Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba

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The Duke of Alba in a painting by Titian
Signature Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba.PNG

Don Fernando Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel, 3rd Duke of (Duque de) Alba (born October 29, 1507 in Piedrahíta , Castile , †  December 11, 1582 in Lisbon ) was a Spanish nobleman , general and statesman in the service of the emperor and Spanish King Charles V and his son, King Philip II of Spain . He is considered one of the outstanding military and diplomatic servants of the Spanish crown of the 16th century and is best known for his position in the Eighty Years War : In the Netherlands he suppressed the uprising against Spanish rule so brutally that he later became the “Iron Duke ”and became a central enemy of the“ black legend ”.

Life

Anthonis Mor : Portrait of the Duke of Alba, 1549 (detail)

origin

He came from the house of Álvarez de Toledo , the family of the Dukes of Alba , was the son of Don Garcia Álvarez de Toledo († 1512), Marqués de Coria, and Beatriz de Pimentel, and grandson of the 2nd Duke of Alba, Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo .

Early years

As a teenager he took part in the Battle of Pavia in 1525 and received an award for it. Appointed to a military command by Emperor Charles V, he took part in the successful siege of Tunis in 1535.

Thereupon he became one of the closest advisers to the emperor and in this function had become one of the most important dignitaries at court. During the Emperor's absence, he became an important support for the Crown Prince of Spain.

Schmalkaldic War

Under Emperor Charles V he was a victorious military leader against the Schmalkaldic League and in 1547 he completely triumphed over the Protestant side led by Johann Friedrich von Sachsen in the decisive battle near Mühlberg . This victory did not bear far-reaching fruits because of the politically unskillful behavior of the emperor. Thereupon Alba was sent by Charles V to the English court in order to diplomatically support the emperor's son Philip II , who at that time was married to the English queen Mary I and carried the title of King of England.

The Burgundian court ceremony at the Spanish royal court was introduced during the Schmalkaldic War. Alba was the first to receive the leading position of court chamberlain. In 1546 he was knighted by the Golden Fleece .

France and Italy campaign

"Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba" by Peter Paul Rubens (1628).

Six years later (1552) Fernando Álvarez de Toledo was entrusted with command of the army that was to conquer France. As a result, he was occupied with the unsuccessful siege of Metz against his will for a few months , as he would have preferred to fight the French in open battle, but the Emperor wanted to regain the fortress and city of Metz . As a result of the success of the French arms in Piedmont , he was promoted to general commander of the imperial troops in Italy with unlimited power. When his first attacks were relatively unsuccessful, he was forced to retreat to his winter quarters. After the abdication of Charles V, Philip II extended his command, but prevented him from taking extreme measures because Alba had already threatened the Pope in writing with the conquest of Rome. He subjugated Campania and stood at the gates of Rome when Philip's orders forced him to negotiate the peace of Cave-Palestrina (September 12, 1557), which also forced Pope Paul IV to give in. The Pope had to recognize Spain's hegemony in southern Italy and turn away from further alliances with France and the Muslims in Constantinople .

Envoy

After the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis , the king sent him to Paris in 1559 at the head of a brilliant embassy to woo Elisabeth of Valois , daughter of the French king Henri II , on behalf of his ruler . The advertisement was successful and Alba married her on behalf of Philip ( per procurationem ) .

Governor of the Netherlands

Arrival of the Duke of Alba in Rotterdam 1567 (by Eugène Isabey, 1844)
Alba presides over the blood council . Print by Simon Frisius , 1612
A pamphlet by the rebellious Dutch, approx. 1572: Hy nempt met welt den ryckdom van / Het land ende heeft veel ontschuldich / Bloet laten hangen ende branden / Hy heeft ock egmont ende horn dat leven / Genomen ende den heelen edeldom onder bracht / Dat wort van borger en boeren beclaecht - “He is taking the wealth of the country by force and has a lot of innocent blood hanging or burning. He also killed Egmont and Horn and humiliated the entire aristocracy, which is lamented by citizens and peasants. ”Next to the Duke a hydra with many heads with the heads of the Duke of Guise , the Spanish Cardinal Minister Granvelle and the Duke of Lorraine ( loreyne ) , at his feet the corpses of the executed Philippe de Montmorency, Count von Hoorn and Count Lamoral von Egmond.
The Duke of Alba in old age, engraved by Frans Hogenberg

From 1567 to 1573 Alba was governor of the Spanish Netherlands and successor to the king's half-sister, Margaret of Parma .

In the Netherlands there had previously been a Calvinist iconoclasm against the Catholic churches. Hundreds of churches had been devastated. Alba had received the order from the Spanish King Philip II, the sovereign of the Netherlands, to restore public order and the supremacy of the Catholic Church and to punish those responsible for the iconoclasm, which in his eyes was outrageous. As the king's loyal servant, Alba set about carrying out this mission. He set up a council of riots, which his opponents soon reviled as the blood council of Brussels . This special court found an estimated 9,000 people guilty of heresy and high treason. More than 1,000 people were convicted and executed, including Lamoral Graf von Egmont .

Alba's regiment started a huge stream of refugees from 60,000 people in the Netherlands. However, calm returned temporarily. Between 1569 and 1571, however, Alba ordered the introduction of three special taxes, including the particularly controversial so-called "tiende penning" (tenth pfennig) , a ten percent special tax on all sales. He planned with them to circumvent the traditional approval requirement of the Estates-General, which provoked their fierce opposition. When the so-called Geusen , privateers who had sided with William of Orange , conquered the Dutch port city of Den Briel in 1572, almost all cities in the provinces of Holland and Zeeland sided with the rebel leader within a few weeks .

