2.

Dutch Privileges, Real and Imaginary

J. J. WOLTJER

THE important role played by the Privileges in the history of the

Netherlands has often been stressed. They have been held responsible
for the Revolt itself. The preamble to the Pacification of Ghent (1576)
even stated explicitly that the aim of the parties to the treaty was the
restoration of the Privileges. Yet the content and status of these
privileges is not as straightforward as would at first sight appear.
Shortly after a number of the cities of Holland had chosen the side
of William of Orange, their representatives met a few noblemen at
Dordrecht in what is called the first free assembly of the States of
Holland. Orange was represented by Philippe de Marnix, Lord of Ste
Aldegonde, and in the name of Orange Marnix asked the States about
the most expedient means to restore 'de oude privilegien, rechten ende
usantien' [the ancient privileges, rights and customs] in accordance
with the oath sworn by the king. The States replied simply that a
search should be made to find the charters of Holland in the recently
conquered castle of Gouda, that an inventory of the privileges be
drawn up and copies made of the most important texts.l This was not
of course the answer Orange was waiting for, but he nevertheless em-
powered the States to carry out the search. Nothing was done im-
mediately; during the fierce struggle then raging around Haarlem,
Alkmaar, and Leiden, parchment arguments would hardly have been
useful. But early in 1575, when negotiations for peace were in sight, it
seemed desirable to possess effective legal weapons. A commission,
appointed by the States and headed by Janus Dousa, the Leiden
humanist, went to Gouda and had a blacksmith force the door of the
castle tower on II January. They then examined the charters and
documents. These were extremely damp, some of them so old that
I R. C. Bakhuizen van den Brink, 'Eerste vergadering der Staten van

Holland, 19 juli 1572', in his Cartons voor de geschiedenis van den

Nederlandschen vrijheidsoorlog (3rd edn., 2 vols., The Hague, 1891-8), II,
191,203.
20 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY

they were completely decayed. Several of the iron chests carried

labels, but the contents had disappeared. All their efforts were futile:
they found ' ... nyet sonderiinx dat tot eenige vrijdomme ofte ge-
rechticheyt van de graefschappe van Holland diende' [nothing specific
... pertaining to any freedom or right of the county of HollandV
Grim battles were to be fought against the king under the banner ofthe
privileges, but neither Janus Dousa nor the representatives of the cities
in the States of Holland really knew exactly what these privileges were,
and a serious attempt to find out ended in failure.
A century later, in 1672, when the Republic was confronted with
the crisis of the French invasion, all its internal tensions flared up. In
Leiden the civic guard demanded not only that the privileges in general
should be restored, but also that a copy of the city's privileges be made
public, and the Prince acceded to this demand. 3 In Amsterdam and
Haariem, too, the burghers insisted not only on restoration of the an-
cient privileges but also that their contents be made known to the
burghers. 4
During the disturbances in 1748 the same phenomenon occurred.
In Amsterdam the civic guard requested a command independent of
the magistrates, and also that the independent colonels be empowered
to examine the privileges and charters kept in the Town Hall. In
Leiden the burghers again demanded that the city's privileges should
be made accessible. s
Thus the privileges three times played a role - sometimes an impor-
tant role - in a crisis situation, but on none of these occasions did the
men involved, at least most of those involved, know the import of these
same privileges. What were they, then? Was appeal made to anything
concrete? Or to a myth?
Let us start with the privileges that were fought for in the Revolt.
lohan Huizinga argued that the insurgents were defending a medieval
conception of freedom:

2 Verbaal van Johan van der Does e.a. omtrent de opening van de toren te
Gouda 5 januari 1575. Algemeen Rijksarchief's Gravenhage [hereafter
A.R.A.J, Archief Staten van Holland 1572-1795, no. 2581. This verbaal is
unsigned.
3 P. J. Blok, Geschiedenis eener Hollandsche stad (4 vols., The Hague,
1910-18), III, 150.
4 P. Valkenier, 't Verwerd Europa (Amsterdam, 1742), appendix, p. 139;

P. Geyl, Democratische tendenties in 1672 (Mededelingen der Koninklijke

Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afd. Letterkunde, N. R. XIII,
no. 2, Amsterdam, 1950), p. 40.
5 N. J. J. de Voogd, De Doelistenbeweging te Amsterdam in 1748
(Utrecht, 1914), p. 169: Blok, Hollandsche stad, III, 159.
 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY 21
... freedom seen as a collection of liberties, and liberties equated with a
number of rules, each valid in a limited area, rules meaning: I may do what
you may not do. Liberties were freedoms, exemptions based on privileges, in
other words exceptions, suspensions of the generallaw. 6

A. J. C. Ruter, in an unguarded moment, put it even more strongly:

In essence, these proVInces fought in the Eighty Years War not for liberty but
for liberties. In the Middle Ages the liberties of the cities and the provinces
were the privileges, the special rights and prerogatives that the cities and
provinces had obtained from the prince. 7

