The Wilhelmus as National Anthem

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Tell your doctor if you have an infection flu like symptoms or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tmphayia today. Call one eight hundred five two six seven seven three six to learn more. or visit Tmphiaradio. com Hello everybody. So that's all time Banger was Het Vil Helmas The National Anthem of Holland or as it should be called, the Kingdom of the Netherlands And if you enjoyed it, if you're a big fan of the of the Orange National teeam, I have tremendous news for you because there are another fourourteen versus Now Tom Obviously this is anthem close to your heart because of your nominative determinism We've done three anthems so far. We've done the United States We have done Great Britain We have done Germany veryery well known, I think all these three. If you're Dutch This will be well known too. if you're not Dutch, probably much less well known But there is a case, isn't there, that of all the world's national anthems, even though this was only adopted in nineteen thirty two. This has the deepest the longest, the richest history Yeah, because it has actually been great anthem of Dutch patriotism four and a half centuries, so long, long before it became enshrined as the Dutch National anthem And I will quote from the official website of the Royal House of the Netherlands, which has a very convenient English translation The melody of the Wilhelmas originated during the siege of the French City of Chartreres in fifteen sixty eight. So listeners may be wondering why Chartreres who composed it, and we will be coming to this later in the episode. And the website then goes on to say the first known reference to the lyrics dates from fifteen seventy two. And so there we have it, direct from the Dutch royal family. The Wilhelmus originated sometime between fifteen sixty eight and fifteen seventy two of that is compared, say to God saave the King, that is very, very precise And those dates, not coincidentally constitute Ky fulcrum point in one of Historiess Absolutely for revolts Dut rev So why is the Dutch Revolt one of History's absolutely top revolts? Well I think for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is very seismic in terms of the geopolitics of Europe. It erupts in the fifteen sixties and it precipitates what will ultimately become an eighty year war between the Dutch rebels and the Spanish who are the colonial power in the low countries And this makes it one of the longest and most sustained independent struggles in the whole of European history And it's an incredible kind of David and Goliath story. because it begins with a ragbag assortment of pirates. taking on professional armies of the greatest empire on the face of the earth and the time The consequences of the success of those rebels are still with us today and imprinted on the map of Europe So the northern half of the low countries that were ruled by Spain in the sixteenth century, they won their independence from Spain. they constitute the kingdom of the Netherlands and to simplify massively, they're kind of the Protestant half And the southern half, that remained under the rule of the Spanish Royal dyasty, the Habsburgs od constitutes the kingdom of the Belgians and again to oversimplify that's kind of vaguely the Catholic half. But the Dutch revolt is not just a European event, is it? it's a world event because the Dutch revolt is You can trace the lineage and you know there are Dutch and indeed American historians who have done this, you can trace the lineage right through from the Dutch revolts of the sixteenth century, the English revolutions of the seventeenth century to the American revolution that is celebrating its two hundred and fiftieth anniversary this year. Yeah. And the founding fathers certainly believed that. they looked to the Dutch revolt as a great source of inspiration. you can see why? Because it's a revolt that ends up replacing an imperial monarchy with a kind of federal republic. And this federal repepublic, it comes into existence in fifteen eighty eight and it gives itself the name of the United provroinces of the Netherlands. So you can see why that story would have a resonance with Washington Hamilton and Jefferson and so on. I don't think it is an exaggeration see the state that emerges from these rebellious provinces, it becomes the Dutch Republic And over the course of the seventeenth century, I think it constitutes one of the great incubators of modernity. So it's the birthplace of modern capitalism you get. you know, it gives us stock exchanges and deosit banking and futures and options and all these kind of various financial gizmos, I don't really know what they mean. I was going to say, we should explain about futures and options and how they work. Let's leave that for the rest is money. Okay fair. I mean, certainly it helps the Dutch of the Republic become incredibly rich. So considering how small they are relative to the other China or India whatever. I mean, it ends up controlling an insanely large percentage of the total volume of global trade. And the Dutch Republic is per capita by far the richest state on the face of the planet in the seventeenth century It's also very modern in the way that it kind of gives birth to kind of traditions of religious toleration that are underground. They're not official, but they're definitely there and those traditions in turn give birth to kind of religious skepticism, which in turn kind of flourishes in the form of the Enlightenment It's a very urbanized society. so sixty percent of the population in Holland live in cities. I mean, that's an enormous amount for the period. And it's a culture and again, this is appealing, I think, to the American revolutionaries It's a culture that isn't aristocratic but very bourgeois. and if you think of the great masterpieces of the Dutch Golden age, say Vermeer It's very interior, it's very domestic It's very comfortable, it's very ordered So the Dutch Republic, the Republic of Vermeer and Rembrandt and the beautiful canals of Amsterdam and all of that This is the state that emerges from the Dutch Revolt. And the man who is most associated with the Dutch revolt It's George Washington, you might say, although this man, I think, has his own teeth and doesn't walk around with other people's teeth in his mouth the sort of the independence hero He is the man at the center of this song, isn't he? In the song is the I'm tempted to say Darth Vader, but he'sentially the Vada D Vadaands The father of the Fatherland. so he is the I mean he is the founding father, no other way of putting it. And Tom, I know you' Dutch is second to none. so would you like to translate that first verse for us? This is I have to confess taken from the Dutch Ryoyal familyamily's website again And the words that we heard at the start of this show translated are William of Nassau, Sion of a Dutch and ancient line, I dedicate undying faith to this land of mine. Prince I am, undaunted orange ever free King of Spain I've granted a lifelong loyalty and people listening to that if they're not familiar with the Wilhelmas. I mean, they may well have listened to those last two lines and kind of gone I know. Absolutely mad. What is happening here? Because just to repeat that. It's too the King of Spain I've granted a lifelong loyalty and these must surely be the strangest lines to appear in any national anthem I would think. Yeah, definitely. What makes it oddder is that guy who is supposedly speaking and who gives his name to the songill Villam of Nassau. He is the great hero of the Dutch revolt. He