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11 Representative Government
- 1. History of Europe: Renaissance to 1815
- 2. It is both certain and evident to all men, that the public peace and happiness of any state or kingdom cannot be preserved, where the Laws, Liberties, and Customs, established by the lawful authority in it, are openly transgressed and annulled … ∼ William of Orange
- 3. The Dutch Golden Age Trade, science, art, & the military
- 4. Dutch Golden Age* *Today, many Dutch museums & historians are retreating from this label. They cite the role of the Dutch in the international slave trade. Calling this a “Golden” era is linked to positives: prosperity, peace, opulence. But “(t)he term ignores the many negative sides of the 17th century such as poverty, war, forced labor, and human trafficking.”
- 5. Dutch Golden Age • The Netherlands • Over 17th c., Dutch nation one of richest, most powerful • Vast colonial empire • Powerful ocean trade • Emerged from period of turmoil • Eighty Years War (1568-1648)
- 6. Dutch Golden Age • Netherlands & the Reformation • Dutch Protestants initially suffered repression • But Dutch society dependent on trade • Freedom & tolerance essential • Catholic Hapsburg rulers persecuted • Leading to increased opposition to Hapsburg rulers Title page of the 1637 Statenvertaling, the first Bible translated from the original Hebrew and Greek into Dutch
- 7. Dutch Golden Age • Netherlands vs. Spain • Philip II of Spain: hereditary ruler of Seventeen Provinces • Imperial states of the Hapsburg Netherlands • In 16th c. • Dutch resistance to Spanish rule • Excessive taxation • Religious persecution • Centralization efforts Philip II berating William the Silent, leader of the Dutch Revolt
- 8. Dutch Golden Age • Netherlands vs. Spain • Eighty Years War (1568-1648) • 1st Phase: “Dutch Revolt” • Imperial states of the Hapsburg Netherlands • In 16th c. • Rebellion in Netherlands against Spain • By 1581, northern provinces independent • De facto (formally in 1648) • Southern provinces remained in Spanish control • Leading many to flee north 1581 secession outlined in red on map of Seventeen Provinces
- 9. Dutch Golden Age • Period of Expansion • Dutch trade to the East: • Dutch East India Co. founded 1602 • One of 1st multi-national companies • Used VOC monogram • One of earliest logos to be recognized globally The logo of the Amsterdam Chamber of the VOC; VOC logo on company cannon
- 10. Dutch East India Co.: An Effective Corporate Identity
- 11. Dutch Golden Age • Dutch East India Co. • Traded with Mughal India for textiles and silks • Spice trade in Southeast Asia • Proto-conglomerate diversifying into multiple commercial & industrial activities • Production and trade of spices, sugarcane, & S. African wine • Raised money by selling shares in company Left: VOC administrative headquarters in Batavia; Right: Dutch settlement in Bengal Subah
- 12. Dutch Golden Age • Period of Expansion • Dutch East India Co. • Forerunner of modern global corporations • Served as a company-state • Waged war • Imprisoned, convicted criminals • Negotiated treaties • Struck its own coins • Established colonies
- 13. Dutch Golden Age • Period of Expansion • Dutch in America: • 1621 Charter of Dutch West India Co. • Dutch merchants, foreign investors • Active in • African slave trade • Brazil • Caribbean • North America The West Indian Warehouse (Amsterdam), constructed in 1642
- 14. Dutch Golden Age • Period of Expansion • Dutch West India Company • Initially a failure – early projects expensive • Turned from territorial conquest to “privateering” • Patroonships – created to populate colony of New Netherlands • Granted large tracts of land for up to 50 people • Based upon aristocratic model • Patroons – investors who owned land, lived in manor house
- 15. Dutch Golden Age • Period of Expansion • New Netherland • Colony the idea of Dutch West India Co. – fur trade • New Amsterdam • Main settlement, capital
- 16. Dutch Golden Age • Period of Expansion • Prosperous Dutch Republic of 17th c. • Trade in east and west led to wealth at home • Towns in Northern Netherlands • 1st middle class communities • There’s a ruling class, but not based on birth • Based on energetic merchants with practical concerns • Pillars of the community • And Protestant Dam Square in Amsterdam, late 17th c.
