The Rise of the Dutch Republic, Introduction I

The Rise of the Dutch Republic,
Introduction I

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Motley #1 in our series by John Lothrop Motley
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Title: The Rise of the Dutch Republic, Introduction I.
Author: John Lothrop Motley
Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4801] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 12,
2002]

Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
DUTCH REPUBLIC, INTRO. I. ***

This etext was produced by David Widger

[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making
an entire meal of them. D.W.]

MOTLEY'S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION,
VOLUME 1.
THE RISE OF THE DUTCH REPUBLIC
A History
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY, D.C.L., LL.D. Corresponding Member
of the Institute of 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 United States Minister to England, 1869-70. Mark
Twain mentions his respect for John Motley. Oliver Wendell Holmes
said in 'An Oration delivered before the City Authorities of Boston' on
the 4th of July, 1863: "'It cannot be denied,'--says another observer,
placed on one of our national watch-towers in a foreign capital,--'it
cannot be denied that the tendency of European public opinion, as
delivered from high places, is more and more unfriendly to our cause;
but the people,' he adds, 'everywhere sympathize with us, for they know
that our cause is that of free institutions,--that our struggle is that of the
people against an oligarchy.' These are the words of the Minister to
Austria, whose generous sympathies with popular liberty no homage

paid to his genius by the class whose admiring welcome is most
seductive to scholars has ever spoiled; our fellow-citizen, the historian
of a great Republic which infused a portion of its life into our
own,--John Lothrop Motley." D.W.]

PREFACE
The rise of the Dutch Republic must ever be regarded as one of the
leading events of modern times. Without the birth of this great
commonwealth, the various historical phenomena of: the sixteenth and
following centuries must have either not existed; or have presented
themselves under essential modifications.--Itself an organized protest
against ecclesiastical tyranny and universal empire, the Republic
guarded with sagacity, at many critical periods in the world's history;
that balance of power which, among civilized states; ought always to be
identical with the scales of divine justice. The splendid empire of
Charles the Fifth was erected upon the grave of liberty. It is a
consolation to those who have hope in humanity to watch, under the
reign of his successor, the gradual but triumphant resurrection of the
spirit over which the sepulchre had so long been sealed. From the
handbreadth of territory called the province of Holland rises a power
which wages eighty years' warfare with the most potent empire upon
earth, and which, during the progress of the struggle, becoming itself a
mighty state, and binding about its own slender form a zone of the
richest possessions of earth, from pole to tropic, finally dictates its
decrees to the empire of Charles.
So much is each individual state but a member of one great
international commonwealth, and so close is the relationship between
the whole human family, that it is impossible for a nation, even while
struggling for itself, not to acquire something for all mankind. The
maintenance of the right by the little provinces of Holland and Zealand
in the sixteenth, by Holland and England united in the seventeenth, and
by the United States of America in the eighteenth centuries, forms but a
single chapter in the great volume of human fate; for the so-called
revolutions of