advisory and administrative bodies--the Council of State, the
Council of Finance and the Privy Council--to assist her in the
government. The Council of State dealt with questions of external and
internal policy and with the appointment of officials; the Council of
Finance with the care of the revenue and private domains of the
sovereign; to the Privy Council were entrusted the publication of edicts
and "placards," and the care of justice and police.
When Charles succeeded Philip the Fair only a portion of the Netherlands
was subject to his sway. With steady persistence he set himself to the
task of bringing all the seventeen provinces under one sovereign. In
1515 George of Saxe-Meissen sold to him his rights over Friesland. Henry
of Bavaria, who in opposition to his wishes had been elected Bishop of
Utrecht, was compelled (1528) to cede to him the temporalities of the
see, retaining the spiritual office only. Charles thus added the Upper
and Lower _Sticht_--Utrecht and Overyssel--to his dominions. He made
himself (1536) master of Groningen and Drente after a long and obstinate
struggle with Charles of Gelderland, and seven years later he forced
Charles' successor, William of Jülich and Cleves, to renounce in his
favour his claims to Gelderland and Zutphen. During the reign of Charles
V the States-General were summoned many times, chiefly for the purpose
of voting subsidies, but it was only on special and solemn occasions,
that the representatives of all the seventeen provinces were present, as
for instance when Philip received their homage in 1549 and when Charles
V announced his abdication in 1555. The names of the seventeen provinces
summoned on these occasions were Brabant, Limburg, Luxemburg,
Gelderland, Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, Artois, Hainault, Namur, Lille
with Douay and Orchies, Tournay and district, Mechlin, Friesland,
Utrecht, Overyssel with Drente and Groningen. The bishopric of Liège,
though nominally independent, was under the strict control of the
government at Brussels. The relations of Charles' Burgundian domains
to the empire were a matter of no small moment, and he was able to
regulate them in a manner satisfactory to himself. Several times during
his reign tentative attempts were made to define those relations, which
were of a very loose kind. The fact that the head of the house of
Habsburg was himself emperor had not made him any less determined than
the Burgundian sovereigns, his ancestors, to assert for his Netherland
territories a virtual independence of imperial control or obligation.
The various states of which the Netherlands were composed were as much
opposed as the central government at Brussels to any recognition of the
claims of the empire; and both Margaret of Austria and Mary of Hungary
ventured to refuse to send representatives to the imperial diets, even
when requested to do so by the emperor. At last in 1548, when all the
Netherland provinces had been brought under the direct dominion or
control of one sovereign prince, a convention was drawn up at the diet
of Augsburg, chiefly by the exertions of the Regent Mary and her tried
councillors Viglius and Granvelle, by which the unity of the Netherland
territories was recognised and they were freed from imperial
jurisdiction. Nominally, they formed a circle of the empire,--the
Burgundian circle--and representatives of the circle were supposed to
appear at the diets and to bear a certain share of imperial taxation in
return for the right to the protection of the empire against attacks by
France. As a matter of fact, no representatives were ever sent and no
subsidy was paid, nor was the protection of the empire ever sought or
given.
This convention, which in reality severed the shadowy links which had
hitherto bound the Netherlands to the empire, received the sanction of
the States-General in October, 1548; and it was followed by the issuing,
with the consent of the Estates of the various provinces, of a
"Pragmatic Sanction" by which the inherited right of succession to the
sovereignty in each and every province was settled upon the male and
female line of Charles' descendants, notwithstanding the existence of
ancient provincial privileges to the contrary. In 1549 the emperor's
only son Philip was acknowledged by all the Estates as their future
sovereign, and made a journey through the land to receive homage.
The doctrines of the Reformation had early obtained a footing in
various parts of the Netherlands. At first it was the teaching of Luther
and of Zwingli which gained adherents. Somewhat later the Anabaptist
movement made great headway in Holland and Friesland, especially in
Amsterdam. The chief leaders of the Anabaptists were natives of Holland,
including the famous or infamous John of Leyden, who with some thousands
of these fanatical sectaries perished at Münster in 1535. Between 1537
and 1543 a more moderate form of Anabaptist teaching made rapid progress
through the preaching of a certain Menno Simonszoon. The followers of
this man were called Mennonites. Meanwhile Lutheranism and Zwinglianism
were in many parts of the country being supplanted by the sterner
doctrines of Calvin. All these movements were viewed by the emperor
with growing anxiety and detestation. Whatever compromises with the
Reformation he might be compelled to make in Germany, he was determined
to extirpate heresy from his hereditary dominions. He issued a strong
placard soon after the diet of Worms in 1521 condemning Luther and his
opinions and forbidding the printing or sale of any of the reformer's
writings; and between that date and 1555 a dozen other edicts and
placards were issued of increasing stringency. The most severe was the
so-called "blood-placard" of 1550. This enacted the sentence of death
against all convicted of heresy--the men to be executed with the sword
and the women buried alive; in cases of obstinacy both men and women
were to be burnt. Terribly harsh as were these edicts, it is doubtful
whether the number of those who Suffered the extreme penalty has not
been greatly exaggerated by partisan writers. Of the thousands who
perished, by far the greater part were Anabaptists; and these met their
fate rather as enemies of the state and of society, than as heretics.
They were political as well as religious anarchists.
In the time of Charles the trade and industries of the Netherlands were
in a highly prosperous state. The Burgundian provinces under the wise
administrations of Margaret and Mary, and protected by the strong arm of
the emperor from foreign attack, were at this period by far the richest
state in Europe and the financial mainstay of the Habsburg power.
