Logo DBNL
Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden. Deel 94 (1979)

Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden. Deel 94

(1979)– [tijdschrift] Bijdragen en Mededeelingen van het Historisch Genootschap–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

Vorige Volgende

The Holland Towns and the Dutch-Spanish Conflict, 1621-1648*
Jonathan I. Israel

Although the province of Holland surpassed by far the other six Dutch provinces in wealth and population during the Golden Age, there were nevertheless major political episodes in which Holland failed to exercise effective leadership or exert decisive influence. Indeed, it could even occur that a clear majority of the voting members of the province of Holland, with Amsterdam, the Republic's richest and largest city taking the lead, could fail to get its way when the other provinces were split three against three. One highly instructive such episode was the prolonged political battle within the Republic that continued through most of the second Dutch-Spanish war of 1621-1648 over whether or not to accept Spanish proposals for a truce or peace. Although this subject is not much discussed or very familiar today, for a quarter of a century during the Golden Age, it loomed as the most important issue in Dutch life second only to the rivalry between the Counter-Remonstrant and Remonstrant factions. Over many years it was referred to in the deliberations of the Dutch provincial assemblies and city administrations simply as the groote saecke or the groote werck to mark it off from the mass of less significant questions. The problem for the historian is that almost all of the relevant secret resolutions of the States of Holland have been lost. To reconstruct the story, he must rely, for the most part, on the records of the various city councils.

While Dutch-Spanish negotiations proceeded almost without break in the years 1621-1628, through various intermediaries, it was only in the winter of 1628-1629, that Philip IV finally dropped his insistence that the Dutch Republic must make a number of concessions before he would accept a truce. In January 1629, the Spanish king signed a secret authorization for the Archduchess Isabella, governess of the Southern Netherlands, empowering her to conclude a truce of long duration, on the lines of that of 1609, without requiring any concession by the Dutch that did not figure in the earlier truce, and in February, he also authorized her, should there be any difficulty in renewing the terms of 1609, to agree to a simple armi-

stice, valid for from four to six years, without any conditions whatever except that it apply in the East and West Indies as well as in Europe1.. At that time, there was a painful awareness, in both Brussels and Madrid, that the entanglement with France in Italy over the Mantuan succession question, compelling the deployment of large forces in Italy, and starving the Flanders army of cash and supplies, was causing a marked swing in the balance of power in the Low Countries against Spain. ‘And if they should besiege such a place as Bolduque ['s-Hertogenbosch] or Breda’, wrote Isabella to Philip, in February 1629,

we can see no way of saving it, for we have no money with which to bring out a field army... and in the fortified strongholds, there are no munitions or essential supplies for their defence... and the troops are in such a state that I do not know how they have suffered such misery, for most have not been paid for four months2..

Isabella communicated Philip IV's readiness to sign a long truce, without any Dutch concession, to Frederik Hendrik through her representative to the Roosendaal talks on prisoner exchanges, Jan Kesselaer, heer van Marquette, who imparted the message to his Dutch counterpart, Gerard van Berckel, burgomaster of Rotterdam. Frederik Hendrik then consulted, as was his usual procedure, a small, advisory, inner committee of the States General. However, for some months, no reply whatever was communicated via Roosendaal to Brussels3., not owing to any long-term intention to prevent the truce, but because, with the preparations for the descent on 's-Hertogenbosch well advanced, the stadholder and his advisors had no wish to miss a unique opportunity to win a major military triumph. Two months before the start of the great siege, Isabella wrote to Philip of her growing anxiety over the lack of Dutch response to the truce offer4.. However, soon after the commencement of the siege, Berckel was sent by the stadholder to confer again with Marquette, examine Philip IV's authorization to Isabella and obtain

the details of the thirty-four years truce that was being offered5.. The Dutch response of May and June 1629 stimulated new hopes for an early settlement in Brussels and Madrid and, by late July, the Spanish king was expressing his joy that a very long truce was all but signed6.. But after their initially positive reply, the Dutch side again began to delay plainly with a view to holding matters up until after the fall of 's-Hertogenbosch7.. Isabella tried to threaten that if the town fell, the Spanish offer would be withdrawn. Finally in desperation, the Spaniards launched their August invasion across the Veluwe, with the aid of the Emperor, culminating in the capture of Amersfoort.

The Dutch States General, with both the siege of 's-Hertogenbosch and the Spanish occupation of the Veluwe continuing, on 5 September, debated in secret whether it was now time to reveal the Spanish truce offer to the provinces and city governments, but decided not to do so yet8.. Berckel was directed to excuse the prolonged delay to Marquette on the ground that the matter was of such importance, with so many interested parties in the Republic, that lengthy consultation was unavoidable9.. Then, on 21 September, the States General instructed Berckel to inform Marquette that the Republic would only agree to proceed if the Infante undertook to withdraw the Spanish and Imperial forces from Veluwe unconditionally10.. A few days later, Philip wrote from Madrid urging Isabella afresh to ‘make the peace or truce, as of when and with the conditions that are obtainable, without any restriction at all’11.. On 2 October took place a crucial secret debate in the States General: it was announced that Berckel had received assurances from the archduchess, through Marquette, that the Spanish and Imperial forces would in fact be withdrawn from the Veluwe shortly and unconditionally12.. Thereupon, the States General, having sought the agreement of Frederik Hendrik, resolved to lay the Spanish proposal of a thirty-four year truce between Spain and the United

Provinces before the provinces and city councils, asking the deputies to return to The Hague within ten days with the answers of their respective provinces.

The hectic rush with which this initial debate was conducted in Gelderland, a province which had inclined toward peace with Spain since the expiry of the earlier truce in 1621, on account of the heavy taxation and other burdens that the war involved, was described by Alexander van der Capellen in his Gedenkschriften13.. In Gelderland, feeling ran strongly in favour of the truce both in his own quarter, that of Zutphen, and in the rest of the province. In Overijssel, peace feeling was also strong and the States of that province were likewise quick to support the truce moves14.. In Utrecht, despite some resistance on the part of the city of Utrecht which, both in 1629-1630 and again in 1632-1633, opposed the truce proposals, the province, dominated by a trêviste nobility, likewise declared in favour. In Holland, however the affair progressed more slowly. The gecommitteerde raden of the province wrote to the city administrations, bringing the Spanish offer formally to their attention, only on 6 October. Thus by the time that the Amsterdam city council discussed the proposal on 9 October, Overijssel, Gelderland and Utrecht had all come out in favour and the truce movement had acquired a formidable momentum. Amsterdam too, keenly aware of the burdens and uncertainties of the war and the exhaustion of the Republic's finances, resolved to throw its great weight behind the initiative15..

