and Imperialist, whose united forces were far larger than his own.
This brilliant feat of arms was the prelude to peace negotiations,
which led to a lengthy exchange of diplomatic notes.
No agreement, however, was reached. The death of
the Infanta Isabel in November 1633, and the reversion
of the Netherlands to the sovereignty of the Death of the Infanta Isabel.king
of Spain, rendered all efforts to end the war, for the time being,
fruitless.
At this juncture a strengthening of the French alliance seemed
to the prince not merely expedient, but necessary. He had
to contend against a strong peace party in Holland
headed by the pensionary Pauw, but with the aid of
the diplomatic skill of Aarssens all opposition was
overcome. Pauw was replaced Alliance
with France.as pensionary by
Jacob Cats, and the objections of Richelieu were met and
satisfied. A defensive and offensive alliance with France was
concluded early in 1635 against the king of Spain, and each
party bound itself not to make a peace or truce without the
assent of the other. A large French force was sent into the
Netherlands and placed under the command of the prince of
Orange. The military results of the alliance were during the
first two campaigns inconsiderable. The Cardinal Infant
Ferdinand had been appointed governor of the Netherlands,
and he proved himself an excellent general, and there were
dissensions in the councils of the allies. In 1637 the stadholder
was able to add to his fame as an invincible besieger of cities.
His failure to relieve Breda had hastened the death of Maurice.
Capture
of Breda.
It fell in 1625 into the hands of Spinola after a blockade
of eleven months; it was now retaken by Frederick
Henry after a siege of eleven weeks, in the face of
immense difficulties. The reluctance of the States of Holland,
and of Amsterdam in particular, to grant adequate supplies
caused the campaigns of 1638 and 1639 to be in the main defensive
and dilatory. An attempted attack on Antwerp was foiled
by the vigilance of the Cardinal Infant. A body of 6000 men
under Count William of Nassau were surprised and utterly
cut to pieces. The year 1639, which had begun with abortive
negotiations, and in which the activity of the stadholder had
been much hampered by ill-health, was not to end, however,
without a signal triumph of the Dutch arms, but it was to be
on sea and not on land. A magnificent Spanish armada consisting
of 77 vessels, manned by 24,000 soldiers and sailors under the
command of Admiral Oquendo, were sent to the Channel in
September with orders to drive the Dutch from the narrow
seas and land a large body of troops at Dunkirk. Attacked by
Battle of
the Downs.
a small Dutch fleet under Admiral Marten Tromp,
the Spaniards sheltered themselves under the English
Downs by the side of an English squadron. Tromp
kept watch over them until he had received large
reinforcements, and then (21st of October) boldly attacked them
as they lay in English waters. Oquendo himself with seven
vessels escaped under cover of a fog; all the rest of the fleet
was destroyed. This crushing victory assured to the Dutch
the command of the sea during the rest of the war. The naval
power of Spain never in fact recovered from the blow.
The triumph of Tromp had, however, a bad effect on public
feeling in England. The circumstances under which the battle
of the Downs was won were galling to the pride of
the English people, and intensified the growing
unfriendliness between two nations, one of whom
English and Dutch Commercial Rivalry.
Marriage of William and Mary.
possessed and the other claimed supremacy upon
the seas. The prosperity of the world-wide Dutch
commerce was looked upon with eyes of jealousy across the
Channel. Disputes had been constantly recurring between
Dutch and English traders in the East Indies and elsewhere,
and the seeds were already sown of that stern rivalry which was
to issue in a series of fiercely contested wars. But in
1639–1640 civil discords in England stood in the way
of a strong foreign policy, and the adroit Aarssens
was able so “to sweeten the bitterness of the pill”
as to bring King Charles not merely to “overlook the scandal
of the Downs,” but to consent to the marriage of the princess
royal with William, the only son of the stadholder. The wedding
of the youthful couple (aged respectively 14 and 10 years)
took place on the 12th of May 1641 (see William II., prince
of Orange). This royal alliance gave added influence and
position to the house of Orange-Nassau.
About this time various causes brought about a change in the feelings which had hitherto prevented any possibility of peace between Spain and the United Netherlands. The revolt of Portugal (December 1640) weakened the Spanish power, and involved the loss to Spain of Changed relations of the United Provinces with France and Spain. the Portuguese colonies. But it was in the Portuguese colonies that the conquests of the Dutch East and West India Companies had been made, and the question of the Indies as between Netherlander and Spaniard assumed henceforth quite a different complexion. Aarssens, the strongest advocate of the French alliance, passed away in 1641, and his death was quickly followed by those of Richelieu and Louis XIII. The victory of Condé at Rocroy opened the eyes of Frederick Henry to the danger of a French conquest of the Belgian provinces; and, feeling his health growing enfeebled, the prince became anxious before his death to obtain peace and security for his country by means of an accommodation with Spain. In 1643 negotiations were opened which, after many delays and in the face of countless difficulties, were at length, four years later, to terminate successfully.
The course of the pourparlers would doubtless have run more smoothly but for the infirm health and finally the death of the prince of Orange himself. Frederick Henry expired on the 14th of March 1647, and was buried by the side of his father and brother in Delft. In Death of Frederick Henry—his last campaigns. his last campaigns he had completed with signal success the task which, as a military commander, he had set himself,—of giving to the United Provinces a thoroughly defensible frontier of barrier fortresses. In 1644 he captured Sas de Ghent; in 1645 Hulst. That portion of Flanders which skirts the south bank of the Scheldt thus passed into the possession of the States, and with it the complete control of all the waterways to the sea.
The death of the great stadholder did not, however, long delay
the carrying out of the policy on which he had set his heart,
of concluding a separate peace with Spain behind the
back of France, notwithstanding the compact of 1635
with that power. A provisional draft of a treaty had
The Peace
of Münster.
already been drawn up before the demise of Frederick
Henry, and afterwards, despite the strenuous opposition of the
new prince of Orange (who, under the Acte de Survivance, had
inherited all his father’s offices and dignities) and of two of the
provinces, Zeeland and Utrecht, the negotiations were by the
powerful support of the States of Holland and of the majority
of the States-General, quickly brought to a successful issue. The
treaty was signed at Münster on the 30th of January 1648. It
was a peace practically dictated by the Dutch, and involved
a complete surrender of everything for which Spain had so
Complete triumph of
the Dutch.
long fought. The United Provinces were recognized
as free and independent, and Spain dropped all her
claims; the uti possidetis basis was adopted in respect
to all conquests; the Scheldt was declared entirely
closed—a clause which meant the ruin of Antwerp for the profit
of Amsterdam; the right to trade in the East and West Indies
was granted, and all the conquests made by the Dutch from
the Portuguese were ceded to them; the two contracting parties
agreed to respect and keep clear of each other’s trading grounds;
each was to pay in the ports of the other only such tolls as natives
paid. Thus, triumphantly for the revolted provinces, the eighty
years’ war came to an end. At this moment the republic of the
United Netherlands touched, perhaps, the topmost point of its
prosperity and greatness.
No sooner was peace concluded than bitter disputes arose between the provincial States of Holland and the prince of Orange, supported by the other six provinces, upon the question of the disbanding of the military forces. William was a young man (he was twenty-one at the time of his father’s death) of The form of Government in the United Provinces.
