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51-531: The leaders of the nobles who signed a solemn league known as the Compromise of Nobles , by which they bound themselves to assist in defending the rights and liberties of the Netherlands against the civil and religious despotism of Philip II of Spain , were Louis of Nassau and Hendrick van Brederode . On 5 April 1566, permission was obtained for the confederates to present a petition of grievances, called

102-486: A carrier pigeon into the city pleading for it to hold out for three months. To fulfil this promise, he planned to breach the dykes to allow the sea to flood the low-lying land. The siege could then be lifted using the rebel fleet, and the Spaniards would be forced to retire before the incoming sea. This tactic had also been used to relieve Alkmaar. The damage to the surrounding countryside would be enormous, and therefore

153-744: A covenant of members of the nobility in the Habsburg Netherlands who came together to submit a petition to the Regent Margaret of Parma on 5 April 1566, with the objective of obtaining a moderation of the placards against heresy in the Netherlands. This petition played a crucial role in the events leading up to the Dutch Revolt and the Eighty Years' War . The ruler of the Habsburg Netherlands,

204-460: A base, as this was the only city in the county of Holland that had remained loyal to the Spanish government. Alba's cruel treatment of the populations after the sieges of Naarden and Haarlem was notorious. The rebels learned that no mercy was shown there and were determined to hold out as long as possible to avoid a similar massacre. The county of Holland was split in two when Haarlem was taken by

255-589: A base. These privateers under the command of a succession of daring and reckless leaders, the best-known of whom is William de la Marck, Lord of Lumey , were called "Sea Beggars", " Gueux de mer " in French, or " Watergeuzen " in Dutch. At first they were content merely to plunder both by sea and land, carrying their booty to the English ports where they were able to refit and replenish their stores. Already by

306-534: A brief amphibious struggle, the Admiral gave up the venture. He dispatched a despondent message to the Prince, saying that unless the wind turned, and they could sail around the canal, they were lost. Meanwhile, in the city, the inhabitants clamoured for surrender when they saw that their countrymen had run aground. But Mayor van der Werff inspired his citizens to hold on, telling them they would have to kill him before

357-453: A conglomerate of duchies and counties and lesser fiefs , was Philip II of Spain . He had appointed his half-sister Margaret of Parma as his Regent. She ruled with the assistance of a Council of State which included a number of the high nobility of the country, like the Prince of Orange , Egmont , Horne , Aerschot , and Noircarmes . From time to time (whenever she needed money) she convened

408-405: A night-time surprise attack. The Spaniards had neglected to strongly fortify this important point. The next morning, the Spaniards tried to regain the position but were repulsed with the loss of several hundred men. The dyke was breached and the fleet proceeded towards Leiden. Admiral Boisot and the Prince of Orange had been misinformed as to the lie of the lands, and had assumed that the rupture of

459-416: A petition containing a protest against the enforcement of the placards . It was probably drafted by Philips of Marnix, Lord of Saint-Aldegonde , and it was initially signed by Henry, Count of Bréderode , Louis of Nassau and Count Charles of Mansfeld. The draft was widely circulated and gathered a large number of signatures. The magnates of the nobility at first kept aloof (though Orange must have been in

510-478: A speech at a great feast held by some 300 confederates at the Hotel Culemburg three days later, Brederode declared that if need be they were all ready to become beggars in their country's cause. Henceforward the name became a party title. The patriot party adopted the emblems of beggary, the wallet and the bowl, as trinkets to be worn on their hats or their girdles, and a medal was struck having on one side

561-538: The Landscheiding would flood the country inland all the way to Leiden. Instead, the rebel flotilla once again found their path blocked, this time by the Greenway dike, less than a mile inland of the Landscheiding , which was still a foot above the water level. Again however the Spaniards had left the dike largely undefended, and the Dutch broke through it without much difficulty. Due to easterly winds driving

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612-526: The Duke of Alba that would precipitate the Dutch Revolt and Eighty Years' War . Siege of Leiden Western Europe Western Europe Western Europe Western Europe Western Europe Western Europe Western Europe East Indies Western Europe European waters Americas East Indies The siege of Leiden occurred during the Eighty Years' War in 1573 and 1574, when

663-543: The Geuzen would be the name of their party. The king took a long time to react to the petition, and when he finally did, he rejected its requests. Meanwhile, a large number of Protestants had returned from exile, and other Protestants now dared come out into the open. Large numbers of Protestants, especially Calvinists, started holding prayer meetings outside the walls of many cities. These open-air sermons by Calvinist preachers, though initially peaceful, caused much anxiety for

