Sack of Antwerp
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The sack of Antwerp during the Eighty Years' War is known as the Spanish Fury.
On 4 November 1576, troops from the Spanish Tercios started the sack of Antwerp leading to three days of horror among the population of the city, at the time the cultural, economic and financial center of the Netherlands. The cause of the sack of Antwerp were the huge delays in the payment to the soldiers by the Spanish Crown of Philip II. Spain had declared bankruptcy in 1575, and 400,000 florins had been confiscated from ships intended to pay the army by Elizabeth I when the ships sought shelter in English ports in 1568.
The Spanish soldiers, tired of fighting in numeric inferiority against rebel troops, without a rest and without their salary, decided to "pay themselves" by looting Antwerp. Some 8,000 lives and a great amount of property were lost.[1] The cruelty and destruction of these three days of rage became known as the Spanish Fury.
This shocking event alienated many in the Netherlands, even Catholics, against the Spanish Habsburg monarchy, and tarnished Philip II's already-damaged reputation. Furthermore, it encouraged the decline of the Antwerp Cloth Market as English traders sought out new commercial links, not wishing to risk visiting the town that now resembled a war zone. By 1582, all English trade to Antwerp had ceased.
This event also added to Spain's Black Legend.
[edit] References
- ^ Kamen, Henry (2005). Spain, 1469–1714: a society of conflict, 3rd, Harlow, United Kingdom: Pearson Education. ISBN 0-582-78464-6.
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