Introduction

Abstract

The new state which emerged from the Revolt of the Netherlands appears at first glance to be a somewhat haphazard collection of territories thrown together by the accidents of rebellion and war. In the aftermath of the break-up of the short-lived united Kingdom of the Netherlands and the creation of a separate Belgian state after the revolution of 1830, both Dutch and Belgian nationalist historians tried to discover an historical necessity in the existence of two separate states in the Low Countries. Consequently they argued that the earlier division between North and South brought about by the Revolt was similarly the result of fundamental differences not historical accident.¹ Later generations of historians have found it rather more difficult to believe that the Dutch and Belgian peoples were already in existence in some sense before the Revolt, and that this national divide determined the political outcome of the movement. As far as the Dutch Republic is concerned, while it may be possible to discern long-term similarities in the social, economic and cultural developments of its constituent provinces, what is more immediately evident is the lack of much natural unity among them. In particular, the actual extent and boundaries of the new state seem more obviously the result of geo-strategic forces than of historical inevitability.²