Produced by David WidgerHISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS PG EDITION COMPLETEby JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY DCL LLDCorresponding Member of the Institute of France Etc15551623CONTENTS     The Rise of the Dutch Republic 15551584     History of the United Netherlands 15841609     Life and Death of John of Barneveld 16091623     A Memoir of John Lothrop Motley by Oliver Wendell Holmes SrTHE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC 15551566A HistoryJOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY DCL LLD Corresponding Member of the Instituteof France Etc1855Etext Editors Note JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY born in Dorchester Mass1814 died 1877 Other works Mortons Hopes and Merry Mount novelsMotley was the United States Minister to Austria 186167 and the UnitedStates Minister to England 186970 Mark Twain mentions his respect forJohn Motley Oliver Wendell Holmes said in An Oration delivered beforethe City Authorities of Boston on the 4th of July 1863 It cannot bedeniedsays another observer placed on one of our nationalwatchtowers in a foreign capitalit cannot be denied that thetendency of European public opinion as delivered from high places ismore and more unfriendly to our cause but the people he addseverywhere sympathize with us for they know that our cause is that offree institutionsthat our struggle is that of the people against anoligarchy These are the words of the Minister to Austria whosegenerous sympathies with popular liberty no homage paid to his genius bythe class whose admiring welcome is most seductive to scholars has everspoiled our fellowcitizen the historian of a great Republic whichinfused a portion of its life into our ownJohn Lothrop Motley Seethe biography of Motley by Holmes EdPREFACEThe rise of the Dutch Republic must ever be regarded as one of theleading events of modern times Without the birth of this greatcommonwealth the various historical phenomena of the sixteenth andfollowing centuries must have either not existed or have presentedthemselves under essential modificationsItself an organized protestagainst ecclesiastical tyranny and universal empire the Republic guardedwith sagacity at many critical periods in the worlds history thatbalance of power which among civilized states ought always to beidentical with the scales of divine justice The splendid empire ofCharles the Fifth was erected upon the grave of liberty It is aconsolation to those who have hope in humanity to watch under the reignof his successor the gradual but triumphant resurrection of the spiritover which the sepulchre had so long been sealed From the handbreadth ofterritory called the province of Holland rises a power which wages eightyyears warfare with the most potent empire upon earth and which duringthe progress of the struggle becoming itself a mighty state and bindingabout its own slender form a zone of the richest possessions of earthfrom pole to tropic finally dictates its decrees to the empire ofCharlesSo much is each individual state but a member of one great internationalcommonwealth and so close is the relationship between the whole humanfamily that it is impossible for a nation even while struggling foritself not to acquire something for all mankind The maintenance of theright by the little provinces of Holland and Zealand in the sixteenth byHolland and England united in the seventeenth and by the United Statesof America in the eighteenth centuries forms but a single chapter in thegreat volume of human fate for the socalled revolutions of HollandEngland and America are all links of one chainTo the Dutch Republic even more than to Florence at an earlier day isthe world indebted for practical instruction in that great science ofpolitical equilibrium which must always become more and more important asthe various states of the civilized world are pressed more closelytogether and as the struggle for preeminence becomes more feverish andfatal Courage and skill in political and military combinations enabledWilliam the Silent to overcome the most powerful and unscrupulous monarchof his age The same hereditary audacity and fertility of genius placedthe destiny of Europe in the hands of Williams greatgrandson andenabled him to mould into an impregnable barrier the various elements ofopposition to the overshadowing monarchy of Louis XIV As the schemes ofthe Inquisition and the unparalleled tyranny of Philip in one centuryled to the establishment of the Republic of the United Provinces so inthe next the revocation of the Nantes Edict and the invasion of Hollandare avenged by the elevation of the Dutch stadholder upon the throne ofthe stipendiary StuartsTo all who speak the English language the history of the great agonythrough which the Republic of Holland was ushered into life must havepeculiar interest for it is a portion of the records of the AngloSaxonraceessentially the same whether in Friesland England orMassachusettsA great naval and commercial commonwealth occupying a small portion ofEurope but conquering a wide empire by the private enterprise of tradingcompanies girdling the world with its innumerable dependencies in AsiaAmerica Africa Australiaexercising sovereignty in Brazil Guiana theWest Indies New York at the Cape of Good Hope in Hindostan CeylonJava Sumatra New Hollandhaving first laid together as it were manyof the Cyclopean blocks out of which the British realm at a lateperiod has been constructedmust always be looked upon with interest byEnglishmen as in a great measure the precursor in their own scheme ofempireFor America the spectacle is one of still deeper import The DutchRepublic originated in the opposition of the rational elements of humannature to sacerdotal dogmatism and persecutionin the courageousresistance of historical and chartered liberty to foreign despotismNeither that liberty nor ours was born of the cloudembraces of a falseDivinity with a Humanity of impossible beauty nor was the infant careerof either arrested in blood and tears by the madness of its worshippersTo maintain not to overthrow was the device of the Washington of thesixteenth century as it was the aim of our own hero and his greatcontemporariesThe great Western Republic thereforein whose AngloSaxon veins flowsmuch of that ancient and kindred blood received from the nation onceruling a noble portion of its territory and tracking its own politicalexistence to the same parent spring of temperate human libertymust lookwith affectionate interest upon the trials of the elder commonwealthThese volumes recite the achievement of