Philip had in April 1569 appointed his half brother Don Juan (John of Austria), the illegitimate son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, commander-in-chief with his late father’s majordomo, Don Luis de Quijada, as his chief adviser.

Don John has built his forces in Granada with care, learning about logistics and drill.

Don Luis de Requeséns, Grand Commander of Castile, and Álvaro de Bazán, Marquis of Santa Cruz, patrol the coast with their galleys, limiting aid and reinforcements from Barbary.

Don John unexpectedly takes the field in December with a large and well-supplied army.

First clearing rebels from near Granada, …

…Don John marches east through Guadix, where veteran troops from Italy join him, bringing his numbers to twelve thousand.

Don John assaults the rebel stronghold of Galera in late January.

Fighting is house-to-house, long and hard and casualties heavy.

When Galera falls, Don Juan has it leveled and salt plowed into its soil.

The surviving inhabitants are sold into slavery.

A musket ball had grazed Don John's helmet in a skirmish as the campaign against the Moriscos continued, while Quijada had been fatally wounded at his side.

Philip had sympathized with Don John's distress at the loss of Quijada, who had been like a father to him, but admonished him that generals should not be in the thick of combat, but take a safe position from which to direct the battle.

His troops, however, have come to see Don John as more akin to his father Charles V than his famously desk-bound brother Philip.

Increasingly, they address Don Juan as Your Highness.

The example of Galera and Don John's determined advance has intimidated other Morisco villages, which had soon begun to surrender to Don John’s superior forces.

The revolt gradually sputters out through 1570 as its leaders quarrel, seek individual advantage, and murder each other, while the Turks and their Barbary allies turn to the invasion of the Venetian colony of Cyprus.

The Moriscos, after two years of ferocious campaigning, with dreadful atrocities committed by both sides, are removed en masse from Granada.

Only the few Moriscos who had collaborated with the royal forces are permitted to remain in the city and territory of Granada.

To eliminate the possibility of further revolts in Granada, Philip disperses its Morisco population in small groups among the Old Christian towns and villages of the Castilian hinterland, particularly to Valencia and Murcia, and hopes for their assimilation into Spanish society as well as true observance of Christianity.

They are replaced by colonists from Extremadura and Galicia.

In the absence of systematic education and in the face of the hostility of the Christian population, this attempt is also doomed to failure: the Moriscos will continue their particular Muslim ways.

Philip III will eventually order the expulsion of all Moriscos from Spain in 1609.

William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, the Dutch Protestant leader, holds together a broad union of all the Low Countries in resistance to Habsburg rule, based on the principle of religious tolerance and peace.

Governor-general Luis de Requesens y Zúñiga, the duque d’Alba’s successor, has been unable to prevent further secessions in the north.

Even the south, which has thus far been loyal to Spain but where active Calvinist movements exists (especially in Ghent), has become amenable to William’s ambition for a united resistance to the Spanish regime.

Problems involved are considerable, with one of the most contentious points being the question of religion—the more radical north demands the total abolition of Roman Catholicism in Holland and Zeeland and the acceptance of Calvinism by the southern provinces.

William, however, is diplomatic enough not to make this demand.

It is finally agreed that the States-General will deal with the question later, and until such time the Calvinists will be masters only of Holland and Zeeland.

Requesens, an honest official who has been worn out in trying to do the impossible, had died at 48 in March 1576, and in the absence of a governor-general and confronted with mutinous Spanish troops, the Council of State ventures to convene the States General without Spanish sanction.

These, pretending to act in the name of the King but in fact usurping viceregal powers, immediately open negotiations with the rebellious provinces.

A new governor is to be accepted only if he approves the pacification and sends away the foreign troops, who, because they have received no pay, are beginning to mutiny and plunder and are becoming an increasing nuisance.

Another condition of his acceptance is that he govern with native officials and in close consultation with the states.

On this basis, delegates from all the provinces come to an agreement, and on November 8, 1576, they sign the Pacification of Ghent, an achievement credited primarily to Orange's influence and agents.

Their sense of unity is further strengthened by the news that ...

...mutinying Spanish tercios, a fearsome mixed infantry formation of pikemen and musketeers, tired of fighting in numeric inferiority against rebel troops, without a rest and without their salary, had decided to "pay themselves" by looting Antwerp, the cultural, economic and financial center of the Netherlands.

The raging Spanish soldiers, invading Antwerp on November 4, had subjected the city to three days of cruelty and destruction, slaughtering seven to eight thousand citizens in a massacre that will soon come to be known as the “Spanish Fury.”