Eighty Years’ War: A Visual History

The Eighty Years' War (1568-1648) was the revolt of the Low Countries against Spanish Habsburg rule, sparked by Philip II's religious persecution and centralisation and the Duke of Alba's Council of Blood. William of Orange led the resistance; the Sea Beggars' capture of Brielle in 1572 gave it a base in Holland and Zeeland, whose towns survived sieges (Haarlem, Alkmaar, Leiden). The Spanish Fury at Antwerp (1576) briefly united all 17 provinces, but the Catholic south returned to Spain under Parma while the northern Union of Utrecht (1579) became the Dutch Republic, abjuring Philip in 1581. Maurice of Nassau's army and the Dutch navy and trading companies made the Republic a great power; the Twelve Years' Truce (1609-1621) was followed by war within the Thirty Years' War, and the Peace of Munster (1648) recognised Dutch independence.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Eighty Years' War (Dutch Revolt). The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Population of Antwerp and Amsterdam

The war moved the economic centre of the Low Countries north.

Timeline of the Eighty Years' War (Dutch Revolt)

1. 1566
   Iconoclastic Fury
2. 1568
   Egmont and Horn executed; war begins
3. 1572
   Brielle taken
4. 1574
   Relief of Leiden
5. 1576
   Spanish Fury at Antwerp
6. 1581
   Act of Abjuration
7. 1584
   William of Orange assassinated
8. 1585
   Antwerp falls to Parma
9. 1609
   Twelve Years' Truce
10. 1648
    Peace of Munster

Revolt and terror

Calvinist iconoclasm swept the churches in 1566; Philip sent Alba with 10,000 Spanish troops, who executed the counts Egmont and Horn and over 1,000 others through the Council of Troubles ('Blood'). William of Orange's invasion of 1568 failed. The Sea Beggars, Calvinist privateers, took Brielle on 1 April 1572 and Holland's towns rose; Alba's massacres at Naarden and Haarlem hardened resistance, and Leiden's relief in October 1574, by breaching the dikes, saved the north. Spanish troops, unpaid, sacked Antwerp in November 1576, killing 8,000, and the provinces united in the Pacification of Ghent.

Parma and the split

Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, reconciled the Catholic Walloon provinces (Union of Arras, 1579) while the north formed the Union of Utrecht and declared Philip deposed in the Act of Abjuration of 1581. Parma retook Flanders and Brabant, taking Antwerp after a 14-month siege in 1585, and half its population fled north, enriching Amsterdam. William was assassinated at Delft in 1584. Elizabeth I sent Leicester's army; the Armada of 1588 was meant to ferry Parma's troops to England and its defeat spared the Republic. Maurice of Nassau, a military reformer, retook the eastern towns in the 1590s and won at Nieuwpoort (1600).

Truce, Thirty Years' War and Munster

Spinola's capture of Ostend after three years (1604) and Spanish bankruptcy produced the Twelve Years' Truce in 1609, during which the Republic's East India Company and Amsterdam's exchange flourished and Oldenbarnevelt was executed in the Arminian dispute. War resumed in 1621; Spinola took Breda (1625), Frederick Henry took it back and 's-Hertogenbosch and Maastricht, Piet Heyn captured the Spanish silver fleet (1628) and Tromp destroyed a Spanish fleet at the Downs (1639). Portugal's revolt and French pressure led Spain to recognise Dutch independence at Munster on 30 January 1648.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Spanish Empire (1492 to 1976)
• Dutch Empire (1602 to 1975)
• Holy Roman Empire (800 to 1806)
• British Empire (1583 to 1997)
• First Portuguese Empire (1415 to 1663)
• First French colonial empire (1534 to 1814)

Wars of the same era and region

• Thirty Years' War (1618 to 1648)
• French Wars of Religion (1562 to 1598)
• Franco-Dutch War (1672 to 1678)
• Northern Wars (1554 to 1721)
• Nine Years' War (1688 to 1697)

8 surprising things about the Eighty Years' War (Dutch Revolt)

1. William of Orange was the first head of state assassinated with a handgun; the bullet holes are still in the Prinsenhof at Delft.
2. The Dutch national anthem, the Wilhelmus, is a song about William written in the 1570s, the oldest national anthem in use.
3. 'Beggars' was an insult by a courtier that the rebels adopted as a name.
4. Leiden's relief is celebrated every 3 October with herring and white bread, which the Sea Beggars brought.
5. The Act of Abjuration of 1581 was cited as a model by the drafters of the American Declaration of Independence.
6. The Spanish Army of Flanders marched from Italy up the 'Spanish Road' through the Alps for 80 years.
7. The Dutch East India Company, founded during the war in 1602, was the world's first joint-stock multinational.
8. The 1648 peace was signed the same year as the Peace of Westphalia and is part of the same settlement.

Sources

• Eighty Years' War Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Eighty Years' War Wikipedia
• Dutch Revolt World History Encyclopedia
• Geoffrey Parker, The Dutch Revolt (1977) Allen Lane

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