Quote · The Rest Is History
680. The Netherlands: The Revolt that Made The Modern World (Part 4)
Where this was said
William the Silent's Paradox and the Nature of the Revolt
At 51:57 · chapter starts 51:20
The Dutch Revolt was, paradoxically, a revolution embarrassed by its own radicalism. William the Silent, even after four years of open conflict with Philip II, still framed himself as a loyal servant of the Spanish crown whose revolt was merely correcting the abuses of wicked royal ministers. [1] — Tom Holland "If the Dutch finally espoused independence, they did so with the lowest possible profile." 51:57 Tom, quoting historian Simon Schama, notes that the Dutch espoused independence with 'the lowest possible profile' — no grand Declaration of Independence, no dramatic ideological leap. This reticence, Tom argues, makes the Wilhelmus the perfect anthem: a rebel song that in its very first verse proclaims loyalty to the king the rebels are fighting. The hosts trace a spectrum of increasing revolutionary boldness from the Dutch Revolt through the English Civil War (where people moved from monarchist to regicide almost by accident) through the American Revolution (which embraced rebellion as an ideology) to the French Revolution (which chopped the king's head off).
The melody of the Wilhelmus originated at the 1568 siege of Chartres — a Catholic garrison's victory over a Protestant attack. The Calvinist rebels then appropriated it as their own anthem, just as they appropriated Catholic churches for Calvinist worship. A Protestant song with a Catholic melody: the perfect emblem of Dutch compromise.