Beside Amsterdam, it was, as Van der Capelle noted, Rotterdam that showed the most inclination toward a truce. Rotterdam debated the hoochwichtich ende important poinct on 11th October and, after prolonged discussion with some dissenting voices, agreed to support the moves to end a war which it thought involved excessive cost and losses to the Republic16.. In addition, Dordrecht and Alkmaar17. were emphatically in favour. Delft debated the groote saecke on the same day as Rotterdam and decided, not surprisingly in a town with quite a strong committment to the West India Company, that the ‘charter given to the West India Com-

pany should be confirmed before response is made to the truce offer’18.; nevertheless, Delft appears to have sided unequivocally with the truce party in the States of Holland during the preliminary deliberations of October and November. The towns of the Noorderkwartier and some small towns of South Holland adopted no stand at all initially, requiring their deputies simply to gage the mood in the province and report back. Thus Schiedam considered the Spanish proposal on 9 October, but took no definite stand for or against19., while Enkhuizen resolved a day later by pluraliteyt van advijsen that its representatives should simply hear the views of the other towns and seek clarification with respect to the West India Company, the struggle in Germany and consultation with the Republic's allies20.. Hoorn likewise made no further initial response than to require more information21.. Schoonhoven was more explicitly hostile, the majority of its council considering that the

war should be continued if the finances of the land were in any way able to bear it, but that if not, its representatives should align with the best point of view or that of the majority22..

Only two Holland towns were resolved from the first to reject the Spanish approach outright - Haarlem and Gorkum23.. What, however, made the opening debate in the States of Holland, on 13 October, rather ominous for the Trêvistes was that besides the outright rejection by Haarlem, the third largest city of Holland, Leiden, the second city of the province, without rejecting the initiative there and then, was distinctly cool adopting a very different stand from that of Amsterdam and Rotterdam. After deliberating the truce offer at great length, on 11 October, the Leiden groote vroedschap resolved that the ‘said truce offer should not as yet be refused outright, but that neither should the aforesaid negotiation be proceeded with’, but that the Leiden deputies should endeavour to delay and that in the

meantime, the regime should consider and resolve to establish a better and firmer order and regulation for the greater security of both the religious and secular affairs of the state of this Republic24..

For several years, especially since the victory of the liberal opponents of the Counter-Remonstrants on the Amsterdam vroedschap in the mid-1620s25., and an accompanying marked increase in Remonstrant activity in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, Leiden, like Haarlem, had showed a marked anxiety for the future prospects of the Counter-Remonstrant faction in the province and mounting hostility to the changes in the religious and political atmosphere in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Thus with its resolution of 11 October, Leiden firmly linked together in the Dutch political arena the question of Dutch-Spanish relations with the overriding domestic issue of the day, though in fact this linkage had already occurred, earlier in the year, in the arguments between the Holland towns over whether or not to launch a military offensive against the Spanish Netherlands. Leiden was to proceed gradually from this initial position, in the autumn in 1629, to form together with Haarlem, some of the towns of the Noorderkwartier, and later for a time also Gouda, the core of a formidable Holland war party.

After the opening debate in the States of Holland on the Spanish offer, on 13 October, the deputies reported to their respective city councils revealing the range of disagreement within the province and pressing those that had not yet adopted a stand to do so. Through October, there was a good deal of discussion of the question, both in the city administrations and the States of Holland, accompanied by frequent reference to the views of the stadholder. The Hoorn vroedschap, having learnt that many towns of the province favoured the truce but that most had substantial reservations concerning the West India Company, the domestic situation, circumstances in Germany and the question of consultation with France and England, agreed that a ‘firm, secure truce or peace with the king of Spain would be much to the advantage of the land’, but that before it would consent, adequate assurances had to be obtained from the German Emperor, the Republic's allies consulted, and the West India Company maintained in full vigour26.. Enkhuizen delayed until 27 October and then aligned itself with Leiden, resolving that before it would agree to the truce itself being discussed the ‘present public religion and

regime should be firmly established’27.. Rotterdam, reviewing the progress of the truce moves on 22 October, noted that most of the towns of the province had serious reservations about the truce especially regarding the securing of religion and regime within the Republic, the West India Company, and relations with the Republic's allies, but resolved nevertheless to continue to press for prompt acceptance of the truce ‘for reasons already mentioned and especially owing to the chronic lack of public funds’28.. The Leiden vroedschap, on 26 October, again instructed its deputies to insist on prior secure establishment of ‘regime and religion’ in the Republic before consenting to any further truce proceedings and ‘in case the concluding of the said points (concerning regime and religion) should be put off or delayed, that then the said deputies must reject the truce offer outright’29.. Frederik Hendrik, for his part30., professed strict neutrality in the deliberations, but nevertheless seemed to lean toward the truce party, asserting that the occasion was especially favourable for a prestigious settlement and criticizing some of the points put forward by the war towns particularly that concerning consultation with allied monarchs; he pointed out that none of these supposed allies had lifted a finger to assist the Republic during the dangerous weeks of the Spanish invasion of the Veluwe.

On 10 November, in a key session of the States of Holland, all the towns, excepting only Medemblik and Schoonhoven whose deputies were absent, formally presented their advysen on the groote saecke in the presence of the stadholder. While only Haarlem and Gorkum rejected the thirty-four year truce altogether, besides the nobility only three towns, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Dordrecht were unreservedly in favour of prompt acceptance31.. All the rest required various conditions to be met first, though of these, Delft and Alkmaar did also show considerable

keenness for the truce. The Zeeland deputies in The Hague reported to the States of Zeeland that the Holland nobility, Dordrecht, Delft, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Gouda (which, it seems, they may have mentioned in mistake for Alkmaar32.) were inclined to accept the truce offer, but disagreed to some extent over the conditions, while the rest of the province, other than the two towns that rejected talks outright, had strong reservations which they insisted must be satisfied before they would assent to further truce proceedings, but were not, as yet, authorized by their respective towns to discuss these points in detail33.. Having heard the advysen, Frederik Hendrik left the chamber without saying a word. On being pressed afterward to impart at least some advice to the assembly, he made known, through Raadpensionaris Cats, that he remained neutral on the chief point, but that he deemed the occasion opportune for a long truce and that (in clear contradiction of Leiden and Enkhuizen) the

affairs of religion and regime of these lands must be separated from this negotiation with the enemy and that each must be dealt with apart, without one having to wait until the other be arranged.34.

