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In my exploration of the history of the Spanish Netherlands, I have looked into the background of the area, and, specifically, the leadership of Charles V and Philip II, and how their particular actions of governance led to the general discontent of the Dutch peoples. Ultimately, it seems that the final straw in the divergence between the conflicting factions in the Spanish Netherlands, that ultimately led to war and the eventual independence of the Dutch Republic, was the religious clash between the Roman Catholic provinces (mostly in the south) who remained loyal to Spain, and the activist Protestant movement in the north. Although my final argument is not fully realized yet, I plan to explore the continuation of this religious divide into the years after Dutch independence, to see how the history of conflict and foreign control shaped the Dutch Republic in its growth as a fledgling nation, and how the same history shaped the subsequent centuries from the point of view of other powers in the region. In order to do that, I plan to look into the lives of the next generation of leaders, including Louis XIV of France, Carlos II of Spain, and William of Orange, of the Dutch Protestants, and the results of the War of the Spanish Succession, even, ultimately, post-Napoleon and the creation of modern Belgium and Luxembourg as ‘neutral’ states.