a total system length of km mi which makes it one of the longest metro networks in Europe SL has a common ticket system in the entire Stockholm County, which allows for easy travel between different modes of transport The tickets are of two main types, single ticket and travel cards, both allowing for unlimited travel with SL in the entire Stockholm County for the duration of the ticket validity Starting April , a new zone system A, B, C and price system applies for single tickets Single tickets are now available in forms of cash ticket, individual unit pre paid tickets, pre paid ticket slips of , sms ticket and machine ticket Cash tickets bought at the point of travel are the most expensive and pre paid tickets slips of are the cheapest A single ticket is valid for one hour The duration of the travel card validity depends on the exact type they are available from hours up to a year A day card costs SEK EUR USD Tickets of all these types are available with reduced prices for persons under and over years of age The City Line Project, or The Green Tunnel edit Main article Stockholm City Line With an estimated cost of SEK billion January price level , which equals billion US dollars, the City Line, an environmentally certified project, comprises a km mi long commuter train tunnel in rock and water beneath Stockholm, with two new stations Stockholm City and Stockholm Odenplan , and a km mi long railway bridge at Årsta The City Line is being built by the Swedish Transport Administration in co operation with the City of Stockholm, Stockholm County Council, and Stockholm Transport, SL As Stockholm Central Station is overloaded, the purpose of this project is to double the city’s track capacity and improve service efficiency Operations are scheduled to begin in Between Riddarholmen and Söder Mälarstrand, the City Line will run through a submerged concrete tunnel As a green project, the City Line includes the purification of waste water noise reduction through sound attenuating tracks the use of synthetic diesel, which provides users with clean air and the recycling of excavated rocks Roads edit Stockholm is at the junction of the European routes E , E and E A half completed motorway ring road exists on the south and west sides of the City Centre A north section of the ring road will open for traffic in while the final subsea eastern section is being discussed as a future project A bypass motorway for traffic between Northern and Southern Sweden will be built west of Stockholm The many islands and waterways make extensions of the road system both complicated and expensive, and new motorways are often built as systems of tunnels and bridges Congestion

charges edit Main article Stockholm congestion tax Stockholm has a congestion pricing system, Stockholm congestion tax, in use on a permanent basis since August , after having had a seven month trial period in the first half of The City Centre is within the congestion tax zone All the entrances and exits of this area have unmanned control points operating with automatic number plate recognition All vehicles entering or exiting the congestion tax affected area, with a few exceptions, have to pay – SEK – EUR, – USD depending on the time of day between and The maximum tax amount per vehicle per day is SEK EUR, Payment is done by various means within days after one has passed one of the control points one cannot pay at the control points After the trial period was over, consultative referendums were held in Stockholm Municipality and several other municipalities in Stockholm County The then reigning government cabinet Persson stated that they would only take into consideration the results of the referendum in Stockholm Municipality The opposition parties Alliance for Sweden stated that they were to form a cabinet after the general election—which was held the same day as the congestion tax referendums—they would take into consideration the referendums held in several of the other municipalities as well The results of the referendums were that the Stockholm Municipality voted for the congestion tax, but all the other municipalities voted against it The opposition parties won the general election and a few days before they formed government cabinet Reinfeldt they announced that the congestion tax would be reintroduced in Stockholm, but that the revenue would go entirely to road construction in and around Stockholm During the trial period and according to the agenda of the previous government the revenue went entirely to public transport Ferries edit Stockholm has regular ferry lines to Helsinki and Turku in Finland commonly called Finlandsfärjan Tallinn, Estonia Riga, Latvia, Åland islands and to Saint Petersburg The large Stockholm archipelago is served by the Waxholmsbolaget archipelago boats City bikes edit Between April and October, during the warmer months, it is possible to rent Stockholm City Bikes by purchasing a bike card online or through retailers Cards allow users to rent bikes from any Stockholm City Bikes stand spread across the city and return them in any stand There are two types of cards the Season Card valid from April to October and the day card When their validity runs out they can be reactivated and are therefore reusable Bikes can be used for up to three hours per loan and can be rented from Monday to Sunday from am to pm Airports edit Venice of the North Steenwijk is a city in the Dutch province of Overijssel It is located in the municipality of Steenwijkerland It is the largest town of the municipality Steenwijk received city rights in In the Eighty Years' War – it was conquered by the Spaniards in , but regained by the Dutch in Steenwijk was a separate municipality until , when it merged with Brederwiede and IJsselham The new municipality was first named Steenwijk , but was renamed in to Steenwijkerland From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The term Venice of the North refers to various cities in northern Europe that contain canals, comparing them to Venice, Italy, which is renowned for its canals see Grand Canal Amsterdam Birmingham Giethoorn Dutch pronunciation '?it?o?rn is a village in the Dutch province of Overijssel It is located in the municipality of Steenwijkerland, about km southwest of Steenwijk Contents hide The Eighty Years' War or Dutch War of Independence – was a revolt of the Seventeen Provinces against the political and religious hegemony of Philip II of Spain, the sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands After the initial stages, Philip II deployed his armies and regained control over most of the rebelling provinces However, under the leadership of the exiled William the Silent, the northern provinces continued their resistance and managed to oust the Habsburg armies and, in , established the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands The war continued in other areas, although the heartland of the republic was no longer threatened After a year truce, hostilities broke out again around which can be said to coincide with the Thirty Years' War An end was reached in with the Peace of Münster a treaty part of the Peace of Westphalia , when the Dutch Republic was recognised as an independent country Contents hide Causes of the war Prelude First forty years – Twelve Years' Truce Resumption of the war Dutch intervention in the early stages of the Thirty Years' War – The Republic under siege – The Republic sallies forth – Franco Dutch Alliance – Endgame – The Peace of Münster Aftermath New border between North and South Political situation Maps of the shifting front of the war See also References Sources External links Causes of the war edit In the decades preceding the war, the Dutch had become increasingly discontented with Habsburg rule A major cause of this discontent was the heavy level of taxation imposed on the population, while support and guidance from the government was hampered by the size of the Habsburg empire At that time, the Seventeen Provinces were known in the empire as De landen van herwaarts over and in French as Les pays de par deça those lands around there In practice, this meant that the Dutch provinces were being continually criticised for acting without permission from the throne, while it was impractical for them to try to gain permission for actions, as requests sent to the throne would take at least four weeks for a response to return This unrest was further amplified by the presence of Spanish troops brought in to oversee order citation needed Spain also attempted a policy of strict religious uniformity for the Catholic Church within its domains, and enforced it with the Inquisition The Reformation meanwhile produced a number of Protestant denominations, which gained followers in the Seventeen Provinces These included the Lutheran movement of Martin Luther, the Anabaptist movement of the Dutch reformer Menno Simons, and the Reformed teachings of John Calvin This growth would lead to the Beeldenstorm, the Iconoclastic Fury of which had seen many churches in northern Europe stripped of their Catholic statuary and religious decoration Prelude edit Main article Causes of the Dutch revolt In October , Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire began the gradual abdication of his several crowns His son Philip II took over as sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands, which at the time was a personal union of seventeen provinces with little in common beyond their sovereign and a constitutional framework This framework, assembled during the preceding reigns of Burgundian and Habsburg rulers, divided power between city governments, local nobility, provincial States, royal stadtholders, the States General of the Netherlands, and the central government possibly represented by a Regent assisted by three councils the Council of State, the Privy Council and the Council of Finances The balance of power was heavily weighted toward the local and regional governments Philip II of Spain berating William the Silent Prince of Orange by Cornelis Kruseman, painting from th century This scene was purported to have happened on the dock in Flushing when Philip departed the Netherlands Philip did not govern in person but appointed Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy as governor general to lead the central government In he appointed his half sister Margaret of Parma as the first Regent, who governed in close co operation with Netherlandish nobles like William, Prince of Orange, Philip de Montmorency, Count of Hoorn, and Lamoral, Count of Egmont Philip introduced a number of councillors in the Council of State, foremost among these Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, a French born cardinal who gained considerable influence in the Council, much to the chagrin of the Dutch council members When Philip left for Spain in political tension was increased by religious policies Not having the liberal mindedness of his father Charles V, Philip was a fervent enemy of the Protestant movements of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the Anabaptists Charles had outlawed heresy in special placards that made it a capital offence, to be prosecuted by a Netherlandish version of the Inquisition, leading to the executions of over , people between and Towards the