The years 1579–1588 constituted a phase of the Eighty Years' War (c. 1568–1648) between the Spanish Empire and the United Provinces in revolt after most of them concluded the Union of Utrecht on 23 January 1579, and proceeded to carve the independent Dutch Republic out of the Habsburg Netherlands. It followed the 1576–1579 period, in which a temporary alliance of 16 out of the Seventeen Provinces' States–General established the Pacification of Ghent (8 November 1576) as a joint Catholic–Protestant rebellion against the Spanish government, but internal conflicts as well as military and diplomatic successes of the Spanish Governors-General Don Juan of Austria and Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma split them apart, finally leading the Malcontent County of Artois, County of Hainaut and city of Douai to sign the Union of Arras on 6 January 1579, reverting to Catholicism and loyalty to the Spanish crown.
In response, most of the remaining rebel provinces and cities would forge or later accede to the Union of Utrecht, a closer military alliance treaty that would go on to become the most important fundamental law of the United Provinces, who on 26 July 1581 proclaimed the Act of Abjuration, a de facto declaration of independence from Spain. Initially, the nascent polity was struggling to find a new sovereign head of state, including Matthias of Austria, Francis of Anjou, Robert of Leicester, and William "the Silent" of Orange, who was assassinated in 1584. After that, the search for a sovereign head of state was given up and it was decided to become the Dutch Republic by the instruction of 12 April 1588. Meanwhile, the Duke of Parma continued his successful military and diplomatic offensive, bringing ever more provinces and cities in the southern, eastern and northeastern parts of the Netherlands back into royalist hands.
Parma's reconquests more or less stalled after the Fall of Antwerp (1585), and finally came to an end with the failure of the Spanish Armada (July–August 1588) and Philip II ordered him to intervene in the French Wars of Religion (September 1589) to prevent the Succession of Henry IV and France becoming a Protestant kingdom. These developments gave rise to a new phase, the Ten Years (1588–1598), that saw significant conquests by the Dutch States Army under the leadership of stadtholders Maurice of Nassau and William Louis of Nassau-Dillenburg, and the Dutch Republic's rise as a commercial great power.
Historiography
Scholars have somewhat differing views on the periodisation of this phase of the Eighty Years' War. Whereas Encarta Winkler Prins (2002) subsumed the 1579–1588 years into its larger "Second period: the rupture (1576–1588)", and Mulder et al. (2008) into their even longer "The North on the way to autonomy, 1573–1588" period, Groenveld (2009) regarded 1575/6–1579 as a separate period of 'three years of moderation' in which William of Orange had attempted to establish 'general religious peace', while the Union of Utrecht marked (or coincided with) the beginning of 'a new phase of violence, in which Parma with the help of his troops and with diplomacy returned ever more southern provinces to the obedience of Philip II.' Similarly, van der Lem (1995) marked 1576 as 'the year of the general Revolt against Spain', and 1579 as 'the year of the separation of the Netherlands into the Unions of Atrecht and Utrecht', describing the intervening 1576–1579 period as one in which 'the middle party' enjoyed 'brief success' through the Pacification of Ghent.
