William de Blois, Lord of Treslong, Admiral of Holland and Zeeland, was

requested to carry out this order, and superintend the victualling of

Antwerp. But Treslong at once became troublesome. He was one of the old

"beggars of the sea," a leader in the wild band who had taken possession

of the Brill, in the teeth of Alva, and so laid the foundation of the

republic. An impetuous noble, of wealthy family, high connections, and

refractory temper--a daring sailor, ever ready for any rash adventure,

but possessed of a very moderate share of prudence or administrative

ability, he fell into loose and lawless courses on the death of Orange,

whose firm hand was needed to control him. The French negotiation had

excited his profound disgust, and knowing Sainte Aldegonde to be heart

and soul in favour of that alliance, he was in no haste whatever to carry

out his orders with regard to Antwerp. He had also an insignificant

quarrel with President Meetkerk. The Prince of Parma--ever on the watch

for such opportunities--was soon informed of the Admiral's discontent,

and had long been acquainted with his turbulent character. Alexander at

once began to inflame his jealousy and soothe his vanity by letters and

messengers, urging upon him the propriety of reconciling himself with the

King, and promising him large rewards and magnificent employments in the

royal service. Even the splendid insignia of the Golden Fleece were

dangled before his eyes. It is certain that the bold Hollander was not

seduced by these visions, but there is no doubt that he listened to the

voice of the tempter. He unquestionably neglected his duty. Week after

week he remained, at Ostend, sneering at the French and quaffing huge

draughts in honour of Queen Elizabeth. At last, after much time had

elapsed, he agreed to victual Antwerp if he could be furnished with

thirty krom-stevens,--a peculiar kind of vessel, not to be found in

Zeeland. The krom-stevens were sent to him from Holland. Then, hearing

that his negligence had been censured by the States-General, he became

more obstinate than ever, and went up and down proclaiming that if people

made themselves disagreeable to him he would do that which should make

all the women and children in the Netherlands shriek and tremble. What

this nameless horror was to be he never divulged, but meantime he went

down to Middelburg, and swore that not a boat-load of corn should go up

to Antwerp until two members of the magistracy, whom he considered

unpleasant, had been dismissed from their office. Wearied with all this

bluster, and imbued with grave suspicion as to his motives, the States at

last rose upon their High Admiral and threw him into prison. He was

accused of many high crimes and misdemeanours, and, it was thought, would

be tried for his life. He was suspected and even openly accused of having

been tampered with by Spain, but there was at any rate a deficiency of

proof.

"Treslong is apprehended," wrote Davison to Burghley, "and, is charged to

have been the cause that the fleet passed not up to Antwerp. He is

suspected to have otherwise forgotten himself, but whether justly or not

will appear by his trial. Meantime he is kept in the common prison of

Middelburg, a treatment which it is thought they would not offer him if

they had not somewhat of importance against him."

He was subsequently released at the intercession of Queen Elizabeth, and

passed some time in England. He was afterwards put upon trial, but no

accuser appearing to sustain the charges against him, he was eventually

released. He never received a command in the navy again, but the very

rich sinecures of Grand Falconer and Chief Forester of Holland were

bestowed upon him, and he appears to have ended his days in peace and

plenty.

He was succeeded in the post of Admiral of Holland and Zeeland by

Justinus de Nassau, natural son of William the Silent, a young man of

much promise but of little experience.

General Count Hohenlo, too, lieutenant for young Maurice, and virtual

commander-in-chief of the States' forces, was apt to give much trouble. A

German noble, of ancient descent and princely rank; brave to temerity,

making a jest of danger; and riding into a foray as if to a merry-making;

often furiously intoxicated, and always turbulent and uncertain; a

handsome, dissipated cavalier, with long curls floating over his

shoulders, an imposing aristocratic face, and a graceful, athletic

figure, he needed some cool brain and steady hand to guide him--valuable

as he was to fulfil any daring project but was hardly willing to accept

the authority of a burgomaster. While the young Maurice yet needed

tutelage, while "the sapling was growing into the tree," Hohenlo was a

dangerous chieftain and a most disorderly lieutenant.

With such municipal machinery and such coadjutors had Sainte Aldegonde to

deal, while, meantime, the delusive French negociation was dragging its

slow length along, and while Parma was noiselessly and patiently

proceeding with his preparations.

The burgomaster--for Sainte Aldegonde, in whom vulgar ambition was not a

foible, had refused the dignity and title of Margrave of Antwerp, which

had been tendered him--had neglected no effort towards carrying into

effect the advice of Orange, given almost with his latest breath. The

manner in which that advice was received furnished a striking

illustration of the defective machinery which has been pourtrayed.

Upon his return from Delft, Sainte Aldegonde had summoned a meeting of

the magistracy of Antwerp. He laid before the board the information

communicated by Orange as to Parma's intentions. He also explained the

scheme proposed for their frustration, and urged the measures indicated

with so much earnestness that his fellow-magistrates were convinced. The

order was passed for piercing the Blauw-garen Dyke, and Sainte Aldegonde,

with some engineers, was requested to view the locality, and to take

order for the immediate fulfilment of the plan.

Unfortunately there were many other boards in session besides that of the

Schepens, many other motives at work besides those of patriotism. The

guild of butchers held a meeting, so soon as the plan suggested was

known, and resolved with all their strength to oppose its execution.

The butchers were indeed furious. Twelve thousand oxen grazed annually

upon the pastures which were about to be submerged, and it was

represented as unreasonable that all this good flesh and blood should be

sacrificed. At a meeting of the magistrates on the following day, sixteen

butchers, delegates from their guild, made their appearance, hoarse with

indignation. They represented the vast damage which would be inflicted

upon the estates of many private individuals by the proposed inundation,

by this sudden conversion of teeming meadows, fertile farms, thriving

homesteads, prolific orchards, into sandy desolation. Above all they

depicted, in glowing colours and with natural pathos, the vast

destruction of beef which was imminent, and they urged--with some show of

reason--that if Parma were really about to reduce Antwerp by famine, his

scheme certainly would not be obstructed by the premature annihilation of

these wholesome supplies.

That the Scheldt could be, closed in any manner was, however, they said,

a preposterous conception. That it could be bridged was the dream of a

lunatic. Even if it were possible to construct a bridge, and probable

that the Zeelanders and Antwerpers would look on with folded arms while

the work proceeded, the fabric, when completed, would be at the mercy of

the ice-floods of the winter and the enormous power of the ocean-tides.

The Prince of Orange himself, on a former occasion, when Antwerp was

Spanish, had attempted to close the river with rafts, sunken piles, and

other obstructions, but the whole had been swept away, like a dam of

bulrushes, by the first descent of the ice-blocks of winter. It was

witless to believe that Parma contemplated any such measure, and utterly

monstrous to believe in its success.

Thus far the butchers. Soon afterwards came sixteen colonels of militia,

as representatives of their branch of the multiform government. These

personages, attended by many officers of inferior degree, sustained the

position of the butchers with many voluble and vehement arguments. Not

the least convincing of their conclusions was the assurance that it would

be idle for the authorities to attempt the destruction of the dyke,

seeing that the municipal soldiery itself would prevent the measure by

main force, at all hazards, and without regard to their own or others'

lives.

The violence of this opposition, and the fear of a serious internecine

conflict at so critical a juncture, proved fatal to the project. Much

precious time was lost, and when at last the inhabitants of the city

awoke from their delusion, it was to find that repentance, as usual, had

come many hours too late.