end of Charles' reign enforcement had reportedly become lax Philip, however, insisted on rigorous enforcement, which caused widespread unrest To support and strengthen the attempts at Counter Reformation Philip launched a wholesale organisational reform of the Catholic Church in the Netherlands in , which resulted in the inclusion of fourteen dioceses instead of the old three The new hierarchy was to be headed by Granvelle as archbishop of the new archdiocese of Mechelen The reform was especially unpopular with the old church hierarchy, as the new dioceses were to be financed by the transfer of a number of rich abbeys Granvelle became the focus of the opposition against the new governmental structures and the Dutch nobles under the leadership of Orange engineered his recall in After the recall of Granvelle, Orange persuaded Margaret and the Council to ask for a moderation of the placards against heresy Philip delayed his response, and in this interval the opposition to his religious policies gained more widespread support Philip finally rejected the request for moderation in his Letters from the Segovia Woods of October In response, a group of members of the lesser nobility, among whom were Louis of Nassau, a younger brother of Orange, and the brothers John and Philip of St Aldegonde, prepared a petition for Philip that sought the abolition of the Inquisition This Compromise of Nobles was supported by about nobles, both Catholic and Protestant, and was presented to Margaret on April Impressed by the massive support for the compromise, she suspended the placards, awaiting Philip's final ruling First forty years – edit Main articles Eighty Years' War – and Dutch Revolt icon This section requires expansion April Twelve Years' Truce edit Main articles Twelve Years' Truce and Synod of Dort The cost of fortress building and the upkeep of the large standing armies put both Spain and the Republic under severe fiscal strain Also because of the slump in trade that was caused by the efficient trade embargo since and Spanish privateering, the Dutch regents estimated that they could not safely increase the already heavy burden of taxation The Spanish offensive from to , taking Ostend, Oldenzaal, Lochem, Lingen, Rijnberk and Groenlo, further increased the pressure In September , Oldenbarnevelt therefore urged the States of Holland to seek an accommodation with Spain This met with a surprisingly favourable reception from Spain, as Philip III and the Duke of Lerma had already resolved to concede sovereignty, if that proved inevitable to halt the war What prompted them to this concession was the inroads that the Dutch East India Company or VOC , that had been chartered by the States General in , had been making in the Portuguese empire's sphere of influence in the East Indies After all, since there had been a union of the crowns of Spain and Portugal The conquest of a number of Portuguese possessions in Ambon, Ternate and Tidore in by the VOC caused such consternation that a Spanish presence was quickly established to counterbalance Dutch gains Philip wanted this stopped, and Oldenbarnevelt seemed initially amenable to suggestions that the VOC be suppressed and another project to charter a similar Dutch company for the Americas be aborted On instructions from Madrid, therefore the Archdukes secretly declared in March that they were willing to negotiate a peace with the States General, as representatives of free lands over which they made no claim A ceasefire in the Netherlands was signed in April However, the negotiations were almost aborted immediately when it was discovered that the Dutch had made no concessions in writing in the armistice agreement, and it therefore appeared that Spain had conceded a major point without obtaining anything in return, which was seen as a major humiliation for the Crown About the same time the news was received of a major defeat a Dutch fleet under admiral Jacob van Heemskerk had dealt the Spanish navy in the Battle of Gibraltar of April The Spanish indignation grew even more, when it transpired that Oldenbarnevelt's verbal undertakings to suppress the VOC proved worthless, as he simply could not deliver on such a promise in view of the political situation in the Republic This apparent deception put paid to the prospects of a permanent peace, so the only feasible outcome of the negotiations might be a truce of limited duration Oldenbarnevelt's peace initiatives met with stringent opposition from Maurice, Amsterdam, and Zeeland for different reasons Zeeland, for instance, was making good money in the trade with the enemy across the blockaded Scheldt, and stood to lose from a truce during which trade relations would be normalised The opposition engaged in a lively pamphlet war to influence public opinion, but Oldenbarnevelt managed to persuade the Holland regents He pointed out that a truce would lessen the fiscal pressures help revive Dutch commerce with the Iberian Peninsula, which had by default fallen almost exclusively into English hands, after the peace James I of England concluded in with Spain and free the hands of the Dutch elsewhere in Europe as in the Sound where Denmark at the time was hindering the Dutch Baltic trade to defend their commercial interests by force if necessary He argued also that the loss of trade with the Indies would be outweighed by the positive effects on European trade of a lifting of the embargoes Spain now offered a truce with a duration of twelve years, provided the Republic would grant freedom of worship for Catholics Again, Oldenbarnevelt had to refuse this concession as the political situation in the Republic made that impossible He was able to offer a short truce until in the Indies, and the suppression of the proposed Dutch West India Company for the time being Philip grudgingly accepted and the Truce was signed at Antwerp on April , marking the official recognition by Spain of the Republic as a diplomatic entity as if it were a sovereign state The Dutch Revolt had officially ended The immediate result for the Republic was that it was now also officially recognised by other European states as a sovereign nation In France and England received Dutch resident ambassadors, and soon after diplomatic relations were opened with the Republic of Venice, the Sultan of Morocco, and the Ottoman Porte Diplomatic recognition also enabled the Republic to start building a network of consulates across Europe But the Republic felt free in its relations with other European powers, as when it forced James I to back down in a conflict over English unfinished cloth in with an economic boycott The Truce also had negative effects Dutch long distance trade to the Indies and the Americas suffered, because the Spanish and Portuguese colonialists were given a respite to improve their defences overseas The official embargo on trade with the Americas had ended, but the colonists now imposed their own unofficial one, limiting Dutch trade with Caracas and the Amazon region Temporary setbacks in the Indies caused the price of VOC shares on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange to fall from a high of in to after the Truce started The Zeeland transit traffic to the Southern Netherlands declined sharply On the other hand, the lifting of the Dutch blockade of Antwerp and the Flemish coast helped revive the trade in Flemish textile products, just as the Flemish textile industry experienced a revival itself This worked to the detriment of the recently booming Dutch textile industry Wages of predominantly former Flemish textile workers in cities like Leiden plummeted as a result The political unrest this economic downturn caused, helped aggravate the political crisis that the Oldenbarnevelt regime faced during the latter part of the Truce This crisis followed from dissension about the religious policy of the Holland regents, but became conflated with the monarchical aspirations of the stadtholders, especially Maurice Everybody in Dutch Calvinist circles of whatever hue agreed that the True Religion should be supported by the State Local authorities therefore paid for the upkeep of the churches of the Dutch Reformed Church, the only officially recognised religion since the States of Holland had prohibited other kinds of worship in , and for the Livings of its preachers and schoolmasters This meant that the church was a Public Church In a theological quarrel developed between two Leiden professors, Jacobus Arminius and Franciscus Gomarus The result of


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lise-pinson little-oral-annie liza-dwyer liza-harper lizzy-borden logan-labrent lois-ayres lola-cait long-jean-silver loni-bunny loni-sanders loona-luxx lorelei-lee lorelei-rand lorena-sanchez lori-alexia lori-blue lorrie-lovett luci-diamond lucie-doll lucie-theodorova lucy-van-dam lydia-baum lynn-franciss lynn-lemay lynn-ray lynn-stevens lynx-canon lysa-thatcher madelina-ray madison-parker magdalena-lynn maggie-randall mai-lin mandi-wine mandy-bright mandy-malone mandy-may mandy-mistery mandy-starr marcia-minor maren margit-ojetz margitta-hofer margo-stevens margot-mahler mariah-cherry marianne-aubert maria-tortuga marie-anne marie-christine-chireix marie-christine-veroda marie-claude-moreau marie-dominique-cabannes marie-france-morel marie-luise-lusewitz marie-sharp marilyn-chambers marilyne-leroy marilyn-gee marilyn-jess marilyn-martyn marilyn-star marina-hedman marion-webb marita-ekberg marita-kemper marlena marlene-willoughby marry-queen martine-grimaud martine-schultz maryanne-fisher mary-hubay mary-ramunno mary-stuart mascha-mouton maud-kennedy mauvais-denoir maxine-tyler maya-black maya-france megan-leigh megan-martinez megan-reece mei-ling melanie-hotlips melanie-scott melba-cruz melinda-russell melissa-bonsardo melissa-del-prado melissa-golden melissa-martinez melissa-melendez melissa-monet mercedes-dragon mercedes-lynn merle-michaels mesha-lynn mia-beck mia-lina mia-smiles michele-raven michelle-aston michelle-ferrari michelle-greco michelle-maren michelle-maylene michelle-monroe micki-lynn mika-barthel mika-tan mikki-taylor mimi-morgan mindy-rae ming-toy miranda-stevens miss-bunny miss-meadow miss-pomodoro missy missy-graham missy-stone missy-vega misti-jane mistress-candice misty-anderson misty-dawn misty-rain misty-regan mona-lisa mona-page moni monica-baal monica-swinn monika-peta monika-sandmayr monika-unco monique-bruno monique-cardin monique-charell monique-demoan monique-gabrielle monique-la-belle morgan-fairlane morrigan-hel moxxie-maddron mulani-rivera mysti-may nadege-arnaud nadia-styles nadine-bronx nadine-proutnal nadine-roussial nadi-phuket nanci-suiter nancy-hoffman nancy-vee natacha-delyro natalia-wood natalli-diangelo natascha-throat natasha-skyler naudia-nyce nessa-devil nessy-grant nesty nicki-hunter nicky-reed nicole-berg nicole-bernard nicole-black nicole-grey nicole-london nicole-parks nicole-scott nicole-taylor nicolette-fauludi nicole-west nika-blond nika-mamic niki-cole nikita-love nikita-rush nikki-charm nikki-grand nikki-king nikki-knight nikki-randall nikki-rhodes nikki-santana nikki-steele nikki-wilde niko nina-cherry nina-deponca nina-hartley nina-preta oana-efria obaya-roberts olesja-derevko olga-cabaeva olga-conti olga-pechova olga-petrova olivia-alize olivia-del-rio