The Duke of Alba
Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, third Duke of Alba, was Spain’s most famous soldier. He commanded the imperial army that defeated the Schmalkaldic League at Mühlberg in 1547 and served Charles V and Philip II in Germany, Italy, and France.
In 1566 Calvinist crowds stripped the images from hundreds of churches in the Netherlands. Philip sent Alba north in 1567 with ten thousand troops to restore order and the Catholic faith. Alba set up the Council of Troubles, which the people called the Council of Blood. It tried thousands of people for heresy and rebellion and sent more than a thousand to their deaths, and it seized the property of many more. In June 1568 the Catholic counts of Egmont and Hoorn were beheaded in the great square of Brussels.1
Alba’s cruelty and his heavy taxes turned the troubles into a war of independence under William of Orange, whom Joel Beeke describes as “saddened and angered at the Duke of Alva’s persecution of the Protestants.” Alba was recalled in 1573, having failed. He later conquered Portugal for Philip and died at Lisbon on December 11, 1582.
Alba is said to have boasted of eighteen thousand executions. The surviving records of the Council of Troubles show about a thousand death sentences carried out, along with many thousands condemned in absence.
