the "resplendent republic," or more about this whole freedom thing

When the representatives of the United Provinces left Antwerp for home after signing, amid pomp and pageantry, the Twelve Years' Truce on April 9, 1609, they returned to a country that had been transformed over the course of 30 years of war. A disparate group of provinces had banded together and made themselves into a sovereign state, and, forged by war, a nascent sense of Netherlands "nationality" began to emerge. The Dutch had succeeded in creating a politically viable and economically powerful polity that would soon be the envy of Europe. In an age characterized by great monarchs, from Elizabeth Tudor to Louis XIV, the Dutch crafted a republic, an entity entirely out of place in Europe (this isn't to say that they didn't have any experience in representative government -- see here). This was probably a result of the years of oppression under, for example, Charles and his son, when the Dutch people realized that absolutism wasn't so fun (people like de Alba didn't really help here)

I was trying to say earlier that, really, freedom is relative. It looks like, judging by Andra and Mia's posts on their countries and their struggles for true independence, it really is hard to judge when a country has completely come out from the shadow of its oppressor. As for my topic, maybe the Dutch Republic was indelibly shaped by the years under the control of the Spanish, but that isn't necessarily such a bad thing. If their response to authoritarian government was a republic, and to execution of "heretics" was an impressive display of religious tolerance, then who can say that the Spanish influence was so awful? Not that the Republic didn't have some hiccups along the way (see the whole taken over by the French thing), but it was pretty darn impressive, considering.