olivia-flores olivia-la-roche olivia-outre ophelia-tozzi orchidea-keresztes orsolya-blonde paige-turner paisley-hunter pamela-bocchi pamela-jennings pamela-mann pamela-stanford pamela-stealt pandora paola-albini pascale-vital pat-manning pat-rhea patricia-dale patricia-diamond patricia-kennedy patricia-rhomberg patrizia-predan patti-cakes patti-petite paula-brasile paula-harlow paula-morton paula-price paula-winters pauline-teutscher penelope-pumpkins penelope-valentin petra-hermanova petra-lamas peyton-lafferty phaedra-grant pia-snow piper-fawn pipi-anderson porsche-lynn porsha-carrera precious-silver priscillia-lenn purple-passion queeny-love rachel-ashley rachel-love rachel-luv rachel-roxxx rachel-ryan rachel-ryder racquel-darrian rane-revere raven reagan-maddux rebecca-bardoux regan-anthony regine-bardot regula-mertens reina-leone reka-gabor renae-cruz renee-foxx renee-lovins renee-morgan renee-perez renee-summers renee-tiffany rhonda-jo-petty rikki-blake riley-ray rio-mariah rita-ricardo roberta-gemma roberta-pedon robin-byrd robin-cannes robin-everett robin-sane rochell-starr rosa-lee-kimball rosemarie roxanne-blaze roxanne-hall roxanne-rollan ruby-richards sabina-k sabre sabrina-chimaera sabrina-dawn sabrina-jade sabrina-johnson sabrina-love-cox sabrina-mastrolorenzi sabrina-rose sabrina-scott sabrina-summers sacha-davril sahara sahara-sands sai-tai-tiger samantha-fox samantha-ryan samantha-sterlyng samantha-strong samueline-de-la-rosa sandra-cardinale sandra-de-marco sandra-kalermen sandra-russo sandy-lee sandy-pinney sandy-reed sandy-samuel sandy-style sandy-summers sara-brandy-canyon sara-faye sarah-bernard sarah-cabrera sarah-hevyn sarah-mills sarah-shine sara-sloane sasha sasha-hollander sasha-ligaya sasha-rose satine-phoenix satin-summer savannah-stern savanna-jane scarlet-scarleau scarlet-windsor seka selena serena serena-south severine-amoux shana-evans shanna-mccullough shannon-kelly shannon-rush shantell-day sharon-da-vale sharon-kane sharon-mitchell shaun-michelle shawna-sexton shawnee-cates shay-hendrix shayne-ryder sheena-horne sheer-delight shelby-star shelby-stevens shelly-berlin shelly-lyons sheri-st-clair sheyla-cats shonna-lynn shyla-foxxx shy-love sierra-sinn sierra-skye sigrun-theil silver-starr silvia-bella silvia-saint silvie-de-lux silvy-taylor simone-west sindee-coxx sindy-lange sindy-shy siobhan-hunter skylar-knight skylar-price skyler-dupree smokie-flame smoking-mary-jane solange-shannon sonya-summers sophia-santi sophie-call sophie-duflot sophie-evans sophie-guers stacey-donovan stacy-lords stacy-moran stacy-nichols stacy-silver stacy-thorn starla-fox starr-wood stefania-bruni stella-virgin stephanie-duvalle stephanie-rage stephanie-renee stevie-taylor summer-knight summer-rose sunny-day sunset-thomas sunshine-seiber susan-hart susanne-brend susan-nero susi-hotkiss suzanne-mcbain suzan-nielsen suzie-bartlett suzie-carina suzi-sparks sweet-nice sweety-pie sybille-rossani sylvia-benedict sylvia-bourdon sylvia-brand sylvia-engelmann syreeta-taylor syren-de-mer syvette szabina-black szilvia-lauren tai-ellis taija-rae taisa-banx talia-james tamara-lee tamara-longley tamara-n-joy tamara-west tami-white tammy tammy-lee tammy-reynolds tania-lorenzo tantala-ray tanya-danielle tanya-fox tanya-foxx tanya-lawson tanya-valis tara-aire tasha-voux tatjana-belousova tatjana-skomorokhova tawnee-lee tawny-pearl tayla-rox taylor-wane teddi-austin teddi-barrett tera-bond tera-heart tera-joy teresa-may teresa-orlowski teri-diver teri-weigel terri-dolan terri-hall tess-ferre tess-newheart thais-vieira tia-cherry tianna tiara tiffany-blake tiffany-clark tiffany-duponte tiffany-rayne tiffany-rousso tiffany-storm tiffany-towers tiffany-tyler tiger-lily tigr timea-vagvoelgyi tina-blair tina-burner tina-evil tina-gabriel tina-loren tina-marie tina-russell tish-ambrose tommi-rose tonisha-mills topsy-curvey tori-secrets tori-sinclair tori-welles tracey-adams traci-lords traci-topps traci-winn tracy-duzit tracy-love tracy-williams tricia-devereaux tricia-yen trinity-loren trisha-rey trista-post trixie-tyler ultramax ursula-gaussmann ursula-moore uschi-karnat valentina valerie-leveau valery-hilton vanessa-chase vanessa-del-rio vanessa-michaels vanessa-ozdanic vanilla-deville velvet-summers veri-knotty veronica-dol veronica-hart veronica-hill veronica-rayne veronica-sage veronika-vanoza via-paxton vicky-lindsay vicky-vicci victoria-evans victoria-gold victoria-knight victoria-luna victoria-paris victoria-slick victoria-zdrok viper virginie-caprice vivian-valentine vivien-martines wendi-white wendy-divine whitney-banks whitney-fears whitney-wonders wonder-tracey wow-nikki xanthia-berstein yasmine-fitzgerald yelena-shieffer yvonne-green zara-whites zsanett-egerhazi zuzie-boobies

the argument was that outsiders who started to take sides, and that this led to often physical abuse by, and of, the contestants The partisans of Arminius therefore addressed the Five articles of Remonstrance to the States of Holland, in which they exposited their viewpoints on Calvinist doctrine, and asked the States to take a standpoint To help the States decide a disputation between two six man teams of Arminians and Gomarists was held before the States in July , in which the Gomarists presented a Counter Remonstrance , in which they gave their arguments against the Remonstrants' doctrinal position, at the same time asking the States to back off, and leave the matter to a National Synod Unfortunately, the States did not take this sensible suggestion possibly because they suspected that such a Synod would result in the condemnation of the Remonstrants as heretics on a majority vote, a result they wanted to avoid While the States of Holland were dithering about a decision, unrest about the quarrel began to spread around the Republic, disturbing the public peace and causing political problems in that the regents began to take sides, often in favour of the Remonstrants, whereas the common people, incited by the dominees, often opted for the Counter Remonstrant viewpoint The eminent Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius, after a visit to England in an abortive effort to dissuade James I from intervening in the quarrel, came up with what he viewed as a solution In his view, a public church must of necessity be a big tent that would accommodate as many believers as possible He believed that this was the case in the Church of England that allowed all kinds of doctrinal variations under its wing, from crypto Catholics to Puritans The Dutch partisans like the Puritans , however, envisaged a church of pure believers themselves , in which there would be no place for unbelievers , like their opponents To achieve Grotius' lofty ideal it would be necessary to tone down the doctrinal differences, affording toleration of different viewpoints, except in relation to the most basic tenets of the Christian faith like belief in the Trinity that everybody would accept he therefore drew the line at Socinianism Disagreements about less basic tenets, like the ones that divided Remonstrants and Counter Remonstrants, should be left to an individual's conscience in accordance with the freedom of conscience enshrined in the Union of Utrecht Grotius knew full well that neither party was ready to concede this and he therefore proposed to legislate his proposal in the form of a States of Holland resolution that would, up to a point, curtail freedom of expression i e the freedom to hurl anathemas at ones opponents in such a way as to restore public order The resolution would define matters that would be open to debate, and matters that would not be Preachers who would defy the States in this matter could then be disciplined by the authorities, if need be by depriving them of their Livings Oldenbarnevelt supported Grotius in this policy though it could be seen as an assault on the autonomy of the Public Church and together they managed to drive the placard through in against opposition from many sides Initially, and superficially, the policy seemed to work, but eventually it ended in the ruin of the Oldenbarnevelt regime This was due to the following factors First, Oldenbarnevelt failed in maintaining unity on his policy in the States of Holland Amsterdam opposed him , and thereby weakened the hegemonic position of Holland in the Republic as a whole Secondly, though the States put their thumb in the scales in favour of the Remonstrants with this policy as those, being a minority, were in danger of being driven out of the public church , the Counter Remonstrants maintained their strength among dominees and schoolmasters, and so indirectly among the common people Finally, the social unrest as a consequence of deteriorating economic circumstances for the staunchly strict Calvinist ex Flemish labourers who opted en masse for the Counter Remonstrants destabilised the State in – Mob violence in many Holland and Utrecht cities against Remonstrant regents ensued The federal garrisons and civic militias refused to intervene to protect the regents a pattern we also observe at the end of the First and Second Stadtholderless Periods, when likewise States Party regimes were overturned The Remonstrant regents now felt so threatened that they resorted to the desperate measure of the so called Sharp Resolution of the States of Holland of August , which authorised city governments to raise mercenary troops, called waardgelders, outside the federal army or civic militias, to maintain public order This drew an immediate protest from Maurice and from the other provinces on constitutional grounds They asserted that the Union of Utrecht prohibited the raising of troops by individual cities without consent from the States General Even more threatening to the federal supremacy had been the provision in the Sharp Resolution that asserted that units in the federal army paid for the account of Holland owed their primary allegiance to that province This was a restatement of Holland's old constitutional position that the provinces were supremely sovereign, and the Union no more than a confederation of sovereign provinces Maurice, and the other provinces except Utrecht , now claimed that the States General possessed an overriding sovereignty in matters of common defence and foreign policy Disarming the waardgelders in Utrecht, July , by Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot Many expected a military coup after the cities of Leiden and Utrecht actually raised corps of waardgelders and used them to purge the civic militias of Counter Remonstrant sympathizers Maurice proceeded cautiously, however, preferring to undermine the political support of the Oldenbarnevelt regime in Holland A revolutionary situation developed in a number of cities in Holland where Remonstrant town councils were overturned by popular intervention To counter this, the Remonstrant regents proposed in January to withhold part of Holland's contribution to the Generality budget and use the money to raise more waardgelder companies Maurice now mobilised the support of the five provinces opposing Holland and Utrecht for a States General resolution disbanding the waardgelders This was voted through on July , with five votes to two, Holland and Utrecht opposing Oldenbarnevelt and Grotius, in desperation, now overplayed their