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By Root 1030 0

to be ruler of a people, to defend them from oppression and violence as the shepherd his sheep; and whereas God did not create the people slaves to their prince, to obey his commands, whether right or wrong, but rather the prince for the sake of the subjects…[When a prince] does not behave thus, but, on the contrary, oppresses them, seeking opportunities to infringe their ancient customs and privileges, exacting from them slavish compliance, then he is no longer a prince, but a tyrant, and the subjects…may not only disallow his authority, but legally proceed to the choice of another prince for their defense. This is…what the law of nature dictates for the defense of liberty, which we ought to transmit to posterity, even at the hazard of our lives.

Thereafter, the seven northern provinces became the United Provinces of the Netherlands, while the ten southern provinces remained under the rule of Spain.8

Philip II, however, had by no means conceded defeat. On the contrary, he put a bounty of 25,000 gold coins on William the Si-lent's head and sent more troops to subdue the rebellious north. Recognizing Spain's superior military force, William responded by offering leadership of the new republic, limited by a host of constitutional safeguards, to the Duke of Anjou, the younger brother of the king of France. The duke accepted, but he fled after less than two years in the face of a mounting Spanish advance. In 1584, William the Silent was assassinated by a Spaniard named Balthazar Gerard. Gerard, however, never collected his reward. The Dutch were not above cruel and unusual punishment for assassins, and Gerard met a painful end involving the creative use of hot irons and boiling bacon fat.

Following William's death, the Dutch offered sovereignty over the Netherlands to the king of France himself. Preoccupied with civil war and reluctant to take on Spain, Henri III refused. The Dutch next offered themselves to England's Queen Elizabeth, who also eventually declined.9

MONGRELS AND SERPENTS: THE BIRTH OF

TOLERANCE IN THE DUTCH REPUBLIC

We are now at the year 1588. The United Provinces, incapable of their own self-defense, have tried unsuccessfully to give away their country to both France and England. The Dutch do not exactly seem world dominant. Yet by 1625, the Dutch Republic had become the “hegemonic power of the capitalist world-economy”— the “first truly global” empire.10 What happened?

The tiny Dutch Republic became the world's economic hyper-power in the seventeenth century by turning itself into a haven for enterprising outcasts from the rest of Europe. To be sure, several other coincidental developments helped make this possible. War among Spain, England, and France, for example, kept those nations preoccupied, draining them financially and giving the Dutch a respite from Spanish aggression. But by far the most crucial factor underlying the Dutch surge to global primacy was an extraordinary economic explosion. It was here that the Dutch Republic's exceptional policies of religious tolerance proved indispensable.

Given the religious warfare, persecution, and zealotry all over seventeenth-century Europe, the tolerant policies of the Dutch Republic are all the more remarkable. Almost unique in Europe, the United Provinces had no established state church. Its founding charter, the 1579 Union of Utrecht, mandated, “Each person shall remain free in his religion and … no one shall be investigated or persecuted because of his religion.” The state did not compel adherence to the Reformed Church, impose fines for nonconformity, or punish dissenters.

Of course, plenty of ministers preached orthodoxy from their pulpits, fulminating against the abomination of organ music in church, the persistence of “pagan” festivals and village fairs, and the scandalous rage “for curled long hair that swept the Republic in the 1640s.” Moreover, the Dutch Reformed Church always occupied a privileged status. Nonmembers were officially barred from holding government positions, and other religions could not be professed “in public.”

In practice,