The ascendancy of France, 1598-1715

by Henry Offley Wakeman

Leadership of the House of Orange.

To the unity of interest thus secured by the ascendency of the burgher aristocracy, and the unquestioned leadership of Holland in all national concerns, the House of Orange added a continuity of government. If the United Provinces owed their prosperity to Holland, they owed their very existence to the House of Orange. Had it not been for the statesmanship of William the Silent they would never have won their independence, had it not been for the generalship of Maurice they would never have maintained it. Had it not been for the patriotism and moderation of both they would have lost their republicanism as soon as they had gained it. But fortunately for the Dutch republic the princes of the House of Orange preferred to exercise most of the powers of limited kingship under the guise of an elective magistracy. The head of the House of Orange combined in his person by elections, which were never questioned for seventy years, the offices of stadtholder of five provinces, of captain general and of admiral general of the republic. For the first and most critical half century in the history of the nation the supreme management of the civil, military and naval affairs of the country were in the hands of one family, not indeed by hereditary right, but by an elective custom which had grown at least strong enough to be described as an hereditary right to election. Under their wise government the prosperity of the United Provinces had grown by leaps and bounds. The destruction of the Armada in 1588 removed from the northern seas all enemies to Dutch trade. France, torn by civil and foreign war, could not man a warship or despatch a merchant fleet. England was a more serious rival, but political friendship kept for a time commercial enmities in check. The world was found large enough for both countries, and while English enterprise tended to flow in the direction of America and the West, the Dutch pursued their conquests in Africa and the East. In the East Indies alone, the famous Spice Islands of romance, the two nations found themselves in acute and deadly rivalry, and for some years a war raged on the other side of the globe between the servants of the two East India companies, which was only taken notice of by the home governments when some serious breach of international rights, such as the massacre of Amboyna, forced them to open their eyes and lazily demand compensation.

Prosperity of the Dutch, 1600–1650.

With the dawn of the seventeenth century everything seemed to be conspiring to promote the prosperity of the country. England became more and more entangled in complications at home, and under a weak and vain king gave less and less assistance to her traders. In the north, Sweden and Denmark, engaged first in war among themselves and then in the Thirty Years’ War, easily let the Baltic trade imperceptibly glide into the hands of the Dutch. Neither Germany nor France were in a position to enter the lists with the republic, and the decaying power of the Hansa fell completely before the blast of the great war. The United Provinces, it is true, were forced to take their part in the struggle, but under the cautious and talented Frederick Henry, the younger son of William the Silent, who had succeeded his brother Maurice in 1625, the Dutch contingent did little more than garrison the duchy of Cleves, and keep the Low Countries quiet. Meanwhile the whole world was open to their enterprise. There was literally not a country to compete with them, even feebly, as the troubles in England thickened. They took part of Brazil from Spain, and founded on the coast of North America the colonies of New Holland and New Jersey, settled in Africa, in Ceylon, and on the mainland of India, planted themselves on the rich island of Java, and finally in 1630 made themselves masters of the Cape of Good Hope. In the first half of the seventeenth century they enjoyed a colonial empire larger than that of Venice in its palmy days. They were undisputed masters of the seas, they had almost the monopoly of the carrying trade of the world.

Rivalry between the republican party and the House of Orange.

But in this very prosperity lay the germs of future trouble both abroad and at home. The frog might swell itself even to bursting point but it could not rival the dimensions of the ox. The wonderful maritime success of the Dutch was due largely to the fact that its two great neighbours of England and France, who were better situated geographically for the development of trade, were in the throes of foreign and domestic war. When peace was restored, and men had leisure once more to attend to the affairs of commerce, it was not likely that the hardy sailors of Brittany and Devonshire would long lag behind the fishermen of Zealand or the traders of Amsterdam in the race for wealth. It was not possible that the Dutch however high their courage, however great their skill, however tough their pride, could long compete on equal terms with either monarchy. They could not pretend to do so even if they were united among themselves, but that was not the case. The great increase of wealth and prosperity intensified instead of diminishing their internal jealousies. Ever since the Union of Utrecht there had been two distinct parties in the state, the partisans of the House of Orange and the republicans pure and simple, the former representing the political principles of a limited monarchy, the latter those of a burgher oligarchy. In the civil and military authority enjoyed by the princes of the House of Orange, through their quasi-hereditary tenure of the stadtholderate and of the supreme military and naval command, their adherents saw the only guarantee which their country possessed against the dangers of internal discord. They looked upon this concentration of authority in the hands of one family as essential to the solidarity of the state, and valued it all the more because they believed it to be the only effective counterpoise to the overweening pride and political domination of Amsterdam. Their weakness lay in the fact that their adherents were mainly drawn from the classes of the nobles, the clergy and the peasantry, who had very little political power. Only in the province of Zealand, where the House of Orange had large possessions, were the majority of the town councils in their favour. But the very fact of their political weakness as compared with their numerical strength inspired them with a jealousy all the more intense of their more fortunate republican neighbours of the towns. These latter were imbued with the narrowest spirit of burgher exclusiveness. They feared alike the democratic tendencies of the populace and the monarchical instincts of the House of Orange. Within a small circle of capitalist families the functions of government were divided pretty equally. Any member of these privileged families, if his capacities were equal to the charge, had the opportunity of being trained in the public service from his earliest years. He succeeded as naturally to the diplomatic or administrative business of his father or his uncle in the political family party, as he did to the management of the family business or the ownership of the family ships.

