Council of Troubles

Due to the many death sentences pronounced by the tribunal, it also became known as the Council of Blood (Bloedraad in Dutch and Conseil de Sang in French).

The tribunal would be abolished by Alba's successor Luis de Zúñiga y Requesens on 7 June 1574 in exchange for a subsidy from the States-General of the Netherlands, but in practice it remained in session until the popular revolution in Brussels of the summer of 1576.

During the final two years of the regency of Margaret of Parma over the Habsburg Netherlands, circumstances—political (disaffection of the high nobility with its diminished role in the councils of state), religious (disaffection over the persecution of heretics and the reform of the organisation of the Catholic Church in the Netherlands, especially the creation of new dioceses), and economic (a famine in 1565)—conspired to bring about a number of political and social events that shook the regime to its foundations.

A League of Nobles (mostly members of the lower nobility) protested the severity of the persecution of heretics with a petition to the Regent, who conceded the demands temporarily.

This may have encouraged the Calvinists in the country to follow the iconoclastic depredations on Catholic churches that also burst out in France in the summer of 1566.

[1] Although this iconoclastic fury was soon suppressed by the authorities, and the concessions to the Calvinists retracted, these "troubles" sufficiently disturbed the Court in Madrid to motivate Philip to send his trusted commander, the Duke of Alba, with an army of Spanish troops to restore order in the Netherlands.

The fact, however, that it superseded these preexisting councils for this express purpose, and that the new tribunal (as it turned out to be) ignored the judicial privileges enshrined in such constitutional documents as the Joyeuse entrée of the ancient Duchy of Brabant (which Philip had affirmed on his accession to the ducal throne in 1556), shocked the constitutional conscience of the Regent, and the Dutch politicians.

Members were a number of prominent jurists, recruited from the Councils of the provinces, such as Adrianus Nicolai (chancellor of Guelders), Jacob Meertens (president of the council of Artois), Pieter Asset, Jacob Hessels (councillor of Ghent), and his colleague Johan de la Porte (advocaat-fiscaal of Flanders).

The most influential members were reportedly two Spaniards, who came with Alba from Spain: Juan de Vargas[4] and Luis del Río.

Aside from judicial functions, the council also had an important advisory role in the attempts at codification of criminal law, that the government of Alba made in the early 1570s.

The Advocate of the States of Holland, Jacob van den Eynde was arrested, but died in captivity before his trial ended.

In Haarlem Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert was arrested, but he managed to escape, Lenaert Jansz de Graeff from Amsterdam fled to Bruges and later became captain of the Sea Beggars in the Capture of Brielle.

The exodus proceeded in two main waves: in the spring of 1567 (those who did not await Alba's arrival), and again after a round of wholesale arrests, in the winter of 1567/68.

Nevertheless, the proceeds reached half a million ducats annually according to a letter from the Spanish ambassador in France to Philip in 1572.

[16] After Alba's replacement with Requesens as governor-general the Council continued its work but it became increasingly clear that its proceedings were counterproductive in combatting the Rebellion.

Philip therefore authorized Requesens to abolish the Council in 1574, if the States General were prepared to make adequate political concessions.

[18] On 4 September 1576, revolutionary bands, led by Jacques de Glymes, bailli of Brabant, arrested the members of the Council of State (the acting Brussels government).