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The Dutch Republic Lion (also known as States Lion) was the badge of the Union of Utrecht, the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, and a precursor of the current coat of arms of the Kingdom the Netherlands.
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There are lions in multiple heraldic motifs in the Low Countries. The black lion on gold of Flanders (see Coat of arms of Flanders), its inverse the gold lion on black of Brabant, and the red lion on gold of Holland. There is one more lion of note, the red lion on blue and white bars of Luxembourg, as their ruling family sat on the imperial throne as Holy Roman Emperors:
The Flemish lion derives from the arms of the Counts of Flanders. Their first appearance is on a seal of Count Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders from 1168 to 1191, dating from 1163. As such they constitute the oldest of the many territorial arms bearing a lion in the Low Countries. It is said that Philip of Alsace brought the lion flag with him from the Holy land, where in 1177 he supposedly conquered it from a Saracen knight, but this is a myth. However, Count Philip was not the first of his line to bear a lion, for his cousin, William of Ypres, already used a seal with a lion passant in 1158. The simple fact that the lion appeared on his personal seal since 1163, when he had not yet set one step in the Levant, disproves it.
The Arms of Brabant were first used probably by Count Lambert I of Louvain, the lion is also documented in a 1306 town's seal of Kerpen, together with the red lion of Limburg. Today these arms are used by the Kings of the Belgians.
These lions are repeated in many arms in the Netherlands, of various noble houses (see Armorial of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands (fr)) and in the arms of other provinces:
When the county of Flanders was inherited by the Dukes of Burgundy in 1405, the Flemish lion was placed on an escutcheon in their dynastic arms (see Armorial of the French Royal House or Armorial of Dukes of Burgundy). The same happened with the duchy of Brabant (and its dependent duchy of Limburg) in 1430, but oddly not the county of Holland in 1432. These passed with the rest of the Burgundian inheritance to the House of Habsburg in 1482. Their descendants, the Kings of Spain bear the title of the county of Flanders (Holland was renounced in 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia) and the duchy of Brabant to this day, and the arms was continually used until the abolition of the King Alfonso XIII in 1931 (see Coat of arms of the King of Spain and List of titles and honours of the Spanish Crown).
The lion, as representing the Burgundian Netherlands, first appears as a crest on the tomb of Philip the Handsome. Later Charles V added the sword. The arrows were used, on coins etc., since the early 16th century to represent the Seventeen Provinces in the low countries under control of Charles V.
In 1578, during the Eighty Years' War, the States General ordered a new great seal representing the lion, the sword and the 17 arrows combined. Although only seven provinces remained free from Spain, this seal stayed in use until 1795.
After the completion of its forming in 1584 the Republic of the Seven United Provinces used as its arms: Or a crowned lion Gules armed and langued Azure, holding in his dexter paw a sword and in the sinister paw seven arrows tight together Azure. The colours of this version where derived from the most important of the seven provinces, the county of Holland (its arms are still in use since being adopted by the counts of Holland c. 1198).
The tinctures were inverted in 1665[ citation needed ] to a gold lion on red to be more representative of all the provinces of the union. When the provinces of Brabant, Gelderland, Flanders, Holland, Zeeland, Friesland, Mechelen and Utrecht on 26 July 1581 signed the Act of Abjuration declaring their independence from Spain and Philip II, these arms became the arms of the new nation.
The sovereignty of the federal union was emphasized by the title of the States General "their Noble Mightinesses, the Lords States-General of the United Provinces of the Netherlands" or, in Dutch, "Den Heeren Hoog-Mogenden, Den Heeren Staten-Generaal der Verenigde Provinciën der Nederlanden"). [1] and by a crown on the lion in their arms.
The number of arrows changed over time. At first there were 17, despite the fact that the Union of Utrecht counted 11 districts after the Fall of Antwerp in 1585. It was hoped by William the Silent that all the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands would eventually be united. However, this was not to be, and so it was eventually changed to 11, and with the Reduction of Groningen to 7. The number of arrows on the arms fixed at 7 in 1606, but the seal still remained with 17 arrows until 1795.
At the time of the Dutch declaration of independence the territory under nominal States-General control was steadily shrinking. Parma made steady progress. Orange had already been convinced that the only way to avert total defeat was to regain support of the moderates, alienated by Calvinist radicalism; reassure the still-loyal Catholics in the South; and retain the trust of the German Lutheran princes and the king of France. To attain these objectives he now persuaded the States-General to offer sovereignty over the Netherlands to the younger brother of Henry III of France, François, Duke of Anjou, who in 1578 had already intervened on behalf of the States-General. The latter arrived in Antwerp in January 1581, where he took an oath to in effect govern as a "constitutional monarch", and was acclaimed by the States-General as Protector of the Netherlands.