Alba then took military action against the rebellious cities. In doing so, he made a decisive strategic mistake: although he had assured the inhabitants of the fortress town of Naarden near Amsterdam that they would spare their lives if they were to voluntarily surrender, he had the population killed. Thereupon the Dutch cities offered him resolute resistance. The costly sieges that followed led to the exhaustion of Spanish finances and national bankruptcy. Thereupon Alba was recalled by Philip II in 1573 at his own request. "Relieve me from this post and get me out of here, and if this is not possible, then shoot me and get me out of the way," he asked himself.

In 1572 the Lord's Prayer of Ghent was written as a vil prayer against Alba:

The devil, who lives in Brussels, cursed be your name, which we dread; from us your kingdom turns to the long-awaited end; your will may never be fulfilled, as it is not in heaven, so not on earth. You take our daily bread from us today, women and children suffer much hardship; You do not forgive anyone's guilt, so keep us all from your grace. You will always tempt us as long as these lands feel your rage. Heavenly Father, who is enthroned above us, make that devil spare us, including his wrong, bloody advice, which always has only evil in mind, and send his Spanish war pack back to hell, for Satan to prey. Amen.

Portugal campaign and death

King Philip II took the Duke of Alba out of his exile and at the end of his life let him fight against Portugal , which had fallen to Spain by succession, but defended itself against it. There, an illegitimate member of the Avis royal family , António von Crato , who had died out in the male line , proclaimed himself king. In 1580, Portugal was conquered by Alba's leadership in a short, strategically brilliant campaign. The decisive battle was fought in Alcântara on August 25, 1580 and resulted in Portugal being incorporated into the Spanish crown for several decades.

The gout patient died in Lisbon as governor-general over the conquered Portugal of natural causes at the then old age of 75 years. Most sources describe Alba as a person of tall stature, gaunt appearance and dark, serious facial expressions.

progeny

Fernando Álvarez married María Enríquez in 1527, daughter of Diego Enríquez de Guzmán, 3rd Count of Alba de List, with whom he had four sons and a daughter; Mistresses and illegitimate children are not known at the time of his marriage:

His eldest son, recognized in 1546, was Don Fernando de Toledo (around 1528–1591), whose mother was a miller from the area of La Aldehuela . He became the Grand Prior of Castile and from 1571 was Viceroy of Catalonia.

Historical meaning

Alba's work consolidated Spain's world power status for several decades . He is still revered by some Spaniards as a great and successful warlord.

Outside of Spain, he is often seen as the “executioner of the Netherlands”. He ordered countless acts of violence, which are considered war crimes by today's standards and which were regarded as unusually cruel even under the circumstances of the time. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe made this the subject of his drama Egmont , which, however, also delivered a very distorted picture of Alba and his adversary Egmont.

His work in the Netherlands is one of the focal points of the “ black legend ”, according to which Northern and Central Europe regarded the Spanish world power of the 16th and 17th centuries for a long time as cruel barbarism and where the Dutch national consciousness should develop.

reception

In 1788 Schiller published the anecdote Duke of Alba having breakfast at Rudolstadt Castle. In 1547 .

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See only the book titles: Walther Kirchner: Alba. Spain's iron duke (= personality and history. Vol. 29). Musterschmidt, Göttingen a. a. 1963; Manuel Fernández Álvarez: El Duque de Hierro. Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, III duque de Alba. Espasa Calpe, Madrid 2007, ISBN 978-84-670-2625-2 .
  2. ↑ Christoph Driessen: History of the Netherlands. From sea power to trend land. Regensburg 2009, p. 32.
  3. ↑ Christoph Driessen: History of the Netherlands. From sea power to trend land. Regensburg 2009, p. 34.
  4. ↑ Martin van Gelderen: The Political Culture of the Dutch Revolt 1555-1590. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992, pp. 40 f.
  5. ↑ Christoph Driessen: History of the Netherlands. From sea power to trend land. Regensburg 2009, p. 39 ff.
  6. ↑ Quoted from Christoph Driessen: History of the Netherlands. From sea power to trend land. Regensburg 2009, p. 42.
  7. ↑ Wieland Eschenhagen, Gabriele Intemann: Chronik-Handbuch Personen der Weltgeschichte. 1995, p. 19.
  8. ↑ Manuel Fernández Álvarez : Felipe II y su tiempo . Espasa, Madrid 1998, ISBN 84-239-9736-7 , p. 531.
  9. ↑ Dieter Paul Mertz: The Habsburgs and the gout. In: Journal of General Practice. Volume 68, Issue 29, 1992, pp. 959-962, here: p. 962.
  10. ^ Judith Pollmann: A natural enmity. Origin and function of the black legend about Spain in the Netherlands, 1560–1581. In: Franz Bosbach (Ed.): Feindbilder. The representation of the opponent in political journalism in the Middle Ages and modern times (= Bayreuth Historical Colloquia. Vol. 6). Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 1992, ISBN 3-412-03390-1 , pp. 73-93.
  11. ↑ Andrew Sawyer: The "Tyranny of Alva". The Creation and Development of a Dutch Patriotic Image. In: De zeventiende eeuw. Vol. 19, 2003, ISSN  0921-142X , pp. 181-211.

Web links

Commons : Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba  - Quotes (Spanish)
predecessor Office successor
Ferrante I. Gonzaga Governor of Milan
1555–1556 		Cristoforo Madruzzo
Margaret of Parma Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands
1567–1573 		Luis de Zúñiga y Requesens
personal data
SURNAME Álvarez de Toledo, Fernando Duke of Alba
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Alba, Fernando Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel 3rd Duke of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish general and statesman
DATE OF BIRTH October 29, 1507
PLACE OF BIRTH Piedrahíta , Castile
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 1582
Place of death Lisbon , Portugal