say this is the George Washington of Dutch independence And he is the man who is leading the fight against the King of Spain. So it's as though the Americans had a national anthem and featured in its first firstverse, George Washington pledging allegiance to George III. someome people might consider that an improvement, of course. Well, it's a lost opportunity, of course. So what is going on here? Why is William the great hero of the Dutch Resistance, pledging his loyalty to the King of Spain And to answer that question, I think we need to look at two different aspects of the story for the background And the first is the state of the low countries in the mid sixteenth century when the revolt breaks out And then secondly, the life and the character of the Prince of Orange, William of Nassau great hero of the Dutch revolt. So let's start with the low countries. So You said before the low countries cover what are now the Netherlands or Holland. Belgium There's a little bit of norther France, isn't? There's a bit of arrtois and Picidy and Luxembourg as well. And Luxembourg, I forgot Luxembourg. Oh that's sad So there are two main bits, aren't there of the low countries to worry about? There's basically what becomes Belgium and then what becomes the sort of heartland of Holland. So talk us through these. Back in the mid sixteenth century, this territory constitutes seventeen distinctive provinces And they're divided up, as you said, basically into two halves. And the southern land is made up of province that we've been talking about in the First World War, So Flanders There's also Brabant to the north. That's where Antwerp is situated and In the sixteenth century, this is home to very rich and sophisticated cities. So Antwerp is the greatest. You've also got Gint, you've got Bruges. These are beautiful cities now that you go to on kind of weekend breaks You know, if you're looking for a place to have a stag do or something. Back then they were the beating heart of kind of atalism as it is starting to emerge. And then to the north you have a second heartland And these are constituted of the largest provinces Holland You also have Zealand, you have Utrech and Holland especially is a province that has kind of been redeemed from the seas and the bogs and the lakes and it is crisscrossed by by rivers, by canals by drainage channels and all around it are dykes which keep the sea at bay. And an English writer in the seventeenth century described Holland as the great bog of Europe. Indeed, it is the buttock of the world full of veins and blood but no bones in it And the province of Zealand is even more kind of surrounded by water because it's an archipelago. So a series of islands set in a great estuary that is meeting the North Sea And on top of that, Holland and Zealand are cut off from the southern provinces by four great rivers, one of which is the mas that we were talking about in our episode on Germany. And these four rivers all meet in the same delta and they are surrounded by marshes. So in effect, they constitute a kind of massive moat. So essentially they are more readily defensible perhaps than the southern provinces And these provinces have their own individual identities, their own system. They have their own institutions, right Yes, they have their own kind of legal frameworks, their own fiscal arrangements They often have charters reaching back centuries of which they're inordinately proud. And this is especially the case in Flanders and Brabant. The cities there tend to have their own kind of privileges, which they guard very, very jealously. And in fact, across the whole of these seventeen provinces that constitute the low countries There are about seven hundred different legal codes in all. So it is very, very fragmented Then you also have different languages. So you have French in the southern provinces. You have Dutch in the northern and central provinces. In Fresia people are speaking Fresians, which is the language closest to English. Some people are speaking German as well. And then this is the mid sixteenth century. So it's the heyday of the Reformation. And so there are kind of religious tensions and differences as well Protestantism has spread like wildfire across all the seventeen provinces And this unlike in England where it's been very much imposed by the Tudor monarchy, Henry VII and Edward VI and Elizabeth I. In the low countries, this is much more of a kind of top up This it's not it doesn't have official sponsorship from the top The consequence of this is that there isn't anyone to impose any sense of control So all these kind of various sects and factions is very, very world west. becausecause although obviously they're happy to protest against Catholicism There isn't any sense of coherence, they all have kind of different views on what really matters. Now that said, by the middle of the sixteenth century, there is one particular brand of Protestantism which is starting to emerge as the dominant. And this is what will become known as Calvinism named after Jean Calvin John Calvin this great reformer and he has kind of instituted this very disciplined self governing kind of church structure And so Calfinism far more than the other sects can provide Protestants with Yeah, kind of sense of coherence, really. A sense of structure that exists outside the structures of the organized state. So to quote Jonathan Israel, he's written the definitive book on the history of the Dutch Republic Those dismayed by the profusion of Reformations around them found the antidote for which they thirsted in Calvin And so the character of the revolt as it emerges will be largely Calvinist You made the point about the fragmentation, the seven hundred different legal codes, different languages and so on. But there are definitely commonalities across that O countries, aren't there? I mean, frankly, you see them today when you visit it architecturally or culturally or whatever. And that's the case even back in the sixteenth century. that there's more well, not more But there are a lot of things that unite the people of these what become Belgium, Hlland and Luxembourg There are often kind of continuities with the low countries to this day. so they're famous for their beer, whether it's Amstal in the Netherlands or all those trappest beers in. Beltum, loveove a Belton bear. And the average daily consumption back then was seen as being enormous even by English visitors. So they were stunned that adults were drinking three pints of beer a day. And I don't think this was just the weak beer. I mean this was kind of proper proper alcoholic beer. And again a bit like today, the women were famous for their kind of cleanliness. This is a theme that runs throughout the Dutch Republic and into the present day, the Dutch are famously obsessed with cleanliness. But also they were notorious for wearing mini skirts. And in the sixteenth century, this meant skirts that came down to the ankles So very shocking. Yeah, unbelievable. So simultaneously cleanly, but with a little hint of licentious licentiousness The men are seen as being astoundingly tall. so many are over six foot and again visitors find this astonishing. And it's just, you know, we said this is a very urbanised society Visitors cannot believe how densely populated it is, though it's kind of ninety people per square mile And effectively, the population of the low countries isn't that much smaller than England, which has a much, much kind of larger surface area. So the people are already packed in. That's why they're so clean.'s so cleanless because they're living so densely in cities. Yeah. And on top of that