to secure in the Gildebrief of 1304, confirmed by the bishop in 1305,
a new constitution for the city. According to this, as emended by
a later Gildebrief of 1347, the existing board of seven Schepenen
were to retain office forilife, but the new ones, elected yearly, were
in future to be chosen by the Raad either in or outside the gilds.
The Raad itself was to be chosen by the aldermen of the gilds.
Two aldermen, later styled burgomasters, were to preside, the one
over the Schepenen, the other over the Raad, sharing this presidency
with two episcopal officials. The Schout was still to be nominated
by the bishop from among the knights, but his powers were now
comparatively insignificant. The two chief aldermen of the gilds,
with the two episcopal official presidents above mentioned, together
were to form the supreme government of the city. The victory of
the democratic principle was entirely new in the Netherlands,
though it had been anticipated in Florence, and was perhaps inspired
by Italian example. In all other cities of the Netherlands the craft
gilds remained in humble subjection to a council co-o ted from a
limited number of wealthy patrician families. In Utreclit, however,
power was henceforth concentrated in the gilds, which became not
only trade but political associations, which together constituted the
sovereign community. In this government, though the Schepenen
retained a dignified precedence, all power was practically concentrated
in the popularly elected Raad, even the estates of the see
(Sticht) had “nothing to say in the city.”
The new liberties, as might be expected, did not tend to improve the relations between the town of Utrecht and its ecclesiastical sovereign; and the feud reached its climax (1481-84) in the “groote vorlag,” or great quarrel, between the citizens and Bishop David, the Bastard of Burgundy, who had been foisted upon the unwilling chapter by the combined pressure of Duke Philip of Burgundy, his half-brother, and the pope. With the aid of John, burgrave of Montfoort, who had been called in, after the manner of the Italian podestas, and endowed with supreme power for the defence of the town, the Utrechters defeated all the efforts of their bishop, aided by the Hollanders and an aristocratic faction. They only succumbed when the weight of the archduke Maximilian was thrown into the scale against them (1484). Even then Bishop David was once more expelled in 1491. The last prince-bishop of Utrecht was Henry of Bavaria, who was elected, in May 1524, in succession to Philip of Burgundy. He took the part of the nobles against the burghers, but Duke Charles of Gelderland, jealous of the growing power of the house of Habsburg, intervened, put an end to the strife, and, in 1527, himself occupied the city. In July of the next year Bishop Henry was back again, having gained possession of the city by surprise; and in the following October he sold his temporal rights to the emperor Charles V. Utrecht, thus brought into immediate relations with the Spanish Habsburgs, proved no more tolerant of their rule than of that of its bishops, and took a leading part in the revolt of the Netherlands. The union of the seven northern provinces, proclaimed at Utrecht in 1579, laid the foundation of Dutch independence (see Netherlands). The city proved indeed a refractory member of the new league; and, after the death of William the Silent, the Utrechters, jealous of the influence of their old enemies the Hollanders, refused to recognize the authority of the council of state, and elected a stadtholder of their own. Inside the city the old aristocratic and democratic factions still carried on their traditional struggle, complicated now by religious difficulties. The Roman Catholics, though still in the majority in the bishopric, had little influence on the politics of the city, where the aristocrats inclined to the moderate (libertine) opinions advocated by the preacher Hubrecht Duifhuis, while the democrats were organized in the new church order introduced by the uncompromising Calvinist Petrus Dathenus (d. 1581). The adhesion of Utrecht to the party of revolt was the work of the aristocratic party, and the critical state of affairs made it for a while dominant in the town. The gilds and burgher militia were deprived of all voice in the government, and the town council became an hereditary body. After the advent of the earl of Leicester as governor-general of the Netherlands in 1585, a change took place. The ultra-Calvinistic Adolph, count of Nuenar, who was elected stadtholder, overthrew the aristocratic government and placed the people in power. The Utrechters, under the leadership of Gerard Prouninek, otherwise Deventer, vehemently took the side of Leicester in his quarrel with the estates of Holland, and the English governor-general made the town his headquarters during residence in the Netherlands, and took it under English protection. Though heartily disliked in Holland, Leicester made himself so popular in Utrecht that the burgher guard even presented him with a petition that he would assume the sovereignty. The withdrawal of Leicester from the Netherlands was followed by the defeat of Deventer and the return of the aristocratic party to power. The issue was decided (October 5, 1558) when the democrats were defeated in battle. Deventer was imprisoned and banished, and the former Schout, Nicolas van Zuylen van Sevender, was restored to office. An attempt of the democratic party to regain power was temporarily successful (January 10, 1610); but the estates appealed to the States General and Maurice of Nassau, who had been appointed stadtholder on the death of Nuenar, put down the movement with a strong hand, and the Utrechters found themselves compelled to yield. From this time, until the French Revolution, the ancient democratic institutions of the city remained nothing but a name.; the rights of the community were exercised by a municipal aristocracy, who held all power in their own hands. The gilds, once supreme, henceforth ceased to have any political importance. At Utrecht the treaty which closed the War of the Spanish Succession was signed on the 11th of April 1713. (G. E.)
