Secession: The Dutch Revolt
or, The Eighty Years War

This was a war of secession of the Dutch speaking populations of the Spanish Netherlands with Spain finding allies in the Walloon speaking people who would end up leading the Belgians.

Charles V was raised in the Netherlands and spoke Dutch fluently. Charles V's inheritance was to make him the greatest success story in the history of dynastism: Spain, Germany, half of Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, Belgium, the Netherlands, parts of Switzerland and France, and some coastal regions of northern Africa.

His son, Philip II of Spain, did not speak any of the languages of the Netherlands (Dutch , Walloon , Flamand and Frisian ). He was generally seen as far less competent than his father, and preferred to stay in Spain.

Philip II Fights Toleration

Philip II was a very devout Catholic. Heresy, in the form of Protestantism, had become tolerated in the Netherlands, and Philip planned on extirpating it.

The Dutch, an urban and literate people, quickly translated the works of Luther into Dutch, and more copies were made of his work there than in any other language. They were also among the first to translate the Bible into their own language .1 In 1559, by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, Spain and France (then the two largest European powers) ended their war against each other so they could both fight religious heterodoxy at home, and, perhaps more importantly, because both countries had defaulted on their loans in 1557 and couldn't afford much more war.2

Hostilites Begin

The Netherlands might have been rich in taxes, but was probably a bit sore at so often bearing so much of the cost of the Spanish Wars. The Netherlands might have been a tolerant place, but that was seen as a negative thing by the absolutist Philip II. Philip sent in a soldier and he executed at least 1,000 people, including leading nobles whose major crime had been to tolerate Protestants.

Origin of Dutch Nobility

Nobility in the Netherlands was mostly local in origin, and sometimes humble in beginnings, and so it might be said that they had been popular.

Perhaps because the Dutch had a notion of popular government that went back to the polderboards in the eleventh century that the martial law of the Duke of Alba, acting for Philip II ended up being violently resisted in a war that, on again off again, lasted for eighty years.

Early Years of the War

The first three years went well for the Spanish, but then, at the King of Spain's request, Queen Elizabeth of England forced Dutch ships from English harbors. They returned to the Netherlands and captured a town. Quickly four of the provinces rebelled under William of Orange, all of them with Dutch, Flemish or Frisian majorities.

After another round of bloodiness, the Netherlands split into two Unions, that of Arras and Utrecht. The Arras Union was in Walloonia, and stayed allegiant to the Spanish King, the much larger Utrecht Union represented rebellion and the Protestant North. There really isn't enough information today to say either way, but the map seems to clearly show that the French and Walloon southerners had split from their Germanic northern countrymen.

The War Concludes

After many fruitless attempts to get an ally among the major powers (and both Romantic France and Germanic England were approached) the English allied themselves with the areas in rebellion. More fighting still, mostly success on the part of the northerners, brings us to 1609 and the beginning of a 12 year truce. The end of that truce, or the expectation of its end, was the beginning of the Thirty Years War . The end of that thirty years was the end of the eighty years that began in 1568, and the international recognition of the independence of the Dutch Republic, extending over the Dutch and Flemish speaking lands of the former Spanish Netherlands.