The Story of Nations - Holland/Chapter 26

The twelve years' truce expired in August, 1621, and hostilities recommenced. There was, however, another war of far greater significance going on, to which the Dutch war was only an episode. No war ever waged had more lasting results than the so-called Thirty Years' War, which began with the revolt of Bohemia, and was concluded by what is variously called the Treaty of Westphalia and the Peace of Munster. The Treaty of Westphalia was held to have established the balance of power in Europe, and was always appealed to afterwards when war took place and disputes were settled.

Wars, as the Greek philosopher said, are set in motion by trivial causee, but owe their existence to great causes. The trivial causes of the Thirty Years' War were the succession to the duchies of Cleves and Juliers, and the revolt of Bohemia from the Austrian succession. The real or great causes were, the hostility of Catholic and Protestant, the determination of the Emperor to make himself the real master of Germany, and the determination of the French Government so to weaken the German Empire that Flanders and the frontier of the Rhine might eventually fall into its hands. This has been the policy of France for centuries, and it was its policy in 1870. In 1610 just before he was assassinated, Henry IV. of France had resolved to humiliate the house of Austria. His son's minister never forgot that object.

The mad Duke of Cleves and Juliers, a district situated on the border of Holland, died in 1609, and the succession fell to two of his nieces, the Countesses of Brandenburg and Neuburg. The Dutch interfered to prevent the duchies from being confiscated by the Emperor, and put the two countesses in possession as tenants in common. But from interested motives the latter of these in 1614 became a Roman Catholic, and hoped to enlist the Emperor and the Duke of Bavaria, who afterwards got possession of the Palatinate on her side. Shortly afterwards the Evangelical Union and the Catholic League came to blows over the election of the head of the former association to the crown of Bohemia, on the death of the Emperor Matthias. It was the old story, the determination of the Catholics to root out the Protestants, and of the Protestants to defend themselves.

The Dutch were unwilling to break the truce, and the Lutheran princes were indisposed to assist the Elector Palatine. But the Catholic princes were active enough. The Elector was stripped of his hereditary dominions, and very speedily, at the battle of the White Mountain, was constrained to relinquish Bohemia. But I am only indirectly concerned with the horrible Thirty Years' War, which was continued for interested motives, and threw Germany back for two centuries. In 1621, the twelve years' truce being expired, the King of Spain and the Archdukes offered to renew it, on the condition that the States would acknowledge their ancient sovereigns, one of whom, the Archduke Albert, died this year. Even if the States had been inclined to negotiate, the will of Maurice was in the ascendant, and the war was renewed. The Dutch, it is true, were now entirely insulated. James of England was making overtures to Spain, and being cajoled. France, who had wished to save Barneveldt, was unfriendly in consequence of the manner in which her intercession had been treated. The Dutch party which was opposed to Maurice was exasperated, and the great counsellor was no more there to advise his country in its emergencies. The safety of Holland lay in the fact that the wars of religion were being waged on a wider and more distant field, for a larger stake, and with larger armies. Not content with murdering Barneveldt, Maurice took care to ruin his family. But at last, and just before his death in 1625, Maurice, in the bitterness of disappointment, said, “As long as the old rascal was alive, we had counsels and money; now we can find neither one nor the other.” Maurice had irreconcilably injured those who alone could supply him with both. The memory of Barneveldt was avenged, even though his reputation has not been rehabilitated.

Frederic Henry, half-brother of Maurice, was at once made Captain and Admiral-General of the States, and soon after Stadtholder. In military capacity, Frederic was reputed to be his brother's equal, and in all that was required for civil administration to be his superior. The new Stadtholder was much more disposed to subordinate his ambition to the constitution than his predecessor was, and apart from the fact that he rather inclined to the Arminian or Remonstrant party, he was not the man who would lend the powers of government to a theological wrangle. Besides, in a free constitution, it is a difficult thing to perpetuate a polemical war. Unless an attempt is made to identify a religious opinion with a political one, as, for example, happened for a century and a half in Scotland, the fires of controversy are soon exhausted. In Holland the two sects were equally devoted to the good of their country, equally resolute in defending it against the common foe, equally resolved to maintain the liberties which they had won after a forty years' war. The house of Orange, too, in the person of its existing head, was counselling moderation, and very speedily the controversy which had threatened to tear Holland asunder was silenced by mutual consent, except in synods and presbyteries. In a few years, Holland became, as far as the government was concerned, the most tolerant country in the world, the asylum of those whom bigotry hunted from their native land. Hence it became the favourite abode of those wealthy and enterprising Jews, who greatly increased its wealth by aiding its external and internal commerce.

The military activity of Frederic Henry was assisted by the growing weakness of Spain, and by the diversion of the wars of religion into a wider field. But it was especially on sea that the Hollanders were triumphant. In 1628 they captured the entire silver fleet of the Spaniards, on the punctual arrival of which all Spanish finance depended, and in the next year, almost annihilated the pirates of Dunkirk. And though the differences between England and the States on the one hand, and France on the other, led the Spanish party to offer another truce, the Dutch were disinclined to forego the advantages which, in their opinion, they were obtaining and consolidating by the continuance of hostilities, for every year made the Dutch East India Company more powerful, its trade more lucrative, and its influence more secure.

