Editing Philip II of Spain (section)

===Revolt in the Netherlands===
{{Main|Eighty Years' War}}
[[File:Philip II of Spain berating William the Silent Prince of Orange by Cornelis Kruseman.jpg|thumb|Philip II berating William of Orange, by [[Cornelis Kruseman]]]]
Philip's rule in the [[Seventeen Provinces]] known collectively as the [[Habsburg Netherlands|Netherlands]] faced many difficulties, leading to [[Eighty Years' War|open warfare]] in 1568. He appointed his half-sister [[Margaret of Parma]] as Governor of the Netherlands, when he left the low countries for the Spanish kingdoms in 1559, but forced her to adjust policy to the advice of [[Cardinal Granvelle]], who was greatly disliked in the Netherlands, after he insisted on direct control over events in the Netherlands despite being over two weeks' ride away in Madrid. There was discontent in the Netherlands about Philip's taxation demands and the incessant [[Inquisition of the Netherlands|persecution]] of Protestants. In 1566, Protestant preachers sparked anti-clerical riots known as the [[Dutch Revolt#1566 — Iconoclasm and repression|Iconoclast Fury]]; in response to growing Protestant influence, the army of the [[Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba|Duke of Alba]] went on the offensive. In 1568, Alba had [[Lamoral, Count of Egmont]] and [[Philip de Montmorency, Count of Horn]] executed in [[Brussels]]' [[Grand-Place|central square]], further alienating the local aristocracy. There were massacres of civilians in [[Spanish Fury at Mechelen|Mechelen]],<ref name="Nierop69-70">[[Henk van Nierop]], ''Treason in the Northern Quarter: War, Terror, and the Rule of Law in the Dutch Revolt'' (Princeton University Press, 2009), 69–70.</ref> [[Massacre of Naarden|Naarden]],<ref>Henk van Nierop, ''Treason in the Northern Quarter: War, Terror, and the Rule of Law in the Dutch Revolt'' (Princeton University Press, 2009), 177.</ref> [[Zutphen]]<ref name="Nierop69-70"/> and [[Haarlem]]. In 1571, Alba erected at [[Antwerp]] a bronze statue of himself trampling the rebellious Dutch under his horse's hooves, cast from the melted-down cannon looted by the Spanish troops after the [[Battle of Jemmingen]] in 1568; it was modelled on medieval images of the Spanish patron [[James Matamoros|Saint James "the Moorslayer"]] riding down Muslims and caused such outrage that Philip had it removed and destroyed.<ref name=Goodwin>{{cite book |last=Goodwin |first=Robert |title=Spain: The Centre of the World 1519–1682 |date=2015 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |pages=179–180}}</ref>

In 1572, a prominent exiled member of the Dutch aristocracy, [[William the Silent]], [[Prince of Orange]], invaded the Netherlands with a Protestant army, but he only succeeded in holding two provinces, [[County of Holland|Holland]] and [[County of Zeeland|Zeeland]]. Because of the Spanish repulse in the [[Siege of Alkmaar]] (1573) led by his equally brutal son [[Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo, 4th Duke of Alba|Fadrique]],<ref name=Goodwin/> Alba resigned his command, replaced by [[Luis de Requesens y Zúñiga]]. Alba boasted that he had burned or executed 18,600 persons in the Netherlands,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://necrometrics.com/pre1700a.htm#Ne1566|title=Twentieth Century Atlas – Historical Body Count|website=necrometrics.com}}</ref> in addition to the far greater number he massacred during the war, many of them women and children; 8,000 persons were burned or hanged in one year, and the total number of Alba's [[Flemish people|Flemish]] victims can not have fallen short of 50,000.<ref>{{cite book |last=Sharp Hume |first=Martín Andrew |title=The Spanish People: Their Origin, Growth and Influence |page=372}}</ref> Under Requesens, the [[Army of Flanders]] reached a peak strength of 86,000 in 1574 and retained its battlefield superiority, destroying [[Louis of Nassau]]'s German mercenary army at the [[Battle of Mookerheyde]] on 14 April 1574, killing both him and his brother [[Henry of Nassau-Dillenburg]].

Rampant inflation and the loss of [[Spanish treasure fleet|treasure fleets]] from the [[New World]] prevented Philip from paying his soldiers consistently, leading to the so-called [[Spanish Fury]] at [[Sack of Antwerp|Antwerp]] in 1576, where soldiers ran amok through the streets, burning more than 1,000 homes and killing 6,000 citizens.<ref>Henry Kamen, ''Philip of Spain'' (Yale University Press, 1997), 160.</ref> Philip sent in [[Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma]], as Governor-General of the [[Spanish Netherlands]] from 1578 to 1592. Farnese defeated the rebels at the [[Battle of Gembloux (1578)]],<ref>James Tracy, ''The Founding of the Dutch Republic: War, Finance, and Politics in Holland, 1572–1588'' (Oxford University Press, 2008), 141.</ref> and he captured many rebel towns in the south: [[Siege of Maastricht (1579)|Maastricht]] (1579), [[Tournai]] (1581), [[Oudenaarde]] (1582), [[Dunkirk]] (1583), [[Bruges]] (1584), [[Siege of Ghent (1583–1584)|Ghent]] (1584), and [[Fall of Antwerp|Antwerp]] (1585).<ref>{{cite book |last=Black |first=Jeremy |title=The Cambridge Illustrated Atlas of Warfare: Renaissance to Revolution, 1492–1792|volume =2 |date=1996 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521470339 |page=58}}</ref>

[[File:Beloningsbrief van koning Filips II van Spanje aan Balthasar Gerards, 1590.jpg|thumb|Reward letter of Philip II to the family of [[Balthasar Gerards]], assassin of [[William the Silent]], 1590]]
The [[States General of the Netherlands|States General]] of the northern provinces, united in the 1579 [[Union of Utrecht]], passed an [[Act of Abjuration]] in 1581 declaring that they no longer recognised Philip as their king. The [[southern Netherlands]] (what is now Belgium and Luxembourg) remained under Spanish rule. In 1584, [[William the Silent]] was assassinated by [[Balthasar Gérard]], after Philip had offered a reward of 25,000 crowns to anyone who killed him, calling him a "pest on the whole of Christianity and the enemy of the human race". The Dutch forces continued to fight on under Orange's son [[Maurice of Nassau]], who received modest help from the Queen of England in 1585. The Dutch gained an advantage over the Spanish because of their growing economic strength, in contrast to Philip's burgeoning economic troubles. The war came to an [[Peace of Westphalia|end in 1648]], when the [[Dutch Republic]] was recognised by the Spanish Crown as independent. The eight decades of war came at a massive human cost, with an estimated 600,000 to 700,000 victims, of which 350,000 to 400,000 were civilians killed by disease and what would later be considered [[war crime]]s.<ref>{{cite web|title=Victimario Histórico Militar|url=http://remilitari.com/guias/victimario9.htm}}</ref>