Pacification of Ghent

The Pacification of Ghent, signed on 8 November 1576, was an alliance of the provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands for the purpose of driving mutinying Spanish mercenary troops from the country and promoting a peace treaty with the rebelling provinces of Holland and Zeeland.

In 1567 king Philip II of Spain, the overlord of the Habsburg Netherlands, sent Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba as governor general to the Netherlands with an army of Spanish mercenaries to restore order after the political upheavals of 1566 that culminated in the Iconoclastic fury of that year. He soon replaced the most important advisors of the former Regent Margaret of Parma by summarily executing them, such as the counts of Egmont and Hoorn, or by driving them into exile, such as William the Silent, the Prince of Orange. Philipe de Croÿ, Duke of Aerschot, however, remained in his favor as leader of the royalist faction.

At first, Alba had little difficulty in repelling the rebel military incursions, led by Orange. However, maintaining a large military presence put a severe strain on the royal finances, especially as Spain at the same time fought expensive wars against the Ottoman Sultan and in Italy. Alba's attempts to finance these expenses by new taxes also estranged previously loyal subjects from the cause of the royalists. Then, in 1572, an incursion of privateers with letters of marque from Orange (known as watergeuzen) into Holland and Zeeland met with unexpected success. Orange was able to take over the government in these two provinces, under the guise of his old post of royal Stadtholder, and bring them in open revolt against the government in Brussels. This brought about a formal state of war between Holland and Zeeland and the fifteen loyalist provinces.

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