The seven provinces signing the treaty were Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Overijssel, Groningen and Friesland. The treaty was a reaction of the Protestant provinces to the 1579 Union of Arras[?] (Dutch: Unie van Atrecht), in which the southern provinces (most of them now part of Belgium) declared their support for the Catholic Spanish.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump