Dutch Revolt. The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Reformation, centralisation, taxation, and the rights and privileges of the nobility and cities. After the initial stages, Philip II of Spain, the sovereign of the Netherlands, deployed his armies and regained control over most of the rebel-held territories. However, widespread mutinies in the Spanish army caused a general uprising. Under the leadership of the exiled William the Silent, the Catholic- and Protestant-dominated provinces sought to establish religious peace while jointly opposing the king's regime with the Pacification of Ghent, but the general rebellion failed to sustain itself. Despite Governor of Spanish Netherlands and General for Spain, the Duke of Parma's steady military and diplomatic successes, the Union of Utrecht continued their resistance, proclaiming their independence through the 1581 Act of Abjuration, and establishing the Protestant-dominated Dutch Republic in 1588. In the Ten Years thereafter, the Republic made remarkable conquests in the north and east against a struggling Spanish Empire, and received diplomatic recognition from France and England in 1596. The Dutch colonial empire emerged, which began with Dutch attacks on Portugal's overseas territories. Facing a stalemate, the two sides agreed to a Twelve Years' Truce in 1609; when it expired in 1621, fighting resumed as part of the broader Thirty Years' War. An end was reached in 1648 with the Peace of Münster, when Spain recognised the Dutch Republic as an independent country. The aftermath of the Eighty Years' War had far-reaching military, political, socio-economic, religious, and cultural effects on the Low Countries, the Spanish Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, England as well as other regions of Europe and European colonies overseas. The origins of the Eighty Years' War are complicated, and have been a source of disputes amongst historians for centuries. The Habsburg Netherlands emerged as a result of the territorial expansion of the Burgundian State in the 14th and 15th centuries. Upon extinction of the Burgundian State in 1477/82, these lands were inherited by the House of Habsburg, whose Charles V became both King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor. While conquering and incorporating the rest of what would become the Seventeen Provinces during the Guelders Wars, and seeking to forge and centralise these disparate regions into one political entity, Charles aspired to counter the Protestant Reformation and keep all his subjects obedient to the Catholic Church. King Philip II of Spain, in his capacity as sovereign of Habsburg Netherlands, continued the anti-heresy and centralisation policies of his father Charles V. This caused growing resistance among the moderate nobility and population of the Netherlands. This mood of resistance first led to peaceful protests, but in the summer of 1566 erupted in violent protests by Calvinists, known as the iconoclastic fury, or across the Netherlands. The Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands, Margaret of Parma, as well as authorities at lower levels, feared insurrection and made further concessions to the Calvinists, such as designating certain churches for Calvinist worship, but in December 1566 and early 1567 the first battles between Calvinist rebels and Habsburg governmental forces had taken place, commencing what would become known as the Eighty Years' War. The period between the start of the Beeldenstorm in August 1566 until early 1572 contained the first events of a series that would later be known as the Eighty Years' War between the Spanish Empire and disparate groups of rebels in the Habsburg Netherlands. Some of the first pitched battles and sieges between radical Calvinists and Habsburg governmental forces took place in the years 1566–1567, followed by the arrival and government takeover by Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba with an army of 10,000 Spanish and Italian soldiers. Next, an ill-fated invasion by the most powerful nobleman of the Low Countries, the exiled but still-Catholic William the Silent of Orange, failed to inspire a general anti-government revolt. Although the war seemed over before it got underway, in the years 1569–1571, Alba's repression grew severe, and opposition against his regime mounted to new heights and became susceptible to rebellion. Although virtually all historians place the start of the war somewhere in this period, there is no consensus amongst historians on which exact event should be considered the actual beginning of the war. Consequently, there is no agreement whether the war really lasted exactly eighty years, or that this term should be considered a misnomer. For this and other reasons, some historians have endeavoured to replace the name Eighty Years' War with Dutch Revolt, but there is no consensus either to which period the term Dutch Revolt should apply to the war, the initial stage of the war, or the entire war.