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Hello, everyone! Welcome to my newest After Action Report, following on the heels of my Crusader Kings III AAR God's Hand made Wonders, God's Hand made Me - A Norman Sicily AAR (which you can read by clicking on the link if you're interested). For those who have already read my previous AAR, this latest one will be structured differently. While God's Hand made Wonders, God's Hand made Me is structured like a chronicle from the perspective of a medieval historian, this one will be written like a conventional and contemporary history book.
Furthermore, this playthrough will not be starting on the traditional starting date of 1444 AD. Instead, this story will jump forward over a hundred years, to 1579, specifically during the Eighty Years' War, which was an independence war between the Spanish Habsburg Empire and the Netherlands that in real life lasted until 1648. The resulting conflict would see the rise of the Dutch Republic and the Dutch Colonial Empire. While the Dutch would become one of Europe's dominant economic powers for much of the 17th century, leading to what would be known as the Dutch Golden Age, the Republic experienced a gradual decline due to competition from the British, economic stagnation, and costly wars in both Europe and abroad. However, we will see if the Netherlands in my playthrough will avoid their real-life counterpart's fate.
For my overall goals, I will not be prioritising a world conquest (though I will focus on expanding my colonial empire since I am playing as the Netherlands, after all). I will mostly be playing by ear, navigating my way through the political clusterfuck that is 16th-century Europe, when the religious conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism was at its height, while trying to outdo and undermine my colonial rivals.
The lands referred to as the Low Countries are a mosaic. To the north lay a smattering of wind-swept islands and tidal flats that are often at the mercy of the North Sea and its storms. To the west lies a series of floodplains and marshes that make up its coastline, formed by the confluence of the Scheldt, the Meuse, and the Rhine. As such, the region is prone to seasonal flooding. Further inland to the east and south was a more rugged terrain comprising sandy soils, oak trees, and heathlands.
Despite this treacherous terrain, the Low Countries were home to a population widely regarded for their diligence, hardiness, and ingenuity. As early as the tenth century, communities organised the construction of dykes, polders, and canals to reclaim land from the sea and control its seasonal floods. These innovations would become the foundations of the region’s medieval prosperity, as the abundance of navigable waterways facilitated trade and urban growth. Cities like Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp thrived as mercantile centres, their wealth fueling further reclamation and construction projects.
By the dawn of the second millennium, the Low Countries’ political makeup would become just as diverse and complex as its physical geography. While much of the north was under the dominion of the Holy Roman Emperors, the southern region of Flanders was part of the Kingdom of France. As such, the Low Countries became a hotbed for conflict between the two imperial juggernauts. Yet further examination would reveal that the political entities that make up the Low Countries were no mere fiefs, but independent communes with their own laws, rights, and militias.
Map of the Low Countries before 1363 AD. The red border divides the Low Countries between the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire. (Art by vinnyuVL on DeviantArt).
But amidst this political fragmentation, a single house would emerge to weave itself into the fabric of the region under a united duchy. Yet this family was no noble house from the Lowlands, but a cadet branch of the ruling dynasty of France: the House of Valois. The House of Valois–Burgundy (not to be confused with the House of Burgundy of the Capetian dynasty) was founded by Philip the Bold, the youngest son of King John II. Having distinguished himself in the Hundred Years’ War with England, specifically at the Battle of Poitiers, Philip was awarded the dukedom of Burgundy. With lands and titles of his own, Philip would marry Margaret of Flanders in 1363, inheriting a vast swath of land that included the counties of Flanders, Artois, Rethel, and Franche-Comté. With this union, the power of Burgundy grew, its coffers swelling with the wealth of Bruges, Ghent, and Brussels, and its banner flying ever higher among the courts of Christendom.
But it was during the time of Charles’ grandson, Philip the Bold, that the true power of Burgundy would be realised. Born in 1433, Charles ascended to the ducal throne in 1467 after the untimely death of his father, Philip the Good. While his father had kept the peace, skillfully navigating the politics of France and the Holy Roman Empire, Charles was a man of different character: proud, ambitious, and filled with the restless zeal of a knight seeking to carve his name into the annals of history. The title of Duke of Burgundy was no longer enough for him; he dreamed of creating a kingdom to rival those of the great monarchs of Europe. He sought to unite all the Low Countries, from the rich cities of the Flemish coast to the fertile lands of the Netherlands, and perhaps even lay claim to lands in France and the Holy Roman Empire. With a powerful army of knights and a treasury overflowing with coin, Charles very well had the means to realise that dream.
The Duchy of Burgundy was at its zenith during the reign of Charles the Bold.
