Mauritz

Maurits' Sunday suit (replica)

Some Dutch history now. I blogged some of this stuff before. Because nationalism is not a great/big political issue here, I can safely blog some stuff from our great national history. The current Dutch identity (with our queen and all) was basically formed in/by the 80-year war with the Spanish king Philip-II. It was not just a quarrel between the Dutch protestants and the Spanish catholics (everybody was catholic is those days) - it was much more a fight about land, identity, ruling.

The 80-year war is/was idealized as the beginning of the Dutch Nation. On the other hand it was a dirty, gueruilla type of war, both from the Dutch and the Spanish side. Nowadays this would be a serious case for the International Court Of Justice for warcrimes.

Maurits van Nassau [1567–1625] was the son of William the Silent [1533—1584]. He was the Dutch military genius in those days - and he had some cool gear too ... ;)

We Dutch have very few songs about this time. You have to dig very deep to find this one [The Trumpet Player].

Enjoy