Conclusion

It has not been the aim of this book to argue that Holland somehow ripened into revolt against Philip II, like an apple about to fall off a tree. Revolt is by definition sudden, often unexpected, certainly in this period of history, and no one could have predicted the chain of events that led to the crisis: the organized wave of iconoclasm that spread from Flanders through Holland in the late summer of 1566, the terrified inaction of town governments as mobs rampaged through their churches, and Philip's decision to send Alba with an army of 10,000, despite assurances from Margaret of Parma that noble and burgher elites had now rallied to the support of the government.^[1] Further, while the emphasis here has been on the development of provincial institutions, centering on the States, another book could be written on contemporaneous processes by which the Netherlands provinces were being knitted together into a single realm. If fiscal history has a centrifugal tendency, because of the autonomy the provincial states demanded as their tax burdens increased, the judicial system of the Netherlands was a powerful agent of centralization. By mid-century, even the provinces that had been acquired by Charles V and were not required to send deputies to the States General,^[2] were showing a dramatic increase in appeals to the Grand Council of Mechelen,^[3] and presumably to the Secret Council as well. Bondholders might wish the revenues by which debt was funded to be managed in The Hague rather than Brussels, but wealthy litigants care more about getting a verdict that is final and decisive than about where the verdict is rendered. The point is that in a highly articulated polity like the Habsburg Netherlands, a strengthening of provincial institutions does not preclude a similar development at the center of government. In this sense too, the growing autonomy of provincial institutions is not in itself a prelude to revolt.

It has also not been the purpose here to claim that the States of Holland, with its majority of burgher deputies, was politically

self-sufficient within the framework of the Habsburg state. In their ongoing debates with government commissioners, the States by themselves could successfully assert their will on fiscal issues (e.g., how a subsidy was to be raised or who was to collect it), but not much else. Significant political victories for the States were possible only through collaboration with the great lords who were themselves an important part of the government. Thus the close relationship between the States and William of Orange during the final years of Margaret of Parma's regency was not wholly without precedent. As for the Revolt, it is common knowledge that the success of the rebel cause depended at times on decisive action by Orange, overruling the hesitations and quarrels of the States. For example, the Spanish siege of Leiden was relieved (October 1575) only after Orange, disregarding the adamant opposition of local interests, ordered the dam at Leidschendam broken through, allowing flood waters to carry the Dutch flotilla to the walls of Leiden.^[4] One can indeed speak of Holland as a burgher republic in the middle of the seventeenth century, but only in a qualified sense during the early decades of the Revolt, and not at all in the Habsburg period.

Rather, it has been the argument here that the county of Holland showed noticeably greater unity and cohesion by the 1560s than it did at the beginning of the century. The change resulted from the pressure of external events, from the growth of provincial institutions and responsibilities, especially in the fiscal sphere, and from a common political consciousness centered on the idea of defending the privileges of the province and of its component members. Each of these points deserves a final comment.

Enemies on the landward side were of no small importance in causing Holland's fractious communities to establish important patterns of cooperation among themselves. From the time of its absorption by the Dukes of Burgundy (1425) until the first military campaigns of the Revolt, Holland faced only two major threats from the east: the first during the Utrecht War of 1481–1484; the second, less intense but more prolonged, in the incursions from Guelders, from the 1490s until the conquest of

Utrecht in 1528. Coinciding with a grain shortage that was even worse than that of 1557, the Utrecht War compelled Holland to raise a level of subsidies that would not be seen again until the 1520s. Of particular interest is a sale of renten in excess of 200,000 pounds, for which "the common land" assumed responsibility, and which was funded by domain receipts entrusted to the States. To be sure, the fact that Amsterdam sold its quota "apart" was a breach of corporate solidarity, but even this limited assertion of the principle of provincial responsibility for debt seems to have been without precedent among the Low Countries parliaments at this time. The Guelders wars revealed and eventually surmounted a latent hostility between towns in the southern and northern parts of the province. Amsterdam had many grievances against Dordrecht (and its ally, Gouda) over the inland waterways, and it is not surprising if the northern towns at times refused to consider an attack along the Maas valley as their problem. They changed their tune, however, as it became evident that Guelders could attack equally well down the Rijn through the bishopric of Utrecht or across the Zuider Zee. By the 1520s, the States were willing to respond enthusiastically if promised an attack on the enemy and if their deputies participated in the management of war subsidies.