After hearing the prince's advice, the States went on to deliberate whether or not to proceed to more detailed discussion of terms and conditions, but despite heavy pressure from Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the majority followed Leiden in wishing to recess and refer the discussion back to the vroedschappen. This move largely stripped the truce initiative of whatever momentum remained and the following weeks were attended by little or no further progress apart from a marked increase in public discussion of the Spanish truce offer stimulated both by a wave of printed pamphlets that were issued at this time, particularly in certain towns strongly committed to the war party, and by some fiery denunciations of the truce

moves from the pulpit by various Counter-Remonstrant preachers. Among the pamphlets that appeared were the supposedly secret Consideratien against the truce which were submitted by the West India Company directors to the States General, early in October, and which were printed significantly, in Haarlem by the printer to the vroedschap, Adriaen Rooman, the Remonstrantie of the pretender to the Bohemian crown, printed at Leeuwarden, the Tractaet tegen Pays, published at The Hague, and Discours Aengaende Den Treves which appeared at Haarlem35.. That public opinion was running quite strongly against the ending of the Spanish war may be inferred from the fact that virtually all the pamphlets were hostile to the truce and that it was the trêvistes who, at the time, sought to restrain public opinion. Late in November, the Rotterdam city fathers instructed their deputies in The Hague to urge the speeding up of the proceedings in the States and to propose in the assembly that

order should be imposed generally that this matter should not be discussed from the pulpit and against the issuing and printing of pamphlets whether for or against the truce.36.

In Rotterdam itself, the Counter-Remonstrant predikanten received a stern warning from the burgomasters to cease their pronouncements on the subject.

On 7 December, the States of Holland conducted a second full presentation of advysen from the towns assembled. Little had changed since 10 November, except that Schoonhoven and Purmerend now joined Haarlem and Gorkum in fully rejecting the initiative while most towns were now better prepared to enter into detailed discussion of the issue and its implications37.. Leiden's deputies were authorized to proceed

not on the matter of the truce itself, but only on the following points and subjects: firstly and above all that better order shall be put in the affairs of this state, that is that the placards of the States General already issued as permanent edicts against the forbidden gatherings and conventicles of the Remonstrants together with those against the banned Remonstrant predikanten be maintained and properly executed and that all those who are already in any public office or position in the regime or justice of these lands, or
hereafter should be elected to such, should be of the religion publicly established here, or at least accept it, and all should promise to uphold and maintain the said religion and placards38..

In addition, Leiden's deputies were authorized to discuss the West India Company, the German war and other questions forming the background to Dutch-Spanish relations. Frederik Hendrik having received the advysen from Pensionaris Cats, communicated through him to the States, on 8 December, his view that a Dutch-Spanish truce, should it be proceeded with, would be placed on a firmer basis were the Southern Netherlands States General to be involved and sign and swear to the agreement and were it to be accompanied by a dismantling of key fortifications including the Spanish fortresses of Lingen, in Germany, to the east of Overijssel, and Zandvliet and others, Dutch and Spanish, on the Schelde below Antwerp39.. The prince thus took the initiative in the States of Holland with a view to breaking the deadlock between the towns and assisting the truce party. Four towns at once rejected the stadholder's proposals but a clear majority, including Leiden, agreed that it should be referred back to the city councils for their decision. However, in the chambers of the vroedschappen, the prince's proposals met with a more generally negative reaction. Leiden judged that the ‘proposal of his excellency, with reverence, would not obtain the desired security of the said negotiation’40.. Hoorn deemed the prince's recommendations to be of groote consideratie but ones that could be taken no further until the main pre-conditions for truce talks had been settled within the States of Holland41.. Meanwhile the trêvistes urged Frederik Hendrik's recommendations on the opposition as being the means of procuring the additional security that they sought42..

On 13 December, the States of Holland formally reviewed the state of opinion within the province for the third time. Five towns were now against43., five only were for, considering that the archduchess's offer should now be responded to

positively, albeit requiring Spanish acceptance of the stadholder's proposed conditions, while all the rest, including Leiden, Enkhuizen, Hoorn and presumably Gouda, understood that Frederik Hendrik's points would not procure the necessary security and that their own conditions had to be met before they would agree to proceed44.. At this, it was proposed by the nobility that a way out of the deadlock had to be found and a final decision arrived at and that a possible means to this would be a special inner committee of the States, made up both of towns in favour of and against the truce, selected to confer with the stadholder, to work out and then refer back to the full assembly a sound preparatory basis for the truce talks. Some towns readily agreed, but many, including Leiden objected and the assembly adjourned for some hours for private thought and discussion. On resuming in the afternoon, it was found that there was now a majority in favour of the nobility's recommendation, yet despite heavy pressure Leiden, Haarlem and others still refused to accept it. Finally, however, after the despatch of letters by the States to various resisting vroedschappen, some of the latter, including Leiden acquiesced in the setting up of the special inner committee45..

The inner committee consisted of representatives of the nobility, Dordrecht, Amsterdam and Alkmaar which were all inclined to the truce, Haarlem that flatly rejected it, and Leiden and Enkhuizen which had strong reservations. However, Haarlem, which, like Gorkum, rejected all preparatory conferences as well as truce talks proper, refused to participate which thereby placed the committee squarely in the hands of the peace party. Without Haarlem, the body soon came to the recommendation, over the objections of Leiden, that a positive initial response should be made to Isabella, indicating readiness to renew the terms of 1609, but with the participation of the southern States General and the dismantling of Zandvliet, Lingen and other fortresses as well as assurances from the German Emperor and the Catholic League that they too would acknowledge and respect such a Dutch-Spanish truce. Significantly, there was to be no insistence on the explicit resignation of sovereignty over the United Provinces by Philip IV, or that Spanish, Italian and other foreign troops be withdrawn from the Southern Netherlands, nor were France and England to be consulted46.. The proposals only

served however to sharpen still further the dissension in the States with agreement only that the matter be referred back to the city administrations for further deliberation. The States broke up having fixed its next session to begin on 8 January 1630.

Before this happened though, on 17 December, a new complication was introduced into the situation when it was learned that the Venetian ambassador had informed Frederik Hendrik that he had received information from the Venetian embassy in Paris that Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu had indicated that they favoured an active resumption of the old Franco-Dutch alliance and proposed to make war on Spain, invading Artois and Hainault with some 45,000 men, should the Republic launch its own offensive on the Spanish Netherlands with an army of similar size. The effect of this news within the States of Holland was to induce yet more dissension with Amsterdam, Rotterdam and their allies insisting that the Republic should deliver an initial answer to Spain first, before considering the French offer, and their opponents arguing that it was preferable to respond first to France. Frederik Hendrik, however, succesfully skirted this impasse with his advice that the Republic should first answer the Venetian ambassador provisionally, then speedily decide on the financial provision for the army and navy so as to maintain both on a viable war footing, and finally reply to the Spanish truce offer, all in such a way as to keep both sets of negotiations alive to the profit of the Republic47..

