Talk:First Stadtholderless Period

Admirals

Regarding the problem the Republic faced in 1650 when the Admiral-General died:

1. Only in 1665 it became practice that each admiralty had its own Lieutenant-Admiral. Before that time there was, if any, always only one, usually the "Lieutenant-Admiral of Holland and West-Friesland", who also used to be the highest-ranking admiral of the Admiralty of the Maze. In 1650 that person was Tromp.
2. There always was a single Bevelhebber van 's-Landts Vloot appointed (though not necessarily the Lieutenant-Admiral), to avoid command conflicts. In 1650 this function was also Tromp's.--MWAK (talk) 08:43, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Contradiction with First Anglo-Dutch War, Treaty of Westminster (1654) and Navigation Acts

According to this article

While the war dragged on... the English dropped most of their demands. By the Spring of 1654 only the demand that the Republic should never again appoint a Prince of Orange... to high office, remained.

However, according to First Anglo-Dutch War

...peace was declared on 8 May 1654 with the signing of the Treaty of Westminster, in which the Dutch at least agreed to respect the Navigation Acts... The treaty had a secret annex, the Act of Seclusion, forbidding the Dutch ever to appoint the son of the late stadtholder, the later William III of England, to the position of his father.

According to Treaty of Westminster (1654)

Based on the terms of the accord, the United Provinces recognized Oliver Cromwell's Navigation Acts, which required that imports to the Commonwealth of England must be carried in English ships, or ships from the goods' origin... The Treaty of Westminster had a secret clause: the Act of Seclusion which excluded William III, Prince of Orange from being appointed Stadtholder

Also, according to Navigation Acts

The Treaty of Westminster (1654) ended the impasse. The Dutch acknowledged the Act in this peace...

Thus, this article claims the Act of Seclusion was the only demand the English preserved upon signing the peace treaty. However, the other articles state the Dutch also agreed to the Navigation Acts (albeit only on paper; nevertheless it is not the same as saying that the English dropped the demand).

Top.Squark (talk) 12:31, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

As usual, things are a bit more complicated than one would hope. First of all, the final paragraph of the section on the first Anglo-Dutch war and the Treaty of Westminster of 1654 is a paraphrase of what Israel writes on p. 726 (see citation) from where the sentence "[De Witt] made peace with England, without making any concession to England's maritime and colonial interests" was copied. But Israel is only a historian, so we have to go back to the source. I had hoped to find citations in the cited wikipedia articles, but alas, those are either lacking ((Treaty of Westminster (1654)), or don't cover the claim (Navigation Acts, where the citation Israel, 1997, pp.310-311, does not assert that the Dutch "acknowledged the Navigation Act in the Treaty"), or again don't give a citation (First Anglo-Dutch War). So my first remark is that rather than slamming this article with a template it would have been more appropriate to put "citation needed" tags in the three other articles. I think I will do that later on. However that may be, we could go back to the treaty itself, which unfortunately is written in Latin :-) However, I found a commentary that may be helpful. Davenport writes that the English appeared to want to maintain the Navigation Act of 1651 as they proposed (in the 13th and 20th draft articles) that merchants of both countries would be allowed to trade in each other's commonwealths saving the laws and ordinances of either commonwealth(italics in original). Though the Dutch did not agree, their counterproposals were not accepted either and the matter went by default when the main proponent of further concessions to Dutch commercial interests, the Dutch peace commissioner Van de Perre, died. (The italicised phrase therefore appears in art. 12 of the treaty). Finally it was agreed not to mention in art. 13 the regulation of overseas trade (i.e. to keep silent on the whole matter). However, after the Treaty had been signed, the Dutch ambassadors remained in London to negotiate the repeal of the Navigation Act in an additional treaty.But the ambassadors did not succeed in obtaining such a treaty (Davenport, F.G. (2012). European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies to 1648. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. pp. 11–12.) So, far from acknowledging the Navigation Act explicitly the Dutch may not have succeeded in getting it repealed, which is a different thing entirely. In any case, they honored the Navigation Act in the breach anyway. So I don't see any need to change this article in the sense that a spurious "acknowledgement" of the Navigation Acts should be admitted, as such a recognition took place tacitly at most. I'll therefore remove the template. If necessary the above information could be entered in an explanatory note.--Ereunetes (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

What are the "land provinces"?

The article makes multiple references to the Dutch "land provinces". Does it mean landlocked provinces? According to the Euratlas (http://www.euratlas.net) map of 1600, the only landlocked province is Drenthe. Top.Squark (talk) 19:49, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know the land provinces were the eastern provinces Overijssel and Guelders; Drenthe in that period was not a separate province, but was part of the Republic as a "Landschap", it was mostly (poor) rural area then. I'll add the explanation, it is indeed not clear. Joost 99 (talk) 21:39, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, Drenthe appears as a Province in the Euratlas of 1600. Overijssel and Gelderland are not landlocked there, but have a coast on the Zuiderzee. Top.Squark (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:02, 6 August 2010 (UTC).

Maybe Drenthe was called a province by some then, but it was not one of the 7 provinces of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces (and had no seat in the States-General). Concerning "landlocked", you are challenging your own question there, so you are clearly right (only if you see the Zuiderzee as an inland sea, but then Utrecht would fall under the same category). It's just a term, maybe they used it because the provinces were more/most inland? Who knows? Joost 99 (talk) 09:48, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

The 'land provinces' as a posed to the 'coast provinces' had a different geography and therefore a much different history and political interest. The presence of fertile land and water at the coast gave rise to commercial farming and big self governing cities. But In the 'land provinces' the arable land was less fertile; only self-supporting farming was possible. The cities stayed small and were more depending on the nobility.

Holland, Zeeland and Friesland have mostly a coastal geography, while Gelder and Overijssel have this typical land geography. They had sometimes conflicting interests in the States General. Utrecht is a mix.

Drenthe has a land geography as well, but had no say in the States General. Because it did not pay taxes, since it was too poor. It was governed by the States General, as the 8th province. (The 'Generality lands' had no say in the States General either; they were conquered later during the war with Spain, and were used as buffer zones and not considered provinces.)--nonfictie (talk) 23:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)