Yet because Holland was a seafaring province, its interests were most vitally affected by anything that threatened the massive flow of goods along its inland waterways, outbound toward the Baltic and inbound in the direction of Antwerp. Though comparisons of this sort are inherently difficult, there is a prima facie case that no other Low Countries province depended so much on a single strand of economic activity as Holland did on the Baltic trade. Even as a Burgundian province, Holland had gone to war against Lübeck in the 1430s to preserve its position in the Baltic, and it is not surprising if the States displayed a singular unanimity in responding to any threat to Holland's Baltic trade during Charles V's reign. They fitted out war fleets against Lübeck in 1511 and again in 1533, and by "making friends" with the great lords, they warded off several efforts to impose an export duty on Baltic grain that would have been disastrous for Holland. At the same time, under Philip II the States were somewhat less vigilant for the interests of the Baltic

trade, perhaps because the crucial city of Amsterdam now had a new ruling faction in which the grain traders apparently had less influence than they did in the ruling party ousted in 1538. It did make a difference who the deputies were and to whom they listened at home.

So long as a parliamentary body retained the power of the purse, one would expect it in the normal course of things to develop some sort of bureaucratic apparatus of its own, as well as a greater sense of its dignity. For the parliaments of the Low Countries provinces, this natural tendency was accelerated by the enormous war debts that the government accumulated and by the imperious practical need to convert bankers' loans at up to twenty-two percent into funded or long-term debt that could be supported at much lower rates. The fact that Antwerp's bankers came to trust no one but the provincial states to sign short-term obligations—not the King, not his fiscal officials, not the great lords of his council—was another powerful inducement for the states to develop their own fiscal competency.

In Holland, one may distinguish three phases in the States' assuming collective responsibility for debt. First, during the Utrecht War, the States took on both the responsibility for the renten debt and the management of the domain receipts by which it was to be funded; indeed, the office of Receiver for the Common Land dates from this period, though it was not yet controlled by the States. Second, during the Guelders wars, the States allowed the ordinaris bede revenues, which they themselves granted, to be pledged as surety for new issues of renten . But since these receipts were controlled by the Emperor's Receiver for the beden, not by anyone answerable to the States, funds allocated for the redemption of renten were seldom used for this purpose, and interest payments on old renten became a chronic burden on the ordinaris bede . Finally, during the last two Habsburg-Valois wars, the States agreed to much larger issues of renten, funded by the impost and land tax that the States themselves granted and managed. Moreover, during this period Amsterdam was forced to end its proud isolation, so that the debt was truly the responsibility of "the common body of the land." The outcome of these different ways of managing debt make it clear why Antwerp's bankers preferred to deal

with the States. The Utrecht War debt was not paid off until 1529, and two-thirds of the renten sold on the ordinaris bede between 1515 and 1533 were still outstanding in 1566. By contrast, the first renten funded on the impost and land tax were retired within a few years, and the huge debt accumulated between 1552 and 1559 was about half paid off by 1566.

This new form of debt creation served the Habsburg state well by raising vast amounts of money during the 1550s, but in the long run it effected a dramatic shift in the relative position of the central government and its provinces. Although Holland guaranteed short-term notes in Philip II's reign to "strengthen the credit of his majesty," the province contributed almost nothing to the government's needs once the war with France was over, on the grounds that its tax-paying capacity was fully absorbed in servicing the debt created during the war. As a result, the province not only maintained a superior credit rating, at a time when the government could not even pay the salaries of its officials, but showed a positive cash flow, which could be used either for additional debt retirement or for gratuities to helpful officials. By this time, the office of Receiver for the Common Land was fully controlled by the States, which could instruct Aert Coebel to make certain payments under the table so as not to be noticed by government officials who sat on the auditing committees. The Council of Holland, somewhat against its will, was induced to place the enforcement apparatus of the Hof van Holland at the disposal of the States, for collecting the revenues they controlled. No wonder, then, that in these years the deputies took to calling themselves "mighty lords."

