The Battle of Borgerhout was a battle during the Eighty Years' War, of the Spanish Army of Flanders led by Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, upon a fortified camp at the village of Borgerhout, near Antwerp, where several thousand French, English, Scottish, and Walloon soldiers in service of the recently created Union of Utrecht were stationed. It took place during the reconquest by the armies of Philip II of Spain of the Burgundian Netherlands, whose different provinces had united in 1576 under the Pacification of Ghent to drive out the foreign troops and to grant religious liberty to Protestants.
Despite the rebel victory at the Battle of Rijmenam in July 1578, much of the Southern Netherlands were lost to the Spanish Army during the autumn; Brussels was menaced, and the States General were moved to the safer Antwerp. Taking advantage of the Dutch rebel army's indiscipline, Farnese decided at the beginning of 1579 to besiege Maastricht. As a feint to distract the Dutch rebels from his goal, but also aiming to scare Antwerp's inhabitants, Farnese moved with his troops to surprise the village of Borgerhout, very close to Antwerp, where a part of the Dutch States Army had its quarters, namely 3,000 or 4,000 infantry which were the backbone of the rebel army and consisted of French Calvinists under François de la Noue, and English and Scottish troops under John Norrey's orders.
On 2 March Farnese deployed elements of his army in a plain stretching between his position at the village of Ranst and the Dutch camp at Borgerhout, which Norreys and De la Noue had fortified with moats, palisades, and earthworks. The assault was divided into three columns, each one provided with a mobile bridge to pass over the camp's moat. After one of the attacks, undertaken by Walloon troops, succeeded in securing a bridge, the Spanish forces were able to attack the States-General's soldiers inside their camp. Norreys and De la Noue's men opposed a strong defence, but Farnese, throwing his light cavalry into the battle, forced the Dutch troops to abandon Borgerhout and look for shelter under the artillery of Antwerp's walls. William of Orange, leader of the Dutch revolt, and Archduke Matthias of Habsburg, Governor-General of the Netherlands appointed by the States General, witnessed the fight from Antwerp's walls.
The battle meant the destruction of the villages of Borgerhout and Deurne and saw up to 1,500 men killed between both armies. Farnese then proceeded to besiege Maastricht, which the Spanish Army invested less than a week after the battle and was taken by assault on 29 June of the same year. Farnese's successful campaign opened the way to a nine-year period of Spanish reconquest of much of the Netherlands.
The Dairy Cow, an English anonymous painting that depicts Philip II, William of Orange, Elizabeth I, and the Duke of Anjou fighting over the Netherlands, which are embodied in a cow (c. 1585). Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.
In 1566 the Burgundian Netherlands, Charles V of Habsburg's original realm, which had passed to his son Philip II of Spain on his abdication in 1556, were in disarray due to religious tensions between Protestants and Catholics and the nobility and cities' unwillingness of funding Philip's wars and ceding its powers to the Royal administration.[1][2] In 1567, Philip sent an army to the Netherlands under Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, to restore his authority, but Alba's persecution of the religious and political dissenters led William of Orange, the leader of the nobility, to exile into Germany and prepare an invasion of the Netherlands to expel Alba.[3]
Orange invaded the Netherlands twice, in 1568 and 1572, but in both occasions Alba defeated him. The second time, however, the revolt spread into the provinces of Holland and Zealand, and Alba was unable to quell it.[4] In 1576, the lack of an authority due to the death of Alba's successor Luis de Requesens, together with a Spanish general bankruptcy, led the Spanish mutinous soldiers to sack several towns, including Antwerp. In reaction, the loyal and rebel provinces united to expel the foreign troops under the Pacification of Ghent.[5][6]
