The following in an excerpt from Peter Geyl’s essay Motley and his ‘Rise of the Dutch Republic’ , a critique of the historian of John L. Motely who influenced English and American attitudes about the importance of the Dutch Revolt. What connections might you see between Geyl’s essay and Whig History as explained by E.H. Carr? Are there any historians who might be so bold as to defend, or at least explain apologetically, the decisions of Philip II? How might Philip himself defend the positions he took vis-a-vis the Netherlands?

Motley sees Philip and his servants (above all, that unspeakable man of blood, the Duke of Alba) as the forces of Evil. He admits no redeeming features. He cannot accept that they honestly believed themselves to be doing their duty, and instead of explaining their harsh policy as conditioned by the prevailing sentiments of their time, or as the outcome of all-too-human shortsightedness or stupidity, he can see nothing but the crimes of cruelty or sycophancy. It is not only Philip who is to him the Prince of Wickedness. In the Netherlands he [Motley] sees the rulers, throughout the centuries preceding the revolt, trying to fasten lawless domination and oppression upon a brave, innocent, and liberty-loving people, a people as brave, innocent, and liberty-loving as were the English who rose against the Stuarts, and the Americans who rose against George III. This to him, is the true meaning of history: the struggle between Despotism and Liberty resulting in the glorious victory of the latter. The Netherlands and the English revolts had been important contributions to this victory, until it was finally consummated by the American Revolution.

I hold no brief for despotism, nor do I wish to decry liberty. But the simplistic view of Motely is a denial of history. History is not made up of struggles between God and the Devil. The absolute rulers of the 16th century, and indeed their predecessors, tyrannical as they were at times, do represent a beneficent principle: they were the builders of states in which order prevailed – order, not of subjection only, but of law.