Bruges, however, had now ceased to be the central market and exchange of
Europe, owing to the silting up of the river Zwijn. It was no longer a
port, and its place had been taken by Antwerp. At the close of the reign
of Charles, Antwerp, with its magnificent harbour on the Scheldt, had
become the "counting-house" of the nations, the greatest port and the
wealthiest and most luxurious city in the world. Agents of the principal
bankers and merchants of every country had their offices within its
walls. It has been estimated that, inclusive of the many foreigners who
made the town their temporary abode, the population of Antwerp in 1560
was about 150,000. Five hundred vessels sailed in and out of her harbour
daily, and five times that number were to be seen thronging her wharves
at the same time.
To the north of the Scheldt the condition of things was not less
satisfactory than in the south, particularly in Holland. The commercial
prosperity of Holland was in most respects different in kind from that
of Flanders and Brabant, and during the period with which we are dealing
had been making rapid advances, but on independent lines. A manufactory
of the coarser kinds of cloth, established at Leyden, had indeed for a
time met with a considerable measure of success, but had fallen into
decline in the time of Mary of Hungary. The nature of his country led
the Hollander to be either a sailor or a dairy-farmer, not an artisan or
operative. Akin though he was in race to the Fleming and the Brabanter,
his instincts led him by the force of circumstances to turn his energies
in other directions. Subsequent history has but emphasised the
fact--which from the fourteenth century onwards is clearly evident--that
the people who inhabited the low-lying sea-girt lands of dyke, canal and
polder in Holland and Zeeland were distinct in character and temper from
the citizens of Bruges, Ghent, Ypres, Brussels or Mechlin, who were
essentially landsmen and artisans. Ever since the discovery of the art
of curing herrings (ascribed to William Beukelsz), the herring fishery
had acquired a great importance to the Hollanders and Zeelanders, and
formed the chief livelihood of a large part of the entire population of
those provinces; and many thousands, who did not themselves sail in the
fishing fleets, found employment in the ship and boat-building wharves
and in the making of sails, cordage, nets and other tackle. It was in
this hazardous occupation that the hardy race of skilled and seasoned
seamen, who were destined to play so decisive a part in the coming wars
of independence, had their early training. The herring harvest, through
the careful and scientific methods that were employed in curing the
fish and packing them in barrels, became a durable and much sought for
article of commerce. A small portion of the catch served as a supply of
food for home consumption, the great bulk in its thousands of barrels
was a marketable commodity, and the distribution of the cured herring to
distant ports became a lucrative business. It had two important
consequences, the formation of a Dutch Mercantile Marine, and the growth
of Amsterdam, which from small beginnings had in the middle of the
sixteenth century become a town with 40,000 inhabitants and a port
second only in importance in the Netherlands to Antwerp. From its
harbour at the confluence of the estuary of the Y with the Zuyder Zee
ships owned and manned by Hollanders sailed along the coasts of France
and Spain to bring home the salt for curing purposes and with it wines
and other southern products, while year by year a still larger and
increasing number entered the Baltic. In those eastern waters they
competed with the German Hanseatic cities, with whom they had many
acrimonious disputes, and with such success that the Hollanders
gradually monopolised the traffic in grain, hemp and other "Eastland"
commodities and became practically the freight-carriers of the Baltic.
And be it remembered that they were able to achieve this because many of
the North-Netherland towns were themselves members of the Hanse League,
and possessed therefore the same rights and privileges commercially as
their rivals, Hamburg, Lübeck or Danzig. The great industrial cities of
Flanders and Brabant, on the other hand, not being members of the League
nor having any mercantile marine of their own, were content to transact
business with the foreign agents of the Hanse towns, who had their
counting-houses at Antwerp. It will thus be seen that in the middle of
the sixteenth century the trade of the northern provinces, though as yet
not to be compared in volume to that of the Flemings and Walloons, had
before it an opening field for enterprise and energy rich in
possibilities and promise for the future.
Such was the state of affairs political, religious and economical when
in the year 1555 the Emperor Charles V, prematurely aged by the heavy
burden of forty years of world-wide sovereignty, worn out by constant
campaigns and weary of the cares of state, announced his intention of
abdicating and retiring into a monastery. On October 25, 1555, the act
of abdication was solemnly and with impressive ceremonial carried out
in the presence of the representatives of the seventeen provinces of the
Netherlands specially summoned to meet their sovereign for the last time
in the Great Hall of the Palace at Brussels. Charles took an affecting
farewell of his Netherland subjects and concluded by asking them to
exhibit the same regard and loyalty to his son Philip as they had always
displayed to himself. Much feeling was shown, for Charles, despite the
many and varied calls and duties which had prevented him from residing
for any length of time in the Netherlands, had always been at pains to
manifest a special interest in the country of his birth. The Netherlands
were to him throughout life his homeland and its people looked upon him
as a fellow-countryman, and not even the constant demands that Charles
had made for financial aid nor the stern edicts against heresy had
estranged them from him. The abdication was the more regretted because
at the same time Mary of Hungary laid down her office as regent, the
arduous duties of which she had so long and so ably discharged. On the
following day, October 26, the Knights of the Golden Fleece, the members
of the Councils and the deputies of the provinces took the oath of
allegiance to Philip, the emperor's only son and heir; and Philip on his
side solemnly undertook to maintain unimpaired the ancient rights and
privileges of the several provinces.
* * * * *