For Parma had been acting while his antagonists had been wrangling. He

was hampered in his means, but he was assisted by what now seems the

incredible supineness of the Netherlanders. Even Sainte Aldegonde did not

believe in the possibility of erecting the bridge; not a man in Antwerp

seemed to believe it. "The preparations," said one who lived in the city,

"went on before our very noses, and every one was ridiculing the Spanish

commander's folly."

A very great error was, moreover, committed in abandoning Herenthals to

the enemy. The city of Antwerp governed Brabant, and it would have been

far better for the authorities of the commercial capital to succour this

small but important city, and, by so doing, to protract for a long time

their own defence. Mondragon saw and rejoiced over the mistake. "Now 'tis

easy to see that the Prince of Orange is dead," said the veteran, as he

took possession, in the Icing's name, of the forsaken Herenthals.

Early in the summer, Parma's operations had been, of necessity,

desultory. He had sprinkled forts up and down the Scheldt, and had

gradually been gaining control of the navigation upon that river. Thus

Ghent and Dendermonde, Vilvoorde, Brussels, and Antwerp, had each been

isolated, and all prevented from rendering mutual assistance. Below

Antwerp, however, was to be the scene of the great struggle. Here, within

nine miles of the city, were two forts belonging to the States, on

opposite sides of the stream, Lille, and Liefkenshoek. It was important

for the Spanish commander to gain possession of both; before commencing

his contemplated bridge.

Unfortunately for the States, the fortifications of Liefkenshoek, on the

Flemish side of the river, had not been entirely completed. Eight hundred

men lay within it, under Colonel John Pettin of Arras, an old patriotic

officer of much experience. Parma, after reconnoitring the place in

person, despatched the famous Viscount of Ghent--now called Marquis of

Roubaix and Richebourg--to carry it by assault. The Marquis sent one

hundred men from his Walloon legion, under two officers, in whom he had

confidence, to attempt a surprise, with orders, if not successful, to

return without delay. They were successful. The one hundred gained

entrance into the fort at a point where the defences had not been put

into sufficient repair.

They were immediately followed by Richebourg, at the head of his

regiment. The day was a fatal one. It was the 10th July, 1584 and William

of Orange was falling at Delft by the hand of Balthazar Gerard.

Liefkenshoek was carried at a blow. Of the eight hundred patriots in the

place, scarcely a man escaped. Four hundred were put to the sword, the

others were hunted into the river, when nearly all were drowned. Of the

royalists a single man was killed, and two or three more were wounded.

"Our Lord was pleased," wrote Parma piously to Philip, that we "should

cut the throats of four hundred of them in a single instant, and that a

great many more should be killed upon the dykes; so that I believe very

few to have escaped with life. We lost one man, besides two or three

wounded." A few were taken prisoners, and among them was the commander

John Pettin. He was at once brought before Richebourg, who was standing

in the presence of the Prince of Parma. The Marquis drew his sword,

walked calmly up to the captured Colonel, and ran him through the body.

Pettin fell dead upon the spot. The Prince was displeased. "Too much

choler, Marquis, too much choler,"--said he reprovingly. "Troppa colera,

Signor Marchese, a questa." But Richebourg knew better. He had, while

still Viscount of Ghent, carried on a year previously a parallel intrigue

with the royalists and the patriots. The Prince of Parma had bid highest

for his services, and had, accordingly, found him a most effectual

instrument in completing the reduction of the Walloon Provinces. The

Prince was not aware, however, that his brave but venal ally had, at the

very same moment, been secretly treating with William of Orange; and as

it so happened that Colonel Pettin had been the agent in the unsuccessful

negotiation, it was possible that his duplicity would now be exposed. The

Marquis had, therefore, been prompt to place his old confederate in the

condition wherein men tell no tales, and if contemporary chronicles did

not bely him, it was not the first time that he had been guilty of such

cold-blooded murder. The choler had not been superfluous.

The fortress of Lille was garrisoned by the Antwerp volunteers, called

the "Young Bachelors." Teligny, the brave son of the illustrious

"Iron-armed" La None, commanded in chief: and he had, besides the

militia, a company of French under Captain Gascoigne, and four hundred

Scotchmen under Colonel Morgan--perhaps two thousand men in all.

Mondragon, hero of the famous submarine expeditions of Philipsland and

Zierickzee, was ordered by Parma to take the place at every hazard. With

five thousand men--a large proportion of the Spanish effective force at

that moment--the veteran placed himself before the fort, taking

possession, of the beautiful country-house and farm of Lille, where he

planted his batteries, and commenced a regular cannonade. The place was

stronger than Liefkenshoek, however, and Teligny thoroughly comprehended

the importance of maintaining it for the States. Mondragon dug mines, and

Teligny countermined. The Spanish daily cannonade was cheerfully

responded to by the besieged, and by the time Mondragon had shot away

fifty thousand pounds of powder, he found that he had made no impression

upon the fortress, while the number of his troops had been diminishing

with great rapidity. Mondragon was not so impetuous as he had been on

many former occasions. He never ventured an assault. At last Teligny made

a sortie at the head of a considerable force. A warm action succeeded, at

the conclusion of which, without a decided advantage on either side, the

sluice-gate in the fortress was opened, and the torrent of the Scheldt,

swollen by a high tide, was suddenly poured upon the Spaniards. Assailed

at once by the fire from the Lillo batteries, and by the waters of the

river, they were forced to a rapid retreat. This they effected with great

loss, but with signal courage; struggling breast high in the waves, and

bearing off their field-pieces in their arms in the very face of the

enemy.

Three weeks long Mondragon had been before Fort Lille, and two thousand

of his soldiers had been slain in the trenches. The attempt was now

abandoned. Parma directed permanent batteries to be established at

Lillo-house, at Oordam, and at other places along the river, and

proceeded quietly with his carefully-matured plan for closing the river.

His own camp was in the neighbourhood of the villages of Beveren, Kalloo,

and Borght. Of the ten thousand foot and seventeen hundred horse, which

composed at the moment his whole army, about one-half lay with him, while

the remainder were with Count Peter Ernest Mansfield, in the

neighbourhood of Stabroek. Thus the Prince occupied a position on the

left bank of the Scheldt, nearly opposite Antwerp, while Mansfield was

stationed upon the right bank, and ten miles farther down the river. From

a point in the neighbourhood of Kalloo, Alexander intended to throw a

fortified bridge to the opposite shore. When completed, all traffic up

the river from Zeeland would be cut off; and as the country on the

land-side; abut Antwerp, had been now reduced, the city would be

effectually isolated. If the Prince could hold his bridge until famine

should break the resistance of the burghers, Antwerp would fall into his

hands.

His head-quarters were at Kalloo, and this obscure spot soon underwent a

strange transformation. A drowsy placid little village--with a modest

parish spire peeping above a clump of poplars, and with half a dozen

cottages, with storks nests on their roofs, sprinkled here and there

among pastures and orchards--suddenly saw itself changed as it were into

a thriving bustling town; for, saving the white tents which dotted the

green turf in every direction, the aspect of the scene was, for a time,

almost pacific. It was as if, some great manufacturing enterprise had

been set on foot, and the world had suddenly awoke to the hidden

capabilities of the situation.

