Hans Willem, Baron Bentinck was born in the middle of the seventeenth century. An aristocrat by birth, he served as a page to the Stadholder (q.v.) William. Surviving…
Category: History of the Low Countries
Burgundy: Kingdom,Duchy and House
Burgundy, a region of France, was first a kingdom after the collapse of the Roman Empire, roughly speaking the fifth century. It was incorporated into the Carolingian Empire,…
Three battles at Ypres (1914, 1915 & 1917)
Ypres is a place in Belgium, known mainly by Great War enthusiasts who are taken on guided tours. In October and November of the first year of the…
A new head of the House of Alba
The best known duchess in Spain, probably Europe too, has died after a long life (1926 – 2014) and a short but fatal illness. She was Cayetana, made…
The Occupation of the Rhur
The valley of the Rhur, which would become famous enough for a major film to be made of the bombing of its dams during the Second War, was…
Colonization
These days the word strikes a sour note, arousing images of rough settlements, starving ‘piccaninies’, whips, shackles, thoughtless government from a distance of thousdands of miles etc. If…
The Anglo-Dutch Wars, Maarten & Cornelis Tromp, Michiel de Ruyter & Robert Blake
In the seventeenth century two dominating naval powers emerged, following the reduction of the great Spanish Empire and her navy. They were Holland and Britain: commercial and colonial…
The Eighty years War & the Council of Blood
Rebellion, protest and actual war were made against Spain from 1568 to 1648, in seventeen of the provinces in the Low Countries (now Holland and Belgium). The so-called…
The battle of the Marne (September 1914)
The river Marne is a tributary of the Seine, leaving it at a point east of Paris. It was also famed for being the site of the furthest…
Revolutions of 1830
France, Belgium, Poland & Central Italy: The July Revolution in France expelled Charles X and replaced him as King with Louis-Philippe. The Austrian Netherlands belonging to Belgium were…