- 17. Dutch Golden Age • Period of Expansion • Calvinism & Capitalism in 17th c. Netherlands • Lutheranism, Anabaptism; but Calvinism took hold • Not the cause of capitalism, but elements contributed to success
- 18. Dutch Golden Age • Period of Expansion • Calvinism & Capitalism • Encouraged “purposeful investment of money” • Luxury & self-indulgence seen as vices • Thrift a virtue • Predestination: wealth can be sign of virtue • Success possibly an advance indication • Of person destined to be saved in next world
- 20. Dutch Golden Age • Characteristics of Dutch Middle Class • New kind of housing: the town house • Small but comfortable • Several stories high • Narrow plot of valuable real estate
- 21. Dutch Golden Age • Painting • Leader in developing subjects of • Still life • Landscape • Genre painting • Portraiture • “History Painting” not popular • Religious art virtually non-existent The Girl with the Pearl Earring, by Johannes Vermeer, 1665
- 22. Dutch Golden Age • Characteristics of the Dutch Middle Class • Living in smaller family groups than elsewhere • Starting a trend that eventually led to nuclear family • New original school of painting evolved • Focusing on the lives of the affluent middle class Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid (1658–1660)
- 23. The Hunter’s Gift, Gabriel Metsu, 1660 A Boy and a Girl with a Cat and an Eel, Judith Leyster, 1635
- 24. Courtyard of a House in Delft, 1658 • Pieter de Hooch • Study in domestic virtue • Showing texture, spatial complexity
- 26. The Night Watch Rembrandt, 1642 • Noteworthy for: • Colossal size • Dramatic use of light & shadow • Perception of motion • Subjects of painting
- 27. Dutch Golden Age • Canals of Amsterdam • Built during 17th c. Golden Age • Extensive city planning • 3 concentric half-circles • For residential development • 1 outer ring for defense, water management
- 28. Dutch Golden Age • Canals of Amsterdam • Reflected primacy of the global economy • Goods transported • Houses built along the edges • Developed through drainage, land reclamation • Accommodating the bursting population of Amsterdam
- 29. English & Dutch • England & Netherlands Compared • Both had largest middle-class population in Europe • Along with Northern Italy • Much of the wealth was linked to commerce, not privilege of birth • Heightened by role of England & the Netherlands in the new global economy
- 30. Dutch Golden Age • Anglo-Dutch Wars • 4 naval conflicts • England vs. the Netherlands • 17th and 18th c. • Stemming from commercial rivalry
- 31. Dutch Golden Age • Anglo-Dutch Wars • 1st war: 1652-1654 • Commercial rivalry unresolved • 2nd War: 1665-1657 • Dutch victory, but lost American colonies • 3rd War: 1672-1674 • A draw, with a treaty • 4th War: 1780-1784 • Reaction to Dutch support for American Revolution • Dutch power declined
Editor's Notes
- _As the Netherlands has been turning a critical eye to its history in recent years, the Dutch Republic’s involvement in the slave trade has become a particular point of contention. According to Leiden University’s African Studies Center, Dutch involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade arose in the 17th century and lasted for some 200 years. The state operated fortresses along the Gold Coast, known today as the Republic of Ghana, from which they shipped enslaved Africans across the Atlantic. It has been estimated that the Dutch traded as many as 600,000 Africans over two centuries._______________ Over the course of the seventeenth century, the Dutch nation became one of the wealthiest and most powerful in the world, employing its naval prowess to dominate international trade and create a vast colonial empire. But this period began in turmoil. The 1568 revolt of the Seventeen Provinces (modern-day Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and sections of northern France and western Germany) against Philip II of Spain, the sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands, led to the Eighty Years’ War, or Dutch War of Independence. Under William of Orange, the northern provinces overthrew the Habsburg armies and established the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, which in 1648 was recognized as an independent country. The Southern Netherlands remained under Catholic Spain’s control, prompting countless Flemish craftsmen to flee north, where their innovative techniques and pioneering subjects were disseminated throughout the Republic. The newfound prosperity in the seventeenth century engendered great advancements in the arts and sciences. With surplus income, Dutch citizens enthusiastically purchased paintings and works of decorative art. What followed was an enormous surge in art production in an unprecedented variety of types and levels of quality.