Rogier agreed with this view. 8

It is true that various towns possessed privileges of the type of ' I
may do what you may not do'. The best-known examples are the
stapelrecht (staple rights) of Dordrecht and the town of Groningen.
But were such staple rights and market privileges really the privileges
for which men fought in the Revolt? Groningen supported the king
from 1580 to 1594, admittedly because of Rennenberg's 'treachery'
but also in defence of its staple rights. Indeed, it could be expected a
priori that such privileges would sow discord; just as they placed
Groningen in opposition to the Ommelanden (the collective name
given to the dependent quarters to the north of the town), so the
defence of its commercial privileges set Dordrecht against the other
towns on the Maas. It seems difficult to persist in the view that the
defence of such privileges formed the true ground of resistance to
Philip II. It was not the privileges held by one town at the cost of
another, or by towns at the cost of the surrounding country, for which
the insurgents fought. Nevertheless they repeatedly referred to the
privileges and repeatedly accused the Spanish regime of violating
them.
There was another category of privileges, privileges concerning the

6 'Vrijheid opgevat als een samenspel van vrijheden, en vrijheden

gelijkbeteekenend met een aantal regelen, elk geldig binnen beperkt terrein,-
regelen van: ik mag doen wat gij niet doen moogt. Vrijheden waren
vrijdommen, vrijstellingen, op grond van privilegien, d.w.z. uitzonderingen,
ontheffingen van de algemeene wet': 1. Huizinga, 'Nederland's beschaving in
de zeventiende eeuw'. Verzamelde Werken (9 vols, Haarlem, 1948-53), II,
429.
7 'De Nederlandse natle en het Nederlandse volkskarakter', in his
Histarische studies over mens en samenleving (Assen, 1967), p. 314. Cf.
below, n. 21.
8 L. J. Rogier, 'Het karakter van de opstand tege!} Philips II', Bijdragen
vaar de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, X (1956),24;-2.
22 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY

administration of justice and local government, and these certainly did

play an important part in the Revolt. Each province and each city had
its own form of government, often set out in charters that limited the
power of the sovereign and guaranteed, in varying degrees, the con-
duct of government and justice by persons chosen from the local peo-
ple. In all towns the schepenen (aldermen) were selected from the
burghers, and in very many cases the same held good for the schout
(chief magistrate). In some provinces the central administrative and
judicial college had to be entirely or partially composed ofinhabitants
of that province. Such provisions safeguarded an administration of
justice that would be consistent with tradition and correspond to
locally acceptable standards. 9 Thejus de non evocando had the same
tendency.lo These privileges were not rules of the 'I may do what you
may not do' kind, not rights of one town at another's cost. In essence,
they ran in parallel for all towns and provinces alike. That is why
towns and provinces could unite in the defence of these privileges,
while the effort to defend them could bring together diverse towns and
provinces.
In the course of the sixteenth century this type of privilege acquired
special significance. The rise and growth of many new ideas, which we
commonly group together under the somewhat misleading II term of
the Reformation, faced society with an enormous problem: were these
heterodox ideas to be tolerated or should they be eradicated at any
cost? Charles V and Philip II took it for granted that they could not be
tolerated, and Philip II in particular supported his view with a terrible

9 This provision of course had its disadvantages, not only due to the wide

diversity of the law applied but also because the central government did not
have sufficient means to settle local conflicts and factional disputes or other
undesirable situations. In 1557 the stadholder of Holland thought it would be
impossible to choose suitable magistrates in Amsterdam as long as the
Amsterdam privileges were accepted as binding (Cf. J. J. Woltjer, 'Het con-
flict tussen Willem Bardes en Hendrick Dirckszoon', Bijdragen en
mededelingen betreffende de geschiendenis der Nederlanden, LXXXVI
(1971), 196). But the government in Brussels evidently shrank from such
severe intervention. It was not until 1565 that it took certain steps, but these
went no further than an extension of the regulations concerning members of
the same family who were not permitted to hold an office at the same time: J.
E. Elias. Geschiedems van het Amsterdamsche regentenpatriciaat (The
Hague, 1923), p. 12.
10 By this privilege people could not normally be cited before courts out-
side the town or province where they resided.
11 I think It is misleading to reduce persons as different from, even as op-