hand appealing to the requirement for unanimity in the Union treaty, they sent a delegation to the federal troops in Utrecht that were supposed to disarm the waardgelders in that city with instructions that their first allegiance was to the province that paid them, and that they were to ignore instructions by the stadtholder in case of conflict This intervention was construed by their opponents as treason Prince Maurice now brought up additional federal troops to Utrecht and started to disarm the waardgelders there on July There was no resistance The political opposition to his actions imploded as Oldenbarnevelt's Utrecht ally, Gilles van Ledenberg, advocaat of the Utrecht States, fled to Holland Perceiving that resistance was useless, Oldenbarnevelt and his Remonstrant allies now capitulated Leiden disbanded its waardgelders voluntarily in August, and Oldenbarnevelt and Grotius acquiesced in the convening of a National Synod to arbitrate the Arminian controversy On August , however, the States General passed a secret resolution to authorise Maurice to arrest Oldenbarnevelt, Grotius, Ledenberg and Rombout Hogerbeets This was justified with an appeal to the asserted residual sovereignty of the States General that overrode that of the States of Holland After the arrest these leaders of the Oldenbarnevelt regime were indicted for high treason and brought before an ad hoc tribunal consisting mostly of opponents of the accused The trial took a long time Meanwhile, Maurice proceeded to purge the Holland ridderschap and the vroedschappen of a number of cities that had been governed by Remonstrant regents up to then He replaced the old regents with adherents of the Counter Remonstrant faction, often nouveau riche merchants that had little experience in government affairs These purges constituted a political revolution and ensured that his Orangist regime would be securely in charge of the Republic for the next years Henceforth the stadtholder, not the Advocate of Holland, would direct the affairs of the Republic, mainly through his parliamentary managers in the Holland ridderschap The Holland leadership was emasculated by making sure that the position of Grand Pensionary would henceforth be filled by a succession of mediocre, incompetent and pliable Orangists, at least up to the appointment of Johan de Witt in Meanwhile the National Synod was convened in the city of Dordrecht in November The deliberations of this august body progressed slowly Only in the Spring of did it get around to condemning the Remonstrants for heresy, and casting them out of the Public Church A more lasting accomplishment of the Synod was that it commissioned an authorized translation of the Bible in Dutch, a language that the translators had to make up from Hollandic, Brabantish and Flemish elements the translations therefore contributed mightily to the unification of the Dutch language The trial of Oldenbarnevelt cum suis ended soon afterwards In view of the composition of the tribunal the result was a foregone conclusion, even though the defendants put up a spirited defence After all, they were the most eminent jurists in the Republic The defence primarily rejected the competence of the court and furthermore claimed that treason against the Generality was not possible, because the federal state did not exist apart from the sovereign provinces The court rejected the latter argument, claiming that in actuality sovereignty was divided between the Generality and the provinces In its view, the Sharp Resolution contravened the Union of Utrecht and could therefore be construed as high treason However, as an illustration of the muddled procedures , when Oldenbarnevelt was convicted on May , it was not of this high treason, but of a contrived charge of conniving with Spain This Oldenbarnevelt kept denying till his last breath, when he was beheaded the next day He refused to ask for mercy, to Maurice's annoyance, and he received none, despite the fact that Maurice's stepmother Louise de Coligny, and the French ambassador pleaded for Oldenbarnevelt's life Ledenberg equally received a death sentence, but committed suicide Hogerbeets and Grotius were sentenced to life imprisonment Resumption of the war edit Dutch intervention in the early stages of the Thirty Years' War – edit Main article Thirty Years' War It is impossible to know whether the course of history would have been different without the overthrow of the Oldenbarnevelt regime and the judicial murder of the old statesman editorializing However, it is true that Oldenbarnevelt's diplomatic acumen and his restraint were sorely missed in the following months and years when the new Dutch regime became embroiled in a dangerous military adventure in the Holy Roman Empire citation needed Oldenbarnevelt had no ambition to have the Republic become the leading power of Protestant Europe, and he had shown admirable restraint when, in , the Republic had felt constrained to intervene militarily in the Jülich Cleves crisis opposite Spain Though there had been a danger of armed conflict between the Spanish and Dutch forces involved in the crisis, both sides took care to avoid each other, respecting each other's spheres of influence The new regime in The Hague felt differently, however While civil war was avoided in the Republic, a civil war did start in the Bohemian Kingdom with the Second defenestration of Prague on May The Bohemian insurgents were now pitted against their king, Ferdinand, who would soon succeed his uncle Matthias the former States General governor general of the Netherlands as Holy Roman Emperor They cast about for support in this struggle and on the Protestant side only the Republic was able and willing to provide it This took the form of support for Frederick V, Elector Palatine, a nephew of Prince Maurice and a son in law of James I, when Frederick accepted the Crown of Bohemia the insurgents offered him he was crowned on November His father in law had sought to restrain him from doing this, warning that he could not count on English aid, but Maurice encouraged him in every way, providing a large subsidy and promising Dutch armed assistance The Dutch had therefore a large role in precipitating the Thirty Years' War Maurice's motivation was the desire to manoeuvre the Republic in a better position in case the war with Spain would resume after the expiration of the Truce in It was not a foregone conclusion that the Truce would not be renewed, but it had become less likely, as both in Spain and in the Republic more hard line factions had come to power Though civil war had been avoided in the Republic, national unity had been bought with much bitterness on the losing Remonstrant side, and Maurice for the moment had to garrison several former Remonstrant dominated cities to guard against insurrection This encouraged the Spanish government, perceiving internal weakness in the Republic, to choose a bolder policy in the Bohemian question than they otherwise might have done The Bohemian war therefore soon degenerated into a proxy war between Spain and the Republic Even after the Battle of White Mountain of November , which ended disastrously for the Protestant army one eighth of which was in the Dutch pay , the Dutch continued to support Frederick militarily, both in Bohemia and in the Palatinate Maurice also provided diplomatic support, pressing both the Protestant German princes and James I to come to Frederick's aid When James sent , English troops in September , those were armed and transported by the Dutch, and their advance covered by a Dutch cavalry column Detail from a pamphlet about the Winter King In the end the Dutch intervention was in vain After just a few months, Frederick and his wife Elizabeth fled into exile at The Hague, where they became known as the Winter King and Queen for their brief reign Maurice pressed Frederick in vain to at least defend the Palatinate against the Spanish troops under Spinola and Tilly This round of the war went to Spain and the Imperial forces in Germany James held this against Maurice for his incitement of the losing side with promises that he could not keep There was continual contact between Maurice and the government in Brussels during and regarding a possible renewal of the Truce Albert was in favour of it, especially after Maurice falsely gave him the impression that a peace would be possible on the basis of a token recognition by the Republic of the sovereignty of the king of Spain When Albert sent the chancellor of Brabant, Petrus Peckius, to The Hague to negotiate with the States General on this basis, he fell into this trap and innocently started talking about this recognition, instantly alienating his hosts Nothing was as certain to unite the northern provinces as the suggestion that they should abandon their hard fought sovereignty If this incident had not come up, the negotiations might well have been successful as a number of the provinces were amenable to simply renewing the Truce on the old terms Now the formal negotiations were broken off, however, and Maurice was authorised to conduct further negotiations in secret His attempts to get a better deal met with counter demands from the new Spanish government for more substantive Dutch concessions, however The Spaniards demanded Dutch evacuation of the West and East Indies lifting of the restrictions on Antwerp's trade by way of the Scheldt and toleration of the public practice of the Catholic religion in the Republic These demands were unacceptable to Maurice and the Truce expired in April The war did not immediately resume, however Maurice continued sending secret offers to Isabella after Albert had died in July through the intermediary of the Flemish painter and diplomat Peter Paul Rubens Though the contents of these offers which amounted to a version of the concessions demanded by Spain were not known in the Republic, the fact of the secret negotiations became known, and disquieted the proponents of restarting the war, like the investors in the Dutch West India Company, that after a long delay was now finally about to be founded with as a main objective bringing the war to the Spanish Americas Opposition against the peace feelers therefore mounted, and nothing came of them The Republic under siege – edit Another reason the war did not immediately resume was that king Philip III died shortly before the Truce ended He was succeeded by his year old son Philip IV, and the new government under Gaspar de Guzmán, Count Duke of Olivares had to get settled The view in the Spanish government was that the Truce had been ruinous to Spain in an economic sense In this view the Truce had enabled the Dutch to gain very unequal advantages in the trade with the Iberian Peninsula and the Mediterranean, owing to their mercantile prowess On the other hand, the continued blockade of Antwerp had contributed to that city's steep decline in importance hence the demand for the lifting of the closing of the Scheldt The shift in the terms of trade between Spain and the Republic had resulted in a permanent trade deficit for Spain, that naturally translated itself into a drain of Spanish silver to the Republic The Truce had also given a further impetus to the Dutch penetration of the East Indies, and in a naval expedition under Joris van Spilbergen had raided the West Coast of Spanish South America Spain felt threatened by these incursions and wanted to put a stop to them Finally, the economic advantages had given the Republic the financial wherewithal to build a large navy during the Truce, and enlarge its standing army to a size where it could rival the Spanish military might This increased military power appeared to be directed principally to thwart Spain's policy objectives, as witnessed by the Dutch interventions in Germany in and , and the Dutch alliance with the enemies of Spain in the Mediterranean, like Venice and the Sultan of Morocco The three conditions Spain had set for a continuation of the Truce had been intended to remedy these disadvantages of the Truce the demand for freedom of worship for Catholics being made as a matter of principle, but also to mobilise the still sizeable Catholic minority in the Republic and so destabilise it politically Siege of Breda by Jacques Callot Despite the unfortunate impression the opening speech of chancellor Peckius had made at the negotiations about the renewal of the Truce, the objective of Spain and the regime in Brussels was not a war of reconquest of the Republic Instead the options considered in Madrid were either a limited exercise of the force of weapons, to capture a few of the strategic points the republic had recently acquired like Cleves , combined with measures of economic warfare, or reliance on economic warfare alone In the event Spain opted for the first alternative Immediately after the expiration of the Truce in April , all Dutch ships were ordered out of Spanish ports and the stringent trade embargoes of before were renewed After an interval to rebuild the strength of the Army of Flanders, Spinola opened a number of land offensives, in which he captured the fortress of Jülich garrisoned by the Dutch since in , and Steenbergen in Brabant, before laying siege to the important fortress city of Bergen op Zoom This proved a costly fiasco as Spinola's besieging army of , melted away through disease and desertion He therefore had to lift the siege after a few months The strategic import of this humiliating experience was that the Spanish government now concluded that besieging the strong Dutch fortresses was a waste of time and money and decided to henceforth solely depend on the economic warfare weapon The subsequent success of Spinola's siege of Breda did not change this decision, and Spain adopted a defensive stance militarily in the Netherlands However, the economic warfare was intensified in a way that amounted to a veritable siege of the Republic as a whole In the first place, the naval war intensified The Spanish navy harassed Dutch shipping that had to sail through the Strait of Gibraltar to Italy and the Levant, thereby forcing the Dutch to sail in convoys with naval escorts The cost of this was born by the merchants in the form of a special tax, used to finance the Dutch navy, but this increased the shipping rates the Dutch had to charge,and their maritime insurance premiums also were higher, thus making Dutch shipping less competitive Spain also increased the presence of its navy in Dutch home waters, in the form of the armada of Flanders, and the great number of privateers, the Dunkirkers, both based in the Southern Netherlands Though these Spanish naval forces were not strong enough to contest Dutch naval supremacy, Spain waged a very successful Guerre de Course, especially against the Dutch herring fisheries, despite attempts by the Dutch to blockade the Flemish coast Main article Economic history of the Netherlands – The herring trade, an important pillar of the Dutch economy, was hurt much by the other Spanish forms of economic warfare, the embargo on salt for preserving herring, and the blockade of the inland waterways to the Dutch hinterland, which were an important transportation route for Dutch transit trade The Dutch were used to procuring their salt from Portugal and the Caribbean islands Alternative salt supplies were available from France, but the French salt had a high magnesium content, which made it less suitable for herring preservation When the supplies in the Spanish sphere of influence were cut off, the Dutch economy was therefore dealt a heavy blow The salt embargo was just a part of the more general embargo on Dutch shipping and trade that Spain instituted after The bite of this embargo grew only gradually, because the Dutch at first tried to evade it by putting their trade in neutral bottoms, like the ships of the Hanseatic League and England Spanish merchants tried to evade it, as the embargo also did great harm to Spanish economic interests, even to the extent that for a time a famine threatened in Spanish Naples when the Dutch carried grain trade was cut off Realizing that the local authorities often sabotaged the embargo, the Spanish crown built up an elaborate enforcement apparatus, the Almirantazgo de los paises septentrionales Admiralty of the northern countries in to make it more effective Part of the new system was a network of inspectors in neutral ports who inspected neutral shipping for goods with a Dutch connection and supplied certificates that protected neutral shippers against confiscation in Spanish ports The English and Hanseatics were only too happy to comply, and so contributed to the effectiveness of the embargo The embargo grew to an effective direct and indirect impediment for Dutch trade, as not only the direct trade between the Amsterdam Entrepôt and the lands of the Spanish empire was affected, but also the parts of Dutch trade that indirectly depended on it Baltic grain and naval stores destined for Spain were now provided by others, depressing the Dutch trade with the Baltic area the carrying trade between Spain and Italy now shifted to English shipping etc The embargo was a double edged sword, however, as some Spanish and Portuguese export activities likewise collapsed as a consequence of the embargo such as the Valencian and Portuguese salt exports Spain was also able to physically close off these inland waterways after for Dutch river traffic The Dutch were thus also deprived of their important transit trade with the neutral Prince Bishopric of Liège then not a part of the Southern Netherlands and the German hinterland in these years Dutch butter and cheese prices collapsed as a result of this blockade and rose steeply in the affected import areas , as did wine and herring prices the Dutch monopolised the French wine trade at the time , but the steep price rises in the Spanish Netherlands, sometimes accompanied by food shortages, led to an eventual relaxation of this embargo It was eventually abandoned, because it deprived the Brussels authorities from important revenues from custom duties The economic warfare measures of Spain were effective in the sense that they depressed economic activity in the Netherlands, thereby also depressing Dutch fiscal resources to finance the war effort, but also by structurally altering European trade relations, at least until the end of the war, after which they reverted in favour of the Dutch Neutrals benefited, but both the Dutch and the Spanish areas suffered economically, though not uniformly, as some industrial areas benefited from the artificial restriction of trade, which had a protectionist effect The new draperies textile industry in Holland permanently lost terrain to its competitors in Flanders and England, though this was compensated for by a shift to more expensive high quality woollens Nevertheless, the economic pressure and the slump of trade and industry it caused was not sufficient to bring the Republic to its knees There were a number of reasons for this The chartered companies, both VOC and WIC, provided employment on a large enough scale to compensate for the slump in other forms of trade and their trade brought great revenues Supplying the armies, both in the Netherlands and in Germany, proved a boon for the agricultural areas in the Dutch inland provinces The fiscal situation of the Dutch government also improved after the death of Maurice in He had been too successful in gathering all reins of government in his own hands after his coup in He completely dominated Dutch politics and diplomacy in his first years afterwards, even monopolising the abortive peace talks before the expiration of the Truce Likewise the political Counter Remonstrants were temporarily in total control, but the downside of all this was that his government was overextended, with too few people doing the heavy lifting on the local level, which was essential to make the government machine run smoothly in the highly decentralised Dutch polity Holland's conventional role as leader of the political process was temporarily vacated, as Holland as a power center was eliminated Maurice had to do everything by himself with his small band of aristocratic managers in the States General This situation deteriorated even more, when he had to spend long periods in the field as commander in chief, during which he was unable to personally direct affairs in The Hague His health soon deteriorated, also detracting from his efficacy as a political and military leader The regime, depending on Maurice's personal qualities as a virtual dictator, therefore came under unbearable strain Not surprisingly, in the period up to his death the strategic and military position of the Republic deteriorated It had to increase the standing army to , men in , just to hold the defensive ring of fortresses, while Spain increased the Army of Flanders to , men at the same time This put a great strain on the Republic's finances at a time when tax rates were already dangerously high Yet at the same time the Republic had no other option than to sustain the imploding German Protestant forces financially For that reason the Dutch paid for the army of Count Ernst von Mansfeld that was cowering against the Dutch border in East Friesland after its defeats against the Spanish and Imperial forces it was hoped that in this way a complete encirclement of the Republic could be avoided For a while the Republic pinned its hope on Christian the Younger of Brunswick However, his Dutch financed army was crushed at Stadtlohn, near the Dutch border by the forces of the Catholic League under Tilly in August This setback necessitated a reinforcement of the Dutch IJssel line Spinola, however, failed to take advantage of the new situation, lulled into complacency by Maurice's unceasing peace feelers He was back in , however, besieging Breda, and Dutch morale slumped, despite the diplomatic success of the Treaty of Compiègne with Louis XIII of France, in which the latter agreed to support the Dutch military effort with an annual subsidy of a million guilders % of the Dutch war budget Maurice died, aged , in April , and was succeeded as Prince of Orange and captain general of the Union by his half brother Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange It took several months, however, to obtain his appointment as stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland, as it took time to agree on the terms of his commission This deprived the regime of leadership in a crucial time During this time the moderate Calvinist regents staged a return in Holland at the expense of the radical