Geuzen medals, Beggars or Sea Beggars medals were minted early in the Dutch Revolt and during the first half of the 16th-century Eighty Years' War. During that period, many medals, tokens and jetons with a political message were minted. The earliest Geuzen medals (or tokens) date from the mid-16th century to 1577. In Dutch, geus (plural geuzen) is a familiar term for the people who revolted in the 16th century against the Spanish king Philip II. The revolt began with the nobility, spreading to the gentry and the common prole. Years later, when war broke out, the title geus (or watergeus) was given to the irregular force of rebels fighting and living in the estuaries of large rivers; the name bosgeus ("forest geus") was given to those living in the woods. Geus is derived from the French word for beggar, hence the translation of watergeus as "sea beggar". The term "sea beggar" is also used for a land-bound geus. Background The Holy Roman Empire was still at war with France when Philip II of Spain succeeded his father, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1555. After peace was made, Philip II appointed his half-sister Margaret of Parma as viceroy of the Low Countries and left for Spain. The real power was invested in the three permanent members of the Council of State: Cardinal Granvelle, Viglius and Berlaymont. Nobility such as William of Orange (or William the Silent, stadtholder [steward] of Holland, Zealand and Utrecht) and Lamoral, Count of Egmont, (stadthouder of Flandres) were members of the council, but were unhappy with their loss of power to Granvelle and because Spanish troops remained in the Low Countries after the peace with France. Following a French example, they instituted a Ligue: a coalition of the high nobility. The Ligue activity resulted in the departure of Spanish troops in 1564 and, shortly thereafter, Granvelle's retirement. Members of the lower nobility, who had been impoverished in previous decades (like the common people in the southern parts of the Low Countries) united in the 1565 Compromis; their political program sought relief from the Counter-Reformation. In early April 1566, 400 members of the Compromis united in Brussels. On April 5, led by Hendrick van Brederode and Ludwig of Nassau, they presented a petition to Margaret (who was alarmed by the large gathering). Berlaymont is reputed to have whispered to her, "Ce ne sont que de gueux"