During the first few years of the history of the republic, while the issue of the war with Spain was still doubtful, the military necessities of the country forced the House of Orange into prominence, and kept the republican spirit in check. Growth of the Republican Party. But as political dangers from outside grew less serious, and the wealth and importance of the citizen traders became by far the most important factors of the national life, the political preponderance of the republican party, who drew their strength from the merchant class, soon threatened to be decisive. The province of Holland, which was republican to a man, assumed an unquestioned lead in the national councils. It alone had the right of appointing a representative at the courts of Paris and Vienna. It alone paid more than half the national taxes. It alone provided nearly the whole of the national fleet. Olden Barneveldt. Partly owing to these circumstances, partly to his own abilities, as early as the beginning of the century the Advocate of the province of Holland, John Olden Barneveldt, had insensibly become the foremost statesman of the republic. In theory he was only the spokesman or first minister of the provincial estates of Holland, in fact he was the leader of the republican party and for a few years virtual ruler of the republic. He it was who negotiated with foreign states and determined the national policy. Already then it seemed as if the supreme power in the republic had shifted from the stadtholder and the House of Orange to the representative of the republican merchants of Amsterdam. But Maurice, prince of Orange, the second son of William the Silent, was not going to let power slip out of his hands so easily. Taking advantage of a quarrel between Barneveldt and his staunch ally and protector Henry IV., he very skilfully managed to direct upon him, left thus defenceless, the whole weight of the cruelty and fanaticism of the Calvinistic clergy. Execution of Barneveldt brought about by Maurice of Nassau, 1610. By a crime, more atrocious than that of the assassination of his own father, because of the hypocrisy which accompanied it, he brought Barneveldt to the scaffold in 1610 by a sentence of judicial murder.

The villainy was eminently successful. For forty years the republican party suppressed itself, and the government of the republic remained without question in the hands of the stadtholders of the House of Orange: Maurice, Frederick Henry, and William II. Government of Maurice, Frederick Henry, and William II., 1610–1650. Indeed, when this halcyon period came to an end, it was the ambition of the stadtholder, not the pride of the republicans, which was at fault. William II. had married a daughter of Charles I. of England, and undeterred by the fate of his father-in-law and the outbreak of the Fronde he determined to effect a coup d’état and turn the stadtholderate into a monarchy. Just before his death Frederick Henry had negotiated with Spain a treaty at Münster, finally ratified in January 1648, by which Spain and the United Provinces agreed to unite together in defence of the Spanish Netherlands against French aggression, on condition that Spain closed the Scheldt to trading vessels and acknowledged the independence of the republic. A more favourable treaty to the United Provinces cannot be imagined, for by it they obtained a barrier between their own territories and those of France, and secured the trade monopoly of Amsterdam. Yet William II. in his insensate ambition actually agreed to throw all these advantages away, and allow France to seize the Spanish Netherlands, in return for the consent of Mazarin to his projected revolution. Attempted coup d’état of William II., 1650. Having thus secured the neutrality of France he proceeded to put his scheme into execution. He was sure of the support of the army and of Zealand, and need not fear the opposition of any of the other provinces except Holland. His first business accordingly was to get up a quarrel between the states-general and the provincial estates of Holland about the disbandment of some troops, then, posing as the champion of the states-general, obtained from them authority to take measures for the preservation of the union, and to put pressure upon the estates of Holland. This was sufficient for him. After some negotiation, on the 30th of July 1650 he suddenly arrested six of the leading deputies of Holland, and directed his troops to march during the night upon Amsterdam. The city was saved by the merest accident. The night was dark and rainy, the troops lost their way. When day broke they were still outside the town. The alarm was given. Only one magistrate Cornelius Bicker von Swieten happened to be in the city, but it was enough. Death of William II., 1650. The gates were closed, the drawbridges raised, the militia called out, and Amsterdam was safe, and with Amsterdam the republic. A coup d’état was now impossible. William saw he could only succeed by civil war and he did not dare to give the signal for that. For five months both sides eyed each other suspiciously, but neither dared to move. Suddenly, in November 1650, William was seized with a violent fever, and died in a few days.

Supremacy of the republican party.

The tragic death of William II. decided the crisis in favour of the republican party. Some weeks after the death of the stadtholder his wife gave birth to a son, the future William III. of England. It was obviously impossible to appoint an infant in his cradle to the supreme command of the civil and military affairs of the country. It was undesirable to ignore the seriousness of the danger from which the republic had accidentally been saved. The republican party at once seized the opportunity and asserted their superiority. A grand assembly was held at the Hague in January 1651 to decide the constitutional points which had arisen, and it was agreed that the stadtholderate should remain vacant, and the functions of the office devolve upon the provincial estates; while the supreme military and naval command was divided between the estates general and the provincial estates. The real gainers by this arrangement were the provincial estates of Holland. Freed from the rights of the stadtholder political power naturally gravitated to the centre of the wealth and intelligence of the nation. In the provincial estates of Holland it found a body of men thoroughly capable of using it, and a chief admirably adapted to the task of working its delicate machinery. In John de Witt, grand pensionary of Dordrecht, elected grand pensionary of Holland in 1653, the republican party found a champion, and the United Provinces a minister, second to none in Europe for skill, honesty and acumen.