According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the founding of the diocese of Utrecht dates back to Francia,[1] when St. Ecgberht of Ripon sent St. Willibrord and eleven companions on a mission to pagan Frisia, at the request of Pepin of Herstal.
[1] George Edmundson wrote, in Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911 edition, that the bishops, in fact, as the result of grants of immunities by a succession of German kings, and notably by the Saxon and Franconian emperors, gradually became the temporal rulers of a dominion as great as the neighboring counties and duchies.
[5]: 72 The Bishopric ended when Henry of the Palatinate resigned the see in 1528 with the consent of the cathedral chapter, and transferred his secular authority to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
[1] During the administration of the first archbishop, Frederik V Schenck van Toutenburg, Calvinism spread rapidly, especially among the nobility, who viewed with disfavor the endowment of the new bishoprics with the ancient and wealthy abbeys.
[10] "Even though approximately one third of the people remained Roman Catholic and in spite of a relatively great tolerance,"[10] as early as 1573,[1] the public exercise of Catholicism was forbidden,[1][10] and the cathedral was converted into a Protestant church in 1580.
[3] Walter Phillips wrote, in Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911 edition, the last archbishop of Utrecht, Frederik V Schenck van Toutenburg, died in 1580, "a few months before the suppression of Roman Catholic public worship" by William I, Prince of Orange.
[12] "For two centuries after the [1648] Peace of Westphalia much of Holland was under apostolic vicars as mission territory, as England was in the same period; although some areas had archpriests dependent on the nuncios in Cologne and Brussels.
In 1725, in an attempt to stimulate the schismatic church and weaken the Catholic presence in the Netherlands, the Calvinist States General banned the apostolic vicars from the United Republic.