Although there is general agreement that the phase of the conflict that began in 1579 (or earlier) ended in or around 1588, scholars disagree about the reasons and the exact moment when it concluded. Groenveld (2009) focused on the institutional and political aspects of the instruction of 12 April 1588, by which the United Provinces formally became the Dutch Republic: a state without monarch at its head, but sovereign Provincial States. In military terms, he described the 1585–1589 years as more of a transitional period marked by a series of three Spanish setbacks (Parma's offensive stalling in 1585, the 1588 destruction of the Spanish Armada, and Philip II's 1589 order to Parma to intervene in France), 'developments which gave the Republic an unexpected breather.' Winkler Prins also ended its 1576–1588 period with the establishment of the Republic, stating: 'In the meantime, the development towards a 'Confederation of States' of seven provinces, each sovereign for itself, the Republic of the United Netherlands, continued. In general, 1588 is taken as its tentative end point.' Mulder et al. (2008) also implied that the emergence of the Republic in 1588 meant the end of their 1573–1588 period, but denied that any formal act or proclamation marked its establishment. Robert Fruin's 1857 classic study on the 1588–1598 period, which he named the "Ten Years", mentioned the Republic's origins in 1588 only in passing (Chapter IV). To Fruin, the turning point was a military one: the destruction of the Spanish Armada (Chapter II) began the 'adversity which Philip would suffer almost without interruptions from now on, which is to be attributed more to his own mistakes than the cooperation of his enemies. (...) The attack on England, waged recklessly, fell apart, and prevented the submission of the Netherlands.' Van der Lem (1995) regarded the assassination of William of Orange in 1584 as a turning point, arguing that his political and religious ideals died with him, while noting that Henri Pirenne downplayed the significance of William's death in view of Parma's seemingly unstoppable military advance.
Events and developments
1579: Union of Arras
On 6 January 1579, the counties of Hainaut and Artois and the city of Douai signed their own defensive Union of Arras, which sought reconciliation with the Spanish government on its own terms. It reconfirmed the Pacification and the Perpetual Edict, in addition to neutrality with Spain. In return, Spain was to refrain basing its foreign troops in the provinces. Once Parma accepted these conditions, the grievances of the conservative Catholics against Spain were satisfied, and they were ready for a separate peace in the form of the Treaty of Arras on 17 May 1579, in which they renewed their allegiance to Philip. Although Hainaut, Artois and Douai were all French-speaking, prompting many a later Dutch historian to attribute their departure from the general union on linguistic differences, and thus a "Walloon affair", Henri Pirenne stated that language played no role in their decision to pursue a separate peace. These places were very rural, conservative and dominated by Catholic nobility compared to the provinces of Flanders, Brabant, Holland and Zeeland, which were far more urbanised and dominated by many autonomous cities where burghers had political power. By contrast, Hainaut had only one city (Mons), Artois only three (Arras, Béthune and Saint-Omer). When the nobility-dominated States of Artois, increasingly concerned about Calvinist violence in Flanders and Brabant, proposed peace to Don Juan on 1 March 1578, followed by the States of Hainaut on 6 March 1578, burghers in Béthune, Aire, Saint-Omer and Douai immediately protested, with a minority of fanatical Calvinists even briefly seizing power in Arras (just like the Ghent Calvinists had) and raising the Prince's Flag to show their political allegiance. This Francophone Calvinist rebellion failed because the far more powerful Artesian nobility was able to defeat it. On the other hand, burghers dominated in the neighbouring French-speaking urbanised Tournaisis, which did not join the Union of Arras, and remained loyal to the Revolt until the Siege of Tournai (1581), when Parma forced them to surrender.
1579: Union of Utrecht
Meanwhile, William of Orange and the States-General in Antwerp were less than enthusiastic about the Union of Utrecht. They would far prefer a broader based union, still based on the Pacification and the "religious peace", which both the unions of Utrecht and Arras implicitly rejected. However, rapid developments in divergent directions in both north and south made the attempts at maintaining unity moot. In the north the adherents of the Union of Utrecht managed to consolidate their position in the provinces of Friesland and Gelderland by May, though not without a struggle with the conservatives. However, Overijssel remained divided and in Groningen the city and the stadtholder for the States-General, Count Rennenberg, kept their distance. By the time of the Treaty of Arras, it was clear that the split had hardened, and William therefore finally conceded defeat and signed the Union of Utrecht on 3 May 1579, while encouraging the Flemish and Brabantian cities in Protestant hands to also join the Union.
