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History of the United Netherlands from the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce — Complete (1600-1609)

by John Lothrop Motley · English · Gutenberg #4884 · 1,141,188 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: History of the United Netherlands from the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce — Complete (1600-1609)

Author: John Lothrop Motley


        
Release date: November 8, 2004 [eBook #4884]
                Most recently updated: December 28, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4884

Credits: Produced by David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS FROM THE DEATH OF WILLIAM THE SILENT TO THE TWELVE YEAR'S TRUCE — COMPLETE (1600-1609) ***




Produced by David Widger




HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS

From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce--1609

Volume IV.

By John Lothrop Motley




CHAPTER XXXVIII. 1600

   Military events--Aggressive movement of the Netherlanders--State of
   the Archdukes provinces--Mutiny of the Spanish forces--Proposed
   invasion of Flanders by the States-General--Disembarkation of the
   troops on the Spanish coasts--Capture of Oudenburg and other places
   --Surprise of Nieuport--Conduct of the Archduke--Oudenburg and the
   other forts re-taken--Dilemma of the States' army--Attack of the
   Archduke on Count Ernest's cavalry--Panic and total overthrow of the
   advance-guard of the States' army--Battle of Nieuport--Details of
   the action--Defeat of the Spanish army--Results of the whole
   expedition.

The effect produced in the republic by the defensive and uneventful
campaigning of the year 1599 had naturally been depressing. There was
murmuring at the vast amount of taxation, especially at the new
imposition of one-half per cent. upon all property, and two-and-a-half
per cent. on all sales, which seemed to produce so few results. The
successful protection of the Isle of Bommel and the judicious purchase of
the two forts of Crevecoeur and St. Andrew; early in the following year,
together with their garrisons, were not military events of the first
magnitude, and were hardly enough to efface the mortification felt at the
fact that the enemy had been able so lately to construct one of those
strongholds within the territory of the commonwealth.

It was now secretly determined to attempt an aggressive movement on a
considerable scale, and to carry the war once for all into the heart of
the obedient provinces. It was from Flanders that the Spanish armies drew
a great portion of their supplies. It was by the forts erected on the
coast of Flanders in the neighbourhood of Ostend that this important
possession of the States was rendered nearly valueless. It was by
privateers swarming from the ports of Flanders, especially from Nieuport
and Dunkirk, that the foreign trade of the republic was crippled, and its
intercommunications by river and estuary rendered unsafe. Dunkirk was
simply a robbers' cave, a station from which an annual tax was levied
upon the commerce of the Netherlands, almost sufficient, had it been paid
to the national treasury instead of to the foreign freebooters, to
support the expenses of a considerable army.

On the other hand the condition of the archdukes seemed deplorable. Never
had mutiny existed before in so well-organised and definite a form even
in the Spanish Netherlands.

Besides those branches of the "Italian republic," which had been
established in the two fortresses of Crevecoeur and St. Andrew, and which
had already sold themselves to the States, other organisations quite as
formidable existed in various other portions of the obedient provinces.
Especially at Diest and Thionville the rebellious Spaniards and Italians
were numbered by thousands, all veterans, well armed, fortified in strong
cities; and supplying themselves with perfect regularity by contributions
levied upon the peasantry, obeying their Eletto and other officers with
exemplary promptness; and paying no more heed to the edicts or the
solicitations of the archduke than if he had been the Duke of Muscovy.

The opportunity seemed tempting to strike a great blow. How could Albert
and Isabella, with an empty exchequer and a mutinous army, hope either to
defend their soil from attack or to aim a counter blow at the republic,
even if, the republic for a season should be deprived of a portion of its
defenders?

The reasoning was plausible, the prize tempting. The States-General, who
habitually discountenanced rashness, and were wont to impose superfluous
restraints upon the valiant but discreet Lewis William, and upon the
deeply pondering but energetic Maurice, were now grown as ardent as they
had hitherto been hesitating. In the early days of June it was determined
in secret session to organize a great force in Holland and Zeeland, and
to embark suddenly for Nieuport, to carry that important position by
surprise or assault, and from that basis to redeem Dunkirk. The
possession of these two cities, besides that of Ostend, which had always
been retained by the Republic, would ensure the complete subjugation of
Flanders. The trifling force of two thousand men under Rivas--all that
the archduke then had in that province--and the sconces and earthworks
which had been constructed around Ostend to impede the movements and
obstruct the supplies of the garrison, would be utterly powerless to
prevent the consummation of the plan. Flanders once subjugated, it would
not be long before the Spaniards were swept from the obedient Netherlands
as thoroughly as they had been from the domains of the commonwealth, and
all the seventeen provinces, trampling out every vestige of a hated
foreign tyranny, would soon take their natural place as states of a free;
prosperous, and powerful union.

But Maurice of Nassau did not share the convictions of the
States-General. The unwonted ardour of Barneveld did not inflame his
imagination. He urged that the enterprise was inexcusably rash; that its
execution would require the whole army of the States, except the slender
garrisons absolutely necessary to protect important places from surprise;
that a defeat would not be simply disaster, but annihilation; that
retreat without absolute triumph would be impossible, and that amid such
circumstances the archduke, in spite of his poverty and the rebellious
condition of his troops, would doubtless assemble a sufficient force to
dispute with reasonable prospects of victory, this invasion of his
territory.

Sir Francis Vere, too, was most decidedly opposed to the plan. He pointed
out with great clearness its dangerous and possibly fatal character;
assuring the Staten that, within a fortnight after the expedition had
begun, the archduke would follow upon their heels with an army fully able
to cope with the best which they could put into the field. But besides
this experienced and able campaigner, who so thoroughly shared the
opinions of Prince Maurice, every military man in the provinces of any
consideration, was opposed to, the scheme. Especially Lewis William--than
whom no more sagacious military critic or accomplished strategist existed
in Europe, denounced it with energy and even with indignation. It was, in
the opinion of the young stadholder of Friesland, to suspend the
existence of the whole commonwealth upon a silken thread. Even success,
he prophesied, would bring no permanent, fruits, while the consequences
of an overthrow, were fearful to contemplate. The immediate adherents and
most trusted counsellors of William Lewis were even more unmeasured in
their denunciations than he was himself. "'Tis all the work of Barneveld
and the long-gowns," cried Everard van Reyd. "We are led into a sack from
which there is no extrication. We are marching to the Caudine Forks."

Certainly it is no small indication of the vast influence and the
indomitable resolution of Barneveld that he never faltered in this storm
of indignation. The Advocate had made up his mind to invade Flanders and
to capture Nieuport; and the decree accordingly went forth, despite all
opposition. The States-General were sovereign, and the Advocate and the
States-General were one.

It was also entirely characteristic of Maurice that he should submit his
judgment on this great emergency to that of Olden-Barneveld. It was
difficult for him to resist the influence of the great intellect to which
he had always willingly deferred in affairs of state, and from which;
even in military matters, it was hardly possible for him to escape. Yet
in military matters Maurice was a consummate professor, and the Advocate
in comparison but a school-boy.

The ascendency of Barneveld was the less wholesome, therefore, and it
might have been better had the stadholder manifested more resolution. But
Maurice had not a resolute character. Thorough soldier as he was, he was
singularly vacillating, at times almost infirm of purpose, but never
before in his career had this want of decision manifested itself in so
striking a manner.

Accordingly the States-General, or in other words John of Olden-Barneveld
proposed to invade Flanders, and lay siege, to Nieuport. The
States-General were sovereign, and Maurice bowed to their authority.
After the matter had been entirely decided upon the state-council was
consulted, and the state-council attempted no opposition to the project.
The preparations were made with matchless energy and extraordinary
secrecy. Lewis William, who meanwhile was to defend the eastern frontier
of the republic against any possible attack, sent all the troops that it
was possible to spare; but he sent, them with a heavy heart. His
forebodings were dismal. It seemed to him that all was about to be staked
upon a single cast of the dice. Moreover it was painful to him while the
terrible game, was playing to be merely a looker on and a prophet of evil
from a distance, forbidden to contribute by his personal skill and
experience to a fortunate result. Hohenlo too was appointed to protect
the southern border, and was excluded from, all participation in the
great expedition.

As to the enemy, such rumors as might came to them from day to day of
mysterious military, preparations on the part of the rebels only served
to excite suspicion in others directions. The archduke was uneasy in,
regard to the Rhine and the Gueldrian; quarter, but never dreamt of a
hostile descent upon the Flemish coast.

Meantime, on the 19th June Maurice of Nassau made his appearance at
Castle Rammekens, not far from Flushing, at the mouth of the Scheld, to
superintend the great movement. So large a fleet as was there assembled
had never before been seen or heard of in Christendom. Of war-ships,
transports, and flat-bottomed barges there were at least thirteen
hundred. Many eye-witnesses, who counted however with their imaginations,
declared that there were in all at least three thousand vessels, and the
statement has been reproduced by grave and trustworthy chroniclers. As
the number of troops to be embarked upon the enterprise certainly did not
exceed fourteen thousand, this would have been an allowance of one vessel
to every five soldiers, besides the army munitions and provisions--a
hardly reasonable arrangement.

Twelve thousand infantry and sixteen hundred cavalry, the consummate
flower of the States' army, all well-paid, well-clad, well-armed,
well-disciplined veterans, had been collected in this place of rendezvous
and were ready to embark. It would be unjust to compare the dimensions of
this force and the preparations for ensuring the success of the
enterprise with the vast expeditions and gigantic armaments of later
times, especially with the tremendous exhibitions of military and naval
energy with which our own civil war has made us familiar. Maurice was an
adept in all that science and art had as yet bequeathed to humanity for
the purpose of human' destruction, but the number of his troops was small
compared to the mighty hosts which the world since those days has seen
embattled. War, as a trade, was then less easily learned. It was a guild
in which apprenticeship was difficult, and in which enrolment was usually
for life. A little republic of scarce three million souls, which could
keep always on foot a regular well-appointed army of twenty-five thousand
men and a navy of one or two hundred heavily armed cruisers, was both a
marvel and a formidable element in the general polity of the world. The
lesson to be derived both in military and political philosophy from the
famous campaign of Nieuport does not depend for its value on the numbers
of the ships or soldiers engaged in the undertaking. Otherwise, and had
it been merely a military expedition like a thousand others which have
been made and forgotten, it would not now deserve more than a momentary
attention. But the circumstances were such as to make the issue of the
impending battle one of the most important in human history. It was
entirely possible that an overwhelming defeat of the republican forces on
this foreign expedition would bring with it an absolute destruction of
the republic, and place Spain once more in possession of the heretic
"islands," from which basis she would menace the very existence of
England more seriously than she had ever done before. Who could measure
the consequences to Christendom of such a catastrophe?

The distance from the place where the fleet and army were assembled to
Nieuport--the objective point of the enterprise--was but thirty-five
miles as the crow flies. And the crow can scarcely fly in a straighter
line than that described by the coast along which the ships were to shape
their course.

And here it is again impossible not to reflect upon the change which
physical science has brought over the conduct of human affairs. We have
seen in a former chapter a most important embassy sent forth from the
States for the purpose of preventing the consummation of a peace between
their ally and their enemy. Celerity was a vital element in the success
of such a mission; for the secret negotiations which it was intended to
impede were supposed to be near their termination. Yet months were
consumed in a journey which in our day would have been accomplished in
twenty-four hours. And now in this great military expedition the
essential and immediate purpose was to surprise a small town almost
within sight from the station at which the army was ready to embark. Such
a midsummer voyage in this epoch of steam-tugs and transports would
require but a few hours. Yet two days long the fleet lay at anchor while
a gentle breeze blew persistently from the south-west. As there seemed
but little hope that the wind would become more favourable, and as the
possibility of surprise grew fainter with every day's delay, it was
decided to make a landing upon the nearest point of Flemish coast placed
by circumstances within their reach: Count Ernest of Nassau; with the
advance-guard, was accordingly, despatched on the 21st June to the
neighbourhood of the Sas-of Ghent, where he seized a weakly guarded fort,
called Philippine, and made thorough preparations, for the arrival of the
whole army. On the following day the rest of the troops made their
appearance, and in the course of five hours were safely disembarked.

The army, which consisted of Zeelanders, Frisians, Hollanders, Walloons,
Germans, English, and Scotch, was divided into three corps. The advance
was under the command of Count Ernest, the battalia under that of Count
George Everard Solms, while the rear-guard during the march was entrusted
to that experienced soldier Sir Francis Vere. Besides Prince Maurice,
there were three other members of the house of Nassau serving in the
expedition--his half-brother Frederic Henry, then a lad of sixteen, and
the two brothers of the Frisian stadholder, Ernest and Lewis Gunther,
whom Lewis William had been so faithfully educating in the arts of peace
and war both by precept and example. Lewis Gunther, still a mere youth,
but who had been the first to scale the fort of Cadiz, and to plant on
its height the orange banner of the murdered rebel, and whose gallantry
during the whole expedition had called forth the special commendations of
Queen Elizabeth--expressed in energetic and affectionate terms to his
father--now commanded all the cavalry. Certainly if the doctrine of
primordial selection could ever be accepted among human creatures, the
race of Nassau at that day might have seemed destined to be chiefs of the
Netherland soil. Old John of Nassau, ardent and energetic as ever in the
cause of the religious reformation of Germany and the liberation of
Holland, still watched from his retirement the progress of the momentous
event. Four of his brethren, including the great founder of the republic,
had already laid down their lives for the sacred cause. His son Philip
had already fallen under the banner in the fight of Bislich, and three
other sons were serving the republic day and night, by sea and land, with
sword, and pen, and purse, energetically, conscientiously, and
honourably. Of the stout hearts and quick intellects on which the safety
of the commonwealth then depended, none was more efficient or true than
the accomplished soldier and statesman Lewis William. Thoroughly
disapproving of the present invasion of Flanders, he was exerting
himself, now that it had been decided upon by his sovereigns the
States-Generals, with the same loyalty as that of Maurice, to bring it to
a favourable issue, although not personally engaged in the adventure.

So soon as the troops had been landed the vessels were sent off as
expeditiously as possible, that none might fall into, the enemy's hands;
the transports under a strong convoy of war-ships having been directed to
proceed as fast as the wind would permit in the direction of Nieuport.
The march then began. On the 23rd they advanced a league and halted for
the night at Assenede. The next day brought them three leagues further,
to a place called Eckerloo. On the 25th they marched to Male, a distance
of three leagues and a half, passing close to the walls of Bruges, in
which they had indulged faint hopes of exciting an insurrection, but
obtained nothing but a feeble cannonade from the fortifications which did
no damage except the killing of one muleteer. The next night was passed
at Jabbeke, four leagues from Male, and on the 27th, after marching
another league, they came before the fort of Oudenburg.

This important post on the road which the army would necessarily traverse
in coming from the interior to the coast was easily captured and then
strongly garrisoned. Maurice with the main army spent the two following
days at the fortress, completing his arrangements. Solms was sent forward
to seize the sconces and redoubts of the enemy around Ostend, at
Breedene, Snaaskerk, Plassendaal, and other points, and especially to
occupy the important fort called St. Albert, which was in the downs at
about a league from that city. All this work was thoroughly accomplished;
little or no resistance having been made to the occupation of these
various places. Meantime the States-General, who at the special request
of Maurice were to accompany the expedition in order to observe the
progress of events for which they were entirely responsible, and to aid
the army when necessary by their advice and co-operation, had assembled
to the number of thirteen in Ostend. Solms having strengthened the
garrison of that place then took up his march along the beach to
Nieuport. During the progress of the army through Holland and Zeeland
towards its place of embarkation there had been nothing but dismal
prognostics, with expressions of muttered indignation, wherever the
soldiers passed. It seemed to the country people, and to the inhabitants
of every town and village, that their defenders were going to certain
destruction; that the existence of the commonwealth was hanging by a
thread soon to be snapped asunder. As the forces subsequently marched
from the Sas of Ghent towards the Flemish coast there was no rising of
the people in their favour, and although Maurice had issued distinct
orders that the peasantry were to be dealt with gently and justly, yet
they found neither peasants nor villagers to deal with at all. The whole
population on their line of march had betaken themselves to the woods,
except the village sexton of Jabbeke and his wife, who were too old to
run. Lurking in the thickets and marshes, the peasants fell upon all
stragglers from the army and murdered them without mercy--so difficult is
it in times of civil war to make human brains pervious to the light of
reason. The stadholder and his soldiers came to liberate their brethren
of the same race, and speaking the same language, from abject submission
to a foreign despotism. The Flemings had but to speak a word, to lift a
finger, and all the Netherlands, self-governed, would coalesce into one
independent confederation of States, strong enough to defy all the
despots of Europe. Alas! the benighted victims of superstition hugged
their chains, and preferred the tyranny under which their kindred had
been tortured, burned, and buried alive for half-a-century long, to the
possibility of a single Calvinistic conventicle being opened in any
village of obedient Flanders. So these excellent children of Philip and
the pope, whose language was as unintelligible to them as it was to
Peruvians or Iroquois, lay in wait for the men who spoke their own mother
tongue, and whose veins were filled with their own blood, and murdered
them, as a sacred act of duty. Retaliation followed as a matter of
course, so that the invasion of Flanders, in this early stage of its
progress, seemed not likely to call forth very fraternal feelings between
the two families of Netherlanders.

The army was in the main admirably well supplied, but there was a
deficiency of drink. The water as they advanced became brackish and
intolerably bad, and there was great difficulty in procuring any
substitute. At Male three cows were given for a pot of beer, and more of
that refreshment might have been sold at the same price, had there been
any sellers.

On the 30th June Maurice marched from Oudenburg, intending to strike a
point called Niewendam--a fort in the neighbourhood of Nieuport--and so
to march along the walls of that city and take up his position
immediately in its front. He found the ground, however, so marshy and
impracticable as he advanced, that he was obliged to countermarch, and to
spend that night on the downs between forts Isabella and St. Albert.

On the 1st July he resumed his march, and passing a bridge over a small
stream at a place called Leffingen, laying down a road as he went with
sods and sand, and throwing bridges over streams and swamps, he arrived
in the forenoon before Nieuport. The fleet had reached the roadstead the
same morning.

This was a strong, well-built, and well-fortified little city, situate
half-a-league from the sea coast on low, plashy ground. At high water it
was a seaport, for a stream or creek of very insignificant dimensions was
then sufficiently filled by the tide to admit vessels of considerable
burthen. This haven was immediately taken possession of by the
stadholder, and two-thirds of his army were thrown across to the western
side of the water, the troops remaining on the Ostend side being by a
change of arrangement now under command of Count Ernest.

Thus the army which had come to surprise Nieuport had, after
accomplishing a distance of nearly forty miles in thirteen days, at last
arrived before that place. Yet there was no more expeditious or energetic
commander in Christendom than Maurice, nor troops better trained in
marching and fighting than his well-disciplined army.

It is now necessary to cast a glance towards the interior of Flanders, in
order to observe how the archduke conducted himself in this emergency. So
soon as the news of the landing of the States' army at the port of Ghent
reached the sovereign's ears, he awoke from the delusion that danger was
impending on his eastern border, and lost no time in assembling such
troops as could be mustered from far and near to protect the western
frontier. Especially he despatched messengers well charged with promises,
to confer with the authorities of the "Italian Republic" at Diest and
Thionville. He appealed to them in behalf of the holy Catholic religion,
he sought to arouse their loyalty to himself and the Infanta
Isabella--daughter of the great and good Philip II., once foremost of
earthly potentates, and now eminent among the saints of heaven--by whose
fiat he and his wife had now become legitimate sovereigns of all the
Netherlands. And those mutineers responded with unexpected docility.
Eight hundred foot soldiers and six hundred cavalry men came forth at the
first summons, making but two conditions in addition to the stipulated
payment when payment should be possible--that they should be commanded by
their own chosen officers, and that they should be placed in the first
rank in the impending conflict. The example spread. Other detachments of
mutineers in various strongholds, scenting the battle from afar, came in
with offers to serve in the campaign on similar terms. Before the last
week of June the archduke had a considerable army on foot. On the 29th of
that month, accompanied by the Infanta, he reviewed a force of ten
thousand foot and nearly two thousand cavalry in the immediate vicinity
of Ghent. He addressed them in a few stirring words, reminding them of
their duty to the Church and to himself, and assuring them--as commanders
of every nation and every age are wont to assure their troops at the eve
of every engagement--that the cause in which they were going forth to
battle was the most sacred and inspiring for which human creatures could
possibly lay down their lives. Isabella, magnificently attired, and
mounted on a white palfrey, galloped along the lines, and likewise made
an harangue. She spoke to the soldiers as "her lions," promised them
boundless rewards in this world and the next, as the result of the great
victory which they were now about to gain over the infidels; while as to
their wages, she vowed that, rather than they should remain unpaid, she
would sacrifice all her personal effects, even to the plate from which
she ate her daily bread, and to the jewels which she wore in her ears.