Counter Remonstrants This was an important development, as Frederick Henry, could not lean exclusively on the latter faction, but instead took a position above the parties , playing off the two factions against one another A side effect of this was that more normal political relations returned to the Republic, with Holland returning to its central political position Also, the persecution of the Remonstrants now abated with the Prince's connivance, and with this renewed climate of tolerance, political stability in the Republic also improved This improvement in internal affairs helped the Republic overcome the difficult years of the sharpest economic warfare phase During the lull in the military pressure by Spain after the fall of Breda in the Republic was able to steadily increase its standing army, owing to its improved financial situation This enabled the new stadtholder of Friesland and Groningen, Ernst Casimir, to recapture Oldenzaal, forcing the Spanish troops to evacuate Overijssel Diplomatically, the situation improved once England entered the war in as an ally Frederick Henry cleared the Spaniards from eastern Gelderland in after recapturing Grol The Dutch victory in the Battle in the Bay of Matanzas in , in which a Spanish treasure fleet was captured by Piet Pieterszoon Hein, contributed even more to the improving fiscal situation, at the same time depriving Spain of much needed money However, the greatest contribution to the relative improvement of the Dutch position in was made by the fact that Spain overextended itself again, when it participated in the War of the Mantuan Succession This caused such a depletion of Spanish troops and financial resources in the theatre of war in the Netherlands, that the Republic for the time being achieved a strategic superiority the Army of Flanders declined to , men while the States Army reached , in The Republic sallies forth – edit Meanwhile, the Imperial forces had surged in Germany after the initial setback from the intervention of Christian IV of Denmark in the war in Both the Danes and Mansfelt were defeated in and the Catholic League occupied the northern German lands that had hitherto acted as a buffer zone for the Republic For a while an invasion of the eastern part of the Republic seemed imminent in However, the relative might of Spain, the main player up to now in the German civil war, was ebbing fast By April the States Army counted , soldiers, half as much again as the Army of Flanders at that point in time This allowed Frederick Henry to raise a mobile army of , the other troops were used in the fixed garrisons of the Republic and invest 's Hertogenbosch During the siege of this strategic fortress city the imperialist and Spanish allies launched a diversionary attack from Germany's IJssel line After crossing this river, they invaded the Dutch heartland, getting as far as the city of Amersfoort, which promptly surrendered The States General, however, mobilised civic militias and scrounged garrison troops from fortresses all around the country, assembling an army that at the height of the emergency numbered no less than , troops This enabled Frederick Henry to maintain his siege of 's Hertogenbosch When Dutch troops surprised the Spanish fortress of Wesel, which acted as the principal Spanish supply base, this forced the invaders to retreat to the IJssel 's Hertogenbosch surrendered in September to Frederick Henry Frederick Henry and Ernst Casimir at the siege of 'sHertogenbosch by Pauwels van Hillegaert The loss of Wesel and 's Hertogenbosch a city that had been fortified according to the most modern standards, often incorporating Dutch innovations in fortification , in short succession, caused a sensation in Europe It demonstrated that the Dutch, for the moment, enjoyed strategic superiority 's Hertogenbosch was the linchpin of the ring of Spanish fortifications in Brabant its loss left a gaping hole in the Spanish front Thoroughly shaken, Philip IV now overruled Olivares and offered an unconditional truce The States General refused to consider this offer, until the Imperial forces had left Dutch territory Only after this had been accomplished they remitted the Spanish offer to the States of the provinces for consideration The popular debate that followed split the provinces Friesland, Groningen and Zeeland, predictably, rejected the proposal Frederick Henry appears to have favoured it personally, but he was hampered by the political divisions in the province of Holland where radical Counter Remonstrants and moderates were unable to agree The Counter Remonstrants urged in guarded terms a final eradication of Remonstrant tendencies in the Republic thus establishing internal unity before a truce could even be considered The radical Calvinist preachers urged a liberation of more of the Spanish Netherlands Shareholders in the WIC dreaded the prospect of a truce in the Americas, which would thwart the plans of that company to stage an invasion of Portuguese Brazil The peace party and the war party in the States of Holland therefore perfectly balanced each other and deadlock ensued Nothing was decided during and To break the deadlock in the States of Holland, Frederick Henry planned a sensational offensive in He intended to invade Flanders, and make a deep thrust toward Dunkirk, like his brother had done in His expedition was even larger He embarked , men and field guns on , rivercaft for his amphibious descent on IJzendijke From there he penetrated to the Bruges Ghent canal that the Brussels government had dug to circumvent the Dutch blockade of the coastal waters Unfortunately, at this stage a sizeable Spanish force appeared in his rear and this caused a row with panicky deputies in the field that, as usual, were micro managing the campaign for the States General The civilians prevailed, and a very angry Frederick Henry had to order an ignominious retreat of the Dutch invading force Finally, in , Frederick Henry was allowed to deliver his death blow The initial move in his offensive was to have a reluctant States General publish over the objections of the radical Calvinists a proclamation promising that the free exercise of the Catholic religion would be guaranteed in places that the Dutch army would conquer that year The inhabitants of the Southern Netherlands were invited to throw off the yoke of the Spaniards This piece of propaganda would prove to be very effective Frederick Henry now invaded the Meuse valley with , troops He took Venlo, Roermond and Sittard in short order As promised, the Catholic churches and clergy were left unmolested Then, on June, he laid siege to Maastricht A desperate effort of Spanish and Imperialist forces to relieve the city failed and on August , Frederick Henry sprang his mines, breaching the walls of the city It capitulated three days later Here also, the Catholic religion was allowed to remain The infanta Isabella was now forced to convene the southern States General for the first time since her inauguration in They met in September as it turned out for the last time under Spanish rule Most southern provinces advocated immediate peace talks with the Republic so as to preserve the integrity of the South and the free exercise of the Catholic religion A southern States General delegation met the northern States General, represented by its deputies in the field in Maastricht The southern delegates offered to negotiate on the strength of the authorisation given in by Philip IV However, Philip and Olivares secretly cancelled this authorisation, as they considered the initiative of the southern States General an usurpation of royal power They never intended to honour any agreement that might ensue On the Dutch side, there was the usual disunity Frederick Henry hoped to achieve a quick result, but Friesland, Groningen and Zeeland opposed the talks outright, while divided Holland dithered Eventually, those four provinces authorised talks with only the southern provinces, leaving Spain out Evidently, such an approach would make the resulting agreement worthless, as only Spain possessed any troops The peace party in the Republic finally brought about meaningful negotiations in December , when valuable time had already been lost, enabling Spain to send reinforcements Both sides presented demands that were unreconcilable at first, but after much palaver the southern demands were reduced to the evacuation of Portuguese Brazil which had been invaded by the WIC in by the Dutch In return, they offered Breda and an indemnity for the WIC for giving up Brazil The Dutch over the opposition of the war party that considered the demands too lenient reduced its demands to Breda, Geldern, and the Meierij area around 's Hertogenbosch, in addition to tariff concessions in the South Furthermore, as they realised that Spain would never concede Brazil, they proposed to limit the peace to Europe, continuing the war overseas By June the talks were on the verge of collapse A shift in Dutch politics now ensued, which would prove fateful for the Republic Frederick Henry, sensing that the talks were going nowhere, proposed to put an ultimatum to the other side to accept the Dutch demands However, he now lost the support of the peace party in Holland, led by Amsterdam These regents wanted to offer further concessions to gain peace The peace party gained the upper hand in Holland, for the first time since standing up to the stadtholder and the Counter Remonstrants Frederick Henry, however, managed to gain the support of the majority of the other provinces and those voted on December overruling Holland and Overijssel to break off the talks Franco Dutch Alliance – edit While the peace negotiations had been dragging on, events elsewhere in Europe of course had not stood still While Spain was busy fighting the Mantuan war, the Swedes had intervened in the Thirty Years' War in Germany under Gustavus Adolphus in , supported by French and Dutch subsidies The Swedes used the new Dutch infantry tactics enhanced with improved cavalry tactics with much more success against the Imperialist forces than the German Protestants had done and so gained a number of important successes, turning the tide in the war However, once Spain had her hands free again after the end of the war in Italy in , she was able to bring her forces in the northern theatre of war up to strength again The Cardinal Infante brought a strong army up, by way of the Spanish Road, and at the Battle of Nördlingen this army, combined with Imperialist forces, using the traditional Spanish tercio tactics, decisively defeated the Swedes He then marched immediately on Brussels, where he succeeded the old Infanta Isabella who had died in December Spain's strength in the Southern Netherlands was now appreciably enhanced citation needed The naval battle against the Spanish near Dunkerque, February The Dutch, now no longer any prospect of peace with Spain, and faced with a resurgent Spanish force, decided to take the French overtures for an offensive alliance against Spain more seriously This change in strategic policy was accompanied by a political sea change within the Republic The peace party around Amsterdam objected to the clause in the proposed treaty with France that bound the Republic's hands by prohibiting the conclusion of a separate