William of orange in France and the transnationality of the sixteenth-century wars of religion

Abstract

William of Orange's French campaign of 1569 is one of the most curious and leastunderstood episodes in the life of the leader of the Dutch Revolt. The confusion over his motives for participating in the wars in France arises from the longstanding tendency to see the Dutch Revolt and French Wars of Religion as similar but separate conflicts. Yet Orange regarded them fundamentally as manifestations of the same struggle. This article unpacks the development of Orange's transnational outlook during the decade leading up to his French campaign-an outlook that was shared by many of his peers in the Low Countries and beyond and that shaped the course of the French Wars of Religion and the Dutch Revolt.