In fifteen forty eight, a kind of constitutional unity had been imposed on these seventeen provinces, kind of overriding all the different charters and legal systems and things. and making them kind of a united Netherlands And this had been the work of the great Habsburg emperor Charles V, who also ruled as Charles I of Spain. and as Charles I of Spain, he had become king of Mexico Peru thanks to the efforts of Cortes and Pizaro. So he is You know, he probably rules a larger empire, certainly a more global empire than anyone has done in history. I mean, he's a very formidable figure And the seventeen provinces had previously been part of the Holy Roman Empire, which Charles rules as emperor But they've been granted by this kind of act of fifteen forty eight a kind of legal and constitutional independence from the empire. So they now kind of effectively, they stand alone as a separate unity and to quote another great historian of the Dutch Revolt Jeffrey Parker. He suggests that in normal circumstances this might have formed the basis for a permanent political unit. Parker suggests ass parallels to the unions that became Switzerland in the Middle Ages and Spain, which is emerging at exactly this period from you the union of all the various kingdoms within Iberia. That's such an interesting point. Here's the question. So while Switzerland proves that you could do it with different languages, that it's not impossible and different institutions in Spain as well, of course Why doesn't it happen in the low countries? I mean, this takes us to the story that lies behind the anthem, doesn't it? It does. And I think although the story is you surprisingly very complicated and the reasons why the Dutch Revolt breaks out, there are many of them I think you can frame it in much simpler terms as having been a showdown between the two men who were mentioned in that first verse of the Wilhelmas. And the first of these, of course, is William of Nassau the prince who is supposedly narrating. The action in the Ville Helmas So who is he So he was born in fifteen thirty three And he was the eldest son of the countount of Nassau in Germany. so this is why he's described as William of Nassau And William's father is from the Rhineelland And the word that is translated as Dutch in that out on the Dutch Royal family website can also mean German. So it's Deutsche, Deutsch, Deutsch Yeah So there's a sense in which William of Nassau is actually more German than he is Dutch He's also a Lutheran, though he's been raised as a Protestant, the young William And he is although he's of noble blood, his family is unbelievably skinned. They really have very few prospects, either financial or kind of very few prospects of cutting a dash on the stage of Europe. But then in fifteen forty four there's this absolute bombshell, and it's like something out of a kind of Charles Dickens novel or something suuddenly William discovers that he has the most tremendous expectations because a very distant cousin of his, a guy who happens to be the prince of Orange which is a city in the distant southernmost reaches of France He dies childless in a siege in France and he leaves all his titles and estates to the young William. He doesn't have any closer relations. So at a stroke, this young boy becomes fabulously rich and heir to estates and lands and all kinds of properties all over Europe property is Orange, which is a Prineton. It's sovereign, it's enclosed within France, but you know it owes loyalty only to William So he is now William of Orange. Also huge chunks of the low countries, including about a quarter of Brabant which includes Antwerp, so you know incredibly wealthy area to have And this becomes the effective heart of William's inheritance And additionally, and I'll just read out the list of other properties that William has inherited He has a claim to the Vanish kingdom of Arle, again in France. He has a dukedom in Apllia He has three Italian principalities, so he's a prince four times over in other words sixteen countships, two Margvates, two visountancies, fifty Baronys and some three hundred smaller estates. Tony's done well. He really has. But the price for this is that he has to give up his immortal soul. Is that right? He has to give up his Lutheranism He wrestles with it for about three seconds and then he says, fine, whatever. I'll very happily become a Catholic. He took that seriously. And I think all his family kind of swing behind him and say ye, this is the right decision I mean, it's kind of like getting a massive scholarship to Hogwarts or something. Suddenly you are being transplanted to a completely different order of society in which opportunities are open up to you that you had never even imagined because William goes off to the court of Charles V F in Brussels place where Charles the fif is based when he's in the low countries. And Charles the F thinks this young boy is tremendous and grooms him to become one of the big players at the Habsburg Court. And by fifteen fifty five, when William is twenty two, he has become the most glamorous figure in Charles's train So he's charming He's extravagant He's been given experience in war, he's experienced in politics. I mean, he's the complete article And that October of fifteen fifty five Charles V F famously starts abdicating his very powers And he's in Brussels to abdicate his lordship of the low countries in favour of his son Philip, who is going to go on to become Philip II of Spain, the man who sends the Spanish Armader against England. But at this point, the elderly Charles V, he's very lame by this point. he's got a stick, but with his other arm he is leaning on the Prince of Orange as he goes up to the altar to offer his formal And the symbolism of this presumably is that He is their man. He is their man on the spot, their local collaborator because they basically been training him as the Habsburg representative, I guess in the low countries, haven't they? He's going to serve kind of as their their deputy in the low countries. And the reason why that is important is that Charles V's son Philip is becoming the new Lord of the Netherlands in this ceremony But shortly afterwards he is going to go to Spain and become Philip II of Spain. And Spain is a much larger, much more powerful conglomeration of territories than the low countries. And of course it also comes with all those brilliant possessions in the New worldorld So there's no question that Philip is essentially going to base himself there. and of course he's going to build this famous palace, the Escoro up in the mountains essentially kind of end up squirreled away there. So he needs people in the low countries to administer it for him. And he does rely on William to serve him as his lieutenant there. And the key legal formalization of this comes in fifteen fifty nine. When Philip appoints William as the governor or Statholder of Holland, Zealand and Urech. So in other words, the core provinces in the north of the low countries I mean, at this point, you would say what all is set fair. You know, they've got their placeman There's absolutely no hint at this stage that William would ever want to step out of lyinamine. why would he? Things are good for him Well, and he's very loyal to the Habsburgs, Charles V F has been, very good to him. So of course, it would never cross his mind. It would go against all his codes, all his loyalties. But there are I think kind of two niggling problems which will over the course of the years become worse and worse. And the first of these is that there is a personality clash between Philip and William Because Philip is very, I think is