section_path: Wars of religion and tolerance/Revolt in the Netherlands
section_name: Revolt in the Netherlands
paragraph_text: Revolt in the Netherlands
  
  More Protestants fell victim to persecution in the seventeen provinces of Habsburg Netherlands than in any other country between 1523 and 1555. The ruthless persecution prevented the establishment of Evangelical congregations although Luther's ideas were widely discussed in Flemish communities. Reformed theology spread among the Walloons through individuals' correspondence with Calvin and the Genevan academy from the 1540s. Nicodemism was not unusual but uncompromising Protestants disturbed Catholic ceremonies. The preacher Guido de Bres (d. 1567) established the first permanent Reformed congregations. He was a main contributor to the Belgic Confession, a confessional document based on the Gallican Confession, first published in Walloon in 1561, and in Dutch in 1562. The Confession sharply criticised the Anapabtists, and emphasized the importance of church discipline.
  
  In 1566, 300 nobles requested Philip II's governor Margaret of Parma (d. 1586) to moderate anti-heretic legislation. Although the petitioners were mocked as " beggars ", Margaret was open to a compromise. Protestant refugees returned from abroad, and religious enthusiasts stirred up public demonstrations. On the night of 20–21 August 1566, a Protestant mob sacked the Antwerp Cathedral, introducing a popular iconoclastic movement that spread all over the Netherlands. In 1567, Philip appointed Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba (d. 1582) to crush the riots. Alba arrived at the head of a 20,000-strong army, and introduced a reign of terror, leading to the execution of thousands of people. A prominent aristocrat William the Silent, Prince of Orange (d. 1584) assumed the leadership of the resistance. His "Sea Beggars"—a squadron of privateers—seized the provinces of Holland and Zeeland by 1572, although the Reformed communities were in the minority in most towns.
  
  Philip II's government faced bankruptcy and his unpaid Spanish troops sacked Antwerp in 1576. This led to a general revolt against Spanish rule. The Catholic aristocrat Philippe III de Croÿ, Duke of Aarschot (d. 1595), made an alliance with William the Silent but rivalry between Catholics and Protestants did not abate. In 1581, the northern provinces united under William's leadership, and renounced allegiance to Philip. In the south, Margaret of Parma's son Alessandro Farnese crushed the revolts, forcing about 100,000 Protestants to seek refugee in the north. Developed from the union of seven northern provinces, the Dutch Republic remained under the loose leadership of the House of Orange. The Reformed pastors were eager to transform the whole society along their ideas. They failed because William preferred a more tolerant approach, and significant Protestant groups associated church discipline with Catholicism. As a consequence, Evangelical, Annabaptist and Catholic communities survived in the Dutch Republic. Heterodox theologies could also spread, such as the views of Jacobus Arminius (d. 1609) who argued that an individual could resist divine grace. Although Arminianism was rejected at the international Synod of Dort in 1619, it continued to influence Protestant theologians.