HABSBURGS AND THE HOUSE OF ORANGE By the sudden death of the Duchess Mary in 1482 her posses sions, including the county of Holland, passed to her infant son, Philip, under the guardianship of his father the Archduke Maxi milian of Austria. Thus the Burgundian dynasty was succeeded by that of the Habsburgs. During the regency of Maximilian the turbulence of the Hooks caused much strife and unrest in Holland. Their leaders, Francis of Brederode and John of Naaldwijk, seized Rotterdam and other places. Their overthrow finally ended the strife between Hooks and Cods. The "Bread and Cheese War," an uprising of the peasants in north Holland caused by famine, is a proof of the misery caused by civil discords and oppressive taxation. In 1494, Maximilian having been elected emperor, Philip was declared of age. His assumption of the gov ernment was greeted with joy in Holland, and in his reign the province enjoyed rest and its fisheries benefited from the com mercial treaty concluded with England. The story of Holland during the long reign of his son and successor Charles III. (1506-55), better known as the emperor Charles V., belongs to the general history of the Netherlands (see NETHERLANDS). On the abdication of Charles, his son Philip II. of Spain became Philip III., count of Holland, the ruler whose arbitrary rule in Church and State brought about the revolt of the Netherlands. His appointment of William, prince of Orange, as stadholder of Holland and Zeeland was destined to have momentous results to the future of those provinces (see WILLIAM, The Revolt of the Netherlands.—The capture of Brill and of Flushing in 1572 by the Sea-Beggars led to the submission of the greater part of Holland and Zeeland to the authority of the prince of Orange, who, as stadholder, summoned the states of Holland to meet at Dordrecht. This act was the beginning of Dutch independence. From this time forward William made Holland his home. It became the bulwark of the Protestant faith in the Netherlands, the focus of the resistance to Spanish tyranny. The act of federation between Holland and Zeeland brought about by the influence of William was the germ of the larger union of Utrecht between the seven northern provinces in 1579. But within the larger union the inner and closer union between Hol land and Zeeland continued to subsist. In 158o, when the sover eignty of the Netherlands was offered to the duke of Anjou, the two maritime provinces refused to acquiesce, and forced William to accept the title of count of Holland and Zeeland. In the f ol lowing year William in the name of the two provinces solemnly abjured the sovereignty of the Spanish king (July 24). After the assassination of William (1584) the title of count of Holland was never revived.
In the long struggle of the united provinces with Spain, which followed the death of William, the brunt of the conflict fell upon Holland. More than half the burden of the charges of the war fell upon this one province ; and with Zeeland it furnished the fleets which formed the chief defence of the country. Hence the importance attached to the vote of Holland in the assembly of the States-General. That vote was given by deputies at the head of whom was the advocate (in later times called the grand pen sionary) of Holland, and who were responsible to, and the spokes men of, the provincial states. These states, which met at The Hague in the same building as the States-General, consisted of representatives of the burgher oligarchies (regents) of the prin cipal towns, together with representatives of the nobles, who possessed one vote only. The advocate was the paid minister of the states. He presided over their meetings, kept their minutes and conducted all correspondence, and, as stated above, was their spokesman in the States-General. The advocate (or grand pen sionary) of Holland therefore, if an able man, had opportunities for exercising a very considerable influence, becoming in fact a kind of minister of all affairs. It was this influence as exerted by the successive advocates of Holland, Paul Buys and Johan van Oldenbarneveldt, and the pensionaries, of whom John de Witt was the greatest, which ensured the undisputed hegemony of Hol land in the federation, in other words, of the burgher oligarchies who controlled the town corporations of the province, and espe cially Amsterdam. This authority of Holland was, however, more than counterbalanced by the extensive powers with which the stadholder princes of Orange were invested ; and the chief crises in the internal history of the Dutch republic are to be found in the struggles for supremacy between two, in reality, different principles of government. On the one side the principle of pro vincial sovereignty which gave to the voice of Holland a pre ponderating weight that was decisive ; on the other side the prin ciple of national sovereignty personified in the princes of Orange, to whom the States-General and the provincial states delegated executive powers that were little less than monarchical. Until the final destruction of the federal republic by the French armies in 1795, the perennial struggle went on between the Holland or federal party (Staatsgezinden) centred at Amsterdam—out of which grew the Patriot Party under William V.—and the Orange or Unionist Party (Oranjegezinden), which was strong in the smaller provinces and had much popular support among the lower classes. The French conquest swept away the old condition of things never to reappear; but allegiance to the Orange dynasty survived, and in 1813 became the rallying point of a united Dutch people. At the same time the leading part played by the province of Holland in the history of the republic has not been unrecog nized, for the country ruled over by the sovereigns of the house of Orange is always popularly, and often officially, known as Holland.
The grand pensionary presided over the meetings of the college, which had the general charge of the whole provincial adminis tration, especially of finance, the carrying out of the resolutions of the states, the maintenance of defences, and the upholding of the privileges and liberties of the land. With particular regard to this last-named duty the college deputed two of its members to attend all meetings of the States-General, to watch the proceedings and report at once any proposals which they held to be contrary to the interests or to infringe upon the rights of the province of Holland. The College of Deputed Councillors might be described as a vigilance committee of the states in perpetual session.