In much of this empire, an important unit of regional administration (corresponding roughly to a shire or county in England) was the gau (Frankish) or pagus (Latin).

At the end of the reign of Emperor Louis the Pious, royal power had weakened by the flood of 838 and by infighting between the king's sons.

[1] The 880 Treaty of Ribemont added the Kingdom of Lotharingia (which included the Low Countries) to East Francia, which attempted to integrate it.

However, there were no strong political connections like those between the four German stem duchies of east Francia: Franconia, the Saxony, the Bavaria and the Swabia.

Although the stem duchies flocked to Duke Conrad I of Franconia, Lotharingia chose the Carolingian king of West Francia, Charles the Simple.

Power was in the hands of Rorik's successor, Godfrid, who became embroiled in the politics of the Frankish empire and was allied with the children of Lothair II.

Danish rule ended in 885 with the murder of Godfrid at Herispijk, and all Danes east of the coastal areas of West Frisia were killed or driven out in what must have been a complex, successful conspiracy.

Henry of Franconia led a coalition of Babenberg Franks, Hamaland Saxons and Teisterbant Frisians (in cooperation with the bishop of Cologne and the Emperor), which outsmarted Godfrid and the Danes.

One of those who profited most from the power vacuum was the Frisian Gerolf, comes Fresonum (count of Frisia), from Westergo in the present-day province of Friesland.

This fait accompli was recognised when Gerolf was given lands in full ownership on 4 August 889 by the East Frankish king Arnulf of Carinthia, who needed strong warlords in the delta region to keep the Danes and other Vikings out.

When Charles the Simple was deposed in 923, King Henry the Fowler of East Francia allied with Count Gilbert of Hainaut (son of Duke Reginar of Lorraine) and re-conquered Lotharingia.

In 985, King Otto III, at the request of his mother Theophanu, granted the ownership (proprium) of a number of lands to count Dirk II.

Arnulf's son, count Dirk III of Holland was too young to rule, so his mother Lutgardis of Luxemburg acted as regent.

According to Thietmar of Merseburg, a reconciliation with the Frisians was arranged with help from his uncle-in-law, king Henry II, who travelled with an army and a fleet from Utrecht to the Maas-estuary (probably Vlaardingen) to force the inhabitants to recognize their count.

An army led by Godfrey II Duke of Lower Lorraine, consisting of a fleet with soldiers from the bishops of Utrecht, Cologne, Cambrai and Liège was however surprisingly ambushed in a swamp and nearly annihilated by Dirk III Frisian subjects in what was called the Battle of Vlaardingen, Dirk III himself playing a coordinating role, only to appear from his castle to officially take prisoner the duke of Lower Lorraine, when Godfrey was on the verge of being killed.

However, the emperor was not able to maintain himself in the area and was forced to retreat, after which Dirk IV started to raid and plunder the bishoprics of Utrecht and Liège.

Gertrude remarried in 1063 with Robert the Frisian, a younger brother of the count of Flanders, Baldwin VI and a grandson of a former French king, Robert II, who also acted as regent for Dirk V.[citation needed] In 1064, Emperor Henry IV donated lands belonging to the county of Holland, 'west of the Vlie and around the banks of the Rhine' (the gouw of Westflinge), to William, Bishop of Utrecht, on whose support the Emperor could count.

Through battles in 1071 and 1072, William of Utrecht, with support from the highly competent Duke Godfrey IV of Lower Lorraine, managed to gain actual central control over nearly the entire later county of Holland for the first time.

It was not until 1289 that Count Floris V was able to bring this long war to an end and subjugate these West Frisians, this only after the St. Lucia's flood in 1287 had completely devastated nearly all the lands of the West-Frisians.

Most of these wars were fought over the title of count, but some have argued that the underlying reason was because of the power struggle of the bourgeois in the cities against the ruling nobility.

Holland retained its own governments and court, controlled by the local nobility, and its own traditions and rights ("liberties") dating back centuries.

After 1566 William the Silent, more or less by accident became the leader of a revolt that by severe mismanagement by Philip II and his governor the Duke of Alva turned into the Eighty Years' War.

Over William of Orange Blum says, "His patience, tolerance, determination, concern for his people, and belief in government by consent held the Dutch together and kept alive their spirit of revolt.

[7][8] The States General of the Netherlands signed the Act of Abjuration, deposing Philip as Count of Holland and forming a confederation between the seven liberated provinces.

From then on, the executive and legislative power would again rest with the States of Holland and West Friesland, which were led by a political figure who held the office of Grand Pensionary.

The largest cities in the republic were situated in the province of Holland, such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Leiden, Alkmaar, Delft, Dordrecht, Haarlem, and the nation's capital, The Hague.

In the early decades of the uprising, a great number of refugees from Flanders and Brabant settled in the big cities of Holland.

The county covered an area roughly corresponding to the current Dutch provinces of North Holland and South Holland, as well as the northwestern part of the current province of North Brabant (roughly between the towns of Willemstad, Geertruidenberg and Werkendam), and the islands of Terschelling, Vlieland, Urk and Schokland, though it did not include the island of Goeree-Overflakkee.

Until the 13th century, large amounts of land were reclaimed between the IJ bay in the north, the dunes in the west, the Lek and Waal rivers in the south and the Old Rhine in the east.

Before the Great Reclamation, the borders between the county of Holland and the bishopric of Utrecht were unclear, and there existed a literal no-man's land.