59 - Successive Crises Amidst a Looming Succession Crisis

During the first decade of the 16th century, one of the primary concerns

for the towns, cities and ducal governments of the Low Countries was

the war the Habsburgs were waging with Charles of Egmont over the title

of Duke of Guelders. The war in Guelders complicated the already

convoluted political structure that had developed across the Low

Countries over the course of the previous half century. In this episode,

we’re going to focus on Guelders again, but this time to see how the

war was intimately entangled in a web of relationships between the

different layers of nobility, both domestic and foreign, and how the

interests of the Habsburg dynasty often clashed with the interests of

the people who lived within their domains. When Philip the Handsome

sailed away to Spain, Charles of Egmont seized the opportunity to