1618 - Thirty Years' War
After a brief interference in the affairs of Germany, where the intricate question of the Cleves-Juliers succession was already preparing the way for the Thirty Years' War, Holland settled down into that hot and absorbing theological struggle, which was closely mixed up with political questions, and which stained with a deplorable triumph the last years of the career of Maurice of Nassau.
In 1603 Jacob van Hermansen, or, in Latin form, Arminius, had been appointed one of the two professors of theology at Leyden, Francis Gomar being the other. The two men took opposite sides with zeal, Arminius assailing and Gomarus defending the current popular theology. The views of Arminius spread fast among the upper classes, especially in the larger towns, and became the theology of the civic aristocracy. The established opinions were tenaciously supported by the bulk of the clergy, the peasantry, the town populace, the army, and the navy.
At their head stood Maurice, ready to use the strength of Calvinistic feeling to secure his own authority, however little he might care for the tenets of his side; at the head of the other party, more philosophical, less in earnest perhaps, was Barneveldt, with the town traders.
King James of England as yet supported the Calvinists, and with Archbishop Abbot influenced greatly the proceedings of the famous synod of Dort (1618) in favor of Prince Maurice and the anti-Remonstrants. The results of the synod enabled the prince for his own political purposes to crush the aristocratic party. Barneveldt and Grotius (another leading Remonstrant) were seized, and in spite of all his great services to his country, his venerable age, and his past support of Maurice, the pensionary was brought to an infamous trial and executed at the Hague in 1619. Grotius afterwards escaped from prison and took refuge in France. This silenced Remonstrants, finding that there was no hope of toleration for them, left the country in great numbers, and formed a prosperous settlement in Holstein in 1621, where they founded the town of Frederickstadt on the Eider.
In 1621 the truce with Spain came to an end, and the Dutch were at once involved in the vortex of the Thirty Years' War, which had now been going on for a couple of years. Spinola, after taking Juliers, attempted Bergen-opZoom, hoping thereby to open a passage into Zealand; he was, however, foiled by Maurice. About this time a great coolness sprang up between Holland and England, the beginning of the deadly rivalry which lasted so long.
King James was eager to gain his objects without fighting, and to be on friendly terms with Spain; he and Laud were opposed to the Calvinism of the Dutch, and disliked their form of church government; and commercial jealousy was already beginning to arise. Successes and losses were evenly balanced in the war: the Dutch recaptured Jaliers and took Cleves, while Spinola, after great losses caused by the gallant defense of the English, in 1629 took Breda. A few days before the town fell Maurice died, leaving the Spaniards in the heart of his territories, and the Dutch vexed with religious and domestic factions.
His brother, Frederick Henry of Orange-Nassau, succeeded him as stadtholder of Holland, Zealand, Guelderland, Utrecht, and Overysse. The war by land became utterly spiritless, though by sea the Dutch still asserted their maritime supremacy. By land the chief operations were the siege and capture by Frederick Henry of Herzogenbusch, Maestricht, and Wesel in 1628; by sea the Dutch interfered, much against the popular feeling, to assist the French court against the Huguenots at La Rochelle.
They blockaded Dunkirk, whence Spanish privateers had been wont to harass their commerce; under Piet Heyn of Delftshaven, boldest of their sea-captains, they vexed the Spanish coasts, captured Spanish war ships, carried off their "silver fleet," and finally in 1631 won near Tholen a brilliant victory over a great Spanish fleet commanded by Count John of Nassau, who was endeavoring to make a descent on the Zealand coast.
In this year the States, feeling that the moderation of the stadtholder was honest and salutary, that his influence alone seemed able to quiet the rage of religious faction, and that his military operations had secured the confidence of the provinces, took the important, and, as it turned out, the unwise step of securing to his infant son the reversion of all his great offices of stadtholder; captain, and admiral-general.
The Calvinists were willing to grant so much to the head of their party, and made no objection to the introduction of the principle of hereditary succession; while the Remonstrants, discerning that Frederick Henry, like his brother before him, was personally more favorable to their tenets than to those of their adversaries, accepted the measure in the hope that when permanently established as their prince he would carry out those tolerant views which he was known to hold.
In 1632 he justified their confidence by his masterly siege and capture of Maastricht, in defiance of all the efforts of the Spanish and imperial generals; Namur, Luxembourg, and eastern Brabant were laid under contribution in consequence, and the States defended from danger of attack towards the east.
As the war dragged on after the death of Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden on 16 November 1632, France and Holland drew more together, and in 1635 an alliance and partition treaty was made between them, in which it was proposed thai the Spaniards should be driven out of the Netherlands, which should be made an independent state, guaranteed by the allies; that France should receive, as her share, the seacoast up to Blankenberg, together with Thionville and Namur; and that a corresponding portion should be given to Holland; if this scheme of an independent state proved a failure, then France and Holland should divide the whole district between them.
The joint operations consequent on this agreement proved a failure: Frederick Henry had always been opposed to the alliance, and probably did not wish its success; the divergence between him and the States General at this time gave Cardinal Richelieu the opportunity of restoring the Remonstrant party in Holland, and making it French in sympathy, in opposition to the House of Orange — a combination of which Louis XIV afterwards made great use.
In 1637 the stadtholder recovered Breda, though the gain was balanced by the loss of Roermond and other places and in 1638 the war was favorable to the Spaniards. In 1639, however, a series of great naval triumphs under Tromp and Do Witt turned the scale in favor of the Dutch.
