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Chapter 1246 Prince of Orange 3
By the middle of the 13th century, Hendrick, then Count of Nasau, had two sons, Walra II and Otto I. After his death, the two sons divided the County of Nasau into the County of Nasau-Wiesbaden-Idstein and the County of Nasau-Weilburg.

After more than 300 years of inheritance, the branch of Walra II became the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, and the branch of Otto I became the counties of the Netherlands, Zeeland, Friesland and the Prince of Orange.

Up to this time, there were a total of seventeen provinces or counties in the Netherlands, all of which were under the jurisdiction of the Holy Roman Empire and loyal to the Habsburg family.

In 1555, Emperor Charles V abdicated and passed the throne to his brother Ferdinand I, but handed Spain, including the Netherlands, to his son Philip II. Thus, the Austrian Habsburg family and the Spanish Habsburg family officially stepped onto the historical stage.

In fact, the seventeen princes in the Netherlands did not care which boss they followed. The Holy Roman Empire was the big brother, the Kingdom of Spain was also the big brother, and they were all from the Habsburg family, so no one could afford to offend them.

However, in addition to being a devout Catholic, Philip II was also extremely hostile to Protestantism. Since many princes in the Netherlands converted to Protestantism, he held a grudge against them and retaliated with heavy taxes.

How serious is it? William I, the founding father of the Netherlands, was the secretary of Philip II at the time and often had access to high-level official documents, from which he saw tax statistics.

Of all the territories of the Spanish United Kingdom, including the New World and the Philippine colonies, the tiny Netherlands contributed the most taxes. In other words, it was the most exploited.

William I saw this and thought, "Well, we serve you as king and hope to get more meat under your leadership. But you treat us like idiots. If this continues, we won't be able to eat meat or even drink soup."

It doesn’t matter if you call us country bumpkins or profiteers, but you can’t touch our money! So William I resigned in anger and returned to the Netherlands to lead an uprising, hoping to force the King of Spain to change his attitude and treat the Dutch princes better.

In the early to mid-16th century, the Spanish United Kingdom was at its peak, a typical empire on which the sun never sets, and it simply turned a deaf ear to the calls of the Dutch princes. In the face of armed rebellion, it took the toughest response without hesitation and sent troops to suppress it!

William I was good at uniting and inspiring people, but he was not a qualified general and had never fought a serious war. The Dutch coalition he organized was known as the "Beggar Army" and did not even have standard uniforms and weapons. Its record was indeed poor and it was defeated repeatedly.

However, William I was very resilient. Even when the southern princes were unable to resist and surrendered one after another and his two younger brothers died on the battlefield, he did not give up the struggle. Instead, he fled to the home of his relatives in Germany to avoid the limelight and continued to mediate with the princes in the northern Netherlands.

At this time, Philip II's nephew, the new Governor-General of the Netherlands, Duke of Parma, Alejandro Farnese, had occupied ten provinces in the southern Netherlands, including Brabant, Flanders, Artois, Limburg, and Luxembourg. The local nobles declared their allegiance to the King of Spain in the city of Arras and formed a Catholic League.

However, the nobles and merchants in the seven northern provinces were unwilling to continue to accept Spanish exploitation and religious persecution, and they also formed a military, political and economic alliance called the Union of Utrecht.

In order to make it more legitimate, the Union Parliament elected William I as the consul and announced the establishment of the country in 1581. The full name of the Republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands was the Republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, or the Republic of the United Provinces for short. The Republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands lasted until the end of the 18th century when it was destroyed by Napoleon. From its birth to its demise, there was no word "Holland" and it was always called the Netherlands.

The reason why Chinese uses the Dutch Republic instead of the Netherlands Republic is probably to distinguish it from the Spanish Netherlands. Otherwise, it would be too easy to confuse the two Netherlands. This article also follows suit and uses the Netherlands to represent the United Provinces of the Netherlands Republic and the Netherlands to represent the Spanish lowland territories.

Like many ambitious politicians, William I formed alliances, supported others, spent all his family wealth, fought tigers together with his brothers, fought fathers and sons, and even the whole family joined the battle, vowing to bring down Spain.

He did have the ability, but unfortunately, the United Provinces Republic was established just three years ago, and before he had the chance to make any great achievements, he was assassinated by assassins sent from Spain.

Having lost their legitimate leader, the nobles in the Federal Republic certainly did not want to be swayed by a group of businessmen and petty bourgeoisie, so they pushed William I's son to the forefront and asked him to continue serving as the consul of the Republic.

William I died at the age of 51. He married four wives and had 16 children. Four of them died as minors, leaving 4, three of whom later inherited the title of Prince of Orange.

The first one was the eldest son Philip William. When he was in college, he was captured by the Spanish army and held hostage. He converted to Catholicism and never saw his father William I again in his life, nor did he return to his hometown. Instead, he was placed under house arrest in France.

However, according to the inheritance rules at the time, he was the first in line, so no matter whether others were happy or not, the titles of Prince of Orange, Count of Nassau, Count of Brun, and Lord of Breda still fell on William.

However, this Prince of Orange and Count of Nassau had never set foot on the territory of the Dutch Republic, so the title was just an empty one and had no effect. Therefore, the Parliament of the Republic elected his half-brother Maurice as consul.

He is very famous in European military history because he re-established the professional army, which was different from the mercenaries popular in Europe at that time, and attached great importance to engineers and engineering. He was later called the forefather of modern European professional army.

The Dutch Republic, which had a standing army, immediately became different. It went from repeated defeats to wins and losses and then to consecutive victories. It even began to attack the occupied Netherlands region, but soon suffered a defeat.

At that time, the King of Spain was busy trying to seize the throne of the King of Portugal and did not want to spend too much troops in the Netherlands. Seeing that he could not win a quick victory, he simply asked for peace talks. The two sides hit it off, and the new Governor-General of the Netherlands, Albrecht VII, came forward to sign a peace agreement with the Dutch Republic.

Philip William died before the peace agreement expired, and this was the moment to witness the strong succession of the European nobility. Since he had no children, he passed his property and title to his half-brother Maurice, who had opposite religious beliefs and political positions.

(End of this chapter)