The Dutch Revolt Begins

CNG 108, Lot: 1006. Estimate $100. Sold for $475. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

temp. ICONOCLASTIC FURY (Beeldenstorm), Low Countries. Valencijn. Besieged by the Spanish under the command of Gilles van Berlaymont, 1567. PB 15 Sols Klippe (23x23mm, 6.90 g). Later strike. Dated 1567. Crowned coat-of-arms over Burgundian cross; 15 67 flanking shield; flames below / Blank. Vanhoudt –; Brause-Mansfeld II –; cf. Mailliet 1; Lasser –. In NGC encapsulation, 4212890-004, graded AU 55.

Ex Archer M. Huntington Collection, ANS 1001.1.3440 (Numismatica Genevensis SA VII, 27 November 2012), lot 741.

The Dutch Revolt (Dutch Nederlandse Opstand or Tachtjarige Oorlog [= Eighty Years War]) was one theater of conflict in the religious wars that took place during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This period of warfare was the result of the Protestant Reformation. The Low Countries, which had been part of a personal union with the Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor, became dissatisfied with the rule of the Spanish king, Philip II, who had received the territories from his father, Charles V, upon his retirement. Although Philip continued his father’s policies, he was a less-than-popular figure among the people. He spoke no Dutch, unlike his father, who had been born in Ghent. Philip also appeared cold and distant, sending instead Spanish nobles to rule in his stead. Beginning in the summer of 1566, serious public disturbances broke out throughout the Low Countries. Known as the Beeldenstorm, or “statue storm”, these revolts were driven in the region by a famine resulting from a particularly harsh winter, Calvinist aversion to Catholic religious imagery, and the dissatisfaction of the local Dutch nobility with the increasingly Spanish-centered government.

To make matters worse, Philip sent a large army under the Duke of Alba to crush the social unrest. Alba took a heavy-handed approach. He appointed a special court, known as the Raad van Beroerten (Council of Troubles). He bypassed the legally appointed Governor of the Netherlands, the King’s half-sister, Margaret of Parma. He used her as a ruse to lure back the opposition leaders, the Counts of Egmont and Horne, who were then publically executed in Brussels in 1568. Willem van Oranje, known as de Zwijger (the Silent), who had originally been a favorite of the Hapsburg government, now became the de facto leader in exile of the revolt. His brother, Lodewijk van Nassau, tried to gain support from exiled Calvinists in England by sending ships across the Channel; instead these ships turned to privateering and became known as the Watergeuzen (“Sea Beggars”). And, in May 1568, Lodewijk, along with his (and Willem’s) younger brother, Adolf van Nassau, defeated the Spanish army of Friesland at the Battle of Heligerlee. Even though this was a victory for the Dutch rebels, Willem’s main problem continued to be acquiring foreign assistance for the Dutch cause. Because of Alba’s harsh reprisals, known as the Spanish Fury, many hesitated or refused to help. Willem then turned to Protestant England and Catholic France. Both were obvious sources of aid, since each saw it as an opportunity to attack Spain by proxy. When the conflict broke out again in 1572 and Willem returned from exile, he set up his court in the Prinsenhof in Delft (since the Spanish occupied his ancestral lands of Orange at Breda). Here he remained until he was assassinated in 1584.