Hello everyone and welcome to the History of England episode 324 Europe 12.

The Dutch Reconcernation and the Wall. Last time we reached the story of the Iberian

peninsula and the Wall with the Dutch Republic. So the Dutch Republic seems like the perfect

place to start this week and it will also lead us into the continuing story of Europe

and its growing colonisation outside Europe. We'll talk then about France and also there

be a wall that lasts about 30 years, about which Zack will then give us more detail

the following week. All of which is leaving mighty and glorious

frowns, horribly close to the end of our tour, but hey, as Malcolm

Sargent once said, start with a bang, and end with a bang, and no

will more care what you do in the middle. Or at least I thought,

Malcolm Sargent said that, but the various quote things on the

intertubes didn't seem to attribute it anywhere. The only quote

they had for Malcolm Sargent was an utterly daft interview question

he was asked, to what do you attribute your advanced age to which

Malcolm's response was, well I suppose I must attribute it to

the fact that I have not died a reasonable answer, but the question

which probably still disturbs the sleep of the journalist who

asked it, wins the most daft prize to this day. Anyway, we'll leave

the glitter of frowns to later in the episode. And until the

glitter of the dutch republic, now when I were all at, the 17th

century was known as the Dutch Golden Age. Despite the almost

constant pressure of war, the dutch built a society of great

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