an introvert. Tongue tied He's very intellectual, he's very studious, He's very devout, very devout Catholic. And William is a massive extrovert. He's a lad. everyone loves him, He loves the dance, he loves the frolic, all of that So they're very, very different. I think there are also growing political tensions becausecause as the years go by and Philip, who is, you know, he is the Lord of the low countountries, but he's never there it becomes clear that fundamentally He is a Spanish king people in the low countries start to feel They are subordinate to him in the manner of a colonial people subject to a distant master or overlord And resentment of the Spanish presence in the low countriry starts to grow and grow. So Philip has appointed Spanish ministers to the Council of State, which is supposed to administer these provinces He's installed Spanish garrisons in the key cities and he has licensed the Spanish Inquisition. sniffing out heresy Although William, of course has become a Catholic by you know as a requirement for becoming the Prince of Orange, He's not a doctorineairere. Catholic He doesn't have the zeal of a convert. No, he doesn't. and he is worried about what the actions of the Inquisition might mean for kind of civic harmony in the low countries. and his concerns are clarified him by one episode in particular, which happens in the summer of fifteen fifty nine William has been sent as a temporary hostage to the court of France. There's kind of treaty negotiations going on. so for a few months, William has to stay there as the guest of Henry II King of France and he's looked after very well He is, as we've said, a massive extrovert. People really like him. They think he's great fun. and so he becomes great mates with Henry II. and Henry takes him out hunting in the woods of Chantill. And while they're at hunting Henry lets slip a shocking secret to William on the assumption evidently that William already knows about it. And Henry reveals to William that he, the king of France and Philip II, the king of Spain become so terrified by the growth of Protestantism in Christendom. They have agreed a full scale policy of extermination against the Protestants, the heretics as Henry and Philip see them And the hope is that ultimately this policy of extermination will embrace the entire Christian world, as Henry puts it Plam. is to begin the low countries. And William, when he's told this, is absolutely appalled But he doesn't let slip the fact that it's come as complete news to him You know, he keeps a poker face Partly I think this is out of self preservation. he doesn't want news to reach Philip that he disapproves of this policy. And I think it's also because maybe William doesn't entirely trust what he's being told by Henry and he thinks the best policy might be just to wait and see. Maybe it won't actually be an exterminatory policy. Maybe the French King's exaggerating Um, you know, he doesn't want to to make a massive fast if there isn't actually going to be a problem. And so he keeps stum about it. The French King is exaggerating a bit thereough, isn't he I mean, he's, you know, for the next few years, when when you said, you know, William keeps quiet, he does keep quiet There is no genocidal campaign against Protestants in the low countries. There are campaigns, but they're not as exterminatory as that conversation might suggest The moment comes where there is a kind of mass cycle of executions including the execution of leading members of the nobility And I think that this is seen as a kind of crunch point for all kinds of P peopleople who've been anxious about Philip's policy sees it as repressive and really is the kind of the spark that lights the tinderbox of the Dutch revolt But the thing is that during this whole period William remains what he's always been kind of very charming, sociable, fluent and so on. So 's very much not a taciturned man. an extrovert, not an introvert, as we've said. But time is coming and it will be triggered by this kind of great cycle of executions of Protestants and suspected rebels that Philip licenses when He will have to decide what he's going to do. Is he going to stay loyal to Philip and to the Habsburgs Or is he going to take the side of whom he has come to identify with and whom he is starting to see as directly oppressed and when He makes his decision, which is to side with the rebels He makes clear that that his anxieties being kind of Germinating all this time And he has been keeping quiet about it ' been hiding them. He's been That is definitely not not something that he's been talking about. And so William of Orange will come to be remembered by the Dutch not for his kind of incredible fluency, not for his master of the social arts, but for the opposite. and he will come to be known by the Dutch as Villam. This is Vica William the Silent And this is how he is known by history and it's kind of fantastic that it is in the voice of William the Silent that the Dutch team will be singing the N national anthem. when they meet Sweden Coming weekend. All right. so we will take a break and then after the break we will find out what happens to William the Silent and indeed the Dutch Revolt and how the anthem is born. This episode is brought to you by The Times and the Sunday Times Tom is another summer of top international football returns It's truly incredible, isn't it? to think about how much the world has changed between the various tournaments. Looking back to when England hosted back in nineteen sixty six, everyone in the crowd supporting England were waving union jacks What fascinating trends does that illustrate? And I suppose The last time the United States hosted the tournament was in nineteen ninety four, and the mood in America in the early nineteen nineties, you know, the Cold War was over, Clinton was in the White House. I was there for that. I was in Boston. Really I mean, that's an aspect of the story that's very rarely reported on your present. So you know what this reminds me of Tom? It reminds me that the future is always uncertain, you never know what's coming But the facts need not be uncertain And when the world feels like it's moving too fast, the times and the Sunday times empower you to make smarter, more confident decisions. Click or tap the banner now to learn more or visit theimes. com Hi everybody. We have an absolutely thrilling announcement for you. That's right, Dominiic. We are putting on another night for you at the South Bank onn Friday, the fourth of September. we will be bringing you Ultimate Victorian adventure. Yes, it really is the maddest expedition in history. 