Produced by David Widger
by JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, D.C.L., LL.D.
Corresponding Member of the Institute of France, Etc.
1555-1623
CONTENTS:
The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1584
History of the United Netherlands, 1584-1609
Life and Death of John of Barneveld, 1609-1623
A Memoir of John Lothrop Motley by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
A History
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, D.C.L., LL.D. Corresponding Member of the Instituteof France, Etc.1855
[Etext Editor's Note: JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, born in Dorchester, Mass.1814, died 1877. Other works: Morton's Hopes and Merry Mount, novels.Motley was the United States Minister to Austria, 1861-67, and the UnitedStates Minister to England, 1869-70. 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 bedenied,'—says another observer, placed on one of our nationalwatch-towers in a foreign capital,—'it 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 adds,'everywhere sympathize with us, for they know that our cause is that offree institutions,—that 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 fellow-citizen, the historian of a great Republic whichinfused a portion of its life into our own,—John Lothrop Motley." (Seethe biography of Motley, by Holmes) Ed.]
The 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 modifications.—Itself an organized protestagainst ecclesiastical tyranny and universal empire, the Republic guardedwith sagacity, at many critical periods in the world's 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 earth,from pole to tropic, finally dictates its decrees to the empire ofCharles.
So 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