caused serious religious disturbances in the then church- and king-faithful regions outside Holland and Zeeland after 1576.

The agreements of the Pacification of Ghent were confirmed at the first Union of Brussels on 6 January 1577, by which the regions wanted to force the new governor Don Juan of Austria to recognise the Pacification; the Spanish soldiers were to leave the country and the regions themselves would take care of maintaining Catholicism,