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So that is the sixth verse, the sixth of what was it? three hundred and twenty four verses? fifteen fifteen in total the sixth verse of the Wilhelmas, the Dutch National anthem. And that is from the Royal House of the Netherlands' own website, the English translation So fifty verses The first letters of these fifteen verses form an acrostic, don't they? and they spell the name Villem van Nassov William of NAassA, William of Orange William the Silent And interestingly When they're singing the anthem before matches the Dutch team They sing the first verse and the sixth verse. So it's mad that they actually sing that verse where they pledge allegiance to the greatest? What happens when they twenty ten at the World Cup final, when they played Spain and disgraced themselves? Yeah,? Well, the Spanish don't have any words at all. No they don't. They must have find it nice for people to sing about them. I mean, you in the twenty twenty World Cup final when the Dutch played the Spanish and the Dutch actually disgraced themselves in that final. but it must have been nice for the Spanish to have a little mention there in the anthem singing. Yeah of their king Yeah, exactly So why did they pair those two? So strange? That' six vers is full of biblical resonance, Dominic. So it's a kind of reminder that William had faced utter ruin but had lived to tell the tale because God is his shield and his reliance. And I think specifically, and this is made clear a couple of verses on from the sixth verse being compared to King David who's the biblical hero who'd become the favorite of Saul, who was Israel's first king by killing Goliath with his sling. as a shepherd boy and David grows up and then Saul becomes very jealous of David, hunts David and tries to kill him David had survived and ultimately prevailed. So I think William is being cast as David and Philip II is being cast as K of Saul, his former royal master who's turned against him because of course Philip had appointed William as Stadolder of Holland and Zealand had assumed that he could be relied on as a loyal servant of the Habsburg house But as we were saying in the first half, all this time, William had been tracking Philip I second's potentially exterminatory policies against the Protestants with a kind of growing sense of horror time comes where he can no longer keepe silent and w' in silent, you know speaks out against the against the exactions of the Spanish. And specifically, he chooses to speak out in fifteen sixty seven, which is the year when Phillip sends an army of ten thousand battle hardened soldiers to the low countries And its mandate is essentially to terrorize the heretics, the Protestants into submission and ultimately into oblivion. And as we said in the first hour, thousands are executed and among the people who are put to death are William's closest allies, among the Dutch nobility. And had William remained in the low countries, he would have been put to death as well. But he has sensed the way the wind is blowing He's starting to think actually all this stuff about exterminatory policy, it is actually true. And so he had retreated beyond Philip's reach into his kind of German land. so he'd gone to the provinces beyond the frontier with the emmpire And while he's absent so effectively in exile, properties from the low country are confiscated. so all those lands in Brabant, for instance. hisis eldest son is seized as a hostage and is taken to Spain won't come back to the low countries for decades and decades. and William himself is declared an outlaw obvious choice at this point for William would have been to negotiate and to reach terms and to kind of essentially submit to Phillip's demands. But He is like David in the Bible. He refuses to give up And so he mortgages all his properties He takes out massive loans and he funnels all the cash that he's raised into the cause of the resistance. And he spends on two particular kind of modes of resistance. And the first of these are privateers. so essentially pirates who are operating supposedly on behalf of whatever it is, this kind of rebellious Poto Dutch state. And there's a brilliant description of these pirates by CV. Wedgewood. You know you wrote that kind of wonderful trilogy on the English Civil War. So nineteen fifties, I think she wrote this. How has that kind of nineteen fifties feel? So she described these pirates as weather beaten ex merchantmen with second hand cannon nailed to splitting decks and patched sails bellying in the wind, manned by ruffians and patriots Dutchman and French and English, the riff raff of twenty ports and three nations, and fluttering at their mast heads, the orange trrickoler The Lion of Masau. And they're the sea beggars, aren't they And that's an insult from this it's a class classy example of someone insults you And then you co opt it, you appropriate the insult as a bad of pride the sea beggars in what they are are basically ultra Protestant pirates. Yeah, Calvinist pirates. But just on the Protestantism William the Silon is still a Catholic, is he? Yeah. And the revolt isn't just Protestants. There are still at this point, lots of Catholics We don't want to go too far into that. This is a national rising rather than a religious rising. It's definitely Protestant heavy and it's taking place in the south as well as the north because there are lots of Antwerp, for instance is definitely majority Calvinist at this point. And we are going to be looking at the intricacies of some of this in a forthcoming series on the Tudor Cold War when about the kind of the way in which England and Spain fight and the low countountries will be one of the key battlefields But I mean, I think just to keep it kind of relatively clear at this point. I think it's easiest to think of the rebels as beings Protestant. I mean they're not exclusively, but largely. But as we say, the revolt spans the whole of the seventeen provinces And William, while these pirates are busy kind of roaming the seas and yoho hoeing He's been raising an army of mercenaries in Germany and then he crosses the border, he invades And he moves into Brabant, which is his own, you know, that's where all his lands are where he's got his feudal holdings, and his aim is to challenge the Spanish to battle. But the problem is the Spanish are far too experienced, far too smart, far too militarily savvy. to fall into doing what William wants them to do And so rather than meet his challenge, the Spanish hold to their positions and just wait for William to run out of money because they know that he only has a kind of finance supply And sure enough, you know after a few weeks, the money does run out and all his mercenaries say, well, we're not hanging around and they melt away. and William has no choice but to retreat. And from that point on, things just go from bad to worst for William because keeps mortgaging more and more of his properties, he keeps launching or sponsoring invasions and they keep being defeated And also on the domestic front, things have gone very badly wrong for William because he's got a new wife and this is the daughter of the Elector of Saxony. So I think it's an attempt by William to try and build relations with the Lutheran princes to the East. And she's called Anna and She spends her whole time kind of cheating on him gettingting drunk accusing him of trying to poison her and see Hey Wedgeford who is a woman, she has this tremendous description of Anna of Saxony. herer own worst enemy, she advertised her follies as a woman And her failure as a wife everywhere thisch. It is hous ye It's really hard And crucially, he's running I mean, the one thing he needs more than anything is money and he's running out, isn't he? Yeah, I don't think that helps with Anna. I mean, you mentioned this is the Spanish strategy. So by what fifteen seventy two, he's down to his very last coppers The Cff as a bear basically. Yeah, and the Spanish have managed to take back all the kind of rebellious towns and cities across the low countries. So in footballing terms, they're kind of ten nill down, I guess, with o mayaybe three minutes ago. I mean, they really look down and out. The only sign of life really in the revolt are the sea beggars who are still kind of up and down the North Sea and into the English Channel where they have their bases because their Protestants, Elizabeth I first by this point is on the throne in England. She's Protestant and she's given them bases The problem is in fifteen seventy two Elizabeth is being leaned on by the Spanish and Elizabeth is inverterately cautious and she thinks, well, the