Southern Netherlands - Spanish Netherlands

The Spanish Netherlands (Dutch: Spaanse Nederlanden, Spanish: Países Bajos españoles) was a portion of the Low Countries controlled by Spain from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, inherited from the Dukes of Burgundy. Although the territory of the Duchy of Burgundy itself remained in the hands of France, the Habsburgs remained in control of the title of Duke of Burgundy and the other parts of the Burgundian inheritance, notably the Low Countries and the Free County of Burgundy in the Holy Roman Empire. They often used the term Burgundy to refer to it (e.g. in the name of the Imperial Circle it was grouped into), until the late 18th century, when the Austrian Netherlands were lost to the French Republic.

When part of the Netherlands separated from Spanish rule and became the United Provinces in 1581 the remainder of the area became known as the Spanish Netherlands and was still under the control of Spain. This region comprised modern Belgium, Luxembourg as well as part of northern France.

The Spanish Netherlands originally consisted of the whole of the

• county of Flanders, including Lilloise Flanders
• county of Artois
• city of Tournai
• Cambrai (roughly the département Nord and the northern half of Pas-de-Calais in modern France)
• duchy of Luxembourg
• duchy of Limburg
• county of Hainaut
• county of Namur
• heerlijkheid of Mechelen (officially a county since 1490)
• duchy of Brabant, including the Margraviate of Antwerp
• the Upper Quarter (Bovenkwartier) of the duchy of Guelders (around Venlo and Roermond, in the present province of Dutch Limburg, and the town of Geldern in the present German district Kleve)

The capital was Brussels in Brabant.

In the early seventeenth century, there was a flourishing court at Brussels, which was under the government of King Philip III's half-sister Archduchess Isabella and her husband, Archduke Albert of Austria. Among the artists who emerged from the court of the "Archdukes", as they were known, was Peter Paul Rubens. Under the Archdukes, the Spanish Netherlands actually had formal independence from Spain, but always remained unofficially within the Spanish sphere of influence, and with Albert's death in 1621 they returned to formal Spanish control, although the childless Isabella remained on as Governor until her death in 1633.

The failing wars intended to regain the 'heretical' Northern Netherlands meant significant loss of (still mainly Catholic) territories in the north, which was consolidated in the 1648 Westphalian peace, and given the peculiar, inferior status of Generality Lands (jointly ruled by the United Republic, not admitted as member provinces) : Zeeuws-Vlaanderen (south of the river Scheldt), the present Dutch province of Noord-Brabant and Maastricht (in the present Dutch province of Limburg).

As Spanish power waned in the latter decades of the seventeenth century, the territory of the Spanish Netherlands was repeatedly invaded by the French and an increasing portion of the territory came under French control in successive wars. The French annexed Artois and Cambrai by the Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659, and Dunkirk was ceded to the English. By the Treaties of Aix-la-Chapelle (ending the War of Devolution in 1668) and Nijmegen (ending the Franco-Dutch War in 1678), further territory up to the current Franco-Belgian border was ceded, including Lilloise Flanders (around the city of Lille), as well as half of the county of Hainaut (including Valenciennes). Later, in the War of the Reunions and the Nine Years' War, France annexed other parts of the region.