I wrote this in a coffee-fuelled frenzy, and even after rereading it and attempting to use spellcheck I'm still uncertain if I made everything clear and coherent. Ah, screw it.
I'll try to get a map up with the post-treaty borders sometime this week, but no promises.
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The Kingdom at its Zenith: Regarding England and Spain
The end of the *Seven Years War and the Catholic Restoration of the France greatly changed the political landscape in Europe and *Belgium itself. With France temporarily out of the picture and Spain finally coming to terms with the loss of Catalonia, Belgian trade flourished. The only possible obstacle to Belgium's total success was the steady growth of English global trade. Shortly before the Seven Years' War started, Carleton and other anti-Belgian Parliamentarians in England pushed through a massive modernization program for England's navy, developing new, formidible designs. Belgium, by contrast, began downsizing its navy after France's surrender and peace in 1683. By 1688, the largest ship in the Belgian Royal Navy was a 64-gun ship of the line that dated back to the Frisian War.
The Anti-Belgian faction remained strong in England even after Carleton's murder in '82, agitating for more action and direct confrontation. The Peace of 1683 technically marked a defeat for the United Republic[1], but gaining Virginia had sparked new ambitions. Up until 1676, Belgian relations with the Iberian peninsula had been so strained that the difficulty of commerce with Spain and her holdings in Italy had ruined the Mediterranean trades for the Dutch, so much so that England was able to fill the commercial gap in the region. This created an awkward division of trade, where Belgian merchants dominated Northern Europe's markets while England likewise dominated the south. Such a precarious arrangement was bound to eventually collapse.
This collapse occurred during the *Seven Years' War, when Belgian-Spanish relations warmed in the face of French aggression, and happened so quickly that the English maritime economy went into a depression. The issue of Spain's wool exports provides one example of the drastic changes in trade: “Whilst we formerly brought home four or five thousand baggs [sic] of cloth wooll and the Flemings scarecely a thousand, which they had by re-shipping, as their own produce was prohibited,” wrote one English merchant in 1678, “they now carry away fve or six thousand [bags of wool] and wee nought past ten or twelve hundred.” This coincided with England's textile industry falling into a slump, as the resumption of Belgian-Spanish trade allowed for the Dutch and Flemish textile manufacturers to compete and replace the lower-quality English produce in Spanish markets.
Naturally such an economic slump and reversal of fortunes created a bitter feeling in England. Riots in London, Bristol, and Dover, amongst other places, proved the severe public reaction to the slump and caused much unrest in the United Republic itself. The Great 1679 Fire of Southampton, for instance, was caused by rioters setting fire to a recent shipment of Dutch-shipped wine from the Canaries. Such unrest naturally distablized the government, and much of England's participation in the latter half of the war was limited to naval engagements due to troop requirements in the Isles for quelling unrest. Speaker Carelton's murder in 1682 is likely almost entirely due to anti-Dutch rioters upset at the lack of government action at home.
Postwar, however, Belgian-Spanish relations once more became strained and England could partially revive her Mediterranean trade. With France succumbing to chaos and civil war and Spain already having revealed her military weakness, it was obvious to all observers that Belgian power and influence was at an all-time high on the Continent. A Belgian delegation arrived in Madrid in July of 1687, demanding all of the Southern Netherlands as “her rightful due,” making it clear that if Spain did not peacefully accept their proposal that pressure “of another sort” would be used. Negotiations carried on for another month before finally giving up, and war was on.
The Brabantine War, as it came to be known, was fairly short. The Spanish Army of Flanders had been downsized to 12,000 before the outbreak of the *Seven Years' War, and had been downsized even further after the war as the loss of Catalonia shifted attention to Iberia and the Pyrenees. The only relief for Spain was that the old Spanish road through the Franche-Comte was still sound, so that Italian troops could be sent north. The ruling Spinola house in Genoa even sent some token troops northwards, although for the most part its contributions were limited to the financial sphere. Even with Italian assistance, though, Spanish successes were limited- their victory of Gossilies (Feb. 12, 1688) was almost immediately followed by the crushing loss at Braine l'Alland (Feb. 15-16, 1688). Defeat for Spain was almost certain by 1690, and envoys from Madrid began discussing matters with the Belgians at Antwerp.
This moment of heavy Belgian involvement on the Continent, distracted from other affairs, was when England decided to strike. Claiming that Belgium was refusing to respect the United Republic's trade rights and citing several examples of disrespect to English shipping at sea, the United Republic declared war, catching the Belgian government by surprise. Early naval battles near Gravelines and Flemish Knokke showed that the English had a siginificant advantage over the Dutch, as the Belgian fleets had never been geared towards large-scale engagements and suffered from a lack of first-rates. Further away from home, Belgian merchantmen in the Caribbean made easy prey for English privateers, enraging financiers and investors in Antwerp and Amsterdam.