- Over the course of the seventeenth century, the Dutch nation became one of the wealthiest and most powerful in the world, employing its naval prowess to dominate international trade and create a vast colonial empire. But this period began in turmoil. The 1568 revolt of the Seventeen Provinces (modern-day Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and sections of northern France and western Germany) against Philip II of Spain, the sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands, led to the Eighty Years’ War, or Dutch War of Independence. Under William of Orange, the northern provinces overthrew the Habsburg armies and established the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, which in 1648 was recognized as an independent country. The Southern Netherlands remained under Catholic Spain’s control, prompting countless Flemish craftsmen to flee north, where their innovative techniques and pioneering subjects were disseminated throughout the Republic. The newfound prosperity in the seventeenth century engendered great advancements in the arts and sciences. With surplus income, Dutch citizens enthusiastically purchased paintings and works of decorative art. What followed was an enormous surge in art production in an unprecedented variety of types and levels of quality.
- During the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation rapidly gained ground in northern Europe, especially in its Lutheran and Calvinist forms.[64] Dutch Protestants, after initial repression, were tolerated by local authorities. By the 1560s, the Protestant community had become a significant influence in the Netherlands, although it clearly formed a minority then.[65] In a society dependent on trade, freedom and tolerance were considered essential. Nevertheless, the Catholic rulers Charles V, and later Philip II, made it their mission to defeat Protestantism, which was considered a heresy by the Catholic Church and a threat to the stability of the whole hierarchical political system. On the other hand, the intensely moralistic Dutch Protestants insisted their Biblical theology, sincere piety and humble lifestyle was morally superior to the luxurious habits and superficial religiosity of the ecclesiastical nobility.[66] The rulers' harsh punitive measures led to increasing grievances in the Netherlands, where the local governments had embarked on a course of peaceful coexistence. In the second half of the century, the situation escalated. Philip sent troops to crush the rebellion and make the Netherlands once more a Catholic region.[67] In the first wave of the Reformation, Lutheranism won over the elites in Antwerp and the South. The Spanish successfully suppressed it there, and Lutheranism only flourished in east Friesland.[68] The second wave of the Reformation, came in the form of Anabaptism, that was popular among ordinary farmers in Holland and Friesland. Anabaptists were socially very radical and equalitarian; they believed that the apocalypse was very near. They refused to live the old way, and began new communities, creating considerable chaos. A prominent Dutch Anabaptist was Menno Simons, who initiated the Mennonite church. The movement was allowed in the north, but never grew to a large scale.[69] The third wave of the Reformation, that ultimately proved to be permanent, was Calvinism. It arrived in the Netherlands in the 1540s, attracting both the elite and the common population, especially in Flanders. The Catholic Spanish responded with harsh persecution and introduced the Inquisition of the Netherlands. Calvinists rebelled. First there was the iconoclasm in 1566, which was the systematic destruction of statues of saints and other Catholic devotional depictions in churches. In 1566, William the Silent, a Calvinist, started the Eighty Years' War to liberate all Dutch of whatever religion from Catholic Spain. Blum says, "His patience, tolerance, determination, concern for his people, and belief in government by consent held the Dutch together and kept alive their spirit of revolt."[70] The provinces of Holland and Zeeland, being mainly Calvinist by 1572, submitted to the rule of William. The other states remained almost entirely Catholic.
