Contents

Siege of Oudewater (1575)

Event during the Eighty Years' War

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Dutch. (June 2015) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Dutch article. Machine translation, like DeepLorGoogle Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Dutch Wikipedia article at [[:nl:Beleg van Oudewater (1575)]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|nl|Beleg van Oudewater (1575)}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Siege of Oudewater (1575)
Part of the Eighty Years' War
Depiction of the siege of Oudewater
Date 19 July – 7 August 1575 Location Oudewater, Utrecht (present-day the Netherlands) Result Spanish victory
Belligerents
Dutch Rebels	Spain
Commanders and leaders
	Gillis van Berlaymont

The siege of Oudewater was an event during the Eighty Years' War that took place in the Dutch town of Oudewater, culminating in the Oudewater Massacre ((in Dutch) Oudewaterse moord).^[1][2] The siege by Spanish troops started on 19 July 1575 and ended on 7 August 1575, when the town was taken by storm and plundered.^[3]

In 1568 a garrison of the Spanish Army was stationed in Oudewater. On 19 June 1572 Adriaen van Swieten, a nobleman and deputy of William of Orange, entered the town with a small number of troops and convinced it to join the Dutch Revolt against Philip II of Spain.^[4][5]

The siege by Spanish troops under command of stadtholder Gillis van Berlaymont started on 19 July 1575 and ended in a bloodbath on 7 August 1575. Many of the inhabitants were put to the sword, and some citizens set their own houses on fire to spite looters, leading to a major conflagration. In total, as many as half the inhabitants of the town may have died.^[6]

In 1615 the States of Holland authorised pensions to the 300 survivors of the massacre then still living, the last payments on which were made in 1664.^[7] An annual commemoration of the massacre was instituted in 1608. It is now held each year on the first Sunday on or after 7 August.^[8]

• Marcel Tettero, Het Bloedbad van Oudewater 1575
• Ronald de Graaf, Oorlog mijn arme schapen

This Netherlands-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.