Quickly Belgium sued for peace with Spain over the Brabantine War. A compromise was reached, wherein southern Brabant[2] and the Upper Gelders were ceded to Belgium. The remaining territories of the Spanish Netherlands would become nominally independent under the 'Cantonment' system[3] suggested by Dutch envoys, although Luxemboug would remain under Spanish control as to better divide up the newly independent cantons into Belgian and Spanish spheres of influence. This new confederation of provinces would be dubbed the 'United Cantons of the Netherlands,' and in French as 'Les Cantons-Unis des Pays-Bas.” Belgian-attended festivities in Lille[4] in June of 1690 were subdued, however, as the English navy continued to tromp Belgian fleets in the Channel.
Slowly but surely, however, things began to turn Belgium's way. Efforts in the Orient by the English East India Territory to destroy VOC power proved fruitless, as few local governments were willing were to openly war with the Dutch after the infamous Sulu Massacre (1677), and major powers were satisfied with the Status Quo or otherwise already occupied[5]. What little English privateering occurred was countered by the VOC more heavily armying her merchantmen and convoys, and 'encouraging' local allies to refuse the privateers a safehaven. Closer to Africa, an English raid on Mauritius in April of 1692 ended with the death of the famous Pirate-Admiral Hector Sparrow[6], which effectively ended English endevours in the Orient.
The blow that finally began peace negotiations turned out to not take place in Europe or the Orient, however, but in the Americas. On the 24th of August, 1693, a watchman in the infamous town of Plymouth Banks[7], Virginia, spotted a fleet of vessels approaching from the south. As the ships came closer to the old port town, a few men reached for spyglasses and searched for flags on the oncoming fleet. To their shock and dismay, flags they did find-- those of the WIC officer and dreaded privateer, Captain Rob Römer, well-known for his infamous duel and brutal killing of the Italian mercenary, Adriano Lupardi. By nightfall Römer's WIC fleet was within cannon range of the town, bombarding the Virginian town for hours before suddenly withdrawing to the north. The next morning, dazed citizens began cleaning up the debris and scavaging for lost property when a new alarm was raised-- Römer had landed just north of the town with a raiding party armed with muskets and torches.
A day later, all that remained of the lawless city was charred wood and a few scattered cadavers. Very few indentifiable bodies were later found in the ruins, as many of the corpses had turned to ash as the town had been swallowed in flame or had been picked apart in the bay by fish and birds.
Römer's ruthlessness did the trick, however. With the United Republic now painfully aware how unprotected her own colonies were and how bloody the war could be, negotiations began in earnest. Although England still made a few demands at first, the famous morningtime Battle of the Leghorn Foghorn near the Tuscan city of Livorno showed that Belgian naval power now ran supreme even in the Mediterranean, and the negotiators gave in. England agreed to a war indemnity, to cull Virginian-based piracy, and to end the practice of seizing Dutch shipping on the high seas. Of these three points, England only every fully complied with the first one, but it was enough for Belgian pride.
The audacious and ruthless actions of Belgium during this period would soon have far-reaching consequences, as more nations began to perceive the Dutch as a threat to their own national security. While these wars helped Belgian trade prosper, diplomacy floundered.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[1] United Republic of England and Wales: The Republican government in London had sought to re-centralize the state in the aftermath of the initial revolt, and so began a slow but steady program culminated in the minor but important change from being the “United Republics” to “United Republic.”
[2] Southern Brabant: Having been held by the Spanish throughout the Dutch Revolt and after, Southern Brabant was drastically different from the Belgian-held majority of the State. Besides being majority Catholic through the Counter-Reformation efforts of the Spanish, much of the Dutch-speaking population had moved the relatively short distance northward to Brussels throughout the 17th century, leaving the area to Francophones.
[3] Cantonment: Modelled after the Swiss system, 'cantonment' basically involved the formation of a very weak confederation where each State holds many sovereign powers, including taxation, military control, and trade agreements, although some of these powers are limited by a constitution and central administration composed of a unicameral body attended by representatives of each canton. This is not to be confused with the military term.
[4] Lille: Administrative center and nominal capital of the new United Cantons.
[5] Shun-Manchu Wars: China, under the Shun dynasty, undertook a series of campaigns between 1670 and 1720 to subjugate the Manchurian nation after the bloodshed of the late Ming and its fall.
[6] Hector Sparrow: Known to terrified VOC sailors as “Rode Baard” or “Roadbart” and to the English as “Redbeard” or the more romantic “Barbarossa,” sometimes corrupted to “Barbossa”.
[7] Plymouth Banks: By the 1690s, the old Virginian town of Plymouth Banks was a well-known pirate haven and aggressor in its own right, coordinating periodic raids along the coast of Spanish Florida and organizing smuggling efforts in spite of England's mercantilist colonial laws. For an OTL comparison, think of it as a combination of colonial Port Royal and Deadwood.