- Philip's rule in the Seventeen Provinces known collectively as the Netherlands faced many difficulties, leading to open warfare in 1568. He appointed Margaret of Parma as Governor of the Netherlands, when he left the low countries for the Spanish kingdoms in 1559, but forced her to adjust policy to the advice of Cardinal Granvelle, who was greatly disliked in the Netherlands, after he insisted on direct control over events in the Netherlands despite being over two weeks' ride away in Madrid. There was discontent in the Netherlands about Philip's taxation demands and the incessant persecution of Protestants. In 1566, Protestant preachers sparked anti-clerical riots known as the Iconoclast Fury; in response to growing Protestant influence, the army of the Iron Duke (Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba) went on the offensive. In 1568, Alba had two Flemish nobles executed in Brussels' central square, further alienating the local aristocracy. There were massacres of civilians in Mechelen,[19] Naarden,[20] Zutphen[19] and Haarlem. In 1571, Alba erected at Antwerp a bronze statue of himself trampling the rebellious Dutch under his horse's hooves, cast from the melted-down cannon looted by the Spanish troops after the Battle of Jemmingen in 1568; it was modelled on medieval images of the Spanish patron Saint James "the Moorslayer" riding down Muslims and caused such outrage that Philip had it removed and destroyed.[21] In 1572, a prominent exiled member of the Dutch aristocracy, William the Silent (Prince of Orange), invaded the Netherlands with a Protestant army, but he only succeeded in holding two provinces, Holland and Zeeland. Because of the Spanish repulse in the Siege of Alkmaar (1573) led by his equally psychopathic son Fadrique,[21] Alba resigned his command, replaced by Luis de Requesens. Alba boasted that he had burned or executed 18,600 persons in the Netherlands,[22] in addition to the far greater number he massacred during the war, many of them women and children; 8,000 persons were burned or hanged in one year, and the total number of Alba's Flemish victims can not have fallen short of 50,000.[23] Under Requesens, the Army of Flanders reached a peak strength of 86,000 in 1574 and retained its battlefield superiority, destroying Louis of Nassau's German mercenary army at the Battle of Mookerheyde on 14 April 1574, killing both him and his brother Henry. Rampant inflation and the loss of treasure fleets from the New World prevented Philip from paying his soldiers consistently, leading to the so-called Spanish Fury at Antwerp in 1576, where soldiers ran amuck through the streets, burning more than 1,000 homes and killing 6,000 citizens.[24] Philip sent in Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, as Governor-General of the Spanish Netherlands from 1578 to 1592. Farnese defeated the rebels in 1578 at the Battle of Gembloux,[25] and he captured many rebel towns in the south: Maastricht (1579), Tournai (1581), Oudenaarde (1582), Dunkirk (1583), Bruges (1584), Ghent (1584), and Antwerp (1585).[26] Reward letter of Philip II to the family of Balthasar Gerards, assassin of William the Silent, 1590 The States General of the northern provinces, united in the 1579 Union of Utrecht, passed an Act of Abjuration declaring that they no longer recognised Philip as their king. The southern Netherlands (what is now Belgium and Luxembourg) remained under Spanish rule. In 1584, William the Silent was assassinated by Balthasar Gérard, after Philip had offered a reward of 25,000 crowns to anyone who killed him, calling him a "pest on the whole of Christianity and the enemy of the human race". The Dutch forces continued to fight on under Orange's son Maurice of Nassau, who received modest help from the Queen of England in 1585. The Dutch gained an advantage over the Spanish because of their growing economic strength, in contrast to Philip's burgeoning economic troubles. The war came to an end in 1648, when the Dutch Republic was recognised by the Spanish Crown as independent; the eight decades of war came at a massive human cost, with an estimated 600,000 to 700,000 victims, of which 350,000 to 400,000 were civilians killed by disease and what would later be considered war crimes.[27]
- In Dutch, the name of the company is Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, which is abbreviated to VOC. The company's monogram logo was possibly the first globally recognised corporate logo.
- In Dutch, the name of the company is Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, which is abbreviated to VOC. The company's monogram logo was possibly the first globally recognised corporate logo.
- Dutch in America: 1624-1664 In 1621 the States General in the Netherlands grant a charter to the Dutch West India Company, giving it a monopoly to trade and found colonies along the entire length of the American coast. The area of the Hudson river, explored by Hudson for the Dutch East India Company in 1609, has already been designated New Netherland. Now, in 1624, a party of thirty families is sent out to establish a colony. They make their first permanent settlement at Albany, calling it Fort Orange. In 1626 Peter Minuit is appointed governor of the small colony. He purchases the island of Manhattan from Indian chiefs, and builds a fort at its lower end. He names the place New Amsterdam. The Dutch company finds it easier to make money by piracy than by the efforts of colonists (the capture of the Spanish silver fleet off Cuba in 1628 yields vast profits), but the town of New Amsterdam thrives as an exceptionally well placed seaport - even though administered in a harshly authoritarian manner by a succession of Dutch governors. The only weakness of New Amsterdam is that it is surrounded by English colonies to the north and south of it. This place seems to the English both an anomaly and an extremely desirable possession. Both themes are reflected in the blithe grant by Charles II in 1664 to his brother, the duke of York, of the entire coastline between the Connecticut and Delaware rivers. New Amsterdam, and behind it New Netherland, lie exactly in the middle of this stretch. When an English fleet arrives in 1664, the Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant accepts the reality of the situation and surrenders the territory without a shot being fired. New Amsterdam is transformed without upheaval into New York. This reduces the Dutch presence in the new world to the region of Guiana, in south America, where the first settlements are established before 1616. Taken over by the company from 1621, they survive on sugar grown with slave labour. Frequently disputed between Dutch, French and English interests, the Dutch section of the Guiana coast eventually becomes Surinam.
