Habsburg Netherlands The Habsburg Netherlands denotes the Imperial fiefs in the Low Countries at the time when they were held by the House of Habsburg . Their rule began in 1482 , when after the death of the Valois - Burgundy duke Charles the Bold the Burgundian Netherlands fell to the Habsburg dynasty by the marriage of Charles ' daughter Mary of Burgundy with Archduke Maximilian I of Austria . The Seventeen Provinces were held by Habsburg Spain from 1556 and therefore also known as the Spanish Netherlands from that time on . In 1581 Seven United Netherlands seceded to form the Dutch Republic ; the remaining Southern Netherlands were finally annexed by the French First Republic in 1795 . Geography . The Habsburg Netherlands was a geo - political entity covering the whole of the Low Countries ( i . e . the present - day Netherlands , Belgium , Luxembourg , and French Nord - Pas - de - Calais ) from 1482 to 1581 . Already under the rule of the Burgundian duke Philip the Good ( 1419 – 1467 ) , the provinces of the Netherlands began to grow together : Flanders , Artois and Mechelen , Namur , Holland , Friesland , Zeeland and Hainaut , Brabant , Limburg and Luxembourg were ruled in personal union by the Valois - Burgundy monarchs and represented in the States - General assembly . The centre of the Burgundian possessions was the Duchy of Brabant , where the Burgundian dukes held court in Brussels . Philip ' s son Duke Charles the Bold ( 1467 - 1477 ) also acquired Guelders and Zutphen and even hoped for the royal title from the hands of the Habsburg emperor Frederick III by marrying their children Mary and Maximilian . Deeply disappointed , he entered into the disastrous Burgundian Wars and was killed in the Battle of Nancy . History . Upon the death of Mary of Burgundy in 1482 , her substantial possessions including the Burgundian Netherlands passed to her son , Philip the Handsome . Through his father Maximilian I , Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 , Philip was a Habsburg scion , and so the period of the Habsburg Netherlands began . Philip ' s son Charles V , born in Flemish Ghent , succeeded his father in 1506 , when he still was a six - years - old minor . His grandfather Emperor Maximilian I incorporated the Burgundian heritage into the Burgundian Circle , whereafter the territories in the far west of the Empire developed a certain grade of autonomy . Attaining full age in 1515 , Charles went on to rule his Burgundian heritage as a native Netherlander . He acquired the lands of Overijssel and the Bishopric of Utrecht , purchased Friesland from Duke George of Saxony and regained Groningen and Gelderland . His Seventeen Provinces were re - organised in the 1548 Burgundian Treaty , whereby the Imperial estates represented in the Imperial Diet at Augsburg acknowledged a certain autonomy of the Netherlands . It was followed by a pragmatic sanction by the Emperor the next year , wherafter the provinces had to be treated as an undivided whole . By a 1522 inheritance treaty with his younger brother Archduke Ferdinand I of Austria , Emperor Charles V had established the Austrian and the Spanish branch of the Habsburg dynasty . Upon his abdication in 1556 , the Seventeen Provinces fell to the Spanish Crown . Charles son and successor King Philip II of Spain by his despotism and Catholic persecutions sparked the Dutch Revolt and the Eighty Years ' War . The Spanish hold on the Northern Netherlands was more and more tenuous . In 1579 the Seven United Provinces in the north established the Protestant Union of Utrecht , which declared itself the independent Dutch Republic by the 1581 Act of Abjuration . After the secession of 1581 , solely the Southern Netherlands of Flanders , Artois , the Tournaisis , Cambrai , Luxembourg , Limburg , Hainaut , Namur , Mechelen , Brabant , and Upper Guelders remained with the House of Habsburg until the French Revolutionary Wars . After the extinction of the Spanish Habsburgs and the War of the Spanish Succession , the southern provinces were also known as the Austrian Netherlands from 1715 onwards . The provinces were ruled on their behalf by a governor ( " stadtholder " or " landvoogd " ) : In 1578 the Dutch insurgents appointed Archduke Matthias of Austria governor , though he could not prevail and resigned before the 1581 Act of Abjuration .