The Union of Utrecht: its Genesis and Consequences

Abstract

In the hall where we are now assembled, the former chapter-hall of the cathedral, which has been serving for a long time now as auditorium for the University of Utrecht, the Union of Utrecht was founded on 23rd January 1579. Our congress on federalism has been organized, as you know, within the context of the commemoration of the establishment of the Union four hundred years ago. It therefore seemed to me desirable, at the outset, to devote some attention to the origin of the league that was formed in this particular hall ‘for all eternity’. Next, in the second part of my lecture, the functioning of the federal system of the Republic of the United Netherlands will be discussed. It seems to me all the more justified to devote some attention to the formation of the Union as it constituted the foundation of the federal incorporation of the seven provinces into the Republic of the United Netherlands. The young Pieter Paulus, who in the years 1775– 77 published a commentary on the Union which has since become famous, described it as the Bulwark of our Liberty, the joyous Mother of so many blessings, the Cultivator of the prestige of this Republic at the principal courts of Europe, and as base of that Pyramid, to which eminent men have compared this State.¹