A great dockyard and arsenal suddenly revealed themselves--rising like an

exhalation--where ship-builders, armourers, blacksmiths, joiners,

carpenters, caulkers, gravers, were hard at work all day long. The din

and hum of what seemed a peaceful industry were unceasing. From Kalloo,

Parma dug a canal twelve miles long to a place called Steeken, hundreds

of pioneers being kept constantly at work with pick and spade till it was

completed. Through this artificial channel--so soon as Ghent and

Dendermonde had fallen--came floats of timber, fleets of boats laden with

provisions of life and munitions of death, building-materials, and every

other requisite for the great undertaking, all to be disembarked at

Kalloo. The object was a temporary and destructive one, but it remains a

monument of the great general's energy and a useful public improvement.

The amelioration of the fenny and barren soil, called the Waesland, is

dated from that epoch; and the spot in Europe which is the most prolific,

and which nourishes the largest proportion of inhabitants to the square

mile, is precisely the long dreary swamp which the Prince thus drained

for military purposes, and converted into a garden. Drusus and Corbulo,

in the days of the Roman Empire, had done the same good service for their

barbarian foes.

At Kalloo itself, all the shipwrights, cutlers, masons, brass-founders,

rope-makers, anchor-forgers, sailors, boatmen, of Flanders and Brabant,

with a herd of bakers, brewers, and butchers, were congregated by express

order of Parma. In the little church itself the main workshop was

established, and all day long, week after week, month after month, the

sound of saw and hammer, adze and plane, the rattle of machinery, the cry

of sentinels, the cheers of mariners, resounded, where but lately had

been heard nothing save the drowsy homily and the devout hymn of rustic

worship.

Nevertheless the summer and autumn wore on, and still the bridge was

hardly commenced. The navigation of the river--although impeded and

rendered dangerous by the forts which Parma held along the banks--was

still open; and, so long as the price of corn in Antwerp remained three

or four times as high as the sum for which it could be purchased in

Holland and Zeeland, there were plenty of daredevil skippers ready to

bring cargoes. Fleets of fly-boats, convoyed by armed vessels, were

perpetually running the gauntlet. Sharp actions on shore between the

forts of the patriots and those of Parma, which were all intermingled

promiscuously along the banks, and amphibious and most bloody encounters

on ship-board, dyke, and in the stream itself, between the wild

Zeelanders and the fierce pikemen of Italy and Spain, were of repeated

occurrence. Many a lagging craft fell into the enemy's hands, when, as a

matter of course, the men, women, and children, on board, were horribly

mutilated by the Spaniards, and were then sent drifting in their boat

with the tide--their arms, legs, and ears lopped off up to the city, in

order that--the dangerous nature of this provision-trade might be fully

illustrated.

Yet that traffic still went on. It would have continued until Antwerp had

been victualled for more than a year, had not the city authorities, in

the plentitude of their wisdom, thought proper to issue orders for its

regulation. On the 25th October (1584) a census was taken, when the

number of persons inside the walls was found to be ninety thousand. For

this population it was estimated that 300,000 veertell, or about 900,000

bushels of corn, would be required annually. The grain was coming in very

fast, notwithstanding the perilous nature of the trade; for wheat could

be bought in Holland for fifty florins the last, or about fifteen pence

sterling the bushel, while it was worth five or six florins the veertel,

or about four shillings the bushel, in Antwerp.

The magistrates now committed a folly more stupendous than it seemed

possible for human creatures, under such circumstances, to compass. They

established a maximum upon corn. The skippers who had run their cargoes

through the gauntlet, all the way from Flushing to Antwerp, found on

their arrival, that, instead of being rewarded, according to the natural

laws of demand and supply, they were required to exchange their wheat,

rye, butter, and beef, against the exact sum which the Board of Schepens

thought proper to consider a reasonable remuneration. Moreover, in order

to prevent the accumulation of provisions in private magazines, it was

enacted, that all consumers of grain should be compelled to make their

purchases directly from the ships. These two measures were almost as

fatal as the preservation of the Blaw-garen Dyke, in the interest of the

butchers. Winter and famine were staring the city in the face, and the

maximum now stood sentinel against the gate, to prevent the admission of

food. The traffic ceased without a struggle. Parma himself could not have

better arranged the blockade.

Meantime a vast and almost general inundation had taken place. The aspect

of the country for many miles around was strange and desolate. The

sluices had been opened in the neighbourhood of Saftingen, on, the

Flemish side, so that all the way from Hulst the waters were out, and

flowed nearly to the gates of Antwerp. A wide and shallow sea rolled over

the fertile plains, while church-steeples, the tops of lofty trees, and

here and there the turrets of a castle, scarcely lifted themselves above

the black waters; the peasants' houses, the granges, whole rural

villages, having entirely disappeared. The high grounds of Doel, of

Kalloo, and Beveren, where Alexander was established, remained out of

reach of the flood. Far below, on the opposite side of the river, other

sluices had been opened, and the sea had burst over the wide, level

plain. The villages of Wilmerdonk, Orderen, Ekeren, were changed to

islands in the ocean, while all the other hamlets, for miles around, were

utterly submerged.

Still, however, the Blaw-garen Dyke and its companion the Kowenstyn

remained obstinately above the waters, forming a present and more fatal

obstruction to the communication between Antwerp and Zeeland than would

be furnished even by the threatened and secretly-advancing bridge across

the Scheldt. Had Orange's prudent advice been taken, the city had been

safe. Over the prostrate dykes, whose destruction he had so warmly urged,

the ocean would have rolled quite to the gates of Antwerp, and it would

have been as easy to bridge the North Sea as to control the free

navigation of the patriots over so wide a surface.

When it was too late, the butchers, and colonels, and captains, became

penitent enough. An order was passed, by acclamation, in November, to do

what Orange had recommended in June. It was decreed that the Blaw-garen

and the Kowenstyn should be pierced. Alas, the hour had long gone by.

Alexander of Parma was not the man to undertake the construction of a

bridge across the river, at a vast expense, and at the same time to

permit the destruction of the already existing barrier. There had been a

time for such a deed. The Seigneur de Kowenstyn, who had a castle and

manor on and near the dyke which bore his name, had repeatedly urged upon

the Antwerp magistracy the propriety of piercing this bulwark, even after

their refusal to destroy the outer barrier. Sainte Aldegonde, who

vehemently urged the measure, protested that his hair had stood on end,

when he found, after repeated entreaty, that the project was rejected.

The Seigneur de Kowenstyn, disgusted and indignant, forswore his

patriotism, and went over to Parma. The dyke fell into the hands of the

enemy. And now from Stabroek, where old Mansfeid lay with his army, all

the way across the flooded country, ran the great bulwark, strengthened

with new palisade-work and block-houses, bristling with Spanish cannon,

pike, and arquebus, even to the bank of the Scheldt, in the immediate

vicinity of Fort Lille. At the angle of its junction with the main dyke

of the river's bank, a strong fortress called Holy Cross (Santa Cruz) had

been constructed. That fortress and the whole line of the Kowenstyn were

held in the iron grip of Mondragon. To wrench it from him would be no

child's play. Five new strong redoubts upon the dyke, and five or six

thousand Spaniards established there, made the enterprise more formidable

than it would have been in June. It had been better to sacrifice the

twelve thousand oxen. Twelve thousand Hollanders might now be

slaughtered, and still the dyke remain above the waves.

Here was the key to the fate of Antwerp.

