Habsburg Netherlands | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1482–1797 | |||||||||||||||
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| Status | Personal union ofImperialfiefs withinEmpire | ||||||||||||||
| Capital | De facto:Mechelen until 1530, afterwardsBrussels | ||||||||||||||
| Common languages | |||||||||||||||
| Religion |
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| Government | Monarchy | ||||||||||||||
| Historical era | Early modern period | ||||||||||||||
• Inherited byHouse of Habsburg | 1482 | ||||||||||||||
• Incorporated intoBurgundian Circle | 1512 | ||||||||||||||
| 1549 | |||||||||||||||
• Inherited byHabsburg Spain | 1556 | ||||||||||||||
| 30 January 1648 | |||||||||||||||
| 7 March 1714 | |||||||||||||||
| 18 September 1794 | |||||||||||||||
| 17 October 1797 | |||||||||||||||
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Habsburg Netherlands[a] were the parts of theLow Countries that were ruled by sovereigns from theHouse of Habsburg.[1] Their rule began in 1482 and ended for the Northern Netherlands in 1581 and for the Southern Netherlands in 1797. Habsburg rule began with the accession ofPhilip the Handsome in 1482, when he succeeded his motherMary of Burgundy of theHouse of Valois-Burgundy, who was the ruler of the Low Countries.[2] Philip's son and heirCharles, futureKing of Spain (1516), and theHoly Roman Emperor (1519), was born in the Habsburg Netherlands and madeBrussels one of his capitals.[3][4]
During the Habsburg era, from 1482 to 1797, parts of the Netherlands under their rule went through various political changes and administrative reorganizations. Becoming known as theSeventeen Provinces in 1549, they were held by the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs from 1556, thus becoming known as theSpanish Netherlands from that time on.[5] In 1581, in the midst of theDutch Revolt, the Seven United Provinces seceded from the rest of this territory to form theDutch Republic. The remaining SpanishSouthern Netherlands became theAustrian Netherlands in 1714, after Austrian acquisition under theTreaty of Rastatt. De facto Habsburg rule ended with the annexation by the revolutionaryFrench First Republic in 1795. Austria, however, did not relinquish its claim over the country until 1797 in theTreaty of Campo Formio.
The Habsburg Netherlands was a geo-political entity covering the whole of the Low Countries (i.e. the present-dayNetherlands,Belgium,Luxembourg, and most of the modern Frenchdépartements ofNord andPas-de-Calais) from 1482 to 1581. The northern Low Countries began growing from 1200 AD, with the drainage and flood control of land, which could then be cultivated. The population rose and the region of Holland became important. Before that, the development of large cities was in the south, with Ghent, Bruges, Antwerp, Brussels, and Leuven, all of which were larger than any settlement in the north. Rivers in the Low Countries run east–west and were a political and strategic barrier to influence southern influence on the north, forming two separate political areas.[6]
Already under the Holy Roman Empire rule of the Burgundian dukePhilip the Good (1419–1467), the provinces of the Netherlands began to grow together, whereas previously they were split with being either the tributary of the French Kingdom or of Burgundy under the Holy Roman Empire banner. The collected fiefdoms wereFlanders,Artois andMechelen,Namur,Holland,Zeeland andHainaut,Brabant,Limburg, andLuxembourg. These realms were ruled inpersonal union by the Valois-Burgundy monarchs and represented in theStates-General assembly. The centre of the Burgundian possessions was the Duchy of Brabant, where the Burgundian dukes held court inBrussels.
Philip's son DukeCharles the Bold (1467–1477) also acquiredGuelders andZutphen, and even hoped to gain the title of "King" fromHabsburg emperor Frederick III by marrying his daughter Mary to Frederick's son Maximilian. Disappointed in this, he engaged in the disastrousBurgundian Wars and was killed in theBattle of Nancy.
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Upon the death of Mary of Burgundy in 1482, her substantial possessions including theBurgundian Netherlands passed to her son,Philip the Handsome, who marriedJoanna of Castile, daughter ofIsabel I of Castile andFerdinand II of Aragon. Through his fatherMaximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, Philip was a Habsburgscion, and so the period of the Habsburg Netherlands began. The period 1481–1492 saw theFlemish cities revolt andUtrecht embroiled in civil war, but by the turn of the century both areas had been pacified by the Habsburg rulers.
