Abstract
The specific causes of the war of 1672 can be traced back no further than the Triple Alliance of January 23, 1668, in which the Dutch republic joined with the kingdoms of Great Britain and Sweden to oppose the conquest of the Spanish Netherlands by France. In no sense whatever was the war the culmination of a long enmity between the two states of France and the United Provinces. They were, to the contrary, traditional friends and allies.
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References
P. J. Blok, Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk (Groningen, 1892–1908), IV, 444.
Report of Chanut, French ambassador at The Hague, on departure from his mission in 1655, Recueil des instructions données aux ambassadeurs et ministres de France Hollande, ed. Louis André and Émile Bourgeois (Paris, 1922–24), I, xv-xix.
Pieter Geyl, Oranje en Stuart (Utrecht, 1939), pp. 184–86.
Pierre Clément, ed., Lettres, instructions et mémoires de Colbert (Paris, 1861–82), III, 208.
Lettres, mémoires et négociations de Monsieur le Comte d’Estrades... (new ed., London [actually The Hague], 1743), II-V, passim.
The French “cantonnement” also carries overtones of confining or isolating a difficult or sick person.
Estrades, II, passim; Japikse, Johan de Witt (Amsterdam, 1915), ch. xi.
N. Japikse, “Louis XIV et la guerre anglo-hollandaise de 1665–1667,” G. Pagès, “À propos de la guerre anglo-hollandaise de 1665–1667,” Revue historique, XCVIII (1908), 22–71.
Mignet, II, 496ff; Japikse, Johan de Witt, p. 256. I use the Spanish form “Carlos,” to distinguish the king of Spain from the king of England, also “Charles II.”
Sir William Temple to his brother, Sir John Temple, Oct. 10, 1667, The works of Sir William Temple Bar t (new ed., London, 1757), I, 311. 4 Japikse, Johan de Witt, p. 257. 5 Lionne to Estrades, Sept. 9, 1667, Estrades, VI, 35.
Leonhard Ennen, Frankreich und der Niederrhein ... (Cologne and Neuss, 1855–56), I, 191.
Geyl, Oranje en Stuart, pp. 370–71.
Mignet, II, 537.
Louis XIV to Ruvigny, Jan. 4, 1668, ibid., p. 542.
Temple to Sir John Temple, Jan. 2, 1668 (O.S.), Temple, I, 313.
Wicquefort, II, 177. Cf. Sir John R. Seeley, The Growth of British Policy (Cambridge, 1895), II, 162–64; Osmund Airy, The Restoration and Louis XIV (New York, 1895), p. 168, and the same author’s Charles II (London, Paris and New York, 1901), p. 152; Geyl, Oranje en Stuart, p. 368; Richard Lodge, The History of England fron the Restoration of Charles II to the death of William III (1660–1672) (“The Political History of England,” ed. W. Hunt and R. L. Poole, VIII) (London, 1910), pp. 89–90, for similar modern evaluations of Charles’ intentions.
Pomponne, Relation de Hollande, p. 64.
Japikse, Johan de Witt, p. 258.
Temple to Sir Orlando Bridgman, Jan. 27, 1668, Temple, I, 331.
Japikse, Johan de Witt, p. 262. Japikse’s account is followed here rather than the superficial analysis by W. J. Knoop, “Oordeel van Lodewijk XIV over 1672,” Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, 2nd. ser., IV (1874), 128–29.
Estrades to Lionne, Jan. 12, 1668 (not Jan. 21, as printed), Estrades, VI, 222.
Temple to Bridgman, Jan. 27, 1668, Temple, I, 333–34. Cf. De Witt to Johan Meerman and Johan Boreel, Jan. 8, 1668, De Witt, Brieven, IV, 610.
Temple to Bridgman, Jan. 27, 1668, Temple, I, 331.
Temple to Bridgman, Jan. 27, 1668, ibid., p. 336.
Ibid., pp. 362–84. An excellent summary of the provisions of the treaty is given by Pomponne in his Mémoires (I, 512–13): “Its purposes were these: the king [of France] having expressed his willingness to bring the war to an end provided that the Catholic king would cede one of the alternatives to him, the king of England and Holland would promise to obtain this from him; and in the event that the council of Madrid rejected their intercession, they would employ more effective means to compel them to comply; but the King would leave this burden so completely to them that he would not be permitted to send his troops into Flanders, to attack towns or even to receive the surrender of those towns which might voluntarily desire to give themselves to him. Besides these articles which they wished to make public, and which the States sought to color with the single intention of procuring peace when they communicated them to Count d’Estrades who had his first knowledge of these articles from them, they also signed secret articles on the same day .... These articles, the secrecy of which was penetrated only some months later [actually, only a month], included a specific stipulation that they would wage war jointly with England against France if the King did not make peace under the conditions which they should declare they considered to be reasonable. But, in the event that they took up arms, they then accepted the obligation not to lay them down until they should have re-established Spain in all that she had just lost in the Low Countries.”
