Talk:Juan de la Cerda y Silva, 4th Duke of Medinaceli

Flanders

This phrase from the article sounds obscure to me:

There are no hints about him having anything, militarywise, to do in Flanders at all around that time, unless unaware people is referring to his appointment, while a Viceroy of Navarre, as a head of the expedition to the North of Spain harbors from there, Flanders, with bride to be Anna of Austria towards the middle of 1570, when she came to marry her uncle Philip II of Spain.

What is the sense of saying that someone had nothing to do with Flanders, militarywise, without any indication of him having been associated? "Unaware people" refers to a probably small number of individuals and needs a plural verb, unlike e.g. "The people is upset" referring to the people in general. And that sentence mixes subjects ("unaware people" / "[a!] referring to his appointment") and verbs ("is referring" [or "are referring"] / "harbors") in a way that English grammar does not allow. Anyway, it is pure weaselry: who are those people? And who says they are unaware, or why does WP? And unaware of what? Does this have anything to do with (my here source):

• Burg, David F. (2003). A World History of Tax Rebellions - An Encyclopedia of Tax Rebels, Revolts, and Riots from Antiquity to the Present. Routledge, New York, USA & London, UK, 2004 (Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005). p. 168-170: 1567 Revolt of the Netherlands. ISBN 978-0-415-92498-6. (removed link to copyrighted file – czar 09:12, 26 July 2015 (UTC)) — in which one reads on p. 168-169:

"in Madrid, Alba was accused of following his own whims rather than Philip’s wishes. According to Henry Kamen, Medinaceli reported to the king that “Excessive rigour, the misconduct of some officers and soldiers, and the Tenth Penny, are the cause of all the ills, and not heresy or rebellion.” [...] One of the governor’s officers reported that in the Netherlands “the name of the house of Alba” was held in abhorrence."

The links in that quote follow my own understanding that "Medinaceli" refers to the 4th duke (who else?), and that "Alba" refers to the 3th duke by that name and not his son Fadrique.
Note: 'Flanders' (as in the article linked —probably correctly— to the present-day Belgian region that consists of parts of the historical County of Flanders, Duchy of Brabant, and Limburg) was at the time of the 4th Duke of Medinaceli a part of 'the Netherlands' (hence in Dutch "de Nederlanden", which plural in Dutch language never refers to the present-day kingdom "Nederland"). The Habsburg-Spanish regent and governor of the Netherlands had moved from Mechelen to Brussels in the first half of that 16th century; neither city was in the County of Flanders.

The Burg citation does not seem to reflect anything 'militarywise' about Medinaceli himself. That aspect must get some explaining in the article: What is that article section trying to say? The citation does indicate however, that Medinaceli had an (occasional) advisory function to, or (disregarded) influence on, the Spanish king Philip II for specific international matters, of and about which I do not find a trace in the article.
​▲ SomeHuman 2011-08-15 22:52 - 2011-08-16 01:16 (UTC)