• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 593 0

Shewing How They [the Dutch] Were First Bred and Descended from a Horse-Turd Which Was Enclosed in a Butter-Box. Much of the ill feeling came from an embarrassing defeat in the second Anglo–Dutch war, when Admiral Michiel de Ruyter had sailed up the Thames and caught the English fleet napping. This infuriated England’s Charles II, who was quite willing to break with his new-found allies and join a French attack on the Provinces in 1672. The republic was now in deep trouble – previous victories had been at sea, and the army, weak and disorganized, could not withstand the onslaught. In panic, the country turned to William III of Orange for leadership and Johan de Witt was brutally murdered by a mob of Orangist sympathizers in Den Haag. By 1678 William had defeated the French and made peace with the English – and was rewarded (along with his wife Mary, the daughter of Charles I of England) with the English crown ten years later.

History | The Golden Age |

The French covet the Low Countries

Though King William III had defeated the French, Louis XIV retained designs on the United Provinces and the military pot was kept boiling in a long series of dynastic wars that ranged across northern Europe. In 1700, Charles II of Spain, the last of the Spanish Habsburgs, died childless, bequeathing the Spanish throne and control of the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium) to Philip of Anjou, Louis’ grandson. Louis promptly forced Philip to cede the latter to France, which was, with every justification, construed as a threat to the balance of power by France’s neighbours. The War of the Spanish Succession ensued, with the United Provinces, England and Austria forming the Triple Alliance to thwart the French king. The war itself was a haphazard, long-winded affair distinguished by the spectacular victories of the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim, Ramillies and Malplaquet. It dragged on until the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 in which France finally abandoned its claim to the Spanish Netherlands, which reverted to the Austrian Habsburgs (as the Austrian Netherlands).

However, the fighting had drained the United Provinces’ reserves and a slow economic decline began, accelerated by a reactive trend towards conservatism. This in turn reflected the development of an increasingly socially static society, with power and wealth concentrated within a small, self-regarding elite. Furthermore, with the threat of foreign conquest effectively removed, the Dutch ruling class divided into two main camps – the Orangists and the pro-French “Patriots” – whose interminable squabbling soon brought political life to a virtual standstill. The situation deteriorated even further in the latter half of the century, and the last few years of the United Provinces present a sorry state of affairs.

History |

French occupation and the United Kingdom of the Netherlands

In 1795 the French, aided by the Patriots, invaded, setting up the Batavian Republic and dissolving the United Provinces – along with many of the privileges of the richer Dutch merchants. Now part of the Napoleonic empire, the Netherlands were obliged to wage unenthusiastic war with England, and in 1806 Napoleon appointed his brother Louis as their king in an attempt to unite the rival Dutch groups under one (notionally independent) ruler. Louis was installed in Amsterdam’s town hall, giving it its title of Koninklijk Paleis (Royal Palace). Louis, however, wasn’t willing to allow the Netherlands to become a simple satellite of France; he ignored Napoleon’s directives and after just four years of rule was forced to abdicate. The country was then formally incorporated into the French Empire, and for three gloomy years suffered occupation and heavy taxation to finance French military adventures.

Following Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Moscow, the Orangist faction surfaced to exploit weakening French control. In 1813, Frederick William, son of the exiled William V, returned to the country and eight months later, under the terms of the Congress of Vienna, was crowned King William I of the United Kingdom of