Siege of Leiden

Between October 1573 and October 1574, Spanish royal troops under Francisco de Valdez twice laid siege to Leiden, a rebel city in the county of Holland. The defenders held out through hunger and plague until William of Orange, leader of the Dutch revolt, deliberately flooded the surrounding countryside so that a fleet of shallow boats could sail to their rescue. The relief on 3 October 1574 became one of the best-remembered episodes of the Eighty Years' War and is still celebrated in the city every year.

The Netherlands had passed by inheritance to the Habsburg king of Spain, Philip II. In 1572 rebels took over most of the towns of Holland and Zeeland in protest against the harsh government of the Duke of Alba. The province was full of walled towns set among low-lying land that could be flooded by cutting the dykes. Alba, working from loyal Amsterdam, tried to crush resistance by force. The sacks of Naarden and Haarlem convinced other towns that surrender offered no safety. After Haarlem fell following a seven-month siege and Alkmaar held out, Alba sent Valdez against the rebel towns in the south of Holland, beginning with Leiden. Alba himself was replaced at the end of 1573 by the more conciliatory Luis de Requesens.

The siege began in October 1573. Leiden was well stocked with food, and the soft ground made it hard for the Spanish to dig trenches. William sent his brother Louis of Nassau with an army to relieve the city, and in April 1574 Valdez broke off the siege to meet him. Another Spanish force reached Louis first and destroyed his army at Mookerheyde, where Louis was killed.

Leiden failed to use the pause to restock its stores, ignoring William's advice, so when Valdez returned on 26 May 1574 the city was as poorly prepared as before. William sent a message by carrier pigeon asking the citizens to hold out for three months and resolved to relieve them by water. Despite the opposition of local people, whose land would be ruined, the outer dykes were cut on 3 August. Admiral Louis de Boisot gathered more than 200 flat-bottomed vessels crewed by about 2,500 experienced seamen and loaded with food.

Progress was slow. William fell seriously ill, and contrary winds kept the water low. On 21 August the townspeople sent word that they had endured three months, two with food and one without. In September the fleet captured an undefended dyke called the Landscheiding in a night attack, only to find further embankments and shallow water in its path, and for a time the boats were almost stranded.

Inside the walls, thousands died of starvation, and plague is reported to have killed nearly 8,000 more. When some citizens demanded surrender, the mayor, Pieter Adriaanszoon van der Werff, is said to have offered them his own arm to eat rather than give in. Then, around 18 September, a strong westerly wind drove the sea further inland. The fleet sailed round the defended canal, and as the water rose the Spanish abandoned their fortified villages one after another, leaving only the fort at Lammen near the city walls.

On the night of 2 October Valdez ordered a retreat. His men were reportedly alarmed by a loud crash from the city, in fact a section of the town wall collapsing after being undermined by the water. On 3 October the relief fleet reached Leiden and handed out herring and white bread. According to legend, a boy found a pot of stew, hutspot, left behind in the Spanish camp.

In 1575 the Spanish treasury ran dry and the unpaid army mutinied, and Leiden was safe. William founded Leiden University in recognition of the city's endurance, nominally in the name of the king he was fighting. Each 3 October Leiden holds a festival at which the municipality hands out herring and white bread.

Our 1530 map shows the Habsburg Netherlands before the revolt, and the 1600 map shows the Dutch Republic established in the north, including Leiden, in today's Netherlands.