peace with Spain This would shackle the Republic to French policies and so constrain its independence The resistance to the French alliance by the moderate regents caused a rupture in the relations with the stadtholder Henceforth Frederick Henry would be much more closely aligned with the radical Counter Remonstrants who supported the alliance This political shift promoted the concentration of power and influence in the Republic in the hands of a small group of the stadtholder's favourites These were the members of the several secrete besognes secret committees to which the States General more and more entrusted the conduct of diplomatic and military affairs Unfortunately, this shift to secret policy making by a few trusted courtiers also opened the way for foreign diplomats to influence policy making with bribes Some members of the inner circle performed prodigies of corruption For instance, Cornelis Musch, the griffier clerk of the States General received , livres for his services in pushing the French treaty through from Cardinal Richelieu, while the pliable Grand Pensionary Jacob Cats who had succeeded Adriaan Pauw, the leader of the opposition against the alliance , received , livres The Treaty of Alliance that was signed in Paris in February , committed the Republic to invade the Spanish Netherlands simultaneously with France in The treaty previewed a partitioning of that country between the two invaders If the inhabitants would rise against Spain, the Southern Netherlands would be afforded independence on the model of the Cantons of Switzerland, however with the Flemish seacoast, Namur and Thionville annexed by France, and Breda, Geldern and Hulst going to the Republic If the inhabitants resisted, the country would be partitioned outright, with the Francophone provinces and western Flanders going to France, and the remainder to the Republic The latter partitioning opened the prospect that Antwerp would be re united with the Republic, and the Scheldt reopened for trade on that city, something Amsterdam was very much opposed to The treaty also provided that the Catholic religion would be preserved in its entirety in the provinces to be apportioned to the Republic This provision was understandable from the French point of view, as the French government had recently suppressed the Huguenots in their strongpoint of La Rochelle with support of the Republic , and generally was reducing Protestant privileges It enraged the radical Calvinists in the Republic, however The treaty was not popular in the Republic for those reasons Siege of the Schenkenschans by Gerrit van Santen Dividing up the Spanish Netherlands proved more difficult than foreseen, however Olivares had drawn up a strategy for this two front war, that proved very effective Spain went on the defensive against the French forces that invaded in May and successfully held them at bay The Cardinal Infante brought his full offensive forces to bear on the Dutch, however, in hopes of knocking them out of the war in an early stage, after which France would soon come to terms herself, it was hoped The Army of Flanders now again numbered , men, at least at parity with the Dutch forces Once the force of the double invasion by

France and the Republic had been broken, these troops emerged from their fortresses and attacked the recently conquered Dutch areas in a pincer movement In July Spanish troops from Geldern captured the strategically essential fortress of the Schenkenschans This was situated on an island in the Rhine near Cleves and dominated the back door into the Dutch heartland along the north bank of the river Rhine Cleves itself was soon captured by a combined Imperialist Spanish force and Spanish forces overran the Meierij The Republic could not let the capture of the Schenkenschans stand Frederick Henry therefore concentrated a huge force to besiege the fortress even during the winter months of Spain held tenaciously on to the fortress and its strategic corridor through Cleves She hoped that the pressure on this strategic point, and the threat of unhindered invasion of Gelderland and Utrecht, would force the Republic to give in The planned Spanish invasion never materialised, however, as the stadtholder forced the surrender of the Spanish garrison in Schenkenschans in April This was a severe blow for Spain The next year, thanks to the fact that the Cardinal Infante shifted the focus of his campaign to the French border in that year, Frederick Henry managed to recapture Breda with a relatively small force, at the successful fourth Siege of Breda, July– October This operation, which engaged his forces for a full season, was to be his last success for a long time, as the peace party in the Republic, over his objections, managed to cut war expenditure and shrink the size of the Dutch army These economies were pushed through despite the fact that the economic situation in the Republic had improved appreciably in the s, following the economic slump of the s caused by the Spanish embargoes The Spanish river blockade had ended in The end of the Polish–Swedish War in ended the disruption of Dutch Baltic trade The outbreak of the Franco Spanish War closed the alternate trade route through France for Flemish exports, forcing the South to pay the heavy Dutch wartime tariffs Increased German demand for foodstuffs and military supplies as a consequence of military developments in that country, contributed to the economic boom in the Republic, as did successes of the VOC in the Indies and the WIC in the Americas where the WIC had gained a foothold in Portuguese Brazil after its invasion, and now conducted a thriving sugar trade The boom generated much income and savings, but there were few investment possibilities in trade, due to the persisting Spanish trade embargoes As a consequence, the Republic experienced a number of speculative bubbles in housing, land the lakes in North Holland were drained during this period and, notoriously, tulips Despite this economic upswing, which translated into increased fiscal revenues, the Dutch regents showed little enthusiasm for maintaining the high level of military expenditures of the middle s The échec of the Battle of Kallo of June did little to get more support for Frederick Henry's campaigns in the next few years These proved unsuccessful his colleague in arms Hendrik Casimir, the Frisian stadtholder died in battle during the unsuccessful siege of Hulst in However, the Republic gained great victories at other locations The war with France had closed the Spanish Road for Spain, making it difficult to bring up reinforcements from Italy Olivares therefore decided to send , troops by sea from Spain in a large armada This fleet was destroyed by the Dutch navy under Maarten Tromp and Witte Corneliszoon de With in the Battle of the Downs of October This left little doubt that the Republic now possessed the strongest navy in the world, also because the Royal Navy was forced to stand by impotently while the battle raged in English territorial waters Endgame – edit Johan Maurits van Nassau Siegen by Jan de Baen In Asia and the Americas, the war had gone well for the Dutch Those parts of the war were mainly fought by proxies, especially the Dutch West and East India companies These companies, under charter from the Republic, possessed quasi sovereign powers, including the power to make war and conclude treaties on behalf of the Republic After the invasion of Portuguese Brazil by a WIC amphibious force in , the extent of New Holland, as the colony was called, grew gradually, especially under its governor general Johan Maurits of Nassau Siegen, in the period – It stretched from the Amazon river to Fort Maurits on the São Francisco River Soon a large number of sugar plantations flourished in this area, enabling the company to dominate the European sugar trade The colony was the base for conquests of Portuguese possessions in Africa also due to the peculiarities of the trade winds that make it convenient to sail to Africa from Brazil in the Southern Hemisphere Beginning in with the conquest of Portuguese Elmina Castle, the WIC gained control of the Gulf of Guinea area on the African coast, and with it of the hub of the slave trade to the Americas In , a WIC expedition sent from Brazil under command of Cornelis Jol conquered Portuguese Angola The Spanish island of Curaçao with important salt production was conquered in , followed by a number of other Caribbean islands The WIC empire in Brazil started to unravel, however, when the Portuguese colonists in its territory started a spontaneous insurrection in By that time the official war with Portugal was over, as Portugal itself had risen against the Spanish crown in December The Republic soon concluded a ten year truce with Portugal, but this was limited to Europe The overseas war was not affected by it By the end of the WIC had effectively lost control of north east Brazil There would be temporary reversals after , when the Republic sent a naval expedition, but by then the Eighty Years' War was over In the Far East the VOC captured three of the six main Portuguese strongholds in Portuguese Ceylon in the period – , in alliance with the king of Kandy In Portuguese Malacca was conquered Again, the main conquests of Portuguese territory would follow after the end of the war The results of the VOC in the war against the Spanish possessions in the Far East were less impressive The battles of Playa Honda in the Philippines in , and resulted in defeats for the Dutch An expedition in under Maarten Gerritsz de Vries equally ended in a number of defeats in the Battle of Puerto de Cavite and the Battles of La Naval de Manila However, these expeditions were primarily intended to harass Spanish commerce with China and capture the annual Manila galleon, not as is often assumed to invade and conquer the Philippines The revolts in Portugal and Catalonia, both in , weakened Spain's position appreciably Henceforth there would be increasing attempts by Spain to commence peace negotiations These were initially rebuffed by the stadtholder, who did not wish to endanger the alliance with France Cornelis Musch, as griffier of the States General, intercepted all correspondence the Brussels government attempted to send to the States on the subject and was lavishly compensated for these efforts by the French Frederick Henry also had an internal political motive to deflect the peace feelers, though The regime, as it had been founded by Maurice after his coup in , depended on the emasculation of Holland as a power center As long as Holland was divided the stadtholder reigned supreme Frederick Henry also depended for his supremacy on a divided Holland At first up to he therefore supported the weaker moderates against the Counter Remonstants in the States of Holland When the moderates gained the upper hand after , he shifted his stance to support of the Counter Remonstrants and the war party This policy of divide and conquer enabled him to achieve a monarchical position in all but name in the Republic He even strengthened it, when after the death of Hendrik Casimir, he deprived the latter's son William Frederick, Prince of Nassau Dietz of the stadtholderates of Groningen and Drenthe in an unseemly intrigue William Frederick only received the