- New Netherland (Dutch: Nieuw Nederland; Latin: Nova Belgica or Novum Belgium) was a 17th-century colony of the Dutch Republic that was located on the east coast of America. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva Peninsula to southwestern Cape Cod, while the more limited settled areas are now part of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut, with small outposts in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. The colony was conceived by the Dutch West India Company (WIC) in 1621 to capitalize on the North American fur trade. It was settled slowly at first because of policy mismanagement by the WIC and conflicts with American Indians. The settlement of New Sweden by the Swedish South Company encroached on its southern flank, while its northern border was redrawn to accommodate an expanding New England Confederation. The colony experienced dramatic growth during the 1650s and became a major port for trade in the north Atlantic Ocean. The Dutch surrendered Fort Amsterdam on Manhattan island to England in 1664 (formalized in 1667), contributing to the Second Anglo-Dutch War. In 1673, the Dutch retook the area but relinquished it under the Treaty of Westminster (1674), ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War the next year. The inhabitants of New Netherland were European colonists, American Indians, and Africans imported as slave laborers. The colony had an estimated population between 7,000 and 8,000 at the time of transfer to England in 1674, half of whom were not of Dutch descent. ______________ New Netherland (Nieuw-Nederland in Dutch) was the 17th century colonial province of the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands on the northeastern coast of North America. The claimed territory was the land from the Delmarva Peninsula to southern Cape Cod. The settled areas are now part of the Mid-Atlantic states of New York, New Jersey, and Delaware, with small outposts in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Its capital of New Amsterdam was located at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan on the Upper New York Bay. The region was initially explored in 1609 by Henry Hudson on an expedition for the Dutch East India Company. It was later surveyed and charted, and was given its name in 1614. The Dutch named the three main rivers of the province the Zuyd Rivier (South River, now the Delaware River), the Noort Rivier (North River, now the Hudson River), and the Versche Rivier (Fresh River, now the Connecticut River). They intended to use them to gain access to the interior, the indigenous population, and the lucrative fur trade. International law required discovery, charting, and settlement to perfect a territorial claim. Large scale settlement was rejected in favor of a formula that was working in Asia of establishing factories (trading posts with a military presence and a small support community). This period is sometimes referred to as the Dutch Golden Age, despite on-going wars on the European continent, and it was difficult to recruit people to leave the economic boom and cultural vibrancy of Europe. Mismanagement and under-funding by the Dutch West India Company hindered early settlement, as well as misunderstandings and armed conflict with Indians. Liberalization of trade, a degree of self-rule, and the loss of Dutch Brazil led to exponential growth in the 1650s. Transfers of power from the Netherlands to England were peaceful in the province, the last one formalized in 1674.
