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Updated: June 2, 2025
Scarred, hacked, and even maimed, in the unceasing conflicts in which their lives had passed; wearing crescents in their caps, with the inscription, "Rather Turkish than Popish;" renowned far and wide, as much for their ferocity as for their nautical skill; the appearance of these wildest of the "Sea-beggars" was both eccentric and terrific.
Scarred, hacked, and even maimed, in the unceasing conflicts in which their lives had passed; wearing crescents in their caps, with the inscription, "Rather Turkish than Popish;" renowned far and wide, as much for their ferocity as for their nautical skill; the appearance of these wildest of the "Sea-beggars" was both eccentric and terrific.
Queen Elizabeth, as was her wont, had no scruple in conniving at acts of piracy to the injury of the Spaniard; but at last, at the beginning of 1572, in consequence of strong representations from Madrid, she judged it politic to issue an order forbidding the Sea-Beggars to enter any English harbours.
The Sea-Beggars then swarmed over the whole of Walcheren, receiving many recruits in their ranks and pillaging churches recklessly. Middelburg alone remained to the Spanish troops, while the provinces of the North began to look to the Prince of Orange as their legitimate ruler.
Sonoy now, by the orders of the prince, gained the consent of the cultivators of the surrounding district to the cutting of the dykes. Within a week another disaster befell the Spanish arms. Between Hoorn and Enkhuizen the fleet of Bossu on the Zuyder Zee was attacked by the Sea-Beggars and was completely defeated.
The first marked success was the capture of Briel by the "sea-beggars," inhabitants of the coasts of Holland and Zealand, under their admiral, William de la Mark. The barbarities and extortion of Alva by degrees aroused universal and intense hatred. Holland and Zealand threw off Alva's rule, and made William their stadtholder. The nominal connection with Spain was still kept up.
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