Temple, “Observations...,” Temple, I, 128–29; Temple to Arlington, Jan. 24, 1668, ibid., pp. 318–19; Estrades to Louis XIV, Jan. 12, 19, Feb. 2, 1668, Estrades, VI, 222, 229–31, 258.
Estrades to Lionne, Jan. 12, 26, 1668, ibid., pp. 223, 250–51. Geyl, in his article, “D’Estrades’ beweringen omtrent de omkoopbaarheid der Nederlandse regenten,” Nederlandsche Historiebladen, II (1939), 163–73, may have missed the point of Estrades’ essential failure in his bribery activities. Despite Geyl’s efforts to exculpate the Dutch regents from Estrades’ imputation of widespread venality among them, it seems difficult to deny that many of them were open to bribery; the practice was neither novel nor confined to the Netherlands. What was significant was that, on issues which were felt to involve fundamental interests, bribery failed to work. Many of the Dutch regents seem to have been willing to take money to do what they would have done anyway.
De Witt to Fürstenberg, Jan. 23, 1668, Brieven van Johan de Witt, ed. Robert Fruin, G. W. Kernkamp and N. Japikse (“Werken uitgegeven door het Historisch Genootschap te Utrecht,” 3rd ser., nos. 18, 25, 31, 33) (Amsterdam, 1906–13), III, 389.
A. Lefèvre-Pontalis, Vingt années de république parlementaire au dix-septième siècle: Jean de Witt, grand pensionnaire de Hollande (Paris, 1884), I, 450; Japikse, Johan de Witt, p. 265.
De Witt to Meerman, Feb. 10, 1668, De Witt, Brieven, IV, 650.
De Witt to Meerman, Feb. 4, 10, March 2, 1668, De Witt, Brieven, IV, 646, 650, 685; Estrades to Lionne, Jan. 28, Feb. 16, 23, 1668, to Louis XIV, Feb. 2, 1668, Estrades, VI, 258–59, 273, 287; De Witt to Van Beuningen, March 1, 1668, Brieven van Johan de Witt, III, 398.
De Witt to Van Beuningen, May 31, 1668, ibid., p. 411.
Temple to Bridgman, Jan. 27, 1668, Temple, I, 331; Estrades to Lionne, Feb. 16, 1668, Estrades, VI, 274; De Witt to Temple, Feb. 25, 1668, Correspondance française du Grand Pensionnaire Jean de Witt, ed. François Combes (“Collection de documents inédits sur l’histoire de France, Mélanges historiques,” I) (Paris, 1873), pp. 307–08; De Witt to Van Beuningen, March 8, 1668, Brieven van De Witt, III, 399.
De Witt to Temple, Feb. 25, 1668, De Witt, Correspondance française, pp. 306–07; De Witt to Meerman, Feb. 25, 1668, De Witt, Brieven, IV, 681.
Rousset, I, 138–39; Picavet, pp. 226–29. 3 Pomponne, Mémoires, II, 177.
Temple to Arlington, Jan. 24, 1668, Temple, I, 323–24. 4 Estrades to Lionne, Jan. 26, 1668, Estrades, VI, 252–53.
Lionne to Estrades, Feb. 3, 10, 1668, ibid., pp. 263–64, 266–68.
Estrades to Lionne, Feb. 16, 1668, ibid., pp. 271–72. 3 Estrades to Lionne, Feb. 23, 1668, ibid., p. 284.
Lionne to Estrades, March 2, 1668, ibid., pp. 303–04.
De Witt to Van Beuningen, March 1, 1668, Brieven van De Witt, III, 398; De Witt to Meerman, March 2, 1668, Meerman to De Witt, March 12, 1668, De Witt, Brieven, IV, 685–86, 706.
Wicquefort, II, 451; Meerman to De Witt, Feb. 15, 1668, De Witt, Brieven, IV, 668; N. Japikse, note in Brieven van De Witt, II, 398, note 2.
Airy, Charles II, p. 152.
Pomponne, Mémoires, I, 562.
Mignet, III, 560–61.
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Rowen, H.H. (1957). The Triple Alliance. In: The Ambassador Prepares for War. International Scholars Forum. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4778-3_3
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