Alsemero is here referencing the Eighty Years’ War, a prolonged series of conflicts between the Catholic Spanish and the Protestant Dutch. Interestingly, Middleton and Rowley were both English Protestants, far more aligned with the Dutch than with the Spanish. By having Alsemero critique “those rebellious Hollanders,” therefore, Middleton and Rowley are actually creating distance between their protagonists and their audience; all of the hijinks that follow paint the Spaniards as a hot-headed, untrustworthy people. Rather than creating empathy with their central characters, therefore, Middleton and Rowley use drama to create bias and suspicion.