- The prosperous Dutch republic: 17th century The trading energies of the Dutch in the far east and in the Americas are reflected in the growing prosperity of the towns of the United Provinces. Wealth accumulates in Holland and the other provinces at an extraordinary rate during the 17th century, creating an entirely new form of society and one with great significance for later centuries. These towns of the northern Netherlands are the first middle-class communities, a foretaste of what is later often described as the bourgeoisie. In this respect the United Provinces differ profoundly from another republic founded on trade. The institutions of Venice, in origin a medieval power, are aristocratic. The States General of the Netherlands, acquiring its independence in the 17th century, is no less an oligarchy than the Venetian senate. It too is the preserve of a small ruling class. But the Dutch ruling class is made up of energetic merchants with eminently practical concerns. They are pillars of their community, in Amsterdam and in many lesser towns. And they are Protestants. These characteristics profoundly affect the style of life emerging in Holland at this time. How much the Protestant ethic of Calvinism is linked with this capitalist society is a matter of debate. But a new departure is evident in many observable details.. These Dutch merchants live in a new kind of house - the comfortable but relatively small town house, several stories high on a narrow plot of valuable real estate. Copied in England in the next century, this pattern provides the neat terraces of Georgian London or Bath. But the Dutch are in the lead. In the 17th century they are by far the most urban Europeans; two thirds of them live in towns. In their town houses the Dutch live in smaller family groups than is normal elsewhere, starting a trend which leads eventually to the modern nuclear family. And they are so interested in their new society that they commission an entirely original school of painting to celebrate it. Pictures by artists such as Pieter de Hooch, showing members of the family and domestic servants in meticulously swept Dutch interiors, are unprecedented in the history of art. The new Dutch prosperity is based almost entirely on overseas trade. In the second half of the 17th century the Dutch merchant fleet equals that of England, France, Spain and Portugal combined. And Dutch wages are the highest in Europe, some 20% above the equivalent in England. This upstart republic, rejecting the claims of monarchy and acquiring wealth more rapidly than any other state, cannot avoid provoking hostility - above all from England, its immediate neighbour over the water and its greatest rival for new international trade. The years from 1652 to 1674 include no less than three successive Anglo-Dutch wars.
- The development of capitalism in northern Protestant countries, such as the Netherlands and England, has prompted the theory that the Reformation is a cause of capitalism. But this states the case rather too strongly, particularly since the beginnings of capitalism can be seen far earlier. Nevertheless there are elements in Reformation thought which greatly help the development of capitalism. This is particularly true of the Calvinist variety of the reformed faith, which becomes the state religion of the Netherlands after the Great Assembly of 1651. The most immediate way in which the Reformation aids the capitalist is by removing the stigma which the Catholic church has traditionally attached to money-lending - or usury, in the pejorative Biblical term. Calvinism positively encourages the purposeful investment of money, by presenting luxury and self-indulgence as vices and thrift as a virtue. It even subtly contrives to suggest that wealth may itself be a sign of virtue. This useful slight of hand is contrived with the help of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination. If certain virtuous people are predestined to be saved in the next world, then perhaps success in this one is an advance indication of God's favour. Read more: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=3109&HistoryID=ac90>rack=pthc#ixzz6D8c7z8FX ________ During the 16th century, the Protestant Reformation rapidly gained ground in northern Europe, especially in its Lutheran and Calvinist forms.[64] Dutch Protestants, after initial repression, were tolerated by local authorities. By the 1560s, the Protestant community had become a significant influence in the Netherlands, although it clearly formed a minority then.[65] In a society dependent on trade, freedom and tolerance were considered essential. Nevertheless, the Catholic rulers Charles V, and later Philip II, made it their mission to defeat Protestantism, which was considered a heresy by the Catholic Church and a threat to the stability of the whole hierarchical political system. On the other hand, the intensely moralistic Dutch Protestants insisted their Biblical theology, sincere piety and humble lifestyle was morally superior to the luxurious habits and superficial religiosity of the ecclesiastical nobility.[66] The rulers' harsh punitive measures led to increasing grievances in the Netherlands, where the local governments had embarked on a course of peaceful coexistence. In the second half of the century, the situation escalated. Philip sent troops to crush the rebellion and make the Netherlands once more a Catholic region.[67] In the first wave of the Reformation, Lutheranism won over the elites in Antwerp and the South. The Spanish successfully suppressed it there, and Lutheranism only flourished in east Friesland.[68] The second wave of the Reformation, came in the form of Anabaptism, that was popular among ordinary farmers in Holland and Friesland. Anabaptists were socially very radical and equalitarian; they believed that the apocalypse was very near. They refused to live the old way, and began new communities, creating considerable chaos. A prominent Dutch Anabaptist was Menno Simons, who initiated the Mennonite church. The movement was allowed in the north, but never grew to a large scale.[69] The third wave of the Reformation, that ultimately proved to be permanent, was Calvinism. It arrived in the Netherlands in the 1540s, attracting both the elite and the common population, especially in Flanders. The Catholic Spanish responded with harsh persecution and introduced the Inquisition of the Netherlands. Calvinists rebelled. First there was the iconoclasm in 1566, which was the systematic destruction of statues of saints and other Catholic devotional depictions in churches. In 1566, William the Silent, a Calvinist, started the Eighty Years' War to liberate all Dutch of whatever religion from Catholic Spain. Blum says, "His patience, tolerance, determination, concern for his people, and belief in government by consent held the Dutch together and kept alive their spirit of revolt."[70] The provinces of Holland and Zeeland, being mainly Calvinist by 1572, submitted to the rule of William. The other states remained almost entirely Catholic.