John of Austria, the victor of Lepanto and replacement to Requesens, had no choice but to sign the Perpetual Edict in 1577, accepting the Pacification of Ghent, but later, frustrated by the intransigence of Orange and his supporters, he seized the citadel of Namur and recalled his troops.[7] John's striking victory at the Battle of Gembloux in January 1578, was followed by a tactical defeat at Rijmenam in July, and John himself died of plague in October.[8] However, despite the Spanish failure to exploit militarily the victory of Gembloux, it rendered important political benefits to the royal cause in the Netherlands, as it shattered the unity of the Dutch rebels.[9] As a consequence of the battle's outcome, the leaders of the main families of the Southern provinces lost faith in Orange's cause and the promises of aid made by the English queen Elizabeth I, which meant an important setback to Orange.[10] Aiming to restore the military capability of the Dutch rebels, Elizabeth arranged with John Casimir, son of the Calvinist Elector Palatine, the raising of a German Army under English pay to assist the Dutch troops[11] John Casimir brought to the Netherlands 11,000 men, but instead of fighting the Spanish, he sided with the Calvinist extremists at Ghent and widened the gap between the Catholic and Protestant rebels.[9][11] The States General also called for help from Francis, Duke of Anjou, brother and heir to the King of France, who entered Mons in July 1578, but was back in France in a short time.[12]
The Catholic nobility and southern provinces' defections, already started in the autumn 1578, expanded further when the provinces of Hainaut and Artois on 6 January 1579 concluded the Union of Arras, which Walloon Flanders would soon join. The Catholic provinces of Namur, Luxembourg, and Limburg were already controlled by the Spanish. The Union of Arras opened talks in February with Alexander Farnese, who succeeded his uncle John of Austria as the Royal-appointed Governor-General of the Netherlands, to reconcile with Philip II.[13] In response, a meeting took place in Utrecht shortly thereafter between deputies from the northern provinces of Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Friesland, Gelderland, and Ommelanden, which signed an alliance and union on 23 January.[14] In the south, meanwhile, Farnese was planning the capture of Maastricht to use the city with its stone bridge over the Meuse as a base to conquer Brussels and Antwerp in the following campaigns.[15] In November 1578, the Spanish Army left Namur and crossed the Ardennes and Limburg. However, Farnese deemed too risky starting the siege of Maastrich at midwinter and with John Casimir's numerous cavalry in the countryside.[16]
For the 1579 campaign, Farnese planned two different movements. A portion of his army, under Cristóbal de Mondragón, was to clear the area between Maastricht and the German border of Dutch garrisons, while Farnese himself, ahead of the main army, decided to move against Antwerp with two objectives: to neutralize the Dutch field army, or primarily its German cavalry, before laying siege to Maastricht and to distract the Dutch from the campaign's real objective.[17] The first part of the plan was accomplished when Mondragón took the towns of Kerpen, Erkelenz, and Straelen between 7 and 15 January.[18] On 24 January, Farnese moved to attack the States General army, which was at Weert, east of Antwerp.[19] Outnumbered, François de la Noue, who had taken the role of field commander of the States' army after the Count of Bossu's death, left some States' troops in the Castle of Weert and withdrew to Antwerp with his unpaid men. They asked the city council to allow them to enter the city, but it was refused, and De la Noue had no choice but to entrench his army outside the walls, in the village of Borgerhout.[20] This was a residential area for the wealthy inhabitants of Antwerp where they had country houses and gardens, among them Peeter van Coudenberghe's botanical garden, which had more than 600 exotic plants.[21]
In the meantime, Farnese entrusted to Count Hannibal d'Altemps the capture of Weert and continued his advance upon the Dutch Army. D'Altemps encircled Weert with 6,000 men and breached its walls with a two-cannon battery.[19] The defenders of the castle surrendered at discretion but, on Farnese orders, were hanged from the windows, which the Count willingly did because his steward had lost an eye during the siege.[22] Farnese, instead of following the Dutch Army to its quarters, lodged in Turnhout with his troops and his court to forage.[20] Before moving to Antwerp he dealt with John Casimir's German army. Spanish troops attacked and defeated part of the German reiters near Eindhoven on 10 February.[23] Moreover, while John Casimir himself was in England dealing with Elizabeth I, Farnese agreed with his lieutenant, Maurice of Saxe-Lauenburg, the withdrawal of the Calvinist army, which the Spaniards allowed to leave the Netherlands freely.[24] Once this matter was finished, Farnese advanced upon Borgerhout.[25]
