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Article: Dutch Republic
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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DUTCH REPUBLIC
DUTCH REPUBLIC.
Sir William Temple, English ambassador to The Hague, famously described the Dutch Republic in 1673 as "the Envy of some, the Fear of others, and the Wonder of all their Neighbours." How such a small country
—
"this undigested vomit of the sea," as one of Sir William's less charitable compatriots put it
—
a country that had not even existed a century earlier, could develop in such spectacular fashion is one of the marvels of the early modern era.
THE DUTCH REVOLT (1566
–
1648)
During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Low Countries, occupying roughly the territory of present Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, had first ...