On this date in 1568, two Flemish nobles were beheaded at Brussels’ Grand Place for treason to the Spanish crown that then ruled the Low Countries.
Lamoral, Count of Egmont and Philip de Montmorency, Count of Hoorn had a beef with the introduction of the Inquisition into the Netherlands by Egmont’s cousin, King Philip II, and got to hanging around with dubious characters like William of Orange.
Unluckily for this day’s duo, William didn’t teach them to read the writing on the wall.
After the Counts went easy on an outbreak of Protestant Iconoclasm, the Catholic king sent the hammer in the person of the Duke of Alba (or Alva).
Let this long-expired generation counsel posterity to find itself elsewhere when one’s door is darkened by a man known as “the Iron Duke”. William had the wit to get out of town. Egmont and Hoorn hung around, depending on their (professedly) clean consciences.
The beheadings were widely protested both locally and abroad, and festered as a grievance against the empire — a grievance that, as the nascent conflict evolved into a revolution that would detach the Netherlands from Spain, elevated these distinctly non-revolutionary wealthy nobles into freethinking martyrs of independence.
Two centuries later, Goethe put the story on the stage with his play Egmont (original German | English translation), a production for which Beethoven subsequently composed gorgeous orchestral companion pieces.
Here’s the lovely, lovely Ludwig Van’s beloved (including by Goethe himself) Overture to Egmont, Op. 84:
On this day..
- 1825: Odysseus Androutsos
- 1984: Sadiq Hamed Al-Shuwehdy, live from Benghazi
- 1806: Dominic Daley and James Halligan, hated foreigners
- 1797: Martin Clinch and Samuel Mackley
- 1891: Christian Fuerst and Charles Sheppard
- 1688: Constantine Gerachi, the Siamese Falcon
- 1919: Eugen Levine, Bavarian Soviet leader
- 1573: Meister Frantz Schmidt's first execution
- 1318: John Deydras, aka John of Powderham
- 1963: Nora Parham, the only woman hanged in Belize
- 1723: Margaret Fleck, with a fresh dempster
- 1935: Pat Griffin and Elmer Brewer
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“My bus will arrive in less than 40 minutes and I am bored, what things to do.
Actually the Count of Hoorne should be called “The Count of Horne”.
His castle can still be found in the village of Horne, Limburg the Netherlands.
(By the way, I am a resident of this village and this fact has been historically recognised!)
Hi,
Do you know where I can find information on the other Counts of Horne? I have an old family tree that just lists, “John, Count of Horn” and no dates. The only reference I’ve found online just has the date 1540. Supposedly one of his descendants is my ancestor, Lawrence Horn (born in 1756 in Germany, died in 1829/1830 in America).
Danke!
Gretchen