The Treaty of Westphalia not only ended the war between Catholics and Protestants in Europe, but also several related conflicts, including that between the Spanish and the Dutch, by prohibiting, among other things, the Dutch from entering the port of Manila. The Dutch were gradually pushed out by the English as the dominant trading power. The French invasion of Holland in 1672 brought an end to the Short Dutch Century. Furthermore, it effectively invented the nation state as we know it: it allowed states to exercise sovereignty within their own borders and limited their influence beyond, and in effect, it consequently severely limited the powers of religious authorities.
