1578 - Annexation to the Spanish
The decisive battle of Gemblours, on the 31st of January 1578, which terminated in favor of the Spaniards, and in the dispersion of the army of the states, with the loss of all its artillery, baggage, and stores, must be viewed as the event by which the history of the Netherlands is separated from that of the seven United Provinces, which were collectively called Holland, after the first of these states. The archduke, better known by the name of Don Juan, having gained this victory, was suddenly arrested by the hand of death whilst following up his success; and his death has generally, but on insufficient evidence, been attributed to the effects of poison. He was immediately succeeded by the Prince Alexander Farnese, the son of the Duke of Parma and Piacenza, in Italy, by Margaret of Austria, a daughter of the Emperor Charles V, who had formerly governed the Low Countries under the authority of Philip king of Spain.
On his accession to the command, the provinces were in a most unsettled state. Don Juan had feared to attack the partisans of the Prince of Orange, who held possession of Brussels; but he was successful in seizing upon Tirlemont, Louvain, Bovines, Philippeville, and several other smaller but fortified places. These successes were, however, more than counterbalanced by the loss of Amsterdam, where the inhabitants rose on the Spanish garrison, and, having succeeded in driving out the troops, boldly declared in favor of the Prince of Orange. The great strength of the Spanish party in the ten provinces depended more on t eir union under one chief, and on the discipline of the few regular troops whom they had been able to collect, than on the number of soldiers or the abundance of pecuniary resources. The people of the Walloon provinces were bigotedly attached to the church of Rome, and were ready to give up their whole civil rights rather than abandon an iota of that faith, or a single religious observance to which they had been accustomed. These constituted the chief reliance of the Spanish monarch; and under obedience to him had remained, or returned, the fortified towns on the frontier towards France, such as Lisle, Valenciennes, Courtray, and several others.
In the party opposed to the Spaniards, though there was a greater number of the population, and a far greater power in warlike stores and in pecuniary resources, yet there were such party divisions and contests, and such struggles for power between chiefs, as tended much to weaken the effect of their efforts to drive out the Spaniards, or even to maintain against them the power which they still held in Brussels, and in the commercial and maritime cities.
