Sancho d'Avila (21 September 1523 – 1583) was a Spanish general.[1]
Born at Ávila, he first served as the commander of the Duke of Alba's bodyguard. It was in this function that d'Avila arrested the Count of Egmont.
When the Eighty Years' War started, d'Avila suffered a defeat in the Battle of Le Quesnoy. He was also involved in the 1572 Siege of Middelburg and the Battle of Flushing a year later. In 1574, d'Avila defeated Louis and Henry, brothers of William the Silent, in the Battle of Mookerheyde.
In 1576, as commander of the Spanish troops in the Citadel of Antwerp, he was the main instigator of the Sack of Antwerp in which between 7,000 and 18,000 lives and a great deal of property were lost. Four years later, he participated with the Duke of Alba at the Battle of Alcântara.
In 1580, he captured the key Portuguese city of Porto which secured Spain's personal union with Portugal for more than 60 years and finished off António, Prior of Crato's army in the War of the Portuguese Succession.
d'Avila later died in Lisbon of a wound infection, which he got during a raid in Portugal.
References edit
- ^ Manuel Pando Fernández de Pinedo Alava y Dávila Miraflores (1857). Vida del general español D. Sancho Dávila y Daza: conocido en el siglo XVI con el nombre de El Rayo de la Guerra (in Spanish). D. F. Sanchez.
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