714-561: The Groenedijk Monument . The Sea Beggars under Admiral Louis de Boisot had ships to successfully use the water to their advantage. A succession of fortified villages now stood in the way of the patriot fleet, and the Dutch Admiral was afraid even now of losing his prize, but the Spaniards, panicked by the rising waters, barely offered any resistance. Every one of their strongholds, now become islands, were deserted by

765-795: The States-General of the Netherlands in which the several estates of the provinces were represented, such as the lesser nobility and the cities, but most of the time the States-General was not in session and the Regent ruled alone, together with her Council. Like his father Charles V , Philip was very much opposed to the Protestant teachings of Martin Luther , John Calvin , and the Anabaptists , which had gained many adherents in

816-615: The placards stringently enforced only helped intensify the opposition. This unrest motivated the Brussels government to send Lamoral, Count of Egmont , to Spain to plead for relaxation of the ordinances. Philip replied negatively in his Letters from the Segovia Woods of October 1565. That led to a gathering of some members of the lesser nobility at the house of Floris, Count of Culemborg , in December 1565. There, they drew up

867-506: The placards were bound to cause trouble in this context. For good measure, he threatened to resign if something along these lines was not done. The leaders of the association that supported the draft petition met in Breda at the house of Antoine II de Lalaing, Count of Hoogstraten (another member of the Council of State) to work out a way that was acceptable to the government to present

918-594: The 1571 Battle of Lepanto in Greece. For Spain to face a coordinated double-pronged naval challenge, by the Ottomans in the Mediterranean and the Dutch in north European waters, would be to the advantage of both of its foes. The slogan Liever Turks dan Paaps seems to have been largely rhetorical, and their beggars medals in the form of a half moon were meant symbolically. The Dutch hardly contemplated life under

969-400: The Netherlands by the early 1560s. To suppress Protestantism he had promulgated extraordinary ordinances, called placards , that outlawed them and made them capital offenses . Because of their severity, these placards caused growing opposition among the population, both Catholic and Protestant. The opposition, even among Catholics, was generated because the placards were seen as breaches of

1020-526: The Netherlands under the command of his brother, Louis of Nassau . Valdez lifted the siege in April 1574 to face the invading rebel troops, but Sancho d'Avila reached them first and defeated them in the Battle of Mookerheyde , where Louis was killed. During the brief respite from the siege, Orange counselled the citizens of Leiden to restock their city with supplies, and take in a larger garrison to help defend

1071-534: The Netherlands. Most of the counties of Holland and Zeeland were occupied by rebels in 1572, who sought to end the harsh rule of the Spanish Duke of Alba , governor-general of the Netherlands. The territory had a high density of cities, which were protected by defense works and by the low-lying boglands, which could easily be flooded by opening the dykes and letting in the sea. The Duke of Alba tried to break resistance using brute force. He used Amsterdam as

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1122-464: The Request, to the regent, Margaret, Duchess of Parma . About 250 nobles marched to the palace accompanied by Louis of Nassau and Brederode. The regent was at first alarmed at the appearance of so large a body, but one of her councillors, Berlaymont , allegedly remarked " N'ayez pas peur Madame, ce ne sont que des gueux " ("Fear not madam, they are only beggars"). The appellation was not forgotten. In

1173-493: The Royalist troops in their flight, except for the village of Lammen . This was a small fort under the command of Colonel Borgia, and situated about three-quarters of a mile from the walls of Leiden. This was a formidable obstacle, but the Spaniards, adept at land fighting and not amphibious warfare, had despaired of maintaining so unequal a contest against the combined forces of the sea and the veteran Dutch seamen. Accordingly,

1224-554: The Spanish after a seven-month siege. Alba then attempted to take Alkmaar in the north, but the city withstood the Spanish attack. Alba then sent his officer Francisco de Valdez to attack the southern rebel territory, starting with Leiden. In the meantime, due to his failure to quell the rebellion as quickly as he had intended, Alba submitted his resignation, which King Philip accepted in December. The less harsh and more politic Luis de Zúñiga y Requesens replaced him as governor-general. The city of Leiden had plenty of food stored for

1275-410: The Spanish commander Valdez ordered a retreat in the night of 2 October, and the army fled, rendered more fearful by a terrible crash they heard from the city, and assumed to be the men of Leiden breaking still another dam upon them. In fact, part of the wall of Leiden, eroded by the sea water, had fallen, leaving the city completely vulnerable to attack, had any Spaniards chosen to remain. The next day,

1326-466: The Spanish treasury ran dry, so that the Spanish army could not be paid anymore and it mutinied. After the pillaging of Antwerp , the whole of the Netherlands rebelled against Spain. Leiden was once again safe. The Leiden University was founded by William of Orange in recognition of the city's sacrifice in the siege. According to the ironical fiction still maintained by the Prince, that he was acting on behalf of his master Philip of Spain, against whom he

