Diccionario de la EDT

The Estates' relations with their neighbours were not confined to those conducted through the Estates-General. Indeed, central governmental institutions played only a minor role in Utrecht's dealings with one of its closest neighbours, the county of Culemborg and the Count, Floris van Pallant. This can to some extent be explained by Culemborg's status outside the Union of Utrecht: the Count had signed the Treaty in April 1579, but only for some of his other lordships, not for the county itself. Relations between him and the Estates had never been friendly: indeed, during the Regency of Margaret of Parma, only her intercession with the king had saved Culemborg's lordships on the Archbishop's territory from being taken over by the Estates.(71) Despite the Count's rather fulsome protestations of friendship soon after the Pacification, the quarrel continued throughout the 1570s and 1580s.(72) Several distinct issues were involved, of which two (the questions of the River Lek and the village of Honswijk) were long-standing disputes.

Both the Sticht and Culemborg, as well as Gelderland, claimed sovereign rights over the stretch of the River Lek that formed the boundary between their respective territories,(73) with the result that whenever the Count had a breakwater built, projecting into the

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river, the Estates would order its demolition, claiming that it would cause damage to land on the Utrecht bank. The Count would then rebuild his breakwater, whereupon the Estates would again demolish it. This happened at least four times in 1580-81, until the Count seized property belonging to Stichtenaars in the Nederbetuwe district of Gelderland, and the Estates replied with an order that goods passing along the Lek to Culemborg were to be seized and taken to Wijk,(74) After a settlement was apparently reached in January 1582, the area of dispute shifted to the village of Honswijk, situated on the north bank of the river opposite Culemborg itself. The village had been in the possession of the lords of Culemborg since the fourteenth century, and since 1443, it had involved them in quarrels with the bishops, and then the Estates, of Utrecht.(75)

The Estates did not dispute the Count's claim to the high, middle and low jurisdiction in Honswijk, but they maintained that the village was on Sticht territory, paid Sticht taxes (including contributions to

the generality, from which Culemborg was free) and should therefore not be subject to the billeting of troops.(76) Ifhen the Drost of Culemborg stationed cavalry in Honswijk, the village complained to the Estates about the troops' extortions, and the Estates gave orders for the troops to be put back across the river, by force if necessary.(77). The following year, the Count complained that Utrecht was exercising high jurisdiction in Honswijk, and took the matter to

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The ill-feeling already in existence was exacerbated in June 1586 when the Count and his son were arrested and held for fifteen days in Utrecht, apparently on Nieuwenaar's orders, because the Count would not admit a certain company of cavalry to Culemborg; the Standing Committee was afraid that if he and his son returned home, they would join the enemy,(79) improbable though this may seem for such an ardent Calvinist and rebel as Floris van Pallant. After this insult, it is hardly surprising that the Count supported the opposition to the government which had arrested him: he had always had a leaning towards England, and he became one of Leicester's most devoted adherents.(80) Moreover, the Count was said to have had a hand in stirring up the dispute which paralysed the Estates in the winter of 1586-87, and he certainly sheltered Prouninck and his fellow-exiles after

September 1588.(81)

Nevertheless, it was during the Prouninck régime in Utrecht that the next stage of the quarrel began, with an order from the Estates to Captain Meetkerken to collect the money his men were owed by Honswijk, no matter what the Count might say. In return, Culemborg arrested three citizens of Utrecht in Buren; Utrecht then arrested citizens of Culemborg and their livestock in the Sticht. The danger of bloodshed led the Estates to call in Nieuwenaar, whose intervention brought about a temporary agreement, reached on neutral territory at Vianen.(82) The Count continued to arrest inhabitants of the Sticht, however, including official messengers (boden) of the Estates and the Hof, who (according to the Estates) were allowed to deliver legal summonses in Honswijk.(83) At the beginning of 1590, the Estates had