Unfortunately, Orange's attempt to paper over the disunity within the States-General by bringing in Anjou did not succeed. Holland and Zeeland acknowledged him perfunctorily, but mainly ignored him, and of the other members of the Union of Utrecht Overijssel, Gelderland and Utrecht never even recognised him. [2]
At the time of his sovereignty, Anjou replaced the Generality Lion by arms that he himself designed incorporating all the arms of the, at that time, nine Dutch rebellious provinces with France.
Anjou himself was dissatisfied with his limited power, and decided to take the Flemish cities of Antwerp, Bruges, Dunkirk, and Ostend by force. He decided personally to lead the attack on Antwerp on 18 January 1583. In an attempt to fool the citizens of Antwerp, Anjou asked to be permitted to make a "Joyous Entry" into the city in order to honour them with a parade. [ citation needed ] As soon as his troopers entered, the gates of Antwerp were slammed shut behind them and the citizen militia attacked them. Anjou barely escaped with his life and nearly his entire army perished, an affair known as the French Fury. [3]
After that the States-General re-established the previous arms.
The Batavian Republic founded in 1795 used in its first year the arms of the Dutch Republic, i.e. the Dutch lion or lion with crown, sheaf of arrows and swords. But on May 4, 1796, the Dutch Lion badge was replaced by a free drawing of the Netherlands Maiden around an altar with an anchor, and the States Lion with her.
The substitution in 1801 of the Batavian Republic by the Batavian Commonwealth, whose main feature was a stronger Grand Pensionary acting the part locally of the First Counsul Bonaparte also had its impact on heraldry. On April 12, 1802, it was decided that the new badge of the Commonwealth would be a golden lion on a red field again. The number of arrows that bears the lion in the leg was not established. This remained in use until the Kingdom of Holland was formed in 1806 for Napoleon's brother, installed as King Louis I of Holland.
Napoleon's brother Louis Bonaparte was installed as King of Holland on 5 June 1806. Originally the arms of the new kingdom were to be like those of the Kingdom of Italy: an eagle bearing a shield, with the arms of the United Netherlands, the lion, now royally crowned. In December 1806, A. Renodi in Paris designed arms quartering the Napoleonic eagle with the lion of the United Netherlands. Around the shield was the French Order of the Grand Aigle. Behind the shield are crossed sceptres, typical for Napoleonic heraldry, and above the shield, Napoleon's star.
A few months later, on 20 May 1807, King Louis (now called "Lodewijk") altered these arms, adding a helmet, leaving out his brother’s star and replacing the Grand Aigle with his own Dutch Order of the Union and the old Dutch devise Eendracht maakt macht ("Unity makes strength") around the shield. Exemplary for the innovation in Napoleon's heraldry are the two hands coming out of clouds from behind the shield holding swords, designating King Louis as Connétable de France.
When William VI of Orange returned to the Netherlands in 1813 and was proclaimed Sovereign Prince of the Netherlands, he quartered the former Arms of the Dutch Republic (1st and 4th quarter) with the "Châlon-Orange" arms (2nd and 3rd quarter), which had come to symbolize Orange. As an in escutcheon he placed his ancestral arms of Nassau. (See House of Orange-Nassau) When he became King in 1815, he combined the Dutch Republic Lion with the billets of the Nassau arms and added a royal crown to form the Coat of arms of the Netherlands. In 1907, Queen Wilhelmina replaced the royal crown on the lion and the shield bearers of the arms with a coronet and had the phallus of the lion removed. [4]
The United Provinces of the Netherlands, officially the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, and commonly referred to in historiography as the Dutch Republic, was a confederation that existed from 1579 until the Batavian Revolution in 1795. It was a predecessor state of the present-day Netherlands, and the first independent Dutch state. The republic was established after seven Dutch provinces in the Spanish Netherlands revolted against Spanish rule, forming a mutual alliance against Spain in 1579 and declaring their independence in 1581. It comprised Groningen, Frisia, Overijssel, Guelders, Utrecht, Holland, and Zeeland.
The Kingdom of Holland was the successor state of the Batavian Republic. It was created by Napoleon Bonaparte in March 1806 in order to strengthen control over the Netherlands by replacing the republican government with a monarchy. Since becoming emperor in 1804, Napoleon sought to extirpate republican tendencies in territories France controlled, and placed his third brother, Louis Bonaparte, on the throne of the puppet kingdom. The name of the leading province, Holland, now designated the whole country. In 1807, East Frisia and Jever were added to the kingdom.