Thousands of hoarse voices greeted the eloquence of the archdukes with
rude acclamations, while the discharge of arquebus and volleys of cannon
testified to the martial ardour with which the troops were inspired; none
being more enthusiastic than the late mutineers. The army marched at
once, under many experienced leaders--Villars, Zapena, and Avalos among
the most conspicuous. The command of the artillery was entrusted to
Velasco; the marshal-general of the camp was Frederic van den Berg, in
place of the superannuated Peter Ernest; while the Admiral of Arragon,
Francisco de Mendoza, "terror of Germany and of Christendom," a little
man with flowing locks, long hooked nose, and a sinister glance from his
evil black eyes, was general of the cavalry. The admiral had not
displayed very extraordinary genius in his recent campaigning in the
Rhenish duchies, but his cruelty had certainly been conspicuous. Not even
Alva could have accomplished more murders and other outrages in the same
space of time than had been perpetrated by the Spanish troops during the
infamous winter of 1598-9. The assassination of Count Broeck at his own
castle had made more stir than a thousand other homicides of nameless
wretches at the same period had done, because the victim had been a man
of rank and large possessions, but it now remained to be seen whether
Mendoza was to gain fresh laurels of any kind in the battle which was
probably impending.

On the 1st of July the archduke came before Oudenburg. Not a soul within
that fortress nor in Ostend dreamed of an enemy within twenty miles of
them, nor had it been supposed possible that a Spanish army could take
the field for many weeks to come. The States-General at Ostend were
complacently waiting for the first bulletin from Maurice announcing his
capture of Nieuport and his advance upon Dunkirk, according to the
program so succinctly drawn up for him, and meantime were holding
meetings and drawing up comfortable protocols with great regularity.
Colonel Piron, on his part, who had been left with several companies of
veterans to hold Oudenburg and the other forts, and to protect the rear
of the invading army, was accomplishing that object by permitting a large
portion of his force to be absent on foraging parties and general
marauding. When the enemy came before Oudenburg they met with no
resistance. The fort was surrendered at once, and with it fell the lesser
sconces of Breedene, Snaaskerk, and Plassendaal--all but the more
considerable fort St. Albert. The archduke, not thinking it advisable to
delay his march by the reduction of this position, and having possession
of all the other fortifications around Ostend, determined to push forward
next morning at daybreak. He had granted favourable terms of surrender to
the various garrisons, which, however, did not prevent them from being
dearly--every man of them immediately butchered in cold blood.

Thus were these strong and well-manned redoubts, by which Prince Maurice
had hoped to impede for many days the march of a Spanish army--should a
Spanish army indeed be able to take the field at all--already swept off
in an hour. Great was the dismay in Ostend when Colonel Piron and a few
stragglers brought the heavy news of discomfiture and massacre to the
high and mighty States-General in solemn meeting assembled.

Meanwhile, the States' army before Nieuport, not dreaming of any pending
interruption to their labours, proceeded in a steady but leisurely manner
to invest the city. Maurice occupied himself in tracing the lines of
encampment and entrenchment, and ordered a permanent bridge to be begun
across the narrowest part of the creek, in order that the two parts of
his army might not be so dangerously divided from each other as they now
were, at high water, by the whole breadth and depth of the harbour.
Evening came on before much had been accomplished on this first day of
the siege. It was scarcely dusk when a messenger, much exhausted and
terrified, made his appearance at Count Ernest's tent. He was a straggler
who had made his escape from Oudenburg, and he brought the astounding
intelligence that the archduke had already possession of that position
and of all the other forts. Ernest instantly jumped into a boat and had
himself rowed, together with the messenger, to the headquarters of Prince
Maurice on the other side of the river. The news was as unexpected as it
was alarming. Here was the enemy, who was supposed incapable of mischief
for weeks to come, already in the field, and planted directly on their
communications with Ostend. Retreat, if retreat were desired, was already
impossible, and as to surprising the garrison of Nieuport and so
obtaining that stronghold as a basis for further aggressive operations,
it is very certain that if any man in Flanders was more surprised than
another at that moment it was Prince Maurice himself. He was too good a
soldier not to see at a glance that if the news brought by the straggler
were true, the whole expedition was already a failure, and that, instead
of a short siege and an easy victory, a great battle was to be fought
upon the sands of Nieuport, in which defeat was destruction of the whole
army of the republic, and very possibly of the republic itself.

The stadholder hesitated. He was prone in great emergencies to hesitate
at first, but immovable when his resolution was taken. Vere, who was
asleep in his tent, was sent for and consulted. Most of the generals were
inclined to believe that the demonstrations at Oudenburg, which had been
so successful, were merely a bravado of Rivas, the commander of the
permanent troops in that district, which were comparatively insignificant
in numbers. Vere thought otherwise. He maintained that the archduke was
already in force within a few hours' march of them, as he had always
supposed would be the case. His opinion was not shared by the rest, and
he went back to his truckle-bed, feeling that a brief repose was
necessary for the heavy work which would soon be upon him. At midnight
the Englishman was again called from his slumbers. Another messenger,
sent directly from the States-General at Ostend, had made his way to the
stadholder. This time there was no possibility of error, for Colonel
Piron had sent the accord with the garrison commanders of the forts which
had been so shamefully violated, and which bore the signature of the
archduke.

It was now perfectly obvious that a pitched battle was to be fought
before another sunset, and most anxious were the deliberations in that
brief midsummer's night. The dilemma was as grave a one as
commander-in-chief had ever to solve in a few hours. A portentous change
had come over the prospects of the commonwealth since the arrival of
these despatches. But a few hours before, and never had its destiny
seemed so secure, its attitude more imposing. The little republic, which
Spain had been endeavouring forty years long to subjugate, had already
swept every Spanish soldier out of its territory, had repeatedly carried
fire and sword into Spain itself, and even into its distant dependencies,
and at that moment--after effecting in a masterly manner the landing of a
great army in the very face of the man who claimed to be sovereign of all
the Netherlands, and after marching at ease through the heart of his
territory--was preparing a movement, with every prospect of success,
which should render the hold of that sovereign on any portion of
Netherland soil as uncertain and shifting as the sands on which the
States army was now encamped.

The son of the proscribed and murdered rebel stood at the head of as
powerful and well-disciplined an army as had ever been drawn up in line
of battle on that blood-stained soil. The daughter of the man who had so
long oppressed the provinces might soon be a fugitive from the land over
which she had so recently been endowed with perpetual sovereignty. And
now in an instant these visions were fading like a mirage.

The archduke, whom poverty and mutiny were to render powerless against
invasion, was following close up upon the heels of the triumphant army of
the stadholder. A decision was immediately necessary. The siege of
Nieuport was over before it had begun. Surprise had failed, assault for
the moment was impossible, the manner how best to confront the advancing
foe the only question.

Vere advised that the whole army should at once be concentrated and led
without delay against the archduke before he should make further
progress. The advice involved an outrageous impossibility, and it seems
incredible that it could have been given in good faith; still more
amazing that its rejection by Maurice should have been bitterly censured.
Two-thirds of the army lay on the other side of the harbour, and it was
high water at about three o'clock. While they were deliberating, the sea
was rising, and, so soon as daybreak should make any evolutions possible,
they would be utterly prohibited during several hours by the inexorable
tide. More time would be consumed by the attempt to construct temporary
bridges (for of course little progress had been made in the stone bridge
hardly begun) or to make use of boats than in waiting for the falling of
the water, and, should the enemy make his appearance while they were
engaged in such confusing efforts, the army would be hopelessly lost.

Maurice, against the express advice of Vere, decided to send his cousin
Ernest, with the main portion of the force established on the right bank
of the harbour, in search of the archduke, for the purpose of holding him
in check long enough to enable the rest of the army to cross the water
when the tide should serve. The enemy, it was now clear, would advance by
precisely the path over which the States' army had marched that morning.
Ernest was accordingly instructed to move with the greatest expedition in
order to seize the bridge at Leffingen before the archduke should reach
the deep, dangerous, and marshy river, over which it was the sole passage
to the downs. Two thousand infantry, being the Scotch regiment of Edmonds
and the Zeelanders of Van der Noot, four squadrons of Dutch cavalry, and
two pieces of artillery composed the force with which Ernest set forth at
a little before dawn on his hazardous but heroic enterprise.

With a handful of troops he was to make head against an army, and the
youth accepted the task in the cheerful spirit of self-sacrifice which
characterized his house. Marching as rapidly as the difficult ground
would permit, he had the disappointment, on approaching the fatal point
at about eight o'clock, to see the bridge at Leffingen in the possession
of the enemy. Maurice had sent off a messenger early that morning with a
letter marked post haste (cito, cito) to Ostend ordering up some four
hundred cavalry-men then stationed in that city under Piron and Bruges,
to move up to the support of Ernest, and to destroy the bridge and dams
at Leffingen before the enemy should arrive. That letter, which might
have been so effective, was delivered, as it subsequently appeared,
exactly ten days after it was written. The States, of their own
authority, had endeavoured to send out those riders towards the scene of
action, but it was with great difficulty that they could be got into the
saddle at all, and they positively refused to go further than St. Albert
fort.

What course should he now pursue? He had been sent to cut the archduke's
road. He had failed. Had he remained in his original encampment his force
would have been annihilated by the overwhelming numbers of the enemy so
soon as they reached the right bank of Nieuport haven, while Maurice
could have only looked hopelessly on from the opposite shore. At least
nothing worse than absolute destruction could befal him now. Should he
accept a combat of six or eight to one the struggle would be hopeless,
but the longer it was protracted the better it would be for his main
army, engaged at that very moment as he knew in crossing the haven with
the ebbing tide. Should he retreat, it might be possible for him to
escape into Fort Albert or even Ostend, but to do so would be to purchase
his own safety and that of his command at the probable sacrifice of the
chief army of the republic. Ernest hesitated but an instant. Coming
within carbine-shot of the stream, where he met his cavalry which had
been sent forward at full speed, in the vain hope of seizing or
destroying the bridge before it should be too late, he took up a position
behind a dyke, upon which he placed his two field-pieces, and formed his
troops in line of battle exactly across the enemy's path. On the right he
placed the regiment of Scots. On the left was Van der Noot's Zeeland
infantry, garnished with four companies of riders under Risoir, which
stood near St. Mary's church. The passage from the stream to the downs
was not more than a hundred yards wide, being skirted on both sides by a
swamp. Here Ernest with his two thousand men awaited the onset of the
archduke's army. He was perfectly aware that it was a mere question of
time, but he was sure that his preparations must interpose a delay to the
advance of the Spaniards, should his troops, as he felt confident, behave
themselves as they had always done, and that the delay would be of
inestimable value to his friends at the haven of Nieuport.

The archduke paused; for he, too, could not be certain, on observing the
resolute front thus presented to him, that he was not about to engage the
whole of the States' army. The doubt was but of short duration, however,
and the onset was made. Ernest's artillery fired four volleys into the
advancing battalions with such effect as to stagger them for a moment,
but they soon afterwards poured over the dyke in over whelming numbers,
easily capturing the cannon. The attack began upon Ernest's left, and
Risoir's cavalry, thinking that they should be cut off from all
possibility of retreat into Fort St. Albert, turned their backs in the
most disgraceful manner, without even waiting for the assault. Galloping
around the infantry on the left they infected the Zeelanders with their
own cowardice. Scarcely a moment passed before Van der Noot's whole
regiment was running away as fast as the troopers, while the Scots on the
right hesitated not for an instant to follow their example. Even before
the expected battle had begun, one of those hideous and unaccountable
panics which sometimes break out like a moral pestilence to destroy all
the virtue of an army, and to sweep away the best-considered schemes of a
general, had spread through Ernest's entire force. So soon as the
demi-cannon had discharged their fourth volley, Scots, Zeelanders,
Walloons, pikemen, musketeers, and troopers, possessed by the demon of
cowardice, were running like a herd of swine to throw themselves into the
sea. Had they even kept the line of the downs in the direction of the
fort many of them might have saved their lives, although none could have
escaped disgrace. But the Scots, in an ecstasy of fear, throwing away
their arms as they fled, ran through the waters behind the dyke, skimmed
over the sands at full speed, and never paused till such as survived the
sabre and musket of their swift pursuers had literally drowned themselves
in the ocean. Almost every man of them was slain or drowned. All the
captains--Stuart, Barclay, Murray, Kilpatrick, Michael, Nesbit--with the
rest of the company officers, doing their best to rally the fugitives,
were killed. The Zeelanders, more cautious in the midst of their panic,
or perhaps knowing better the nature of the country, were more successful
in saving their necks. Not more than a hundred and fifty of Van der
Noot's regiment were killed, while such of the cavalry of Bruges and
Piron as had come to the neighbourhood of Fort Albert, not caring to
trust themselves to the shelter of that redoubt, now fled as fast as
their horses' legs would carry them, and never pulled bridle till they
found themselves in Ostend. And so beside themselves with panic were
these fugitives, and so virulent was the contagion, that it was difficult
to prevent the men who had remained in the fort from joining in the
flight towards Ostend. Many of them indeed threw themselves over the
walls and were sabred by the enemy when they might have been safe within
the fortifications. Had these cavalry companies of Bruges and Piron been
even tolerably self-possessed, had they concentrated themselves in the
fort instead of yielding to the delirium which prompted them to
participate in their comrades' flight, they would have had it entirely in
their power, by making an attack, or even the semblance of an attack, by
means of a sudden sally from the fort, to have saved, not the battle
indeed, but a large number of lives. But the panic was hopeless and
universal, and countless fugitives scrambling by the fort were shot in a
leisurely manner by a comparative few of the enemy as easily as the
rabbits which swarmed in those sands were often knocked down in
multitudes by half-a-dozen sportsmen.

And thus a band of patriots, who were not cowards by nature, and who had
often played the part of men, had horribly disgraced themselves, and were
endangering the very existence of their country, already by mistaken
councils brought within the jaws of death. The glory of Thermopyla; might
have hung for ever over that bridge of Leffingen. It was now a pass of
infamy, perhaps of fatal disaster. The sands were covered with
weapons-sabre, pike, and arquebus--thrown away by almost every soldier as
he fled to save the life which after all was sacrificed. The artillery,
all the standards and colours, all the baggage and ammunition, every
thing was lost. No viler panic, no more complete defeat was ever
recorded. Such at half-past eight in the morning was that memorable
Sunday of the 2nd July, 1600, big with the fate of the Dutch
republic--the festival of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, always
thought of happy augury for Spanish arms.

Thus began the long expected battle of Nieuport. At least a thousand of
the choicest troops of the stadholder were slain, while the Spanish had
hardly lost a man.

The archduke had annihilated his enemy, had taken his artillery and
thirty flags. In great exultation he despatched a messenger to the
Infanta at Ghent, informing her that he had entirely defeated the
advance-guard of the States' army, and that his next bulletin would
announce his complete triumph and the utter overthrow of Maurice, who had
now no means of escape. He stated also that he would very soon send the
rebel stadholder himself to her as a prisoner. The Infanta, much pleased
with the promise, observed to her attendants that she was curious to see
how Nassau would conduct himself when he should be brought a captive into
her presence. As to the Catholic troops, they were informed by the
archduke that after the complete victory which they were that day to
achieve, not a man should be left alive save Maurice and his brother
Frederic Henry. These should be spared to grace the conqueror's triumph,
but all else should be put to the sword.

Meantime artillery thundered, bonfires blazed, and bells rang their
merriest peals in Ghent, Bruges, and the other obedient cities as the
news of the great victory spread through the land.

When the fight was done the archduke called a council of war. It was a
grave question whether the army should at once advance in order to
complete the destruction of the enemy that day, or pause for an interval
that the troops fatigued with hard marching and with the victorious
combat in which they just had been engaged, should recover their full
strength. That the stadholder was completely in their power was certain.
The road to Ostend was barred, and Nieuport would hold him at bay, now
that the relieving army was close upon his heels. All that was necessary
in order to annihilate his whole force, was that they should entrench
themselves for the night on the road which he must cross. He would then
be obliged to assault their works with troops inferior in number to
theirs and fatigued by the march. Should he remain where he was he would
soon be starved into submission, and would be obliged to surrender his
whole army. On the other hand, by advancing now, in the intolerable heat
of a July sun over the burning and glaring sands, the troops already
wearied would arrive on the field of battle utterly exhausted, and would
be obliged to attack an enemy freshly and cheerfully awaiting them on
ground of his own selection.

Moreover it was absolutely certain that Fort Albert would not hold an
hour if resolutely assaulted in the midst of the panic of Ernest's
defeat, and, with its capture, the annihilation of Maurice was certain.

Meantime the three thousand men under Velasco, who had been detached to
protect the rear, would arrive to reinforce the archduke's main army,
should he pause until the next day.

These arguments, which had much logic in them, were strongly urged by
Zapena, a veteran marshal of the camp who had seen much service, and
whose counsels were usually received with deference. But on this occasion
commanders and soldiers were hot for following up their victory. They
cared nothing for the numbers of their enemy, they cried, "The more
infidels the greater glory in destroying them." Delay might after all
cause the loss of the prize, it was eagerly shouted. The archduke ought
to pray that the sun might stand still for him that morning, as for
Joshua in the vale of Ajalon. The foe seeing himself entrapped, with
destruction awaiting him, was now skulking towards his ships, which still
offered him the means of escape. Should they give him time he would
profit by their negligence, and next morning when they reached Nieuport,
the birds would be flown. Especially the leaders of the mutineers of
Diest and Thionville were hoarse with indignation at the proposed delay.
They had not left their brethren, they shouted, nor rallied to the
archduke's banner in order to sit down and dig in the sand like
ploughmen. There was triumph for the Holy Church, there was the utter
overthrow of the heretic army, there was rich booty to be gathered, all
these things were within their reach if they now advanced and smote the
rebels while, confused and panic-stricken, they were endeavouring to
embark in their ships.

While these vehement debates were at the hottest, sails were descried in
the offing; for the archduke's forces already stood upon the edge of the
downs. First one ship, then another and another, moved steadily along the
coast, returning from Nieuport in the direction of Ostend.

This was more than could be borne. It was obvious that the rebels were
already making their escape, and it was urged upon the cardinal that
probably Prince Maurice and the other chieftains were on board one of
those very vessels, and were giving him the slip. With great expedition
it would still be possible to overtake them before the main body could
embark, and the attack might yet be made at the most favourable moment.
Those white sails gleaming in the distance were more eloquent than Zapena
or any other advocate of delay, and the order was given to advance. And
it was exactly at this period that it still lay within the power of the
States' cavalry at Ostend to partially redeem their character, and to
render very effective service. Had four or five hundred resolute troopers
hung upon the rear of the Spanish army now, as it moved toward Nieuport,
they might, by judiciously skirmishing, advancing and retreating
according to circumstances, have caused much confusion, and certainly
have so harassed the archduke as to compel the detachment of a very
considerable force of his own cavalry to protect himself against such
assaults. But the terror was an enduring one. Those horsemen remained
paralyzed and helpless, and it was impossible for the States, with all
their commands or entreaties, to induce them to mount and ride even a
half mile beyond the city gates.

