The Council of Troubles (usual English translation of , or , or ) was the special tribunal instituted on 9 September 1567 by Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba, governor-general of the Habsburg Netherlands on the orders of Philip II of Spain to punish the ringleaders of the recent political and religious troubles in the Netherlands. Due to the many death sentences pronounced by the tribunal, it also became known as the Council of Blood (Bloedraad in Dutch and Conseil de Sang in French). The tribunal would be abolished by Alba's successor Luis de Zúñiga y Requesens on 7 June 1574 in exchange for a subsidy from the States-General of the Netherlands, but in practice it remained in session until the popular revolution in Brussels of the summer of 1576.
Background
During the final two years of the regency of Margaret of Parma over the Habsburg Netherlands, circumstances—political (disaffection of the high nobility with its diminished role in the councils of state), religious (disaffection over the persecution of heretics and the reform of the organisation of the Catholic Church in the Netherlands, especially the creation of new dioceses), and economic (a famine in 1565)—conspired to bring about a number of political and social events that shook the regime to its foundations. A League of Nobles (mostly members of the lower nobility) protested the severity of the persecution of heretics with a petition to the Regent, who conceded the demands temporarily. This may have encouraged the Calvinists in the country to follow the iconoclastic depredations on Catholic churches that also burst out in France in the summer of 1566.
Although this iconoclastic fury was soon suppressed by the authorities, and the concessions to the Calvinists retracted, these "troubles" sufficiently disturbed the Court in Madrid to motivate Philip to send his trusted commander, the Duke of Alba, with an army of Spanish troops to restore order in the Netherlands. When he arrived there, his first measures so offended the Regent that she resigned in protest in early September 1567.
History
Patent instituting the Council
One of these measures was the institution (9 September 1567) of a council to investigate and punish the events described above. This council was only later to become known as the "Council of Troubles," as for the moment it was presented as just an advisory council, next to the three collateral Habsburg councils (Council of State, Privy Council, and Council of Finances), and the High Court at Mechelen. The fact, however, that it superseded these preexisting councils for this express purpose, and that the new tribunal (as it turned out to be) ignored the judicial privileges enshrined in such constitutional documents as the Joyeuse entrée of the ancient Duchy of Brabant (which Philip had affirmed on his accession to the ducal throne in 1556), shocked the constitutional conscience of the Regent, and the Dutch politicians.
Initially, the council was composed of the Duke himself (as president), assisted by two high Netherlandish nobles, Charles de Berlaymont (the alleged author of the epithet Geuzen) and Philippe de Noircarmes (as vice-presidents). Members were a number of prominent jurists, recruited from the Councils of the provinces, such as Adrianus Nicolai (chancellor of Guelders), Jacob Meertens (president of the council of Artois), Pieter Asset, Jacob Hessels (councillor of Ghent), and his colleague Johan de la Porte (advocaat-fiscaal of Flanders). Jean du Bois, procureur-generaal at the High Court became chief prosecutor. The most influential members were reportedly two Spaniards, who came with Alba from Spain: Juan de Vargas and Luis del Río. Jacques de la Torre (a secretary of the Privy Council) became the principal secretary of the new council. Only these Spanish members apparently had the right to vote on verdicts.
Organization and procedure
At first, the council acted as an advisory council of the Duke, who decided on all verdicts himself. As the number of cases grew into the thousands in the years following the early sensational trials, this was not practicable. Alba therefore instituted two criminal and two civil Chambers for the Council in 1569, and expanded the number of councillors appreciably, at the same time replacing a few councillors (like the Burgundian Claude Belin), who had shown an undesirable degree of independence. The most important of the new members was the new secretary Jeronimo de Roda, who received the same powers as Vargas and Del Rio.