The Dutch Declaration of Independence - July 26th, 1581
Geoffrey Parker looks at the moment when the representatives of certain provinces of the Netherlands met together to depose their lawful sovereign Philip II of Spain.
Geoffrey Parker looks at the moment when the representatives of certain provinces of the Netherlands met together to depose their lawful sovereign Philip II of Spain.
In the mid-seventeenth century Spain was at the apogee of artistic and cultural achievement under the patronage of her monarch, Philip IV - but, as R.A. Stradling shows here, she was fighting for survival as a great imperial power.
The loss to the Turks of Constantinople, the ancient capital of the Eastern Empire, in 1453 had been a terrible blow to Christendom. It was the crusading dream of Charles V, argues Sinclair Atkins, to reconquer the Byzantine city.
In 1580, Portugal was joined with Spain in a sixty-year long and unpopular union.