On the other hand, the opening of the Saftingen Sluice had done Parma's

work for him. Even there, too, Orange had been prophetic. Kalloo was high

and dry, but Alexander had experienced some difficulty in bringing a

fleet of thirty vessels, laden with cannon and other valuable materials,

from Ghent along the Scheldt, into his encampment, because it was

necessary for them, before reaching their destination, to pass in front

of Antwerp. The inundation, together with a rupture in the Dyke of

Borght, furnished him with a watery road; over which his fleet completely

avoided the city, and came in triumph to Kalloo.

Sainte Aldegonde, much provoked by this masterly movement on the part of

Parma, had followed the little squadron closely with some armed vessels

from the city. A sharp action had succeeded, in which the burgomaster,

not being properly sustained by the Zeeland ships on which he relied, had

been defeated. Admiral Jacob Jacobzoon behaved with so little spirit on

the occasion that he acquired with the Antwerp populace the name of

"Run-away Jacob," "Koppen gaet loppen;" and Sainte Aldegonde declared,

that, but for his cowardice, the fleet of Parma would have fallen into

their hands. The burgomaster himself narrowly escaped becoming a

prisoner, and owed his safety only to the swiftness of his barge, which

was called the "Flying Devil."

The patriots, in order to counteract similar enterprises in future, now

erected a sconce, which they called Fort Teligny; upon the ruptured dyke

of Borght, directly in front of the Borght blockhouse, belonging to the

Spaniards, and just opposite Fort Hoboken. Here, in this narrow passage,

close under the walls of Antwerp, where friends and foes were brought

closely, face to face, was the scene of many a sanguinary skirmish, from

the commencement of the siege until its close.

Still the bridge was believed to be a mere fable, a chimaera. Parma, men

said, had become a lunatic from pride. It was as easy to make the

Netherlands submit to the yoke of the Inquisition as to put a bridle on

the Scheldt. Its depth; breadth, the ice-floods of a northern winter, the

neighbourhood of the Zeeland fleets, the activity of the Antwerp

authorities, all were pledges that the attempt would be signally

frustrated.

And they should have been pledges--more than enough. Unfortunately,

however, there was dissension within, and no chieftain in the field, no

sage in the council, of sufficient authority to sustain the whole burthen

of the war, and to direct all the energies of the commonwealth. Orange

was dead. His son, one day to become the most illustrious military

commander in Europe, was a boy of seventeen, nominally captain-general,

but in reality but a youthful apprentice to his art. Hohenlo was wild,

wilful, and obstinate. Young William Lewis Nassau, already a soldier of

marked abilities, was fully occupied in Friesland, where he was

stadholder, and where he had quite enough to do in making head against

the Spanish governor and general, the veteran Verdugo: Military

operations against Zutphen distracted the attention of the States, which

should have been fixed upon Antwerp.

Admiral Treslong, as we have seen, was refractory, the cause of great

delinquency on the part of the fleets, and of infinite disaster to the

commonwealth. More than all, the French negotiation was betraying the

States into indolence and hesitation; and creating a schism between the

leading politicians of the country. Several thousand French troops, under

Monsieur d'Allaynes, were daily expected, but never arrived; and thus,

while English and French partisans were plotting and counter-plotting,

while a delusive diplomacy was usurping the place of lansquenettes and

gun-boats--the only possible agents at that moment to preserve

Antwerp--the bridge of Parma was slowly advancing. Before the winter had

closed in, the preparatory palisades had been finished.

Between Kalloo and Ordam, upon the opposite side, a sandbar had been

discovered in the river's bed, which diminished the depth of the stream,

and rendered the pile-driving comparatively easy. The breadth of the

Scheldt at this passage was twenty-four hundred feet; its depth, sixty

feet. Upon the Flemish side, near Kalloo, a strong fort was erected,

called Saint Mary, in honour of the blessed Virgin, to whom the whole

siege of Antwerp had been dedicated from the beginning. On the opposite

bank was a similar fort, flamed Philip, for the King. From each of these

two points, thus fortified, a framework of heavy timber, supported upon

huge piles, had been carried so far into the stream on either side that

the distance between the ends had at last been reduced to thirteen

hundred feet. The breadth of the roadway--formed of strong sleepers

firmly bound together--was twelve feet, along which block-houses of great

thickness were placed to defend the whole against assault.

Thus far the work had been comparatively easy. To bridge the remaining

open portion of the river, however, where its current was deepest and

strongest, and where the action of tide, tempest, and icebergs, would be

most formidable, seemed a desperate undertaking; for as the enterprise

advanced, this narrow open space became the scene of daily amphibious

encounters between the soldiers and sailors of Parma and the forces of

the States. Unfortunately for the patriots, it was only skirmishing. Had

a strong, concerted attack, in large force, from Holland and Zeeland

below and from the city above, been agreed upon, there was hardly a

period, until very late in the winter, when it might not have had the

best chances of success. With a vigorous commander against him, Parma,

weak in men, and at his wits' end for money, might, in a few hours, have

seen the labour of several months hopelessly annihilated. On the other

hand, the Prince was ably seconded by his lieutenant, Marquis Richebourg,

to whom had been delegated the immediate superintendence of the

bridge-building in its minutest details. He was never idle. Audacious,

indefatigable, ubiquitous, he at least atoned by energy and brilliant

courage for his famous treason of the preceding year, while his striking

and now rapidly approaching doom upon the very scene of his present

labours, made him appear to have been building a magnificent though

fleeting monument to his own memory.

Sainte Aldegonde, shut up in Antwerp, and hampered by dissension within

and obstinate jealousy without the walls, did all in his power to

frustrate the enemy's enterprise and animate the patriots. Through the

whole of the autumn and early winter, he had urged the States of Holland

and Zeeland to make use of the long winter nights, when moonless and

stormy, to attempt the destruction of Parma's undertaking, but the fatal

influences already indicated were more efficient against Antwerp than

even the genius of Farnese; and nothing came of the burgomaster's

entreaties save desultory skirmishing and unsuccessful enterprises. An

especial misfortune happened in one of these midnight undertakings.

Teligny ventured forth in a row-barge, with scarcely any companions, to

notify the Zeelanders of a contemplated movement, in which their

co-operation was desired. It was proposed that the Antwerp troops should

make a fictitious demonstration upon Fort Ordam, while at the same moment

the States' troops from Fort Lillo should make an assault upon the forts

on Kowenstyn Dyke; and in this important enterprise the Zeeland vessels

were requested to assist. But the brave Teligny nearly forfeited his life

by his rashness, and his services were, for a long time, lost to the

cause of liberty. It had been better to send a less valuable officer upon

such hazardous yet subordinate service. The drip of his oars was heard in

the darkness. He was pursued by a number of armed barges, attacked,

wounded severely in the shoulder, and captured. He threw his letters

overboard, but they were fished out of the water, carried to Parma, and

deciphered, so that the projected attack upon the Kowenstyn was

discovered, and, of necessity, deferred. As for Teligny, he was taken, as

a most valuable prize, into the enemy's camp, and was soon afterwards

thrust into prison at Tournay, where he remained six years--one year

longer than the period which his illustrious father had been obliged to

consume in the infamous dungeon at Mons. Few disasters could have been

more keenly felt by the States than the loss of this brilliant and

devoted French chieftain, who, young as he was, had already become very

dear to the republic; and Sainte Aldegonde was severely blamed for

sending so eminent a personage on that dangerous expedition, and for

sending him, too, with an insufficient convoy.

