Philip II. entered upon the struggle with heresy even more vigorously than his father. Even the Catholics of the Netherlands were opposed to the enforcement of the "Placards," while the heretics who were suffering and multiplying under it were looking forward almost desperately to some change that would make their position more tolerable. The States-General, the nearest approach to a national legislature that the Netherlands possessed, in 1559 pleaded for mildness. It was only the Spanish ruler who was determined to apply the heresy laws in all their vigor; and when he left the Netherlands and began to direct their administration from Spain, the religious question became more and more the great unifying element in national resistance to his policy.
William of Orange, in the council of state, took the lead in drawing up a petition to the king for the amelioration of the "Placards" and for the suspension of the decrees for an inflexible orthodoxy which had just been promulgated from Trent. He pointed out the necessity of recognizing the proximity and influence of Lutheran Germany upon the Netherlands, the actual extension of Protestantism in the provinces, and the degree to which the old church had lost its authority over the hearts of men. In words that rose in dignity and significance far above the ordinary contests of Catholics and Protestants, he declared: "I am Catholic, and will not deviate from religion; but I cannot approve the custom of kings to confine men's creed and religion within arbitrary limits." [Footnote: Blok, Hist. of the People of the Netherlands (English trans), III., 14.] Philip replied to this petition of the Catholic nobles of the Netherlands by the edict of Segovia, dated October 17, 1565, insisting more vehemently than ever before on the enforcement of the laws against heresy in all their severity, including what was practically the introduction of the Spanish Inquisition. On the other hand, the Reformation pressed on with rapid strides; vast crowds gathered outside of Tournai, Harlem, Antwerp, and other cities to listen to Calvinist preachers. Ten, twelve, and twenty thousand of the populace assembled at a time to sing psalms and hymns and to listen to the appeals of teachers eloquent and devout, but almost invariably heretical.
The inevitable crisis was now hastening on. The lesser nobles, including some Calvinists, soon formed the "Confederation," sent their petition to the king, and in 1567 broke out in fruitless rebellion. Almost at the same time the mob rose in the image-breaking riots which spread like wild-fire over all the provinces except the most southern. Then came Alva, with his unlimited powers, his veteran troops, his "Council of Blood," his more than ten thousand victims of political and religious persecution, and the awful severity and barbarity that have made his name a synonym of cruelty and heartless despotism. William of Orange brought an army into Brabant in 1568, and revolt was soon in full progress. Even under Charles V. there had been much emigration from the Netherlands to Germany and England, to escape religious persecution. Now the barbarities of Alva increased the number many- fold. It was estimated that there were at one time sixty thousand Dutch and Walloon refugees living in England. By 1568 the emigrants were said to number four hundred thousand.
As the revolt progressed and the various cities expelled the officers of the Spanish governor and put themselves under the banner of Orange, they became little oases of toleration. The instructions of William to his lieutenants in the north in 1572 ordered them "to restore fugitives and the banished for conscience' sake—and to see that the Word of God is preached, without, however, suffering any hindrance to the Roman Church in the exercise of its religion." [Footnote: Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, pt. iii.] By November, 1576, when the treaty known as the Pacification of Ghent was made between Holland and Zealand on the one hand and the fifteen southern provinces on the other, liberalism in religious views had progressed as far as the power of the patriotic party extended; and all "Placards" and edicts on the subject of religion were suspended till a national assembly should take final action on the subject. At the same time it was provided that there should be no action against the Catholic religion, outside the territory of Holland and Zealand. [Footnote: Blok, Hist, of the People of the Netherlands (English trans.), III., 105, 106.]
Soon the Flemish provinces, where Protestantism had made least headway and where distrust of the north was strong, were "pacified" by Don John of Austria and Alexander of Parma. The Union of Arras, of January 6, 1579, became a centre of union and reconciliation to Spain and Catholicism for the fifteen southern provinces. Just three weeks afterwards the Union of Utrecht was formed, which united the seven northern provinces and became the basis of the free republic of the United Netherlands: each province was to make its own religious arrangements, though toleration was secured by the provision that no one should be molested or questioned on the subject of divine worship. [Footnote: Arts. 5, 9, 10, n, 12, 13, quoted in Motley, pt. vi., chap.i.] Thus while the southern provinces set their feet in the path of a return to Roman Catholic uniformity, the northern provinces pledged themselves to toleration of Catholics and of all sects of Protestants alike.