It was not, however, in the Eastern seas only that the maritime power of the Dutch was conspicuous. They began to attack Spain and Portugal in the New World, and to establish forts and factories on the eastern coast of North and South America, from the Hudson to the La Plata rivers. The Dutch West India Company was as energetic and successful as the East India, though its trade was not so important, and its conquests not so durable. Meanwhile the military abilities, the constitutional policy, and the generally wise administration of the Stadtholder, induced the States, in a fit of unthinking gratitude, to make the office which he held hereditary, for they gave the reversion or succession of his office to his son William, then only five years old. This was the beginning of that discord between the States and their chief magistrate, which, more than anything else caused the downfall of Holland.

The victories of Gustavus Adolphus materially strengthened the Dutch, and enabled them not only to protect their own frontier, but to enlarge it at the expense of the Archduchess, who died in 1633, when the Netherlands reverted to the Spanish monarchy. Under these circumstances, the States entered into still closer relations with France. Richelieu, the minister of the French king, wished to continue the war with the double object of weakening the house of Austria in Germany, and after expelling the Spanish from the Netherlands, of securing a paramount influence in that part of the Low Countries. Hence, though reluctantly, the States agreed to make no peace or truce except in concert with France; and stipulated for the partition of the Spanish Netherlands whenever the conquest was effected, unless these provinces should achieve their own independence, when the States and France were to protect them. It is probable that the Dutch foresaw that this compact, so dangerous to them, would never be carried out. It is certain that it rather hindered than promoted the accord between France and Holland.

It was in the year 1637, that the extraordinary mania for speculating in tulip roots took possession of the Dutch. Millions of guilders were staked on these roots, and large fortunes were made and lost in the traffic. It is, of course, nothing strange in the history of commerce that wild speculations, which, in ordinary times would have had no chance of existence, have overturned the reason and bewildered the judgment of the most sober traders. The English had their South Sea Bubble; the French their Mississippi Scheme. But the curious thing in the Dutch tulip mania is that it sprang out of that passion for horticulture in which the Dutch were pre-eminent, and from which they conferred lasting benefits on civilization, and that it occurred at a time when Holland was engaged in a peculiarly costly war, when the country was under the delusion that public wealth could be secured by foreign conquests, and when, though some men grew rich, the general burden of taxation was almost intolerable. If one searches through history, one can never find a single case in which public opulence can he traced to foreign conquest, in which the cost to the public of occupying and maintaining such conquests has not been greatly in excess of all the profit which private interests have secured from them. This is clearly discernible in the conquests of Spain, France, and even England. The trading companies of the Dutch effected the financial ruin of Holland.

In 1639, another Spanish fleet was annihilated by Tromp in a naval battle off the English Downs. The place of combat was off the English coast, and Charles would have resented it, if he could, or if the relations in which he stood to his people had permitted it. After this victory the States assumed the title of High Mightinesses, or high and mighty lords. This apparent departure from Republican simplicity was, in the opinion of the States, essential, in order that they might take their proper place among European Powers. Perhaps in no time has the assumption or bestowal of pompous titles been more conspicuous or ludicrous than at present, when the princes of half-savage states are decorated with the titles of Majesty. But in the seventeenth century these absurd distinctions had a meaning, as the Dutch discerned at the time when they were negotiating the truce of 1609.

In 1641, the son of the Stadtholder was married to the eldest daughter of Charles I, the first occasion on which any of the house of Orange had formed an alliance with the reigning families of Europe. The English king was reconciled to the marriage, because he thought that he would be able to secure a powerful ally against the Scotch malcontents, who were at that time the only open enemies of the Government. This marriage was the beginning of great misfortunes to the Dutch, and Holland eventually suffered nearly as seriously by matrimonial alliances with the Stewart and Hanoverian kings, as the old Netherlands had by the marriages of the houses of Burgundy and Austria. In the same year, Spain was further enfeebled by the revolt of Portugal, under John of Braganza, and the reconciliation of Holland with the rulers of that part of the empire of Philip II. Spain could not, since Portugal reclaimed its possessions in the East Indies, pretend to exclude Holland from what was no longer, under any colour, theirs.

It would be tedious and unprofitable to deal with the last events of the long war which came to an end with the peace of Munster. In this peace, the negotiations of which were exceedingly protracted, owing to the difficulty of reconciling the claims of conquest with the claims of original authority, Holland gained all which it had demanded in 1609. The Spanish Government absolutely relinquished all claims and titles, and acknowledged the complete independence of the Dutch. They were allowed to remain the lords of all which they had acquired during the course of their protracted wars. The Scheldt was to be closed by the Dutch, and Antwerp to be ruined as a commercial city. Peace was proclaimed on June 5, 1648, the day on which Horn and Egmont had been executed eighty years before. The Stadtholder had died on March 14, 1647, and his son William had succeeded him.