History of the United Netherlands, 1587b

Book excerpt: This work is a part of several volumes on the history of the United Netherlands, presenting a precise outline of the Eighty Years' War and the formation of the modern Netherlands after the foreign political conspiracy. History of the United Netherlands, 1587b is a well-researched work by American author, diplomat, and well-known historian, John Lothrop Motley. He believed it was necessary to unfold, as minutely as possible, the confidential details of conspiracy of king and priest against the public and to show how it was perplexed at last by the strong self-helping forces of two free nations combined. In this work, Mortley talks about important events in the history of the Netherlands, such as the Trial of the Queen of Scots; Netherland Envoys in England; the Queen's bitter Invective against them, and many more. Mortley is best known for his works on the Netherlands like the three-volume work The Rise of the Dutch Republic, and the four-volume History of the United Netherlands. It was mainly the period of the United Provinces in 1846 when Motley had begun to plan a history of the Netherlands. This work was prepared on a huge scale and embodied the results of a more considerable amount of original research. Motley planned to carry his history down to 1648, but unfortunately, he died before finishing this work. By then, he had published, in four volumes, The History of the United Netherlands, 1584–1609 (1860–67).