the suspicion that he
sacrificed their interests to those of England, and by his military
failures. In less than two years he was forced to return home.
[Sidenote: 1587]

[Sidenote: Oldenbarneveldt, 1547-1619]

Under the statesmanlike guidance of John van Oldenbarneveldt, since
1586 Pensionary of Holland, a Republic was set up founded on the
supremacy of the Estates. Under his exact, prudent, and resolute
leadership internal freedom and external power were alike developed.
Though the war continued long after 1588 the defeat of the Armada in
that year crippled Spain beyond hope of recovery and made the new
nation practically safe.

[Sidenote: The Dutch Republic]

The North had suffered much in the war. The frequent inundation of the
land destroyed crops. Amsterdam long held out against the rest of
Holland in loyalty to the king, but she suffered so much by the
blockade of the Beggars of the Sea and by the emigration of her
merchants to nearby cities, that at last she gave in and cast her lot
with her people. From that time she assumed the commercial hegemony
once exercised by Antwerp. Recovering rapidly from the devastations of
war, the Dutch Republic became, in the seventeenth century, the first
sea-power and first money-power in the world. She gave a king to
England and put a bridle in the mouth of France. She established
colonies in America and in the East Indies. With her celebrated new
university of Leyden, with {276} publicists like Grotius, theologians
like Jansen, painters like Van Dyke and Rembrandt, philosophers like
Spinoza, she took the lead in many of the fields of thought. Her
material and spiritual power, her tolerance and freedom, became the
envy of the world.

[1] The guilder, also called the "Dutch pound," at this time was worth
40 cents intrinsically. Money had many times the purchasing power that
it has in 1920.

[2] The word, meaning "prayer," indicated, like the English
"benevolence" and the French "don gratuit," that the tax had once been
voluntarily granted.

[3] The dollar, or Thaler, is worth 75 cents, intrinsically.

{277}

CHAPTER VI

ENGLAND

SECTION 1. HENRY VIII AND THE NATIONAL CHURCH. 1509-47

[Sidenote: Henry VIII, 1509-47]

"The heavens laugh, the earth exults; all is full of milk and honey and
nectar." With these words the accession of Henry VIII was announced to
Erasmus by his pupil and the king's tutor, Lord Mountjoy. This lover
of learni