Margaret, Duchess of Parma, Governor of the Netherlands from 1559 to 1567 and from 1578 to 1582, was the illegitimate daughter of Charles V and Johanna Maria van der Gheynst. She was a Duchess consort of Florence and a Duchess consort of Pa...

Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel) the Elder was a Netherlandish Renaissance painter and printmaker from Brabant, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so called genre painting). He is sometimes referred to as the "Peasant Bruegel". From...

Kenau Simonsdochter Hasselaer (1526–1588) was a wood merchant of Haarlem, Netherlands She was the daughter of Simon Hasselaer and Grietje Koen. When the city was besieged by the Spanish, she led a company of women in defence of the city, b...

Carolus Clusius, or Charles de l'Écluse, was a Flemish doctor and pioneering botanist, perhaps the most influential of all 16th century scientific horticulturists. In 1573 he was appointed prefect of the imperial medical garden in Vienna by...

Philip II, king of Spain and Portugal, was born at Valladolid, the only son of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V and Isabella of Portugal. Philip II, the self-proclaimed leader of Counter-Reformation, assumed the throne in 1556 with a great...

Abraham Ortelius (Abraham Ortels) was a cartographer and geographer, generally recognised as the creator of the first modern atlas. He was born in Antwerp in what is now Belgium. A member of the influential Ortelius family of Augsburg, he t...

Anna van Egmont was a wealthy Dutch heiress who became the first wife of William the Silent, Prince of Orange. As the only child of Maximiliaan van Egmond and Françoise de Lannoy, she was suo jure Countess of Buren and Lady of Egmond. She w...

William I, Prince of Orange, also widely known as William the Silent (Dutch: Willem de Zwijger), or simply William of Orange (Dutch: Willem van Oranje), was the main leader of the Dutch revolt against the Spanish that set off the Eighty Ye...

Count John VI of Nassau-Dillenburg was a Count of Nassau in Dillenburg. Other names he had were Jan VI or Jan de Oude ("John the Elder", to distinguish him from his 2nd son, "John the Middle", and his grandson "John the Younger"). John VI w...

Louis of Nassau was the third son of William, Count of Nassau and Juliana of Stolberg, and the younger brother of Prince William of Orange Nassau. Louis was a key figure in the revolt of the Netherlands against Spain and a strongly convince...

Philips van Marnix, lord of St Aldegonde, was a Dutch writer and statesman, and the probable author of the text of the Dutch national anthem, the Wilhelmus. He was born at Brussels, the son of Jacob van Marnix, baron of Pottes. Marnix van...

John of Austria, Spanish admiral and general; illegitimate son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. He was acknowledged in his father's will and was recognized by his half brother, Philip II of Spain. In 1569 he fought against the Morisco rebel...

Johan van Oldenbarnevelt was a Dutch statesman, who played an important role in the Dutch struggle for independence from Spain. In 1586, Van Oldenbarnevelt was made Land's Advocate of the province of Holland, an office he held for 32 ye...

Born at Bruges in 1548; died at Leyden in 1620. He was for some years book-keeper in a business house at Antwerp; later he secured employment in the administration of the Franc of Bruges. After visiting Prussia, Poland, Sweden, and Norway h...

Willem Barentsz was a Dutch navigator, cartographer, and Arctic explorer. Barentsz went on three expeditions to the far north in search for a Northeast passage. He reached as far as Novaya Zemlya and the Kara Sea in his first two voyages...