The second half of the seventeenth century, which in many European countries witnessed rapid developments in the social, economic and political fields, was in the Dutch Republic a period of consolidation rather than change. The institutional, economic and social framework virtually remained what it had been in the early seventeenth century. The great statesmen who dominated the scene, John de Witt and William III, did not reorganise the political system, and even the issues which divided the Dutch political parties (the republican party and the party of the Orangists) differed only slightly from those which had separated Olden-barnevelt and Maurice of Orange in 1618, Amsterdam and William II in 1650. There were, no doubt, vehement political conflicts in the second half of the century, but on the whole these were conflicts between rival cliques and personalities within the governing class rather than between social groups and important political principles. It is not difficult to explain this situation. By 1650 the Dutch Republic had reached a point in its economic expansion beyond which it could not easily develop, but it had been unable to eliminate the uncertainties and tensions in its political system which had already caused dangerous clashes.

The complexity of Dutch life makes it very difficult to describe the social structure of the country. The differences between the various provinces were so fundamental that no broad generalisations can do justice to the facts. The interests, the power, even the language of the cattle-breeding gentlemen-farmers of Friesland, or of the nobility of Guelderland with its important feudal privileges, are hardly comparable with those of the urban patricians of Holland.