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The Isabelline Age - Chapter 1.1

For Philip II the conflict in the Netherlands was one of the many blows that the Catholic Spain, the Holy Sword in defense of the Catholic Church, was suffering through the fault of the enemies of Truth, the Protestant heretics.
No one could question the commitment of Philip II to the cause of Catholicism. Devoutly religious and finding solace in his faith to the tragedies (mournings) of his personal life, he felt obliged with the Catholic Church, deciding to use the wealth and power of his empire to restore the dominion of the Church over how much more of Europe it was possible. He also believed to have a divine mandate to protect Christendom from Islamic forces.

The Netherlands under the Hapsburg government had seen increase their wealth due to flourishing trade that interested them, constituting one of the jewels of the Habsburg rule in Europe. The territorial "fragmentation" of the area of these domains [1], however, had made difficult the defense both external and internal.
Meantime in the Holy Roman Empire some principles, for aiming to gain and increase their autonomy from the Emperor, not have qualms about use for their purpose the religion and the schism in place in Germany within the Catholic Church.
In the Philip's view, the reckless and wicked German princes had supported the Protestants warmongers, infecting with their heresy also large part of the same Empire. Against the insubordination of Protestant subjects was required a large amounts of money, and Netherlands, for their wealth, since the times of the Emperor Charles V, have became a major source of supply tax for the war effort against heresy and poor foresight policy of the German princes.
To manage in the best way the wealth and taxes, the Netherlands were subjected to a progressive administrative centralization; this policy, bumping against the traditional autonomy of government and of economic management that were in force in the area since the Middle Ages, had caused discontents and riots exerted especially by the gentry and by the merchants [2], the same people who, guided by pride and lust for power, allowed themselves to be ensnared by the rantings of the heresies Calvinist and Protestant and by the princes who used religion as a tool of destabilization and fight [3].
When King Philip II of Spain had returned to Spain in 1559, the religious question was added to the political tension. The king of Spain was a fervent enemy of the Protestant movements and was a staunch supporter of Counter-Reformation. His departure, without any hope of return to the Netherlands, had greatly weakened the central power: the States General had opposed themselves to every request of the governor, while the Calvinists had increased their proselytizing effort, giving at their meetings a military character, inciting to the use of arms «in the case of harassment». The situation, already explosive, had deflagrated [4]. The situation worsened after the arrival of Fernando Álvarez de Toledo (29 October 1507 – 11 December 1582), 3rd Duke of Alba, who soon conducted a severe campaign of repression of suspected heretics and people deemed guilty of the already extinguished insurrection [5]. The many exiles were ready to join in an armed fight, but their irregular forces did not have stand a chance against the Spanish well-disciplined troops [6].



