"The Netherlands" originally referred to an area that is now all three of what we call
Benelux or
The Low Countries.
The Netherlands were originally a bunch of
contiguous little
duchies,
counties, and
bishoprics cobbled together by the
Duke of Burgundy through inheritance and conquest.
Now,
the rise and fall of Burgundian hegemony is a story for a whole other
node. For the purpose of this node, it is sufficient to say that the French King, ostensibly the Duke's
liege1 lord, viewed the Duke's growing power as a threat, invaded his lands and killed the duke. The Duke's daughter, not to be outdone, promptly married
Maximillian. the
Hapsburg heir to
Austria and the
Holy Roman Emperor. Their son married
Joanna, the only child of
Ferdinand and Isabella. And *their* son was
Charles V, who also gave
Spain and the Netherlands, to his son
Philip II (and Austria to brother Maximillian). After this point the Netherlands were known as "the
Spanish Netherlands" for a time.
This, of course, was the time of the
Protestant Reformation. The northern half of the Netherlands turned Protestant and rebelled, the southern half remained Catholic.
Philip's general, the
Duke of Parma, was able to kick the rebels out of the country, but with the help of
Elizabeth I of
England,
William of Orange was able to get a toehold back in his country, and recapture the whole Protestant half of The Netherlands back, forming the republican monarchy we know today as "The Netherlands".
What happened to the other (Catholic) half of the Spanish Netherlands, you ask? Well the
1713 Treaty of Utrecht ending the
War of the Spanish Succession handed then back to Hapsburg
Austria, as Spain had gone to a branch of the French House of
Bourbon. So, for another 90 or so years they were "The
Austrian Netherlands", until revolutionary
France, under General
Moreau, conquered them along with the Dutch Republic. This passed into the hands of
Napoleon Bonaparte along with all the rest of the French conquests.
After Napoleon's defeat in
1815, the
Congress of Vienna set up a Kingdom of the United Netherlands with the Protestant Dutch in control. This didn't work out for very long, and in
1837 the southern half split off from the northern half. The
Powers of Europe had to recognize the new country to keep themselves from going to war against each other again. Since, in
Roman times, a
Celtic tribe called the
Belgae had lived there, it was decided to call the new country
Belgium.
1 Pardon the pun, O ye Belgae.