Aftermath of the Eighty Years' War
Whereas the Spanish Empire and the Southern Netherlands along with it were financially and demographically ruined, declining politically and economically, the Dutch Republic became a global commercial power and achieved a high level of prosperity for its upper and middle classes known as the Dutch Golden Age, despite continued great socio-economic, geographic and religious inequalities and problems, as well as internal and external political, military and religious conflicts.
In the later stages, Maurice raised a professional standing army that was even paid when no hostilities were taking place, a radical innovation in that time and part of the Military Revolution.
[4] The success of the Dutch Republic in its struggle to get away from the Spanish Crown had damaged Spain's Reputación, a concept that, according to Olivares' biographer J. H. Elliot,[5] strongly motivated that statesman.
Jesuit father Diego de Rosales described Chile from a military point of view as "Indian Flanders" (Flandes indiano), a phrase that was later adopted by historian Gabriel Guarda.
[12] In the Dutch Republic, the peace was solemnly promulgated on 5 June 1648,[13] on the 80th anniversary of the execution of the Counts of Egmont and Horne,[note 3] and celebrated across most of the country with sumptuous festivities.
The new stadtholder, William II, on the other hand, far less adept as a politician than his father, hoped to continue the predominance of the stadtholderate and the Orangist faction (mostly the aristocracy and the Counter-Remonstrant regents) as in the years before 1640.
[18] William II, Prince of Orange, since 1647 the stadtholder of all provinces except Friesland, was disgruntled with the Peace of Münster, as waging war gave him a powerful position as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
[19] On the other hand, the States of Holland sought to reduce the size of the army and cut upkeep costs now that peace had been established, clashing with William's desire for a strong military.
[25] The Holy See was very displeased at the settlement, with Pope Innocent X calling it "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time" in the bull Zelo Domus Dei.
[26][27] The Peace of Westphalia marked the start of a new period of European history, in which a far larger number of wholly or partially sovereign princes of the Holy Roman Empire than before would play a role in the political arena for centuries to come.
[28] The chaotic and dramatic early decades of the Eighty Years' War, which were filled with civil revolts and large-scale urban massacres, largely ended for the provinces north of the Great Rivers after they proclaimed the Republic in 1588, expelled the Spanish forces and established peace, safety and prosperity for their population.
[2] In literature, the last few decades have often been considered a rather 'regulated' and 'professional' armed conflict in the borderlands of the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Southern Netherlands, which is less interesting to recount, because the ideological struggle had essentially been decided.
[30] However, wealth and health were rather unequally distributed, and when various plagues hit the urban Dutch populations, the differences in hygiene resulted in the lower classes suffering by far the worst illness and the highest death toll.
[30] Deadly epidemics could lead to mass panic, including the 1637 tulip mania, as well as waves of religious fervour (with Christian doomsday prophets emerging at times of trouble) and superstition.
[30] These times of crises, as well as the fact that the eastern parts of the Republic remained focused on traditional agriculture and relatively poor, challenge the notion of a general 'Dutch Golden Age'.
[1] On the other hand, constant immigration of skilled labourers from the Southern Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia enabled the economy to survive, flourish and grow after every epidemic that raged across the Republic, unlike elsewhere in Europe.
[2] The general population of Staats-Brabant was agricultural and poor, but there were large differences between classes, with rich Brabanders often having families living above the Great Rivers and participating in trade and the Dutch East Indies Company (VOC), even before the war was over.
