Maximilien de Hénin, 3rd Count of Bossu

Boussu (or Bossu) as he is known in most historical works, was born the son of Count Jean de Hénin-Liétard, scion of an aristocratic family from Hainaut, and Anne of Bourgondië-Beveren, descendant from a bastard of Philip of Burgundy.

His uncle was Maximiliaan II van Bourgondië, from 1547 Charles V's stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht and admiral of the Habsburg navy, which had its headquarters at the time in Veere.

When the Prince of Orange had to flee the Netherlands for fear of becoming a victim of the Duke of Alba's repression at the beginning of the Eighty Years' War, Philip II of Spain's Regent Margaret of Parma appointed Boussu as his successor as stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht on 17 June 1567.

When on 1 April 1572 a fleet of Sea-Beggar privateers surprised the port of Brill on the Dutch coast, Boussu therefore launched a counterattack from his base at Vredenburg castle in Utrecht.

[2] He was succeeded by first, Philip of Noircarmes, and after the latter's death in March, 1574, by Gilles de Berlaymont, lord of Hierges as royalist stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht.