Hoorn, Count of. Philippe de Montmorency

(also Horn, Hoorne, Hornes). Born circa 1524; died June 5, 1568, in Brussels. Dutch count. One of the leaders of the oppositional Dutch nobility on the eve of and at the beginning of the Dutch bourgeois revolution of the 16th century. Member of the Netherlands Council of State (from 1561), admiral of the Flanders fleet, and stadtholder of Geldern and Zutphen.

Although he opposed the Spanish Hapsburgs and condemned the “extremes” of Spanish policies in the Netherlands, Hoorn was at the same time opposed to bourgeois radicalism and the independent action of the masses. He participated in the suppression of the iconoclast demonstrations of 1566. Hoping for a reconciliation with Spain, he swore fealty to Philip II of Spain in 1567. However, after the arrival in the Netherlands of the Duke of Alva, Hoorn was arrested along with Egmont on Sept. 9, 1567, and subsequently executed.