But alas, Fortune could often be a cruel mistress. In 1477, during his attempt to conquer the County of Lorraine, he was struck down at the Battle of Nancy by the forces of Rene II, his dreams shattered upon the cold steel of his enemies. With Charles the Bold's death, Burgundy’s fortunes seemed to have died with him. The proud duchy was left in ruins, its borders fragmented, its wealth threatened by the power of France. Yet, as fate often works, from the ashes of loss arose a new hope as Charles’ daughter and sole heir, Mary of Burgundy, succeeded him.
In the wake of her father’s death, young Mary, no more than nineteen, was thrust into the maelstrom of politics and war. Her lands, vast as they were, needed a protector. The French King, Louis XI, hungry for power, sought to swallow up Burgundy’s dominions and incorporate them into France. To secure her inheritance, Mary, a woman of sharp intelligence and keen diplomacy, sought alliances from afar.
And thus, in 1477, in the town of Ghent, Mary struck a bargain with Maximilian of Austria, the son of Emperor Frederick III. Maximilian was a scion of the ancient House of Habsburg, a family long known for their imperial ambitions in Central Europe. The marriage between Mary and Maximilian united the riches of the Low Countries with the imperial aspirations of the Habsburgs. But the union was not without its struggles. As Louis XI of France sought to claim Burgundy for himself, war raged across the Low Countries. Yet with the might of the Habsburgs and the vast wealth of the Low Countries, Mary and Maximilian managed to fend off the French and secure their territories. Tragically, Mary would die in 1482 from a horseback riding accident, thus ending the line of Philip the Bold.
Emperor Maximilian I with His Family, by imperial court painter Bernhard Striegel. The portrait was commissioned between 1516 and 1520, after the deaths of Maximilian's wife and son. The portrait includes Maximilian's grandchildren Charles V and Ferdinand I, as well as his adopted son Louis of Hungary.
Yet the couple would have a son, Philip the Handsome, who would further expand the Habsburg domains through marriage as his father had done. In 1496, Philip would marry Joanna of Castile, heiress to the united crowns of Castile and Aragon that together formed the Kingdom of Spain. To add to the Habsburg’s fortunes, Spain had by then discovered the New World thanks to the voyages of Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci. Spanish ships would bring back home a wide variety of goods, such as spices, sugar, tobacco, and especially gold and silver. Meanwhile, Spanish conquistadors would expand Spanish influence across the Ne World, establishing colonies to harness its resources and spread the teachings of Christianity to its native populations (which often came at great human cost from Spanish conquests and exploitation).
With their union, the descendants of Philip and Joanna would become heirs to an empire vast in both land and wealth. Yet, this inheritance would not be without its costs. The Habsburg Empire would soon be stretched thin by internal and external conflicts, as well as religious divisions.
Map of the Habsburg Empire (not counting its overseas colonies) in 1556 on the eve of Charles V's abdication.
Upon Philip’s untimely death in 1506, his elder son Charles became Maximilian’s heir. When he finally ascended the imperial throne upon his grandfather’s death in 1519, Charles ruled the Habsburg Empire with due diligence. It was under Charles that the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 was established, in which political power and succession in the Netherlands were to be centralised under Habsburg rule, thus undermining the rights and privileges the local aristocracy had enjoyed for centuries. Yet both the nobility and burghers tolerated Charles and his reforms, for he had been born and raised among them in the city of Ghent. He spoke both Dutch, the language of the burghers, and French, the court language of the local aristocracy.
The same could not be said for his son, Philip II, who ascended the Spanish throne following his father’s abdication in 1556. Charles had recognised the problems of ruling over an empire so vast, and he agreed to divide it between his son and his younger brother Ferdinand. While the German-educated Ferdinand would reign as both Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria, Philip—an Iberian at heart—would rule over the Spanish crown as well as the wealthy provinces of the Netherlands and Southern Italy. A ruler of iron devotion to the Catholic cause, yet one who knew not the customs nor cherished the liberties of his Netherlandish subjects, Philip would not be prepared for the challenges that soon lay ahead.
It was during this time that the fires stoked by Martin Luther’s Reformation, and later Calvin's sharper flame, spread through the Lowlands as merchants, burghers, artisans, and nobles alike questioned the authority of the Holy See, which they had come to see as decadent and corrupt. Protestant preachers, often in secret, gathered souls hungry for a new gospel. Philip, zealous beyond measure, dispatched the Inquisition to root out this supposed heresy, decreeing harsh placards condemning Protestant worship, owning of heretical books, and even silence in the face of religious dissent. Thousands were burned, beheaded, or broken, earning him in those lands the bitter title “The Butcher of Flanders.”
