Editing Flanders (section)

=== Low Countries ===
{{main|Low Countries}}

==== Beeldenstorm ====
In 1500, [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles V]] was born in [[Ghent]]. He inherited the [[Seventeen Provinces]] (1506), Spain (1516) with its colonies and in 1519 was elected [[Holy Roman Emperor]].<ref>William Robertson, The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V (NY, 1874), p 116</ref> Charles V issued the [[Pragmatic Sanction of 1549]], which established the Low Countries as the Seventeen Provinces (or [[Spanish Netherlands]] in its broad sense) as an entity separate from the [[Holy Roman Empire]] and from France. In 1556 Charles V abdicated due to ill health (he suffered from crippling [[gout]]).<ref>William Robertson, The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V (NY, 1874), p 456</ref> Spain and the Seventeen Provinces went to his son, [[Philip II of Spain]].

Over the first half of the 16th century [[Antwerp]] grew to become the second-largest European city north of the [[Alps]] by 1560. Antwerp was the richest city in Europe at this time.<ref>{{cite book
 |last = Dunton
 |first = Larkin
 |title = The World and Its People
 |url = https://archive.org/details/worldanditspeop05duntgoog
 |publisher = Silver, Burdett
 |year = 1896
 |page = [https://archive.org/details/worldanditspeop05duntgoog/page/n171 163]}}</ref> According to Luc-Normand Tellier "It is estimated that the port of Antwerp was earning the Spanish crown seven times more revenues than the [[Spanish colonization of the Americas|Americas]]."<ref>Luc-Normand Tellier (2009). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=cXuCjDbxC1YC&pg=PA308 Urban world history: an economic and geographical perspective] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151025052002/https://books.google.com/books?id=cXuCjDbxC1YC&pg=PA308 |date=25 October 2015 }}''. PUQ. p. 308. {{ISBN|2-7605-1588-5}}.</ref>

[[File:Incendio Ayuntamiento Amberes.jpg|thumb|The [[Sack of Antwerp]] in 1576, in which about 7,000 people died]]

Meanwhile, Protestantism had reached the Low Countries. Among the wealthy traders of Antwerp, the [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] beliefs of the German [[Hanseatic (class)|Hanseatic]] traders found appeal, perhaps partly for economic reasons. The spread of Protestantism in this city was aided by the presence of an [[Augustinians|Augustinian]] cloister (founded 1514) in the St. Andries quarter. Luther, an Augustinian himself, had taught some of the monks, and his works were in print by 1518. The first Lutheran martyrs came from Antwerp. The [[Protestant Reformation|Reformation]] resulted in consecutive but overlapping waves of reform: a Lutheran, followed by a militant [[Anabaptist]], then a [[Mennonite]], and finally a [[Calvinism|Calvinistic]] movement. These movements existed independently of each other.

[[Philip II of Spain|Philip II]], a devout Catholic and self-proclaimed protector of the [[Counter-Reformation]], [[suppression of dissent|suppressed]] Calvinism in Flanders, [[Duchy of Brabant|Brabant]] and Holland (what is now approximately [[Limburg (Belgium)|Belgian Limburg]] was part of the [[Prince-Bishopric of Liège]] and was Catholic ''de facto''). In 1566, the wave of [[iconoclasm]] known as the ''[[Beeldenstorm]]'' was a prelude to religious war between Catholics and Protestants, especially the Anabaptists. The ''Beeldenstorm'' started in what is now [[French Flanders]], with open-air sermons ({{langx|nl|hagepreken}}) that spread through the Low Countries, first to Antwerp and Ghent, and from there further east and north.

==== The Eighty Years' War and its consequences ====
Subsequently, Philip II of Spain sent [[Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba|the Duke]] of [[Duchy of Alba|Alba]] to the Provinces to repress the revolt. Alba recaptured the southern part of the Provinces, who signed the [[Union of Arras|Union of Atrecht]], which meant that they would accept the Spanish government on condition of more freedom. But the northern part of the provinces signed the [[Union of Utrecht]] and settled in 1581 the [[Republic of the Seven United Netherlands]]. Spanish troops quickly started fighting the rebels, and the Spanish armies conquered the important trading cities of Bruges and Ghent. Antwerp, which was then the most important port in the world, also had to be conquered. But before the revolt was defeated, a war between Spain and England broke out, forcing Spanish troops to halt their advance. On 17 August 1585, Antwerp fell. This ended the Eighty Years' War for the (from now on) [[Southern Netherlands]]. The [[Dutch Republic|United Provinces]] (the Northern Netherlands) fought on until 1648 – the [[Peace of Westphalia]].

[[File:Het Kranenhoofd aan de Schelde te Antwerpen Rijksmuseum SK-A-1699.jpeg|thumb|Winter scene at the Scheldt river in Antwerp by [[Sebastian Vrancx]], 1622]]

During the war with England, the rebels from the north, strengthened by refugees from the south, started a campaign to reclaim areas lost to [[Philip II of Spain|Philip II]]'s Spanish troops. They conquered a considerable part of Brabant (the later [[North Brabant]] of the Netherlands), and the south bank of the Scheldt estuary ([[Zeelandic Flanders]]), before being stopped by Spanish troops. The front at the end of this war stabilized and became the border between present-day Belgium and the Netherlands. The Dutch (as they later became known) had managed to reclaim enough of Spanish-controlled Flanders to close off the river [[Scheldt]], effectively cutting Antwerp off from its trade routes.

