What circumstances led to Spanish rule in The Netherlands in the 16th c.?

Answer 1

the Spanish came to rule the Netherlands due to inheritance. The Spanish King Philip II inherited them from his father Charles V the Holy Roman Emperor. Charles was elected the Holy Roman Emperor at a young age and was also King of Spain so he was pretty powerful. however when Charles abdectated he split up the Empire to make it smaller thus Philip got the New World, Spain and the Netherlands among other countries

Answer 2

Simple Hapsburg inheritance. People had really no notion of nationality at the time, and I imagine that if it had not been for religious questions arising no one would much have noticed. There were of course deeper reasons behind religious conflict -- The Netherlands becoming one of the world's first industrial powers as opposed to still feudal Austria and Spain -- but they were masked by religion.

Answer 3

You have to go back a long way, to the end of the Roman Empire.

The part south of the river Rhine was occupied by the Romans, and became part of Gallia Belgica, and later of the Roman province Germania Inferior. The country was inhabited at the time by various Germanic tribes, and the south was inhabited by Celts, who merged with newcomers from other Germanic tribes during the Völkerwanderung following the fall of the Roman empire.

Charlemagne (742 – 28 January 814) was the King of the Franks (768–814), who conquered Italy and took the Iron Crown of Lombardy in 774 and, on a visit to Rome in 800, was crowned Emperor by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day. He also campaigned against the peoples to his east, especially the Saxons, and after a protracted war subjected them to his rule. By converting them to Christianity, he integrated them into his realm and thus paved the way for the later Ottonian Dynasty.

Today regarded as the founding father of both France and Germany and sometimes as the Father of Europe, as he was the first ruler of a Western Europe empire since the fall of the Roman Empire. In the medieval period, the Low Countries (roughly present-day Belgium and the Netherlands) consisted of various counties, duchies and dioceses belonging to the Duchy of Burgundy.

The Hapsburgs gained the Netherlands after the marriage of Maximilian I (of Habsburg - March 22, 1459 – January 12, 1519) - the Holy Roman Emperor to with Mary, heiress of Burgundy. Mary (February 13, 1457 – March 27, 1482), Duchess of Burgundy, was the only child of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and his wife Isabella of Bourbon.

The Burgundian Netherlands at this time Included half of Belguim (the other part was owned by the Bishopric of leige) the whole of Holland, and the Dutchy of Luxemburge.

The Seventeen Provinces were a personal union of states in the Low Countries in the 16th century, roughly covering the current Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, a good part of the North of France (Artois, Nord) and a small part of Germany.

The Seventeen Provinces originated from the Burgundian Netherlands, that were inherited by Maximilian I of Habsburg in 1482. His grandson and successor Charles V united all 17 provinces under his rule, the last one being Guelders, in 1543. Most of these provinces were fiefs under the Holy Roman Empire, of which Charles himself became Emperor. Two, Flanders and Artois, were French fiefs, but were ceded to the Empire in the Treaty of Cambrai in 1529.

However, it was not initially spanish rule in Holland, but Dutch Rule in Spain!

With the death of his grand-father Ferdinand II, on May 30, 1516 Charles became the first king of a united Spain.[from wikipedia] Charles inherited his grandfather's realm, which included Aragon, Navarre, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia, and also became joint-king of Castile and guardian of his insane mother Joanna. With the Castilian crown he also gained Granada and the Spanish possessions in the New World.


Inner court of the Charles V Palace in GranadaFor the first time the crowns of Castile and Aragon were united in one person. Ferdinand and Isabella had each been sovereign in one kingdom, but only consort in the other.

Charles arrived in his new kingdoms in autumn of 1517. His regent Jiménez de Cisneros came to meet him, but fell ill along the way, not without a suspicion of poison. Charles sent him a letter to thank him for his services, but Cisneros died before meeting the King.

Negotiations with the Castilian Cortes proved difficult, and in the end Charles was accepted under the following conditions: he would learn to speak Castilian; he would not appoint foreigners; he was prohibited from taking precious metals from Castile; and he would respect the rights of his mother, Queen Joanna. The Cortes paid homage to him in Valladolid in 1518. In 1519 he was crowned before the Cortes of Aragon in Zaragoza, and the Cortes of Catalonia followed.

Charles was accepted as sovereign, even though the Spanish felt uneasy with the Imperial style; Spanish monarchs until then had been bound by the laws, the monarchy was a contract with the people. With Charles it would become more absolute, even though until his mother's death in 1555 Charles did not hold the full kingship of the country.

Soon resistance against the Emperor rose, because of the heavy taxation – funds that were used to fight wars abroad, wars most Castilians had no interest in – and because Charles tended to select Flemings for high offices in Spain and America, ignoring Castilian candidates. The resistance culminated in the Castilian War of the Communities, which was suppressed by Charles. After this, Castile became integrated into the Habsburgs' empire, and would provide the bulk of the Habsburg's military and financial resources.

After Charles V's abdication in 1556, his realms became divided between his son, Philip II, and his brother, Ferdinand I. The Netherlands went to his son, the king of Spain.

Conflicts between Philip II and his Dutch subjects led to the Eighty Years' War, which started in 1568. The seven northern provinces gained their independence as a republic called the United Provinces: Groningen, Friesland, Overijssel, Guelders (except its Upper Quarter), Utrecht, Holland and Zeeland.

The southern Provinces, Flanders, Brabant, Namur, Hainaut, Luxembourg a.o., were restored to Spanish rule thanks to the military and political talent of the Duke of Parma, especially at the siege of Antwerp (1584-1585). Hence, these Provinces became known as the Spanish Netherlands or Southern Netherlands. The northern United Provinces kept parts of Limburg, Brabant and Flanders during the Eighty Years' War, which was ended with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Artois, and parts of Flanders and Hainaut were ceded to France in the course of the 17th and 18th century.


.

Answer 4

the defeat of the armada?