Still Alexander felt uncertain as to the result. He was determined to

secure Antwerp, but he yet thought it possible to secure it by

negotiation. The enigmatical policy maintained by France perplexed him;

for it did not seem possible that so much apparent solemnity and

earnestness were destined to lead to an impotent and infamous conclusion.

He was left, too, for a long time in ignorance of his own master's secret

schemes, he was at liberty to guess, and to guess only, as to the

projects of the league, he was without adequate means to carry out to a

certain triumph his magnificent enterprise, and he was in constant alarm

lest he should be suddenly assailed by an overwhelming French force. Had

a man sat upon the throne of Henry III., at that moment, Parma's

bridge-making and dyke-fortifying skilful as they were--would have been

all in vain. Meantime, in uncertainty as to the great issue, but resolved

to hold firmly to his purpose, he made repeated conciliatory offers to

the States with one hand, while he steadily prosecuted his aggressive

schemes with the other.

Parma had become really gentle, almost affectionate, towards the

Netherlanders. He had not the disposition of an Alva to smite and to

blast, to exterminate the rebels and heretics with fire and sword, with

the axe, the rack, and the gallows. Provided they would renounce the

great object of the contest, he seemed really desirous that they should

escape further chastisement; but to admit the worship of God according to

the reformed creed, was with him an inconceivable idea. To do so was both

unrighteous and impolitic. He had been brought up to believe that mankind

could be saved from eternal perdition only by believing in the

infallibility of the Bishop of Rome; that the only keys to eternal

paradise were in the hands of St. Peter's representative. Moreover, he

instinctively felt that within this religious liberty which the

Netherlanders claimed was hidden the germ of civil liberty; and though no

bigger than a grain of mustard-seed, it was necessary to destroy it at

once; for of course the idea of civil liberty could not enter the brain

of the brilliant general of Philip II.

On the 13th of November he addressed a letter to the magistracy and

broad-council of Antwerp. He asserted that the instigators of the

rebellion were not seeking to further the common weal, but their own

private ends. Especially had this been the ruling motive with the prince

of Orange and the Duke of Anjou, both of whom God had removed from the

world, in order to manifest to the States their own weakness, and the

omnipotence of Philip, whose prosperity the Lord was constantly

increasing. It was now more than time for the authorities of the country

to have regard for themselves, and for the miseries of the poor people.

The affection Which he had always felt for the Provinces from which he

had himself sprung and the favours which he had received from them in his

youth, had often moved him to propose measures, which, before God and his

conscience, he believed adequate to the restoration of peace. But his

letters had been concealed or falsely interpreted by the late Prince of

Orange, who had sought nothing but to spread desolation over the land,

and to shed the blood of the innocent. He now wrote once more, and for

the last time, in all fervour and earnestness, to implore them to take

compassion on their own wives and children and forlorn fatherland, to

turn their eyes backward on the peace and prosperity which they had

formerly enjoyed when obedient to his Majesty, and to cast a glance

around them upon the miseries which were so universal since the

rebellion. He exhorted them to close their ears to the insidious tongues

of those who were leading them into delusion as to the benevolence and

paternal sweetness of their natural lord and master, which were even now

so boundless that he did not hesitate once more to offer them his entire

forgiveness. If they chose to negotiate, they would find everything

granted that with right and reason could be proposed. The Prince

concluded by declaring that he made these advances not from any doubt as

to the successful issue of the military operations in which he was

engaged, but simply out of paternal anxiety for the happiness of the

Provinces. Did they remain obstinate, their ultimate conditions would be

rendered still more severe, and themselves, not he, would be responsible

for the misery and the bloodshed to ensue.

Ten days afterwards, the magistrates, thus addressed--after communication

with the broad-council--answered Parma's. 23rd Nov., letter manfully,

copiously, and with the customary but superfluous historical sketch. They

begged leave to entertain a doubt as to the paternal sweetness of a king

who had dealt so long in racks and gibbets. With Parma's own mother, as

they told the Prince, the Netherlanders had once made a treaty, by which

the right to worship God according to their consciences had been secured;

yet for maintaining that treaty they had been devoted to indiscriminate

destruction, and their land made desolate with fire and sword. Men had

been massacred by thousands, who had never been heard in their own

defence, and who had never been accused of any crime, "save that they had

assembled together in the name of God, to pray to Him through their only

mediator and advocate Jesus Christ, according to His command."

The axis of the revolt was the religious question; and it was impossible

to hope anything from a monarch who was himself a slave of the

Inquisition, and who had less independence of action than that enjoyed by

Jews and Turks, according to the express permission of the Pope.

Therefore they informed Parma that they had done with Philip for ever,

and that in consequence of the extraordinary wisdom, justice, and

moderation, of the French King, they had offered him the sovereignty of

their land, and had implored his protection.

They paid a tribute to the character of Farnese, who after gaining

infinite glory in arms, had manifested so much gentleness and disposition

to conciliate. They doubted not that he would, if he possessed the power,

have guided the royal councils to better and more generous results, and

protested that they would not have delayed to throw themselves into his

arms, had they been assured that he was authorized to admit that which

alone could form the basis of a successful negotiation--religious

freedom. They would in such case have been willing to close with him,

without talking about other conditions than such as his Highness in his

discretion and sweetness might think reasonable.

Moreover, as they observed in conclusion, they were precluded, by their

present relations with France, from entering into any other negotiation;

nor could they listen to any such proposals without deserving to be

stigmatized as the most lewd, blasphemous, and thankless mortals, that

ever cumbered the earth.

Being under equal obligations both to the Union and to France, they

announced that Parma's overtures would be laid before the French

government and the assembly of the States-General.

A day was to come, perhaps, when it would hardly seem lewdness and

blasphemy for the Netherlanders to doubt the extraordinary justice and

wisdom of the French King. Meantime, it cannot be denied that they were

at least loyal to their own engagements, and long-suffering where they

had trusted and given their hearts.

Parma replied by another letter, dated December 3rd. He assured the

citizens that Henry III. was far too discreet, and much too good a friend

to Philip II., to countenance this rebellion. If he were to take up their

quarrel, however, the King of Spain had a thousand means of foiling all

his attempts. As to the religious question--which they affirmed to be the

sole cause of the war--he was not inclined to waste words upon that

subject; nevertheless, so far as he in his simplicity could understand

the true nature of a Christian, he could not believe that it comported

with the doctrines of Jesus, whom they called their only mediator, nor

with the dictates of conscience, to take up arms against their lawful

king, nor to burn, rob, plunder, pierce dykes, overwhelm their

fatherland, and reduce all things to misery and chaos, in the name of

religion.

Thus moralizing and dogmatizing, the Prince concluded his letter, and so

the correspondence terminated. This last despatch was communicated at

once both to the States-General and to the French government, and

remained unanswered. Soon afterwards the Netherlands and England, France

and Spain, were engaged in that vast game of delusion which has been

described in the preceding chapters. Meantime both Antwerp and Parma

remained among the deluded, and were left to fight out their battle on

their own resources.

Having found it impossible to subdue Antwerp by his rhetoric, Alexander

proceeded with his bridge. It is impossible not to admire the steadiness

and ingenuity with which the Prince persisted in his plans, the courage

with which he bore up against the parsimony and neglect of his sovereign,

the compassionate tenderness which he manifested for his patient little

army. So much intellectual energy commands enthusiasm, while the

supineness on the other side sometimes excites indignation. There is even

a danger of being entrapped into sympathy with tyranny, when the cause of

tyranny is maintained by genius; and of being surprised into indifference

for human liberty, when the sacred interests of liberty are endangered by

self-interest, perverseness, and folly.