revolt's probably over. You know, I don't want to burn my bridges with the Spanish. you know, they're not doing any good. I'll chuck them out. And so she closes their English bases to the sea beggars And they're now roaming the sea and they haven't really got anywhere to go But then Dominic, from the depths of despair, a sudden incredible comeback. It when Holland played Argentina in the last World Cup although they actually then went out on penalties, but that's by the bye. It's an incredible comeback, but this is even more incredible. This is a comeback that doesn't end in penalty tragedy because on the first of April, fifteen seventy two The sea beggars arrive off a port called Brill which is a strategically crucial port on an island kind of in the greatreat Estestuary which leads out from Antwerp and it effectively controls the waterways of Holland and Zealand. So very strategically crucial and they They sail up towards this port And to their astonishment, they find that it's empty because the entire garrison has gone off fishing They assume that you know the war is effectively over And so for the sea beggars, this is a complete open goal. and they sail into the port and they occupy it and they sack all the Catholic churches. They give assurances to the inhabitants that all will be well treated except priests, monks, and papists. So that's a reassurance and they set about turning it into a rebel stronghold And with this base, because it is so strategic suudddenly they're able to go on the offensive and they start banging in goals. Left right and center great footboalling imagery now. Thank you, Thankk you, Dominik. And the rest of the team to pursue the metaphor roused from their torpor Right And suddenly you get Calvinists and towns across Holland and Zealand are rising up, They're expelling the Spanish garrisons and they are declaring for William of Orange And by July representatives from these two provinces, so Holland and Zealand Are ready to acknowledge William basically as the guy in charge spepecifically, they confirm him in the office Philip had originally bestowed on him. So that's the office of Statholder Governor And obviously it is slightly awkward William's office derives from the King of Spain the rebels in Holland and Zealand have a kind of way around this and their wheezes to say that yes, William is the loyal servant of the King of Spain, and he's proving his loyalty to the King of Spain by attacking the Spanish. And that may sound a slight stretch to people So how can this make sense? It's because Tenses that Philip doesn't know what his generals and his soldiers and his administrators are doing in his name and would be appalled if he did So it's the classic You know, the king doesn't know what his servants are doing. I was about to say this is a classic medieval or early modern device, rhetorical device. The king is great. We love the king. It's just these corrupt and evil advisors. Yeah And so this is how William is able simultaneously to fight the Spanish and yet claim to be loyal to the King of Spain. And as you say, I think it reflects just how incredibly respectful of authority people in the sixteenth century are And even William who's been in open conflict, and the Spanish for four years. Still can't quite bring himself to acknowledge that he is a rebel because to be a rebel is know against an anointed king is the worst thing that you could possibly do You know, that's a big difference between the age of the American Revolution or the French Revolution I think in the sixteenth century it's kind of almost in the border zones of inconceivable that you could do what William is effectively doing. And this is what makes him a kind of perfect figurehead for this revolt, which likewise isn't ent I mean, it is a reaolult but it's kind of It's not a showy revolt Soir Simon Scharmer in his brilliant book on this emmbarrassment of Riches, If the Dutch finally espoused independence, they did so with the lowest possible profile So there is no equivalent of the Declaration of Independence that you get in the American Revolution It's done in a slightly kind of crabbed, well, I suppose taciturn way. I mean, that's why William the Silent kind of perfect leader for it. Yeah, you can see how there's a spectrum that comes from this to the English Civil War of the sixteteen forties where you have people moving from basically saying, Well, I'm still very much a monarchist I just happen to be fighting on the side of Parliament. And then they move towards Charles as the man of Blood. And then the other extreme, you have the American Revolution where they're ideologically leaning into the idea of rebellion and casting off king. And and then you have the French Revolution where they chopp the king's head off. So it's yeah, you can you can see absolutely see the line of descecent. But at the beginning in the sixteenth century with the Dutch Revolt, there's a reticence about it, almost a sense of embarrassment, and it's that, I think, which makes The Wilhelmus the perfect anthem for this revolt. Because of course, as we've said, it's a rebel song which proclaims loyalty in its opening verse to the very king whom the rebels are fighting So that's why you have William in that fur saying, Oh, I'm very loyal to the King of Spain. If we go to the website of the Dutch Royal familyily, which obviously one of your favorites, Tom, loveove it. The website of the Dutch Royal family says this song originated during the siege of the French City of Chartres in fifteen. sixty eight That's quite odd because that's further back and it's also in the wrong country So how how does this anthem written about siege in France Before the high points of the Dutch Revolt come to be the sort of the musical emblem of the Dutch Revolt. And what makes it even weirder is that it's aathic it's about a Catholic garrison beating off a Protestant attack So the song is originally anti Protestant and of course the rebels who compose the Wilhelmas are Protestant, a Calvinist. And I think there are two possible answers to this that perhaps are only seemingly contradictory. So the first is it's something that we've been talking about a lot in this series that it's a gesture of appropriation. So it's a bit like the sea beggars sailing into Brail and appropriating all the Catholic churches and making them Calfinist or the way in which the Hanoarians in seventeen forty five appropriate the Jacobite melody that becomes God Save the King. And there was kind of elements of that with the German National anthem as well, wasn't there? I mean, it's something that happens quite a lot. Tunes and indeed lyrics have multiple meanings, and you can seize them and turn them to your own ends. Yeah, And this is a kind of foreshadowing of what will happen in what emerges as the Dutch Republic becausecause in that, Calvinism will be ensrined as the public religion, the only one permitted to hold public services. and by and large these public services are being held in churches and chapels that previously had been Catholic. And so in a sense, The Ville Helmas. is replicating that in the form of song., isn't that nice? However, there are multiple ways of interpreting this. And so so that would appeal to the Calvinists in William's ranks. but could also see it as being a gesture of Dation. to those who are not hardcore Calvinists because it's a Protestant song with a Catholic melody. I mean that's how you could Frame it It's maybe a kind of compromise. And certainly that tells you something important about William himself and about many of the people who are rallying to his banner, because most of them are actually