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the horses of a Honswijk man sold to pay off tax arrears, taking no notice of the Count's objections.(84) He took the next step by ordering the seizure of certain tithe crops situated in the county and belonging to the chapters of the Pom, Oudmunster and St. Jan, 'whom he calls Papists'.(85) After fruitless attempts at mediation by the Estates-General and the Council of State (not even Elbertus Leoninus could secure concessions from either side in the dispute [86]), the Estates authorised the chapters to collect an equivalent amount of grain from Honswijk, and sent a military escort to help in the collection of this grain, at the Steenweerd, a small island in the Lek between Honswijk and Culemborg. In their accounts of the ensuing events, each side blamed the other for precipitating the violence which followed; the Estates said their men had merely defended

themselves against artillery and musket fire from over the river and inside the Steenweerd farmhouse; the Count asserted that his tenant's farm had been burned down, even though his men were ready to parley, and that 'those of Utrecht were worse enemies to him than the

Spaniards'.(87) Apart from the deaths on both sides, the treatment of two of the prisoners taken by Utrecht in the affray stood in the way of a truce for some time (they complained that they were likely to die of cold after 28 weeks' imprisonment). Meanwhile, the Estates-General took Utrecht's side, and ordered Culemborg to allow the chapters full possession of their tithes.(88) By August 1592, it appears that both sides were at least prepared to negotiate, but the issue was not finally resolved until 1615, when the Count's son, Floris II van Pallant, yielded his claim to Honswijk to the Estates, in return for the addition to his county of the same Steenweerd, and a substantial annuity for himself.(89)

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Culemborg was a special case, where long-standing quarrels came to a head in the 1580s. It was impolitic for Utrecht to be on such bad terms with all its neighbours all the time, and the Estates'

disputes with Gelderland and Friesland, for example, were on a much smaller scale, being limited to heated arguments with Friesland's deputies in the Estates-General's assembly about precedence on the forthcoming embassy to France: the question was decided, in Utrecht's favour, by the drawing of lots. (90) As far as Gelderland was concerned, there were minor economic disagreements about the taxation of peat and beer;(91) apart from these, and the Sticht's resentment at the duchy's comparative freedom from taxation (see above, p. 160), the raids of troops back and forth between the two provinces were a more or less permanent irritant, which could not be alleviated by promises from the Estates or Gelderland's Landdag.(92) In contrast to the Estates-General and the Council of State, Gelderland had offered Utrecht help against the Vredenburg garrison in 1576, and during the 1580s the Sticht's tendency towards the east became increasingly apparent: Holland recognised this fact when it tried to use Utrecht's influence with Gelderland to persuade the duchy to adhere to the Union of Utrecht after Orange's death.(93) The same inclination is shown in the Estates' choice of Nieuwenaar, already the Stadholder of Gelderland and Overijssel, as their Stadholder, in preference to Maurice of Nassau, who held the same office in Holland and Zeeland. It was not only during the Leicester era that Gelderland, Utrecht and Overijssel took joint action; in November 1580, they held separate discussions about the forthcoming establishment of the Landraad, and

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in August 1581, they resolved to ask Anjou to appoint a deputy to Orange as Stadholder to administer justice and conduct the war in the three eastern provinces.(94) Gelderland and Overijssel shared the Sticht's distrust of the Holland-dominated Estates-General, and in fact were even more reluctant to send delegates to the Hague: Overijssel was completely unrepresented in the Estates-General throughout 1585 and 1586.(95)

The strongest bond between Utrecht and its eastern neighbours was their common danger from the enemy and their common problem of defence. Most of the meetings between representatives from Utrecht and Gelderland met to discuss action against Parma's forces: this was the subject of the talks with Gelderland and Overijssel in 1587, for instance (see above, p. 164). The frequency of commissions like the one on which even Amersfoort was represented argues that they were not very effective,(96) and indeed all three provinces remained extremely vulnerable to the enemy, though the Sticht's position was improved by Maurice's victories in the 1590s.

