ome general knowledge of European History. For those
who wish to carry their studies further, the bibliography appended to
each volume will act as a guide to original sources of information and
works of a more special character.

Considerable attention is paid to political geography; and each volume
is furnished with such maps and plans as may be requisite for the
illustration of the text_.

G.W. PROTHERO.

* * * * *

PROLOGUE

The title, "History of Holland," given to this volume is fully justified
by the predominant part which the great maritime province of Holland
took in the War of Independence and throughout the whole of the
subsequent history of the Dutch state and people. In every language the
country, comprising the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht,
Friesland, Gelderland, Overyssel and Groningen, has, from the close of
the sixteenth century to our own day, been currently spoken of as
Holland, and the people (with the solitary exception of ourselves) as
'Hollanders[1].' It is only rarely that the terms the Republic of the
United Provinces, or of the United Netherlands, and in later times the
Kingdom of the Netherlands, are found outside official documents. Just
as the title "History of England" gradually includes the histories of
Wales, of Scotland, of Ireland, and finally of the widespread British
Empire, so is it in a smaller way with the history that is told in the
following pages. That history, to be really complete, should begin with
an account of mediaeval Holland in the feudal times which preceded the
Burgundian period; and such an account was indeed actually written, but
the plan of this work, which forms one of the volumes of a series,
precluded its publication.

The character, however, of the people of the province of Holland, and of
its sister and closely allied province of Zeeland, its qualities of
toughness, of endurance, of seamanship and maritime enterprise, spring
from the peculiar amphibious nature of the country, which differs from
that of any other country in the world. The age-long struggle against
the ocean and the river floods, which has converted the marshes, that
lay around the mouths of the Rhine, the Meuse and the Scheldt, by
toilsome labour and skill into fertile and productive soil, has left its
impress on the whole history of this people. Nor must it be forgotten
how largely this building up of the elaborate system of dykes, dams and