Alexander Farnese was an Italian noble and condottiero who was Duke of Parma, Piacenza and Castro from 1586 to 1592, as well as Governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1578 to 1592. He is best known for his successful campaign 1578-1592 against the Dutch Revolt, in which he captured the main cities in the south and returned them to the control of Catholic Spain. During the French Wars of Religion he relieved Paris for the Catholics. His talents as a field commander, strategist and organizer earned him the regard of his contemporaries and military historians as the first captain of his age.
John of Austria was an illegitimate son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. He became a military leader in the service of his half-brother, King Philip II of Spain, and is best known for his role as the admiral of the Holy Alliance fleet at the Battle of Lepanto.
William II de la Marck was the Dutch Lord of Lumey and initially admiral of the Watergeuzen, the so-called 'sea beggars' who fought in the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648), together with among others William the Silent, Prince of Orange-Nassau. He was the great-grandson of an equally notorious character, baron William de la Marck, nicknamed the "wild boar of the Ardennes".
Sigebert of Gembloux was a medieval author, known mainly as a pro-Imperial historian of a universal chronicle, opposed to the expansive papacy of Gregory VII and Pascal II. Early in his life he became a monk in the Benedictine abbey of Gembloux.
Gembloux Abbey was a Benedictine abbey near the town of Gembloux in the province of Namur, Belgium.
Peter Ernst I von Mansfeld-Vorderort was an Imperial and Spanish army commander of German origin and Governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1592 to 1594.
The Faculté Universitaire des Sciences Agronomiques de Gembloux, in Gembloux, Wallonia, Belgium (Europe), is a university in the French Community of Belgium. It is the oldest educational and research institution in Belgium which is exclusively dedicated to agronomic sciences and biological engineering. Since September 2013 and for 6 years, the school is the only one in Belgium to be accredited by the French engineering accreditation institution Commission des Titres d'Ingénieur which allows the university to deliver the engineering degree Diplôme d'Ingénieur to bioengineers. The school is also accredited by the EUR-ACE label, which is the highest European quality label for engineering degree programmes at Bachelor and Master level. In 2009, it was merged with the University of Liège and was renamed to Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech (GxABT).
Félix Sellier was a Belgian professional road bicycle racer.
Exuperius or Exupernis is venerated as a saint and martyr by the Catholic Church; according to tradition, he was the standard-bearer of the Theban Legion and thus a companion to Saint Maurice.
Maximilien de Hénin-Liétard, Count of Boussu was a soldier and statesman from the Habsburg Netherlands. During the Eighty Years' War he was the royalist stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht from 1567 until he was made a prisoner of war during the Battle on the Zuiderzee in 1573. After being freed under the terms of the Pacification of Ghent he changed sides and became commander in chief of the forces of the States-General of the Netherlands.
The Battle of Rijmenam was a battle fought in the early stages of the Eighty Years' War between the forces of the States-General of the Netherlands and those of the Spanish Governor-General of the Habsburg Netherlands, Don Juan de Austria, on 31 July 1578, near Rijmenam in present-day Belgium. The Spanish forces were dealt a strategic defeat.
Philip, Count of Egmont was the fifth Count of Egmont, prince of Gavere and 12th and last Lord of Purmerend, Purmerland and Ilpendam.
Emanuel Filibert van Lalaing was a noble and army commander from the Low Countries.
Philip de Lalaing was 3rd Count of Lalaing and Lord of Escornaix and Wavrin.
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 out and to grant religious liberty to Protestants.
Saint Guibert is the founder of Gembloux Abbey, in Gembloux. He was canonized in 1211. Saint Guibert's Day is observed on 23 May.
The Malcontents in the context of the Eighty Years' War or the Dutch Revolt were a faction of Catholic nobles in Hainaut and Artois who openly opposed William the Silent, also known as Orange, the leader of the States General of the Netherlands in the Union of Brussels of the Habsburg Netherlands during the period after the adoption of the Pacification of Ghent. They formed the Union of Arras in January 1579 and negotiated a separate peace with the Spanish Crown, represented by the royal governor-general Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, in the form of the Treaty of Arras (1579), signed on 17 May 1579.
