of Valenciennes – where Calvinists had seized power – to be "in state of rebellion", and in late December 1566, the first encounter battles occurred between the Habsburg Netherlandish governmental troops and Calvinist rebels. Apart from managing to extend the Siege of Valenciennes (1567) for several months, the Calvinist rebels proved no match for the troops of Margaret of Parma (delegated to stadtholders such as Philip of Noircarmes), who crushed the disturbances in March 1567, before king Philip II sent Alba with the newly formed Army of Flanders from Spain to the Netherlands in April 1567. During 1568 and 1572, William "the Silent" of Orange, the wealthiest and most powerful nobleman of the Netherlands, attempted two invasions from his Nassau-Dillenburg stronghold as a 'warlord' with mercenary soldiers organised in typical German fashion (here referred to as "Orangist troops") in opposition to Alba, though both met with little success. Meanwhile in 1572, a mixture of groups of noblemen and common people sympathic to his cause, or to Calvinism, known as Geuzen, formed paramilitary units that seized control of most of Holland and Zeeland, where Calvinists soon came to dominate politics. Orange functioned as minister of war and commander-in-chief of the Hollandic and Zeelandic troops from 1572 on. It was not until 1575 that these units were merged into the Dutch States Army, organised and directed by the States of Holland and West Friesland and the States of Zeeland (which was illegal; only the king had the right to raise armies). Around the same time, starting in 1574 with the Admiralty of Rotterdam, five Dutch admiralties emerged to organise rebel fleets. When faced with large-scale mutinies in the Army of Flanders in 1576 known as the Spanish Fury, Catholic-dominated provinces of the Netherlands such as Brabant and Flanders (authorised by the Council of State in March 1576) also began raising their own armies in self-defence against mutineers, but were unable to prevent the Sack of Antwerp. With the Pacification of Ghent (8 November 1576) all Seventeen Provinces except Luxemburg would agree to expel all foreign troops from the Habsburg Netherlands (essentially restoring the pre-1567 situation) while establishing a temporary general peace of religion. Although this resulted in much ad hoc cooperation between the rebel provinces and the inclusion of units from all of them into the States Army, organisation initially remained mostly provincial and decentralised, and the rebels suffered a catastrophe at