[6] Over the summer, the inability of the Spanish military command to pay its soldiers resulted in a series of mutinies which prompted the provinces loyal to Philip II to join forces with those rebellious in the Pacification of Ghent with the common goal of expelling the foreign troops and restore the peace.

Aarschot, the most influential Southern noblemen, invited Archduke Matthias, future Holy Roman Emperor, to take John's position, which the States declared vacant.

[25] Cristóbal de Mondragón, a veteran Spanish colonel of Walloon infantry, was appointed governor of Limburg and ordered to besiege the castle of Dalhem, from where the States troops raided the villages nearby.

[32] Farnese, his uncle – though they had similar ages, being on their early thirties – and confidant, accepted the appointment of Governor-General by Don John on his death bed until Philip II finalized it.

[40] Then Mondragón sent 500 infantry and 50 horse to capture Straelen, while another force under Pedro de Toledo was dispatched to relieve the Bleijenbeek Castle, whose lord, Maarten Shenk, had declared for the Spanish.

[41][42] Excluding Mondragón's force and several troops left in the area around Diest and Leuven under the Marquis del Monte, the Spanish army numbered 25,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry soldiers.

[44][45] Having taken Weert on 29 January, Farnese advanced with most of his forces to meet the States Army, then led by the Huguenot François de La Noue, who withdrew his troops towards Antwerp.

[48][49] Simultaneously, Farnese achieved another political success on 21 February, when the Union of Arras started negotiations with him, soon followed by the Malcontents, who would join the Spanish army on 6 April with 7,000 men in exchange for 250,000 florins.

[45] On 2 March 1579, the Spanish army attacked the remaining States troops, mostly French, English and Scottish under De la Noue and John Norreys, at their camp in Borgerhout, and drove them into Antwerp.

[62] On the Spanish side, preparations began in March, when Farnese ordered Gilles de Berlaymont, general of the artillery, to leave Namur for Liège and organize the transportation down the Meuse of 48 cannons, 3 culverins, 50,005 cannonballs and 500 quintals of powder.

[65] In the meantime, the besiegers built four earth forts on the side of Brabant to block the way to any force that attempted to relieve the city, the first one at the village of Hunnenberg, on the course of the Jeker river, which flows towards Maastricht, and the other three in front of the Tongeren gate, the bulwark of Saint Servaas and the Boschpoort, opposite to the church of the Teutonic Order.

Captain Vázquez stated that, nevertheless, the artillery general did it just with three pieces because Farnese gave his orders through Count Guido di San Giorgio, from Monferrato, who was his confidant and a well-taught military theorist, but who Berlaymont despised because of his lack of experience.

[85] Farnese, who was conferencing with Mondragón on the other side of the Meuse, was angry on his return, as all the Maestres de Campo were dining with Ottavio Gonzaga at the encampment of the cavalry while the sortie took place.

[90][89] On the morning of 9 April 1579, while men took their positions for the assault, the moat of the Boschpoort was emptied through breaches dug by the sappers while Mondragón subjected the gate to a heavy bombardment from the Wyck side with six cannons.

[95] The attack over the Boschpoort was headed by a volunteer forlorn hope formed mainly by young Italian noblemen led by Fabio Farnese, nephew to Alessandro, whom Count Mansfeld had assigned to the Tercio of Figueroa.

[97][98] The Dutch also threw boiling water, stones, incendiary devices and scythed carts over the attackers, yet they were close to breaking through thanks to a stratagem by the Count of Mansfeld, who sent horsemen to the Tongeren gate and the Boschpoort to spread news that the assault had succeeded in the other point.

[99][100] In the end, Farnese realized that the attack was doomed when Tapin ordered the garrison of a tower near the Boschpoort, in the Spanish right flank, which had remained silent till then, to open fire with light cannons, heavy muskets and arquebuses.

[107][108] As the States-General were assembling forces to march in relief of Maastricht, the Spanish command also decided to build a circumvallation line on both sides of the Meuse to fully isolate the city.

The soldiers were exhausted and many pioneers had left the camp, so Farnese dispatched cavalry troops to gather peasants from the villages nearby and hired 3,000 coal miners from Liège.

However, most of the Walloon Catholic units refused to intervene – and would change sides over the summer – forcing the States to levy money across the provinces under their control to recruit new companies and to mobilize veteran soldiers detached to garrison duties.

[111][113] In the end, a force of nearly 100 foot companies – 15,000 to 20,000 infantry[114] – and 3,000 cavalry soldiers under John of Nassau-Dillenburg, brother of the Prince of Orange, and Count Philip of Hohenlohe-Neuenstein advanced to the relief.

Meanwhile, in order to put the city under a cross-fire, Spanish troops landed from boats on the St. Antonius island, in middle of the Meuse, and started to entrench themselves there, but were promptly driven away by the fire from Maastricht.

Each soldier was paid four stuivers daily, the stonemason masters ten, and the poor people was fed at the expense of the town council, but the burghers were unable to exert their offices and received no compensation.

[140] The sack was particularly vicious as Farnese remained in bed and was unable to issue orders to contain the soldiery, and his two lieutenants, the Count of Mansfeld and Ottavio Gonzaga, disliked each other and refused to cooperate.

Contemporaneous Netherlandish authors such as Emanuel van Meteren and Pieter Bor noted that just 300 to 400 burghers remained after the capture of the city, which according to them had to be repopulated by people from Liège.

[147] Strada wrote that 8,000 inhabitants, including 1,700 women, died during the siege, while the Mémoires anonymes sur les troubles des Pays-bas reduces the figure to 4,000 dead.

He also noted that the schepen, the guild masters and the administrators of the charities were essentially the same before and after the siege, and that the bakers, brewers, wine merchants and butchers were allowed to continue their jobs unmolested.

[165] Emboldened by the capture of Maastricht, as well as by Cardinal Granvelle's assertion that more towns will soon defect the rebels, Philip II instructed his delegates in Cologne to demand the restoration of exclusive Catholic worship in all the Low Countries, and fewer checks to his royal authority.

[166] Ultimately, the talks failed, and in March 1580 Philip outlawed William of Orange, who responded with his Apology, paving the way to the recognition of Francis of Anjou as 'prince and lord of the Netherlands' by the States General in January 1581 and the Act of Abjuration that July, which marked the de facto independence of the Dutch Republic from the Spanish Crown.

[178] Other paintings about Farnese's campaigns, inspired by this series, were produced in the 18th century Spanish Americas, including several ones belonging to the collection of the Casa de la Moneda in Potosí.