The Dutch States' troops quartered in the village of Borgerhout numbered 25 or 40 infantry companies which comprised from 3,000 to 4,000 soldiers,[26][27] plus 100 additional mounted troops. They were the backbone of the rebel army and William of Orange referred to them as "his braves".[28] Moreover, they were led by officers of renown such as François de la Noue and John Norreys. To confront the Spanish Army, they were detached along the village of Borgerhout, which they had fortified by digging a moat and building an earth rampart around the village, from the bridge of Deurne over the Groot Schijn stream, which flowed into the Scheldt, to the road of Voetweg, which ran parallel to the canal of Herentals.[27]
Orange deployed four additional French infantry regiments and Walloon troops from the nearby garrisons of Ath and Termonde behind Borgerhout and under the protection of Antwerp's citadel and moat.[27] The city's civic guard, numbering 80 flags of armed and trained burghers, was ready to defend the city if necessary, but not willing to go out to join the battle nor to allow the regular troops to come within Antwerp. The Spanish soldier and chronicler Alonso Vázquez claimed that Orange's army had, in all, 25,000 men.[29] Farnese deployed a 5,000-man vanguard, both infantry and cavalry, in the plain which separated his camp at Ranst from Borgerhout.[30] Three small battalions, not surpassing 12 companies each, but made up of chosen men, went in advance; the right was taken by the Spanish tercio of Lope de Figueroa, the center by a Lower German regiment under Francisco de Valdés, and the right by a Walloon regiment under Claude de Berlaymont, known as Haultpenne.[31]
Each formation was supported by a sleeve of 100 musketeers, a group of men armed with axes to cut the palisades and a wheeled bridge to cross the moat.[31] A corps of light cavalry led by Antonio de Olivera followed the infantry at some distance with instructions to cover its withdrawal if the attack went bad, or to follow up the victory, if it took place.[31] According to Alonso Vázquez, Farnese made the Walloon soldiers of the Spanish army wear white shirts over their armor, a practise common in night attacks known as camisades, to distinguish themselves from the Walloons who fought for the Union of Utrecht. Thus the Walloons looked, in his words, like "a very colorful procession of clerics and sacristans".[32]
In reserve, Farnese deployed a large battalion made up by the German regiments of Hannibal d'Altemps and Georg von Frundsberg, flanked on its right by troops of reiters under Duke Francis of Saxe-Lauenburg, elder brother of Duke Maurice, John Casimir's former lieutenant, and on its left by lancers under Pierre de Taxis. The remaining Spanish cavalry, led by Ottavio Gonzaga, covered the rear.[33] Farnese led his troops personally, and before the battle was started, he scouted the Dutch position, having ordered his troops not to move until his return.[34] On the Dutch side, while De la Noue and Norreys directed the men standing in Borgerhout, William of Orange witnessed the battle from the walls of Antwerp in company of Archduke Matthias, brother of the Holy Roman EmperorRudolf II, whom the States General had elected as Governor of the Netherlands in opposition to the deceased John of Austria.[35]
The fight started with the three battalions of the Spanish first line advancing upon the Dutch camp, each one trying to be the first to lay its bridge over the moat.[36] Haultpenne's Walloons, headed by Sergeant-Major Camille Sacchino, moved up to Deurne, crossing the Schijn river at the small village of Immerseel. Valdés' Germans advanced frontally to Borgerhout across the Borsbeek road, and Figueroa's Spaniards took the Voetweg road to assault the Dutch camp from the south. While the sleeves of musketeers from the Spanish and German units exchanged fire with the Dutch troops covered by the rampart, Sacchino's Walloons drove the defenders of Deurne behind the Groot Schijn stream and took its bridge.[37]