1377-642: The Spanish under Francisco de Valdez attempted to capture the rebellious city of Leiden , South Holland , the Netherlands . The siege failed when the city was successfully relieved in October 1574. In the war that had broken out (eventually called the Eighty Years' War ), Dutch rebels took up arms against the Habsburg king of Spain , whose family had inherited the Seventeen Provinces of

1428-563: The Sultan. Moreover, there was no direct contact between the Geuzen and the Turkish authorities. The Turks were considered infidels, and the heresy of Islam alone disqualified them from assuming a more central (or consistent) role in the rebels' propaganda. Compromise of Nobles The Compromise of Nobles ( Dutch : Eedverbond der Edelen ; French : Compromis des Nobles ) was

1479-545: The Turks to be less threatening than the Spaniards. During the years between 1579 and 1582, representatives from Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Paşa travelled several times from Istanbul to Antwerp. There were, in fact, objective grounds for such an alliance. At the same time that the Dutch rebels were conducting their raids on Spanish shipping, the Ottoman Empire was involved in its own naval war with Spain, culminating in

1530-569: The Zoetermeer. In October, the Dutch patriots led by William the Silent destroyed the dykes in four locations in order to form an obstacle the Spanish troops could not overcome. As a result of this and the coming of a strong wind from the West, the water rose and Spanish troops lost their mobility. On one of these four locations, a monument has been established in remembrance of what happened, called

1581-435: The city could surrender, and that they could eat his arm if they were really that desperate. In fact thousands of inhabitants died of starvation. To add to their troubles, as so often happened in that age, the plague appeared in the city streets and near eight thousand died from that cause alone. The city only held out because they knew that the Spanish soldiers would massacre the whole population in any case, to set an example to

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1632-527: The constitutional privileges of the local authorities and the civil liberties of the people, like the Jus de non evocando , as enshrined in the " Joyous Entry ", the constitution of the Duchy of Brabant , to mention a prominent example. For that reason local authorities regularly protested against the placards and the way they were implemented in 1564 and later years. That these protests were systematically ignored and

1683-439: The dykes had all been pierced and relief would come soon. However, only by the first day of September, when the Prince had recovered from his ailment, did the expedition continue in earnest. More than 15 miles lay between the relieving rebel fleet and Leiden, but ten miles were covered without difficulty. On the night of 10 September, the fleet came upon the Landscheiding , which blocked their path to Leiden, and captured it in

1734-543: The end of 1569, 84 Sea Beggars' ships were in action. However, in 1572, Queen Elizabeth I of England abruptly refused to admit the Sea beggars to her harbours. No longer having refuge, the sea beggars, under the command of De la Marck, Willem Bloys van Treslong and Lenaert Jansz de Graeff , made a desperate attack upon Brielle , which they seized by surprise in the absence of the Spanish garrison on 1 April 1572. Encouraged by this success, they now sailed to Vlissingen , which

1785-433: The first dykes were breached, the Prince of Orange came down with a violent fever which brought operations to a halt. More importantly, the flooding of the countryside took longer than expected because of unfavorable winds. On 21 August, the inhabitants of Leiden sent a message to the Prince saying that they had held out for three months, two with food and one without food. The Prince answered them, again by carrier pigeon, that

1836-571: The grandfather of Cornelis Evertsen the Elder . As part of a propaganda campaign including prints, pamphlets and much else, many Geuzen medals were created as badges of affiliation, using a wide range of symbolism, including that associated with the Ottoman Empire . William I of Orange sought Ottoman assistance against the Spanish king Philip II . The "Geuzen" were expressing their anti-Spanish and anti-Catholic sentiments. They considered

1887-535: The head of Philip II, on the other two clasped hands with the motto Fidèle au roy, jusqu'à porter la besace ("Loyal to the King, up to carrying the beggar's pouch"). The original league of Beggars was short-lived, crushed by Alba , but its principles survived and were to be ultimately triumphant. In the Dutch language the word geuzennaam is used for linguistic reappropriation : a pejorative term used with pride by

1938-439: The king and that she would support its requests. Brederode handed over a supplementary petition on 8 April, in which the petitioners promised to keep the peace while the petition was being sent to Spain, a journey that could take weeks. He assumed that meanwhile, the requested suspension of enforcement would be in effect. That evening the petitioners held a banquet at which they toasted the king and themselves as "beggars". Henceforth

