Mons

Mons stands on a hill over the Trouille river in the county of Hainaut, whose counts held their court in its castle. In 1290 John II of Avesnes built a second circuit of walls that, unlike the first, defended the town as well as the castle; most houses were still timber then, taken from the surrounding forests. The Black Death struck in 1348, and legend says the epidemic ceased after a procession with the relics of Saint Waldetrudis, the origin of the Mons ducasse, the town's procession festival.

In 1357 William of Bavaria-Straubing, the new count, entered Mons and obliged its burghers to keep arms, the origin of the town's citizen militias. In 1433 Philip the Good took the title of Count of Hainaut, passing the county from the Bavarians to Burgundy, and the marriage of Mary of Burgundy to Maximilian of Austria brought it under the Habsburgs in 1477. During the Eighty Years' War Louis of Nassau took Mons by surprise in May 1572, but the Duke of Alba retook it that September; from 1580 to 1584 Alexander Farnese made it the seat of the Spanish Netherlands government. French armies besieged it in 1655, 1678 and 1691, the last time under Louis XIV with Vauban directing the siege. After the Utrecht treaties it passed to the Austrian Habsburgs, though Dutch troops garrisoned it.