- During the 17th century Amsterdam experienced a massive economic boom, which led to the creation of its concentric canal belt. Four massive ditches were dug around the Dam, with each connecting the currents flowing between Amsterdam’s main sources of water; the river Ij and Amstel. These new constructions were designed to encourage water traffic and meant that goods could be rapidly transported around the city. As money poured into the city, many wealthy traders decided to relocate to central Amsterdam, consequently leading to an enormous spike in population. Due to Amsterdam’s cramped layout housing quickly became an issue, and to solve this problem the municipality started handing out plots of land to affluent citizens. Although these parcels were relatively generous, they were unusably narrow, allowing the government to cram as many houses as possible onto the banks of the canal rings
- A typical Jan Steen picture (c. 1663); while the housewife sleeps, the household play.
- The painting is famous for three things: its colossal size (363 cm × 437 cm (11.91 ft × 14.34 ft)), the dramatic use of light and shadow (tenebrism) and the perception of motion in what would have traditionally been a static military group portrait. The painting was completed in 1642, at the peak of the Dutch Golden Age. It depicts the eponymous company moving out, led by Captain Frans Banninck Cocq (dressed in black, with a red sash) and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruytenburch (dressed in yellow, with a white sash). With effective use of sunlight and shade, Rembrandt leads the eye to the three most important characters among the crowd: the two men in the center (from whom the painting gets its original title), and the woman in the centre-left background carrying a chicken. Behind them, the company's colors are carried by the ensign, Jan Visscher Cornelissen. The figures are almost life-size. Rembrandt has displayed the traditional emblem of the arquebusiers in a natural way, with the woman in the background carrying the main symbols. She is a kind of mascot herself; the claws of a dead chicken on her belt represent the clauweniers (arquebusiers), the pistol behind the chicken represents clover and she is holding the militia's goblet. The man in front of her is wearing a helmet with an oak leaf, a traditional motif of the arquebusiers. The dead chicken is also meant to represent a defeated adversary. The colour yellow is often associated with victory.
- James, Duke of York, the Lord High Admiral of England and openly Catholic, argued in favour of war between England and the Dutch. ----------- In the early 1600s, the Dutch, while continuing to fight the Eighty Years' War with the Catholic Habsburgs, also began to carry out long-distance exploration by sea. The Dutch innovation in the trading of shares in a joint-stock company allowed them to finance expeditions with stock subscriptions sold in the United Provinces and in London. They founded colonies in North America, India, and Indonesia (the Spice Islands). They also enjoyed continued success in privateering—in 1628 Admiral Piet Heyn became the only commander to successfully capture a large Spanish treasure fleet. With the many long voyages by Dutch East India men, their society built an officer class and institutional knowledge that would later be replicated in England, principally by the East India Company. By the middle of the 17th century, the Dutch had largely replaced the Portuguese as the main European traders in Asia. In particular, by taking over most of Portugal's trading posts in the East Indies, the Dutch gained control over the hugely profitable trade in spices. This coincided with the enormous growth of the Dutch merchant fleet, made possible by the cheap mass production of the fluyt sailing ship types. Soon the Dutch had Europe's largest mercantile fleet, with more merchant ships than all other nations combined, and possessed a dominant position in European (especially Baltic) trade, as well as further afield. Dutch factory at Ambon, early to mid-17th century In 1648 the United Provinces concluded the Peace of Münster with Spain. Due to the division of powers in the Dutch Republic, the army and navy were the main base of power of the Stadtholder, although the budget allocated to them was set by the States General. With the arrival of peace, the States General decided to decommission most of the Dutch military. This led to conflict between the major Dutch cities and the new Stadtholder, William II of Orange, bringing the Republic to the brink of civil war. The Stadtholder's unexpected death in 1650 only added to the political tensions.