The Eighty Years' War: the War between the Dutch and the Spanish in the Netherlands, 1568-1648

The great war in Europe of the 16th and 17th centuries

King Philip II of Spain became the monarch of the Hapsburg Netherlands, which included territory in modern day Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, by the decree of Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor. While the legitimacy of this act may have been indisputable according to the principles of ‘absolutist divine right’ the relationship between the new monarch and his subjects soon descended into acrimony because Spain was far from the Netherland...