What? That catholics were opressed?
Opression is a relative term, I suppose. Catholics weren´t allowed to openly practice or endorse their own religion, and I imagine that would have been a good enough reason for some to emigrate to, say, the USA.
There was no functional hiearchy for the catholic church until the second half of the 19th century, when the last restrictions were lifted and the Pope decided to rebuild the church organisation in the Netherlands. This caused widespread unrest in the protestant parts of the lands, and our king showed his support for the unrest by saying he understood where they were coming from and that he wasn´t a fan of the papists either. This prompted our government (led by Thorbecke) to resign, and this in turn led to the tradition that the king/queen doesn´t open his mouth without consulting the PM.
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