De la Noue sent reinforcements there to contest the assault, but they arrived too late to prevent the Walloons from laying their bridge over the moat and began to climb the rampart, starting a close combat with the Dutch troops.[37] In the meantime, the Spanish and German troops, supported by two or three artillery pieces, breached the rampart, crossed the moat, and also started to come inside Borgerhout, where De la Noue and Norreys' men reorganized and stood on the barricaded streets.[28] Farnese, seeing that his attack was going well, ordered Olivera to advance with his cavalry to support the infantry's push. While the light horsemen penetrated into Borgerhout across the breach opened by Figueroa's men, Farnese himself took the command of Taxis' lancers and did the same across Valdés' path.[38] The French and English soldiers offered a strong resistance, but after two hours of battle inside the quarters, De la Noue began to withdraw his forces to Antwerp to avoid destruction.[39]
The retreating troops set fire to their lodgements and looked for shelter under the coverage of Antwerp's artillery. Many of the Spanish soldiers went in pursuit, despite their officers orders for them to stay together, and chased the rebels until Antwerp's moat.[40] At William of Orange's orders, the artillery of the city walls fired shrapnel over the Spanish troops with different results, depending on the sources. The Spanish soldier Alonso Vázquez claimed that the shots were ineffective because the battlefield was covered by the smoke produced by the fire of Borgerhout.[41] On the other hand, the Flemish official Guillaume Baudart claimed that it was precise and made "arms and legs fly on the air".[35]
By then, Farnese, unwilling of having for a longer time his troops close to Antwerp's cannons, made drums and trumpets to call for withdrawal and gathered his men at Borgerhout. Meanwhile, people from Antwerp sallied to carry the wounded French, British, and Walloon officers and soldiers into the city to receive treatment.[42] The Spanish soldiery, once the fire of Borgerhout was finished, looted the basements of the burned buildings and had a meal before praying to thank God. After that, the Spanish army marched across the roads of Lier and Herentals to Turnhout, where Farnese wanted to arrive the next day.[29] Fearing a new attack, Antwerp's civic guards spent the night at their posts.[39]
Aftermath
Political map of the Netherlands in 1579 with the Spanish campaign and the main actions signaled.
The number of casualties endured by both armies differs according to the authors. The ItalianJesuitFamiano Strada noted that Farnese, in a letter to his father Ottavio, Duke of Parma, put the Dutch loss as 600 men killed and gave eight men killed and 40 wounded amongst his troops. Strada also mentions that other estimations pointed to 1,040 men killed in the Dutch ranks.[43] On the other hand, the Flemish author Guillaume Baudart set the Dutch loss as 200 men killed and claimed that the Spanish army lost 500 men.[35] The villages of Deurne and Borgerhout were seriously damaged by the fire during the battle: in 1580 Deurne had 133 standing buildings, while 146 had been destroyed by the fire; in Borgerhout 206 buildings remained and 280 were ruined.[21]
Farnese's attack achieved his goal of distracting the Dutch States forces from Maastricht.[16] After the battle, the Spanish army moved quickly to Turnhout, taking the castle of Grobbendonk on its way and appearing before Maastricht on 8 March, just six days after the battle of Borgerhout.[44][45] François de la Noue followed the Spanish till Herentals with some troops, but when he realized that Farnese was to lay siege to Maastricht, it was too late for him to reinforce the city's garrison.[16] Moreover, mutinies and defections hampered the Dutch efforts to save the city. The English soldiers under John Norrey's orders, who remained out of Antwerp, kidnapped the abbot of St. Michael's Abbey in demand for back pays, and William of Orange's had to mediate to placate them.[45] In political terms, the battle increased the Walloon defections from the States General to the Spanish party in the following months. Emanuel Philibert de Lalaing joined the Spanish Army with 5,000 Walloon troops of the Dutch States army and expelled from Menen a garrison loyal to the States General.[46]
Farnese besieged Maastricht in command of 15,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry, 20 cannons, and 4,000 sappers, joined later by 5,000 additional troops.[44] In May, while the siege developed, peace talks were held at Cologne under the mediation of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf to preserve the unity of the Netherlands.[13] However, divisions become more serious during the process. In Brussels, fight erupted in early June between Catholics headed by Philip of Egmont, son of Lamoral of Egmont, whom the Royalist authorities had executed in 1568 and Calvinists under Olivier van den Tympel, resulting in the expulsion of Egmont and his supporters. At Mechelen, the Catholic inhabitants forced the Dutch garrison to leave, while in 's-Hertogenbosch an armed struggle resulted in the magistrates declaring support to the Royalist side.[47] The revolt took a character of civil war, and as a result of the religious problem, the peace conference at Cologne failed.[47] Henceforth, Farnese reconquered Flanders and the Brabant town after town, even forcing Antwerp to surrender after a long and exhausting siege in 1585.[48]
