The year 1672 changed the course of history of Western Europe and the United Provinces (also called "The Republic", now the Netherlands) were central to that change.
The setting of the sceneThe United Provinces wer mired in political crisis. Traditionally, power was divided among nobility, represented by the Prince of Orange and rich merchants, called regents, represented before 1672 by the De Wit family. Orange controlled foreign and military affairs, the merchants called the shots for domestic policy. Their interest met in seaborne trade and clashed in military expenditure.
In 1650, William II of Orange died. His son, the future William III of Orange was 8 years old. The regents saw their chance and grabbed it. The position of stadhouder, the traditional title of the Oranges, was abolished in most provinces. The Orangists were leaderless, though some re-assembled around William-Frederick of Nassau-Dietz, a highly able military leader and fine diplomat.
The regents built down the army quite considerably, but maintained navy strength, with a view to protect the merchant fleet. They even planned to expand the navy. Yet, a pair of wars against Stuart England, sapped navy strength also. In its military weakness, the Republic lost influence on its neighbours.
The catalyst turned out to be Louis XIV, the sun king. He had waged a record number of wars, mostly successful, expanding French territory on all sides. Louis felt personally insulted when the secret clauses of the
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1668) became known, as they were clearly aimed against France and its policy of territorial expansion. Disdainfully, Louis called the Republic the "mud of French rivers". His reaction was the secret Treaty of Dover with Charles II, aimed against the Republic. Louis couldn't invade the Republic directly, as it would have entailed going through the Southern Netherlands (now Belgium), because the Habsburg emperor rightly saw Louis as a greater threat than the Republic and refused him access. Therefore, Louis allied himself with the powerful Wittelsbachs, dukes of Bavaria. They couldn't turn Bavaria against the emperor, but they could and did grant Louis the right to go through other lands they controlled. Traditionally, the bishop of Cologne and the Prince-Bishop of Liège/Luik were younger sons of the Duke of Bavaria. The bishop of Munster, an old Saxon fief, was enlisted also. The two bishops would invade from the East, while France would invade from the South. The Stuarts saw the Republic as their main competitor in trade and dominion of the oceans. They would invade the Republic from the West. A plot to have Sweden invade from the North failed.
The Dutch warIn 1672, Louis' main general, the prince of Condé, dutifully marched around the Habsburg lands with an army that was considerably larger than anything the Republic still had. From March to June, several Dutch cities and fortresses fell. With the conquest of the fortress Naarden, Holland was about to be separated from the other provinces. A combined French-English fleet prowled the North sea, offering a constant threat of invasion. The bishops marched against the North. The Dutch population panicked. In June, the war started to turn, though. The combined enemy fleet was roundly beaten at Solebay, effectively removing the threat of a seaborne invasion. Condé, who was wounded, was replaced by Luxembourg and Turenne, who were considerably less aggressive. The bishops were halted at Groningen and started to pull back.
The population of The Hague turned against the regents. The De Wit brothers were imprisoned, tortured and lynched when they were released. The regents hastily appointed William III captain general for one campaign. William capably used the big rivers to stop the French. The Republic undertook a daring attack on Charleroi, far behind the French lines.
The French army, deserted by all its allies, started to pull back, partly across Habsbug lands. Maastricht was besieged in vain. The real d'Artagnan was killed there. Condé, still sick, returned with orders to "kill, plunder, burn and destroy cruelly and mercilessly" anything he could. That made the Spanish Habsburgs and the German emperor, also a Habsburg, come over to the Dutch side. The Stuarts started a third sea war against the Republic and were once again defeated. Louis was beaten.
ConsequencesThe Stuarts were slowly hemmed in by their own parliament. Eventually, William III would succeed them as king. France was exhausted. In his final years, Louis would lose much of what he had gained before. Moreover, he was diplomatically isolated, becoming increasingly powerless, while his absolutism without results laid the basis for the French revolution. The power of the Wittelsbach family receded continuously from 1672, until they were weak enough for Prussia's Hohenzollerns to replace them as the principal alternative for the Habsburgs. The Republic gained powerful allies on all sides. Even more significant, they realised the importance of keeping the catholic minority happy and guaranteed freedom of religion for them in the Treaty of Nijmegen (1679). This made the country a magnet for the religiously persecuted in other countries, many of them intellectuals, who contributed greatly to Dutch society. The 100 years after 1672 is known as the "golden century" of Dutch history. In the years after 1672, the Dutch monetary system was thoroughly re-organised, producing coin series that could be maintained until the French came back in 1795.
The tokensI found these two tokens just a few paces apart, from different sellers.
I like to think the first one is connected to Geertruidenberg. That place was on the wrong side of the big rivers and a HQ for the French army. It is one of only three Dutch towns that have a Frenchified name: Mont Saint-Gertrude. On one side is a standard portrait of Louis with the nickname he favoured: LVDOVICVS MAGNVS - Louis the great. It didn't stick, so he must still make do with "the sun king". The other side shows a personification of the Netherlands, on her knees, weeping in front of a large stake, crowned with a municipal (not royal) crown to which a lion skin (the lion is a heraldic symbol of the Netherlands) is nailed with six (should have been seven) arrows - symbolic of the Seven United Provinces. A cow (agriculture) anchor (sea-faring) and fisherman with net lie around in tatters. The legend VLTOR REGVM is avenger of kings. The message is that Louis laid waste to the Republic because it insulted him. This is no doubt a cheap and sloppy version of the reverse of a silver medal shown
hereThe second token is linked to the
battle of Seneffe (1674), which took place when the French army was withdrawing, sowing death and destruction. William III, abandoned by his German allies who were miffed they had not obtained the supreme command, was isolated, but still inflicted enough damage on the French army to call the outcome a draw. The tokens sees it differently. An angel (divine support) with a laurel wreath (victory) and a flag flies over spoils of war: fallen standards (the French claim of victory rested on the number of standards taken), a canon, vats of gun powder and canon balls. The legend PVGNA AD SENEFFAM loosely means "wrestling at Seneffe". The token was made in Nuremberg.
Louis XIV was generally an unpleasant, haughty, arrogant character with strong nationalistic policy impulses, disdain for foreigners, ready to destroy and hungry for real estate. Part of that is being a child of his time, but these tokens show that he had his own version of Fox News

Peter