Even Sainte Aldegonde did not believe that the bridge could be completed.

His fears were that the city would be ruined rather by the cessation of

its commerce than by want of daily food. Already, after the capture of

Liefkenshoek and the death of Orange, the panic among commercial people

had been so intense that seventy or eighty merchants, representing the

most wealthy mercantile firms in Antwerp, made their escape from the

place, as if it had been smitten with pestilence, or were already in the

hands of Parma. All such refugees were ordered to return on peril of

forfeiting their property. Few came back, however, for they had found

means of converting and transferring their funds to other more secure

places, despite the threatened confiscation. It was insinuated that

Holland and Zeeland were indifferent to the fate of Antwerp, because in

the sequel the commercial cities of those Provinces succeeded to the vast

traffic and the boundless wealth which had been forfeited by the

Brabantine capital. The charge was an unjust one. At the very

commencement of the siege the States of Holland voted two hundred

thousand florins for its relief; and, moreover, these wealthy refugees

were positively denied admittance into the territory of the United

States, and were thus forced to settle in Germany or England. This

cessation of traffic was that which principally excited the anxiety of

Aldegonde. He could not bring himself to believe in the possibility of a

blockade, by an army of eight or ten thousand men, of a great and wealthy

city, where at least twenty thousand citizens were capable of bearing

arms. Had he thoroughly understood the deprivations under which Alexander

was labouring, perhaps he would have been even more confident as to the

result.

"With regard to the affair of the river Scheldt," wrote Parma to Philip,

"I should like to send your Majesty a drawing of the whole scheme; for

the work is too vast to be explained by letters. The more I examine it,

the more astonished I am that it should have been conducted to this

point; so many forts, dykes, canals, new inventions, machinery, and

engines, have been necessarily required."

He then proceeded to enlighten the King--as he never failed to do in all

his letters--as to his own impoverished, almost helpless condition.

Money, money, men! This was his constant cry. All would be in vain, he

said, if he were thus neglected. "'Tis necessary," said he, "for your

Majesty fully to comprehend, that henceforth the enterprise is your own.

I have done my work faithfully thus far; it is now for your Majesty to

take it thoroughly to heart; and embrace it with the warmth with which an

affair involving so much of your own interests deserves to be embraced."

He avowed that without full confidence in his sovereign's sympathy he

would never have conceived the project. "I confess that the enterprise is

great," he said, "and that by many it will be considered rash. Certainly

I should not have undertaken it, had I not felt certain of your Majesty's

full support."

But he was already in danger of being forced to abandon the whole

scheme--although so nearly carried into effect--for want of funds. "The

million promised," he wrote, "has arrived in bits and morsels, and with

so many ceremonies, that I haven't ten crowns at my disposal. How I am to

maintain even this handful of soldiers--for the army is diminished to

such a mere handful that it would astonish your Majesty--I am unable to

imagine. It would move you to witness their condition. They have suffered

as much as is humanly possible."

Many of the troops, indeed, were deserting, and making their escape,

beggared and desperate, into France, where, with natural injustice, they

denounced their General, whose whole heart was occupied with their

miseries, for the delinquency of his master, whose mind was full of other

schemes.

"There past this way many Spanish soldiers," wrote Stafford from Paris,

"so poor and naked as I ever saw any. There have been within this

fortnight two hundred at a time in this town, who report the extremity of

want of victuals in their camp, and that they have been twenty-four

months without pay. They exclaim greatly upon the Prince of Parma.

Mendoza seeks to convey them away, and to get money for them by all means

he can."

Stafford urged upon his government the propriety of being at least as

negligent as Philip had showed himself to be of the Spaniards. By

prohibiting supplies to the besieging army, England might contribute,

negatively, if not otherwise, to the relief of Antwerp. "There is no

place," he wrote to Walsingham, "whence the Spaniards are so thoroughly

victualled as from us. English boats go by sixteen and seventeen into

Dunkirk, well laden with provisions."

This was certainly not in accordance with the interests nor the

benevolent professions of the English ministers.

These supplies were not to be regularly depended upon however. They were

likewise not to be had without paying a heavy price for them, and the

Prince had no money in his coffer. He lived from hand to mouth, and was

obliged to borrow from every private individual who had anything to lend.

Merchants, nobles, official personages, were all obliged to assist in

eking out the scanty pittance allowed by the sovereign.

"The million is all gone," wrote Parma to his master; "some to Verdugo in

Friesland; some to repay the advances of Marquis Richebourg and other

gentlemen. There is not a farthing for the garrisons. I can't go on a

month longer, and, if not supplied, I shall be obliged to abandon the

work. I have not money enough to pay my sailors, joiners, carpenters, and

other mechanics, from week to week, and they will all leave me in the

lurch, if I leave them unpaid. I have no resource but to rely on your

Majesty. Otherwise the enterprise must wholly fail."

In case it did fail, the Prince wiped his hands of the responsibility. He

certainly had the right to do so.

One of the main sources of supply was the city of Hertogenbosch, or

Bois-le-Duc. It was one of the four chief cities of Brabant, and still

held for the King, although many towns in its immediate neighbourhood had

espoused the cause of the republic. The States had long been anxious to

effect a diversion for the relief of Antwerp, by making an attack on

Bois-le-Duc. Could they carry the place, Parma would be almost inevitably

compelled to abandon the siege in which he was at present engaged, and he

could moreover spare no troops for its defence. Bois-le-Duc was a

populous, wealthy, thriving town, situate on the Deeze, two leagues above

its confluence with the Meuse, and about twelve leagues from Antwerp. It

derived its name of `Duke's Wood' from a magnificent park and forest,

once the favourite resort and residence of the old Dukes of Brabant, of

which some beautiful vestiges still remained. It was a handsome

well-built city, with two thousand houses of the better class, besides

more humble tenements. Its citizens were celebrated for their courage and

belligerent skill, both on foot and on horseback. They were said to

retain more of the antique Belgic ferocity which Caesar had celebrated

than that which had descended to most of their kinsmen. The place was,

moreover, the seat of many prosperous manufactures. Its clothiers sent

the products of their looms over all Christendom, and its linen and

cutlery were equally renowned.

It would be a most fortunate blow in the cause of freedom to secure so,

thriving and conspicuous a town, situated thus in the heart of what

seemed the natural territory of the United States; and, by so doing, to

render nugatory the mighty preparations of Parma against Antwerp.

Moreover, it was known that there was no Spanish or other garrison within

its walls, so that there was no opposition to be feared, except from the

warlike nature of the citizens.

Count Hohenlo was entrusted, early in January, with this important

enterprise. He accordingly collected a force of four thousand infantry,

together with two hundred mounted lancers; having previously

reconnoitered the ground. He relied very much, for the success of the

undertaking, on Captain Kleerhagen, a Brussels nobleman, whose wife was a

native of Bois-le-Duc, and who was thoroughly familiar with the locality.

One dark winter's night, Kleerhagen, with fifty picked soldiers, advanced

to the Antwerp gate of Bois-le-Duc, while Hohenlo, with his whole force,

lay in ambuscade as near as possible to the city.

