the early stages of the Dutch Revolt when they on their own successfully defended important cities against the Spanish troops of the Duke of Alba, which helped to give them an aura of heroism. In this early period the militia often formed a separate and independent center of power of the burghers who were its members, rivaling the as the power center of the elite. This independence was symbolized by the fact that the usually elected its own officers. But starting in the early 17th century the militias lost their independence and became subservient to the regular city magistracy. They also became a part of the regular defense structure of the country, next to the States Army (though not part of that mercenary military formation). During the revolution of 1747 the attempted to restore the independent role of the , but this attempt failed. By the early 1780s the militias were but a caricature of their proud predecessors, subservient to the city magistrates, who made officer commissions the preserve of the class, and more like recreative societies than serious military formations. Many Patriots took this decline of the as a synecdoche for the decline of the Republic, and the reform of the militias was seen as an important part of the necessary reform of the Republic. But as elsewhere the stadtholderian regime blocked such reform. From 1783 onwards, the Patriots therefore started to form their own militias, parallel to the official , which they called by innocuous names like or (Free Corps) in order not to provoke the city governments. In contrast with the these competing militias were open to members of all religious denominations; they elected their own officers; and they trained regularly in military drill () and the use of arms. The Patriots proposed to use the militias to promote the representation of their officers in official councils, and to defend the rights of free assembly and speech of the citizenry. Depending on local political circumstances the Free corps sometimes remained a parallel military structure, and sometimes gradually took over the old . An example of the latter was the city of Utrecht where under the direction of the (in which the student leader Quint Ondaatje played a prominent role) the was taken over by the Free Corps, while the old organisational structure with company names like "the Pikes" and "the Black Boys" was studiously retained (including the