I'll try to get a map up with the post-treaty borders sometime this week, but no promises.
----------------------------------------
The Kingdom at its Zenith: Regarding England and Spain
The end of the *Seven Years War and the Catholic Restoration of the France greatly changed the political landscape in Europe and *Belgium itself. With France temporarily out of the picture and Spain finally coming to terms with the loss of Catalonia, Belgian trade flourished. The only possible obstacle to Belgium's total success was the steady growth of English global trade. Shortly before the Seven Years' War started, Carleton and other anti-Belgian Parliamentarians in England pushed through a massive modernization program for England's navy, developing new, formidible designs. Belgium, by contrast, began downsizing its navy after France's surrender and peace in 1683. By 1688, the largest ship in the Belgian Royal Navy was a 64-gun ship of the line that dated back to the Frisian War.
The Anti-Belgian faction remained strong in England even after Carleton's murder in '82, agitating for more action and direct confrontation. The Peace of 1683 technically marked a defeat for the United Republic[1], but gaining Virginia had sparked new ambitions. Up until 1676, Belgian relations with the Iberian peninsula had been so strained that the difficulty of commerce with Spain and her holdings in Italy had ruined the Mediterranean trades for the Dutch, so much so that England was able to fill the commercial gap in the region. This created an awkward division of trade, where Belgian merchants dominated Northern Europe's markets while England likewise dominated the south. Such a precarious arrangement was bound to eventually collapse.
This collapse occurred during the *Seven Years' War, when Belgian-Spanish relations warmed in the face of French aggression, and happened so quickly that the English maritime economy went into a depression. The issue of Spain's wool exports provides one example of the drastic changes in trade: “Whilst we formerly brought home four or five thousand baggs [sic] of cloth wooll and the Flemings scarecely a thousand, which they had by re-shipping, as their own produce was prohibited,” wrote one English merchant in 1678, “they now carry away fve or six thousand [bags of wool] and wee nought past ten or twelve hundred.” This coincided with England's textile industry falling into a slump, as the resumption of Belgian-Spanish trade allowed for the Dutch and Flemish textile manufacturers to compete and replace the lower-quality English produce in Spanish markets.
Naturally such an economic slump and reversal of fortunes created a bitter feeling in England. Riots in London, Bristol, and Dover, amongst other places, proved the severe public reaction to the slump and caused much unrest in the United Republic itself. The Great 1679 Fire of Southampton, for instance, was caused by rioters setting fire to a recent shipment of Dutch-shipped wine from the Canaries. Such unrest naturally distablized the government, and much of England's participation in the latter half of the war was limited to naval engagements due to troop requirements in the Isles for quelling unrest. Speaker Carelton's murder in 1682 is likely almost entirely due to anti-Dutch rioters upset at the lack of government action at home.
Postwar, however, Belgian-Spanish relations once more became strained and England could partially revive her Mediterranean trade. With France succumbing to chaos and civil war and Spain already having revealed her military weakness, it was obvious to all observers that Belgian power and influence was at an all-time high on the Continent. A Belgian delegation arrived in Madrid in July of 1687, demanding all of the Southern Netherlands as “her rightful due,” making it clear that if Spain did not peacefully accept their proposal that pressure “of another sort” would be used. Negotiations carried on for another month before finally giving up, and war was on.
The Brabantine War, as it came to be known, was fairly short. The Spanish Army of Flanders had been downsized to 12,000 before the outbreak of the *Seven Years' War, and had been downsized even further after the war as the loss of Catalonia shifted attention to Iberia and the Pyrenees. The only relief for Spain was that the old Spanish road through the Franche-Comte was still sound, so that Italian troops could be sent north. The ruling Spinola house in Genoa even sent some token troops northwards, although for the most part its contributions were limited to the financial sphere. Even with Italian assistance, though, Spanish successes were limited- their victory of Gossilies (Feb. 12, 1688) was almost immediately followed by the crushing loss at Braine l'Alland (Feb. 15-16, 1688). Defeat for Spain was almost certain by 1690, and envoys from Madrid began discussing matters with the Belgians at Antwerp.
This moment of heavy Belgian involvement on the Continent, distracted from other affairs, was when England decided to strike. Claiming that Belgium was refusing to respect the United Republic's trade rights and citing several examples of disrespect to English shipping at sea, the United Republic declared war, catching the Belgian government by surprise. Early naval battles near Gravelines and Flemish Knokke showed that the English had a siginificant advantage over the Dutch, as the Belgian fleets had never been geared towards large-scale engagements and suffered from a lack of first-rates. Further away from home, Belgian merchantmen in the Caribbean made easy prey for English privateers, enraging financiers and investors in Antwerp and Amsterdam.