Alexander Farnese was an Italian noble and condottiero, and a general of the Spanish army, who was Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Castro from 1586 to 1592, as well as Governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1578 to 1592. Thanks to a steady influx of troops from Spain, during 1581–1587 Farnese captured more than thirty towns in the south and returned them to the control of Habsburg Spain. During the French Wars of Religion he relieved Paris for the Catholic League. His talents as a commander on the battlefield, strategist and organizer earned him the regard of his contemporaries and military historians as the first captain of his age.
François de la Noue, called Bras-de-Fer, was one of the Huguenot captains of the 16th century. He was born near Nantes in 1531, of an ancient Breton family.
The Battle of Gembloux took place at Gembloux, near Namur, Low Countries, between the Spanish forces led by Don John of Austria, Governor-General of the Spanish Netherlands, and a rebel army composed of Dutch, Flemish, English, Scottish, German, French, and Walloon soldiers under Antoine de Goignies, during the Eighty Years' War. On 31 January 1578 the Spanish cavalry commanded by John's nephew, Don Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, after pushing back the Netherlandish cavalry, attacked the Netherlandish army, causing an enormous panic amongst the rebel troops. The result was a crushing victory for the Spanish forces. The battle hastened the disintegration of the unity of the rebel provinces, and meant the end of the Union of Brussels.
The Battle of Jodoigne, also called Battle of the River Guete, was fought on 20 October 1568 between the royal Habsburg army led by the Duke of Alba and a Protestant rebel army led by William of Orange. It resulted in a defeat for William of Orange, who had to abandon his plans of invading the Habsburg Netherlands.
The Battle of Zutphen was fought on 22 September 1586, near the village of Warnsveld and the town of Zutphen, the Netherlands, during the Eighty Years' War. It was fought between the forces of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, aided by the English, against the Spanish. In 1585, England signed the Treaty of Nonsuch with the States-General of the Netherlands and formally entered the war against Spain. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was appointed as the Governor-General of the Netherlands and sent there in command of an English army to support the Dutch rebels. When Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma and commander of the Spanish Army of Flanders, besieged the town of Rheinberg during the Cologne War, Leicester, in turn, besieged the town of Zutphen, in the province of Gelderland and on the eastern bank of the river IJssel.
The siege of Maastricht was a battle of the Eighty Years' War which lasted from March 12 to July 1, 1579. The Spanish were victorious.
The Battle of Kallo was a major field battle fought from 20 to 21 June 1638 in and around the forts of Kallo and Verrebroek, located on the left bank of the Scheldt river, near Antwerp, during the second phase of the Eighty Years' War. Following the symbolic recovery of Breda during the 1637 campaign, the Dutch Republic agreed with the French Crown, with whom it had allied in 1635, to besiege a major city in the Spanish Netherlands during the 1638 campaign. The commander of the Dutch States Army, Frederick Henry of Orange, planned an approach over Antwerp from the two sides of the Scheldt. Count William of Nassau-Siegen was entrusted to land in the Spanish-controlled Waasland region, west of Antwerp, to seize the forts of Kallo and Verrebroek, along with several other key fortifications, to invest Antwerp from the west. In the meantime, Frederick Henry would advance on the opposite bank to complete the blockade of the city while the armies of France invaded the Spanish Netherlands from the south to oblige the Spanish Army of Flanders to divide its forces.