In 1566, noble lords became alarmed by their king’s severity and formed the Compromise of the Nobility, a solemn petition to Philip’s regent and half-sister, Margaret of Parma, pleading for leniency in religious matters. They called themselves Les Gueux—the Beggars—a title first used in mockery but worn as a badge of defiance. In the summer of that same year, the fury of the common folk exploded. Protestant mobs swept through churches in the Beeldenstorm in what would go down in history as “the Iconoclastic Fury”, smashing images of saints, overturning altars, and shattering stained glass, crying that no graven image should stand before God.
Print of the destruction in the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp, 20 August 1566, by Frans Hogenburg. This incident is widely regarded as the most definitive event of the Beeldenstorm.
Although Margaret was sympathetic to the Protestants’ grievances and allowed the local nobility to act as mediators, her brother and overlord was not as accommodating. Horrified by the attacks on the holy icons, Philip replaced his sister with the dreaded Ferdando de Toledo, the Duke of Alba, who soon arrived in the Netherlands with a vast army of over ten thousand men. Cold and merciless, Alba established the Council of Troubles—known darkly as the Blood Council—which condemned thousands to death. Noble heads fell, including those of the revered counts Egmont and Hoorn, for showing sympathy to the insurgents’ cause despite their Catholic allegiances.
Amid this terror and tumult arose William of Orange, called William the Silent. Once a favoured servant of Philip, William was now to be his most implacable foe. A man of subtle mind and quiet dignity, William sought not only to defend the rights of the provinces but also to shield his countrymen, both Protestant and Catholic alike, from Spanish tyranny. He raised armies and issued manifestos, speaking of liberty of conscience and ancient freedoms. Thus began the first flickering embers of rebellion, as cities like Brill fell to the rebels in 1572, and the Dutch resistance took root. Spanish tercios, grim and disciplined, clashed with the ragtag levies of the rebellious provinces.
By the late 1570s, the provinces had reached a breaking point. Spanish mercenaries, frustrated by the lack of pay from their commanders, began to sack any towns and cities they came across, even those that threw open their gates to them. The worst of these incidents was the Sack of Antwerp on 4 November, 1576, where at least seven thousand people lost their lives. George Gascoigne, an English writer who had witnessed the brutality, reported a total of seventeen thousand deaths. The carnage, which would go down in history as the Spanish Fury, prompted even loyal Catholic provinces to unite with the rebels in the Pacification of Ghent, demanding the withdrawal of foreign troops and tolerance for the Protestant faith.
Anonymous print depicting the Sack of Antwerp by Spanish mutineers, 4 November 1576.
But beneath this agreement lurked uneasy tensions. Protestant leaders hoped the treaty would usher in wider tolerance for Calvinism. But Catholic magnates, especially in the south, merely saw the pact as a temporary measure to protect their own interests until peace could be restored. They viewed Calvinism with suspicion and hostility, seeing in it not just heresy, but a threat to social hierarchy and ecclesiastical order.
In the years that followed the Pacification, Calvinists in the northern cities grew bolder, especially in strongholds like Ghent, Bruges, and Antwerp. Protestant militias took control of local governments, purged Catholic clergy, and imposed reformed worship in areas still dominated by Catholic traditions. One of the flashpoints was in Ghent, where radical Calvinists under Jan van Hembyse and François van Ryhove established a quasi-theocratic regime. They persecuted Catholics, destroyed churches, and executed anyone suspected of royalist ties. These acts outraged southern Catholic nobles, many of whom had tolerated the Pacification only so long as the old religious order was respected.
Meanwhile, the Spanish Crown exploited these divisions masterfully. Don Juan of Austria, and later Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, sowed discord by portraying Protestant militancy as a threat to Catholic civilisation. The Duke of Parma's diplomacy, charm, and military acumen steadily won back the trust of the southern elites. Fearing Protestant domination and radicalism, several southern provinces—Artois, Hainaut, and the city of Douai—banded together in the Union of Arras on 6 January, 1579, reaffirming their loyalty to the Spanish Crown in exchange for the restoration of their privileges.
In response to these dire turn of events, on 23 January, 1579, seven provinces of the north—Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Friesland, Overijssel, and the city of Groningen—bound themselves together in mutual defence through the Union of Utrecht. Thus, the Seven United Provinces of the Netherlands was born.
Political map of the Low Countries in 1579. The lighter blue provinces represent those who joined the Union of Utrecht after its conception.
