Act of Abjuration

July 26, 1581

The Estates-General of the northern Netherlands formally renounced their allegiance to Philip II of Spain at The Hague. The Act of Abjuration, drafted by lawyers steeped in humanist political thought, argued that rulers who became tyrants could be deposed. It anticipated, uncannily, the American Declaration of Independence. Its argument that tyrants could be deposed influenced the American Declaration of Independence two centuries later.