Part front matter for Part IV A New Republic, 1583–1588

Extract

Prologue: Parma's Offensive, 1583–1588

Having defeated those who contested his claim to Portugal (1582), Philip II had more resources for the Low Countries, where the return of Spanish and Italian troops had now been endorsed by the Union of Arras.¹ Alessandro Farnese was thus able to build an army of 60,000, with as many as half available for field operations. Detaching units under Francisco de Verdugo and Jean‐Baptiste de Tassis to operate against Friesland and Gelderland, Parma applied his main force to the reconquest of the great cities of Flanders and Brabant, the economic heartland of the Habsburg Netherlands.² This task, though largely completed, was interrupted in 1588, when Parma had orders to post his troops along the English Channel, to await the Invincible Armada.

In his quest for a foreign counterweight to the wealth and power of King Philip II, William of Orange settled on the younger brother of France's King Henry III, François Hercules, duke of Anjou. Anjou was named ‘defender of the liberties of the Netherlands’ by the States General in 1578, and ‘prince and lord of the Netherlands’ in January 1581. Anjou formally assumed his office in Brussels in August of the latter year. After a vain courtship of Queen Elizabeth in England, he returned to Brussels to be hailed in elaborate ceremonies as duke of Brabant (February 1582). Anjou was of course expected to bring troops from France, in exchange for the monthly subsidies promised him by the States General. In the summer of 1582 the 5,000 cavalry and the 12,000 infantry he brought up to Cambrai forced Parma to abandon his designs on this important town. But Anjou's foot soldiers (apart from elite Swiss units) lacked discipline, and, as one historian puts it, the duke himself ‘lacked all the gifts of a field commander’. As if in recompense for Anjou's shoddy service, the record of the States General in meeting the promised quota of 200,000 pounds per month was even shoddier. By the end of 1582, Anjou and his men tired of waiting for their money. In the ‘French Fury’ of 17 January 1583, Anjou's troops assaulted but failed to take the great city of Antwerp, losing as many as 2,000 men. At the same time, however, their compatriots gained control of a number of towns, including Dunkirk (Flanders) and Dendermonde (Brabant). Despite an explosion of anti‐French feeling in rebel towns, Orange managed to prevent an open breach with his difficult ally.³

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Part front matter for Part IV A New Republic, 1583–1588

Extract

Prologue: Parma's Offensive, 1583–1588

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Part front matter for Part IV A New Republic, 1583–1588

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Prologue: Parma's Offensive, 1583–1588

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