REMBRANDT After the death of Holbein, artists in the north of Europe passed through troublous times till the end of the sixteenth century.

France and the Netherlands were devastated by wars.

You may remember that the Netherlands had belonged in the fifteenth century to the Dukes of Burgundy?
Through the marriage of the only daughter of the last Duke, these territories passed into the possession of the King of Spain, who remained a Catholic, whilst the northern portion of the Netherlands became sturdily Protestant.

Their struggle, under the leadership of William the Silent, against the yoke of Spain, is one of the stirring pages of history.

By the beginning of the seventeenth century, seven of the northern states of the Netherlands, of which Holland was the chief, had emerged as practically independent.