1989-417: The know through his brother Louis). On 24 January 1566, however, Orange addressed a letter to the Regent, as a member of the Council, in which he offered his unsolicited opinion that moderation of the placards would be desirable, given the toleration now practiced in neighboring lands, like France. He also pointed to the social unrest caused by the famine that scourged the country in that year and remarked that

2040-553: The local and central authorities. In August 1566, in the depressed industrial area around Steenvoorde a rash of attacks on Catholic church property started, in which religious statuary was destroyed by irate Calvinists, for whom those statues contravened the Second Commandment against graven images. Soon this Beeldenstorm or Iconoclastic Fury engulfed the entire country. Though the central authorities eventually suppressed this insurrection, it led to severe repression by

2091-468: The people called that way. In 1569 William of Orange , who had now openly placed himself at the head of the party of revolt, granted letters of marque to a number of vessels manned by crews of desperadoes drawn from all nationalities. Eighteen ships received letters of marque, which were equipped by Louis of Nassau in the French Huguenot port of La Rochelle , which they continued to use as

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2142-484: The petition, the nobles, who presented themselves as loyal subjects of the king, asked him to suspend the Inquisition and the enforcement of the placards against heresy. They also urged the convening of the States-General so that "better legislation" could be devised to address the matter. On the advice of the moderates in the Council, like Orange, the Regent replied to the petitioners that she would forward it to

2193-475: The petition. Finally, on 5 April 1566, a long procession of 300 signers of the petition walked through Brussels to the Regent's court. There Brederode read the petition aloud to the Regent, who became very agitated. Afterward, when the Regent met with the Council of State, Orange tried to calm her, and another member, Charles de Berlaymont , allegedly remarked: "N'ayez pas peur Madame, ce ne sont que des gueux" (fear not madam, they are nothing but beggars ). In

2244-407: The population of the area resisted the breaching of the dykes. However, in the end, the Prince prevailed and the outer dykes were broken on 3 August. Previously, the Prince's Admiral Louis de Boisot had assembled a fleet of more than two hundred small flat-bottomed vessels, manned by 2,500 veteran Dutch seamen, and carrying a large store of provisions for the starving townspeople of Leiden. Soon after

2295-604: The port of Hoorn in the Battle on the Zuiderzee . Mixing with the native population, they quickly sparked rebellions against Duke of Alba in town after town and spread the resistance southward. In 1574 the Sea Beggars, under Admiral Louis de Boisot participated in the lifting of the Siege of Leiden . Some of the forefathers of the Dutch naval heroes began their naval careers as sea beggars, such as Evert Heindricxzen,

2346-487: The relieving rebels arrived at the city, feeding the citizens with herring and white bread. The people also feasted on hutspot (carrot and onion stew) in the evening. According to legend, a little orphan boy named Cornelis Joppenszoon found a cooking pot full with hutspot that the Spaniards had had to leave behind when they left their camp, the Lammenschans, in a hurry to escape from the rising waters. In 1575,

2397-456: The rest of the country, as had happened in Naarden and the other cities that had been sacked. Admiral Boisot sent a dove into the town, assuring them of speedy succour. On the 18th the wind shifted again, and blowing strongly from the west, piled the sea against the dams. With the rising water level, the flotilla was soon able to make a circuit around the bridge and canal, and successfully enter

2448-430: The siege when it started in October 1573. The siege was very difficult for the Spanish, because the soil was too loose to dig trenches, and the city's defense works were hard to break. Defending Leiden was a Dutch States rebel army consisting of English , Scottish , and Huguenot French troops. The leader of the Dutch rebels, William the Silent , Prince of Orange , attempted a relief of Leiden by sending an army into

2499-418: The town. They disregarded his advice, however, so when Valdez' army returned to renew the siege on 26 May 1574, they were in as poor a condition as they had previously been. The city considered surrendering, as there was almost no chance of relief and supplies were dwindling. The defeat of Louis' army was also a blow to morale. The Prince of Orange, however, was determined to relieve the city. Therefore, he sent

2550-461: The water back seawards, and the ever growing surface area of the land that the water covered, the flooding was by this time so shallow that the fleet was all but stranded. The only way that was deep enough for them to proceed was by a canal, leading to a large inland lake called the Zoetermeer (freshwater lake). This canal, and the bridge over it, were strongly defended by the Spaniards, and after

2601-411: Was also taken by a coup de cul . The capture of these two towns prompted several nearby towns to declare their support for the revolt, starting a chain reaction that resulted in the majority of Holland joining in a general revolt of the Netherlands, and is regarded as the real beginning of Dutch independence. In 1573 the Sea Beggars defeated a Spanish squadron under the command of Admiral Bossu off

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