While these events had been occurring in the neighbourhood of Ostend,
Maurice had not been idle at Nieuport. No sooner had Ernest been
despatched on his desperate errand than his brother Lewis Gunther was
ordered by the stadholder to get on horseback and ride through the
quarters of the army. On the previous afternoon there had been so little
thought of an enemy that large foraging parties had gone out from camp in
all directions, and had not returned. Lewis gave notice that a great
battle was to be expected on the morrow, instead of the tranquil
commencement of a leisurely siege, and that therefore no soul was
henceforth to leave the camp, while a troop of horse was despatched at
the first gleam of daylight to scour the country in search of all the
stragglers. Maurice had no thought of retreating, and his first care was
to bring his army across the haven. The arrangements were soon completed,
but it was necessary to wait until nearly low water. Soon after eight
o'clock Count Lewis began to cross with eight squadrons of cavalry, and
partly swimming, partly wading, effected the passage in safety. The
advanced guard of infantry, under Sir Francis Vere--consisting of two
thousand six hundred Englishmen, and two thousand eight hundred Frisians,
with some companies of horse, followed by the battalia under Solms, and
the rearguard under Tempel--then slowly and with difficulty moved along
the same dangerous path with the water as high as their armpits, and
often rising nearly over their heads. Had the archduke not been detained
near the bridge of Leffingen by Ernest's Scotchmen and Zeelanders during
three or four precious hours that morning; had he arrived, as he
otherwise might have done, just as the States' army--horse, foot, and
artillery--was floundering through that treacherous tide, it would have
fared ill for the stadholder and the republic. But the devotion of Ernest
had at least prevented the attack of the archduke until Maurice and his
men stood on dry land.

Dripping from head to foot, but safe and sound, the army had at last
reached the beach at Nieuport. Vere had refused his soldiers permission
to denude themselves in crossing of their shoes and lower garments. There
was no time for that, he said, and they would either earn new clothes for
themselves that day, or never need doublet and hose again any more in the
world. Some hours had elapsed before the tedious and difficult crossing
of infantry, cavalry, artillery, and munition trains had been
accomplished.

Lewis Gunther, with eight squadrons of picked cavalry, including his own
company, Maurice's own, Frederic Henry's own, with Batenburg's
arquebus-men, and other veterans, was first to place himself in battle
order on the beach. His squadrons in iron corslet and morion, and armed
with lances, carbines, and sabres, stretched across from the water to the
downs. He had not been long stationed there when he observed that far
away in the direction of Ostend the beach was growing black with troops.
He believed them at first to be his brother Ernest and his forces
returning victorious from their hazardous expedition, but he was soon
undeceived.

A couple of troopers from Ostend came spurring full gallop along the
strand, and almost breathless with dismay, announced that it was the
whole army of the archduke advancing in line of battle. They were
instantly sent to the rear, without being allowed to speak further, in
order that they might deliver their message in private to the
commander-in-chief. And most terrible were the tidings to which Maurice
now listened in very secret audience. Ernest was utterly defeated, his
command cut to pieces, the triumphant foe advancing rapidly, and already
in full sight. The stadholder heard the tale without flinching, and
having quietly ordered the messengers upon their lives not to open their
lips on the subject to living soul, sent them securely guarded in a boat
on board one of the war-ships in the offing. With perfect cheerfulness he
then continued his preparations, consulting with Vere, on whom he mainly
relied for the marshalling of the army in the coming conflict. Undecided
as he had sometimes shown himself, he was resolute now. He called no
council of war, for he knew not how much might be known or suspected of
the disaster already sustained, and he had fully made up his mind as to
the course to be pursued. He had indeed taken a supreme resolution.
Entirely out of his own breast, without advising with any man, he calmly
gave directions that every war-ship, transport, barge, or wherry should
put to sea at once. As the tide had now been long on the flood, the few
vessels that had been aground--within the harbour were got afloat, and
the whole vast, almost innumerable armada, was soon standing out to sea.
No more heroic decision was ever taken by fighting man.

Sir Francis gave advice that entrenchments should be thrown up on the
north-east, and that instead of advancing towards the enemy they should
await his coming, and refuse the battle that day if possible. The
Englishman, not aware of the catastrophe at Leffingen, which Maurice had
locked up in his own breast, was now informed by the stadholder that
there were to be no entrenchments that day but those of pike and
arquebus. It was not the fault of Maurice that the fate of the
commonwealth had been suspended on a silken thread that morning, but he
knew that but one of two issues was possible. They must fight their way
through the enemy back to Ostend, or perish, every man of them. The
possibility of surrender did not enter his mind, and he felt that it was
better to hasten the action before the news of Ernest's disaster should
arrive to chill the ardour of the troops.

Meantime Lewis Gunther and his cavalry had been sitting motionless upon
their horses on the beach. The enemy was already in full view, and the
young general, most desirous to engage in a preliminary skirmish, sent
repeated messages to the stadholder for permission to advance. Presently
Sir Francis Vere rode to the front, to whom he eagerly urged his request
that the infantry of the vanguard might be, brought up at once to support
him. On the contrary the English general advised that the cavalry should
fall back to the infantry, in order to avoid a premature movement. Lewis
strongly objected to this arrangement, on the ground that the mere
semblance of retreat, thus upon the eve of battle, would discourage all
the troops. But he was over-ruled, for Maurice had expressly enjoined
upon his cousin that morning to defer in all things to the orders of
Vere. These eight squadrons of horse accordingly shifted their position,
and were now placed close to the edge of the sea, on the left flank of
the vanguard, which Vere had drawn up across the beach and in the downs.
On the edge of the downs, on the narrow slip of hard sand above
high-water mark, and on Vere's right, Maurice had placed a battery of six
demi-cannon.

Behind the advance was the battalia, or centre, under command of that
famous fighter, George Everard Solms, consisting of Germans, Swiss,
French, and Walloons. The "New Beggars," as the Walloons were called, who
had so recently surrendered the forts of Crevecoeur and St. Andrew, and
gone over from the archduke's service to the army of the States, were
included in this division, and were as eager to do credit to their new
chief as were the mutineers in the archduke's army to merit the
approbation of their sovereign.

The rearguard under Tempel was made up, like the other divisions, of the
blended nationalities of German, Briton, Hollander, and Walloon, and,
like the others, was garnished at each flank with heavy cavalry.

The Spanish army, after coming nearly within cannon-shot of their
adversary, paused. It was plain that the States' troops were not in so
great a panic as the more sanguine advisers of the archduke had hoped.
They were not cowering among the shipping, preparing to escape. Still
less had any portion of them already effected their retreat in those
vessels, a few of which had so excited the enemy's ardour when they came
in sight. It was obvious that a great struggle, in which the forces were
very evenly balanced, was now to be fought out upon those sands. It was a
splendid tournament--a great duel for life and death between the
champions of the Papacy and of Protestantism, of the Republic and of
absolutism, that was to be fought out that midsummer's day. The lists
were closed. The trumpet signal for the fray would soon be blown.

The archduke, in Milanese armour, on a wonderfully beautiful snow-white
Spanish stallion, moved in the centre of his army. He wore no helmet,
that his men might the more readily recognize him as he rode gallantly to
and fro, marshalling, encouraging, exhorting the troops. Never before had
he manifested such decided military talent, combined with unquestionable
personal valour, as he had done since this campaign began. Friend and foe
agreed that day that Albert fought like a lion. He was at first well
seconded by Mendoza, who led the van, and by Villars, La Bourlotte,
Avalos, Zapena, and many other officers of note. The mutinous Spanish and
Italian cavalry, combined with a few choice squadrons of Walloon and
German horse, were placed in front and on the flanks. They were under the
special supervision of the admiral, who marshalled their squadrons and
directed their charging, although mounted on a hackney himself, and not
intending to participate in the action. Then came the battalia and rear,
crowding very closely upon each other.

Face to face with them stood the republican host, drawn up in great solid
squares of infantry, their standards waving above each closely planted
clump of pikemen, with the musketeers fringing their skirts, while the
iron-clad ponderous cavalry of Count Lewis and Marcellus Bax, in black
casque and, corslet, were in front, restlessly expecting the signal for
the onset. The volunteers of high rank who were then serving on the staff
of the stadholder--the Duke of Holstein, the Prince of Anhalt, two young
Counts Solms, and others--had been invited and even urged to abandon the
field while there was yet time for setting them on board the fleet.
Especially it was thought desirable that young Frederic Henry, a mere
boy, on whom the hopes of the Orange-Nassau house would rest if Maurice
fell in the conflict, should be spared the fate which seemed hanging over
the commonwealth and her defenders. But the son of William the Silent
implored his brother with clasped hands not to send him from his side at
that moment, so that Maurice granted his prayer, and caused him to be
provided with a complete suit of armour. Thus in company with young
Coligny--a lad of his own age, and like himself a grandson of the great
admiral--the youth who was one day to play so noble a part on the stage
of the world's affairs was now to be engaged in his first great passage
of arms. No one left the field but Sir Robert Sidney, who had come over
from Ostend, from irrepressible curiosity to witness the arrangements,
but who would obviously have been guilty of unpardonable negligence had
he been absent at such a crisis from the important post of which he was
governor for the queen.

The arena of the conflict seemed elaborately prepared by the hand of
nature. The hard, level, sandy beach, swept clean and smooth by the
ceaseless action of the tides, stretched out far as the eye could reach
in one long, bold, monotonous line. Like the whole coast of Flanders and
of Holland, it seemed drawn by a geometrical rule, not a cape, cove, or
estuary breaking the perfect straightness of the design. On the right,
just beyond high-water mark, the downs, fantastically heaped together
like a mimic mountain chain, or like tempestuous ocean-waves suddenly
changed to sand, rolled wild and confused, but still in a regularly
parallel course with the line of the beach. They seemed a barrier thrown
up to protect the land from being bitten quite away by the ever-restless
and encroaching sea. Beyond the downs, which were seven hundred yards in
width; extended a level tract of those green fertile meadows,
artificially drained, which are so characteristic a feature of the
Netherland landscapes, the stream which ran from Ostend towards the town
of Nieuport flowing sluggishly through them. It was a bright warm
midsummer day. The waves of the German Ocean came lazily rolling in upon
the crisp yellow sand, the surf breaking with its monotonous music at the
very feet of the armies. A gentle south-west breeze was blowing, just
filling the sails of more than a thousand ships in the offing, which
moved languidly along the sparkling sea. It was an atmosphere better
befitting a tranquil holiday than the scene of carnage which seemed
approaching.

Maurice of Nassau, in complete armour, rapier in hand, with the
orange-plumes waving from his helmet and the orange-scarf across his
breast, rode through the lines, briefly addressing his soldiers with
martial energy. Pointing to the harbour of Nieuport behind them, now
again impassable with the flood, to the ocean on the left where rode the
fleet, carrying with it all hope of escape by sea, and to the army of the
archduke in front, almost within cannon-range, he simply observed that
they had no possible choice between victory and death. They must either
utterly overthrow the Spanish army, he said, or drink all the waters of
the sea. Either drowning or butchery was their doom if they were
conquered, for no quarter was to be expected from their unscrupulous and
insolent foe. He was there to share their fate, to conquer or to perish
with them, and from their tried valour and from the God of battles he
hoped a more magnificent victory than had ever before been achieved in
this almost perpetual war for independence. The troops, perfectly
enthusiastic, replied with a shout that they were ready to live or die
with their chieftain, and eagerly demanded to be led upon the foe.
Whether from hope or from desperation they were confident and cheerful.
Some doubt was felt as to the Walloons, who had so lately transferred
themselves from the archduke's army, but their commander, Marquette, made
them all lift up their hands, and swear solemnly to live or die that day
at the feet of Prince Maurice.

Two hours long these two armies had stood looking each other in the face.
It was near two o'clock when the arch duke at last gave the signal to
advance. The tide was again almost at the full. Maurice stood firm,
awaiting the assault; the enemy slowly coming nearer, and the rising tide
as steadily lapping away all that was left of the hard beach which
fringed the rugged downs. Count Lewis chafed with impatience as it became
each moment more evident that there would be no beach left for cavalry
fighting, while in the downs the manoeuvring of horse was entirely
impossible. Meantime, by command of Vere, all those sandy hillocks and
steeps had been thickly sown with musketeers and pikemen. Arquebus-men
and carabineers were planted in every hollow, while on the highest and
most advantageous elevation two pieces of cannon had been placed by the
express direction of Maurice. It seemed obvious that the battle would,
after all, be transferred to the downs. Not long before the action began,
a private of the enemy's cavalry was taken, apparently with his own
consent, in a very trifling preliminary skirmish. He bragged loudly of
the immense force of the archduke, of the great victory already gained
over Ernest, with the utter annihilation of his forces, and of the
impending destruction of the whole States' army. Strange to say, this was
the first intimation received by Count Lewis of that grave disaster,
although it had been for some hours known to Maurice. The prisoner was at
once gagged, that he might spread his disheartening news no further, but
as he persisted by signs and gestures in attempting to convey the
information which he had evidently been sent forward to impart, he was
shot by command of the stadholder, and so told no further tales.

The enemy had now come very close, and it was the desire of Count Lewis
that a couple of companies of horse, in accordance with the commands of
Maurice, should charge the cavalry in front, and that after a brief
skirmish they should retreat as if panic-stricken behind the advance
column, thus decoying the Spanish vanguard in hot pursuit towards the
battery upon the edge of the downs. The cannon were then suddenly to open
upon them, and during the confusion sure to be created in their ranks,
the musketeers, ambushed among the hollows, were to attack them in flank,
while the cavalry in one mass should then make a concentrated charge in
front. It seemed certain that the effect of this movement would be to
hurl the whole of the enemy's advance, horse and foot, back upon his
battalia, and thus to break up his army in irretrievable rout. The plan
was a sensible one, but it was not ingeniously executed. Before the
handful of cavalry had time to make the proposed feint the cannoneers,
being unduly excited, and by express command of Sir Francis Vere, fired a
volley into the advancing columns of the archduke. This precipitated the
action; almost in an instant changed its whole character, and defeated
the original plan of the republican leader. The enemy's cavalry broke at
the first discharge from the battery, and wheeled in considerable
disorder, but without panic, quite into and across the downs. The whole
army of the archduke, which had already been veering in the same
direction, as it advanced, both because the tide was so steadily
devouring the even surface of the sands, and because the position of a
large portion of the States' forces among the hillocks exposed him to an
attack in flank, was now rapidly transferred to the downs. It was
necessary for that portion of Maurice's army which still stood on what
remained of the beach to follow this movement. A rapid change of front
was then undertaken, and--thanks to the careful system of wheeling,
marching, and counter-marching in which the army had been educated by
William Lewis and Maurice--was executed with less confusion than might
have been expected.

But very few companies of infantry now remained on the strip of beach
still bare of the waves, and in the immediate vicinity of the artillery
planted high and dry beyond their reach.

The scene was transformed as if by magic, and the battle was now to be
fought out in those shifting, uneven hills and hollows, where every
soldier stood mid-leg deep in the dry and burning sand. Fortunately for
the States' army, the wind was in its back, blowing both sand and smoke
into the faces of its antagonists, while the already weltering sun glared
fiercely in their eyes. Maurice had skilfully made use of the great
advantage which accident had given him that day, and his very refusal to
advance and to bring on a premature struggle thus stood him in stead in a
variety of ways Lewis Gunther was now ordered, with Marcellus Bax and six
squadrons of horse, to take position within the belt of pasture land on
the right of the downs. When he arrived there the van of the archduke's
infantry had already charged the States' advance under Vere, while just
behind and on the side of the musketeers and pikemen a large portion of
the enemy's cavalry was standing stock still on the green. Without
waiting for instructions Lewis ordered a charge. It was brilliantly
successful. Unheeding a warm salutation in flank from the musketeers as
they rode by them, and notwithstanding that they were obliged to take
several ditches as they charged, they routed the enemy's cavalry at the
first onset, and drove them into panic-stricken flight. Some fled for
protection quite to the rear of their infantry, others were hotly pursued
across the meadows till they took refuge under the walls of Nieuport. The
very success of the attack was nearly fatal however to Count Lewis; for,
unable to restrain the ardour of his troopers in the chase, he found
himself cut off from the army with only ten horsemen to support him, and
completely enveloped by the enemy. Fortunately Prince Maurice had
foreseen the danger, and had ordered all the cavalry to the meadows so
soon as the charge was made. Captain Kloet, with a fresh company of
mounted carabineers, marked the little squad of States' cavalry careering
about in the midst of the Catholics, recognized their leader by the
orange-plumes on his calque, and dashed forward to the rescue. Lewis
again found himself at the head of his cavalry, but was obliged to wait a
long time for the return of the stragglers.

While this brilliant diversion had been enacting as it were on the fringe
of the battle, its real bustle and business had been going on in the
downs. Just as Lewis made his charge in the pastures, the infantry of the
archduke and the advance guard of the republicans met in deadly shock.
More than an hour long they contended with varying success. Musketeers,
pikemen, arquebusmen, swordmen, charged, sabred, or shot each other from
the various hollows or heights of vantage, plunging knee-deep in the
sand, torn and impeded by the prickly broom-plant which grew profusely
over the whole surface, and fighting breast to breast and hand to hand in
a vast series of individual encounters. Thrice were the Spaniards
repulsed in what for a moment seemed absolute rout, thrice they rallied
and drove their assailants at push of pike far beyond their original
position; and again the conquered republicans recovered their energy and
smote their adversaries as if the contest were just begun. The tide of
battle ebbed and flowed like the waves of the sea, but it would be mere
pedantry to affect any technical explanation of its various changes. It
was a hot struggle of twenty thousand men, pent up in a narrow space,
where the very nature of the ground had made artistic evolutions nearly
impracticable. The advance, the battalia, even the rearguard on both
sides were mixed together pell-mell, and the downs were soon covered at
every step with the dead and dying-Briton, Hollander, Spaniard, Italian,
Frisian, Frenchman, Walloon, fighting and falling together, and hotly
contesting every inch of those barren sands.

It seemed, said one who fought there, as if the last day of the world had
come.

Political and religious hatred, pride of race, remembrance of a
half-century of wrongs, hope, fury, and despair; these were the real
elements contending with each other that summer's day. It was a mere
trial of ferocity and endurance, not more scientific than a fight between
packs of wolves and of bloodhounds.

No doubt the brunt of the conflict fell upon Vere, with his Englishmen
and Frisians, for this advance-guard made up nearly one-half of the
States' army actually engaged. And most nobly, indefatigably, did the
hardy veteran discharge his duty. Having personally superintended almost
all the arrangements in the morning, he fought all day in the front,
doing the work both of a field-marshal and a corporal.

He was twice wounded, shot each time through the same leg, yet still
fought on as if it were some one else's blood and not his own that was
flowing from "those four holes in his flesh." He complained that he was
not sufficiently seconded, and that the reserves were not brought up
rapidly enough to his support. He was manifestly unjust, for although it
could not be doubted that the English and the Frisians did their best, it
was equally certain that every part of the army was as staunch as the
vanguard. It may be safely asserted that it would not have benefited the
cause of the States, had every man been thrown into the fight at one and
the same moment.

During this "bloody bit," as Vere called it, between the infantry on both
sides, the little battery of two field-pieces planted on the highest
hillock of the downs had been very effective. Meantime, while the
desperate and decisive struggle had been going on, Lewis Gunther, in the
meadow, had again rallied all the cavalry, which, at the first stage of
the action, had been dispersed in pursuit of the enemy's horse. Gathering
them together in a mass, he besought Prince Maurice to order him to
charge. The stadholder bade him pause yet a little longer. The aspect of
the infantry fight was not yet, in his opinion, sufficiently favourable.
Again and again Lewis sent fresh entreaties, and at last received the
desired permission. Placing three picked squadrons in front, the young
general made a furious assault upon the Catholic cavalry, which had again
rallied and was drawn up very close to the musketeers. Fortune was not so
kind to him as at the earlier stage of the combat. The charge was
received with dauntless front by the Spanish and Italian horse, while at
the same moment the infantry poured a severe fire into their assailants.
The advancing squadrons faltered, wheeled back upon the companies
following them, and the whole mass of the republican cavalry broke into
wild and disorderly retreat. At the same moment the archduke, observing
his advantage, threw in his last reserves of infantry, and again there
was a desperate charge upon Vere's wearied troops, as decisive as the
counter charge of Lewis's cavalry had been unsuccessful. The English and
Frisians, sorely tried during those hours of fighting with superior
numbers in the intolerable heat, broke at last and turned their backs
upon the foe. Some of them fled panic-stricken quite across the downs and
threw themselves into the sea, but the mass retreated in a comparatively
orderly manner, being driven from one down to another, and seeking a last
refuge behind the battery placed on the high-water line of the beach. In
the confusion and panic Sir Francis Vere went down at last. His horse,
killed by a stray shot fell with and upon him, and the heroic Englishman
would then and there have finished his career--for he would hardly have
found quarter from the Spaniards--had not Sir Robert Drury, riding by in
the tumult, observed him as he lay almost exhausted in the sand. By his
exertion and that of his servant Higham, Vere was rescued from his
perilous situation, placed on the crupper of Sir Robert's horse, and so
borne off the field.

