Dutch Civic Virtues, Protestant and Enlightened: Anti-Catholicism and Early Cultural Nationalism in the Netherlands Around 1800

‘I Said: Hymn 38!’ The Reception of the Protestant Reformation in The Netherlands at the Turn of the Millennium—The Case of ‘The White Cowboy’

“…In 1648, the Peace of Münster was signed, ending the war of independence from Spain in favour of the northern Protestant rebels. One of the consequences of that treaty was that the Dutch Reformed Church (Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk; only named so since 1816) became the de facto (if not official) state church, more or less leaving other Protestant (predominantly Calvinist) denominations and Roman Catholicism to be the only one tolerated, or even to be persecuted (Hagen 2013). From the late 16th century onwards, the Netherlands, in all its different political iterations, identified itself as a Protestant nation (Ihalainen 2005;van Sas 2005, p. 56;de Kok 2007, p. 260), with the notable exception of the Catholic southern 'Belgian' parts (that revolted successfully in 1830 for independence), and the remaining southern Dutch provinces of North Brabant and Limburg.…”