Although the general conjuncture confronting the United Provinces was thus becoming more complex in late December 1629 and early January 1630, and there was a good deal of further discussion in the vroedschappen, the lines of division in the States of Holland showed little sign of shifting. Rather the councils tended to harden their previous position. Thus Amsterdam resolved to employ ‘all means to help push and advance (the truce negotiation) on’48.. Leiden, seeing that it had entirely failed to influence the inner committee, determined to oppose any subsequent such conference and reverted to its earlier absolute refusal to proceed with truce talks until and unless its requirements were met49.. Enkhuizen re-iterated its insistence that religion and regime must be firmly established before it would agree to proceed with negotiations with the enemy50.. Schiedam now followed Leiden and Enkhuizen in demanding a goede kerkelycke ordonnantie before being ready to deliberate on the truce proper51.. Schoonhoven determined to

persist with Haarlem, or if Haarlem should conform with the other deputies (in agreeing to enter into truce talks), to do likewise but that in such case, before the negotiation should begin or be allowed, that regime and religion should be firmly established

as well as assurances obtained from the German Emperor and the West India Company maintained52.. Alkmaar, interestingly, continued to favour the truce, but at the same time resolved to press for a stricter ordering of religion and regime53..

The French ambassador appeared before the States General on 26 December, proposing, on behalf of his master, an arrangement between France and the Republic whereby either Louis XIII would initiate hostilities with Spain, shortly, or else assist the Republic continue its war with Spain to the extent of one million guilders yearly, under condition that the United Provinces would not conclude any truce or peace with Spain without the assent of His Most Christian Majesty. Against this dramatic background, the States of Holland resumed their deliberations on the Spanish truce offer, during the second week in January, falling at once into profound disagreement54.. To resolve the deadlock, Frederik Hendrik proposed that the deputies be sent back to the respective city administrations to emphasize the urgency of the situation and press those that had been delaying the proceedings to reconsider their position. After some sharp exchanges, the States did then resolve to send back the deputies and agreed to despatch a special missive to Haarlem pointing out that only a small fraction of the province rejected truce talks altogether and that whichever way the matter was settled, it simply had to be decided speedily ‘because long deliberation on this issue can not be otherwise than prejudicial to this state’55.. Leiden duly reviewed its position on 14 January, but then produced precisely the same instructions for its deputies as before. A similar missive as that despatched to Haarlem was read to the Schoonhoven vroedschap on 16 January, but produced only an unanimous resolution met Haerlem ende Gorcum the persisteren and conform with the majority only if those towns did56.. On 18 January, the Zeeland deputies in The Hague reported to Middelburg that although the States of Holland had by then been considering the groote saecke for ‘many days’, a decision remained as remote as ever, progress being effectively blocked, according to what they had been able to discover, ‘by Haarlem, Leiden, Briel, Gorinchem, Schoonhoven and some small towns of the Noorderkwartier’57..

The Haarlem vroedschap, after some delay, answered the States with a long reso-

lution, dated 31 January, which after being printed subsequently, first in an unauthorized version, was then reprinted by the vroedschap itself on the ground that it considered itself obliged to correct the inaccuracies in the allegedly pirated version58.. Considering the special clear script in which the resolution was taken down in the city council's minutes, however, it seems likely that it was its intention to publish the resolution from the first. In this tract, which ends with a resounding resolution to persist in rejecting the truce offer outright, Haarlem chiefly stressed the grave dangers which it considered the proposed truce would pose for the ruling political faction in Holland, the Counter-Remonstrant party. The truce, it argued, would inevitably be accompanied, as had been the Twelve Years Truce, by a resurgence of both the Remonstrants and the Catholics who would be aided and encouraged from the Southern Netherlands. Where the States of Holland claimed in its missive that regime and religion would be safe-guarded, complained Haarlem, the contrary was already permitted in ‘certain towns’:

for while the predikanten and other honest persons are beginning to be expelled from towns, Arminians are entering into the regime, Papists are finding position and office in the town militias and other institutions, the Arminian preachers who are the cause of many disturbances are not prevented but protected, so that one sees the unrest and disturbances grow daily59..

In addition, in a reference to general economic considerations, which was rare in the vroedschap resolutions on the groote saecke, Haarlem maintained that the Republic enjoyed its greatest prosperity precisely whilst it was at war with Spain, arguing that during the past truce ‘business had diminished’, Zeeland had declined and Dutch shipping had been subject to arrests in Spain and Portugal60..

The unyielding persistence of the war towns through January 1630, led by Haarlem and Leiden, brought the truce moves in the province of Holland finally to a halt. Increasingly exasperated, Rotterdam had resolved on 20 January to ‘enter upon the path which is indicated in the ninth article of the Union of Utrecht’61., meaning that so grave an unresolved issue should be put to the stadholder as final arbiter, but in fact there was to be no further significant step toward the breaking of the deadlock in the province of Holland during 1630. Despite this, the question

of the Spanish truce offer remained very much alive in the public mind and was fed by a further batch of printed pamphlets. The subject was also raised during the summer in the States General by the English ambassador, giving rise to some further deliberation in the States of Holland and the vroedschappen. Enkhuizen, for instance, re-iterated twice during the autumn of 1630 that it would permit no truce talks until religion and regime had first been firmly established62.. Some of the pamphlets, interestingly, touched on the economic aspects of the groote saecke rather more freely than did the city council resolutions. One attack on the trêvistes, the Klare Aenwijsinge, pointed out that the proposed truce would lead to a great revival of Dutch commerce with Spain, Portugal and Italy which would enable the Spanish king to make arbitrary arrests and seize Dutch property whenever he chose. The same tract asserted that wages, prices of agricultural produce, houses, rents and bequests were all as buoyant as during the past truce and that although, officially, Iberian and South Italian trade was lost, in reality, through neutrals and other means, it was being continued, remarking that this was well known to, and would be confirmed by, the weavers of Leiden and Haarlem63..

Following the halting of truce moves in 1630, the second major round of truce talks, during the second Dutch-Spanish struggle, took place during the years 1632-1633. On this occasion, the initiative arose from a direct approach by the South Netherlands States General, gathered at Brussels, to the States General of the United Provinces and a good deal more actual negotiation between the two sides took place64.. The context in which the new moves began, in October 1632, was considerably different from that of 1629. Philip IV had extricated himself from his entanglement with Louis XIII in Italy, but his treasury was exhausted. Frederik Hendrik's triumphant advance up the Maas valley, capturing Venlo, Roermond, Maastricht and Limburg in rapid succession, had reduced Isabella to despair, further demoralized the much weakened Spanish army of Flanders, and aroused such revulsion against the war and the Spaniards in the Southern Netherlands, that Spanish rule appeared to be on the verge of collapse. It was in a state of panic that Isabella gave in to pressure to convene the southern States General and permitted it to enter at once into truce talks with the Dutch. Furthermore, whereas in 1629 the conflict in Central Europe had been going badly for the Pro-

testants, with the Habsburgs dominant in North Germany, by 1632, the Catholic forces in Germany had been flung back by the hammer blows of the Swedish advance. And yet, though the Spanish position was certainly weaker in 1632 than three years previously, it would be wrong to infer that Philip was now even more anxious than before to sign a long truce with the Dutch Republic65.. The breakdown of royal authority in the Southern Netherlands had proceeded so far, that Philip and Olivares were inclined to believe that no acceptable agreement with the Dutch was possible until Spanish power in the Low Countries had been revived. Moreover, whereas in 1629, the Dutch had had no firm foothold in the Americas, by 1632, the West India Company held Pernambuco and a considerable area of Northern Brazil. Accordingly, whereas Philip's councils of Portugal and of the Indies, in Madrid, had wished for a speedy end to the war in 1629, in 1632, they had much greater reservations, maintaining that without total Dutch withdrawal from Brazil no truce should be entered into, for a permanent Dutch presence there, it was asserted, would pose an intolerable threat to the empires of both Portugal and Spain.

