Egmont

Egmont, also Egmond, prince of Gavre, whose full name was Count Lamoral Egmont (Hainaut, 1522-68, Brussels). He married Sabine of Bavaria, by whom he had eleven children. He served under Karl V, who in 1546 made him a Knight of the Golden Fleece, and under his successor Philip II, for whom he led the Spanish cavalry to victory at St Quentin (1557) and Gravelines (1558). As governor of the provinces of Flanders and Artois he was implicated, together with William the Silent of Orange and Count Hoorn, in the opposition to Cardinal Granvella, the adviser to the regent Margaret of Parma.

In 1564, after the removal of the cardinal, Egmont, a loyal Catholic, failed to move Philip II to relax his regime in the Netherlands, which included persecution by the Spanish Inquisition. Still hoping for a reconciliation, he refused to join the subsequent open rebellion in the Provinces. On 9 September 1567 he was arrested after the arrival of Duke Alva in Brussels. On 4 June 1568 he was condemned to death for high treason by Alva's Council of Blood, and on the following day he was executed, together with Count Hoorn, in the market square of Brussels in front of the town hall. He is the subject of Goethe's tragedy Egmont.