The current of the retreating and pursuing hosts swept by the spot where
Maurice sat on horseback, watching and directing the battle. His bravest
and best general, the veteran Vere, had fallen; his cousin Lewis was now
as utterly overthrown as his brother Ernest had been but a few hours
before at the fatal bridge of Leffingen; the whole army, the only army,
of the States was defeated, broken, panic-struck; the Spanish shouts of
victory rang on every side. Plainly the day was lost, and with it the
republic. In the blackest hour that the Netherland commonwealth had ever
known, the fortitude of the stadholder did not desert him. Immoveable as
a rock in the torrent he stemmed the flight of his troops. Three
squadrons of reserved cavalry, Balen's own, Vere's own, and Cecil's, were
all that was left him, and at the head of these he essayed an advance. He
seemed the only man on the field not frightened; and menacing, conjuring,
persuading the fugitives for the love of fatherland, of himself and his
house, of their own honour, not to disgrace and destroy themselves for
ever; urging that all was not yet lost, and beseeching them at least to
take despair for their master, and rather to die like men on the field
than to drown like dogs in the sea, he succeeded in rallying a portion of
those nearest him. The enemy paused in their mad pursuit, impressed even
more than were the States' troops at the dauntless bearing of the prince.
It was one of those supreme moments in battle and in history which are
sometimes permitted to influence the course of events during a long
future. The archduke and his generals committed a grave error in pausing
for an instant in their career. Very soon it was too late to repair the
fault, for the quick and correct eye of the stadholder saw the point to
which the whole battle was tending, and he threw his handful of reserved
cavalry, with such of the fugitives as had rallied, straight towards the
battery on the beach.

It was arranged that Balen should charge on the strand, Horace Vere
through the upper downs, and Cecil along the margin of the beach. Balen
rode slowly through the heavy sand, keeping his horses well in wind, and
at the moment he touched the beach, rushed with fury upon the enemy's
foot near the battery. The moment was most opportune, for the last shot
had been fired from the guns, and they had just been nearly abandoned in
despair. The onset of Balen was successful: the Spanish infantry, thus
suddenly attached, were broken, and many were killed and taken. Cecil and
Vere were equally fortunate, so that the retreating English and Frisians
began to hold firm again. It was the very crisis of the battle, which up
to that instant seemed wholly lost by the republic, so universal was the
overthrow and the flight. Some hundred and fifty Frisian pikemen now
rallied from their sullen retreat, and drove the enemy off one hillock or
dune.

Foiled in their attempt to intercept the backward movement of the States'
army and to seize this vital point and the artillery with it, the
Spaniards hesitated and were somewhat discouraged. Some Zeeland sailors,
who had stuck like wax to those demi-cannon during the whole conflict,
now promptly obeyed orders to open yet once more upon the victorious foe.
At the first volley the Spaniards were staggered, and the sailors with a
lively shout of "Ian-fall on," inspired the defeated army with a portion
of their own cheerfulness. Others vehemently shouted victory without any
reason whatever. At that instant Maurice ordered a last charge by those
few cavalry squadrons, while the enemy was faltering under the play of
the artillery. It was a forlorn hope, yet such was the shifting fortune
of that memorable day that the charge decided the battle. The whole line
of the enemy broke, the conquered became the victors, the fugitives
quickly rallying and shouting victory almost before they had turned their
faces to the foe, became in their turn the pursuers. The Catholic army
could no longer be brought to a stand, but fled wildly in every
direction, and were shot and stabbed by the republicans as they fled. The
Admiral of Arragon fell with his hackney in this last charge. Unwounded,
but struggling to extricate himself from his horse that had been killed,
he was quickly surrounded by the enemy.

Two Spaniards, Mendo and Villalobos by name, who had recently deserted to
the States, came up at the moment and recognised the fallen admiral. They
had reason to recognise him, for both had been in his service, and one of
them, who was once in immediate household attendance upon him, bore the
mark of a wound which he had received from his insolent master. "Admiral,
look at this," cried Villalobos, pointing to the scar on his face. The
admiral looked and knew his old servants, and gave his scarf to the one
and the hanger of his sword-belt to the other, as tokens that he was
their prisoner. Thus his life was saved for heavy ransom, of which those
who had actually captured him would receive a very trifling portion. The
great prisoner was carried to the rear, where he immediately asked for
food and drink, and fell to with an appetite, while the pursuit and
slaughter went on in all directions.

The archduke, too, whose personal conduct throughout the day was
admirable, had been slightly wounded by a halberd stroke on the ear. This
was at an earlier stage of the action, and he had subsequently mounted
another horse, exchanged his splendid armour for a plain black harness,
over which he wore a shabby scarf. In the confusion of the rout he was
hard beset. "Surrender, scoundrel!" cried a Walloon pikeman, seizing his
horse by the bridle. But a certain Flemish Captain Kabbeljaw recognising
his sovereign and rushing to his rescue, slew his assailant and four
others with his own hand. He was at last himself killed, but Albert
escaped, and, accompanied by the Duke of Aumale, who was also slightly
wounded, by Colonel La Bourlotte, and half a dozen troopers rode for
their life in the direction of Bruges. When they reached the fatal bridge
of Leffingen, over which the archduke had marched so triumphantly but a
few hours before to annihilate Count Ernest's division, he was nearly
taken prisoner. A few soldiers, collected from the scattered garrisons,
had occupied the position, but knowing nothing of the result of the
action in the downs, took to their heels and fled as the little party of
cavaliers advanced. Had the commander at Ostend or the States-General
promptly sent out a company or two so soon as the news of the victory
reached them to seize this vital point, the doom of the archduke would
have been sealed. Nothing then could have saved him from capture.
Fortunately escaping this danger, he now pushed on, and never pulled
bridle till he reached Bruges. Thence without pausing he was conveyed to
Ghent, where he presented himself to the Infanta. He was not accompanied
by the captive Maurice of Nassau, and the curiosity of the princess to
know how that warrior would demean himself as a prisoner was not destined
on this occasion to be gratified.

Isabella bore the disappointment and the bitter intelligence of the
defeat with a stoicism worthy of her departed father. She had already had
intimations that the day was going against her army, and had successively
received tidings that her husband was killed, was dangerously wounded,
was a prisoner; and she was now almost relieved to receive him, utterly
defeated, but still safe and sound.

Meantime the mad chase continued along the beach and through the downs.
Never was a rout more absolute than that of Albert's army. Never had so
brilliant a victory been achieved by Hollander or Spaniard upon that
great battleground of Europe--the Netherlands.

Maurice, to whom the chief credit of the victory was unquestionably due,
had been firm and impassive during the various aspects of the battle,
never losing his self-command when affairs seemed blackest. So soon,
however, as the triumph, after wavering so long, was decided in his
favour--the veteran legions of Spain and Italy, the picked troops of
Christendom, all flying at last before his troops--the stadholder was
fairly melted. Dismounting from his horse, he threw himself on his knees
in the sand, and with streaming eyes and uplifted hands exclaimed, "O
God, what are we human creatures to whom Thou hast brought such honour,
and to whom Thou hast vouchsafed such a victory!"

The slaughter went on until nightfall, but the wearied conquerors were
then obliged to desist from the pursuit. Three thousand Spaniards were
slain and about six hundred prisoners were taken. The loss of the States'
army; including the affair in the morning at Leffingen, was about two
thousand killed. Maurice was censured for not following up his victory
more closely, but the criticism seems unjust. The night which followed
the warm summer's day was singularly black and cloudy, the army was
exhausted, the distance for the enemy to traverse before they found
themselves safe within their own territory was not great. In such
circumstances the stadholder might well deem himself sufficiently
triumphant to have plucked a splendid victory out of the very jaws of
death. All the artillery of the archduke--seven pieces besides the two
captured from Ernest in the morning--one hundred and twenty standards,
and a long list of distinguished prisoners, including the Admiral Zapena
and many other officers of note, were the trophies of the conqueror.
Maurice passed the night on the battle-field; the admiral supping with
him in his tent. Next morning he went to Ostend, where a great
thanksgiving was held, Uytenbogart preaching an eloquent sermon on the
116th Psalm. Afterwards there was a dinner at the house of the
States-General, in honour of the stadholder, to which the Admiral of
Arragon was likewise bidden. That arrogant but discomfited personage was
obliged to listen to many a rough martial joke at his disaster as they
sat at table, but he bore the brunt of the encounter with much fortitude.

"Monsieur the Admiral of Arragon," said the stadholder in French, "is
more fortunate than many of his army. He has been desiring these four
years to see Holland. Now he will make his entrance there without
striking a blow." The gibe was perhaps deficient in delicacy towards a
fallen foe, but a man who had passed a whole winter in murdering his
prisoners in cold blood might be satisfied if he were stung only by a
sharp sarcasm or two, when he had himself become a captive.

Others asked him demurely what he thought of these awkward apprentices of
Holland and Zeeland, who were good enough at fighting behind dykes and
ramparts of cities, but who never ventured to face a Spanish army in the
open field. Mendoza sustained himself with equanimity however, and found
plenty of answers. He discussed the battle with coolness, blamed the
archduke for throwing the whole of his force prematurely into the
contest, and applauded the prudence of Maurice in keeping his reserves in
hand. He ascribed a great share of the result to the States' artillery,
which had been well placed upon wooden platforms and well served, while
the archduke's cannon, sinking in the sands, had been of comparatively
little use. Especially he expressed a warm admiration for the heroism of
Maurice in sending away his ships, and in thus leaving himself and his
soldiers no alternative but death or triumph.

While they still sat at table many of the standards taken from the enemy
were brought in and exhibited; the stadholder and others amusing
themselves with reading the inscriptions and devices emblazoned upon
them.

And thus on the 2nd July, 1600, the army of the States-General, led by
Maurice of Nassau, had utterly defeated Albert of Austria.

   ["Enfin l'affaire vint auix mains et fut combattu bien furieusement
   de deux costes l'espace de deux heures. Enfin Dieu par sa grace
   voulut que la victoire demeura de more coste." Such were the simple
   words in which Maurice announced to his cousin Lewis William his
   victory in the most important battle that had been fought for half a
   century. Not even General Ulysses Grant could be more modest in the
   hour of immense triumph.]

Strange to say--on another 2nd July, three centuries and two years
before, a former Albert of Austria had overthrown the emperor Adolphus of
Nassau, who had then lost both crown and life in the memorable battle of
Worms. The imperial shade of Maurice's ancestor had been signally
appeased.

In Ostend, as may well be imagined, ineffable joy had succeeded to the
horrible gloom in which the day had been passed, ever since the tidings
had been received of Ernest's overthrow.

Those very cavalry men, who had remained all day cowering behind the
walls of the city, seeing by the clouds of dust which marked the track of
the fugitives that the battle had been won by the comrades whom they had
so basely deserted in the morning, had been eager enough to join in the
pursuit. It was with difficulty that the States, who had been unable to
drive them out of the town while the fight was impending or going on,
could keep enough of them within the walls to guard the city against
possible accident, now that the work was done. Even had they taken the
field a few hours earlier, without participating in the action, or
risking their own lives, they might have secured the pass of Leffingen,
and made the capture of the archduke or his destruction inevitable.

The city, which had seemed deserted, swarmed with the garrison and with
the lately trembling burghers, for it seemed to all as if they had been
born again. Even the soldiers on the battle-field had embraced each other
like comrades who had met in another world. "Blessed be His holy name,"
said the stadholder's chaplain, "for His right hand has led us into hell
and brought us forth again. I know not," he continued, "if I am awake or
if I dream, when I think how God has in one moment raised us from the
dead."

Lewis Gunther, whose services had been so conspicuous, was well rewarded.
"I hope," said that general, writing to his brother Lewis William, "that
this day's work will not have been useless to me, both for what I have
learned in it and for another thing. His Excellency has done me the
honour to give me the admiral for my prisoner." And equally
characteristic was the reply of the religious and thrifty stadholder of
Friesland.

"I thank God," he said, "for His singular grace in that He has been
pleased to make use of your person as the instrument of so renowned and
signal a victory, for which, as you have derived therefrom not mediocre
praise, and acquired a great reputation, it should be now your duty to
humble yourself before God, and to acknowledge that it is He alone who
has thus honoured you . . . . You should reverence Him the more, that
while others are admonished of their duty by misfortunes and miseries,
the good God invites you to His love by benefits and honours . . . . I am
very glad, too, that his Excellency has given you the admiral for your
prisoner, both because of the benefit to you, and because it is a mark of
your merit on that day. Knowing the state of our affairs, you will now be
able to free your patrimony from encumbrances, when otherwise you would
have been in danger of remaining embarrassed and in the power of others.
It will therefore be a perpetual honour to you that you, the youngest of
us all, have been able by your merits to do more to raise up our house
out of its difficulties than your predecessors or myself have been able
to do."

The beautiful white horse which the archduke had ridden during the battle
fell into the hands of Lewis Gunther, and was presented by him to Prince
Maurice, who had expressed great admiration of the charger. It was a
Spanish horse, for which the archduke had lately paid eleven hundred
crowns.

A white hackney of the Infanta had also been taken, and became the
property of Count Ernest.

The news of the great battle spread with unexampled rapidity, not only
through the Netherlands but to neighbouring countries. On the night of
the 7th July (N.S.) five days after the event, Envoy Caron, in England,
received intimations of the favourable news from the French ambassador,
who had received a letter from the Governor of Calais. Next morning, very
early, he waited on Sir Robert Cecil at Greenwich, and was admitted to
his chamber, although the secretary was not yet out of bed. He, too, had
heard of the battle, but Richardot had informed the English ambassador in
Paris that the victory had been gained, not by the stadholder, but by the
archduke. While they were talking, a despatch-bearer arrived with letters
from Vere to Cecil, and from the States-General to Caron, dated on the
3rd July. There could no longer be any doubt on the subject, and the
envoy of the republic had now full details of the glorious triumph which
the Spanish agent in Paris had endeavoured for a time to distort into a
defeat.

While the two were conversing, the queen, who had heard of Caron's
presence in the palace, sent down for the latest intelligence. Cecil made
notes of the most important points in the despatches to be forthwith
conveyed to her Majesty. The queen, not satisfied however, sent for Caron
himself. That diplomatist, who had just ridden down from London in foul
weather, was accordingly obliged to present himself--booted and spurred
and splashed with mud from head to foot--before her Majesty. Elizabeth
received him with such extraordinary manifestations of delight at the
tidings that he was absolutely amazed, and she insisted upon his reading
the whole of the letter just received from Olden-Barneveld, her Majesty
listening very patiently as he translated it out of Dutch into French.
She then expressed unbounded admiration of the States-General and of
Prince Maurice. The sagacious administration of the States' government is
"so full of good order and policy," she said, "as to far surpass in its
wisdom the intelligence of all kings and potentates. We kings," she
said, "understand nothing of such affairs in comparison, but require, all
of us, to go to school to the States-General." She continued to speak in
terms of warm approbation of the secrecy and discretion with which the
invasion of Flanders had been conducted, and protested that she thanked
God on both knees for vouchsafing such a splendid victory to the United
Provinces.

Yet after all, her Majesty, as mankind in general, both wise and simple,
are apt to do, had judged only according to the result, and the immediate
result. No doubt John of Barneveld was second to no living statesman in
breadth of view and adroitness of handling, yet the invasion of Flanders,
which was purely his work, was unquestionably a grave mistake, and might
easily have proved a fatal one. That the deadly peril was escaped was
due, not to his prudence, but to the heroism of Maurice, the gallantry of
Vere, Count Lewis Gunther, and the forces under them, and the noble
self-devotion of Ernest. And even, despite the exertions of these brave
men, it seems certain that victory would have been impossible had the
archduke possessed that true appreciation of a situation which marks the
consummate general.

Surely the Lord seemed to have delivered the enemy into his hands that
morning. Maurice was shut in between Nieuport on one side and the
archduke's army on the other, planted as it was on the only road of
retreat. Had Albert entrenched himself, Maurice must either have attacked
at great disadvantage or attempted embarkation in the face of his enemy.
To stay indefinitely where he was would have proved an impossibility, and
amid the confusion necessary to the shipping of his army, how could he
have protected himself by six demi-cannon placed on the sea-beach?

That Maurice was able to extricate himself from the horrible dilemma in
which he had been placed, through no fault of his own, and to convert
imminent disaster into magnificent victory, will always redound to his
reputation as a great military chief. And this was all the fruit of the
expedition, planned, as Elizabeth thought, with so much secrecy and
discretion. Three days after the battle the stadholder came again before
Nieuport, only to find the garrison strengthened meantime by La Bourlotte
to three thousand men. A rainy week succeeded, and Maurice then announced
to the States-General the necessity of abandoning an enterprise, a
successful issue to which was in his opinion impossible. The
States-General, grown more modest in military matters, testified their
willingness to be governed by his better judgment, and left Ostend for
the Hague on the 18th July. Maurice, after a little skirmishing with some
of the forts around that city, in one of which the archduke's general La
Bourlotte was killed, decided to close the campaign, and he returned with
his whole army on the last day of July into Holland.

The expedition was an absolute failure, but the stadholder had gained a
great victory. The effect produced at home and abroad by this triumphant
measuring of the republican forces, horse, foot, and artillery, in a
pitched battle and on so conspicuous an arena, with the picked veterans
of Spain and Italy, was perhaps worth the cost, but no other benefit was
derived from the invasion of Flanders.

The most healthy moral to be drawn from this brief but memorable campaign
is that the wisest statesmen are prone to blunder in affairs of war,
success in which seems to require a special education and a distinct
genius. Alternation between hope and despair, between culpable audacity
and exaggerated prudence, are but too apt to mark the warlike counsels of
politicians who have not been bred soldiers. This, at least, had been
eminently the case with Barneveld and his colleagues of the
States-General.

     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

     Alas! the benighted victims of superstition hugged their chains
     Culpable audacity and exaggerated prudence
     The wisest statesmen are prone to blunder in affairs of war




CHAPTER XXXIX.

   Effects of the Nieuport campaign--The general and the statesman--
   The Roman empire and the Turk--Disgraceful proceedings of the
   mutinous soldiers in Hungary--The Dunkirk pirates--Siege of Ostend
   by the Archduke--Attack on Rheinberg by Prince Maurice--Siege and
   capitulation of Meura--Attempt on Bois-le-Duc--Concentration of the
   war at Ostend--Account of the belligerents--Details of the siege--
   Feigned offer of Sir Francis Vere to capitulate--Arrival of
   reinforcements from the States--Attack and overthrow of the
   besiegers.

The Nieuport campaign had exhausted for the time both belligerents. The
victor had saved the republic from impending annihilation, but was
incapable of further efforts during the summer. The conquered
cardinal-archduke, remaining essentially in the same position as before,
consoled himself with the agreeable fiction that the States,
notwithstanding their triumph, had in reality suffered the most in the
great battle. Meantime both parties did their best to repair damages and
to recruit their armies.

The States--or in other words Barneveld, who was the States--had learned
a lesson. Time was to show whether it would be a profitable one, or
whether Maurice, who was the preceptor of Europe in the art of war, would
continue to be a docile pupil of the great Advocate even in military
affairs. It is probable that the alienation between the statesman and the
general, which was to widen as time advanced, may be dated from the day
of Nieuport.

