



Produced by David Widger





MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION

THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1555-1566, Complete

A History




By JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, D.C.L., LL.D.

Corresponding Member of the Institute of France, Etc.

1855

[Etext Editor's Note: JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, born in Dorchester, Mass.
1814, died 1877. Other works: Morton's Hopes and Merry Mount, novels.
Motley was the United States Minister to Austria, 1861-67, and the United
States Minister to England, 1869-70. Mark Twain mentions his respect for
John Motley. Oliver Wendell Holmes said in 'An Oration delivered before
the City Authorities of Boston' on the 4th of July, 1863: "'It cannot be
denied,'--says another observer, placed on one of our national
watch-towers in a foreign capital,--'it cannot be denied that the
tendency of European public opinion, as delivered from high places, is
more and more unfriendly to our cause; but the people,' he adds,
'everywhere sympathize with us, for they know that our cause is that of
free institutions,--that our struggle is that of the people against an
oligarchy.' These are the words of the Minister to Austria, whose
generous sympathies with popular liberty no homage paid to his genius by
the class whose admiring welcome is most seductive to scholars has ever
spoiled; our fellow-citizen, the historian of a great Republic which
infused a portion of its life into our own,--John Lothrop Motley." (See
the biography of Motley, by Holmes) Ed.]




PREFACE

The rise of the Dutch Republic must ever be regarded as one of the
leading events of modern times. Without the birth of this great
commonwealth, the various historical phenomena of: the sixteenth and
following centuries must have either not existed; or have presented
themselves under essential modifications.--Itself an organized protest
against ecclesiastical tyranny and universal empire, the Republic guarded
with sagacity, at many critical periods in the world's history; that
balance of power which, among civilized states; ought always to be
identical with the scales of divine justice. The splendid empire of
Charles the Fifth was erected upon the grave of liberty. It is a
consolation to those who have hope in humanity to watch, under the reign
of his successor, the gradual but triumphant resurrection of the spirit
over which the sepulchre had so long been sealed. From the handbreadth of
territory called the province of Holland rises a power which wages eighty
years' warfare with the most potent empire upon earth, and which, during
the progress of the struggle, becoming itself a mighty state, and binding
about its own slender form a zone of the richest possessions of earth,
from pole to trop