Between the drawbridge and the portcullis were two small guard-houses,

which, very carelessly, had been left empty. Kleerhagen, with his fifty

followers, successfully climbed into these lurking-places, where they

quietly ensconced themselves for the night. At eight o'clock of the

following morning (20th January) the guards of the gate drew up the

portcullis, and reconnoitered. At the same instant, the ambushed fifty

sprang from their concealment, put them to the sword, and made themselves

masters of the gate. None of the night-watch escaped with life, save one

poor old invalided citizen, whose business had been to draw up the

portcullis, and who was severely wounded, and left for dead. The fifty

immediately summoned all of Rohenlo's ambuscade that were within hearing,

and then, without waiting for them, entered the town pell-mell in the

best of spirits, and shouting victory! victory! till they were hoarse. A

single corporal, with two men, was left to guard the entrance. Meantime,

the old wounded gate-opener, bleeding and crippled, crept into a dark

corner, and laid himself down, unnoticed, to die.

Soon afterwards Hohenlo galloped into the town, clad in complete armour,

his long curls floating in the wind, with about two hundred troopers

clattering behind him, closely followed by five hundred pike-men on foot.

Very brutally, foolishly, and characteristically, he had promised his

followers the sacking of the city so soon as it should be taken. They

accordingly set about the sacking, before it was taken. Hardly had the

five or six hundred effected their entrance, than throwing off all

control, they dispersed through the principal streets, and began bursting

open the doors of the most opulent households. The cries of "victory!"

"gained city!" "down with the Spaniards!" resounded on all sides. Many of

the citizens, panic-struck, fled from their homes, which they thus

abandoned to pillage, while, meantime, the loud shouts of the assailants

reached the ears of the sergeant and his two companies who had been left

in charge of the gate. Fearing that they should be cheated of their

rightful share in the plunder, they at once abandoned their post, and set

forth after their comrades, as fast as their legs could carry them.

Now it so chanced--although there was no garrison in the town--that forty

Burgundian and Italian lancers, with about thirty foot-soldiers, had come

in the day before to escort a train of merchandise. The Seigneur de

Haultepenne, governor of Breda, a famous royalist commander--son of old

Count Berlaymont, who first gave the name of "beggars" to the

patriots-had accompanied them in the expedition. The little troop were

already about to mount their horses to depart, when they became aware of

the sudden tumult. Elmont, governor of the city, had also flown to the

rescue, and had endeavoured to rally the burghers. Not unmindful of their

ancient warlike fame, they had obeyed his entreaties. Elmont, with a

strong party of armed citizens, joined himself to Haultepenne's little

band of lancers. They fired a few shots at straggling parties of

plunderers, and pursued others up some narrow streets. They were but an

handful in comparison with the number of the patriots, who had gained

entrance to the city. They were, however, compact, united, and resolute.

The assailants were scattered, disorderly, and bent only upon plunder.

When attacked by an armed and regular band, they were amazed. They had

been told that there was no garrison; and behold a choice phalanx of

Spanish lancers, led on by one of the most famous of Philip's Netherland

chieftains. They thought themselves betrayed by Kleerhagen, entrapped

into a deliberately arranged ambush. There was a panic. The soldiers,

dispersed and doubtful, could not be rallied. Hohenlo, seeing that

nothing was to be done with his five hundred, galloped furiously out of

the gate, to bring in the rest of his troops who had remained outside the

walls. The prize of the wealthy city of Bois-le-Duc was too tempting to

be lightly abandoned; but he had much better have thought of making

himself master of it himself before he should present it as a prey to his

followers.

During his absence the panic spread. The States' troops, bewildered,

astonished, vigorously assaulted, turned their backs upon their enemies,

and fled helter-skelter towards the gates, through which they had first

gained admittance. But unfortunately for them, so soon as the corporal

had left his position, the wounded old gate-opener, in a dying condition,

had crawled forth on his hands and knees from a dark hole in the tower,

cut, with a pocket-knife, the ropes of the portcullis, and then given up

the ghost. Most effective was that blow struck by a dead man's hand. Down

came the portcullis. The flying plunderers were entrapped. Close behind

them came the excited burghers--their antique Belgic ferocity now fully

aroused--firing away with carbine and matchlock, dealing about them with

bludgeon and cutlass, and led merrily on by Haultepenne and Elmont armed

in proof, at the head of their squadron of lancers. The unfortunate

patriots had risen very early in the morning only to shear the wolf. Some

were cut to pieces in the streets; others climbed the walls, and threw

themselves head foremost into the moat. Many were drowned, and but a very

few effected their escape. Justinus de Nassau sprang over the parapet,

and succeeded in swimming the ditch. Kleerhagen, driven into the Holy

Cross tower, ascended to its roof, leaped, all accoutred as he was, into

the river, and with the assistance of a Scotch soldier, came safe to

land. Ferdinand Truchsess, brother of the ex-elector of Cologne, was

killed. Four or five hundred of the assailants--nearly all who had

entered the city--were slain, and about fifty of the burghers.

Hohenlo soon came back, with Colonel Ysselstein, and two thousand fresh

troops. But their noses, says a contemporary, grew a hundred feet long

with surprise when they saw the gate shut in their faces. It might have

occurred to the Count, when he rushed out of the town for reinforcements,

that it would be as well to replace the guard, which--as he must have

seen--had abandoned their post.

Cursing his folly, he returned, mavellously discomfited, and deservedly

censured, to Gertruydenberg. And thus had a most important enterprise;

which had nearly been splendidly successful, ended in disaster and

disgrace. To the recklessness of the general, to the cupidity which he

had himself awakened in his followers, was the failure alone to be

attributed. Had he taken possession of the city with a firm grasp at the

head of his four thousand men, nothing could have resisted him;

Haultepenne, and his insignificant force, would have been dead, or his

prisoners; the basis of Parma's magnificent operations would have been

withdrawn; Antwerp would have been saved.

"Infinite gratitude," wrote Parma to Philip, "should be rendered to the

Lord. Great thanks are also due to Haultepenne. Had the rebels succeeded

in their enterprise against Bolduc, I should have been compelled to

abandon the siege of Antwerp. The town; by its strength and situation, is

of infinite importance for the reduction both of that place and of

Brussels, and the rebels in possession of Bolduc would have cut off my

supplies."

The Prince recommended Haultepenne most warmly to the King as deserving

of a rich "merced." The true hero of the day, however--at least the chief

agent in the victory was the poor, crushed, nameless victim who had cut

the ropes of the portcullis at the Antwerp gate.

Hohenlo was deeply stung by the disgrace which he had incurred. For a

time he sought oblivion in hard drinking; but--brave and energetic,

though reckless--he soon became desirous of retrieving his reputation by

more successful enterprises. There was no lack of work, and assuredly his

hands were rarely idle.

"Hollach (Hohenlo) is gone from hence on Friday last," wrote Davison to

Walsingham, "he will do what he may to recover his reputation lost in the

attempt, of Bois-le-Duc; which, for the grief and trouble he hath

conceived thereof, hath for the time greatly altered him."