Cristóbal de Mondragón y Otálora de Mercado (1514–1596) was a Spanish general during the Eighty Years' War.
Hendrik van den Bergh, 1573 to 22 May 1638, was a Flemish noble and professional soldier. Hereditary lord of Stevensweert, from 1618 to 1637 he was also stadtholder of Upper Guelders, the only part of Guelders to remain loyal to Habsburg Spain during the Eighty Years War. Known as a brave and resourceful cavalry commander, he spent most of his career with the Spanish Army of Flanders and became its Maestre de campo in 1628. Accused of treachery after the loss of Den Bosch in 1629, he defected to the Dutch Republic following the 1632 Conspiracy of Nobles.
The Army of Flanders was a multinational army in the service of the kings of Spain that was based in the Spanish Netherlands during the 16th to 18th centuries. It was notable for being the longest-serving army of the period, being in continuous service from 1567 until its disestablishment in 1706 and taking part in numerous pivotal battles of the Dutch Revolt (1566–1609) and the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). Because it employed or pioneered many developing military concepts more reminiscent of later military units, enjoying permanent, standing regiments (tercios), barracks, military hospitals and rest homes long before they were adopted in most of Europe, the Army of Flanders has been considered the world's de facto first modern professional standing army. Sustained at huge cost and at significant distances from Spain via the Spanish Road, the Army of Flanders also became infamous for successive mutinies and its ill-disciplined activity on and off the battlefield, including the Sack of Antwerp in 1576.
The English Fury at Mechelen or the Capture of Mechelen was an event in the Eighty Years' War and the Anglo–Spanish War on April 9, 1580. The city of Mechelen was conquered by Calvinist rebel forces from Brussels, which included a large contingent of English mercenaries. The city was sacked and many of its religious treasures destroyed or plundered.
The Battle of Noordhorn, fought on 30 September 1581, was a pitched battle of the Dutch Revolt, fought between a Spanish army commanded by Colonel Francisco Verdugo – consisting of Walloon, German, Spanish, and Albanian soldiers – and a Dutch States rebel army under the Englishman John Norreys – comprising English, Scottish, Dutch, and Walloon troops – in the province of Groningen. In 1580, the Dutch stadtholder of Groningen, George van Lalaing, Count of Rennenberg, had shifted its allegiance from the Dutch to the Spanish side. This opened a new front at the back door of the Dutch Republic, forcing the States-General to dispatch forces to the north. That year the Dutch, under the leadership of John Norreys, succeeded in relieving the town of Steenwijk. In July 1581, Rennenberg died and was replaced by the Spaniard Francisco Verdugo, whose arrival in Groningen with reinforcements changed the situation. On 30 September Verdugo forced Norreys to give battle using a strategy of attrition.
The siege of Niezijl was a siege of the town of Niezijl that took place between 3 and 24 October 1581 in the Dutch States, during the Eighty Years' War and the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604). The Spanish under Colonel Francisco Verdugo laid siege to the place after his victory at the battle of Noordhorn but the siege failed and Verdrugo retreated leaving the English and Dutch under John Norreys and William Louis respectively the victors.
The Battle of Steenbergen, also known as the Capture of Steenbergen of 1583, took place on 17 June 1583 at Steenbergen, Duchy of Brabant, Spanish Netherlands. This was an important victory for the Spanish Army of Flanders led by Don Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, Governor-General of the Spanish Netherlands, over the French, English, and Dutch forces led by the French Marshal Armand de Gontaut, Baron de Biron, and the English commander Sir John Norreys, during the Eighty Years' War, the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604), and in the context of the French Wars of Religion. The victory of the Spaniards ended the Treaty of Plessis-les-Tours, and Francis, Duke of Anjou (French: François de France), left the Netherlands in late June.