Despite these links with the east, the Estates could never ignore the even stronger bonds which connected them to Holland. It was, after all, the more densely populated and fertile western district of the province which shared a boundary with Holland, whereas the border with Gelderland ran through the sparsely peopled sandy regions north and south of Amersfoort. Moreover, while the Sticht had suffered considerably until 1543 from the wars between the Habsburgs and the dukes of Gelderland, it had been under one government with Holland

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from the Union of Toledo of 1534 until 1572. From then on, however, Holland and Utrecht were actually at war, and the west and south-west of the Sticht, particularly the land of Montfoort, had undergone raids and devastation at the hands of the Beggar garrisons in Gouda, Oudewater and Woerden.(97) Utrecht had entered into the Pacification of Ghent in 1576 under pressure from Holland (and Zeeland), but had received only limited help from them for their most serious problems, the siege of Vredenburg and the payment of the troops in the city. Although the Estates of Holland advanced a loan of 14,000 guilders, and the Noorderkwartier one of 20,000, a deputation from the city of Utrecht to Amsterdam returned empty-handed, and relations between the two provinces were not improved by Utrecht's failure to repay these loans at the proper time.(98)

As with Gelderland, there were economic disputes with Holland, for instance about the toll levied at Schoonhoven on peat being transported down the Lek from Utrecht into Holland, or the tax imposed by the Sticht on beer produced in Delft.(99) Where Utrecht resented Gelderland's comparative freedom from the Estates-General's taxes, Holland for its part objected to the lower rates of taxation in force in Utrecht, and repeatedly urged that the generale middelen should be levied at the same rate in all the contributing provinces. The Estates refused even to consider this question, on the grounds that the Sticht could not afford it, nor would they ever increase their quota in the monthly contribution to the gemene zaak, whatever Holland or the Estates-General might say.(100) It is hardly surprising, in these circumstances, that Holland sometimes felt that the Sticht was not pulling its weight in the communal war effort.

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Relations between Utrecht and Holland were further strained by disagreements over jurisdiction in the border areas, particularly the claims made by the town of Oudewater over the inhabitants of certain districts in Utrecht in its immediate vicinity. Oudewater had originally been in the Sticht, having received its town charter from the bishop in the thirteenth century, but since the fourteenth century it had belonged to Holland. The town appears to have been strongly anti-Utrecht in the years that followed: this feeling was doubtless intensified when Hierges' troops razed Oudewater to the ground in

1575.(101)

There were two issued involved in the dispute: first, could Oudewater claim jurisdiction over the inhabitants of districts such as the Langeweide and Ruigeweide, and were these people obliged to pay levies imposed by, for example, the bailiff (baljuw) of Oudewater? Secondly, were farmers from Utrecht who took refuge behind Oudewater's walls still liable for provincial taxes on the land they continued to use in the Sticht?(102) Both the town and the Estates arrested and held people from the other side, pending payment of the sums claimed; while the Estates of Holland were willing to submit the dispute to a higher authority, and ordered the magistrates of Oudewater to release the Stichtenaars they were holding, it was not until after the change of government in Utrecht in 1588, and yet more arrests, that the Estates agreed to arbitration from outside.(103)

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In the early 1580s, Utrecht had a rather variable political relationship with Holland and Zeeland. Holland, it would appear, was eager to strengthen its ties with Utrecht by elevating William of Orange from his present position as Stadholder to the status of hereditary lord with 'high authority' (hoge overheid) over the three provinces. This question was first raised soon after the Abjuration of Philip II, and in 1582, the Estates were prepared to offer the high authority to Orange, with some limitations on his powers (it must be remembered that they had not acknowledged the Duke of Anjou as their lord).(104) A year later, however, they had changed their minds, partly because they suspected that Holland's additional proposal to make Orange its Count would constitute a breach of the Union of Utrecht, and that the same would be true of stronger bonds between Holland, Zeeland and the Sticht which would alienate the eastern provinces, Gelderland, Friesland and Overijssel.(105) The issue of the double elevation of Orange was delayed throughout 1583 by internal differences in Holland; but at a meeting of delegates from Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht in November 1583, the Sticht expressed its approval of Holland's determination to offer Orange the Act of Presentation as Count, but was still very cautious about making any changes in Utrecht's own status quo, in view of the dangerous situation in Flanders. In general, Utrecht viewed its collaboration with Holland and Zeeland as a basis for the rest of the allies to join: any separate councils for these three provinces would probably alienate the others.(106) The assassination of Orange (still officially neither Count nor 'high authority') in July 1584, roused the Estates into renewed negotiations with Holland and Zeeland (see