posed to, each other as Calvin, Servetus, Flacius IlIyricus and Menno Simons
to the same common denominator.
 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY 23
imperturbability. Thanks, however, to the moderation of many
magistrates, the degree of actual persecution varied widely with place
and time. The relentless strictness demanded of the authorities, for in-
stance by the edict of 1529, very soon encountered difficulties in prac-
tice, and in 1531 the courts received permission to apply lighter
punishments than were stipulated in the edict whenever there were
mitigating circumstances. The Grand Conseil (supreme court) at
Malines, the Court of Holland, and the Court of Friesland made use of
this provision. 12 This instruction was intended solely for the judges; as
far as the public was concerned, the edicts remained in all their
severity.
Concrete experiences strongly influenced the development of public
opinion about the persecution of heretics and above all the attitude of
the judges responsible for enforcing the edicts. The disturbances
caused by the Anabaptists in 1534-1535 at Munster and elsewhere
convinced many of the need to fight heresy with fire and sword; the in-
terrogation of peaceful Mennonites, on the contrary, convinced
several magistrates by the 1550s that it was barbaric to apply the
death penalty to them. In the Court of Friesland, for instance, many
justices wished to stop the execution of Mennonites on the ground that
they were merely misled in their beliefs and did not commit crimes. In
Tournai, also, the municipal magistrates showed a distinct
repugnance for the burning of heretics as early as 1544.13 After the
alarm created by the Munsterite Anabaptists had subsided, public
opinion seems to have rejected the persecution of heretics. In 1549, for
example, in Friesland the delivery of an heretical vicar from prison
was signalled 'myt clockslach ende andere Quade manieren' [by the
ringing of the tocsin and other unseemly practices]. Five years later, in
the same province, three men who had been arrested were forcibly
delivered from the servants of justice. In March 1558 a riot developed
at the execution of five Anabaptists in Rotterdam (the first execution
of Anabaptists there for many years), as a result of which the schout,
together with the burgomasters and aldermen, had to take refuge in
the tower of the Town Hall and were forced to free four of the

12J. S. Theissen. Centraal gezag en Friesche vrijheid (Groningen, 1907),

pp. 127.
122~3,
13 J. J. Woltjer. op. cit., pp. 196-9; idem, 'De politieke betekenis van de
Emdense synode'. in D. Nauta et al., De Synode van Emden oktober 1571
(Kampen. 1971), pp. 33 ec seq.; G. Moreau, Histoire du Protestantisme d
Tournaijusqu'a la veille de la Revolucion des Pays-Bas (Bibliotheque de la
Faculte de Philo sophie et Lettres de l'Universite de Liege, CLXVII, Paris,
1962). pp. 102~13.
24 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY

prisoners. 14 In Groningen, where the power of the Brussels govern-

ment was very limited, not a single heretic was executed. The judicial
bodies responsible for the persecution were sometimes split into doves
and hawks, but as a rule the inferior courts were more lenient than the
central government, certainly more so than Philip II. In these con-
ditions, the local and provincial privileges afforded excellent weapons
to thwart the stricter measures. There was greater danger in openly
opposing the persecution of heretics, for it raised suspicions of infec-
tion with heresy; an appeal to the privileges involved much less risk. IS
The tension between the sense of justice of the majority of the pop-
ulation and the official policy of the government came to a head during
Alva's regime. In his eyes, not only were the Protestants liable for
punishment but also the magistrates, who in 1566, contrary to the
explicit commands of the king, had made concessions to the
Protestants. Alva knew that the great majority of the magistrates did
not share his views, and so he took upon himself the punishment ofEg-
mont and Hoorne, of Orange and Hoogstraten, and of the many
thousands of others who, according to him, were guilty; he established
the Council of Troubles in order to outflank the existing courts.
Because he sought verdicts conflicting with the views on law and
justice that had become widely accepted in the Netherlands, he was
bound to violate many privileges. Hence the intense and general in-
dignation. Moreover, as Philip II had sworn to uphold the privileges,
their violation meant also his violation of a solemn oath. Restoration
of the privileges now became the cry.
That many could distinguish between the different sorts of
privileges is borne out by the situation at Groningen in 1556. The town
and the Ommelanden were in a heated dispute about the town's staple
privileges and related questions, while the Ommelanden were attemp-
ting to free themselves from the town's grip. At the same time, Stad en
Lande, as the joint estates of the town and the Ommelanden were
known, came into conflict with the Brussels government. Brussels
demanded that the extremely severe edict of 1550 against the heretics
should be proclaimed in Groningen as elsewhere, but the town, where
as yet no heretics had been convicted, raised strong objections to this.
The Ommelanden cheerfully let the town bear the brunt of the battle
over this thorny question, but they did say that they expected the town