It was revealed to the deputies of the Dutch States General that the States at Brussels had requested peace or a truce, at the beginning of October 1632. The deputies were asked to obtain resolutions from their respective provinces within a few days as to whether they were now ready to respond. There then took place a somewhat hurried procedure reminiscent of that of October 162966.. As before, Gelderland promptly came out in favour, as did Overijssel and Utrecht, although in the latter province, the city, which maintained that regime and religion should be firmly established before talks with Spain be entered into, was again overruled, much to its displeasure67., by the trêviste nobles and clergy. Zeeland, Friesland and Groningen, adhering still to their hard line, delayed for some weeks though they too eventually agreed to the negotiations, albeit with strong reservations68.. Once again, the initiative lay squarely in the hands of Holland, the towns of which were written to by the gecommitteerde raden of the States on 3 October and asked to present their advysen within three days, although few in fact did so promptly.

Amsterdam deliberated the initiative on 5 October and, referring once again to scarcity of public funds, vigorously supported the moves69.. The next day, the

Dordrecht vroedschap resolved unanimously to employ every means at its disposal to advance the truce talks70.. The nobility, Rotterdam, Alkmaar, Medemblik and even Purmerend and Gorkum likewise decided promptly in favour71.. However, it was also clear that a large part of the province was by no means so warmly disposed as these towns to the prospect of an early end to the war. Enkhuizen authorized its deputies to consent to talks if the truce were to be made excluding the king of Spain, but to speak against it otherwise72.. Hoorn consented provisionally, but with very strong conditions, including the demand that Dunkirk, Oostende, Antwerp and other towns of the Southern Netherlands should be garrisoned by Dutch troops indefinitely73.. Gouda's deputies were instructed only to hear the advysen of the other towns and then report back74.. Haarlem's deputies were instructed to agree to hear the detailed offer of the other side but not yet to agree to any further negotiation75.. Leiden's representatives were likewise instructed, but with the added reservation that all seven provinces had to be unanimous before they would agree to talks76..

On 9th October, the Haarlem vroedschap did decide to agree to peace or truce talks, but at the same time adopted the specific hard line to which it adhered through the 1632-1633 negotiations and which came to be shared by the provinces of Zeeland, Friesland and Groningen. Haarlem consented to meet with ‘those of the other side’ strictly under the condition that the Spanish king and Infanta Isabella were excluded from the proceedings77., that all Spanish, Italian and other foreign troops were withdrawn from the Southern Netherlands, that Antwerp, Rheinberg, Breda, Orsoy, Lingen and other towns be garrisoned indefinitely by Dutch troops, that the reformed faith be tolerated freely in the Southern Netherlands as well as that the Schelde would remain closed and other conditions. Enkhuizen assented to negotiations for peace or a truce on the same day as Haarlem78.. For some weeks however, Leiden stood out from the other opposition towns in

withholding consent to negotiate with the Brussels delegates at all and protesting repeatedly that it would not yield79.. On 15 October, against the single vote of Leiden, the States of Holland finally agreed to make known its readiness to proceed, in the States General. A week later, a delegation of the States of Holland, consisting of Raadpensionaris Cats, the heer Van Brederode, and Nanning van Foreest, secretary of Alkmaar, appeared before the Leiden vroedschap and endeavoured with numerous arguments to contrive that it conform with the rest of the province80.. Leiden did then relent as regarded entering into talks and preliminary discussion in the States of Holland, but continued to insist that there should be no substantive negotiation until all seven provinces of the union had declared themselves willing, three being yet to do so.

During November and December 1632, the States of Holland debated the form and content of the proposed peace negotiations. In particular, there was considerable argument as to whether the Brussels States General should be dealt with as a free and sovereign body or be acknowledged to be subject to Spain. The majority, the peace party, pushed hard for inclusion of the king of Spain and after some weeks of discussion were able to get their way. Gouda pressed resolutely for exclusion of the king of Spain and the Infanta at any rate during November81.. Hoorn strove until 14 December to procure the exclusion of Spain but then, yielding to the pressure of the majority, dropped its insistence82.. Leiden's deputies were instructed to press for negotiations as with ‘free States that have thrown off the yoke or sovereignty of Spain’ as far as possible, but then to yield if this could not be obtained83.. Holland, led by Amsterdam and Rotterdam, was thus free by December to exert pressure in the States General on the three provinces that persisted in pressing for exclusion of Spain. ‘Those of Holland’, commented Aitzema,

were more moderate [than Zeeland, Friesland and Groningen], considering that if Spain were excluded, they would then not enjoy freedom of commerce in Spain, Italy and other lands of the king84..

In order to present a united front to the delegates of the Southern Netherlands, the United Provinces, headed by Holland, were compelled to present terms so harsh as to cause outright dismay in Brussels and indignation in Madrid. In addition to withdrawal of foreign troops, the transfer of many towns, demolition of

fortresses and toleration of Calvinism in the South, retention of Dutch conquests in the East and West Indies and continued closure of the Schelde, there were major tariff demands sought by Zeeland to prevent the use of Flemish ports to circumvent Zeeland tolls on the Schelde and the condition that the Dutch Jews should have the same freedoms, throughout the Spanish empire in Europe, as would other Dutch subjects85.. As the negotiations proceeded through the spring of 1633, therefore, and as it became clearer that these terms would simply have to be somewhat watered down if a final Dutch-Spanish settlement was to be reached, friction between the war and peace factions, both within the States General and the States of Holland, tended to persist as the war party endeavoured to prevent the making of concessions. Thus when the peace talks reached their climax in the late spring and early summer of 1633 and the gap between the two sides was narrowed to the point that there seemed to be a real likelihood of an early end to the war, the Dutch war party again began to assert itself to its utmost. Zeeland, Friesland and Groningen adopted a progressively more hostile tone in their pronouncements on the talks. The city of Utrecht, breaking constitutional convention, notified the States General directly that it regarded its being overruled by the nobility and clergy of the province as illegal and refused to accept that the province of Utrecht was supporting the moves86.. The Holland war towns readied themselves for further rounds of argument in the States of Holland.