not hardcore Calvinists and you've been saying all along, well, remember that William is a Catholic. William only converts to Calvinism in fifteen seventy three, so that is after the Wilhelmas has actually been written. William's own ambition for this new Dutch state, which he's trying to create is that it should allow freedom of religion too, and I quote William here reformed and Roman Catholic in public or in private, in church or in chapel And ultimately, as we've said, this isn't how it works out. Calvinism does become kind of enshrined as the public religion in the Dutch revolt But that commitment to freedom of religion, which William was so strongly identified with I think for that reason it does remain a very important ideal for many people in the Dutch Republic even so. And in the seventeenth century There are all kinds of legal fictions that can be woven. are all kinds of blind eyes that can be turned Catholics say, or Quakers or Jews or Muslims practising their own forms of religion. and they by and large can do this without harassment, people are not kind of poking their noses in. It's not like Elizabeth in England where you know priest hunters are out looking for Jesuits or anything like that And in fact, Amsterdam will become one of the great centers of Jewish life in the seventeenth century. You know It will become the home of Spinoza, who isn't only Jewish until he gets excommunicated by the synagogue in Amsterdam but will become one of the great precursors of the radical enlightenment that comes to question the very value of religion itself. And so maybe in the Wilhelmas, the fact that you have this fusion of the Catholic and therotestants. It's looking ahead to the kind of post Reformation state that will kind of you know is being incubated in the Dutch Republic. pererhaps, I don't know. But this is not uniquely a Dutch thing though actually, this thing about anthems being compromises and expressing paradoxes and so on because it's actually not You know, the Remember how the Weimar Republic adopted the German anthem in nineteen twenty two as a kind of compromise between conservatives and social Democrats. and this is Not dissimilar. There's something for everybody in the anthem isn't there? Yeah, and that's people tend to see in Anthlands what they want to see I think And so the more flexibility that's built into an anthem, in a sense, the more useful it can be, particularly if it's an emergent state. And William himself, as we've been describing throughout this episode, kind of like this emergence dayate is himself a figure of parado and so that's why I think it's so appropriate that the Dutch Natural anthem today is named after him because in all kinds of ways he's the most improbable. figure to be the Dutch George Washington So to go through the list of why he is not obviously a rebel leader against the King of Spain, he is offically a servant of the King of Spain. He is a Statholder appointed by Philip. He is an aristocrat. He's the Prince of Orange. He's been born a German rather than Dutch So It's improbable, I think, that he of all men would have emerged as the kind of founding father of what becomes a very Calvinist, very anti Spanish, a very bourgeois republic in the seventeenth century But I think William becomes loved by the Dutch, not kind of despite the long journey that he's made over the course of his life, but because of it. They know what he's had to give up, they know gree to which he's been on a journey Dominic. J' just ask one quick question before we move on. Why did he go on that journey Because if it wasn't religious zeal that was powering him give all these things up to go through all these trials and tribulations What is it that made him embraced the cause of revolt when he could have probably had a much nicer life if he'd bent the kne of Hredip II and said, yeah, fine crrack on. I mean, it's a great question. And I think the answer is essentially that although he is not a committed Calvinist or indeed Catholic or maybe because of it, he has his own distinctive sense of what is right and wrong and he feels that Philip is offending against that And also, I think because even though he is of German origin He has spent most of his childhood and youth and adulthood in the low countries, but I think he has come to identify with the Dutch. I think he feels it's his kind of Godd given duty. and ultimately he ends up a martyr to that sense of duty because on the tenth of july fifteen eighty four He was assassinated in Delf. which is a very small provincial town. You know, the great Prince of Orange has been reduced to a kind of bourgeois house in Delphft And he's cornered there by a Catholic assassin called Baltazar Gerard And Gerard kills William of Orange because he sees him as a traitor both to the King of Spain and to Catholicism You know, there's no question that, um Aera is right. I mean, William had become a traitor to both Philip and to Catholicism So in fifteen seventy seven, the Spanish Gvernor of the low Country had warned Philip, Orange, so William, hates nothing more in this world than yourour Majesty, and if he could drink your blood, he would do it So Philip is alarmed by this. and so in fifteen eighty, he'd placed a bounty on William's head. This is part of what inspires Joar to assassinate William, you know. It's kind of offer of financial goodies. And William responds to this in turn's kind of it's like tennis tit tit for tat. He responds by writing an apology in which he accuses Philip of tyranny of subverting the traditional liberties of the Dutch and just for a good measure of having poisoned both his wife and his son And then the following July the rebels led by William key step, the key ideological leap. into the future that will lead us to the English Civil War and to the American Revolution and to the French Revolution When they issue an active abjuration which repudiates Philip II personally and all his heirs in perpetuity. And from that point on, Philip's head is removed from coins from official seals, his coat of arms is taken down from public buildings, It's scrubbed from documents The pattern there, I'm sure will be very familiar to our American listeners, the process by which Previously loyal British subjects end up turning against George III and branding him a tyrant. And so even though William doesn't get to see the proclamation of the Dutch Republic He goes down in history as it's ather Yeah. They're in the fill helmus,'s described as David, but there's also a massively strong suggestion that he is Moses. So Moses, you know, the great Israelite leader who had led his people bondage in Egypt across the Red Sea, so across kind of bogs and marshes and waterways in which he had destroyed the armies of Pharaoh, AKA Philip II, But then Moses dies before reaching the prromised land, just as William dies before the proclamation of what will become the Dutch Republic. in fifteen eighty eight And I think this is why throughout the Dutch Republic The Ville Helmus retains its popularity. It's deployed as a marching song going to war against the Spanish, which continues for decades into the seventienth century as a battle anthem in Wars against the English and the Portuguese And I think just as a kind of reminder to the Dutch of their liberty and all their incredible prosperity had cost them they had really, really had to fight for it. And so they owed William the man who had made it possible. But the complicated thing about it is that it's an anthem celebrating the birth of a repepublic But Holland is not a republic. The Netherlands is the kingdom of the Netherlands. Today it is, ye. Yeah. so