14 J. J. WoltJer, Friesland in Hervormingstijd (Leiden, 1962), pp. 120-1;

A. R. A., Archief Hof van Holland, 381, fos. 22-5, 40-1.
15 Conf. Egbert Alting, Diarium 1553-1595, edd. W. J. Formsma and
R. van Roijen (Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatien, grote serie, CXI, The
Hague, 1964), p. 66.
 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY 25
to be willing to defend its 'good privileges and liberties'.16 The
Ommelanden, which were in dispute with the town about privileges of
the I-may-do-what-you-may-not-do kind, even offered to defend the
city's privileges, but these were the privileges pertaining to justice and
administration.
During the Revolt emphasis was placed on the privileges more
because of the need to justify it, to provide a legitimate basis for action,
than from a desire to defend all privileges at any cost. Alva's violation
of the privileges formed the justification for the Revolt, not its primary
motivation. Violation of the privileges by the government in Brussels
had sometimes been quietly accepted, evidently because on those oc-
casions the great majority had considered it right and necessary. In
Delft there was considerable opposition to the large export-brewers
who dominated the magistracy. The differences became so violent and
the complaints reaching Brussels so strident that the Governess, Mary
of Hungary, suspended the Delft privileges in 1541 (on some pretext)
and appointed the new magistrate for that year without nomination by
the town council. Until late in the 1550s sectional tensions in Delft
continued to be a matter of great concern to the Brussels authorities.
In 1549 the special commissioners sent by the Governess to choose
the magistrates for the following year were unable to reach a decision
until 12 October, instead of I Mayas was customary. In 1550 the
Governess again made the appointments, and the next year she
prolonged the tenure of this group almost unchangedY In this in-
stance the privileges of Delft could be completely ignored by Brussels
without provoking any objections, simply because the action then
taken by Brussels apparently coincided with the inhabitants' sense of
justice. For the same reason Stad en Lande had no hesitation in
breaking with the ancient laws and customs in connection with the
prosecution of the sturdy beggar. 18
But it was not only that before the Revolt a formal violation of the
privileges was accepted so long as it was considered to be materially
beneficial. The insurgents themselves neglected to observe them when
they deemed it necessary. After the siege of Leiden, Orange dismissed
the incumbent magistrates and, in conflict with all its privileges,
named a new magistracy and a new council, with only sixteen
members instead of forty. In a pamphlet this action was justified on

16 Ibid., pp. 66-7.

17[R. Boitet et al.,] Beschrijving der stad Delft (Delft, 1729), list of
magistrates; cf. Algemeen Rijksarchief Brussels [hereafter A.R.B.],
Audience 1441/4.
18 Maarten van Naarden to king, 17 Nov. 1556, A.R.B., Audience
1674/2.
26 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY

the ground that laws and privileges existed for the benefit of the people,
not to oppress them. When circumstances required, laws could be
ignored. 19
Quite correctly, the representatives of the States General at the
peace negotiations in Cologne in 1579 argued that the States had not
insisted too rigidly on their rights and privileges as long as the
sovereign ruler and his governors had treated their subjects with
humanity, goodwill and moderation, and had upheld good law. But
when the States perceived hlat the governors and the king's coun-
cillors had taken away all the old rights, levied new taxes, sold offices
to inexperienced and unworthy persons, and that justice was badly ad-
mi.nistered, they had been forced not only to take up arms to defend
themselves but also 'to promote and protect their rights and privileges
with more diligence'.2o The privileges were a weapon in the struggle,
not the main objective. 21
Nonetheless, in the course of the struggle the privileges acquired
such sanctity that they became an end in themselves, even to an extent
that seriously hampered the conduct of the rebel government. When in
October 1577 Ghent requested the restoration of the privileges
abolished in 1540, the States granted this almost immediately. The
Frisians were reluctant to sign the Pacification of Ghent until the
States General had issued an act de non prejudicando guaranteeing
their fiscal privileges. Even though the government of the archduke
Matthias was in desperate need of money for the common struggle
19 R. Fruin, 'Het beleg en ontzet der stad Leiden in 1574', in R. Fruin,
Verspreide geschriften (II vols., The Hague, 1900-5), II, 485.
20 Acta pacijicationis quae coram Caesareae Majestatis commissariis ...
Coloniae habita sunt (Antwerp. 1580), pp. 127-8.
21 This was partially perceived by both Huizinga and Ruter. After the
passage cited above, p. 21, Huizinga continues: 'It was not until the time of
the Revolt, when the concept patria, and the term Netherlands as well,
reverberated with the sound of bells and trumpets, that the limited medieval
concept of freedom grew into an Idea of common striving and suffering, an
idea more restncted and I.:ircumscribed than the eighteenth-century idea of
freedom but certamly not less pure or less effective.' Huizinga clearly means
that more was involved than simply the battIe for the privileges he
characterized, but the nature of the idea of striving together and suffering
together, which the context indicates was also an idea offreedom, is not made
clear. Ruter's remark that in the Eighty Years War the Netherlands fought
not for liberty but for liberties dates from 1941, and was perhaps influenced
by the reading of Huizinga's views published that year in 'Nederland's
beschaving in de zeventiende eeuw'. In his 1946 Inaugural address, Ruter
dropped the contrast between liberty and liberties and saw the privileges as
guarantees of freedom (Historische studies over mens en samenieving, p.
323).
 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY 27
against Parma, the Frisians exploited the needs of the central govern-
ment to press far-reaching political demands before they would supply
their contribution. 22 Inconvenient as this was, the insurgents had
blamed the Spaniards so long and so indignantly for their violations of
the privileges that it was very difficult for them to resist a claim based
on the privileges.
In addition to the privileges granting certain rights at the cost of
others and to the local and regional privileges guaranteeing trial by the
proper judge, we must distinguish a third group: the privileges that
were supposed to give burghers some degree of influence on the
municipal authorities. These were the privileges referred to by the civic
guards in 1672 and 1748. But here matters were much more com-
plicated than in the case of the privileges already discussed.
Before the Revolt most of the towns of Holland were administered
by a closed oligarchy, over which body the burghers had no influence.
This was not always so outside Holland. In a city like Groningen the
burghers could make themselves felt as late as the sixteenth century
through the bouwmeesters chosen by the guildsY At Utrecht, in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the guilds had on occasion exer-
cised a very considerable influence on the government of the town.
Charles V had put an end to this when he acquired the secular powers
of the bishop of Utrecht in 1528, but the earlier situation was far from
forgotten. 24 In the towns of Holland, however, the regents had long
had a firm grasp on the helm. Everywhere, the power and the influence
originally exercised by the richest, without distinction, was now held
by a closed college, the vroedschap (council), known variously as the
Forty, the Thirty-Six. etc. according to its numerical strength. When