Fables have even been told which indicated the popular belief in an
intensity of resentment on the part of the prince, which certainly did
not exist till long afterwards.

"Ah, scoundrel!" the stadholder was said to have exclaimed, giving the
Advocate a box on the ear as he came to wish him joy of his great
victory, "you sold us, but God prevented your making the transfer."

History would disdain even an allusion to such figments--quite as
disgraceful, certainly to Maurice as to Barneveld--did they not point the
moral and foreshadow some of the vast but distant results of events which
had already taken place, and had they not been so generally repeated that
it is a duty for the lover of truth to put his foot upon the calumny,
even at the risk for a passing moment of reviving it.

The condition of the war in Flanders had established a temporary
equilibrium among the western powers--France and England discussing,
intriguing, and combining in secret with each other, against each other,
and in spite of each other, in regard to the great conflict--while Spain
and the cardinal-archduke on the one side, and the republic on the other,
prepared themselves for another encounter in the blood-stained arena.

Meantime, on the opposite verge of what was called European civilization,
the perpetual war between the Roman Empire and the Grand Turk had for the
moment been brought into a nearly similar equation. Notwithstanding the
vast amount of gunpowder exploded during so many wearisome years, the
problem of the Crescent and the Cross was not much nearer a solution in
the East than was that of mass and conventicle in the West. War was the
normal and natural condition of mankind. This fact, at least, seemed to
have been acquired and added to the mass of human knowledge.

From the prolific womb of Germany came forth, to swell impartially the
Protestant and Catholic hosts, vast swarms of human creatures. Sold by
their masters at as high prices as could be agreed upon beforehand, and
receiving for themselves five stivers a day, irregularly paid, until the
carrion-crow rendered them the last service, they found at times more
demand for their labor in the great European market than they could fully
supply. There were not Germans enough every year for the consumption of
the Turk, and the pope, and the emperor, and the republic, and the
Catholic king, and the Christian king, with both ends of Europe ablaze at
once. So it happened that the Duke of Mercoeur and other heroes of the
League, having effected their reconciliation with the Bearnese, and for a
handsome price paid down on the nail having acknowledged him to be their
legitimate and Catholic sovereign, now turned their temporary attention
to the Turk. The sweepings of the League--Frenchmen, Walloons, Germans,
Italians, Spaniards--were tossed into Hungary, because for a season the
war had become languid in Flanders. And the warriors grown grey in the
religious wars of France astonished the pagans on the Danube by a variety
of crimes and cruelties such as Christians only could imagine. Thus,
while the forces of the Sultan were besieging Buda, a detachment of these
ancient Leaguers lay in Pappa, a fortified town not far from Raab, which
Archduke Maximilian had taken by storm two years before. Finding their
existence monotonous and payments unpunctual, they rose upon the
governor; Michael Maroti, and then entered into a treaty with the Turkish
commander outside the walls. Bringing all the principal citizens of the
town, their wives and children, and all their moveable property into the
market-place, they offered to sell the lot, including the governor, for a
hundred thousand rix dollars. The bargain was struck, and the Turk,
paying him all his cash on hand and giving hostages for the remainder,
carried off six hundred of the men and women, promising soon to return
and complete the transaction. Meantime the imperial general,
Schwartzenberg, came before the place, urging the mutineers with promises
of speedy payment, and with appeals to their sense of shame, to abstain
from the disgraceful work. He might as well have preached to the wild
swine swarming in the adjacent forests. Siege thereupon was laid to the
place. In a sortie the brave Schwartzenberg was killed, but Colonitz
coming up in force the mutineers were locked up in the town which they
had seized, and the Turk never came to their relief. Famine drove them at
last to choose between surrender and a desperate attempt to cut their way
out. They took the bolder course, and were all either killed or captured.
And now--the mutineers having given the Turk this lesson in Christian
honour towards captives--their comrades and the rest of the imperial
forces showed them the latest and most approved Christian method of
treating mutineers. Several hundred of the prisoners were distributed
among the different nationalities composing the army to be dealt with at
pleasure. The honest Germans were the most straightforward of all towards
their portion of the prisoners, for they shot them down at once, without
an instant's hesitation. But the Lorrainers, the remainder of the French
troops, the Walloons, and especially the Hungarians--whose countrymen and
women had been sold into captivity--all vied with each other in the
invention of cruelties at which the soul sickens, and which the pen
almost refuses to depict.

These operations and diversions had no sensible effect upon the progress
of the war, which crept on with the same monotonous and sluggish cruelty
as ever; but the incidents narrated paint the course of civilization more
vividly than the detailed accounts of siege and battle; mining and
countermining, assaults and ambuscades can do, of which the history books
are full. The leaguers of Buda and of other cities and fortresses in
Hungary went their course; and it was destined to remain for a still
longer season doubtful whether Cross or Crescent should ultimately wave
over the whole territory of Eastern Europe, and whether the vigorous
Moslem, believing in himself, his mission, his discipline, and his
resources, should ultimately absorb what was left of the ancient Roman
Empire.

Meantime, such of the Walloons, Lorrainers, Germans, and Frenchmen as had
grown wearied of the fighting on the Danube and the Theiss--might have
recourse for variety to the perpetual carnage on the Meuse, the Rhine,
and the Scheld. If there was not bloodshed enough for all, it was surely
not the fault of Mahomet, nor Clement, nor Philip.

During the remainder of the year not much was done in of the stadholder
or the cardinal, but there was immense damage done to the Dutch shipping
by the famous privateersman, Van der Waecken, with his squadron of twelve
or fourteen armed cruisers. In vain had the States exerted themselves to
destroy the robbers cave, Dunkirk. Shiploads of granite had been brought
from Norway, and stone fleets had been sunk in the channel, but the
insatiable quicksands had swallowed them as fast as they could be
deposited, the tide rolled as freely as before, and the bold pirates
sailed forth as gaily as ever to prey upon the defenceless trading
vessels and herring-smacks of the States. For it was only upon
non-combatants that Admiral Van der Waecken made war, and the fishermen
especially, who mainly belonged to the Memnonite religion, with its
doctrines of non-resistance--not a very comfortable practice in that
sanguinary age--were his constant victims. And his cruelties might have
almost served as a model to the Christian warriors on the Turkish
frontier. After each vessel had been rifled of everything worth
possessing, and then scuttled, the admiral would order the crews to be,
thrown overboard at once, or, if he chanced to be in a merry mood, would
cause them to be fastened to the cabin floor, or nailed crossways on the
deck and then would sail away leaving ship and sailors to sink at
leisure. The States gave chase as well as they could to the miscreant--a
Dutchman born, and with a crew mainly composed of renegade Netherlanders
and other outcasts, preying for base lucre on their defenceless
countryman--and their cruisers were occasionally fortunate enough to
capture and bring in one of the pirate ships. In such cases, short shrift
was granted, and the buccaneers were hanged without mercy, thirty-eight
having been executed in one morning at Rotterdam. The admiral with most
of his vessels escaped, however, to the coast of Spain, where his crews
during the autumn mainly contrived to desert, and where he himself died
in the winter, whether from malady, remorse, or disappointment at not
being rewarded by a high position in the Spanish navy.

The war was in its old age. The leaf of a new century had been turned,
and men in middle life had never known what the word Peace meant. Perhaps
they could hardly imagine such a condition. This is easily said, but it
is difficult really to picture to ourselves the moral constitution of a
race of mankind which had been born and had grown up, marrying and giving
in marriage, dying and burying their dead, and so passing on from the
cradle towards the grave, accepting the eternal clang of arms, and the
constant participation by themselves and those nearest to them in the
dangers, privations, and horrors of siege and battle-field as the
commonplaces of life. At least, those Netherlanders knew what fighting
for independence of a foreign tyrant meant. They must have hated Spain
very thoroughly, and believed in the right of man to worship God
according to the dictates of his conscience, and to govern himself upon
his own soil, however meagre, very earnestly, or they would hardly have
spent their blood and treasure, year after year; with such mercantile
regularity when it was always in their power to make peace by giving up
the object for which they had been fighting.

Yet the war, although in its old age, was not fallen into decrepitude.
The most considerable and most sanguinary pitched battle of what then
were modern times had just been fought, and the combatants were preparing
themselves for a fresh wrestle, as if the conflict had only begun. And
now--although the great leaguers of Harlem, Leyden, and Antwerp, as well
as the more recent masterpieces of Prince Maurice in Gelderland and
Friesland were still fresh in men's memory--there was to be a siege,
which for endurance, pertinacity, valour, and bloodshed on both sides,
had not yet been foreshadowed, far less equalled, upon the fatal
Netherland soil.

That place of fashionable resort, where the fine folk of Europe now
bathe, and flirt, and prattle politics or scandal so cheerfully during
the summer solstice--cool and comfortable Ostend--was throughout the
sixteenth century as obscure a fishing village as could be found in
Christendom. Nothing, had ever happened there, nobody had ever lived
there, and it was not until a much later period that the famous oyster,
now identified with its name, had been brought to its bay to be educated.
It was known for nothing except for claiming to have invented the
pickling of herrings, which was not at all the fact. Towards the latter
part of the century, however, the poor little open village had been
fortified to such purpose as to enable it to beat off the great Alexander
Farnese, when he had made an impromptu effort to seize it in the year
1583, after his successful enterprise against Dunkirk and Nieuport, and
subsequent preparation had fortunately been made against any further
attempt. For in the opening period of the new century thousands and tens
of thousands were to come to those yellow sands, not for a midsummer
holiday, but to join hands in one of the most enduring struggles that
history had yet recorded, and on which the attention of Europe was for a
long time to be steadily fixed.

Ostend--East-end--was the only possession of the republic in Flanders.
Having been at last thoroughly fortified according to the principles of
the age, it was a place whence much damage was inflicted upon the enemy,
and whence forays upon the obedient Flemings could very successfully be
conducted. Being in the hands of so enterprising a naval power, it
controlled the coast, while the cardinal-archduke on the other side
fondly hoped that its possession would give him supremacy on the sea. The
States of Flanders declared it to be a thorn in the Belgic lion's foot,
and called urgently upon their sovereign to remove the annoyance.

They offered Albert 300,000 florins a month so long as the siege should
last, besides an extraordinary sum of 300,000, of which one third was to
be paid when the place should be invested, one-third when the breach had
been made, and one-third after the town had been taken. It was obvious
that, although they thought the extraction of the thorn might prove
troublesome, the process would be accomplished within a reasonable time.
The cardinal-archduke, on his part, was as anxious as the "members" of
Flanders. Asking how long the Duke of Parma had been in taking Antwerp,
and being told "eighteen months," he replied that, if necessary, he was
willing to employ eighteen years in reducing Ostend.

The town thus about to assume so much importance in the world's eye had
about three thousand inhabitants within its lowly; thatch-roofed houses.
It fronted directly upon the seacoast and stretched backward in a
southerly direction, having the sandy downs on the right and left, and a
swampy, spongy soil on the inner verge, where it communicated with the
land. Its northern part, small and scarcely inhabited, was lashed by the
ocean, and exposed to perpetual danger from its storms and flood-tides,
but was partially protected from these encroachments by a dyke stretching
along the coast on the west. Here had hitherto been the harbour formed by
the mouth of the river Iperleda as it mingled with the sea, but this
entrance had become so choked with sand as to be almost useless at low
water. This circumstance would have rendered the labours of the archduke
comparatively easy, and much discouraged the States, had there not
fortunately been a new harbour which had formed itself on the eastern
side exactly at the period of threatened danger. The dwarf mountain range
of dunes which encircled the town on the eastern side had been purposely
levelled, lest the higher summits should offer positions of vantage to a
besieging foe. In consequence of this operation, the sea had burst over
the land and swept completely around the place, almost converting it into
an island, while at high water there opened a wide and profound gulf
which with the ebb left an excellent channel quite deep enough for even
the ships of war of those days. The next care of the States authorities
was to pierce their fortifications on this side at a convenient point,
thus creating a safe and snug haven within the walls for the fleets of
transports which were soon to arrive by open sea, laden with soldiers and
munitions.

The whole place was about half an hour's walk in circumference. It was
surrounded with a regular counterscarp, bastions, and casemates, while
the proximity of the ocean and the humid nature of the soil ensured it a
network of foss and canal on every side. On the left or western side,
where the old harbour had once been, and which was the most vulnerable by
nature, was a series of strong ravelins, the most conspicuous of which
were called the Sand Hill, the Porcupine, and Hell's Mouth. Beyond these,
towards the southwest, were some detached fortifications, resting for
support, however, upon the place itself, called the Polder, the Square,
and the South Square. On the east side, which was almost inaccessible, as
it would seem, by such siege machinery as then existed, was a work called
the Spanish half-moon, situate on the new harbour called the Guele or
Gullet.

Towards the west and southwest, externally, upon the territory of
Flanders--not an inch of which belonged to the republic, save the
sea-beaten corner in which nestled the little town-eighteen fortresses
had been constructed by the archduke as a protection against hostile
incursions from the place. Of these, the most considerable were St.
Albert, often mentioned during the Nieuport campaign, St. Isabella St.
Clara, and Great-Thirst.

On the 5th July, 1601, the archduke came before the town, and formally
began the siege. He established his headquarters in the fort which bore
the name of his patron saint. Frederic van den Berg meanwhile occupied
fort Breden on the eastern side, with the intention, if possible, of
getting possession of the Gullet, or at least of rendering the entrance
to that harbour impossible by means of his hostile demonstrations. Under
Van den Berg was Count Bucquoy-Longueval, a Walloon officer of much
energy and experience, now general-in-chief of artillery in the
archduke's army.

The numbers with which Albert took the field at first have not been
accurately stated, but it is probable that his object was to keep as many
as twenty thousand constantly engaged in the siege, and that in this
regard he was generally successful.

Within the town were fifty-nine companies of infantry, to which were soon
added twenty-three more under command of young Chatillon, grandson of the
great Coligny. It was "an olla podrida of nationalities," according to
the diarist of the siege--[Meteren]. English, Scotch, Dutch, Flemings,
Frenchmen, Germans, mixed in about equal proportions. Commander-in-chief
at the outset was Sir Francis Vere, who established himself by the middle
of July in the place, sent thither by order of the States-General. It had
been the desire of that assembly that the stadholder should make another
foray in Flanders for the purpose of driving off the archduke before he
should have time to complete his preliminary operations. But for that
year at least Maurice was resolved not to renounce his own schemes in
deference to those so much more ignorant than himself of the art of war,
even if Barneveld and his subordinates on their part had not learned a
requisite lesson of modesty.

So the prince, instead of risking another Nieuport campaign, took the
field with a small but well-appointed force, about ten thousand men in
all, marched to the Rhine, and early in June, laid siege to Rheinberg. It
was his purpose to leave the archduke for the time to break his teeth
against the walls of Ostend, while he would himself protect the eastern
frontier, over which came regular reinforcements and supplies for the
Catholic armies. His works were laid out with his customary precision and
neatness. But, standing as usual, like a professor at his blackboard,
demonstrating his proposition to the town, he was disturbed in his
calculations by the abstraction from his little army of two thousand
English troops ordered by the States-General to march to the defence of
Ostend. The most mathematical but most obedient of princes, annoyed but
not disconcerted, sent off the troops but continued his demonstration.

"By this specimen," cried the French envoy, with enthusiasm, "judge of
the energy of this little commonwealth. They are besieging Berg with an
army of twelve thousand men, a place beyond the frontier, and five days'
march from the Hague. They are defending another important place,
besieged by the principal forces of the archdukes, and there is good
chance of success at both points. They are doing all this too with such a
train of equipages of artillery, of munitions, of barks, of ships of war,
that I hardly know of a monarch in the world who would not be troubled to
furnish such a force of warlike machinery."

By the middle of July he sprang a mine under the fortifications, doing
much damage and sending into the air a considerable portion of the
garrison. Two of the soldiers were blown into his own camp, and one of
them, strangely enough, was but slightly injured. Coming as he did
through the air at cannon-ball speed, he was of course able to bring the
freshest intelligence from the interior of the town.

His news as to the condition of the siege confirmed the theory of the
stadholder. He persisted in his operations for three weeks longer, and
the place was then surrendered. The same terms--moderate and honourable
were given to the garrison and the burghers as in all Maurice's
victories. Those who liked to stay were at liberty to do so, accepting
the prohibition of public worship according to the Roman ritual, but
guaranteed against inquisition into household or conscience. The garrison
went out with the honours of war, and thus the place, whose military
value caused it to change hands almost as frequently as a counter in a
game, was once more in possession of the republic. In the course of the
following week Maurice laid siege to the city of Meurs, a little farther
up the Rhine, which immediately capitulated. Thus the keys to the
debatable land of Cleves and Juliers, the scene of the Admiral of
Arragon's recent barbarities, were now held by the stadholder.

These achievements were followed by an unsuccessful attempt upon
Bois-le-Duc in the course of November. The place would have fallen
notwithstanding the slenderness of the besieging army had not a sudden
and severe frost caused the prudent prince to raise the siege. Feeling
that his cousin Frederic van den Berg, who had been despatched from
before Ostend to command the relieving force near Bois-le-Duc, might take
advantage of the prematurely frozen canals and rivers to make an
incursion into Holland, he left his city just as his works had been
sufficiently advanced to ensure possession of the prize, and hastened to
protect the heart of the republic from possible danger.

Nothing further was accomplished by Maurice that year, but meantime
something had been doing within and around Ostend.

For now the siege of Ostend became the war, and was likely to continue to
be the war for a long time to come; all other military operations being
to a certain degree suspended, as if by general consent of both
belligerants, or rendered subsidiary to the main design. So long as this
little place should be beleaguered it was the purpose of the States, and
of Maurice, acting in harmony with those authorities, to concentrate
their resources so as to strengthen the grip with which the only scrap of
Flanders was held by the republic.

And as time wore on, the supposed necessities of the wealthy province,
which, in political importance, made up a full half of the archduke's
dominions, together with self-esteem and an exaggerated idea of military
honour, made that prelate more and more determined to effect his purpose.

So upon those barren sands was opened a great academy in which the
science and the art of war were to be taught by the most skilful
practitioners to all Europe; for no general, corporal, artillerist,
barber-surgeon, or engineer, would be deemed to know his trade if he had
not fought at Ostend; and thither resorted month after month warriors of
every rank, from men of royal or of noblest blood to adventurers of
lowlier degree, whose only fortune was buckled at their sides. From every
land, of every religion, of every race, they poured into the town or into
the besiegers' trenches. Habsburg and Holstein; Northumberland, Vere, and
Westmoreland; Fairfax and Stuart; Bourbon, Chatillon, and Lorraine;
Bentivoglio, Farnese, Spinola, Grimaldi, Arragon, Toledo, Avila,
Berlaymont, Bucquoy, Nassau, Orange, Solms--such were the historic names
of a few only of the pupils or professors in that sanguinary high school,
mingled with the plainer but well known patronymics of the Baxes,
Meetkerkes, Van Loons, Marquettes, Van der Meers, and Barendrechts, whose
bearers were fighting, as they long had fought, for all that men most
dearly prize on earth, and not to win honour or to take doctors' degrees
in blood. Papist, Calvinist, Lutheran, Turk, Jew and Moor, European,
Asiatic, African, all came to dance in that long carnival of death; and
every incident, every detail throughout the weary siege could if
necessary be reproduced; for so profound and general was the attention
excited throughout Christendom by these extensive operations, and so new
and astonishing were many of the inventions and machines employed--most
of them now as familiar as gunpowder or as antiquated as a catapult--that
contemporaries have been most bountiful in their records for the benefit
of posterity, feeling sure of a gratitude which perhaps has not been
rendered to their shades.

