Lamoral, Count of Egmont, descends from one of the richest and most influential families in the Low Countries.

A cousin of the king of Spain through his mother's side, he had received a military education in Spain.

Inheriting the estates of his brother Charles in Holland, he increased his wealth again in 1542 by his marriage to Sabina, Duchess of Bavaria.

Having defeated the French in the battles of Saint-Quentin (1557) and Gravelines (1558) in the service of the Spanish army, Egmont had been appointed stadtholder of Flanders and Artois in 1559.

As a nobleman of Hainaut, Egmont is a member of the Council of State, In 1561, the thirty-nine-year-old Egmont, together with Prince Willem of Orange (William the Silent), protests against the introduction of the inquisition in Flanders by newly minted cardinal Antoine Perrenot Granvelle, bishop of Arras, and the general persecution of Dutch Protestants by their Spanish Catholic overlords.