22 Woltjer, Friesland, pp. 249, 275. The Deputies of the Frisian States

based themselves explicitly on a treaty they said had been concluded between
the Emperor and Friesland in 1522. There had been no treaty in 1522,
however, only negotiations in which a final agreement was not reached
because the Frisian demands had been too high. One wonders whether the
Frisians bargained in good faith: did they really not know that the document
of 1522 had not been signed and that this draft was not legally binding? Or
did they only pretend not to know? Remarkably enough - and this makes it
more likely that the Frisians were dealing honestly - even the Court of
Friesland no longer knew the fine points of the matter, although it must cer-
tainly have had at its disposal the relevant archives (ibid, p. 249, no. 1). Later
too, e.g. in 1581, reference was repeatedly made to the 'privilege of 1522' (De
Vrije Fries, XVII, 214).
23 Alting, Diarium, p. x.

24 I. Vijlbrief, Van anti-aristacratie tot demacratie (Amsterdam, 1950),

pp. 23 el seq.
28 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY

places fell vacant this council made up its number by cooptation,

usually without any interference from the central government, though
sometimes, as in Rotterdam, the council presented three names from
which the Court of Holland, acting on behalf of the ruler, would select
one. 25 In Dordrecht, where the guilds had retained some influence, the
deans of the craft guilds proposed twenty-four, amongst whom the
sovereign or his deputy selected 'de goede luiden van achten' [the loyal
Eight); the Eight in their turn chose the burgomaster of the municip-
ality, but this was an empty formality. In 1567 the pensionary of Dor-
drecht wrote frankly to Granvelle that in his city 'toute authorite est
reduite en peu de personnes'. Indeed it was precisely to this cir-
cumstance that he ascribed the energetic and successful action of the
city authorities which had prevented breaking of images and illicit
preaching. 26 Thus in Holland (in contrast to Utrecht and Groningen,
not to mention Flanders and Brabant) the mass of the burghers could
expect relatively little support from the ancient rights and privileges
antedating the Revolt.
In the disturbed conditions of 1566, however, the magistrates often
consulted the civic guards. In a few instances they did so voluntarily,
to share the responsibility for the steps they took. In Leeuwarden, for
example. where most of the magistrates were favourably inclined
towards the Protestants, and two burgomasters in fact played a
leading part in the introduction of Protestant sermons to the parish
churches, the captains of the guards were consulted. Before taking the
decision the magistrates had to be sure that such a policy had general
support. 27 In the towns of Holland it was a very different matter. There
the Protestants enjoyed the support of only an occasional magistrate.
But in maintaining order. and thus also in preventing preaching and
image-breaking, the magistrates were dependent on the cooperation of
the civic guard. On occasion they summoned the guards just to find
out whether they could count on their indispensable support, and this
could unintentionally turn into negotiation with the guards. On 25
August 1566 the municipal authorities of Leiden requested the help of
the guards because the churches were about to be despoiled. This was
refused: the guards were prepared to see that the images and altars
were safely removed from the churches and kept intact, but not to

21 Gemeentearchief Rotterdam. Vroedschapsboek for the year 1534 et

seq.
16 J. Wille, 'Het houten boek', Stemmen des Tijds, I (1912),1163; Cornet
to Granvelle, 17 May 1567. Correspondance du Cardinal de Granvelle, edd.
E. Poullet and Ch. Piot (12 vols, Brussels, 1877-96), II, 455-7.
27 Woitjer, Friesland, pp. 150-4, 183.
 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY 29
protect them inside the churches. 28 The magistrates had to be satisfied
with this answer, and when a crowd penetrated the Pieterskerk the
next day to destroy the images, the guards consequently refused to in-
tervene. In Amsterdam, the council officially requested 'some of the
civic guard' to consult with the other guards on ways to maintain
peace and order and adopted their suggestions virtually unmodified,
even when doing so meant that the churches would have to be closed
for the time being. 29 In Delft the magistrates asked the guards on 31
August 1566 whether they were prepared if necessary to use force to
expel a Protestant preacher from the city. The guards agreed un-
animously to do so, but when, about a month later, the Franciscan
Friary was attacked and the municipal authorities summoned the
guards, most of them failed to turn up, on the pretext that they had not
been called out in the appointed way. Commissioners of the Court of
Holland came to Delft to put pressure on the guards, but in vain. The
attitude of the guards was again decisive here, for without their sup-
port the city authorities were powerless. The magistrate had to allow
Protestant preaching in the Friars' church and even to agree to consult
the guards before calling on them for assistance. 3o
In the first few years after the Revolt the guards and guilds, or their
officers, were consulted whenever important decisions had to be
made. 3l Orange thought it of importance that the guards and guilds
should ratify the transfer of the government to him, as well as ratifying
the Pacification of Ghent. 32 As leader of the Revolt, of course, he
needed to be certain of the people's support. When Amsterdam
changed sides in 1578, the guards received the right to appoint the
thirty-six electors who would choose the new council. 33
If the custom of giving the civic guards a voice in government had
persisted, it might have become common law, but this development