Especially the indefatigable Philip Fleming-auditor and secretary of
Ostend before and during the siege, bravest, most conscientious, and most
ingenious of clerks--has chronicled faithfully in his diary almost every
cannon-shot that was fired, house that was set on fire, officer that was
killed, and has pourtrayed each new machine that was invented or imagined
by native or foreign genius. For the adepts or, pretenders who swarmed to
town or camp from every corner of the earth, bringing in their hands or
brains to be disposed of by either belligerents infallible recipes for
terminating the siege at a single blow, if only their theories could be
understood and their pockets be filled, were as prolific and as sanguine
as in every age. But it would be as wearisome, and in regard to the
history of human culture as superfluous, to dilate upon the technics of
Targone and Giustianini, and the other engineers, Italian and Flemish,
who amazed mankind at this period by their successes, still more by their
failures, or to describe every assault, sortie, and repulse, every
excavation, explosion, and cannonade, as to disinter the details of the
siege of Nineveh or of Troy. But there is one kind of enginry which never
loses its value or its interest, and which remains the same in every
age--the machinery by which stout hearts act directly upon willing
hands--and vast were the results now depending on its employment around
Ostend.

On the outside and at a distance the war was superintended of course by
the stadholder and commander-in-chief, while his cousin William Lewis,
certainly inferior to no living man in the science of war, and whose
studies in military literature, both ancient and modern, during the brief
intervals of his active campaigning, were probably more profound than
those of any contemporary, was always alert and anxious to assist with
his counsels or to mount and ride to the fray.

In the town Sir Francis Vere commanded. Few shapes are more familiar to
the student of those times than this veteran campaigner, the offshoot of
a time-honoured race. A man of handsome, weather-beaten, battle-bronzed
visage, with massive forehead, broad intelligent eyes, a high straight
nose, close-clipped hair, and a great brown beard like a spade; captious,
irascible, but most resolute, he seemed, in his gold inlaid Milan corslet
and ruff of point-lace, the very image of a partizan chieftain; one of
the noblest relics of a race of fighters slowly passing off the world's
stage.

An efficient colonel, he was not a general to be relied upon in great
affairs either in council or the field. He hated the Nassaus, and the
Nassaus certainly did not admire him, while his inordinate self-esteem,
both personal and national, and his want of true sympathy for the cause
in which, he fought, were the frequent source of trouble and danger to
the republic.

Of the seven or eight thousand soldiers in the town when the siege began,
at least two thousand were English. The queen, too intelligent, despite
her shrewishness to the Staten; not to be faithful to the cause in which
her own interests were quite as much involved as theirs, had promised
Envoy Caron that although she was obliged to maintain twenty thousand men
in Ireland to keep down the rebels, directly leagued as they were with
Spain and the archdukes, the republic might depend upon five thousand
soldiers from England. Detachment after detachment, the soldiers came as
fast as the London prisons could be swept and the queen's press-gang
perform its office. It may be imagined that the native land of those
warriors was not inconsiderably benefited by the grant to the republic of
the right to make and pay for these levies. But they had all red
uniforms, and were as fit as other men to dig trenches, to defend them;
and to fill them afterwards, and none could fight more manfully or
plunder friend and foe with greater cheerfulness of impartiality than did
those islanders.

The problem which the archduke had set himself to solve was not an easy
one. He was to reduce a town, which he could invest and had already
succeeded very thoroughly in investing on the land aide, but which was
open to the whole world by sea; while the besieged on their part could
not only rely upon their own Government and people, who were more at home
on the ocean than was any nation in the world, but upon their alliance
with England, a State hardly inferior in maritime resources to the
republic itself.

On the western side, which was the weakest, his progress was from the
beginning the more encouraging, and his batteries were soon able to make
some impression upon the outer works, and even to do considerable damage
to the interior of the town. In the course of a few months he had fifty
siege-guns in position, and had constructed a practicable road all around
the place, connecting his own fortifications on the west and south with
those of Bucquoy on the east.

Albert's leading thought however was to cut off the supplies. The freaks
of nature, as already observed, combined with his own exertions, had
effectually disposed of the western harbour as a means of ingress. The
tide ebbed and flowed through the narrow channel, but it was clogged with
sand and nearly, dry at low water. Moreover, by an invention then
considered very remarkable, a foundation was laid for the besiegers'
forts and batteries by sinking large and deep baskets of wicker-work,
twenty feet in length, and filled with bricks and sand, within this
abandoned harbour. These clumsy machines were called sausages,21 and were
the delight of the camp and of all Europe. The works thus established on
the dry side crept slowly on towards the walls, and some demi-cannon were
soon placed upon, them, but the besieged, not liking these encroachments,
took the resolution to cut the pea-dyke along the coast which had
originally protected the old harbour. Thus the sea, when the tides were
high and winds boisterous, was free to break in upon the archduke's
works, and would often swallow sausages, men, and cannon far more rapidly
than it was possible to place them there.

Yet still those human ants toiled on, patiently restoring what the
elements so easily destroyed; and still, despite the sea; the cannonade,
and the occasional sorties of the garrison, the danger came nearer and
nearer. Bucquoy on the other side was pursuing the same system, but his
task was immeasurably more difficult. The Gullet, or new eastern
entrance, was a whirlpool at high tide, deep, broad, and swift as a
millrace. Yet along its outer verge he too laid his sausages, protecting
his men at their work as well as he could with gabions, and essayed to
build a dyke of wicker-work upon which he might place a platform for
artillery to prevent the ingress of the republican ships.

And his soldiers were kept steadily at work, exposed all the time to the
guns of the Spanish half-moon from which the besieged never ceased to
cannonade those industrious pioneers. It was a bloody business. Night and
day the men were knee-deep in the trenches delving in mud and sand,
falling every instant into the graves which they were thus digging for
themselves, while ever and anon the sea would rise in its wrath and sweep
them with their works away. Yet the victims were soon replaced by others,
for had not the cardinal-archduke sworn to extract the thorn from the
Belgic lion's paw even if he should be eighteen years about it, and would
military honour permit him to break his vow? It was a piteous sight, even
for the besieged, to see human life so profusely squandered. It is a
terrible reflection, too, that those Spaniards, Walloons, Italians,
confronted death so eagerly, not from motives of honour, religion,
discipline, not inspired by any kind of faith or fanaticism, but because
the men who were employed in this horrible sausage-making and
dyke-building were promised five stivers a day instead of two.

And there was always an ample supply of volunteers for the service so
long as the five stivers were paid.

But despite all Bucquoy's exertions the east harbour remained as free as
ever. The cool, wary Dutch skippers brought in their cargoes as regularly
as if there had been no siege at all. Ostend was rapidly acquiring
greater commercial importance, and was more full of bustle and business
than had ever been dreamed of in that quiet nook since the days of Robert
the Frisian, who had built the old church of Ostend, as one of the thirty
which he erected in honour of St. Peter, five hundred years before.

For the States did not neglect their favourite little city. Fleets of
transports arrived day after day, week after week, laden with every
necessary and even luxury for the use of the garrison. It was perhaps the
cheapest place in all the Netherlands, so great was the abundance.
Capons, bares, partridges, and butcher's meat were plentiful as
blackberries, and good French claret was but two stivers the quart.
Certainly the prospect was not promising of starving the town into a
surrender.

But besides all this digging and draining there was an almost daily
cannonade. Her Royal Highness the Infanta was perpetually in camp by the
side of her well-beloved Albert, making her appearance there in great
state, with eighteen coaches full of ladies of honour, and always
manifesting much impatience if she did not hear the guns.

She would frequently touch off a forty-pounder with her own serene
fingers in order to encourage the artillerymen, and great was the
enthusiasm which such condescension excited.

Assaults, sorties, repulses, ambuscades were also of daily occurrence,
and often with very sanguinary results; but it would be almost as idle
now to give the details of every encounter that occurred, as to describe
the besieging of a snow-fort by schoolboys.

It is impossible not to reflect that a couple of Parrots and a Monitor or
two would have terminated the siege in half an hour in favor of either
party, and levelled the town or the besiegers' works as if they had been
of pasteboard.

Bucquoy's dyke was within a thousand yards of the harbour's entrance, yet
the guns on his platform never sank a ship nor killed a man on board,
while the archduke's batteries were even nearer their mark. Yet it was
the most prodigious siege of modern days. Fifty great guns were in
position around the place, and their balls weighed from ten to forty
pounds apiece. It was generally agreed that no such artillery practice
had ever occurred before in the world.

For the first six months, and generally throughout the siege, there was
fired on an average a thousand of such shots a day. In the sieges of the
American civil war there were sometimes three thousand shots an hour, and
from guns compared to which in calibre and power those cannon and
demi-cannon were but children's toys.

Certainly the human arm was of the same length then as now, a pike-thrust
was as effective as the stab of the most improved bayonet, and when it
came, as it was always the purpose to do, to the close embrace of foemen,
the work was done as thoroughly as it could be in this second half of the
nineteenth century.

Nevertheless it is impossible not to hope that such progress in science
must at last render long wars impossible. The Dutch war of independence
had already lasted nearly forty years. Had the civil war in America upon
the territory of half a continent been waged with the Ostend machinery it
might have lasted two centuries. Something then may have been gained for
humanity by giving war such preter-human attributes as to make its
demands of gold and blood too exhaustive to become chronic.

Yet the loss of human life during that summer and winter was sufficiently
wholesale as compared with the meagre results. Blood flowed in torrents,
for no man could be more free of his soldiers' lives than was the
cardinal-archduke, hurling them as he did on the enemy's works before the
pretence of a practical breach had been effected, and before a reasonable
chance existed of purchasing an advantage at such a price. Five hundred
were killed outright in half-an-hour's assault on an impregnable position
one autumn evening, and lay piled in heaps beneath the Sand Hill
fort-many youthful gallants from Spain and Italy among them, noble
volunteers recognised by their perfumed gloves and golden chains, and
whose pockets were worth rifling. The Dutch surgeons, too, sallied forth
in strength after such an encounter, and brought in great bags filled
with human fat esteemed the sovereignst remedy in the world for wounds
and disease.

Leaders were killed on both sides. Catrici, chief of the Italian
artillery, and Braccamonte, commander of a famous Sicilian legion, with
many less-known captains, lost their lives before the town. The noble
young Chatillon, grandson of Coligny, who had distinguished himself at
Nieuport, fell in the Porcupine fort, his head carried off by a
cannon-ball, which destroyed another officer at his side, and just grazed
the ear of the distinguished Colonel Uchtenbroek. Sir Francis Vere, too,
was wounded in the head by a fragment of iron, and was obliged to leave
the town for six weeks till his wound should heal.

The unfortunate inhabitants--men, women, and children--were of course
exposed to perpetual danger, and very many were killed. Their houses were
often burned to the ground, in which cases the English auxiliaries were
indefatigable, not in rendering assistance, but in taking possession of
such household goods as the flames had spared. Nor did they always wait
for such opportunities, but were apt, at the death of an eminent burgher,
to constitute themselves at once universal legatees. Thus, while honest
Bartholomew Tysen, a worthy citizen grocer, was standing one autumn
morning at his own door, a stray cannon-ball took off his head, and
scarcely had he been put in a coffin before his house was sacked from
garret to cellar and all the costly spices, drugs, and other valuable
merchandize of his warehouse--the chief magazine in the town--together
with all his household furniture, appropriated by those London warriors.
Bartholomew's friends and relatives appealed to Sir Francis Vere for
justice, but were calmly informed by that general that Ostend was like a
stranded ship, on its beam-ends on a beach, and that it was impossible not
to consider it at the mercy of the wreckers. So with this highly
figurative view of the situation from the lips of the governor of the
place and the commander-in-chief of the English as well as the Dutch
garrison, they were fain to go home and bury their dead, finding when
they returned that another cannonball had carried away poor Bartholomew's
coffin-lid. Thus was never non-combatant and grocer, alive or dead, more
out of suits with fortune than this citizen of Ostend; and such were the
laws of war, as understood by one of the most eminent of English
practitioners in the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is true,
however, that Vere subsequently hanged a soldier for stealing fifty
pounds of powder and another for uttering counterfeit money, but
robberies upon the citizens were unavenged.

Nor did the deaths by shot or sword-stroke make up the chief sum of
mortality. As usual the murrain-like pestilence which swept off its daily
victims both within an without the town, was more effective than any
direct agency of man. By the month of December the number of the garrison
had been reduced to less than three thousand, while it is probable that
the archduke had not eight thousand effective men left in his whole army.

It was a black and desolate scene. The wild waves of the German ocean,
lashed by the wintry gales, would often sweep over the painfully
constructed works of besieger and besieged and destroy in an hour the
labour of many weeks. The Porcupine's small but vitally-important ravelin
lying out in the counterscarp between the old town and the new, guarding
the sluices by which the water for the town moats and canals was
controlled, and preventing the pioneers of the enemy from undermining the
western wall--was so damaged by the sea as to be growing almost
untenable. Indefatigably had the besieged attempted with wicker-work and
timber and palisades to strengthen this precious little fort, but they
had found, even as Bucquoy and the archduke on their part had learned,
that the North Sea in winter was not to be dammed by bulrushes. Moreover,
in a bold and successful assault the besiegers had succeeded in setting
fire to the inflammable materials heaped about the ravelin to such effect
that the fire burned for days, notwithstanding the flooding of the works
at each high tide. The men, working day and night, scorching in the
flames, yet freezing kneedeep in the icy slush of the trenches and
perpetually under fire of the hostile batteries, became daily more and
more exhausted, notwithstanding their determination to hold the place.
Christmas drew nigh, and a most gloomy, festival it was like to be, for
it seemed as if the beleaguered garrison had been forgotten by the
States. Weeks had passed away without a single company being sent to
repair the hideous gaps made daily in the ranks of those defenders of a
forlorn hope. It was no longer possible to hold the external works; the
Square, the Polder, and the other forts on the southwest which Vere had
constructed with so much care and where he had thus far kept his
headquarters. On Sunday morning,--23rd December, he reluctantly gave
orders that they should be abandoned on the following day and the whole
garrison concentrated within the town.

The clouds were gathering darkly over the head of the gallant Vere; for
no sooner had he arrived at this determination than he learned from a
deserter that the archduke had fixed upon that very Sunday evening for a
general assault upon the place. It was hopeless for the garrison to
attempt to hold these outer forts, for they required a far larger number
of soldiers than could be spared from the attenuated little army. Yet
with those forts in the hands of the enemy there would be nothing left
but to make the best and speediest terms that might be obtained. The
situation was desperate. Sir Francis called his principal officers
together, announced his resolve not to submit to the humiliation of a
surrender after all their efforts, if there was a possibility of escape
from their dilemma, reminded them that reinforcements might be expected
to arrive at any moment, and that with even a few hundred additional
soldiers the outer works might still be manned and the city saved. The
officers English, Dutch, and French, listened respectfully to his
remarks, but, without any suggestions on their own part, called on him as
their Alexander to untie the Gordian knot. Alexander solved it, not with
the sword, but with a trick which he hoped might prove sharper than a
sword. He announced his intention of proposing at once to treat, and to
protract the negotiations as long as possible, until the wished-for sails
should be discerned in the offing, when he would at once break faith with
them, resume hostilities, and so make fools of the besiegers.

This was a device worthy of a modern Alexander whose surname was Farnese.
Even in that loose age such cynical trifling with the sacredness of
trumpets of truce and offers of capitulation were deemed far from
creditable among soldiers and statesmen, yet the council of war highly
applauded the scheme, and importuned the general to carry it at once into
effect.

When it came, however, to selecting the hostages necessary for the
proposed negotiations, they became less ardent and were all disposed to
recede. At last, after much discussion, the matter was settled, and
before nightfall a drummer was set upon the external parapet of the
Porcupine, who forthwith began to beat vigorously for a parley. The
rattle was a welcome sound in the ears of the weary besiegers, just drawn
up in column for a desperate assault, and the tidings were at once
communicated to the archduke in Fort St. Albert. The prince manifested at
first some unwillingness to forego the glory of the attack, from which he
confidently expected a crowning victory, but yielding to the
representations of his chief generals that it was better to have his town
without further bloodshed, he consented to treat. Hostages were
expeditiously appointed on both sides, and Captains Ogle and Fairfax were
sent that same evening to the headquarters of the besieging army. It was
at once agreed as a preliminary that the empty outer works of the place
should remain unmolested. The English officers were received with much
courtesy. The archduke lifted his hat as they were presented, asked them
of what nation they were, and then inquired whether they were authorized
to agree upon terms of capitulation. They answered in the negative;
adding, that the whole business would be in the hands of commissioners to
be immediately sent by his Highness, as it was supposed, into the town.
Albert then expressed the hope that there was no fraudulent intention in
the proposition just made to negotiate. The officers professed themselves
entirely ignorant of any contemplated deception; although Captain Ogle
had been one of the council, had heard every syllable of Vere's
stratagem, and had heartily approved of the whole plot. The Englishmen
were then committed to the care of a Spanish nobleman of the duke's
staff, and were treated with perfect politeness and hospitality.

Meantime no time was lost in despatching hostages, who should be at the
same time commissioners, to Ostend. The quartermaster-general of the
army, Don Matteo Antonio, and Matteo Serrano, governor of Sluys, but
serving among the besiegers, were selected for this important business as
personages of ability, discretion, and distinction.

They reached the town, coming in of course from the western side, as
expeditiously as possible, but after nightfall. Before they arrived at
headquarters there suddenly arose, from some unknown cause, a great alarm
and beating to arms on the opposite or eastern side of the city. They
were entirely innocent of any participation in this uproar and ignorant
of its cause, but when they reached the presence of Sir Francis Vere they
found that warrior in a towering passion. There was cheating going on, he
exclaimed. The Spaniards, he cried, were taking advantage of these
negotiations, and were about, by dishonourable stratagem, to assault the
town.

Astounded, indignant, but utterly embarrassed, the grave Spaniards knew
not how to reply. They were still more amazed when the general, rising to
a still higher degree of exasperation, absolutely declined to exchange
another word with them, but ordered Captains Carpentier and St. Hilaire,
by whom they had been escorted to his quarters, to conduct them out of
the town again by the same road which had brought them there. There was
nothing for it but to comply, and to smother their resentment at such
extraordinary treatment as best they could. When they got to the old
harbour on the western side the tide had risen so high that it was
impossible to cross.

Nobody knew better than Vere, when he gave the order, that this would be
the case; so that when the escorting officers returned to state the fact,
he simply ordered them to take the Spaniards back by the Gullet or
eastern side. The strangers were not very young men, and being much
fatigued with wandering to and fro in the darkness over the muddy roads,
they begged permission to remain all night in Ostend, if it were only in
a guardhouse. But Vere was inexorable, after the duplicity which he
affected to have discovered on the part of the enemy. So the
quartermaster-general and the governor of Sluys, much to the detriment of
their dignity, were forced once more to tramp through the muddy streets.
And obeying their secret instructions, the escort led them round and
round through the most miry and forlorn parts of the town, so that,
sinking knee-deep at every step into sloughs and quicksands, and plunging
about through the mist and sleet of a dreary December's night, they at
last reached the precincts of the Spanish half-moon on the Gullet,
be-draggled from head to foot and in a most dismal and exhausted
condition.

"Ah, the villainous town of Ostend!" exclaimed Serrano, ruefully
contemplating his muddy boots and imploring at least a pipe of tobacco.
He was informed, however, that no such medical drugs were kept in the
fort, but that a draught of good English ale was much at their service.
The beer was brought in four foaming flagons, and, a little refreshed by
this hospitality, the Spaniards were put in a boat and rowed under the
guns of the fort across the Gullet and delivered to their own sentries on
the outposts of Bucquoy's entrenchments. By this time it was midnight, so
that it was necessary for them to remain for the night in the eastern
encampment before reporting themselves at Fort St. Albert.

Thus far Vere's comedy had been eminently successful, and by taking
advantage of the accidental alarm and so adroitly lashing himself into a
fictitious frenzy, the general had gained nearly twenty-four additional
hours of precious time on which he had not reckoned.

