Brussels a large and beautiful City in the Dutchy of Brabant, Subject to the Queen of Hungary,…

Title

Brussels a large and beautiful City in the Dutchy of Brabant, Subject to the Queen of Hungary,…

Description

City map of Brussel with desriptin of all important streets and buildings. From Tindal's Continuation of Rapin's History.

ca. 1746

Artist

Rapin de Thoyras (1661-1725)

Paul de Rapin de Thoyras ( 1661 – 1725), sieur of Thoyras (and therefore styled Thoyras de Rapin), was a French historian writing under English patronage. The son of Jacques de Rapin, an avocat at Castres (Tarn), he was educated at the Protestant Academy of Saumur, and in 1679 became an advocate, but soon afterwards joined the army. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and the death of his father led him to move to England; but, unable to find work there, he went on to the Netherlands where he enlisted in a company of French volunteers at Utrecht, commanded by his cousin, Daniel de Rapin. He accompanied William III to England in 1688, and during the Williamite war in Ireland he took part in the Siege of Carrickfergus and the Battle of the Boyne, and was wounded at the Siege of Limerick (1690). Soon afterwards he was promoted to captain; but in 1693 he resigned in order to become tutor to the Earl of Portland's son. After travelling with the boy, he settled with his family (he married Marie-Anne Testart in 1699) in Holland, first at the Hague, then,at Wesel, in 1707.

Historical Description

The name Brussels is composed of the word elements bruk and sel[la], as can still be seen in the French form of the name Bruxelles. According to legend, a chapel dedicated to St. Michael was founded in the 7th century by St. Goorik on the site of the present collegiate church. With the foundation of the cathedral chapter in 1047, Saint Gudula became the collegiate church. In the High Middle Ages Brussels took a decisive upswing. From 1420, the town hall and the first guild houses were built on the Great Market. In 1430 Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, inherited the Duchy of Brabant. He made Brussels the capital of his Burgundian kingdom. The city flourished economically during this period. As a result of the Eighty Years' War and the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, the northern Netherlands became independent, while the southern Netherlands, and thus Brussels, remained under Spanish rule. In the second half of the 17th century, France under Louis XIV fought for supremacy in Europe. French rule ended in 1815 with Napoleon's defeat on the battlefield of Waterloo, located just south of the present Brussels-Capital Region. The partly French-speaking and mainly Catholic south felt at a disadvantage to the Protestant, "Dutch" north in terms of politics, education and economics. The Belgian Revolution led to the secession from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830 and the final establishment of a Belgian state.