The Netherlands and Europe in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Abstract

IT is well known how the old idea of the order of the Christian commonwealth was gradually replaced during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by a concept of Europe as a cultural and political entity. The awareness of a common religious and cultural heritage was closely related to the conception of a European power-system, though not altogether congruent with it. But in spite of its inherent vagueness, the ‘interest and balance of Europe’ had become by the end of the seventeenth century a term rich in diplomatic propaganda value and an idea to which politicians could commit themselves or at least pay lip-service.¹ Before the end of the next century men had learned to speak of Europe as — in the words of Edmund Burke — ‘a diplomatic Republic of Europe’ in which ‘no citizen could be an exile in any part’, a ‘society of nations’ in which no single state could act without considering the peace and interest of the entire community.²