The trap of history. The States Party and the Revolt of the Netherlands, 1650-1660

Abstract

Historians of the First Stadholderless Period (1650-1672) have shown that supporters of the house of Orange evoked memories of Prince William i of Orange's role in the Revolt of the Netherlands in support of their political agendas. Jill Stern has recently argued that the supporters of True Freedom therefore needed to develop an alternative interpretation of the Revolt. Since she focuses on Orangist rhetoric, she has not asked why authors who sympathized with the States Party related their political ideology to the existing popular historical narratives about the conflict. These were, after all, tainted by Orangist associations. This article will argue that the past was a rich source of inspiration for politicians in the seventeenth-century 'present' but that the use of historical references was limited by the existing dominant storylines.