The [[fall of Antwerp]] to the Spanish and the closing of the [[Scheldt]] caused considerable emigration.{{efn |An ''Antverpian'', derived from ''Antverpia'', the Latin name of [[Antwerp]], is an inhabitant of this city; the term is also the [[adjective]] expressing that its substantive is from or in that city or belongs to it.}} Many Calvinist merchants of Antwerp and other Flemish cities left Flanders and migrated north. Many of them settled in [[Amsterdam]], which was a smaller port, important only in the [[Baltic trade]]. The Flemish exiles helped to rapidly transform Amsterdam into one of the world's most important ports. This is why the exodus is sometimes described as "''creating a new Antwerp''".

Flanders and Brabant, went into a period of relative decline from the time of the [[Thirty Years' War]].<ref name="FiifAntwHist">{{cite web
|title=Antwerp – History
|work=Find it in Flanders
|publisher=Tourism Flanders & Brussels, Flanders House, London, UK
|url=http://www.visitflanders.co.uk/cont61_Antwerp_history.aspx
|access-date=2 January 2007
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060929214129/http://www.visitflanders.co.uk/cont61_Antwerp_history.aspx
|archive-date=29 September 2006
|url-status=live
}}</ref> In the Northern Netherlands, the mass emigration from Flanders and Brabant became an important driving force behind the [[Dutch Golden Age]].

==== Southern Netherlands (1581–1795) ====
[[File:Flandria (Vlaanderen Flanders) 1584 Map by Abraham Ortelius.jpg|thumb|1584 map of the county of Flanders]]

Although arts remained relatively impressive for another century with [[Peter Paul Rubens]] (1577–1640) and [[Anthony van Dyck]], Flanders lost its former economic and intellectual power under Spanish, Austrian, and French rule. Heavy taxation and rigid imperial political control compounded the effects of industrial stagnation and Spanish-Dutch and Franco-Austrian conflict. The Southern Netherlands suffered severely under the [[Franco-Dutch War]], [[Nine Years' War]] and [[War of the Spanish Succession]]. But under the reign of Empress Maria-Theresia, these lands again flourished economically. Influenced by [[Age of Enlightenment|the Enlightenment]], the Austrian Emperor [[Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor|Joseph II]] was the first sovereign who had been in the Southern Netherlands since King Philip II of Spain left them in 1559.

==== French Revolution and Napoleonic France (1795–1815) ====
In 1794, the [[History of France#Revolution|French Republican Army]] started using Antwerp as the northernmost naval port of France.<ref name="FiifAntwHist" /> The following year, France officially annexed Flanders as the ''[[The 130 départements|départements]]'' of [[Lys (département)|Lys]], [[Escaut (département)|Escaut]], [[Deux-Nèthes]], [[Meuse-Inférieure]] and [[Dyle (département)|Dyle]]. Obligatory (French) army service for all men aged 16–25 years was a main reason for the uprising against the French in 1798, known as the ''Boerenkrijg'' (''Peasants' War''), with the heaviest fighting in the [[Campine]] area.

==== United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815–1830) ====
After the defeat of [[Napoleon I of France|Napoleon Bonaparte]] at the 1815 [[Battle of Waterloo]] in [[Province of Brabant|Brabant]], the [[Congress of Vienna]] (1815) gave sovereignty over the [[Austrian Netherlands]] – Belgium minus the [[East Cantons]] and Luxembourg – to the [[Sovereign Principality of the United Netherlands|United Netherlands]] (Dutch: ''Verenigde Nederlanden'') under Prince William I of Orange Nassau, making him [[William I of the Netherlands|William I of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands]]. William I started rapid industrialisation of the southern parts of the Kingdom. But the political system failed to forge a true union between the north and south. Most of the southern [[bourgeoisie]] was Roman Catholic and French-speaking, while the north was mainly Protestant and Dutch-speaking.

In 1815, the Dutch Senate was reinstated (Dutch: ''Eerste Kamer der Staaten Generaal''). The nobility, mainly coming from the south, became increasingly estranged from their northern colleagues. Resentment grew between the Roman Catholics from the south and the Protestants from the north, and also between the powerful liberal bourgeoisie from the south and their more moderate colleagues from the north. On 25 August 1830 (after the showing of the opera '[[La Muette de Portici]]' of [[Daniel Auber]] in Brussels) the [[Belgian Revolution]] sparked. On 4 October 1830, the [[Provisional Government of Belgium|Provisional Government]] (Dutch: ''Voorlopig Bewind'') proclaimed its independence, which was later confirmed by the [[National Congress of Belgium|National Congress]] that issued a new Liberal Constitution and declared the new state a [[Constitutional Monarchy]], under the House of [[Saxe-Coburg]]. Flanders now became part of the Kingdom of Belgium, which was recognized by the major European Powers on 20 January 1831. The cessation was recognized by the [[United Kingdom of the Netherlands]] on 19 April 1839.