Council of Troubles
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Council of Troubles, byname Council Of Blood, Dutch Raad Van Beroerten, or Bloedraad, Spanish Tribunal De Los Revoltosos, or Tribunal De Sangre, (1567–74), special court in the Low Countries organized by the Spanish governor, the Duke of Alba, which initiated a reign of terror against all elements suspected of heresy or rebellion. Alba’s dispatch to the Netherlands at the head of a large army in the summer of 1567 had been occasioned by a violent, iconoclastic outburst by the growing minority of Calvinists. His council, which was composed of loyal Netherlands magnates and Spanish officials (who actually controlled it), condemned thousands to death or imprisonment without due process of law. The purpose of the council, in addition to enforcing adherence to Roman Catholicism, was to put an end to the particularism of the Low Countries stemming from their traditional privileges, rights, and customs, which had served as an impediment to absolutist control by Philip II of Spain.
The Council of Troubles’ first victims were magnates who had, in 1566, petitioned Margaret, Duchess of Parma, Alba’s predecessor, for a relaxation of religious persecution against Protestants. In the wake of the unlawful arrest of two magnates, counts Egmond and Hoorne (both later executed), thousands of nobles and Calvinists fled abroad, to return in 1568 as the “Beggars” (Geuzen), the guerrilla, privateering “shock troops” of the Netherlands’ revolt against Spain (1568–1609). The estates and property of all whom the council condemned were declared forfeit and fell to the treasury of the central government.
Alba used the council to intimidate the citizenry, especially the town and provincial governments, into accepting his scheme for a general, permanent 10 percent sales tax—the Tenth Penny—which would give the central government financial independence and thus break the particularism of the Netherlands. Announced in March 1569, though the measure was not to go into effect until 1571, the Tenth Penny caused general discontent; all provincial and local officials who balked at the tax were arrested, tortured, and imprisoned. A general pardon—excluding the more zealous rebels—was enacted in 1570, but the Tenth Penny proposal had united Roman Catholics and Calvinists against Spain and breathed life into the rebellion. The Council of Troubles disappeared with the departure of Alba, who left the Netherlands in 1573. The council was abolished the following year.
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history of the Low Countries: Causes of the revolt…towns and set up the Council of Troubles (or Council of Blood), which imposed severe penalties, often including the death sentence or confiscation of property, sparing nothing and nobody, not even the most powerful—the counts of Egmond and Hoorne were publicly beheaded in Brussels in June 1568.…
William I: Open revolt and alliance with Calvinism…September a special court, the Council of Troubles, was set up to try all cases of rebellion and heresy, and more than 1,000 executions took place (including those of the counts of Egmond and Hoorne). Orange, summoned to appear before the court, replied with a dignified
Justificationof his conduct.…
Fernando Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel, 3er duque de Alba…up a new court, the Council of Troubles (soon to be known as the Council of Blood). This court set aside all local laws and condemned some 12,000 persons for rebellion, many of whom, however, had fled the country. Alba allowed himself to be involved in a trade war with…