Quickly Belgium sued for peace with Spain over the Brabantine War. A compromise was reached, wherein southern Brabant[2] and the Upper Gelders were ceded to Belgium. The remaining territories of the Spanish Netherlands would become nominally independent under the 'Cantonment' system[3] suggested by Dutch envoys, although Luxemboug would remain under Spanish control as to better divide up the newly independent cantons into Belgian and Spanish spheres of influence. This new confederation of provinces would be dubbed the 'United Cantons of the Netherlands,' and in French as 'Les Cantons-Unis des Pays-Bas.” Belgian-attended festivities in Lille[4] in June of 1690 were subdued, however, as the English navy continued to tromp Belgian fleets in the Channel.
Slowly but surely, however, things began to turn Belgium's way. Efforts in the Orient by the English East India Territory to destroy VOC power proved fruitless, as few local governments were willing were to openly war with the Dutch after the infamous Sulu Massacre (1677), and major powers were satisfied with the Status Quo or otherwise already occupied[5]. What little English privateering occurred was countered by the VOC more heavily armying her merchantmen and convoys, and 'encouraging' local allies to refuse the privateers a safehaven. Closer to Africa, an English raid on Mauritius in April of 1692 ended with the death of the famous Pirate-Admiral Hector Sparrow[6], which effectively ended English endevours in the Orient.
The blow that finally began peace negotiations turned out to not take place in Europe or the Orient, however, but in the Americas. On the 24th of August, 1693, a watchman in the infamous town of Plymouth Banks[7], Virginia, spotted a fleet of vessels approaching from the south. As the ships came closer to the old port town, a few men reached for spyglasses and searched for flags on the oncoming fleet. To their shock and dismay, flags they did find-- those of the WIC officer and dreaded privateer, Captain Rob Römer, well-known for his infamous duel and brutal killing of the Italian mercenary, Adriano Lupardi. By nightfall Römer's WIC fleet was within cannon range of the town, bombarding the Virginian town for hours before suddenly withdrawing to the north. The next morning, dazed citizens began cleaning up the debris and scavaging for lost property when a new alarm was raised-- Römer had landed just north of the town with a raiding party armed with muskets and torches.
A day later, all that remained of the lawless city was charred wood and a few scattered cadavers. Very few indentifiable bodies were later found in the ruins, as many of the corpses had turned to ash as the town had been swallowed in flame or had been picked apart in the bay by fish and birds.
Römer's ruthlessness did the trick, however. With the United Republic now painfully aware how unprotected her own colonies were and how bloody the war could be, negotiations began in earnest. Although England still made a few demands at first, the famous morningtime Battle of the Leghorn Foghorn near the Tuscan city of Livorno showed that Belgian naval power now ran supreme even in the Mediterranean, and the negotiators gave in. England agreed to a war indemnity, to cull Virginian-based piracy, and to end the practice of seizing Dutch shipping on the high seas. Of these three points, England only every fully complied with the first one, but it was enough for Belgian pride.
The audacious and ruthless actions of Belgium during this period would soon have far-reaching consequences, as more nations began to perceive the Dutch as a threat to their own national security. While these wars helped Belgian trade prosper, diplomacy floundered.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[1] United Republic of England and Wales: The Republican government in London had sought to re-centralize the state in the aftermath of the initial revolt, and so began a slow but steady program culminated in the minor but important change from being the “United Republics” to “United Republic.”
[2] Southern Brabant: Having been held by the Spanish throughout the Dutch Revolt and after, Southern Brabant was drastically different from the Belgian-held majority of the State. Besides being majority Catholic through the Counter-Reformation efforts of the Spanish, much of the Dutch-speaking population had moved the relatively short distance northward to Brussels throughout the 17th century, leaving the area to Francophones.
[3] Cantonment: Modelled after the Swiss system, 'cantonment' basically involved the formation of a very weak confederation where each State holds many sovereign powers, including taxation, military control, and trade agreements, although some of these powers are limited by a constitution and central administration composed of a unicameral body attended by representatives of each canton. This is not to be confused with the military term.
[4] Lille: Administrative center and nominal capital of the new United Cantons.
[5] Shun-Manchu Wars: China, under the Shun dynasty, undertook a series of campaigns between 1670 and 1720 to subjugate the Manchurian nation after the bloodshed of the late Ming and its fall.
[6] Hector Sparrow: Known to terrified VOC sailors as “Rode Baard” or “Roadbart” and to the English as “Redbeard” or the more romantic “Barbarossa,” sometimes corrupted to “Barbossa”.
[7] Plymouth Banks: By the 1690s, the old Virginian town of Plymouth Banks was a well-known pirate haven and aggressor in its own right, coordinating periodic raids along the coast of Spanish Florida and organizing smuggling efforts in spite of England's mercantilist colonial laws. For an OTL comparison, think of it as a combination of colonial Port Royal and Deadwood.
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