2 - THE PROBLEMS OF THE NETHERLANDS AND FRANCE TO 1585

Summary

When in 1520 Charles V left Spain after his first visit to his new kingdom, the towns of Castile rebelled against the Flemish domination of their country. In 1559 the roles were reversed. It was the Netherlands which had suffered a foreign succession and were alarmed by Spanish domination. Yet such a foreign domination did not exist, any more than it did in Spain in 1520.

Philip II's residence in the Netherlands, from his father's abdication until 1559, was not a success. He appeared as foreign to the Netherlanders as his father had at first appeared to the Spaniards. His government's demands for money for the French wars led to prolonged and exasperating wrangles with the States General, the joint sessions of the provincial estates. The nobles and patricians in the assemblies of the estates blocked every attempt by the government to introduce new and fairer types of taxes which would no longer fall most heavily on the poorer people. In 1557/8 the States General made a grant of 800,000 florins per annum for nine years, but only on condition that their own commissioners should control the collection and expenditure of the money. Some of the provincial estates, notably Brabant, Flanders and Holland, had done this before and had built up their own financial machinery. Now it was to be extended to all the thirteen provinces normally represented in the States General. The purpose was primarily the practical one of preventing money earmarked for the payment of troops from being used to pay the government's debts.