Next morning, after Serrano and Antonio had reported to the archduke, it
was decided, notwithstanding the very inhospitable treatment which they
had received, that those commissioners should return to their labours.
Ogle and Fairfax still remained as hostages in camp, and of course
professed entire ignorance of these extraordinary proceedings,
attributing them to some inexplicable misunderstanding. So on Monday,
24th, December, the quartermaster and the governor again repaired to
Ostend with orders to bring about the capitulation of the place as soon
as possible. The same sergeant-major was again appointed by Vere to
escort the strangers, and on asking by what way he should bring them in,
was informed by Sir Francis that it would never do to allow those
gentlemen, whose feet were accustomed to the soft sand of the sea-beach
and downs, to bruise themselves upon the hard paving-stones of Ostend,
but that the softest and muddiest road must be carefully selected for
them. These reasons accordingly were stated with perfect gravity to the
two Spaniards, who, in spite of their solemn remonstrances, were made to
repeat a portion of their experiences and to accept it as an act of
special courtesy from the English general. Thus so much time had been
spent in preliminaries and so much more upon the road that the short
winter's day was drawing to a close before they were again introduced to
the presence of Vere.

They found that fiery personage on this occasion all smiles and
blandishments. The Spaniards were received with most dignified courtesy,
to which they gravely responded; and the general then proceeded to make
excuses for the misunderstanding of the preceding day with its
uncomfortable consequences. Thereupon arose much animated discussion as
to the causes and the nature of the alarm on the east side which had
created such excitement. Much time was ingeniously consumed in this
utterly superfluous discussion; but at last the commissioners of the
archduke insisted on making allusion to the business which had brought
them to the town. "What terms of negotiation do you propose?" they asked
Sir Francis. "His Highness has only to withdraw from before Ostend,"
coolly replied the general, "and leave us, his poor neighbours, in peace
and quietness. This would be the most satisfactory negotiation possible
and the one most easily made."

Serrano and Antonio found it difficult to see the matter in that cheerful
light, and assured Sir Francis that they had not been commissioned by the
archduke to treat for his own withdrawal but for the surrender of the
town. Hereupon high words and fierce discussion very naturally arose, and
at last, when a good deal of time had been spent in the sharp encounter
of wits, Vere proposed an adjournment of the discussion until after
supper; politely expressing the hope that the Spanish gentlemen would be
his guests.

The conversation had been from the beginning in French, as Vere, although
a master of the Spanish language, was desirous that the rest of the
company present should understand everything said at the interview.

The invitation to table was graciously accepted, and the Christmas eve
passed off more merrily than the preceding night had done, so far as
Vere's two guests were concerned. Several distinguished officers were
present at the festive board: Captain Montesquieu de Roquette, Sir Horace
Vere, Captains St. Hilaire, Meetkerke, De Ryck, and others among them. As
it was strict fast for the Catholics that evening--while on the other
hand the English, still reckoning according to the old style, would not
keep Christmas until ten days later--the banquet consisted mainly of eggs
and fish, and the like meagre articles, in compliment to the guests. It
was, however, as well furnished as could be expected in a beleaguered
town, out of whose harbour a winter gale had been for many weeks blowing
and preventing all ingress. There was at least no lack of excellent
Bordeaux wine; while the servants waiting upon the table did not fail to
observe that Governor Serrano was not in all respects a model of the
temperance usually characteristic of his race. They carefully counted and
afterwards related with admiration, not unmingled with horror, that the
veteran Spaniard drank fifty-two goblets of claret, and was emptying his
glass as fast as filled, although by no means neglecting the beer, the
quality of which he had tested the night before at the Half-moon. Yet
there seemed to be no perceptible effect produced upon him, save perhaps
that he grew a shade more grave and dignified with each succeeding
draught. For while the banquet proceeded in this very genial manner
business was by no means neglected; the negotiations for the surrender of
the city being conducted on both sides with a fuddled solemnity very
edifying for the attendants to contemplate.

Vere complained that the archduke was unreasonable, for he claimed
nothing less from his antagonists than their all. The commissioners
replied that all was no more than his own property. It certainly could
not be thought unjust of him to demand his own, and all Flanders was his
by legal donation from his Majesty of Spain. Vere replied that he had
never studied jurisprudence, and was not versed at all in that--science,
but he had always heard in England that possession was nine points of the
law. Now it so happened that they, and not his Highness, were in
possession of Ostend, and it would be unreasonable to expect them to make
a present of it to any one. The besiegers, he urged, had gained much
honour by their steady persistence amid so many dangers; difficulties,
and losses;--but winter had come, the weather was very bad, not a step of
progress had been made, and he was bold enough to express his opinion
that it would be far more sensible on the part of his Highness, after
such deeds of valour, to withdraw his diminished forces out of the
freezing and pestilential swamps before Ostend and go into comfortable
winter-quarters at Ghent or Bruges. Enough had been done for glory, and
it must certainly now be manifest that he had no chance of taking the
city.

Serrano retorted that it was no secret to the besiegers that the garrison
had dwindled to a handful; that it was quite impossible for them to
defend their outer works any longer; that with the loss of the external
boulevard the defence of the place would be impossible, and that, on the
contrary, it was for the republicans to resign themselves to their fate.
They, too, had done enough for glory, and had nothing for it but to
retire into the centre of their ruined little nest, where they must
burrow until the enemy should have leisure to entirely unearth them,
which would be a piece of work very easily and rapidly accomplished.

This was called negotiation; and thus the winter's evening wore away,
until the Spaniards; heavy with fatigue and wine, were without much
difficulty persuaded to seek the couches prepared for them.

Next day the concourse of people around the city was Christmas, wonderful
to behold. The rumour had spread through the provinces, and was on the
wing to all foreign countries, that Ostend had capitulated, and that the
commissioners were at that moment arranging the details. The
cardinal-archduke, in complete Milanese armour, with a splendid
feather-bush waving from his casque and surrounded by his brilliant
body-guard, galloped to and fro outside the entrenchments, expecting
every moment a deputation to come forth, bearing the keys of the town.
The Infanta too, magnificent in ruff and farthingale and brocaded
petticoat, and attended by a cavalcade of ladies of honour in gorgeous
attire, pranced impatiently about, awaiting the dramatic termination of a
leaguer which was becoming wearisome to besieger and besieged. Not even
on the famous second of July of the previous year, when that princess was
pleasing herself with imaginations as to the deportment of Maurice of
Nassau as a captive, had her soul been so full of anticipated triumph as
on this Christmas morning.

Such a festive scene as was now presented in the neighbourhood of Ostend
had not been exhibited for many a long year in Flanders. From the whole
country side came the peasants and burghers, men, women, and children, in
holiday attire. It was like a kermiss or provincial fair. Three thousand
people at least were roaming about in all direction, gaping with wonder
at the fortifications of the besieging army, so soon to be superfluous,
sliding, skating, waltzing on the ice, admiring jugglers, dancing bears,
puppet shows and merry-go-rounds, singing, and carousing upon herrings,
sausages, waffles, with mighty draughts of Flemish ale, manifesting their
exuberant joy that the thorn was nearly extracted from the lion's paw,
and awaiting with delight a blessed relief from that operation. Never was
a merrier Christmas morning in Flanders. There should be an end now to
the forays through the country of those red-coated English pikemen, those
hard-riding, hard-drinking troopers of Germany and, Holland, with the
French and Scotch arquebus men, and terrible Zeeland sailors who had for
years swept out of Ostend, at any convenient opportunity, to harry the
whole province. And great was the joy in Flanders.

Meantime within the city a different scene was enacting. Those dignified
Spaniards--governor Serrano and Don Matteo Antonio--having slept off
their carouse, were prepared after breakfast next morning to resume the
interrupted negotiations. But affairs were now to take an unexpected
turn. In the night the wind had changed, and in the course of the
forenoon three Dutch vessels of war were descried in the offing, and soon
calmly sailed into the mouth of the Gullet. The news was at once brought
to Vere's headquarters. That general's plans had been crowned with
success even sooner than he expected. There was no further object in
continuing the comedy of negotiation, for the ships now arriving seemed
crowded with troops. Sir Francis accordingly threw off the mask, and
assuring his guests with extreme politeness that it had given him great
pleasure to make the acquaintance of such distinguished personages, he
thanked them cordially for their visit, but regretted that it would be no
longer in his power to entertain any propositions of a pacific nature.
The necessary reinforcements, which he had been so long expecting, had at
last reached him, and it would not yet be necessary for him to retire
into his ruined nest. Military honour therefore would not allow him to
detain them any longer. Should he ever be so hard pressed again he felt
sure that so magnanimous a prince as his Highness would extend to him all
due clemency and consideration.

The Spaniards; digesting as they best could the sauce of contumely with
which the gross treachery of the transaction was now seasoned, solemnly
withdrew, disdaining to express their spleen in words of idle menace.

They were escorted back through the lines, and at once made their report
at headquarters. The festival had been dismally interrupted before it was
well begun. The vessels were soon observed by friend and foe making their
way triumphantly up to the town where they soon dropped anchor at the
wharf of the inner Gullet, having only a couple of sailors wounded,
despite all the furious discharges of Bucquoy's batteries. The holiday
makers dispersed, much discomfited, the English hostages returned to the
town, and the archduke shut himself up, growling and furious. His
generals and counsellors, who had recommended the abandonment of his
carefully prepared assault, and acceptance of the perfidious propositions
to negotiate, by which so much golden time had been squandered, were for
several days excluded from his presence.

Meantime the army, disappointed, discontented, half-starved, unpaid,
passed their days and nights as before, in the sloppy trenches, while
deep and earnest were the complaints and the curses which succeeded to
the momentary exultation of Christmas eve. The soldiers were more than
ever embittered against their august commander-in-chief, for they had
just enjoyed a signal opportunity of comparing the luxury and comfortable
magnificence of his Highness and the Infanta, and of contrasting it with
their own misery. Moreover, it had long been exciting much indignation in
the ranks that veteran generals and colonels, in whom all men had
confidence, had been in great numbers superseded in order to make place
for court favourites, utterly without experience or talent. Thus the
veterans; murmuring in the wet trenches. The archduke meanwhile, in his
sullen retirement, brooded over a tragedy to follow the very successful
comedy of his antagonist.

It was not long delayed. The assault which had been postponed in the
latter days of December was to be renewed before the end of the first
week of the new year. Vere, through scouts and deserters, was aware of
the impending storm, and had made his arrangements in accordance with,
the very minute information which he had thus received. The
reinforcements, so opportunely sent by the States, were not
numerous--only six hundred in all--but they were an earnest of fresh
comrades to follow. Meantime they sufficed to fill the gaps in the ranks,
and to enable Vere to keep possession of the external line of
fortifications, including the all-important Porcupine. Moreover, during
the fictitious negotiations, while the general had thus been holding--as
he expressed it--the wolf by both ears, the labor of repairing damages in
dyke, moat, and wall had not been for an instant neglected.

The morning of the 7th January, 1602, opened with a vigorous cannonade
from all the archduke's batteries, east, west, and south. Auditor
Fleeting, counsellor and secretary of the city, aide-de-camp and right
hand of the commander-in-chief, a grim, grizzled, leathern-faced man of
fifty, steady under fire as a veteran arquebuseer, ready with his pen as
a counting-house clerk, and as fertile in resource as the most
experienced campaigner, was ever at the general's side. At his suggestion
several houses had been demolished, to furnish materials in wood and iron
to stop the gaps as soon as made. Especially about the Sand Hill fort and
the Porcupine a plentiful supply was collected, no time having been lost
in throwing up stockades, palisades, and every other possible obstruction
to the expected assailants. Knowing perfectly well where the brunt of the
battle was to be, Vere had placed his brother Sir Horace at the head of
twelve picked companies of diverse nations in the Sand Hill. Four of the
very best companies of the garrison were stationed in the Porcupine, and
ten more of the choicest in Fort Hell's Mouth, under Colonel Meetkerke.
It must be recollected that the first of these three works was the key to
the fortifications of the old or outer town. The other two were very near
it, and were the principal redoubts which defended the most exposed and
vulnerable portion of the new town on the western side. The Sand Hill, as
its name imported, was the only existing relic within the city's verge of
the chain of downs once encircling the whole place. It had however been
cannonaded so steadily during the six months' siege as to have become
almost ironclad--a mass of metal gradually accumulating from the enemy's
guns. With the curtain extending from it towards east and west it
protected the old town quite up to the little ancient brick church, one
of the only two in Ostend.

All day long the cannon thundered--a bombardment such as had never before
been dreamed of in those days, two thousand shots having been distinctly
counted, by the burghers. There was but languid response from the
besieged, who were reserving their strength. At last, to the brief
winter's day succeeded a pitch-dark evening. It was dead low tide at
seven. At that hour the drums suddenly beat alarm along the whole line of
fortifications from the Gullet on the east to the old harbour on the
west, while through the mirky atmosphere sounded the trumpets of the
assault, the shouts of the Spanish and Italian commanders, and the fierce
responsive yells of their troops. Sir Francis, having visited every
portion of the works, and satisfied himself that every man in the
garrison was under arms, and that all his arrangements had been
fulfilled, now sat on horseback, motionless as a statue, within the Sand
Hill. Among the many serious and fictitious attacks now making he waited
calmly for the one great assault, even allowing some of the enemy to
scale the distant counterscarp of the external works towards the south,
which he had by design left insufficiently guarded. It was but a brief
suspense, for in a few moments two thousand men had rushed through the
bed of the old harbour, out of which the tide had ebbed, and were
vigorously assailing the Sand Hill and the whole length of its curtain.
The impenetrable darkness made it impossible to count, but the noise and
the surging fury of the advance rendered it obvious that the critical
moment had arrived. Suddenly a vivid illumination burst forth. Great pine
torches, piles of tar-barrels, and heaps of other inflammable material,
which had been carefully arranged in Fort Porcupine, were now all at once
lighted by Vere's command.

As the lurid blaze flashed far and wide there started out of the gloom
not only the long lines of yellow jerkined pikemen and arquebuseers, with
their storm-hoods and scaling ladders, rushing swiftly towards the forts,
but beyond the broken sea dyke the reserved masses supporting the attack,
drawn up in solid clumps of spears, with their gay standards waving above
them, and with a strong force of cavalry in iron corslet and morion
stationed in the rear to urge on the infantry and prevent their faltering
in the night's work, became visible--phantom-like but perfectly distinct.

At least four thousand men were engaged in this chief attack, and the
light now permitted the besieged to direct their fire from cannon,
demi-cannon, culverin, and snaphance, with fatal effect. The assailants,
thinned, straggling, but undismayed, closed up their ranks, and still
came fiercely on. Never had Spaniards, Walloons, and Italians, manifested
greater contempt of death than on this occasion. They knew that the
archduke and the infanta were waiting breathlessly in Fort St. Albert for
the news of that victory of which the feigned negotiations had defrauded
them at Christmas, and they felt perfectly confident of ending both the
siege and the forty years' war this January night. But they had reckoned
without their wily English host. As they came nearer--van, and at last
reserve--they dropped in great heaps under the steady fire of the
musketry--as Philip Flaming, looking on, exclaimed--like apples when the
autumn wind blows through the orchard. And as the foremost still pressed
nearer and nearer, striving to clamber up the shattered counterscarp and
through every practicable breach, the English, Hollanders, and
Zeelanders, met them in the gap, not only at push of pike, but with their
long daggers and with flaming pitchhoops, and hurled them down to instant
death.

And thus around the Sand Hill, the Porcupine, and Hell's Mouth, the
battle raged nearly two hours long, without an inch of ground being
gained by the assailants. The dead and dying were piled beneath the
walls, while still the reserves, goaded up to the mark by the cavalry,
mounted upon the bodies of their fallen comrades and strove to plant
their ladders. But now the tide was on the flood, the harbour was
filling, and cool Auditor Fleming, whom nothing escaped quietly asked the
general's permission to open the western' sluice. It was obvious, he
observed, that the fury of the attack was over, and that the enemy would
soon be effecting a retreat before the water should have risen too high.
He even pointed out many stragglers attempting to escape through the
already deepening shallows. Vere's consent was at once given, the
flood-gate was opened, and the assailants such as still
survived--panic-struck in a moment, rushed wildly back through the old
harbour towards their camp. It was too late. The waters were out, and the
contending currents whirled the fugitives up and down through the
submerged land, and beyond the broken dyke, until great numbers of them
were miserably drowned in the haven, while others were washed out to sea.
Horses and riders were borne off towards the Zealand coast, and several
of their corpses were picked up days afterwards in the neighbourhood of
Flushing.

Meantime those who had effected a lodgment in the Polder, the Square, and
the other southern forts, found, after the chief assault had failed, that
they had gained nothing by their temporary triumph but the certainty of
being butchered. Retreat was impossible, and no quarter was given. Count
Imbec, a noble of great wealth, offered his weight in gold for his
ransom, but was killed by a private soldier, who preferred his blood,
or doubted his solvency. Durango, marshal of the camp, Don
Alvarez de Suarez, and Don Matteo Antonio, sergeant-major and
quarter-master-general, whose adventures as a hostage within the town
on Christmas eve have so recently been related, were also slain.

On the eastern side Bucquoy's attack was an entire failure. His
arrangements were too slowly made, and before he could bring his men to
the assault the water was so high in the Gullet that they refused to lay
their pontoons and march to certain death. Only at lowest ebb, and with
most exquisite skill in fording, would it have been possible to effect
anything like an earnest demonstration or a surprise. Moreover some of
the garrison, giving themselves out as deserters, stole out of the
Spanish Half-moon, which had been purposely almost denuded of its
defenders, towards the enemy's entrenchments, and offered to lead a body
of Spaniards into that ravelin. Bucquoy fell into the trap, so that the
detachment, after a victory as easily effected as that in the southern
forts, found themselves when the fight was over not the captors but the
caught. A few attempted to escape and were driven into the sea; the rest
were massacred.

Fifteen hundred of the enemy's dead were counted and registered by
Auditor Fleming. The whole number of the slain and drowned was reckoned
as high as two thousand, which was at least, a quarter of the whole
besieging army. And so ended this winter night's assault, by which the
archduke had fondly hoped to avenge himself for Vere's perfidy, and to
terminate the war at a blow. Only sixty of the garrison were killed, and
Sir Horace Vere was wounded.

The winter now set in with severe sleet, and snow, and rain, and furious
tempests lashing the sea over the works of besieger and besieged, and for
weeks together paralyzing all efforts of either army. Eight weary months
the siege had lasted; the men in town and hostile camp, exposed to the
inclemency of the wintry trenches, sinking faster before the pestilence
which now swept impartially through all ranks than the soldiers of the
archduke had fallen at Nieuport, or in the recent assault on the Sand
Hill. Of seven thousand hardly three thousand now remained in the
garrison.

Yet still the weary sausage making and wooden castle building went on
along the Gullet and around the old town. The Bredene dyke crept on inch
by inch, but the steady ships of the republic came and went unharmed by
the batteries with which Bucquoy hoped to shut up the New Harbour. The
archduke's works were pushed up nearer on the west, but, as yet, not one
practical advantage had been gained, and the siege had scarcely advanced
a hair's breadth since the 5th of July of the preceding year, when the
armies had first sat down before the place.

The stormy month of March had come, and Vere, being called to service in
the field for the coming season, transferred the command at Ostend to
Frederic van Dorp, a rugged, hard-headed, ill-favoured, stout-hearted
Zealand colonel, with the face of a bull-dog, and with the tenacious grip
of one.

     ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

     Constitute themselves at once universal legatees
     Crimes and cruelties such as Christians only could imagine
     Human fat esteemed the sovereignst remedy (for wounds)
     War was the normal and natural condition of mankind




CHAPTER XL. 1602-1603

   Protraction of the siege of Ostend--Spanish invasion of Ireland--
   Prince Maurice again on the march--Siege of Grave--State of the
   archduke's army--Formidable mutiny--State of Europe--Portuguese
   expedition to Java--Foundation there of the first Batavian trading
   settlement--Exploits of Jacob Heemskerk--Capture of a Lisbon
   carrack--Progress of Dutch commerce--Oriental and Germanic republics
   --Commercial embassy from the King of Atsgen in Sumatra to the
   Netherlands--Surrender of Grave--Privateer work of Frederic Spinola
   --Destruction of Spinola's fleet by English and Dutch cruisers--
   Continuation of the siege of Ostend--Fearful hurricane and its
   effects--The attack--Capture of external forts--Encounter between
   Spinola and a Dutch squadron--Execution of prisoners by the
   archduke--Philip Fleming and his diary--Continuation of operations
   before Ostend--Spanish veterans still mutinous--Their capital
   besieged by Van den Berg--Maurice marches to their relief--
   Convention between the prince and the mutineers--Great commercial
   progress of the Dutch--Opposition to international commerce--
   Organization of the Universal East India Company.