28 'De beeldstorm te Leiden', Kerkhistorisch Archie/. III (1862), 428.

29 Copieresolutie 26 Aug. 1566, A.R.B., Audience 330, fo. 192.
30 1. Smit, 'Hagepreken en beeldenstorm te Delft, 1566-1567', Bijdragen
en Mededeelingen van he! Historisch Genootschap, XL V (1924), 206-50, esp.
219, 222-5, 243; J. Soutendam, 'Beeldstormerij te Delft in Augustus en Oc-
tober 1566', Bijdragen voor vaderlandsche geschiedenis en oudheidkunde,
NR IX (1877),173-221, esp. 182,199-200; A. C. Duke and D. H. A. Kolff,
'The time of troubles in the county of Holland, 1566-1567,' Tijdschrift voor
Geschiedenis, LXXXVII (I 969), 330--2.
31 A. Kluit, Historie der Hollandsche staatsregering(5 vols., Amsterdam,
1802-5), I, 130--8.
32 G. Groen van Prinsterer (ed.) Archives ou correspondance inedite de fa
Maison d'Orange-Nassau, 1st ser. (8 vols., Leiden, 1835--47), V, 271-2, 469.
33 J. E. Elias, Geschiedenis van het Amsterdamsche regentenpatriciaat,

p.18.
30 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY

was soon arrested. On 23 March 1581, the States of Holland 34 decided

that 'henceforth no town shall consult the civic guards, guilds or
others, no matter how eminent, about the affairs of Holland as a
whole, as has recently occurred in some towns, but only those who
were consulted in the past, unless with the previous common consent
of the States'.35 The States did not give any reason for their decision,
but it is possible to reconstruct the background.
In the States of Holland the taking of decisions was effected by con-
sultation between the nobility and a number of municipal delegations
(ultimately eighteen). The delegations were bound by the instructions
given by the council they represented. This made it difficult to reach
any decisions at all. If the councils had been obliged to consult the
guards as well - which would of course have been mainly on con-
troversial questions - the usual compromises would have become
even harder of attainment, as was clearly evident during the
negotiations of the States of Holland with Amsterdam in 1580 and
1581 with respect to the regulation of import and export duties and
similar financial matters. On this occasion the magistrates of Amster-
dam tried to use the support of the guards to improve their position. 36
On 23 March 1581 the States decreed that the municipal magistrates
should on no account interfere with the imposition of excises, con-
vooien and /icenten :37 immediately afterwards came the decree that
the magistrates should not consult the guards. It seems highly
probable that there was a connection between these two decrees. 38
Amsterdam, however, did not obey the prohibition, and repeatedly
consulted the guards in the years that followed. 39
There was in all likelihood another and more general reason for this
decision, one related to profound conflicts and changes in the camp of
the rebels. They were agreed about what they did not want: very large