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pp. 157-158 above) but the pendulum of the Sticht's primary loyalties soon swung away from the west. The first sign of a short-lived attempt to 'go it alone' was the choice of Villers as Stadholder, and it is significant that Holland tried to delay the Estates-General's confirmation of his appointment.(107) What is more, at the time of Nieuwenaar's election as Stadholder, the Estates of Holland issued a document requiring Utrecht to rejoin the government of Holland and Zeeland immediately. The Estates of Utrecht replied that they had no intention of putting themselves under the same government as the other two provinces; for the time being, the pendulum had swung towards the east.(108)

Holland's attempts to influence the Sticht were not confined to the strictly political sphere. Utrecht resented its neighbour's interference in its religious life as well: the notoriously Catholic district of the Proostdij of St. Jan, situated between the two provinces and enjoying certain protective privileges, evoked several expressions of disapproval from Holland, especially when the priest at Kudelstaart preached in support of a conspiracy by certain 'malevolent' persons in Holland.(109) Similarly, Holland accused the Estates of being 'too lax' . in furthering the Reformation in Montfoort. In February 1583, this interference went too far for the Estates' liking, when over twenty soldiers disturbed a Sunday service at Hagestein, a village on the south bank of the Lek which belonged jointly to the chapters of the Pom and Oudmunster. They robbed the congregation of their coats and arrested the ministers (who had always preached in accordance with the placard on acceptable Reformed doctrine, according to witnesses) - all this, somewhat improbably, in

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the name of the Prince of Orange. The Standing Committee pointed out to the officers of the company involved that any religious unorthodoxy in Hagestein was a matter for the Estates of Utrecht, and for no other body, to decide. Even when the two provinces were politically in agreement, the Reformed Church in Holland protested in 1601 to Prince Maurice and to the Estates-General that 'abuses and Papist superstitions' were crossing the border from the Sticht, and that ministers who had been disciplined in Holland could find employment in Utrecht.(110)

The Sticht's sometimes latent, sometimes overt dislike and distrust of Holland were not appeased by expressions of friendship such as a letter from the city council of Amsterdam, protesting that Amsterdam and Utrecht 'have long been as two souls in one body in the common defence of the provinces and resistance to the enemy'.(Ill) On the contrary, in the midst of the crisis of 1586-88, when Holland gave shelter and support to the exiled opposition to the Prouninck régime, the Utrecht towns made their views quite clear: they would rejoin the first two Estates only on condition that 'it shall be declared by a solemn everlasting resolution that the government of this Sticht is a separate government, and that no lawful union, agreement or usage is recognised whereby Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht should be ruled by one Governor'.(112) English observers, who were also suspicious of the Holland regents, were convinced that the Estates of Holland, in collusion with Nieuwenaar and Count Hohenlohe, who were disenchanted with Leicester's rule, would use all means 'by hook and by crook' to win Utrecht away from its English loyalties and safely into Holland's orbit.(113)

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Yet, at a lower level, farmers from both sides of the Holland/Utrecht border could unite in occupation of the St. Maartensdijk to resist the passage of cavalry and wagons across their lands, forcing the Estates to send the troopers to another part of the Sticht.(114) The following year (1588), some villages of the Sticht,