" Deputies
of all the seventeen provinces at once concluded an agreement, termed
the Pacification of Ghent (1576), by which they mutually guaranteed
resistance to the Spanish until the king should abolish the Inquisition
and restore their old-time liberties.
Then Philip II tried a policy of concession, but the new governor, the
dashing Don John of Austria, fresh from a great naval victory over the
Turks, soon discovered that it was too late to reconcile the
Protestants. William the Silent was wary of the Spanish offers, and Don
John died in 1578 without having achieved very much.
[Sidenote: Farnese, Duke of Parma]
[Sidenote: The Treaty of Array and the Union of Utrecht (1579): the
Permanent Division of the Netherlands]
But Philip II was not without some success in the Netherlands. He was
fortunate in having a particularly determined and tactful governor in
the country from 1578 to 1592 in the person of Alexander Farnese, duke
of Parma. Skillfully mingling war and diplomacy, Farnese succeeded in
sowing discord between the northern and southern provinces: the former
were Dutch, Calvinist, and commercial; the latter were Flemish and
Walloon, Catholic, and industrial.
Pages:
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237