I Take History With My Coffee

107 Episodes

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106: The Sea Beggars: The Revolt in Holland and Zeeland

2026-10-2131:30

On April 1, 1572, a fleet of expelled privateers drops anchor at Brill with no food, no plan, and nowhere else to go. They expected to loot a town and leave. Instead, an argument over breakfast turns an accident into the foundation of a state. This episode: who the Sea Beggars really were (mostly Dutch, not foreign pirates), why Elizabeth I’s expulsion was the push they needed, and how their leader, Willem II de la Marck (known as Lumey), with his uncut beard and hatred of priests, cre...

105: Alba and Orange: The Failure of the First Dutch Revolt

2026-10-0732:15

In October 1568, William of Orange crosses the Meuse with an army of about 25,000 to 30,000 men and attempts to retake the Netherlands. No one rises to join him. The Duke of Alba refuses to give battle and lets hunger end the invasion. By early 1569, Orange is sick, broke, and sneaking down the Rhine in a covered barge. Alba writes that he may be counted a dead man. Alba has won, but he can't sustain his victory. This episode follows both men from 1568 to the spring of 1572, as ea...

104: The Iron Duke: The Council of Troubles and Its Consequences

2026-09-2429:33

Grand Place, Brussels. June 5, 1568. A scaffold draped in black. Three thousand Spanish troops encircle a silent crowd. Lamoral, Count of Egmont — Knight of the Golden Fleece, the man who broke the French at Saint-Quentin and Gravelines — kneels and removes the collar of his highest honor before the axe falls. Minutes later, Philip de Hoorn follows. This is the story of how it came to that: the Duke of Alba's arrival in Brussels with ten thousand troops, the creation of the Council of ...

103: The Storm Approaches: The Duke of Alba on the March

2026-09-0929:17

In the autumn of 1566, two of the most powerful men in Europe fall mysteriously ill at the same time — and a rebellion three hundred miles to the north waits for their recovery to decide what happens next. This episode traces the path from Philip II's sickbed in Madrid to the Duke of Alba's arrival in Brussels on August 22, 1567: a stormy council meeting that ends in a shouting match, a letter written four months before the crisis it will supposedly justify, and the astonishing 700-mil...

102: Beeldenstorm: The Iconoclastic Fury of 1566

2026-08-2629:04

On August 10, 1566, a crowd gathers outside a friary near Steenvoorde to hear a former hatmaker preach. By the time the sermon ends, twenty people have stripped the building of every painting, statue, and altarpiece. It takes less than an hour. Three days later, it happens again. Then again. Within two weeks, the wave has reached nearly every province of the Low Countries — culminating in a single, staggering night at Antwerp's Cathedral of Our Lady, where six thousand people break in ...

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