Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/90

78 78 HOLLAND [HISTORY. Battle of Nieuport Siege of Ostend. Spanish Netherlands, brought their skill and industry into the north, which soon became as famous for its manu facturing excellence as for its energy in commerce. It was at this period that, just when the southern cities were languishing and losing ground, the northern burgher life made vigorous growth, and prepared the way for that supremacy of town aristocracy which characterized the history of Holland in the following century. The year 1590 opened well for the United Provinces: Utrecht joined its fortunes with those of Holland and Zealand ; Guelderland and Overyssel made William Louis of Nassau their stadtholder, so strengthening the power of the family; and Breda was recovered by a daring stratagem. The duke of Parma also, with failing health, was called away to oppose the victorious progress of Henry IV. in northern France. In 1591 Prince Maurice sti.l further strengthened himself by taking Zutphen, Deventer, Hulst, and eventually Nime^uen, which secured for him the com plete submission of Guelderland. Parma was unable to oppose him effectually, for his troops were again mutinous ; he was also once more called off into France. The reputa tion of Prince Maurice rose now to its highest point : the greatest captain in Europe seemed unable to cope with him, and the vigorous help of Barneveldt still secured him firm support at home. In 1593 he took Geertruidenberg; and in 1594 Groningen, the only stronghold left to the Spaniards in all the Seven Provinces, was reduced. The appointment of the cardinal archduke Albert as governor of the Spanish Netherlands did not much change the current of atfairs ; the Dutch now tried to open up a trade with the East Indies, and made some vigorous explorations in Arctic seas. In 1596 the archduke re covered Hulst, which commanded the northernmost parts of Flanders : the Dutch on the other hand, with the Eng lish, sacked Cadiz and destroyed the Spanish fleet ; and in the next year Maurice inflicted a defeat on the Spaniards at Turnhout, transferred his sphere of action to the Rhine country, and took town after town, making the provinces secure on the side of Zutphen, Overyssel, and Friesland. The year 1598 gave a new aspect to affairs by the con clusion of the Franco-Spanish war in the treaty of Vervins, and by the death of Philip II. The Dutch, assisted only by the English, and that chiefly by volunteers, were now to bear the whole brunt of the efforts of Spain. In the autumn of 1599 Prince Maurice endeavoured to transfer the war into Germany ; and after taking Emmerich in the Cleves country, delivered Bommel from the siege which Mendoza, the Spanish general, was laying to it. But dis satisfaction at home, and the unreadiness of his German allies, forced Maurice to turn his eyes towards Flanders, which he invaded in the summer of 1600. Surprised by the Spaniards in the neighbourhood of Nieuport, Maurice was attacked by the archduke Albert in a most critical position, but, after a long and well-balanced battle, inflicted on him (July 2) a disastrous defeat. Maurice could not, however, take the town, and winter put a stop to the campaign without any great change in the relative position of the belligerents. In 1601 the archduke began the famous siege of Ostend, which lasted three years and two months ; the losses on both sides, more especially among the Spanish, were immense. While it continued, the cool ness between the States General and Maurice steadily increased; for they thought his cold ambitious nature capable of anything, and saw with fear the paramount influence he had over the army. Their instincts led them to rest on the ships, to prefer peace to war, and commerce to glory. It was during the siege of Ostend that they established the Dutch East India Company in 1602, though its basis had been laid down by a group of Amsterdam traders in 1595. ID 1604 Maurice took Sluis, and Ostend at last fell to Spinola. Thenceforward the main lines of the struggle by land were simple enough : the Spaniards tried to transfer the seat of war into the United Provinces, and were steadily foiled by Maurice. All the while the States General aimed at peace, though the naval war became vigorous as that on land languished. The sea fight off Gibraltar in 1607 utterly ruined the Spanish fleet, and left her com merce powerless. At last, after long negotiations, which served to emphasize the variance between the patriot party, headed by Barneveldt and Grotius, and the war party, which included the official classes, the army, navy, East India Company, the clergy, and the populace in the towns, a truce for twelve years was signed, on the uti possidetis ground, between Spain and Holland. In the war the Dutch had added Overyssel and Groningen to the union; they held Sluis, Hulst, and other ports on the Flemish side, in what is called &quot; Dutch Flanders&quot;; they had Bergen- op-Zoom, Breda, and Herzogenbusch on the Brabant frontier, and the forts which commanded the Scheldt and strangled Antwerp for the sake of Amsterdam; lastly, they were become lords of the sea, and the chief traders of the world. After a brief interference in the affairs of Germany, where the intricate question of the Cleves-Juliers succession was already preparing the way for the Thirty Years War, Holland settled down into that hot and absorbing theologi cal struggle, which was closely mixed up with political questions, and which stained with a deplorable triumph the last years of the career of Maurice of Nassau. In 1603 Jacob van Hermansen, or, in Latin form, Arminius (see ARMINIUS), had been appointed one of the two professors of theology at Leyden, Francis Gomar being the other. The two men took opposite sides with zeal, Arminius assailing and Gomarus defending the current popular theology. The views of Arminius spread fast among the upper classes, especially in the larger towns, and became the theology of the civic aristocracy ; the established opinions were tenaciously supported by the bulk of the clergy, the peasantry, the town populace, the army, and the navy. At their head stood Maurice, ready to use the strength of Calvinistic feeling. to secure his own authority, however little he might care for the tenets of his side ; at the head of the other party, more philo sophical, less in earnest perhaps, was Barneveldt, with the town traders. King James of England as yet supported the Calvinists, and with Archbishop Abbot influenced greatly the proceedings of the famous synod of Dort (1618) in favour of Prince Maurice and the anti-Remon strants. The results of the synod enabled the prince lot his own political purposes to crush the aristocratic party. Barneveldt and Grotius (another leading Remonstrant) were seized, and in spite of all his great services to his country, his venerable age, and his past support of Maurice, the pensionary was brought to an infamous trial and executed at the Hague in 1619. Grotius afterwards escaped from prison and took refuge in France. The silenced Remonstrants, finding that there was no hope of toleration for them, left the country in great numbers, and formed a prosperous settlement in Holstein in 1621, where they founded the town of Frederickstadt on the Eider. In 1621 the truce with Spain came to an end, and the Dutch were at once involved in the vortex of the Thirty Years War, which had now been going on for a couple of years. Spinola, after taking Juliers, attempted Bergen-op- Zoom, hoping thereby to open a passage into Zealand ; he was, however, foiled by Maurice. About this time a great coolness sprang up between Holland and England, the beginning of the deadly rivalry which lasted so long. Dutch gains! the wa Theolo gi^l conllic Thirty Years War &quot;