Spanish Third Bankruptcy Damages Flanders

1575

Philip II's declaration of bankruptcy triggered a collapse of credit across Spanish Flanders. Unpaid tercios began mutinying in droves. Within a year they would sack Antwerp. The overstretch of the Spanish imperial system was becoming visible to ordinary Europeans on their own doorsteps. Within a year unpaid tercios sacked Antwerp, demonstrating how fiscal crisis could turn professional soldiers into predatory mobs.