Second Union of Brussels
The leader of the resistance, Prince William of Orange, went to Brussels in 1577 to try to convince the General Estates to accept the Calvinist provincial Estates of Holland and Zeeland. The population of Brussels celebrated him as a hero, and the General Estates accepted Holland and Zeeland. Lots of turmoil broke out in the Netherlands when the news spread throughout the realm. Calvinists took over the cities in Flanders and in other provinces of the Netherlands, but the estates of the eastern provinces did not accept this. The French-speaking provinces in the south started the Union of Arras in 1579, when the French-speaking Protestants were driven out. The Stadtholder of Groningen and Drenthe supported the king, and the city of Amsterdam did as well. The Calvinists had taken over most of the Netherlands and they created the Calvinist Union of Utrecht the same year. The Union of Brussels came to an end. Most of Brabant including the city of Brussels were neutral. The General Estates, which were dominated by Calvinists, fled from the Spanish army to Antwerp.
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“We are constantly thinking of the great war ... which saved the Union ... but it was a war that did a great deal more than that. It created in this country what had never existed before—a national consciousness. It was not the salvation of the Union, it was the rebirth of the Union.”
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