Toleration is to the modern student the chief interest and glory of the foundation of the United Netherlands; but it was not toleration but Protestantism which then gave the young republic its peculiar strength, vigor, and enterprise. Even in the Pacification of Ghent and the Union of Utrecht, Holland and Zealand were recognized as Protestant states. As the bitter struggle progressed, their Protestantism became more pronounced and more militant. Exiled Calvinists from the south flocked to Amsterdam, Middleburg, Rotterdam, and other northern cities in great numbers, intensifying the Protestant character of these communities and enriching them with capital, business ability, and an astonishingly large proportion of gifted men. [Footnote: Jameson, Usselinx, 27.] The formal abjuration of Philip by the United Provinces in 1581, on grounds so largely religious, could not but bring into still greater prominence the Protestantism of the country which now claimed its independence. The long-continued warfare that followed the assassination of the beloved prince of Orange, the sieges, mutinies, and battles by land and sea, steadily deepened the religious and political hatred between the Netherlands and Spain.
By the year 1596 internal theological struggles between Remonstrants and Contra-Remonstrants approached the proportions of a civil war; and the victory gained by the latter party through the intervention of the stadtholder Maurice connected religion and politics, church and state, even more clearly, and made still more intense the fiery Protestantism of the Dutch government. [Footnote: Blok, Hist of the People of the Netherlands (English trans.), III., 398-447.] Strengthened by her efforts, hardened by her struggles, awakened to vigorous life by the exhilaration of the long and arduous conflict, the little Protestant state approached the end of the sixteenth century, enterprising in internal plans and eager for new fields of foreign commerce. The probability that commercial expansion would bring her into conflict with Spain added zest to the prospect and gave promise that in extending trade, conquering distant possessions, and establishing colonies, she would at the same time be weakening her bitterest enemy.
Hence the early Dutch expeditions to the Indies, the formation of the East and West India Companies, the establishment of the colonies in Brazil, Guiana, and North America, and of commercial factories in the East Indies, were all of them in a certain sense part of the religious and political struggle between the Netherlands and Spain. When the twelve years' truce was signed, in 1609, those provinces which had returned to the Spanish obedience were uniformly Catholic, but their prosperity and international significance had disappeared. The independent provinces, on the other hand, were, for all their toleration, almost uniformly Protestant, and they were already one of the great maritime and commercial powers of Europe. [Footnote: Blok, Hist of the People of the Netherlands (English trans), III., 326-334.]
The United Netherlands speedily colonized New Amsterdam, Guiana, Cape Colony, Java, and other places, with a population persistent in Protestantism and in many race characteristics. Unfortunately for Holland the number of her emigrants was never great enough to enable her permanently to play a great part in the history of colonization. The Dutch are not an emigrating people. Yet those who did emigrate carried with them such an assertive character and so highly developed a group of institutions that they exercised a deep and permanent influence over communities like New York, in which they soon ceased to be the dominant element; while their institutions in Holland made such a strong impression upon English sojourners in their midst that some of their characteristics reappeared long afterwards in American colonies in which no Dutchman had ever settled. [Footnote: Douglas Campbell, Puritan in Holland.]
The Reformation, with the wars to which it gave rise, made Germany for a time the most conspicuous state in Europe, but its ultimate effect was to reduce that state to a degree of material poverty, political insignificance, and intellectual torpidity unknown before in her experience. Civil war was long delayed; the political necessities and the astute policy of Charles V., the conservative instincts and patriotic scruples of Luther, and the doubtful position of many of the German provinces and cities, long prevented any attempt by the emperor to enforce the orthodoxy required by the Diet of Worms, and induced the Lutherans to go more than halfway in accepting the policy of postponement. [Footnote: Armstrong, The Emperor Charles V., I., 201- 203, 240-256,] Yet even this early period was troubled by successive minor outbreaks of violence. The "Knights' War" of 1523, the Peasants' Revolt of 1524 and 1525, the Zwinglian wars in Switzerland in 1531, and the Anabaptist outbreak at Munster in 1534 were all connected with the religious ferment of the times.