Professor H. G. Koenigsberger FBA is one of Britain's senior historians. German by birth, he has taught at Manchester, Nottingham, Cornell and London, and is now Professor of History Emeritus and Fellow, King's College London. Koenigsberger is also a Past President of the International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions, and in 1987 Cambridge published a festschrift in his honour under the title Politics and Culture in Early Modern Europe, ed. Mack and Jacob. In the late 1960s Koenigsberger was a founder-editor (with Professor Sir John Elliott) of the 'Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History' series, where his book is now being published.

Illustrations; Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; Glossary; Maps; 1. Prologue; 2. The beginnings of the States General; 3. The first crisis (1477-94); 4. The Netherlands becomes part of a composite monarchy (1506-31): Philip the Handsome (1494-1506); 5. Dominium politicum et regale in a composite monarchy: the regencies of Margaret of Austria (1507-30); 6. Dominium politicum et regale in a composite monarchy: the regency of Mary of Hungary, I (1531-50); 7. The Netherlands at the centre of the Habsburg composite monarchy: the regency of Mary of Hungary, II (1550-5); 8. The Netherlands at the centre of the Habsburg composite monarchy: the governor-generalship of Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy (1555-9); 9. Rule from Madrid: the regency of Margaret of Parma (1559-67); 10. The governor-generalships of the duke of Alba (1567-73) and of Don Luis de Requesens (1573-6); 11. The beginnings of parliamentary government: Holland and Zeeland (1572-6); 12. Rule by the States General: myths and realities (1576-81); 13. Parliamentary government and dominium regale (1580-1600); 14. Epilogue; Bibliography; Index.