The Union of Utrecht was a treaty signed on 23 January 1579 in Utrecht, Netherlands, unifying the northern provinces of the Netherlands, until then under the control of Habsburg Spain.
The House of Orange-Nassau is the current reigning house of the Netherlands. A branch of the European House of Nassau, the house has played a central role in the politics and government of the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, particularly since William the Silent organised the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule, which after the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) led to an independent Dutch state. William III of Orange led the resistance of the Netherlands and Europe to Louis XIV of France, and orchestrated the Glorious Revolution in England that established parliamentary rule. Similarly, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands was instrumental in the Dutch resistance during World War II.
The Seventeen Provinces were the Imperial states of the Habsburg Netherlands in the 16th century. They roughly covered the Low Countries, i.e., what is now the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and most of the French departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais (Artois). Also within this area were semi-independent fiefdoms, mainly ecclesiastical ones, such as Liège, Cambrai and Stavelot-Malmedy.
The States General of the Netherlands is the supreme bicameral legislature of the Netherlands consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both chambers meet at the Binnenhof in The Hague.
The coat of arms of Belgium bears a lion or, known as Leo Belgicus, as its charge. This is in accordance with article 193 of the Belgian Constitution: The Belgian nation takes red, yellow and black as colours, and as state coat of arms the Belgian lion with the motto UNITY MAKES STRENGTH. A royal decree of 17 March 1837 determines the achievement to be used in the greater and the lesser version, respectively.
The Act of Abjuration is the declaration of independence by many of the provinces of the Netherlands from their allegiance to Philip II of Spain, during the Dutch Revolt.
The coat of arms of the Kingdom of the Netherlands was originally adopted in 1815 and later modified in 1907. The arms are a composite of the arms of the former Dutch Republic and the arms of the House of Nassau, it features a checkered shield with a lion grasping a sword in one hand and a bundle of arrows in the other and is the heraldic symbol of the monarch and the country. The monarch uses a version of the arms with a mantle while the government of the Netherlands uses a smaller version without the mantle (cloak) or the pavilion, sometimes only the shield and crown are used. The components of the coats of arms were regulated by Queen Wilhelmina in a royal decree of 10 July 1907, affirmed by Queen Juliana in a royal decree of 23 April 1980.
Spanish Netherlands was the Habsburg Netherlands ruled by the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs from 1556 to 1714. They were a collection of States of the Holy Roman Empire in the Low Countries held in personal union by the Spanish Crown. This region comprised most of the modern states of Belgium and Luxembourg, as well as parts of northern France, the southern Netherlands, and western Germany with the capital being Brussels. The Army of Flanders was given the task of defending the territory.
The Generality Lands, Lands of the Generality or Common Lands were about one fifth of the territories of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, that were directly governed by the States-General. Unlike the seven provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, Overijssel, Friesland and Groningen, these territories had no States-Provincial and were not represented in the central government. At the time of the Union of Utrecht, these territories were under Spanish control, and would only be conquered by the Dutch Republic later in the war. From an economic point of view, they were exploited with heavy taxes and levies. As one author puts it:
"Back in the Dutch lap, these so-called Generality lands were for a long time governed as a sort of internal colonies, in which Catholics were seen as second-class citizens."
The Burgundian Circle was an Imperial Circle of the Holy Roman Empire created in 1512 and significantly enlarged in 1548. In addition to the Free County of Burgundy, the Burgundian Circle roughly covered the Low Countries, i.e., the areas now known as the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg and adjacent parts in the French administrative region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais. For most of its history, its lands were coterminous with the holdings of the Spanish Habsburgs in the Empire.
The House of Nassau is a diversified aristocratic dynasty in Europe. It is named after the lordship associated with Nassau Castle, located in present-day Nassau, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. With the fall of the Hohenstaufen in the first half of the 13th century royal power within Franconia evaporated and the former stem duchy fragmented into separate independent states. Nassau emerged as one of those independent states as part of the Holy Roman Empire. The lords of Nassau were originally titled "Count of Nassau", subject only to the Emperor, and then elevated to the princely class as "Princely Counts". Early on they divided into two main branches: the elder (Walramian) branch, that gave rise to the German king Adolf, and the younger (Ottonian) branch, that gave rise to the Princes of Orange and the monarchs of the Netherlands.