By late May, 1633, there were two major remaining points of disagreement. One was the issue of the Indies where the Spaniards were insisting that the Republic must make concessions and, in particular, agree to withdraw from Brazil, and the other, that of the Meierij of 's-Hertogenbosch, a rich, thickly populated and overwhelmingly Catholic region which, though still partly in Spanish hands, was demanded by the Dutch on the ground that it all pertained to the town and seat of the bishopric, which they had captured in 1629. As an inducement to give up Pernambuco, Philip was offering the Dutch substantial financial compensation. These crucial remaining points were referred back by the Dutch States General to the provinces, and by the provinces to their members, so that in the first week of June, the groote saecke lay again in the hands of the Holland vroedschappen. Amsterdam now carried its rift with the West India Company so far that while it instructed its deputies to press for retention of Pernambuco up to a point, rather than allow the talks to break down, to agree to abandon Brazil in return for mo-

netary compensation87.. Rotterdam authorized its representatives to assent to whatever was necessary to bring an end to ‘this sorrowful and burdensome war’88.. Dordrecht resolved to do all that was possible to bring the negotiations to a succesful conclusion89.. Delft, more cautious over the colonial issue than the other peace towns, assented to further concessions except that matters relating to the Indies should be referred back90.. At the same time, on the other hand, Haarlem's deputies were instructed to refuse any further concession91.. While Gouda, still militant, determined to recommend continuation of the war outside of Europe in both the East and West Indies92.. Hoorn and Enkhuizen once again expressed strong support for the great colonial companies, urging continuation of the Dutch-Spanish struggle outside of Europe93.. Leiden characteristically insisted that Dutch Brazil be kept and all the Meierij acquired94.. The meeting of the Schiedam vroedschap broke up inconclusively. Although there was no explicit statement in the Rotterdam and Dordrecht resolutions that these towns were now ready to abandon Brazil, given the context, it seems clear that this is their significance. Until June 1633, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Dordrecht and Alkmaar, the core of the Holland peace party had commanded a solid majority in the provincial assembly and had successfully enforced step after step in the direction of peace. Over Brazil and the Meierij however, that majority dissolved and from June onwards, it proved impossible to secure any further progress in the talks. Indeed they were only precariously kept alive during the next six months owing to the vigorous determination of the Holland peace towns. In early August, the States of Holland debated the advice of Frederik Hendrik, who seems to have discarded his former leaning toward the peace camp by this time, that if the enemy did not give way over the Meierij and the Indies within a month, reckoned from 29 July, then the negotiations should be broken off by the Dutch side. Haarlem wanted this deadline to be strictly enforced95., as did Enkhuizen, Schoonhoven96. and other towns.

Peace towns such as Rotterdam, by contrast, considered that contact should certainly not be broken off, that no limit should be set and that with the aid of the Almighty a way to peace would be found97.. The deadlock produced delay and later, in November, a second dead-line was set. Again the peace camp fought the proposal, Delft for instance resolving that the ‘deputies [from Brussels] should be kept here and not made to go back, before it is seen what outcome the Almighty in this most important matter shall be pleased to grant’98.. On 2 December, the States of Holland voted again as to whether to break off negotiations finally and send back the Brussels deputies. Four votes only were cast in favour of a complete break - those of Haarlem, Leiden, Gouda and, intriguingly, the nobility. Those which voted for keeping the Brussels representatives in The Hague were seven - Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Delft, predictably, and also Edam, Monnikendam, Medemblik and Purmerend. Eight towns adopted a middle position favouring the sending back of the deputies but not a final breaking off, but ‘met clare en uytdruckelijcke woorden te kennen gheven dat men den handel hout voor gecontinueert’: these were Dordrecht, Gorkum, Schiedam, Schoonhoven, Brielle, Alkmaar, Hoorn and Enkhuizen99.. One wonders, with regard to the switch in the position of the nobility, whether this might have been connected with the shift in Frederik Hendrik's own stance. At length, after several weeks more wrangling, negotiations with Brussels were finally broken off at the end of December 1633.

After December 1633, apart from a brief flurry of truce moves initiated by the Cardinal-Infante in 1635-1636, there were no other substantive negotiations between Spain and the Republic until 1643 when the Munster talks began in earnest. Throughout this lengthy prolongation of the war, opposition to a Spanish peace, though steadily waning, did survive as an active force within the States of Holland, its last outpost being Leiden which even following ratification of the treaty of Munster, alone among Holland towns refused, in June 1648, to comply with the States General's request that public festivities be arranged throughout the Republic to celebrate the Peace100.. Taking a broad view of the Dutch-Spanish conflict of 1621-1648, the significance of this persistent war sentiment in Holland lies not only in that it contributed substantially to frustrating the hopes for peace of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Delft and Dordrecht over many years, but also in that it allows much insight into the deeper meaning of the long struggle both for Holland and Dutch life of the Golden Age generally. Lengthy wars involving burdensome taxation are not usually popular. Thus when the heavy taxation and the ma-

ny other heavy burdens imposed by the struggle, including very extensive disruption to Holland's European trade, are taken into account, it must seem extraordinary that support for the conflict remained vigorous for so long. What makes the phenomenon still more remarkable is that the nobility which tended in most European countries to hold war-making in higher esteem than much of the rest of society, in Holland, Utrecht, Gelderland and Overijssel were, at least for much of the time, in favour of peace. There is no denying that outside the three war provinces, the main support for the conflict came from certain particular towns, notably Haarlem, Leiden, Gouda, Utrecht, Hoorn and Enkhuizen. The question becomes still more perplexing if one refers back to the years 1607-1609, when the Dutch entered for the first time into truce talks with Spain. At that time, many towns, including Haarlem and Leiden, which later adhered to the Holland war party, then supported Oldenbarnevelt and his truce moves101.. Gouda, which in 1632-1633 belonged to the militant opposition, was, before 1609, more desirous of a Spanish peace than any other Holland town102.. More remarkable still, what significant resistance that there was in the States of Holland, in 1607-1609, to the truce policy emanated from Amsterdam103.. The attitude of Amsterdam in 1607-1609, however, affords a valuable insight into the nature of later developments and an apt starting-point from which to work toward a general explanation for the subsequent divisions among the Holland towns during the second Spanish war. At the time of Oldenbarnevelt's truce moves, the strict Calvinist party had recently come to dominate within the Amsterdam vroedschap. This meant of course a shift in religious policy in the city. It also involved the ascendancy of a political faction which was quite sharply defined and delineated as regards familial connections from the party of those later to be known as the Remonstrant regents. Of course, there is nothing new in asserting that the future Counter-Remonstrants and their opponents were political groupings and networks of patronage as much as religious parties. What needs to be stressed, though, is that any political grouping exercising extensive patronage and great influence over local economic administration, procedures and taxation will inevitably be, or tend to become, an economic faction also. In a highly complex economy, such as that of seventeenth-century Holland, interests naturally vary and in the nature of things where opposing groups fight for power, the rival political and politico-religious bodies become identified with competing economic interests.