By the end of 1579, the belligerents were at a stalemate, as neither Parma nor Orange had sufficient troops and materiel to field an army capable of conducting a major offensive. Having withdrawn his Spanish and Italian troops as required by the Union of Arras, Parma had replaced his foreign personnel with German or 'native' (Low Countries) soldiers for a total of 93 infantry companies, 57 of which were necessary for garrisoning strategic points. The remaining 36 companies (c. 5,400–7,200 men) were available for attack. The combined forces of the rebel States-General were twice as large on paper, with Orange's war budget of December 1579 listing 96 defensive companies on garrison duty plus 101 companies available for field action. But in practice he could field far fewer, as the provinces were customarily hesitant to agree to deploy their troops beyond their own borders. In part, this was because irregular payment for out-of-province soldiers was a known systemic problem, which could cause mutiny when unpaid soldiers could not feed themselves and resorted to force against civilians, desertion, or defection to the enemy. Examples include 'trouble' caused by Edward Norreys's four English companies stationed in the frontier city of Tournai, because the States of Flanders had failed to pay their wages, and the key border outpost of Bouchain fell to Parma's troops in September 1580 in part because the Union of Utrecht had 'too much to do' within its own borders to send any money.
1580
At this time, on the initiative of Emperor Rudolph II a final attempt was made to attain a general peace between Philip and the States-General in the German city of Cologne. As both sides insisted on mutually exclusive demands, these peace talks only served to make the irreconcilability of both parties obvious; there appeared to be no more room for the people who favoured the middle ground, like Count Rennenberg. Rennenberg, a Catholic, now made up his mind to go over to Spain. In March 1580, he called for the provinces in his remit to rise against the "tyranny" of Holland and the Protestants. However, this only served to unleash an anti-Catholic backlash in Friesland and Overijssel. The States of Overijssel were finally convinced to adhere to the Union of Utrecht. Nevertheless, Rennenberg's "treason" posed a severe strategic threat to the Union, especially after Parma sent him reinforcements in June. He managed to capture most of Groningen, Drenthe and Overijssel in the next few months. Meanwhile, William of Orange had been declared an outlaw by Philip II in March 1580.
The territory under nominal States-General control was steadily shrinking in other parts as well, as Parma made steady progress. After taking Maastricht in June 1579, he seized Kortrijk in February 1580, after a four-month siege. The States-General replied by recapturing Mechelen in April after which the victorious English mercenaries sacked the town in what has become known as the English Fury. William of Orange by now was convinced that the only way to avert total defeat was to regain support of the moderates, alienated by Calvinist radicalism; reassure the still-loyal Catholics in the South; and retain the trust of the German Lutheran princes and the king of France. To attain these objectives he now persuaded the States-General to offer sovereignty over the Netherlands to the younger brother of king Henri of France, Francis, Duke of Anjou, who in 1578 had already intervened on behalf of the States-General. Anjou was a Catholic, but also a Politique, who in 1576 had brought about the Edict of Beaulieu, which briefly ensured religious peace in France. As such he was acceptable to moderates in both camps. He also would bring the military and financial support of his brother. Brabant and Flanders (but not Holland and Zeeland) supported this scheme and the States-General concluded the Treaty of Plessis-les-Tours in September 1580 with Anjou. The latter arrived in Antwerp in January 1581, where he took an oath to in effect govern as a "constitutional monarch", and was acclaimed by the States-General as Protector of the Netherlands.
1581
Anjou had accepted on the condition that the Netherlands officially renounce any loyalty to Philip. The secession of the States-General and the area under their nominal control from the Spanish Crown was formalised by the Act of Abjuration of 26 July 1581. The main effect of this Act was to force a number of indecisive magistrates in the rebellious provinces to finally declare their true allegiance. Many old-guard regents now resigned and were replaced with people whose loyalty to the anti-Spanish cause was not in doubt. The Act also intensified the propaganda war between both sides, as it took the form of a manifest, setting out the principles of the Revolt, just as William's Apologie in answer to Philip's ban of June 1580, outlawing him, had done. Both documents are redolent of resistance theories that were also disseminated by the Huguenot Monarchomachs. As such they alienated yet another group of moderates.