The year of the Furies: military correspondence around the Sack of Antwerp (1576)
The year of the Furies: military correspondence around the Sack of Antwerp (1576)
In this chapter Beatriz Santiago Belmonte looks at one of the most chaotic years of the Revolt. In March 1576, the death of Governor General Luis de Requesens created a power vacuum that would worsen during the following months, leading up to the infamous Sack of Antwerp on 4 November the same year. This chapter proposes opening up the discussion on the Sack of Antwerp by looking at hitherto understudied sources: the letters of the Spanish commanders playing a prominent role in the events. The information conveyed within their letters has a strong episodic character. They saw things differently, but they also saw different things. The power vacuum created a growing disunity between the Spanish commanders and the members of the Council of State that had officially received full authority. Political and military affairs became divided for the first time since the outbreak of the Revolt. The case of the almost forgotten previous Sack of Maastricht on 20 October 1576 moreover enables us to put the events in Antwerp into a broader historical perspective.
Keywords: Luis de Requesens, Dutch Revolt, Spanish tercios, militarycorrespondence, Habsburg Low Countries, Sancho Dávila, Sack of Antwerp, Sack of Maastricht
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