this great power never had any strict geographical name. _Netherlands_ was too large, as it took in the whole of the Low Countries and not the emancipated provinces only. _Holland_ was too small, as being the name of one province only, though the greatest. ♦Use of the name _Dutch_.♦ And, by one of the oddest cases of caprice of language, in common English usage the name of the whole Teutonic race settled down on this one small part of it, and the men of the Seven Provinces came to be exclusively spoken of as _Dutch_. ♦The Spanish Netherlands. 1578-1706.♦ Meanwhile the southern provinces, the greater part of Brabant and Flanders, with Artois, Hennegau or Hainault, Namur, Limburg, Luxemburg, and the southern part of Geldern,—taking in Antwerp at one end and Cambray at the other—remained under the sovereignty of the representatives of the Burgundian Dukes. That is, they remained an outlying dependency of the Spanish monarchy. But their southern frontier was open to constant aggressions on the part of France. ♦Dunkirk held by England. 1658-1662.♦ _Dunkirk_ indeed was for a moment held by England, as Calais and Boulogne had been in earlier times. ♦Cession of parts of Artois and of Gravelines, 1659;♦ By the Peace of the Pyrenees France obtained Arras and the greater part of Artois, leaving Saint Omer to Spain. ♦Dunkirk, 1662;♦ France also began to work her way up along the coast of Flanders, taking _Gravelines_ by virtue of the treaty, and presently adding Dunkirk by purchase from England. ♦Philippeville, Marienburg, Thionville.♦ The treaty also added to France several points along the frontiers of Hainault, Liège, and Luxemburg, including the detached fortresses of _Philippeville_ and _Marienburg_, and _Thionville_ famous in far earlier days. During the endless wars of Lewis’ reign, the boundary fluctuated with each treaty. ♦1668. | 1677.♦ Acquisitions were made by France at the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, some of which were surrendered, and others gained, by the Peace of Nimwegen. ♦Boundary fixed by the Peace of Utrecht. 1713.♦ At last the boundary was finally fixed by the Peace of Utrecht in the last days of Lewis. Parts of Flanders and Hainault were finally confirmed to France, which thus kept _Lille_, _Cambray_, and _Valenciennes_. ♦The Spanish Netherlands pass to Austria.♦ The provinces which had hitherto been Spanish now passed to the only surviving branch of the House of Austria, that which reigned in the archduchy and supplied the hereditary candidates for the Empire. ♦Annexed by France. 1792.♦ The first wars of the French Revolution added the Austrian Netherlands to France, and with them the bishopric of Lüttich which still so oddly divided them. ♦Kingdom of Holland. 1806-1810.♦ A later stage of the days of confusion changed the Seven United Provinces, enlarged by the addition of East Friesland, into a _Kingdom of Holland_, one of the states which the new conqueror carved out for the benefit of his kinsfolk. ♦Holland annexed by France.