But a sterner foe was at hand. Having reduced what is now called Belgium, Farnese attacked the Reformation and the republicans in their last strongholds in Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht. The long war, of a high technical interest because of the peculiar military problems to be solved, was finally decided in favor of the Dutch. The result was due in part to the heroic courage of the people, in part to the highly defensible nature of their country, saved time and again by that great ally, the sea.
[Sidenote: July 10, 1584]
A cruel blow was the assassination of Orange whose last words were "God have pity on this poor people." His life had been devoted to them in no spirit of ambition or vulgar pride; his energy, his patience, his breadth had served the people well. And at his death they showed themselves worthy of him and of the cause. Around his body the Estates of Holland convened and resolved to bear themselves manfully {275} without abatement of zeal. Right nobly did they acquit themselves.
[Sidenote: 1586, Leicester]
The bad ending of a final attempt to get foreign help taught the Dutch Republic once and for all to rely only on itself. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Elizabeth's favorite, was inaugurated as Governor General. His assumption of independent power enraged his royal mistress, whereas the Dutch were alienated by the suspicion that he sacrificed their interests to those of England, and by his military failures. In less than two years he was forced to return home. [Sidenote: 1587]
[Sidenote: Oldenbarneveldt, 1547-1619]
Under the statesmanlike guidance of John van Oldenbarneveldt, since 1586 Pensionary of Holland, a Republic was set up founded on the supremacy of the Estates. Under his exact, prudent, and resolute leadership internal freedom and external power were alike developed. Though the war continued long after 1588 the defeat of the Armada in that year crippled Spain beyond hope of recovery and made the new nation practically safe.
[Sidenote: The Dutch Republic]
The North had suffered much in the war. The frequent inundation of the land destroyed crops. Amsterdam long held out against the rest of Holland in loyalty to the king, but she suffered so much by the blockade of the Beggars of the Sea and by the emigration of her merchants to nearby cities, that at last she gave in and cast her lot with her people. From that time she assumed the commercial hegemony once exercised by Antwerp. Recovering rapidly from the devastations of war, the Dutch Republic became, in the seventeenth century, the first sea-power and first money-power in the world. She gave a king to England and put a bridle in the mouth of France. She established colonies in America and in the East Indies. With her celebrated new university of Leyden, with {276} publicists like Grotius, theologians like Jansen, painters like Van Dyke and Rembrandt, philosophers like Spinoza, she took the lead in many of the fields of thought. Her material and spiritual power, her tolerance and freedom, became the envy of the world.
[1] The guilder, also called the "Dutch pound," at this time was worth 40 cents intrinsically. Money had many times the purchasing power that it has in 1920.