ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Dutch perceptions of the English and European situations by analysing the nature of the public debate surrounding the Revolution as carried out in the pamphlet literature of the period. It demonstrates that Dutch perceptions and attitudes did not change profoundly after 1648 and that, at least for the Dutch public, problems in foreign policy could still be understood in religious terms. The chapter shows that not only did the language and imagery used by pamphleteers remain predominantly religious, but also that the re-cycling of the same rhetoric as used during the wars of religion was possible, and indeed common. The pamphlets published on England in the Dutch Republic regarded the interests of the Dutch fatherland, international Protestantism and European liberty as identical. For that reason, they believed the Republic to be fulfilling its role as the protector of Protestantism from the perceived threat of a resurgent Catholicism which aimed to reduce Europe to slavery and persecution.