stadtholderate of Friesland and Frederick Henry after was stadtholder in the other six provinces But this position was only secure as long as Holland remained divided And after the opposition to the war more and more united Holland The reason, as often in the Republic's history was money the Holland regents were less and less inclined, in view of the diminished threat from Spain, to finance the huge military establishment the stadtholder had built up after Especially as this large army brought disappointing results anyway in only Gennep was captured The next year Amsterdam succeeded in getting a cutback of the army from over , to , accepted over the stadtholder's objections The Holland regents continued their attempts at whittling down the stadtholder's influence by breaking up the system of secrete besognes in the States General This helped wrest influence from the stadtholder's favourites, who dominated these committees It was an important development in the context of the general peace negotiations which the main participants in the Thirty Years' War France, Sweden, Spain, the Emperor and the Republic started in in Münster and Osnabrück The drafting of the instructions for the Dutch delegation occasioned spirited debate and Holland made sure that she was not barred from their formulation The Dutch demands that were eventually agreed upon were cession by Spain of the entire Meierij district recognition of Dutch conquests in the Indies both East and West permanent closure of the Scheldt to Antwerp commerce tariff concessions in the Flemish ports and lifting of the Spanish trade embargoes While the peace negotiations were progressing at a snail's pace, Frederick Henry managed a last few military successes in he captured Sas van Gent and Hulst in what was to become States Flanders In , however, Holland, sick of the feet dragging in the peace negotiations, refused to approve the annual war budget, unless progress was made in the negotiations Frederick Henry now gave in and began to promote the peace progress, instead of frustrating it Still, there was so much opposition from other quarters the partisans of France in the States General, Zeeland, Frederick Henry's son William that the peace could not be concluded before Frederick Henry's death on March The Peace of Münster edit Main article Peace of Münster The negotiations between Spain and the Republic formally started in January as part of the more general peace negotiations between the warring parties in the Thirty Years' War The States General sent eight delegates from several of the provinces as none trusted the others to represent them adequately They were Willem van Ripperda Overijssel , Frans van Donia Friesland , Adriaen Clant tot Stedum Groningen , Adriaen Pauw and Jan van Mathenesse Holland , Barthold van Gent Gelderland , Johan de Knuyt Zeeland , and Godert van Reede Utrecht The Spanish delegation was led by Gaspar de Bracamonte, rd Count of Peñaranda The negotiations were held in what is now the Haus der Niederlande in Münster The Dutch and Spanish delegations soon reached an agreement, that was based on the text of the Twelve Years' Truce It therefore confirmed Spain's recognition of Dutch independence The Dutch demands closure of the Scheldt, cession of the Meierij, formal cession of Dutch conquests in the Indies and Americas, and lifting of the Spanish embargoes were generally met However, the general negotiations between the main parties dragged on, because France kept formulating new demands Eventually it was decided therefore to split off the peace between the Republic and Spain from the general peace negotiations This enabled the two parties to conclude what technically was a separate peace to the annoyance of France that maintained that this contravened the alliance treaty of with the Republic Swearing of the Peace of Münster by Gerard ter Borch The text in articles of the Treaty was fixed on January It was then sent to the principals king Philip IV of Spain and the States General for ratification Five provinces voted against the advice of stadtholder William to ratify on April Zeeland and Utrecht being opposed Utrecht finally yielded to pressure by the other provinces but Zeeland held out and refused to sign It was eventually decided to ratify the peace without Zeeland's consent The delegates to the peace conference affirmed the peace on oath on May though the delegate of Zeeland refused to attend, and the delegate of Utrecht suffered a possibly diplomatic illness In the broader context of the treaties between France and the Holy Roman Empire, and Sweden and the Holy Roman Empire of and October , which comprise the Peace of Westphalia, but which were not signed by the Republic, the Republic now also gained formal independence from the Holy Roman Empire, just like the Swiss Cantons In both cases this was just a formalisation of a situation that had already existed for a long time France and Spain did not conclude a treaty and so remained at war until the peace of the Pyrenees of The peace was celebrated in the Republic with sumptuous festivities It was solemny promulgated on the th anniversary of the execution of the Counts of Egmont and Horne on June Aftermath edit New border between North and South edit Map of the Netherlands c by Cornelis de Jode The Dutch Republic made some limited territorial gains in the Spanish Netherlands but did not succeed in regaining the entire territory lost before The end result of the war therefore was a permanent split of the Habsburg Netherlands into two parts the territory of the Republic roughly corresponds with present day Netherlands and the Spanish Netherlands corresponds approximately with present day Belgium, Luxembourg and Nord Pas de Calais Overseas, the Dutch Republic gained, through the intermediary of its two chartered companies, the United East India Company and the Dutch West India Company, important colonial possessions, largely at the expense of Portugal The peace settlement was part of the comprehensive Peace of Westphalia, which formally separated the Dutch Republic from the Holy Roman Empire In the course of the conflict, and as a consequence of its fiscal military innovations, the Dutch Republic emerged as a Great Power, whereas the Spanish Empire lost its European hegemonic status Political situation edit Part of a series on the History of the Netherlands Coat of arms of the Netherlands Early show Medieval show Republic show Habsburg Netherlands is the collective name of Holy Roman Empire fiefs in the Low Countries held by the House of Habsburg and later by the Spanish Empire, also known as the Spanish Netherlands The rule began in , when after the death of the Valois Burgundy duke Charles the Bold the Burgundian Netherlands fell to the Habsburg dynasty by the marriage of Charles's daughter Mary of Burgundy to Archduke Maximilian I of Austria Then known as Seventeen Provinces, they were held by the Spanish Empire from , and are therefore also known as the Spanish Netherlands from that time on In , the Seven United Provinces seceded to form the Dutch Republic the remaining Spanish Southern Netherlands eventually passed on to Habsburg Austria Finally the Austrian Netherlands were annexed by the French First Republic in Contents hide Geography History Rulers See also Spanish Empire From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For the use of the imperial title in medieval Spain, see Imperator totius Hispaniae Imperio español Spanish Empire Flag The areas of the world that at one time were territories of the Spanish Monarchy or Empire The areas of the world that at one time were territories of the Spanish Monarchy or Empire Portuguese Empire during the Iberian Union – Territories held before the Treaties of Utrecht–Baden – Territories held before the Spanish American wars of independence – Territories held before the Spanish–American War – Territories granted independence during the Decolonisation of Africa – Current territories administered by Spain The Spanish Empire Spanish Imperio español was one of the largest empires in world history and one of the first of global extent It reached the peak of its military, political and economic power under the Spanish Habsburgs through the th and th centuries, and its greatest territorial extent under the Bourbons in the th century when it was the largest empire in the world The Spanish Empire became the foremost global power of its time, and was the first to be called the empire on which the sun never sets The empire, administered from Madrid by the Spanish Crown, comprised territories and colonies in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania It originated during the Age of Exploration after the voyages of Christopher Columbus and lasted until the late th century Spain's territorial reach beyond Europe included the Greater Antilles, half of South America, most of Central America and much of North America including present day Mexico, Florida and the Southwestern and Pacific Coastal regions of the United States , as well as a number of Pacific Ocean archipelagos including the Philippines The bulk of Spain's Empire was held for over three centuries, starting in with the Spanish colonization of the Americas and lasting until the early th century Spanish American wars of independence that left only Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines as Spanish Following the Spanish–American War of , Spain ceded its last colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific to the United States Its last African colonies were granted independence in In conjunction with the territories of the Portuguese Empire, which Spain controlled from to , the Spanish Empire started the European dominance in global affairs The Spanish Empire has left a huge cultural, urban and architectural legacy in the Western Hemisphere Hundreds of towns and cities in the Americas were founded during the Spanish period The tangible heritage includes forts, churches, schools, hospitals, government buildings and colonial residences, many of which still stand today Many present day roads, canals, ports or bridges sit where Spanish engineers built them centuries ago The oldest universities in the Americas were founded by Spanish scholars and Catholic missionaries The Spanish Empire also left a vast cultural and linguistic legacy With over million native speakers today, Spanish is the second most spoken native language in the world, as result of the introduction of the language of Castile—Castilian, Castellano —from Iberia to Spanish America, later expanded by the governments of the independent republics Other cultural legacies of the Spanish empire overseas was Roman Catholicism, which remains today the main religion in Spanish America The cultural legacy is also present in the music, architecture, cuisine and fashion of much of Spanish America Contents hide Definition Origins Canary Islands Treaty of Alcáçovas and the first colonial war Treaty of Tordesillas Struggles for Italy Papal Bulls and the Indies First settlements in the Americas and Crown control Campaigns in Africa The Spanish Habsburgs The Sun Never Sets – Spanish intervention in Europe Struggles of Charles V for Italy Religious conflicts in the Holy Empire Defeat of France European conflicts at the time of Philip II