Finally there is the question of political consciousness. Vermij detects a growing provincial patriotism in Holland, and the term patria, popularized by the humanists, is used even earlier in discussions in the States, as when the deputies voted a birthday gift for Erasmus "ratione communis patriae." But in the absence of careful study of how this term and related words are used, in which many different kinds of sources would have to be consulted, one cannot be sure what sixteenth-century Netherlanders meant when they said "fatherland." Erasmus himself was more a Netherlander and less a rootless cosmopolitan than has commonly been thought. His usage of patria, which has

been studied, refers sometimes to Holland where he was born, and sometimes to Brabant where he lived much of his adult life.^[5] Others may have used the term of the Habsburg Netherlands as a whole or at least the "patrimonial lands" which Charles V inherited from his Burgundian ancestors.

Much better documented in the sources used here is the concept of privilege. The fierce attachment of communities to special privileges granted by their rulers is an old theme in the history of the Low Countries and can be seen, for example, in October 1541, when Amsterdammers rioted against the official who dared attempt to collect a congie, despite the freedom from duty on grain exports that Maximilian I had granted to the city in 1495. During the Revolt, the official justification for rebellion against the King was, again, the defense of privileges.^[6] Under Charles V and Philip II this commonplace theme was refined or sharpened in two important ways: first, by a continuing growth in the number of privileged communities; second, by the ways in which the government chose to exercise or not exercise its power to quash privileges in the name of the common good.

By the beginning of Charles V's reign, Holland's important towns already had more privileges tucked away in locked chests than they could use or keep track of. For example, Amsterdam at one point consulted no fewer than six lawyers to see if, in one of its disputes with the government, it was worth citing a privilege granted by Count Floris V (d. 1299).^[7] In the countryside, however, the traditional process of recognizing corporate entities by granting them privileges continued. By about 1450, a few of Holland's villages had already obtained permission to sell renten on the "body" of the village, just as the towns had been doing. By the time of the 1514 Informatie, roughly two-thirds of Holland's approximately 180 villages had contracted debts of this kind. The Informatie also shows that a few villages had governments organized in the manner of towns, with the right to levy excise taxes on their inhabitants. In succeeding decades it was more common for villages to be granted the privilege of having a vroedschap . During Philip's reign, the Council of Holland, when consulted by the Secret Council, routinely recommended approval of petitions to have a vroedschap . Indeed, the

political and social logic of entrusting power to a closed corporation of wealthy men was the same for a village as for a town. As the Council of Holland remarked, "reason demands that the affairs of the common lands and the villages are more taken to heart by those who have a notable amount of property, and are taxed the highest."^[8]

Two episodes from the 1560s illustrate the importance of privileges for rural folk. The waterschap of Woerden consisted of five villages located on the border between Holland and Utrecht. In the spring of 1564, the dijkgraaf (count of the dike) and heemradschap (polder board) undertook to build a stone bridge across the Rijn at Bodegraven and erected two dams in the river to serve as foundations. Three of the villages complained to the Council of Holland, on the grounds that a privilege of 1395, confirmed by the Council in 1555, required that a majority of the five villages give their consent in such cases. These villages had not consented and said that they would nonetheless be expected to help pay for the bridge. Despite the Council's order that the dijkgraaf cease construction, the work continued. On 3 May 1564, 200 men from the three villages came to Bodegraven, in arms and with fife and drum, and smashed the two dams meant as foundations for the bridge. Erich von Braunschweig, as Lord of Woerden, lodged a criminal complaint, alleging that what the villagers had done was especially serious because of "the bearing of arms" (portus armorum ). The Council of Holland, for its part, did not believe the villagers had committed a crime, since the dijkgraaf had clearly violated their privileges. Braunschweig's judicial officers seized one of the leaders of this demonstration, Hendrik Huygeszoon, and sent him to The Hague, but the Council released him, albeit after requiring him to post a huge bond (4,000 pounds).^[9]