34 Not the States General, as stated by S. J. Fockema Andreae, De

Nederlandse staat onder de Republiek (Amsterdam, 1961), p. 119.
31 ' . . . voortaen egeene steden des gemeene lands saecken in
beraadslaginghe sullen mogen leggen met eenige, het zij best gestaetste
schutterijen, gilden ofte andere, als bij eenige steden tot anderen tijde is ge-
daen, maer alleenlyck met den genen des van ouds behorende, ten ware met
voorgaende gemeene bewillinge van de Staten' (Resolutien ... van de staten
van Holland, 1581, p. Ill).
36 G. Coops. De uphejJing der sallsfactie van Amsterdam (Amsterdam,
1919), p. 161.
37 Conl'Ooien and licenten were port-charges levied on incoming and out-
going freight and shipping: the revenue went towards the maintenance of the
navy and the protection of commerce.
38 Coops, OphejJing, p. 70. n. 3.
39 Coops. Opheffing. p. 70, n. 4.
 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY 31
numbers were opposed to the execution of heretics and the activities of
the Council of Troubles, just as they also abhorred the behaviour of
Alva and no less of his Spanish troops. Even before the seizure of Den
Briel in April 1572 the rebels were aware, while still in exile, that they
differed widely about what they did want. On the one hand, there were
the moderates headed by Orange, on the other the militant
Calvinists. 40 Orange wanted a broad Protestant church and toleration
for those wishing to remain Catholic as well as for the Anabaptists.
But the Calvinists wanted their truth to prevail in the Church and in-
sisted that no other churches should be suffered. There could, after all,
be only one truth. After the Revolt we find this antithesis in every city.
At Orange's suggestion, the first assembly of the States of Holland in
1572 at Dordrecht decreed that both the Protestant and the Catholic
religions (in that order) should be free, but within a very few months -
earlier in one city, later in another - Catholics found it quite impossi-
ble to practise their religion.
Various factors contributed to this situation: the fundamental
intolerance of many Calvinists, the closely related idea that every set-
back to the Revolt was a divine punishment for the continued tolera-
tion of popish idolatry,41 the pressure of Alva's advance. The
Calvinists, who saw the Revolt as a Calvinist campaign, could scarce-
ly believe that the Catholics would be prepared to defend themselves
against Alva's armies at any price, and therefore saw them as potential
traitors. This wa~ largely a self-fulfilling prophecy, because the more
difficulties the Calvinists made for the Catholics the more were these
tempted to work for a reconciliation with the king.
After the Pacification of Ghent, in November 1576, this process
recurred on a larger scale. The Pacification stipulated that until the
States General made a final decision, Catholicism would remain the
official religion beyond the boundaries of Holland and Zeeland. At the
end of 1577, the rift between Don Juan and the States proved un-
bridgeable and the States declared him to be an enemy of the country,
appointing the Archduke Matthias in his place. Catholics and
Protestants now joined forces again, but once more the mutual
suspicions, coupled with social and political tensions, led to the
Protestants playing an increasingly prominent part in the fight against
the king's governor, so that the character of the Revolt changed con-
siderably. Some Catholics had feared and mistrusted collaboration
with the Protestants in Holland and Zeeland from the very beginning,
40 Woltjer, 'De politleke betekems', pp. 39-49.
41 This idea was not peculiar to the Calvinists. Many Catholics considered
all the disasters whIch struck the Netherlands as a judgement on the tolera-
tion of Protestant,.
32 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY

but as the power of the Protestants grew, more and more Catholics
feared that in the end the Protestants would carry off the victory.
Orange's attempts to reconcile the parties did not succeed. While the
aggressive Protestants and democrats (especially in Ghent) alienated
the Catholics, the king showed himself ready to make far-reaching
concessions. This became clear during the negotiations with the
Walloon provinces, which led in May 1579 to the Peace of Arras, as
well as during the peace negotiations between king and States General
begun in the same month at Cologne, under the Emperor's mediation.
A bitter conflict developed in many towns and provinces over the
question whether the war should be continued or the king's proposals
accepted. Now that the king had shown his willingness to repair the
political grievances, in many cities only a minority was prepared to
continue the fight under the Protestant hegemony, and this minority of
course had little desire to consult the people in any way. At one time
their participation had seemed desirable in order to broaden the basis
of moral responsibility and obtain their support; now that so many
wanted peace, their participation could only be dangerous.
In February 1581 a proposal was under discussion, in the States of
Holland, according to which all officials and inhabitants would be
released from their oath of allegiance to Philip II and the name of the
king banished from official documents. This made the chance of peace
still more remote. The council of Amsterdam decided not to apply the
States' proposal before it had been discussed with the officers of the
civic guards. 42 On 23 March, the very day when the States adopted the
proposal, they also prohibited consultations with the civic guards. It
seems likely that here too there was a connection between the two
decisions. The States were probably afraid that, as Amsterdam had
remained Catholic until 1578, the guards there would oppose the
abjuration of Philip II. Precisely because the magistrates knew that in
many cases they could count only on the active support of a minority,
the ban on consulting the guards was put into practice.
With the establishment of the rebel republic the political risks in-
herent in consulting the corporate bodies gradually diminished.
Nevertheless the town councils of Holland not only adhered to the
decision of the States to exclude the guards from provincial affairs but
extended it to include those of the towns. Of course the problem of
taking decisions remained as difficult as before, but there was still
another more general motive for excluding the guilds and guards that
remained valid after peace was concluded. In general, interference of
the people in the business of government was seen as a source of un-

