page_title: Battle of Zutphen
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Zutphen / Background
caption_attribution_description: Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester 1532-1588
context_page_description: The Battle of Zutphen was fought on 22 September 1586, near the village of Warnsveld and the town of Zutphen, the Netherlands, during the Eighty Years' War. It was fought by the forces of the United Provinces of the Netherlands, aided by the English, against the Spanish. In 1585, England signed the Treaty of Nonsuch with the States-General of the Netherlands and formally entered the war against Spain. Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was appointed as the Governor-General of the Netherlands and sent there in command of an English army to support the Dutch rebels. When Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma and commander of the Spanish Army of Flanders, besieged the town of Rheinberg during the Cologne War, Leicester, in turn, besieged the town of Zutphen, in the province of Gelderland and on the eastern bank of the river IJssel.
  Zutphen was strategically important to Farnese, as it allowed his troops to levy war contributions in the rich Veluwe region. Therefore, he left some troops blockading Rheinberg and marched to relieve the town.
context_section_description: In 1585, Queen Elizabeth I of England took the United Provinces of the Netherlands under her protection and signed the Treaty of Nonsuch with the States-General. England dispatched 5,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry soldiers to the Low Countries, and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was proclaimed Governor-General of the Netherlands. Commanding untrained and badly paid levies, Leicester was unable to prevent the Army of Flanders under Alessandro Farnese, from seizing the towns of Grave, Venlo, and Neuss, though he managed to take Axel.
  When Farnese besieged Rheinberg in September 1586, Leicester's army marched towards Zutphen and took a Spanish sconce on the left bank of the IJssel river. On 18 September Leicester laid a pontoon bridge over the IJssel and took positions on the right bank of the river, thus encircling Zutphen. Leicester's Anglo-Dutch army consisted of 8,000 infantry – mainly English and Scottish, but also 1,400 Irish – and 3,000 cavalry. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, led the cavalry, John Norreys the infantry, and William Pelham the camp, in which Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, the deposed Archbishop of Cologne, and Manuel, son of the Prior of Crato, claimant to the Portuguese crown, all resided.
  On receiving news of the siege, Farnese dispatched the governor of Friesland, Francisco Verdugo, to Borculo with 400 infantry and two cavalry companies, and Verdugo's lieutenant Johann Baptista von Taxis to Zutphen with 600 infantry and two cavalry companies. As the siege continued, Farnese left some troops to blockade Rheinberg and supplied Zutphen in person with 600 cavalry and a convoy of 300 wagons of wheat. Leicester was in Deventer then, but on receiving news of Farnese's approach, he returned to Zutphen's camp. He found, on his arrival, that Counts Philip of Hohenlohe-Neuenstein and William Louis of Nassau-Dillenburg had entrenched the army on a hillock along the right bank of the IJssel. Leicester was informed of the possible ways through which the Spanish army might attempt to supply the town, but because of a misunderstanding no troops were deployed to guard the roads.
  Led by Farnese himself and Francisco Verdugo, the Spanish troops left Borculo at night, passed next to the Dutch town of Lochem and reached Zutphen through a narrow way flanked by deep woods. Farnese prayed in the St. Walburgis church and later on walked up its tower to watch the English army. The following morning a war council was held after a captured Scottish officer was interrogated and revealed Leicester's plans and strength. Farnese considered the possibility of defending the town himself, but Verdugo dissuaded him to avoid "giving the Queen of England the fame that Prince of Parma was like a prisoner inside Zutphen". Farnese returned to Borculo, entrusted the command of the town to Verdugo, and sent Taxis to guard a fort nearby. While the siege continued, he marched to Lingen with his army to intercept a corps of reiters who were being recruited in Germany under Elizabeth I's orders. When he arrived, however, the reiters had dissolved for lack of pay.
caption: Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (ca. 1580–1585). Circle of William Segar.
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