OUR KINSFOLK IN THE NETHERLANDS

By R. Cox

UK

ALWAYS CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH BRITAIN

THE Netherlands  must, undoubtedly, contain a significant portion of the Israelite remnant still outside the Company of Nations. Support for this contention appeared some years  ago  in  The Voice of the Netherlands,  in  which H. Posthurnus , a Dutch writer, pointed out that ‘few people in either Britain or the Netherlands realise the age and intimacy of  Anglo-Dutch  relations.’  During the last 2,000 years by social, political and economic movements the influence of the Netherlands on British development has been considerable.

Many British and Dutch people have acommon ancestry  from  which  they  have  inherited similar qualities. Their passionate love of liberty has made them the pioneers of modern democracy and religious toleration. ‘Nations of shopkeepers’ both , their genius for commerce built up the strength which finally broke  the power of Louis XIV and Napoleon and stimulated the love of enterprise which has made them explorers and colonists in the world.

Before Caesar’s conquest of Britain, there were Low Dutch  people  who had immigrated into Britain from Flanders, because of floods; the Frisians conducted most of Britain’s import and export trade before the invasions of the Anglo-Saxons in the  fifth and  sixth centuries.  In the eighth century, England was a centre of learning. Some missionaries, like Willibrod and Boniface , worked among the Frisians. Then in the ninth and tenth centuries, the learned people of England – Alcuin among them – were driven by the attacks of the Danes to the Continent. In the latter half of  the  tenth century, the foreign trade of London laid the foundations of its future commercial greatness. Because of its relations with the merchants of  the  Dutch towns of Tiel and  Dordrecht – the greatest commercial centres of that time – England ‘s prosperity increased.

Following the Norman Conquest, there came many Flemish weavers who had a large share in  the development of England. Dutch immigrants   started sheep-farming, which was  to contribute so much to England’s early greatness. The  Flemish type of industrial organisation  inspired the formation of the English guilds of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the twelfth century Dutch merchants  had their own  private  wharves in London and were members of the Guildhall. At the time of the Conquest, many Anglo-Saxon  refugees settled in the Low Countries. Thomas a Becket escaped to Holland. Time and again Dutch soldiers have fought on English soil, where some of their descendants now are . In 1165, for  example, Henry II fought the Welsh with Flemish and Brabant troops.

With Dutch help, England had, soon after the period of Edward I , become the chief wool­growing country in Europe  and  the  services  of the  cloth manufacturers of the  Netherlands were promised: “They shall feed on fat beef and nothing but fullness shall stint their stomachs.” Again, thousands of weavers came over as instructors and assistants to the English. England at this time was still a farming country, and the capital and enterprise of the Dutch were also courted, with the result that such artisans as linen-weavers, feltmakers and clock makers were introduced. Dutch printing presses became  famous at an early date.

The first complete English Bible came from Holland, and Caxton learned his trade in the Netherlands. Many English writers like Wyclif, Chaucer and Thomas More spent some time in Holland and many of their countrymen took refuge in the Netherlands during the Wars of the Roses. The closest relations between England and the Dutch existed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. England was still short of all sorts of manufactures and most of the trade was in Dutch hands; even English fish-markets were supplied by Dutch fishermen. All this stimulated a close contact with Dutch methods, institutions and industries.

Intense Dutch immigration prepared the way for a Dutch prince on the British throne and for a large part England owes its subsequent prosperity to the effect of religious persecutors in the Netherlands. In 1527, when England’s population numbered 5,000,000, London alone had 15,000 Flemings. In 1562, 40,000 more arrived and as many in the following years. On the other hand, royal action against the Plymouth Brethren drove English Protestants to Holland; but Cromwell again sent for Dutch divines as teachers. Thousands of English Protestants were to help the   Dutch   in their   fight   with   the Spaniards, and English religious separatists went to Leyden and some sailed from there with the Mayflower to found New England. The Quakers, like many other sects, were products of Dutch sectarianism. William Penn’s wife and mother were Dutch.

Dutch gunsmiths, tapestry-makers, glaziers, printers and especially skilled drainage workers brought many new arts. Dutch engineers helped to drain the fens of Cambridgeshire, Suffolk , Norfolk and many other counties – one Dutch engineer alone reclaimed about 400,000 acres. Dutch immigrants helped to develop Manchester and the cotton industry; Newcastle and the manufacture of steel; and Sheffield, where they introduced knife-making. Dutch feltmakers laid the foundation of the hat industry; Dutchmen made the cables and cordage for the Royal Navy; they introduced paper, soap, saltpetre, silk and lace-making. They took to England that most important commodity – tea!

How the Dutch were influenced by English culture we can understand when we remember that among the English writers who lived in Holland were such outstanding people as Thomas Eliot, Thomas Wyatt, John Locke, Marlowe, Raleigh, Cartwright and Ben Jonson. Butler and John Payne took their theatre company over to Leyden in 1636.

Stalwart, pioneering Dutch folk have, in their scores of thousands, moved to the overseas countries  of  the English  speaking  Family  of Nations. They have always proved a worthy, stabilising force in these new lands.

In 1688, William of Orange was  invited  to England  ‘to restore English liberty and to  protect the Protestant religion.’ And  after  the  death  of William, close literary relations existed between the two countries. Bearing in mind this long cultural interaction between England and the Netherlands, there is  no  doubt  that  the  Dutch have felt themselves to be something more than mere allies of Britain in their struggle against evil.

One further point of supreme interest is that Salic Law – a Continental law  which excludes females from dynastic succession does  not operate in the  Netherlands where, as in England, a queen may   reign in her own right. Thus both countries observe the Zelophehad  law of ancient Israel, whereby a woman may sit on the  throne where there is no male heir.

The National flag  of  the  Netherlands  carries three horizontal bands of  red, white  and  blue. The Dutch arms have also a significant affinity with the Royal arms of Britain .

Courtesy: Wake Up!