[1] A personal union of seventeen provinces with little in common beyond their sovereign and a constitutional framework, with the power divided between city governments, local nobility, provincial Estates, royal stadtholders, the Estates General of the Netherlands, and the central government (represented by a regent) assisted by three councils: the Council of State, the Privy Council and the Council of Finances. The balance of power was heavily weighted toward the local and regional governments. Beyond these constitutional guarantees, the balance of power between local and central government was guaranteed by the dependence of the central government on extraordinary levies (Beden) granted by the States-General when ordinary tax revenues fell short of the financing requirements of the central government (which occurred frequently, due to the many wars Charles V had waged).
[2] The Netherlands were at the center of a important trade. The decline of the Baltic commercial routes and of the cities of the Hanseatic League in the previous century had favored the ports of the Netherlands and England. The climate mild and rainy, promoted the agriculture and, then, the growth of forage, which had allowed the breeding of dairy cattle (Holstein Friesian cattle) and the development of processors of milk into butter and cheese widely exported. A great resource were the large schools of herring in the North Sea. Herrings were smoked (kippers) or put in salt. Because it was convenient that the ships were always at full load, stopping at ports that could provide plenty of cheese and herring was pleasing to the captains of ships arriving from the Mediterranean in the ports of northern Europe, and being the herrings an ideal food because nutritious and, in addiction, at low cost, the ships returned thus loaded of this product, become common even in the Mediterranean where the herring were not there. The abundance of food, the excellent communications network, the proximity of the Atlantic, the laborious nature of the population, developed the textile industry which produced cloths and canvas of superior quality. The richness and beauty of velvets, of laces, of embroideries from the Netherlands were being exported everywhere, and were of unsurpassed quality. But it was above all the wool, the raw material necessary to the Flemish. Since there was little room for sheep farming, you could not produce the raw material. For centuries England brought his wool, plentiful and of good quality, in the Flemish ports. The discovery of America in the last times has had as effect a shift of the political axis and economic to benefit of the Atlantic coasts, bringing now the commercial and financial operations more conspicuous in the Netherlands: major banks were attracted to Antwerp, where in 1530 was opened the first stock exchange in Europe. They went into operation new shipyards, were founded insurance companies and corporations needed to divide the risk of business operations, and to gather the huge capital required. This favorable situation, however, had collapsed. On the one hand the bankruptcy of 1557 led to a disastrous effect especially for Antwerp, whose financial power was decayed, with effects on all productive activities (the wondrous prosperity of the Netherlands began to creak, producing unemployment, hunger, riots). On the other hand Philip II, having an increasing need of money, was forced more and more frequently and with greater insistence to address the Estates General, a kind of parliament of medieval origin, for obtain the sums of money needed to continue his wars, but the Estates to grant the annual subsidies had requested in return to control the use of this money.
[3] In the financial crisis the religious dissidence had became a sort of protest against the state authority. Calvinism was spreading rapidly in the Netherlands as in France, as well as an infiltration of Lutherans and Anabaptists was taking place. After 1560, favored by the peace with France, had began to appear numerous preachers who spread the writings of Calvin, able to attract in their ranks many noble because the Calvinists used refined techniques of manipulation of public opinion, making believe at the "Netherlander" subjects that King Philip II od Spain was a despotic tyrant interested to deprive them of their wealth. For the Calvinism, the civil institutions were subject to the ecclesiastical authority, and man must live in the world, acting in it to conform to the divine law, thing that ends to justify human action (then also justifies the armed rebellion against the civil power that does not bow to the dictates of religious power or which does not act in the interests of religious power). But human action becomes even, when it is a success, a sign of divine election, ie the compliance of every man to his vocation. From this, depends on the interpretation that brings the Calvinism to the origin of modern capitalism (for example Max Weber, «The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism»). In this explosive situation, a Papal decree in 1561, in the reform climate underway even in the Catholic Church during and after the Council of Trent, for the restructuring to the root of the episcopal organization of the Catholic Church in the Netherlands, was the fuse. At the King of Spain was given the right to appoint bishops, taking away this right to the Chapters of the single cathedrals: many nobles have seen themselves so deprived of the opportunity to place the younger sons at the head of annuities of the monasteries, and so they protested. Then, when it was learned that the Archbishop of Malines (Mechelen), the Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (20 August 1517 – 21 September 1586), chief adviser of Philip II, would be the new Primate, the "Netherlander" nobles feared that soon the king would be come to remove also their autonomy. William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, was the richest among the nobles of the Netherlands, a representative of the great princely families, believing that the meaning of the ecclesiastical reform was another step in the increase of the power of King of Spain, making it less essential the collaboration of the nobility and of the Estates General in government of the country, and personally abhorring the absolute power of the sovereign which he saw embodied in the Cardinal Granvelle, has opposed a stubborn resistance against this latter. He saw in the riots caused by Calvinists against the civil power as a useful tool, although he himself abhorred their intolerance and aggressiveness: his sympathies religious were in the direction of Lutheranism.
[4] The situation deteriorated rapidly. In 1566 the iconoclastic fury of armed Calvinists has spread like wildfire across the Netherlands. The authorities at first did not react. The central government was especially disturbed by the fact that in many cases the civic militias refused to intervene. This seemed to portend insurrection; the Governor Margaret of Parma (28 December 1522 – 18 January 1586) and several local authorities had made further concessions to the Calvinists, designating also certain churches for their worship. The Calvinist revolts were suppressed already in April 1567, so that Margaret had could report to Philip that the order in the country had been restored. However, due to the slowness of communication with Madrid, the king still had a rather exaggerated impression of the severity of the situation, deciding to travel he himself to the Netherlands to restore order (Philip told the Spanish ambassador to Rome, «I neither intend nor desire to be the ruler of heretics. If things cannot be remedied as I wish without recourse to arms, I am determined to go to war»), arousing a fierce debate among the two factions at the Spanish court, one led by the Duke of Alba and the other by Prince of Eboli, about the advisability of this journey; in the end it had been decided to send an army from Italy under the command of Alba. Margaret's emissary arrived at the court on 17 April 1567, the same day when Alba departed on his mission, too late to prevent the fateful intervention.
[5] Many high-ranking officials were arrested on various pretexts, among whom the Lamoral, Count of Egmont and Philip de Montmorency, Count of Hoorn; many other managed to go into exile, and they had forfeited their extensive possessions in the Netherlands, like most of the people being proscribed. The victims were not necessarily only Protestants. For instance, the Counts of Egmont and Hoorn, executed for treason on the main square in Brussels on 5 June 1568, protested their Catholic orthodoxy on the scaffold. This double execution was just the beginning of a wave of destruction across all of the provinces and is often cited as the date for the formal start of hostilities.
[6] Dillenburg, where William of Orange was exiled, became the center for plans to invade the Netherlands. The rebels had also received support by the French Calvinists, the Huguenots.
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