Philip's sonCharles, born inGhent, succeeded his father as Duke in 1506, when he was six years old. His paternal grandfather, Emperor Maximilian I, incorporated the Burgundian heritage into theBurgundian Circle, whereafter the territories in the far west of the Empire developed a certain grade of autonomy. Through his mother Joanna, who had a mental breakdown following the death of her husband, he was heir to the Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon and Spain's overseas empire in the New World. Attaining full age in 1515, Charles went on to rule his Burgundian heritage as a native Netherlander. He acquired the lands ofOverijssel and theBishopric of Utrecht (seeGuelders Wars), purchased Friesland from DukeGeorge of Saxony and regainedGroningen andGelderland.
In 1516, Charles became the king of Spain, but also continued to rule over his domains in the Netherlands and Burgundy, thus creating a personal bond between those regions and Spain, but without annexation, since all of those regions remained within the Holy Roman Empire. His Seventeen Provinces were re-organised in theBurgundian treaty of 1548, whereby the Imperial estates represented in theImperial Diet atAugsburg acknowledged a certain autonomy of the Netherlands. It was followed by the Emperor'sPragmatic Sanction of 1549, which established the Seventeen Provinces as an entity held by a single prince.
Following a series of abdications between 1555 and 1556, Charles V divided theHouse of Habsburg into an Austrian-German and a Spanish branch. His brotherFerdinand I becamesuo jure monarch in Austria, Bohemia and Hungary, as well as the newHoly Roman Emperor.Philip II of Spain, Charles' son, inherited the Seventeen Provinces and incorporated them into theSpanish Crown (which included alsoSouthern Italy and the American possessions). King Philip II of Spain became infamous for hisdespotism, and Catholic persecutions sparked the Dutch Revolt and the subsequentEighty Years' War. The Spanish hold on the northern provinces was more and more tenuous. In 1579 the northern provinces established the ProtestantUnion of Utrecht, in which they declared themselves independent as the Seven United Provinces by the 1581Act of Abjuration.
After the secession of 1581, the southern provinces, called "'t Hof van Brabant" (of Flandria, Artois, theTournaisis,Cambrai, Luxembourg, Limburg, Hainaut, Namur, Mechelen, Brabant, andUpper Guelders) remained with the Spanish Habsburgs. In 1598, kingPhilip II of Spain cededSpanish Netherlands, and theFree County of Burgundy, to his daughterIsabella Clara Eugenia, who ruled assovereign of those lands,jointly with her husbandArchduke Albert VII of Austria. After Albert's death in 1621, those regions were returned to theSpanish Habsburgs, and Isabella continued to rule asgoverness of theSpanish Netherlands until her death in 1633, under the sovereignty of her cousin, kingPhilip IV of Spain.
After the extinction of the Spanish Habsburg line in 1700 with the death of the childlessCharles II and theWar of the Spanish Succession (1700–14), the southern provinces came to Austrian Habsburgs, in person of emperor'sLeopold I younger sonCharles, and were known as theAustrian Netherlands. In 1784, following theWar of the Bavarian Succession (1777-1779), emperorJoseph II proposed to the new Bavarian prince-electorCharles Theodore to exchangeBavaria for theAustrian Netherlands, offering him the title "King of Burgundy", but the proposal was not accepted, and thus the plan failed.[7] During theFrench Revolutionary Wars, Austrian Netherlands was invaded byRevolutionary France andannexed after theBattle of Sprimont in 1794, that was followed by thePeace of Basel in 1795. Austria relinquished all of its claims on the province in 1797 through theTreaty of Campo Formio.
The provinces were ruled on their behalf by agovernor (stadtholder orlandvoogd):
During the Spanish period it is assumed that the flag was theCross of Burgundy. After a period of turmoil with theEighty Years' War, by 1713 the Southern Netherlands were separated from Spain andattached to Austria, assuming a flag consisting of three equal horizontal bands displaying the colours ofred,white andgold. A small cross of Burgundy was present, which in 1781 was covered by a blackdouble-headed eagle.
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