Duke of Alba

I'm glad you brought that up.

The Duke of Alba, whose name is Carlos Fitz James Stuart y Martínez de Irojo.

Now...

You notice that they're not all Spanish, those names.

They mobilised their fleets, mobilised their armies and did everything they could to bring these pestilential rebels to heel.

The Spanish governor of the Netherlands at the time, Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, the Duke of Alba, he was already a hated figure in the eyes of the Dutch.

And I tell you this, he didn't do much to help the situation when the revolt broke out.

Crackdown on Dutch rebels, continuing to try to rule the Netherlands from his base in Amsterdam.

And things were not going well inside Leyden City walls.

But surrender to the Spanish would have dire consequences for the city.

There was every expectation that even though the Duke of Alba, Duke Fernando, isn't in charge of the Spanish anymore, there was every expectation that the city would still be put to the fire and the sword.

And so, you know...

His brother Louis calls the beggars fools, too hasty by half.

And the Duke of Alba, told that the

rebels hold Brill, is said to have shrugged.

It is nothing.

It's, uh, a little different than what you're probably thinking right now.

So today in history, what happened on September twenty-ninth? Well, in fifteen sixty-seven, at a dinner, the Duke of Alba arrests the Count of Egmont and the Count of Horn for treason.

Rude, right? In sixteen fifty, Henry Robinson opens his Office of Addresses and Encounters in Threadneedle Street, London.

I read that and I'm like, "Okay, w-what? What, what in the heck could that be? And then why is that important enough to show up in history?" So I go to our buddies over at Wikipedia, and Henry Robinson was born in sixteen oh four, died in sixteen sixty-four.

The Prince of Orange to the Magistrates and Guilds of Liege, October fifteen sixty-eight.

It has pleased the Lord God to grant me at present the means by this army with which, under the guidance of His divine majesty, I hope to deliver from such execrable oppressions not only the said low countries, but also to protect and preserve from like tyranny all other neighboring countries over which the said Duke of Alba intends to, in time, to extend his rage and fury, and to subject them to the same servitude and inquisition as he has done to the said low countries.

It is the night of October fifth, fifteen sixty-eight, and an army is moving through the dark.

Between twenty-five and thirty thousand men, mercenaries, volunteers, and refugees march towards the Meuse River under a full moon.

Orange goes anyway.

He has pledged everything he and his brothers own, plus a hundred thousand florins of his own, enough to keep this army in the field for a little more than a month.

The Duke of Alba knows this.

His August letters name the route and say the enemy can't afford to keep such an army for long.