what happens there? Is it just so protean that it can be reinterpreted as the Netherlands goes through these kind of constitutional evolutions Well dominate, we're in the process at the moment of preparing a series of episodes on the Founding Fathers of America for the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. And one of those founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, was haunted by the anxiety that the offffice of the president of the United States might mutate and become something hereditary, might ultimately evolve into something overtly monarchical. And one of the reasons he fears that is that he is aware of what happened in the Dutch Republic, where the heirs of William the Silent held his office of Statholder as a kind of hereditary office. So in Holland, every Statholder without exception was a member of William's Dynasty. And the most famous of these um literally ends up a king and this is the guy who the Prince of Orange who becomes William IId of England of Scotland and of course of Ireland head's orange men because he defeats James I second the Battle of the Booy in sixteeneen nineties, the Orange ben the Orange Order. in Northern Ireland. And eventually in the middle of the eighteenth century, the Dutch just say, Well let's drop the pretense. Yeah. Let's just turn the stat holder into a king, don't they? A bit like the Romans saying, o, well, you know, Let's not pretend obviously Caesar is now our Lord and master. It's the same thing and it's exactly the kind of the model that so alarms the founding fathers that something like this could happen The consequence of this is, you know, there are still Republicans in in what had been the Dutch Republic These Republicans come to see the Vilhelmus as a kind of polarizing song rather than as it had previously been a unifying one. What had been a kind of independent Dutch state under the conquest of the French Revolutionary arrmies, it becomes a Patavian Republic. and then it becomes a kind of kingdom under one of Napoleon's brothers. And in that period the Villehelmus is officially banned And I think even after Napoleon is overthrown and the Dutch get their independence back The Vil Helmus kind of retains the quality of the taboo. It is kind of associated with a a form of rule that they feel a bit embarrassed about. And this is despite the fact that actually the House of Orange Nassau, so the descendants of William the Silent. by this point returned to the Netherlands from exile and have actually officially proclaimed themselves monarchs, which they had not previously done So from eighteen fifteen, the heirs of Willam the Silent. rule as kings or as subsequently happens as queens. But because the scars of the Revolution are so fresh You know, they don't want to tempt fate by saying well, we will have the Vilhelmas as our anthem. You know, they want to have something that is acceptable to all their subjects, including Republicans, including people who are resentful of their dynasty And so this is kind of maps onto what you were describing about the the search in Germany for a suitable anthem, an anthem that you can tick all the boxes. And so they hold a competition to find an anthem that is less factional than the Wilhelmas. And the winning entry is one that everyone feels is splendid and is exactly what they need. And I will read the opening lines Whever has Dutch blood flowing in their veins free of foreign blemishes whose heart glows for king and country rejoice in song as we do. So what could possibly go wrong with that? Hllly unxceptional. No one can complain about that. I don't mind that. although of course the problem is that line whose heart glows for king and country because what happens if you end up with a queen? That's a massive problem And they do end up with a queen, Vilhelmina who becomes the newneemonarch in eighteen ninety and she's a very young girl when she succeeds to the throne so she's only inaugurated in eighteen ninety eight. And they sing this anthem and it' massive problem with the metrics of it. The meter is all over the place And what about now? A lot of people may have raised an eyebrow at the words foreign blemishes So I would guess in the if they still had that anthem, well if they had that anthem after about nineteen fifty There would be issues, wouldn't there in a continent, you know transformed by immigration. Well, I think even before that, it's seen as awkward. It's seen as kind of inappropriate to the age. Particularly in the early nineteen thirties, when of course the Dutch are very aware of what is going on in Germany, the discussion of kind of pure blood and foreign blemishes comes to sce a little bit Nazi and the Dutch definitely want to distinguish themselves from the Nazis. And so in the early nineteen thirties, nineteen thirty two, to be precisely one year before the Nazis come to power crees that Bill Helmus should for the first time be officially inscribed as the Dutch. National anthem. And this is despite the fact that know it's still pretty unpopular with Dutch Republicans you know, it's seen as too rooyalist, too sectarian But actually when the Nazis invade the Netherlands and occupy it, the Wilhelmus comes into its own. It provides the Dutch with a kind of great rallying point all that stuff that you get in verse six, you know, the talk of defying tyranny, William's refusal to submit to to the enemy, this becomes very moving to people in the Dutch resistance By the end of the war, even antim mononarchists have taken it to their heart. And I don't think there's any great debate now in the Netherlands that Yeah, it should be removed. I mean any Dutch listeners, if there is, let us know, but it seems pretty kind of embedded down. And so it's not the oldest national anthem. But it is the oldest song national anthem. Oh and just one further footnote, the Japanese national anthem. It's lyrics a poem from the tenth century. so that's the age of Lady Mirasaki and say Shoneigan The music is incredibly modern and the idea of using it is very modern So the Vil Helmus definitely has that status as the oldest coherent song to be a national anthem. And it perfectly captures, doesn't it the complexities of Dutch history? So you've got this Blo who's the founding father than Moses of the Dutch Republic who's actually You know it's a song about it' something happened in France. You know, he's changed religion about six times, loyalty to the King of Spain, all that sort of stuff. I like that because it's kind of I like an anthem that has a little bit of complexity, a little bit of ambiguity to it. and kind of perfectly channels As you say, lots of the complexities that have characterized Dutch history in the sixteenth century and through the centuries that have followed Fascinating story. Thankk you very much, Tom. If you're interested in national anthems generally, you can of course read the Rest is History newewsletter just can have loads about national anthems and their history. so you can go to the restest of History website, give us your email and we'll send you the newsletter, so which is completely free. If you want to hear next week's episodes, which are absolutely fascinating stories about Brazil and South Africa You can hear them right now if you're a member of the Rest of History Club and if you're not a member the club And you want to have all the amazing supplementary benefits then head to therest ishistory. com to sign up. I'll see you next time for Brazil and South Africa, and we will of course leave you with the Dutch National anthem. Bye bye. Be bye Hello everybody. 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