Background
Count of Egmont was born on November 18, 1522. The son of John IV of Egmont, he was born Lamoral of Egmont on Nov. 18, 1522, at the Chateau of Hamayde in the province of Hainaut.
Count of Egmont was born on November 18, 1522. The son of John IV of Egmont, he was born Lamoral of Egmont on Nov. 18, 1522, at the Chateau of Hamayde in the province of Hainaut.
As a young man, Egmont became a favorite of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, whom he accompanied on his Tunisian expedition and to Algeria. He was sent to England in 1554 to arrange the marriage of the Emperor's son Philip--who was to become Philip II of Spain--with Queen Mary Tudor, and he was present at the wedding ceremony.
A brilliant military strategist, Egmont in 1557 commanded the light cavalry of the Spanish army against Francis I of France. The charge of his 7,000 horsemen decided the battle of Saint-Quentin, and similar tactics that he employed the following year won him the battle of Gravelines.
Philip II succeeded his father in 1555. After he left the Low Countries for Spain in 1559, he nominated Egmont stadholder of Flanders and Artois. Philip's efforts to convert the Netherlands into a Spanish-ruled dependency, however, aroused the opposition of Egmont and other leaders. Egmont quarreled with the regent, Margaret of Parma (Philip's half-sister), and her minister, Cardinal de Granvelle. From that time on, Egmont gave up his military career to play a political role. With the Prince of Orange (William the Silent) and Count Horn (Hoorn), he formed a triumvirate which, at the head of the nobles, hoped to enlist the States General of the Low Countries to take part in the defense of their national privileges.
To oppose Granvelle, who represented Spanish royal policy, Egmont and his friends decided in 1563 to refuse to take their seats in the council of state, and in 1564 Philip II recalled his minister. New opposition was created by Philip's determination to enforce the decrees of the Catholic Counter-Reformation Council of Trent (1545-1563) throughout the Netherlands. The nobles sent Egmont to Madrid to ask convocation of the States General, believing that this body should determine the country's policy. Philip rejected the proposal, however, and when this news was received in the Netherlands, the rebellion spread through the country. The lesser nobility united to form the "Compromise of the Nobles," which Egmont did not join, although he gave it his approval; the people, aroused by ministers of the Reformation, sacked churches, convents, and chapels. Egmont, who always remained faithful to Catholicism, condemned these outrages. William of Orange was ready to make open war and wished to bring Egmont into it, but the latter refused. Torn between his loyalty to the king--which never faltered despite his grievances--and the Prince of Orange's policy of toleration, Egmont displeased both sides.
Orange went into exile before the arrival of the new governor general, the Duke of Alva (Alba), in 1567. Egmont remained behind; he and Count Horn were imprisoned and accused of high treason by the "Council of Blood." After a farce of a trial, they were beheaded in front of the town hall of Brussels, on June 5, 1568. Their deaths led to the revolt of the Netherlands against Spanish domination, which began in the same year and resulted in de facto independence in 1609. Goethe's poetic drama Egmont (1788) and its incidental music by Beethoven are well known.
In 1544 Egmont married the daughter of the Palatine Count John, Sabina of Bavaria, who bore him eleven children.