page_title: Battle of Noordhorn
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Noordhorn / Aftermath
context_page_description: The Battle of Noordhorn, fought on 30 September 1581, was a pitched battle of the Dutch Revolt, fought between a Spanish army commanded by Colonel Francisco Verdugo – consisting of Walloon, German, Spanish, and Albanian soldiers – and a Dutch States rebel army under the Englishman John Norreys – comprising English, Scottish, Dutch, and Walloon troops – in the province of Friesland. In 1580, the Dutch stadtholder of Friesland, George van Lalaing, Count of Rennenberg, had shifted its allegiance from the Dutch to the Spanish side. This opened a new front at the back door of the Dutch Republic, forcing the States-General to dispatch forces to the north. That year the Dutch, under the leadership of John Norreys, succeeded in relieving the town of Steenwijk. In July 1581, Rennenberg died and was replaced by the Spaniard Francisco Verdugo, whose arrival in Friesland with reinforcements changed the situation. On 30 September Verdugo forced Norreys to give battle using a strategy of attrition.
  The battle was fought on a rough, marshy ground very favorable to the Spanish army.
context_section_description: The battle was "a very greate overthrowe" for the English, as noted by the affluent English trader Sir Christopher Hoddesdon in a letter written in Antwerp on 15 October. The Frenchman Gillaume Baudart noted that half of the States' infantry and a large number of cavalry were lost. Verdugo claimed between 2,000 and 3,000 casualties in Norrey's army, asserting that "Few times is true the number of dead that in such cases is said, but the common [number] for those who saw it was this". Many English and Dutch officers were killed, mostly of foot: Charles van Wijngaerden, George Robert, Schul, Wynaert van Ommeren, Rets, Gerard Entens, Corneille Loevesschen and, for the English, captains Cotton, Bishop, Fitzwilliams, and Nisbeth, who died of a wound on the head. Amongst the cavalry Hendrik van Eck and Lieutenant Bellewijn of Elleborn's company were killed. Both States' commanders were wounded: Norreys on one hand and Count William Louis in a leg. The Spanish army's exact losses are unknown. Alonso Vázquez, a contemporaneous chronicler and soldier with direct access to the Spanish, wrote that "of the Catholics died no more than Verdugo's drummer, but there were some wounded". Charles Maurice Davies noted that "Scarcely any one of note fell on the side of the royalists".
  The day after the battle, the Spanish army's German regiments, induced by Captain Jean van der Cloester, mutinied again in their quarters, claiming that they had not received their monthly pay. Verdugo sent Captain Pedrosa to take news of the Spanish victory to Farnese and, having refreshed his troops, aimed to capture the Niezijl fort with his Walloon regiment, his four cavalry companies and a few volunteers from among the German mutineers. As the season changed and a furious rain started, Verdugo was forced to abandon the project of seizing the fort and returned to Noordhorn. The autumnal floods made the Frisian land impassable for the armies, and thus Verdugo moved with his troops to the dry and gritty land of Drenthe, while Norreys kept the remains of his army behind the IJssel river. A group of 400 Dutchmen in Norreys' army lodged themselves in the town of Keppel, in Gelderland. In January 1582, Verdugo destroyed them and seized Keppel and the castle of Bronckhorst, achieving great success in Gelderland.
  Over the following months many English soldiers, who were unpaid and decimated by disease and disappointed by the progress of the war, amongst them Captain Roger Williams, deserted the States-General army and went to serve in Francis, Duke of Anjou's French army. By the Treaty of Plessis-les-Tours, Francis had been recognized by the States-General as the sovereign of the Netherlands instead of Philip II of Spain. Even Norreys, in the end, left the States' service and put himself under Anjou's command. Thus, in command of the English infantry, he found himself at the Battle of Steenbergen in 1583, when he covered the rearguard of the defeated French army.
caption: Francis, duke of Anjou – Nicholas Hilliard, 1577
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