The use of ‘privileges’ in political discourse in the early modern Low Countries

This article examines why the privileges occupied such a prominent place in Dutch rebel propaganda from the 1560s. It then considers whether these continued to be so highly regarded after the United Provinces gave up the search for a princely overlord to succeed Philip II in the late 1580s. It concludes by suggesting that with the emergence of provincial sovereignty, the privileges gradually lost their significance as one of the bastions of Dutch freedom.