42 Coops, OphejJing, p. 69.

 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY 33
rest and disturbances, and the conviction was generally shared that
the notables should govern the country and the towns43 - a conviction
that becomes intelligible (as Geyl remarked) if it is realized 'how ig-
norant and how rude the common people were'.44 The disturbances at
Ghent in the year after the Pacification served only to strengthen this
conviction. 45
Consultation by magistrates with guards and other burgher
organizations in the nine years following 1572 remained an exception
to the general rule, an exception that can only be explained by reference
to war-time conditions which made the support of the guards indispen-
sable. But in 1581 the States of Holland saw consultation of the
guards and guilds as an innovation that had to be undone, and they
decided that the urban regents should consult only those bodies which
they had consulted of old.
Usually the local oligarchies governed the towns without undue
difficulty, but in times of crisis like 1672 and 1747-1748 the people's
distrust of the urban regents could flare up violently, and they grasped
at real or imagined privileges which gave the burghers some influence
over the muncipal authorities. In this respect the history of the towns
of Holland offered the burghers little in the way of a concrete basis for
their demands. Often there was nothing more than a vague memory or
simply an unfounded supposition. A pamphlet of 1672 referred to
privileges possessed by Amsterdam 'die er noodsakelijk moeten
geweest zijn, hoewel sedert van tijd tot tijd voor de burgers ver-
duystert' [which must of necessity have existed, although since con-
cealed from the burghers from time to timel. 46 In Dordrecht it was
thought that there was a Wooden Book in which the privileges were
listed, but in 1650 there was no trace of the whereabouts of this book.
Many people suspected the regents of having done away with it. 47
Sometimes an old document was found that seemed to provide a
solid basis. An Amsterdammer who raised objections to the presence
of Arminians in the magistracy, in 1672, cited among other things the
Previlegieboeck, folio 91. according to which anyone suspected of

43 H. Gerlach, Her proces tegen Oldenbarnevelt en de 'Maximen in den

Stael' (Haarlem, 1965), pp. 451 et seq.; D. J. Roorda, Partij en factie
(Groningen, 1961), pp. 37 et seq.; Geyl, Democratische tendenties, p. 26.
44 Ibid., p. 6.

45 Gerlach, H el proces, pp. I 15-16, 469.

46 Geyl, Democratische tendenties, p. 44.

47 Wille, 'Houten Boek', pp. 1162, 1166, 1173, 1266, 1268. In the
municipal archives of Gouda is still preserved a Houten Bouck with
privileges: J. E. J. Geselschap, I nventaris van het oud-archief van Gouda
(Gouda, 1965), no. 384.
34 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY

heresy was excluded from government. In this document, dating from

1565, all forms of Protestantism were of course understood as heresy,
but it is clear that the author of the pamphlet put a quite different in-
terpetation on it. 48 In 1781, Joan Derek van der Capellen tot den Poll
argued for the establishment of an independent company of guards in
every town and defended this innovation by reference to Article 8 of
the Union of Utrecht, which had prescribed the mustering of all adult
men, although it had never been put into effect. 49 A novel scheme of
1579, which had never been realized, was made to serve as the founda-
tion of an historic right two centuries later.
Whether or not the precise content of the privileges was known,
whether indeed a privilege existed or not, made little real difference.
The need to maintain the historic right was not primary. Consciously
or unconsciously, the appeal to the privileges implied that the world
had once been more just, that the present was a debased version of a
golden age about which no details were available but in which justice
and righteousness had most certainly prevailed. To put an end to all
injustice it was necessary to return to olden times. With or without
documentary evidence, the past had been better than the present;
when something just was accomplished it was seen as a restoration of
the ancient laws, or at least of ancient justice. The passionate desire for
a more equitable society, which could not be achieved without
breaking with historic rights, continued still to reappear at the end of
the eighteenth century, dressed up as a longing for the restoration of
the past. In 1781 at Utrecht, for instance, a new hunting law was
sought that would restore all the old privileges to their place of honour,
and 'especially the very oldest, namely the natural right of country
people'.50 Here the appeal to the past borders on an appeal to natural
law. Simply because a measure was considered equitable in itself,
there was a corresponding tendency to assume that the desired situa-
tion (the natural rights of country people) had been the original one.
We have distinguished three groups of privileges, in the hope of
clarifying the problem. Yet we must never forget that this distinction
was not consciously made, or made at all at the time. The aura
acquired by the privileges in general during the Revolt served to
strengthen the position of those who enjoyed a privilege of the I-may-
do-what-you-may-not-do variety and so reinforced the conservative
character of society.
48 Geyl, Democratische tendenties, p. 42.
49 A. J. C. Riiter, 'Verleden en toekomst als bron van politieke inspiratie',
Historische studies, p. 332.
50 H. T. Colen brander, De patriottentijd (3 vols., The Hague, 1897-9), II,
200.
 DUTCH PRIVILEGES, REAL AND IMAGINARY 35
If we conclude by attempting to answer the question whether the
privileges were real or whether they included mythical features,
however, we must return to the defacto distinction between our three
categories. The privileges belonging to the first, those held by one
group at the cost of others, were real enough and are authenticated by
surviving documents (although much of course depends on which
period we select as the norm). The privileges belonging to the third
category, those which were credited with giving the burghers a say in
municipal government. had in Holland almost no foundation in reality
and display marked mythical features. The second category, the
privileges which guaranteed the independence of towns and provinces
with respect to higher authorities, occupied an intermediate position.
In most cases these privileges were real, but here too the literal text
was less important than the vague feeling that positive privileges and
ancient rights were the crystallization of a more comprehensive
equity, a more profound justice, as flexible as the heart's desires.