It would be desirable to concentrate the chief events of the siege of
Ostend so that they might be presented to the reader's view in a single
mass. But this is impossible. The siege was essentially the war--as
already observed--and it was bidding fair to protract itself to such an
extent that a respect for chronology requires the attention to be
directed for a moment to other topics.

The invasion of Ireland under Aquila, so pompously heralded as almost to
suggest another grand armada, had sailed in the beginning of the winter,
and an army of six thousand men had been landed at Kinsale. Rarely had
there been a better opportunity for the Celt to strike for his
independence. Shane Mac Neil had an army on foot with which he felt
confident of exterminating the Saxon oppressor, even without the
assistance of his peninsular allies; while the queen's army, severely
drawn upon as it had been for the exigencies of Vere and the States,
might be supposed unable to cope with so formidable a combination. Yet
Montjoy made short work of Aquila and Tyrone. The invaders, shut up in
their meagre conquest, became the besieged instead of the assailants.
Tyrone made a feeble attempt to relieve his Spanish allies, but was soon
driven into his swamps, the peasants would not rise; in spite of
proclamations and golden mountains of promise, and Aquila was soon glad
enough to sign a capitulation by which he saved a portion of his army. He
then returned, in transports provided by the English general, a much
discomfited man, to Spain instead of converting Ireland into a province
of the universal empire. He had not rescued Hibernia, as he stoutly
proclaimed at the outset his intention of doing, from the jaws of the
evil demon.

The States, not much wiser after the experience of Nieuport, were again
desirous that Maurice should march into Flanders, relieve Ostend, and
sweep the archduke into the sea. As for Vere, he proposed that a great
army of cavalry and infantry should be sent into Ostend, while another
force equally powerful should take the field as soon as the season
permitted. Where the men were to be levied, and whence the funds for
putting such formidable hosts in motion were to be derived, it was not
easy to say: "'Tis astonishing," said Lewis William, "that the evils
already suffered cannot open his eyes; but after all, 'tis no marvel. An
old and good colonel, as I hold him to be, must go to school before he
can become a general, and we must beware of committing any second folly,
govern ourselves according to our means and the art of war, and leave the
rest to God."

Prince Maurice, however; yielding as usual to the persuasions or
importunities of those less sagacious than himself; and being also much
influenced by the advice of the English queen and the French king, after
reviewing the most splendid army that even he had ever equipped and set
in the field, crossed the Waal at Nymegen, and the Meuse at Mook, and
then moving leisurely along Meuse--side by way of Sambeck, Blitterswyck,
and Maasyk, came past St. Truyden to the neighbourhood of Thienen, in
Brabant. Here he stood, in the heart of the enemy's country, and within a
day's march of Brussels. The sanguine portion of his countrymen and the
more easily alarmed of the enemy already thought it would be an easy
military promenade for the stadholder to march through Brabant and
Flanders to the coast, defeat the Catholic forces before Ostend, raise
the weary siege of that place, dictate peace to the archduke, and return
in triumph to the Hague, before the end of the summer.

But the experienced Maurice too well knew the emptiness of such dreams.
He had a splendid army--eighteen thousand foot and five thousand
horse--of which Lewis William commanded the battalia, Vere the right, and
Count Ernest the left, with a train of two thousand baggage wagons, and a
considerable force of sutlers and camp-followers. He moved so
deliberately, and with such excellent discipline, that his two wings
could with ease be expanded for black-mail or forage over a considerable
extent of country, and again folded together in case of sudden military
necessity. But he had no intention of marching through Brussels, Ghent,
and Bruges, to the Flemish coast. His old antagonist, the Admiral of
Arragon, lay near Thienen in an entrenched camp, with a force of at least
fifteen thousand men, while the archduke, leaving Rivas in command before
Ostend, hovered in the neighbourhood of Brussels, with as many troops as
could be spared from the various Flemish garrisons, ready to support the
admiral.

But Maurice tempted the admiral in vain with the chances of a general
action. That warrior, remembering perhaps too distinctly his disasters at
Nieuport, or feeling conscious that his military genius was more fitly
displayed in burning towns and villages in neutral territory, robbing the
peasantry, plundering gentlemen's castles and murdering the proprietors,
than it was like to be in a pitched battle with the first general of the
age, remained sullenly within his entrenchments. His position was too
strong and his force far too numerous to warrant an attack by the
stadholder upon his works. After satisfying himself, therefore, that
there was no chance of an encounter in Brabant except at immense
disadvantage, Maurice rapidly counter-marched towards the lower Meuse,
and on the 18th July laid siege to Grave. The position and importance of
this city have been thoroughly set before the reader in a former volumes
It is only necessary, therefore, to recal the fact that, besides being a
vital possession for the republic, the place was in law the private
property of the Orange family, having been a portion of the estate of
Count de Buren, afterwards redeemed on payment of a considerable sum of
money by his son-in-law, William the Silent, confirmed to him at the
pacification of Ghent, and only lost to his children by the disgraceful
conduct of Captain Hamart, which had cost that officer his head. Maurice
was determined at least that the place should not now slip through his
fingers, and that the present siege should be a masterpiece. His forts,
of which he had nearly fifty, were each regularly furnished with moat,
drawbridge, and bulwark. His counterscarp and parapet, his galleries,
covered ways and mines, were as elaborate, massive, and artistically
finished as if he were building a city instead of besieging one.
Buzanval, the French envoy, amazed at the spectacle, protested that his
works "were rather worthy of the grand Emperor of the Turks than of, a
little commonwealth, which only existed through the disorder of its
enemies and the assistance of its friends;" but he admitted the utility
of the stadholder's proceedings to be very obvious.

While the prince calmly sat before Grave, awaiting the inexorable hour
for burghers and garrison to surrender, the great Francis Mendoza,
Admiral of Arragon, had been completing the arrangements for his
exchange. A prisoner after the Nieuport battle, he had been assigned by
Maurice, as will be recollected, to his cousin, young Lewis Gunther,
whose brilliant services as commander of the cavalry had so much
contributed to the victory. The amount of ransom for so eminent a captive
could not fail to be large, and accordingly the thrifty Lewis William had
congratulated his brother on being able, although so young, thus to
repair the fortunes of the family by his military industry to a greater
extent than had yet been accomplished by any of the race. Subsequently,
the admiral had been released on parole, the sum of his ransom having
been fixed at nearly one hundred thousand Flemish crowns. By an agreement
now made by the States, with consent of the Nassau family, the prisoner
was definitely released, on condition of effecting the exchange of all
prisoners of the republic, now held in durance by Spain in any part of
the world. This was in lieu of the hundred thousand crowns which were to
be put into the impoverished coffers of Lewis Gunther. It may be
imagined, as the hapless prisoners afterwards poured in--not only from
the peninsula, but from more distant regions, whither they had been sent
by their cruel taskmasters, some to relate their sufferings in the
horrible dungeons of Spain, where they had long been expiating the crime
of defending their fatherland, others to relate their experiences as
chained galley-slaves in the naval service of their bitterest enemies,
many with shorn heads and long beards like Turks, many with crippled
limbs, worn out with chains and blows, and the squalor of disease and
filth--that the hatred for Spain and Rome did not glow any less fiercely
within the republic, nor the hereditary love for the Nassaus, to whose
generosity these poor victims were indebted for their deliverance, become
fainter, in consequence of these revelations. It was at first vehemently
disputed by many that the admiral could be exchanged as a prisoner of
war, in respect to the manifold murders and other crimes which would seem
to authorize his trial and chastisement by the tribunals of the republic.
But it was decided by the States that the sacred aegis of military law
must be held to protect even so bloodstained a criminal as he, and his
release was accordingly effected. Not long afterwards he took his
departure for Spain, where his reception was not enthusiastic.

From this epoch is to be dated a considerable reform in the laws
regulating the exchange of prisoners of war.--[Grotius]

While Maurice was occupied with the siege of Grave, and thus not only
menacing an important position, but spreading, danger and dismay over all
Brabant and Flanders, it was necessary for the archduke to detach so
large a portion of his armies to observe his indefatigable and scientific
enemy, as to much weaken the vigour of the operations before Ostend.
Moreover, the execrable administration of his finances, and the dismal
delays and sufferings of that siege; had brought about another mutiny--on
the whole, the most extensive, formidable, and methodical of all that had
hitherto occurred in the Spanish armies.

By midsummer, at least three thousand five hundred veterans, including a
thousand of excellent cavalry, the very best soldiers in the service, had
seized the city of Hoogstraaten. Here they established themselves
securely, and strengthened the fortifications; levying contributions in
corn, cattle, and every other necessary, besides wine, beer, and
pocket-money, from the whole country round with exemplary regularity. As
usual, disorder assumed the forms of absolute order. Anarchy became the
best organized of governments; and it would have been difficult to find
in the world--outside the Dutch commonwealth--a single community where
justice appeared to be so promptly administered as in this temporary
republic, founded upon rebellion and theft.

For; although a brotherhood of thieves, it rigorously punished such of
its citizens as robbed for their own, not for the public good. The
immense booty swept daily from the granges, castles; and villages of
Flanders was divided with the simplicity of early Christians, while the
success and steadiness of the operations paralyzed their sovereign, and
was of considerable advantage to the States.

Albert endeavoured in vain to negotiate with the rebels. Nuncius
Frangipani went to them in person, but was received with calm derision.
Pious exhortations might turn the keys of Paradise, but gold alone, he
was informed, would unlock the gates of Hoogstraaten. In an evil hour the
cardinal-archduke was tempted to try the effect of sacerdotal thunder.
The ex-archbishop of Toledo could not doubt that the terrors of the
Church would make those brown veterans tremble who could confront so
tranquilly the spring-tides of the North Sea, and the batteries of Vere
and Nassau. So he launched a manifesto, as highly spiced as a pamphlet of
Marnig, and as severe as a sentence of Torquemada. Entirely against the
advice of the States-General of the obedient provinces, he denounced the
mutineers as outlaws and accursed. He called on persons of every degree
to kill any of them in any way, at any time, or in any place, promising
that the slayer of a private soldier should receive a reward of "ten
crowns for each head" brought in, while for a subaltern officer's head
one hundred crowns were offered; for that of a superior officer two
hundred, and for that of the Eletto or chief magistrate, five hundred
crowns. Should the slayer be himself a member of the mutiny, his crime of
rebellion was to be forgiven, and the price of murder duly paid. All
judges, magistrates, and provost-marshals were ordered to make
inventories of the goods, moveable and immoveable, of the mutineers, and
of the clothing and other articles belonging to their wives and children,
all which property was to be brought in and deposited in the hands of the
proper functionaries of the archduke's camp, in order that it might be
duly incorporated into the domains of his Highness.

The mutineers were not frightened. The ban was an anachronism. If those
Spaniards and Italians had learned nothing by their much campaigning in
the land of Calvinism, they had at least unlearned their faith in bell,
book, and candle. It happened, too, that among their numbers were to be
found pamphleteers as ready and as unscrupulous as the scribes of the
archduke.

So there soon came forth and was published to the world, in the name of
the Eletto and council of Hoogstraaten, a formal answer to the ban.

"If scolding and cursing be payment," said the magistrates of the mutiny,
"then we might give a receipt in full for our wages. The ban is
sufficient in this respect; but as these curses give no food for our
bellies nor clothes for our backs, not preventing us, therefore, who have
been fighting so long for the honour and welfare of the archdukes from
starving with cold and hunger, we think a reply necessary in order to
make manifest how much reason these archdukes have for thundering forth
all this choler and fury, by which women and children may be frightened,
but at which no soldier will feel alarm.

"When it is stated," continued the mutineers, "that we have deserted our
banners just as an attempt was making by the archduke to relieve Grave,
we can only reply that the assertion proves how impossible it is to
practise arithmetic with disturbed brains. Passion is a bad
schoolmistress for the memory, but, as good friends, we will recal to the
recollection of your Highness that it was not your Highness, but the
Admiral of Arragon, that commanded the relieving force before that city.

"'Tis very true that we summon your Highnesses, and levy upon your
provinces, in order to obtain means of living; for in what other quarter
should we make application. Your Highnesses give us nothing except
promises; but soldiers are not chameleons, to live on such air. According
to every principle of law, creditors have a lien on the property of their
debtors.

"As to condemning to death as traitors and scoundrels those who don't
desire to be killed, and who have the means of killing such as attempt to
execute the sentence; this is hardly in accordance with the extraordinary
wisdom which has always characterized your Highnesses.

"As, to the confiscation of our goods, both moveable and immoveable, we
would simply make this observation:

"Our moveable goods are our swords alone, and they can only be moved by
ourselves. They are our immoveable goods as well; for should any one but
ourselves undertake to move them, we assure your Highnesses that they
will prove too heavy to be handled.

"As to the official register and deposit ordained of the money, clothing,
and other property belonging to ourselves, our wives and children, the
work may be done without clerks of inventory. Certainly, if the domains
of your Highnesses have no other sources of revenue than the proceeds of
this confiscation, wherewith to feed the ostrich-like digestions of those
about you, 'tis to be feared that ere long they will be in the same
condition as were ours, when we were obliged to come together in
Hoogstraaten to devise means to keep ourselves, our wives, and children
alive. And at that time we were an unbreeched people, like the
Indians--saving your Highnesses' reverence--and the climate here is too
cold for such costume. Your Highnesses, and your relatives the Emperor
and King of Spain, will hardly make your royal heads greasy with the fat
of such property as we possess, 'Twill also be a remarkable spectacle
after you have stripped our wives and children stark naked for the
benefit of your treasury, to see them sent in that condition, within
three days afterwards, out of the country, as the ban ordains.

"You order the ban to be executed against our children and our children's
children, but your Highness never learned this in the Bible, when you
were an archbishop, and when you expounded, or ought to have expounded,
the Holy Scriptures to your flock. What theology teaches your Highness to
vent your wrath upon the innocent?

"Whenever the cause of discontent is taken away, the soldiers will become
obedient and cheerful. All kings and princes may mirror themselves in the
bad government of your Highness, and may see how they fare who try to
carry on a war, while with their own hands they cut the sinews of war.
The great leaders of old--Cyrus, Alexander, Scipio, Caesar--were
accustomed, not to starve, but to enrich their soldiers. What did
Alexander, when in an arid desert they brought, him a helmet full of
water? He threw it on the sand, saying that there was only enough for
him, but not enough for his army.

"Your Highnesses have set ten crowns, and one hundred, and five hundred
crowns upon our heads, but never could find five hundred mites nor ten
mites to keep our souls and bodies together.

"Yet you have found means to live yourselves with pomp and luxury, far
exceeding that of the great Emperor Charles and much surpassing the
magnificence of your Highnesses' brothers, the emperor and the king."

Thus, and much more, the magistrates of the "Italian republic"--answering
their master's denunciations of vengeance, both in this world and the
next, with a humorous scorn very refreshing in that age of the world to
contemplate. The expanding influence of the Dutch commonwealth was
already making itself felt even in the ranks of its most determined foes.

The mutineers had also made an agreement with the States-General, by
which they had secured permission, in case of need, to retire within the
territory of the republic.

Maurice had written to them from his camp before Grave, and at first they
were disposed to treat him with as little courtesy as they had shown the
Nuncius; for they put the prince's letter on a staff, and fired at it as
a mark, assuring the trumpeter who brought it that they would serve him
in the same manner should he venture thither again. Very soon afterwards,
however, the Eletto and council, reproving the folly of their
subordinates, opened negotiations with the stadholder, who, with the
consent of the States, gave them preliminary permission to take refuge
under the guns of Bergenop-Zoom, should they by chance be hard pressed.

Thus throughout Europe a singular equilibrium of contending forces seemed
established. Before Ostend, where the chief struggle between imperialism
and republicanism had been proceeding for more than a year with equal
vigour, there seemed no possibility of a result. The sands drank up the
blood of the combatants on both sides, month after month, in summer; the
pestilence in town and camp mowed down Catholic and Protestant with
perfect impartiality during the winter, while the remorseless ocean swept
over all in its wrath, obliterating in an hour the patient toil of
months.

In Spain, in England, and Ireland; in Hungary, Germany, Sweden, and
Poland, men wrought industriously day by day and year by year, to destroy
each other, and to efface the products of human industry, and yet no
progress could fairly be registered. The Turk was in Buda, on the right
bank of the Danube, and the Christian in Pest, on the left, while the
crescent; but lately supplanted by the cross, again waved in triumph over
Stuhlweissenberg, capital city of the Magyars. The great Marshal Biron,
foiled in his stupendous treachery, had laid down his head upon the
block; the catastrophe following hard upon the madcap riot of Lord Essex
in the Strand and his tragic end. The troublesome and restless favourites
of Henry and of Elizabeth had closed their stormy career, but the designs
of the great king and the great queen were growing wider and wilder, more
false and more fantastic than ever, as the evening shadows of both were
lengthening.

But it was not in Europe nor in Christendom: alone during that twilight
epoch of declining absolutism, regal and sacerdotal, and the coming
glimmer of freedom, religious and commercial, that the contrast between
the old and new civilizations was exhibiting itself.

The same fishermen and fighting men, whom we have but lately seen sailing
forth from Zeeland and Friesland to confront the dangers of either pole,
were now contending in the Indian seas with the Portuguese monopolists of
the tropics.

A century long, the generosity of the Roman pontiff in bestowing upon
others what was not his property had guaranteed to the nation of Vasco de
Gama one half at least of the valuable possessions which maritime genius,
unflinching valour, and boundless cruelty had won and kept. But the
spirit of change was abroad in the world. Potentates and merchants under
the equator had been sedulously taught that there were no other white men
on the planet but the Portuguese and their conquerors the Spaniards, and
that the Dutch--of whom they had recently heard, and the portrait of
whose great military chieftain they had seen after the news of the
Nieuport battle had made the circuit of the earth--were a mere mob of
pirates and savages inhabiting the obscurest of dens. They were soon,
however, to be enabled to judge for themselves as to the power and the
merits of the various competitors for their trade.

Early in this year Andreas Hurtado de Mendoza with a stately fleet of
galleons and smaller vessels, more than five-and-twenty in all, was on
his way towards the island of Java to inflict summary vengeance upon
those oriental rulers who had dared to trade with men forbidden by his
Catholic Majesty and the Pope.

The city of Bantam was the first spot marked out for destruction, and it
so happened that a Dutch skipper, Wolfert Hermann by name, commanding
five trading vessels, in which were three hundred men, had just arrived
in those seas to continue the illicit commerce which had aroused the ire
of the Portuguese. His whole force both of men and of guns was far
inferior to that of the flag-ship alone of Mendoza. But he resolved to
make manifest to the Indians that the Batavians were not disposed to
relinquish their promising commercial relations with them, nor to turn
their backs upon their newly found friends in the hour of danger. To the
profound astonishment of the Portuguese admiral the Dutchman with his
five little trading ships made an attack on the pompous armada, intending
to avert chastisement from the king of Bantam. It was not possible for
Wolfert to cope at close quarters with his immensely superior adversary,
but his skill and nautical experience enabled him to play at what was
then considered long bowls with extraordinary effect. The greater
lightness and mobility of his vessels made them more than a match, in
this kind of encounter, for the clumsy, top-heavy, and sluggish marine
castles in which Spain and Portugal then went forth to battle on the
ocean. It seems almost like the irony of history, and yet it is the
literal fact, that the Dutch galleot of that day--hardly changed in two
and a half centuries since--"the bull-browed galleot butting through the
stream,"--[Oliver Wendell Holmes]--was then the model clipper,
conspicuous among all ships for its rapid sailing qualities and ease of
handling. So much has the world moved, on sea and shore, since those
simple but he

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