Amsterdam undoubtedly was devoted above all to sea-borne commerce. But by 1607-1609, there was, as was to be still more the case after 1621, a deepseated

contradiction between the requirements of the European carrying trade on the one hand and of colonial commerce on the other104.. While the former suffered from the stringent embargoes imposed by the Spanish crown against Dutch shipping and goods in Spain, Portugal, Spanish North Africa and southern Italy, from 1598 onwards, and from the beginnings of Flemish privateering, colonial trade gained both from the war-time opportunity to attack Portuguese and Spanish trade and possessions in the Far East and the Americas and, indeed, also from the set-backs to European trade, which caused a major diversion of investment and energy from European into colonial trade. The loss of access to Portuguese and Andalusian salt, one of the principal Dutch imports from southern Europe and re-exports to the Baltic, not only directly caused Dutch exploitation of the Venezuelan salt-pans in the years 1598-1609, but accorded Caribbean salt a commercial value in Europe that it could not possibly have gained without the Spanish embargoes and which was at once removed in 1609 with the commencement of the truce105.. In no small measure, the same was also true of spices and sugar with disruption and embargo in Europe stimulating direct contact with the East Indies and Brazil. Thus Dutch colonial trade, both in its origins and its later progress, in part lived off the misfortunes of the European carrying trade. The victory of the hard-line Calvinists at Amsterdam, as is well known106., not only marked the triumph of a church faction and patronage network, but the ascendancy of the East India Company and those who aspired to the setting up of a West India Company. The Amsterdam city council first decided in 1606 to support plans for a West India Company and from then, until the mid 1620s, remained the chief patron of the West India interest.

The West India Company is certainly the clearest instance in seventeenth-century Holland of a specific economic entity with a pronounced political orientation. After the establishment of the company in 1621, the Amsterdam chamber was heavily dominated by Counter-Remonstrants and South Netherlanders, the Remonstrant regents having only a tiny representation107.. During the mid 1620s, as the Counter-Remonstrants lost their domination of the city administration and there occured a resurgence of Remonstrant religious activity, tolerated by the vroedschap, amid the friction and general unrest in the city, the Company openly took sides with the Counter-Remonstrant minority of the vroedschap, calling on

the stadholder to intervene against the Remonstrants. Thus well before the truce talks of 1629, the vroedschap majority, led by Andries Bicker, and the Company were all at once opponents in religion, politics and economic policy. With the campaign by the so-called Libertine majority of the city council to terminate the Spanish war, a policy threatening the most vital interests of the Company, and the withdrawal by Bicker's brother, Cornelis, of his large investment in the Company's shares, relations deteriorated almost to the point of a feud. Members of the Amsterdam vroedschap who remained heavily involved in the West India Company, such as Reynier Reael and Simon van der Does108., at the same time as they identified with the Counter-Remonstrants in religion and opposed the Bicker faction politically, publicly pressed for continuation of the Spanish war.

The victory of the Remonstrants in Amsterdam and the break with the Company brought about the hegemony of the European carrying interest in the vroedschap and growing appreciation of its needs. This also fitted in well with the particular business enterprises of Bicker himself. Moreover, at this very point, the needs of European trade were especially pressing and particularly opposed to those of colonial commerce. Dutch European carrying traffic suffered from much heavier Spanish pressure after 1621 than it had before 1609109.. Effective exclusion from Spain, Portugal and southern Italy, combined with the increasingly damaging activity of the Dunkirkers, which rarely captured heavily armed India-men, but took hundreds of fluyts sailing to and from France, Italy, England and Norway, made a very considerable impact indeed. The contraction in Mediterranean trade, moreover, adversely affected Baltic commerce, for much of the Baltic grain and timber was destined for Mediterranean markets, especially those that were now closed, while among the leading Dutch exports to the Baltic were Iberian salt and herring, supplies of which depended on adequate provision of salt in Holland.

Beside Amsterdam, two other Holland towns which may be said to have been highly sensitive to Spanish economic pressure were Rotterdam and Dordrecht. Rotterdam, a major centre of European carrying, where the West India Company was relatively weak, was at the same time a strong-point of the opponents to the Counter-Remonstrants. Dordrecht's principal interest, economically, lay in the busy inland river traffic of which it was a focal point and within which carrying to Antwerp and the Southern Netherlands figured large. The general contraction of river and canal-borne commerce between the two parts of the Netherlands, caused by a variety of war-time measures, and especially by the great river bloc-

kade imposed by the Spaniards during the years 1625-1629110., undoubtedly had considerable adverse consequences for Dordrecht and goes far to explain the exceptional fervour for peace evinced by Dordrecht during the 1629-1633 truce and peace negotiations. Other ports seriously affected by the Spanish embargoes and Flemish privateering were Hoorn and Enkhuizen which between them furnished a large part of the shipping employed in Baltic and Mediterranean trade. But there, the Counter-Remonstrant faction, which had already been dominant well before 1618, sustained both itself and the local economy through the relatively huge expansion in East and West India Company activity during the 1620s and 1630s. It appears that there was a particularly intimate connection in the West Frisian ports between the town councils and the Noorderkwartier chamber of the West India Company. Of eleven West India Company directors from the town of Hoorn between 1622 and 1636, for instance, no less than four were also burgomasters of Hoorn and at least three others were also members of the vroedschap during the 1632-1633 negotiations111..

In addition to the clash of interests as between European and colonial trade, however, there existed within the province of Holland a still deeper contradiction of interest, as between sea-borne commerce and manufacturing, which like the former difference, became linked to Remonstrant and Counter-Remonstrant rivalry. Leiden and Haarlem had built up their woollen, linen and dying industries rapidly in the late sixteenth century, helped by the ruin of the textile industries of the Southern Netherlands and the great migration of Flemish and Walloon cloth workers and employers to the United Provinces. Gouda developed into a significant secondary centre of textile production somewhat later, mainly during the first quarter of the seventeenth century. From an early stage, however, Dutch cloth producers were keenly aware of their all-too-evident vulnerability to foreign competition and particularly of the increasingly formidable threat that the textiles of Lille, Hondschoote, Valenciennes, Tilburg, Liège and elsewhere would pose once recovery in the Southern Netherlands began, as it soon did112.. With an industrious, highly skilled and experienced work force, good communications and significantly lower wage rates, Southern Netherlands cloth output could not, indeed, be otherwise than highly menacing from the moment recovery began. As early as 1585, Leiden, Haarlem and Delft were pressing for a ban on commerce

with the Spanish Netherlands so as to prevent wool and other raw materials for industry being supplied there and to shut out Flemish fabrics113., predictably, Amsterdam and other trading towns resisted fiercely. From these beginnings, arose a prolonged rivalry between Leiden and Haarlem on the one side, and Amsterdam and Rotterdam on the other, which arguably greatly contributed to the deep rift between the four leading towns of Holland over many decades.