The Duchy of Brabant, a state of the Holy Roman Empire, was established in 1183. It developed from the Landgraviate of Brabant of 1085–1183, and formed the heart of the historic Low Countries. The Duchy comprised part of the Burgundian Netherlands from 1430 and of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1482, until it was partitioned after the Dutch revolt of 1566–1648.
The Leo Belgicus was used in both heraldry and map design to symbolize the former Low Countries with the shape of a lion.
The arms of the Flemish Community are: Or, a lion rampant sable, armed and langued gules. Although the lion has been in use for almost nine hundred years as the arms of the Count of Flanders, it only became the official symbol of the Flemish Community in 1973. At present its form and use is subject to the Decree of 7 November 1990.
The siege of Eindhoven, also known as the capture of Eindhoven of 1583, took place between 7 February and 23 April 1583 at Eindhoven, Duchy of Brabant, Spanish Netherlands during the Eighty Years' War and the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604). On 7 February 1583 a Spanish force sent by Don Alexander Farnese, Governor-General of the Spanish Netherlands, commanded by Karl von Mansfeld and Claude de Berlaymont, laid siege to Eindhoven, an important and strategic city of Brabant held by Dutch, Scottish, and French soldiers under the States' commander Hendrik van Bonnivet. After three months of siege, and the failed attempts by the States-General to assist Bonnivet's forces, the defenders surrendered to the Spaniards on 23 April.
These are Lists of monarchs in the Low Countries.
The period between the Pacification of Ghent, and the Unions of Arras and Utrecht constituted a crucial phase of the Eighty Years' War between the Spanish Empire and the rebelling United Provinces, which would become the independent Dutch Republic. Sometimes known as the "general revolt", the period marked the only time of the war where the States–General of all Seventeen Provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands, except Luxemburg, were in joint active political and military rebellion against the Spanish Imperial government through the Pacification of Ghent. The Pacification formulated several agreements amongst the rebellious provinces themselves, and laid down their demands – including the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops from the Netherlands, restitution of old rights and privileges, and self-rule – to king Philip II of Spain.
The years 1579–1588 constituted a phase of the Eighty Years' War between the Spanish Empire and the United Provinces in revolt after most of them concluded the Union of Utrecht on 23 January 1579, and proceeded to carve the independent Dutch Republic out of the Habsburg Netherlands. It followed the 1576–1579 period, in which a temporary alliance of 16 out of the Seventeen Provinces' States–General established the Pacification of Ghent as a joint Catholic–Protestant rebellion against the Spanish government, but internal conflicts as well as military and diplomatic successes of the Spanish Governors-General Don Juan of Austria and Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma split them apart, finally leading the Malcontent County of Artois, County of Hainaut and city of Douai to sign the Union of Arras on 6 January 1579, reverting to Catholicism and loyalty to the Spanish crown. In response, most of the remaining rebel provinces and cities would forge or later accede to the Union of Utrecht, a closer military alliance treaty that would go on to become the most important fundamental law of the United Provinces, who on 26 July 1581 proclaimed the Act of Abjuration, a de facto declaration of independence from Spain. While the nascent polity was struggling to find a new sovereign head of state, including Matthias of Austria, Francis of Anjou, William "the Silent" of Orange and Robert of Leicester, before giving up and deciding to become a republic by passing the Deduction of Vrancken on 12 April 1588, the Duke of Parma continued his successful military and diplomatic offensive, bringing ever more provinces and cities in the southern, eastern and northeastern parts of the Netherlands back into royalist hands. Parma's reconquests more or less stalled after the Fall of Antwerp (1585), and finally came to an end with the failure of the Spanish Armada and Philip II ordered him to intervene in the French Wars of Religion to prevent the Succession of Henry IV and France becoming a Protestant kingdom. These developments gave rise to a new phase, the Ten Years (1588–1598), that saw significant conquests by the Dutch States Army under the leadership of stadtholders Maurice of Nassau and William Louis of Nassau-Dillenburg, and the Dutch Republic's rise as a commercial great power.
Bij Koninklijk Besluit van 10 juli 1907 (Stb. 181) werd het Koninklijk Wapen, tevens Rijkswapen, aangepast. De leeuw in het schild en de schildhoudende leeuwen droegen vóór die tijd alle drie de Koninklijke kroon, maar raakten deze kwijt nu de toegevoegde purperen hermelijn gevoerde mantel, gedekt door een purperen baldakijn, een Koningskroon ging dragen. De schildhouders waren vóór 1907 bovendien aanziend in plaats van en profiel.
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