canals by which this water-logged land was transformed into the Holland
of the closing decades of the sixteenth century, enabled her people to
offer such obstinate and successful resistance to the mighty power of
Philip II.

The earliest dynasty of the Counts of Holland--Dirks, Floris, and
Williams--was a very remarkable one. Not only did it rule for an
unusually long period, 922 to 1299, but in this long period without
exception all the Counts of Holland were strong and capable rulers. The
fiefs of the first two Dirks lay in what is now known as North Holland,
in the district called Kennemerland. It was Dirk III who seized from the
bishops of Utrecht some swampy land amidst the channels forming the
mouth of the Meuse, which, from the bush which covered it, was named
Holt-land (Holland or Wood-land). Here he erected, in 1015, a stronghold
to collect tolls from passing ships. This stronghold was the beginning
of the town of Dordrecht, and from here a little later the name Holland
was gradually applied to the whole county. Of his successors the most
illustrious was William II (1234 to 1256) who was crowned King of the
Romans at Aachen, and would have received from Pope Innocent IV the
imperial crown at Rome, had he not been unfortunately drowned while
attempting to cross on horseback an ice-bound marsh.

In 1299 the male line of this dynasty became extinct; and John of
Avennes, Count of Hainault, nephew of William II, succeeded. His son,
William III, after a long struggle with the Counts of Flanders,
conquered Zeeland and became Count henceforth of Holland, Zeeland and
Hainault. His son, William IV, died childless; and the succession then
passed to his sister Margaret, the wife of the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria.
It was contested by her second son William, who, after a long drawn-out
strife with his mother, became, in 1354, Count of Holland and Zeeland
with the title William V, Margaret retaining the county of Hainault.
Becoming insane, his brother Albert in 1358 took over the reins of
government. In his time the two factions, known by the nicknames of "the
Hooks" and "the Cods," kept the land in a continual state of disorder
and practically of civil war. They had already been active for many
years. The Hooks were supported by the nobles, by the peasantry and by
that large part of the poorer townsfolk that was excluded from all share
in the municipal government. The Cods represented the interests of the
powerful burgher c