Authorities.—Pieter Bondam, Charterboek der Hertogen van Gelderland, &c., orig. documents with notes (1783); Codex diplomaticus Neerlandicus, tome i. (Utrecht, 1848)—the documents of the first part concern the trade of Utrecht; De Geer van Oudegain, Het oude Trecht (1875); W. Junghans, “Utrecht im Mittelalter” (in Forschungen zur deutsch. Gesch. ix. 513–526); Laurent P. C. van Bergh, Handboek der Middel Nederlandsche Geographie (Leiden, 1852); Karl Hegel, Städte der Germanischen Völker im Mitlelalter (Leipzig, 1891), vol. ii. pp. 291–300. Other works are cited in the bibliography to the article on the see and province of Utrecht, above.
UTRECHT, TREATY OF, the general name given to the important series of treaties which in 1713 and 1714 concluded the great European war of the Spanish Succession (q.v.), and by which inter alia England obtained possession of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Gibraltar.
Worsted, mainly through the genius of Marlborough, in his efforts to secure the whole of the great Spanish monarchy for his grandson, Philip, duke of Anjou, Louis XIV. made overtures for peace in 1706 and again in 1709. These were rejected, and failure also attended the negotiations between France and the United Provinces which took place at Gertruydenberg in 1710, negotiations only entered upon by the Dutch after they had by a treaty with England (October 1709) secured a guarantee that they would obtain the coveted barrier of fortresses against France. But matters changed greatly during 1710 and 1711. In England in August and September 1710, the Tories, the party of peace, succeeded the Whigs, the party of war and the inheritors of the tradition of William III., in the conduct of affairs. In the Empire in April 1711, the archduke Charles, Philip's rival for the throne of Spain, succeeded his brother Joseph I. as ruler of Austria and became prospective emperor, and England and the United Provinces, having waged a long and costly war to prevent the union of the crowns of France and Spain, were equally averse from seeing Spain and Austria under the same ruler. Moreover, the allies realized at last that it was impossible to dislodge Philip from Spain, and all the peoples were groaning under the expenses and the sufferings of the war. France and England came to terms, and the preliminaries of peace were signed in London in October 1711, their basis being a tacit acquiescence in the partition of the Spanish monarchy.
The congress opened at Utrecht on the 29th of January 1712, the English representatives being John Robinson, bishop of Bristol, and Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford. Reluctantly the United Provinces accepted the preliminaries and sent representatives, but the emperor refused to do so until he was assured that these preliminaries were not binding. This assurance was given, and in February the imperial representatives made their appearance. As Philip was not yet recognized, as king, Spain did not at first send plenipotentiaries, but the duke of Savoy sent one, and Portugal was also represented.
One of the first questions discussed was the nature of the guarantees to be given by France and Spain that these crowns would be kept separate, and matters did not make much progress until after the 10th of July 1712, when Philip signed a renunciation. Then, England and France having concluded a truce, the pace was quickened and the main' treaties were signed on the 11th of April 1713.
By the treaty between England and France Louis XIV. recognized the Protestant succession in England and undertook to give no further aid to the Stuarts. France ceded to England Newfoundland, Nova Scotia or Acadia, the island of St Kitts or St Christopher, and the Hudson's Bay Territory (“sinum et fretum de Hudson, una cum omnibus terris, maribus, maritimis, fluviis, locisque, in dicto sinu et freto sitis”), and promised to demolish the fortifications of Dunkirk and to fill up its harbour. A commercial treaty signed between the two countries on the same day provided that each should allow the other the most favoured nation treatment, while each gave up the claim to