In 1607-1609, the Holland war-party, led by Amsterdam, had had powerful supporters in Leiden and Haarlem, and Amsterdam had hoped to form an opposition block with them against the truce moves. As it happened though, Oldenbarnevelt's supporters in the city councils of the textile towns carried the day and Amsterdam was left isolated. The consequence of this development, however, was the immediate loss by the cloth towns of the substantial tariff protection that they had enjoyed during the last phase of the first Dutch-Spanish war, under the tariff list introduced in 1603. The entire range of manufactures entering the United Provinces from, or through, Spanish-controlled territory, suddenly paid only a tiny fraction of the duty payable before the truce114.. The impost on Southern Netherlands woven linen, for instance, fell to one-fifth of its war-time level. Of course, loss of protection, during the truce, was largely compensated for by the vigorous growth that occurred in Holland's European sea-borne trade during the truce years. New markets were acquired, especially for says and other new draperies, in the various countries of the Spanish Monarchy. But at the same time, the growing demand from the merchant exporters of Holland sucked in increasing quantities of cloth from the Southern Netherlands and in effect assisted its industrial recovery. Accordingly, while some, though not all, Dutch textile activities continued to expand until the resumption of war, in 1621, Spanish Netherlands competition was also being felt more keenly during these years. The overthrow of Oldenbarnevelt in 1618 and subsequent ascendancy of the Counter-Remonstrants, however, led to a sharp resurgence of protectionism in the States of Holland fomented especially by Leiden and Haarlem.

The assertion that is often put forward that tariffs on imported manufactures were normally kept very or relatively low during the Dutch Golden Age115., at the insistence of the great commercial towns, actually requires drastic qualification, indeed contradiction, as regards the years of the second Dutch-Spanish struggle. Even before the expiry of the truce, the States of Holland deliberated whether to raise the tariffs on manufactures produced in ‘enemy’ territory, or reaching the

United Provinces through enemy territory, and there was pressure to increase duties on raw wool exports ‘tot beter conservatie van de Inlandtsche manufacturen’116.. In 1623, the States General, at Leiden's demand, prohibited altogether the export of local (hierlandtsche) uncombed wool, both to Spanish and neutral territory, and tightly restricted exports of combed wools117.. In July 1625, the protectionist drive of the early 1620s continued with the re-introduction by the States General of the war list of 1603, a list which involved considerable tariff increases on all foreign manufactures but with a special additional tariff on goods manufactured in, or entering the Republic through, Spanish-controlled territory118., as well as heavier duty on exported foreign wools. At provincial level meanwhile, as a supplementary war-time measure, tax payable on the different types of Spanish Netherlands cloth sold in Holland was raised by three and four times, while duty on Liège lakens remained unchanged119..

Despite these measures, some Flemish manufactures doubtless still entered the Republic while local raw wool seeped out. The Leiden city council certainly continued to receive complaints about diversion of wool supplies. In addition, Leiden and Haarlem undoubtedly lost export markets in Spain, Portugal and Italy, though there were pamphleteers who denied this. Spanish ministers were not altogether wrong in believing that their measures adversely affected Dutch textile production, as is indicated by the steady decline of say output at Leiden from the early 1620s, at a time when Flemish and English exports of new draperies to the Iberian peninsula were increasing. But with Southern Netherlands competition reduced, other cloth output and, after 1635, especially the famous lakens, which were much costlier cloths than says, expanded120.. It is true that measured in terms of quantity of output, the gains of war were cancelled out by the losses, so that total production stagnated at a more or less even plateau between 1621 and 1648, but the value and profitability of Leiden's production rose steadily throughout the war. Moreover, many of Leiden's competitors in the Southern Netherlands, having lost access to the Dutch market, were forced into recession. That Leiden had the upper hand during the 1620s and 1630s over its chief Southern Netherlands rivals is further suggested by the marked increase in the migration of skilled

workers from Liège to Leiden during those years, whereas after 1648, the drift was very much in the other direction121..

Following the conclusion of the Dutch-Spanish war in 1648, the advantageous position of the Dutch textile industry was at once lost, with a sharp increase in imports from the Southern Netherlands into the United Provinces and a marked weakening in the competitive position of Leiden in particular122.. Admittedly, the celebrated economic theorist of seventeenth-century Leiden, Pieter de la Court, placed relatively little emphasis on the loss of protection and the withdrawal of the war-time tariff list as reasons for the post-1648 weakening of Leiden's position, preferring to blame excessively tight guild controls over the processes of production; but he was well aware that the Dutch textile industry had flourished best during the long war, attributing this to the damage suffered by the textile industries of northwest Germany and the destruction wrought by the French in Flanders, after 1635123.. Thus it may be gathered that when Haarlem declared that the Spanish war was no bad thing economically, while Amsterdam and Rotterdam referred to the burdens and losses caused by the struggle, no real contradiction was involved. For Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Dordrecht, the conflict was damaging; for Leiden, Haarlem, Gouda and also Utrecht, it was beneficial.

Thus it may be said, in conclusion, that economic as well as internal political and religious rivalries caused the sharp split between the two groups of Holland towns which is the most important feature of the Dutch response to the Spanish truce and peace initiatives of 1629-1633. Or rather economic rivalry, between two competing sets of interests, formed an inherent part of the domestic political and religious rivalry which prevented any prompt or unified Dutch response to the peace proposals. It is true that the Holland town councils themselves seldom referred to the economic context in their deliberations over the truce moves, but it would seem that this was simply to avoid appearing to be motivated by local rather than national interest. Thus even where there is such reference, as by Haarlem in its long resolution of January 1630, the vroedschap concerned tried to justify its case with arguments that allegedly applied to Amsterdam and Zeeland rather than to itself. In 1629-1630, desire for stricter exclusion of Remonstrants and Catholics from office was repeatedly asserted to be the main motive of the opposition towns and, undoubtedly, it was a major concern; and yet, not all the towns by any means that desired stricter exclusion of Remonstrants supported the policy of

Leiden and Haarlem; Alkmaar, for instance, supported the peace moves. During the 1632-1633 deliberations, on the other hand, there was scarcely any mention of exclusion of Remonstrants as an issue, yet Leiden and Haarlem continued to lead the resistance to peace, even when supposedly the chief issues were the West India Company and the Meierij, in which neither had much, if any, direct concern.


Vorige Volgende

Over dit hoofdstuk/artikel

auteurs