The siege of Lier of 1582, also known as the capture of Lier or betrayal of Lier, took place between 1 and 2 August 1582 at Lier, near Antwerp, during the Eighty Years' War and the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604). On 2 August the Spanish army commanded by Governor-General Don Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, supported by part of the States garrison, captured and seized the town, defeating the rest of the Dutch, English and German troops under Governor of Lier. The entire garrison was killed or captured. The news of the Spanish victory at Lier was a shock to the States-General at Antwerp, where the sense of insecurity was obvious, and many of the Protestant citizens sold their houses and fled to northern Flanders.
The siege of Lochem also known as the Relief of Lochem was a siege that took place in the Dutch city of Lochem during the Eighty Years' War and the Anglo–Spanish War. The city was relieved by a States army composing of English and French Huguenot troops under Count Philip of Hohenlohe-Neuenstein and William Louis of Nassau-Dillenburg and John Norreys on September 24, 1582. This marked the end of the Spanish siege of the city by the Spanish general Francisco Verdugo.
The Battle of Le Quesnoy was fought between a mostly German army supporting the Dutch rebels and the Spanish Habsburg army.
The years 1579–1588 constituted a phase of the Eighty Years' War between the Spanish Empire and the United Provinces in revolt after most of them concluded the Union of Utrecht on 23 January 1579, and proceeded to carve the independent Dutch Republic out of the Habsburg Netherlands. It followed the 1576–1579 period, in which a temporary alliance of 16 out of the Seventeen Provinces' States–General established the Pacification of Ghent as a joint Catholic–Protestant rebellion against the Spanish government, but internal conflicts as well as military and diplomatic successes of the Spanish Governors-General Don Juan of Austria and Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma split them apart, finally leading the Malcontent County of Artois, County of Hainaut and city of Douai to sign the Union of Arras on 6 January 1579, reverting to Catholicism and loyalty to the Spanish crown. In response, most of the remaining rebel provinces and cities would forge or later accede to the Union of Utrecht, a closer military alliance treaty that would go on to become the most important fundamental law of the United Provinces, who on 26 July 1581 proclaimed the Act of Abjuration, a de facto declaration of independence from Spain. While the nascent polity was struggling to find a new sovereign head of state, including Matthias of Austria, Francis of Anjou, William "the Silent" of Orange and Robert of Leicester, before giving up and deciding to become a republic by passing the Deduction of Vrancken on 12 April 1588, the Duke of Parma continued his successful military and diplomatic offensive, bringing ever more provinces and cities in the southern, eastern and northeastern parts of the Netherlands back into royalist hands. Parma's reconquests more or less stalled after the Fall of Antwerp (1585), and finally came to an end with the failure of the Spanish Armada and Philip II ordered him to intervene in the French Wars of Religion to prevent the Succession of Henry IV and France becoming a Protestant kingdom. These developments gave rise to a new phase, the Ten Years (1588–1598), that saw significant conquests by the Dutch States Army under the leadership of stadtholders Maurice of Nassau and William Louis of Nassau-Dillenburg, and the Dutch Republic's rise as a commercial great power.
The period between the Capture of Brielle and the Pacification of Ghent was an early stage of the Eighty Years' War between the Spanish Empire and groups of rebels in the Habsburg Netherlands.
Van Geldern, Martin (1993). The Dutch Revolt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN9780521398091.
Van Geldern, Martin (2002). The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt 1555–1590. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN9780521891639.
Vandewiele, L. J. (1990). "De teleurgang van de beroemde botanische tuin van Peeter van Coudenberghe". Scientiarum Historia: Tijdschrift voor de Geschiedenis van de Wetenschappen en de Geneeskunde (in Dutch). 16 (1): 11–14.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Spain 
