Spanish Netherlands | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1556–1714 | |||||||||||
| Motto: Plus Ultra "Further Beyond" | |||||||||||
Burgundian Cross | |||||||||||
 Spanish Netherlands (grey) in 1700 | |||||||||||
| Status | Personal union of Imperial fiefs within Empire | ||||||||||
| Capital | Brussels | ||||||||||
| Common languages | |||||||||||
| Religion | Roman Catholicism (State religion) Protestantism (popular) | ||||||||||
| Government | Governorate | ||||||||||
| Governor | |||||||||||
• 1556–1559 | Emmanuel Philibert (first) | ||||||||||
• 1692–1706 | Maximilian Emanuel (last) | ||||||||||
| Historical era | Early Modern period | ||||||||||
• Habsburg Spain gained Habsburg Netherlands | 1556 | ||||||||||
| 1568–1648 | |||||||||||
| 30 January 1648 | |||||||||||
| 1683–1684 | |||||||||||
| 15 August 1684 | |||||||||||
| 1688–1697 | |||||||||||
| 1701–1714 | |||||||||||
| 7 March 1714 | |||||||||||
| Area | |||||||||||
| 1560 | 70,000 km2 (27,000 sq mi) | ||||||||||
| 1600 | 46,000 km2 (18,000 sq mi) | ||||||||||
| Population | |||||||||||
• 1560 | 1,794,000[3] | ||||||||||
| Currency | Gulden, Spanish reales | ||||||||||
| |||||||||||
| Today part of | |||||||||||
.svg)
The Spanish Netherlands (Spanish: Países Bajos Españoles; Dutch: Spaanse Nederlanden; French: Pays-Bas espagnols; German: Spanische Niederlande) (historically in Spanish: Flandes, the name "Flanders" was used as a pars pro toto)[4] was the Habsburg Netherlands ruled by the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs from 1556 to 1714. They were a collection of States of the Holy Roman Empire in the Low Countries held in personal union by the Spanish Crown. This region comprised most of the modern states of Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as parts of northern France, the southern Netherlands, and western Germany, with the capital being Brussels. The Army of Flanders was given the task of defending the territory.
The Imperial fiefs of the former Burgundian Netherlands had been inherited by the Austrian House of Habsburg from the extinct House of Valois-Burgundy upon the death of Mary of Burgundy in 1482. The Seventeen Provinces formed the core of the Habsburg Netherlands, which passed to the Spanish Habsburgs upon the abdication of Emperor Charles V in 1556. When part of the Netherlands separated to form the autonomous Dutch Republic in 1581, the remainder of the area stayed under Spanish rule until the War of the Spanish Succession.
- ^ Bander, James (1 December 2014). Dutch Warships in the Age of Sail 1600-1714: Design, Construction, Careers & fates. Seaforth Publishing. p. 51. ISBN 978-1-84832-157-1. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
- ^ Preston, Rupert (1974). The Seventeenth Century Marine Painters of the Netherlands. F. Lewis. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-85317-025-9. Retrieved 11 January 2024.
- ^ Demographics of the Netherlands Archived 2011-12-26 at the Wayback Machine, Jan Lahmeyer. Retrieved on 20 February 2014.
- ^ Pérez, Yolanda Robríguez (2008). The Dutch Revolt through Spanish eyes: self and other in historical and literary texts of Spanish Golden Age (c. 1548–1673) (Transl. and rev. ed.). Oxford: Peter Lang. p. 18. ISBN 978-3-03911-136-7. Retrieved 5 April 2016.