In January 1566, 500 men marched out in arms from the village of Assendelft to a point on the dike road to Edam where they smashed a sluice that had just been stopped up at the direction of Sebastiaan Craanhals, dijkgraaf of the important "hoogheemraadschap of the water-draining sluices." Having surrounded Craanhals for several hours, using threatening words, some of the party went on to Assemburg castle, hereditary seat of the Assendelft family, where they scaled the outer

tower and committed minor acts of vandalism (the head of the house at this time was Niklaas van Assendelft, son and heir of the Assendelft so often mentioned above). The same group then crossed a lake to the town of Beverwijk where they seized and harassed the Sheriff who was also Assendelft's judicial officer for his lands. They dragged him through the muddy streets and made him return a "pot and kettle" that they said he had seized illegally. When one of the leaders threatened the Sheriff with a drawn sword, Cornelis Willem Gerritszoon intervened: "Don't kill him yet, let me read him something first." He then drew out and read aloud "a document [cedulle ] which he said was a privilege." A few months later the Sheriff arrested Gerritszoon in Dordrecht on a warrant issued by Niklaas van Assendelft. But the Council of Holland demanded the right to try him on the grounds that he had committed lèse majesté by his actions against Craanhals, who, unlike the Sheriff of Woerden, was an officer of the King.^[10]

The Council's very different treatment of Hendrik Huygeszoon and Cornelis Willem Gerritszoon suggests that it may have been considered lawful for villagers to bear arms in defense of privileges, so long as the privileges were duly recognized and so long as they did not mistreat an officer of the King in the process. Also, Braunschweig, though vociferous in his support of the King and of orthodox religion, seems to have made enemies all around by his obstreperous behavior.^[11] What is important here is not the difference between the two cases but their resemblance: villagers marched out in battle array to defend their privileges, making a show of force without shedding blood. Town militias had been engaging in the same ritual of combat, usually if not always in defense of privileges, for over a hundred years. These incidents prove, then, that villages were learning to behave like towns. They also suggest wide diffusion of the the concept of organized society as a federation of privileged bodies.

The only other concept of organized society known in this period was the one derived from Roman law in which the will of the sovereign prince had the force of law. Divide ut imperas was also a Roman maxim, and one can imagine a government of the Netherlands exploiting its "absolute power" to make the crown

the arbiter between competing towns or social groups. For example, a government of this sort might have shown Holland's towns the benefits of allegiance to the prince by quashing the staple privileges of Dordrecht and the tax exemptions of the "three personages." Instead, without any settled policy at the center, the government and its organs acted in such a way as to make the towns believe that privileges were indeed the final political reality in the Netherlands. Thus Dordrecht was vindicated in almost all respects by the Grand Council of Mechelen, and the "three personages" received a boon from Philip II. Equally if not more important, the government's determination to override privileges that conflicted with its heresy legislation had the effect of drawing towns and nobles together in a common predicament, despite their differences. In Holland, heresy flourished most in commercial towns like Amsterdam and Delft and in enclaves of feudal jurisdiction like Cruningen's Heenvliet or Buren's Hazerswoude and Benscop. There were many conflicts between the towns and the feudal enclaves, and the government was sometimes helpful to the towns, as in its efforts to end the practice of private truces in time of war. Yet the government's most persistent effort to assert its authority came in one of the few areas where towns and privileged enclaves had something in common, that is, the protection of their judicial autonomy.

In a legal brief on behalf of Dordrecht at the outset of Charles V's reign, Oem van Wijngaerden could quibble about whether Holland was a "body," but no one seems to have had any doubts forty or fifty years later. Moreover, like the Netherlands as a whole, Holland was an articulated polity in which, for instance, privileges like de non evocando could have meaning at different levels. The obvious role for the States in this setting was to make themselves the defenders of any local privilege that came under challenge. This concept of things is sometimes evident in the discussions, as when the men of Delft, apropos of heresy law, said that "we must all support one another in our privileges" (1527), or when, on grounds that the privileges of "members" of the States deserved protection (1560), Amsterdam and the nobles voted to support three other cities whose rights at Leidschendam were threatened by the actions of a

local landowner.^[12] The various unifying forces described here do not mean that Holland's internal tensions disappeared. In fact, as towns and villages became more conscious of their privileges, conflicts of one sort or another were perhaps more frequent than ever. There is, however, an important difference between the fractiousness of a territory ruled by a prince and the self-ordered fractiousness of a republic. Holland under Habsburg rule traversed a considerable part of the distance from the former to the latter. By the reign of Philip II, it was a body politic, if not yet a republic.