They even developed an ideological justification of republicanism (the "True Freedom") that went against the contemporary European trend of monarchical absolutism, but prefigured the "modern" political ideas that led to the American and French constitutions of the 18th century.

In the Habsburg Netherlands the Stadtholders were the representatives of the Sovereign (lately Philip II of Spain in his capacity of duke or count), who performed important constitutional functions, like appointing city magistrates (usually from double lists[clarification needed], drawn up by the vroedschap), and in times of war acting as provincial commander-in-chief.

In collusion with his colleague-stadtholder of Friesland and Groningen, Willem Frederik of Nassau-Dietz (a cousin in the cadet branch of the House of Orange-Nassau), he embarked on a campaign of intimidation of the Holland regents that would ultimately lead to the use of force.

On 30 July 1650 William had six leading Holland regents arrested in The Hague (where the States General met), while Willem Frederik attempted to take the city of Amsterdam by surprise with federal troops.

[19] For De Witt, the essence of what he later called the 'True Freedom', that is, republican government, was the sharing of power amongst those fitted by background, education, and training to exercise it, this dispersal of influence and the consultation, and compromise, that goes with it being the most effective mechanism for checking abuse and misgovernment.

He furthermore fulminated against the "hereditary principle" for filling offices, as experience in other republics (both in antiquity and in contemporary Italy) had proved this a "peril to freedom"..[27] Though De Witt had achieved a diplomatic triumph by making peace with England without making any concession to England's commercial, colonial, and maritime interests (and introducing the principle of arbitration into international treaties for the first time, as the Treaty of Westminster left a number of conflicts to be resolved by international arbitration) this came with a heavy political price.

[44] Though the end of the war with Spain in 1648 enabled the VOC to greatly expand its empire by military means, and to hold European competitors at bay in the same manner (a fortress was built at the strategic Cape of Good Hope in 1653), it did not completely rely on force of arms for its commercial dominance.

In Bengal, and the intra-Indian trade, for instance, the Dutch dominated at first by commercial means, consistently out-trading the English in commodities such as silk, rice, and opium, destined for other Asian markets.

But the commerce-engendered Dutch control of many raw-material markets (like Spanish and Turkish raw wool, Swedish iron and copper, Ibero-American dyestuffs, Portuguese salt, French wine, Baltic grain, Scandinavian tar and wood, Caribbean sugar, American tobacco etc.)

Unfortunately, they displayed the same parsimony to the navy, allowing the independent admiralties to sell off a large part of the fleet that had defeated the second Spanish Armada so resoundingly in neutral English waters in the Battle of the Downs of 1639.

The foolishness of this policy was amply demonstrated in the First Anglo-Dutch War, when at least initially the Dutch navy did not stand a chance against the English fleet, at least in home waters, due to its qualitative and quantitative inferiority.

However, the De Witt regime was unusually impervious to corruption itself, as the French ambassador complained in 1653, because the power was so diffused that one did no longer know whom to bribe, with the consequence that "...cette dépense serait infinie et infructueuse.

De Witt considered Princes and Potentates as such, as detrimental to the public good, because of their inherent tendency to waste tax payer's money on military adventures in search of glory and useless territorial aggrandizement.

Instead, he strove to ensure security of the Dutch state, its independence from outside interference, and advancement of its trade and industry, all elements being intended to benefit the society of which the regent class were the proper representatives.

[65] This asserted that the form of government of the Republic (as preferred by the Holland regents) was the "most excellent" and chosen by God himself, while he quoted Tacitus to say that prayers for any but the sovereign power in public ceremonies weaken the state.

[67] The disparaging remarks about the stadtholderate in this work, which amounted to the assertion that princes (and by implication stadtholders) have an interest in keeping the world in perpetual conflict, because they wield more influence in such circumstances, incensed the Orangist public.

Possibly by Voetius also, but in any case by someone close to him, was the Resurrected Barnevelt,[70] in which the anonymous writer, writing in Dutch, attacked the provincial-supremacy doctrine and the prayer formulary as an insidious attempt to make the other six provinces subservient to Holland.

It was performed in Rotterdam in 1663 and elicited a forgettable Orangist counterblast in the form of the tragedy Wilhem, of gequetste vryheit by the rector of the Dordrecht Latin school, Lambert van de Bosch.

[72] Though these contributions to Dutch literature were a happy byproduct of the controversy, more important from the standpoint of enduring political science were the key publications by the democratic republican theorists around Baruch Spinoza that were published at the end of the 1660s.

[74] Spinoza, in his Tractatus theologico-politicus, tried to give Van den Enden's political ideas a foundation in his own philosophy, by pointing out that democracy is the best form of government "approaching most closely to that freedom which nature grants to every man".

The Spinozists clothed their demands for toleration in a virulent anticlericalism, because experience had taught them that if the Church was left with autonomy in the state, its prestige would allow it to mobilize the masses against anyone of whose ideas the clergy would disapprove.

As long as one took care to be discreet, and did not cross the boundaries of "blasphemy" as Adriaan Koerbagh was accused of having done in 1669, the authorities were prepared to turn a blind eye to this kind of radical publications (though freedom of the press did not exist de jure).

Leiden and Haarlem proposed that the Prince would be designated stadtholder in future, and De Witt deflected this with some difficulty, at the same time making financial concessions to William's mother, promising to pay for his education as "Child of State".

At Frisian insistence during 1662 the Republic made a concerted effort to conclude the sought-for treaty with England, even if it meant making concessions in the case of trumped-up English demands for compensation for alleged damages in the East Indies.

The fact that bishop von Galen, in alliance with England, invaded the eastern provinces in 1665, and even threatened Friesland, after having overrun Drenthe, probably concentrated Frisian minds wonderfully in this respect.

seem unconscionable in modern American eyes, but which in the circumstances of the time must be deemed completely rational: the sugar plantations of Surinam were certainly more valuable than the already hard-pressed fur traders in their environment of hostile New-Englanders.

It offered a number of equally unpalatable prospects for the Dutch: unwanted incorporation of Antwerp (the blockade of which was now enshrined in the peace treaty of 1648 with Spain) would open up that city's trade; and a resurgent France as an immediate neighbor would necessitate the building up of the standing army, an expense the regents wanted to avoid at all costs.

The States concurred, hoping to save the Republic proper, and the free exercise of the Reformed religion (Louis had already had the Utrecht cathedral reconsecrated to Catholic worship), but being prepared to sign away the Generality Lands.

However, under the gathering clouds of the conflict with France, and because the Prince finally got to the age where he could plausibly be proposed for actual public office in his own right (his cousin Willem Frederick died in 1664, taking the cadet branch of the family temporarily out of the running as the Frisian stadtholdership was now taken by an infant).

The demonstrations delivered petitions that demanded certain additional reforms with a, in a sense, "reactionary" flavor: the "ancient" privileges of the guilds and civic militias (who were traditionally seen as mouthpieces of the citizenry as a whole) to curb the regent's powers were to be recognized again (as in pre-Burgundian times).