Meantime the turbulent Scheldt, lashed by the storms of winter, was

becoming a more formidable enemy to Parma's great enterprise than the

military demonstrations of his enemies, or the famine which was making

such havoc, with his little army. The ocean-tides were rolling huge

ice-blocks up and down, which beat against his palisade with the noise of

thunder, and seemed to threaten its immediate destruction. But the work

stood firm. The piles supporting the piers, which had been thrust out

from each bank into the stream, had been driven fifty feet into the

river's bed, and did their duty well. But in the space between, twelve

hundred and forty feet in width, the current was too deep for

pile-driving and a permanent bridge was to be established upon boats. And

that bridge was to be laid across the icy and tempestuous flood, in the

depth of winter, in the teeth of a watchful enemy, with the probability

of an immediate invasion from France, where the rebel envoys were known

to be negotiating on express invitation of the King--by half-naked,

half-starving soldiers and sailors, unpaid for years, and for the sake of

a master who seemed to have forgotten their existence.

"Thank God," wrote Alexander, "the palisade stands firm in spite of the

ice. Now with the favour of the Lord, we shall soon get the fruit we have

been hoping, if your Majesty is not wanting in that to which your

grandeur, your great Christianity, your own interests, oblige you. In

truth 'tis a great and heroic work, worthy the great power of your

Majesty." "For my own part," he continued, "I have done what depended

upon me. From your own royal hand must emanate the rest;--men, namely,

sufficient to maintain the posts, and money enough to support them

there."

He expressed himself in the strongest language concerning the danger to

the royal cause from the weak and gradually sinking condition of the

army. Even without the French intrigues with the rebels, concerning

which, in his ignorance of the exact state of affairs, he expressed much

anxiety, it would be impossible, he said, to save the royal cause without

men and money.

"I have spared myself," said the Prince, "neither day nor night. Let not

your Majesty impute the blame to me if we fail. Verdugo also is uttering

a perpetual cry out of Friesland for men--men and money."

Yet, notwithstanding all these obstacles, the bridge was finished at

last. On the 25th February, (1585) the day sacred to Saint Matthew, and

of fortunate augury to the Emperor Charles, father of Philip and

grandfather of Alexander, the Scheldt was closed.

As already stated, from Fort Saint Mary on the Kalloo side, and from Fort

Philip, not far from Ordain on the Brabant shore of the Scheldt, strong

structures, supported upon piers, had been projected, reaching,

respectively, five hundred feet into the stream. These two opposite ends

were now connected by a permanent bridge of boats. There were thirty-two

of these barges, each of them sixty-two feet in length and twelve in

breadth, the spaces between each couple being twenty-two feet wide, and

all being bound together, stem, stern, and midships, by quadruple hawsers

and chains. Each boat was anchored at stem and stern with loose cables.

Strong timbers, with cross rafters, were placed upon the boats, upon

which heavy frame-work the planked pathway was laid down. A thick parapet

of closely-fitting beams was erected along both the outer edges of the

whole fabric. Thus a continuous and well-fortified bridge, two thousand

four hundred feet in length, was stretched at last from shore to shore.

Each of the thirty-two boats on which the central portion of the

structure reposed, was a small fortress provided with two heavy pieces of

artillery, pointing, the one up, the other down the stream, and manned by

thirty-two soldiers and four sailors, defended by a breastwork formed of

gabions of great thickness.

The forts of Saint Philip and St. Mary, at either end of the bridge, had

each ten great guns, and both were filled with soldiers. In front of each

fort, moreover, was stationed a fleet of twenty armed vessels, carrying

heavy pieces of artillery; ten anchored at the angle towards Antwerp, and

as many looking down the river. One hundred and seventy great guns,

including the armaments of the boats under the bridge of the armada and

the forts, protected the whole structure, pointing up and down the

stream.

But, besides these batteries, an additional precaution had been taken. On

each side, above and below the bridge, at a moderate distance--a bow

shot--was anchored a heavy, raft floating upon empty barrels. Each raft

was composed of heavy timbers, bound together in bunches of three, the

spaces between being connected by ships' masts and lighter spar-work, and

with a tooth-like projection along the whole outer edge, formed of strong

rafters, pointed and armed with sharp prongs and hooks of iron. Thus a

serried phalanx, as it were, of spears stood ever on guard to protect the

precious inner structure. Vessels coming from Zeeland or Antwerp, and the

floating ice-masses, which were almost as formidable, were obliged to

make their first attack upon these dangerous outer defences. Each raft;

floating in the middle of the stream, extended twelve hundred, and

fifty-two feet across, thus protecting the whole of the bridge of boats

and a portion of that resting upon piles.

Such was the famous bridge of Parma. The magnificent undertaking has been

advantageously compared with the celebrated Rhine-bridge of Julius

Caesar. When it is remembered; however; that the Roman work was performed

in summer, across a river only half as broad as the Scheldt, free from

the disturbing, action of the tides; and flowing through an unresisting

country; while the whole character of the structure; intended only to,

serve for the single passage of an army, was far inferior to the massive

solidity of Parma's bridge; it seems not unreasonable to assign the

superiority to the general who had surmounted all the obstacles of a

northern winter, vehement ebb and flow from the sea, and enterprising and

desperate enemies at every point.

When the citizens, at last, looked upon the completed fabric, converted

from the "dream," which they had pronounced it to be, into a terrible

reality; when they saw the shining array of Spanish and Italian legions

marching and counter-marching upon their new road; and trampling, as it

were; the turbulent river beneath their feet; when they witnessed the

solemn military spectacle with which the Governor-General celebrated his

success, amid peals of cannon and shouts of triumph from his army, they

bitterly bewailed their own folly. Yet even then they could hardly

believe that the work had been accomplished by human agency, but they

loudly protested that invisible demons had been summoned to plan and

perfect this fatal and preter-human work. They were wrong. There had been

but one demon--one clear, lofty intelligence, inspiring a steady and

untiring hand. The demon was the intellect of Alexander Farnese; but it

had been assisted in its labour by the hundred devils of envy,

covetousness, jealousy, selfishness, distrust, and discord, that had

housed, not, in his camp, but in the ranks of those who were contending

for their hearths and altars.

And thus had the Prince arrived at success in spite of every obstacle. He

took a just pride in the achievement, yet he knew by how many dangers he

was still surrounded, and he felt hurt at his sovereign's neglect. "The

enterprise at Antwerp," he wrote to Philip on the day the bridge was

completed, "is so great and heroic that to celebrate it would require me

to speak more at large than I like, to do, for fear of being tedious to

your Majesty. What I will say, is that the labours and difficulties have

been every day so, great, that if your Majesty knew them, you would

estimate, what we have done more highly than-you do; and not forget us so

utterly, leaving us to die of hunger."

He considered the fabric in itself almost impregnable, provided he were

furnished with the means to maintain what he had so painfully

constructed.

"The whole is in such condition," said he, "that in opinion of all

competent military judges it would stand though all Holland and Zeeland

should come to destroy our palisades. Their attacks must be made at

immense danger, and disadvantage, so severely can we play upon them with

our artillery and musketry. Every boat is, garnished with the most dainty

captains and soldiers, so that if the enemy should attempt to assail us

now, they would come back with broken heads."

Yet in the midst of his apparent triumph he had, at times, almost despair

in his heart. He felt really at the last gasp. His troops had dwindled to

the mere shadow of an army, and they were forced to live almost upon air.

The cavalry had nearly vanished. The garrisons in the different cities

were starving. The burghers had no food for the soldiers nor for

themselves. "As for the rest of the troops," said Alexander, "they are

stationed where they have nothing to subsist upon, save salt water and

the dykes, and if the Lord does not grant a miracle, succour, even if

sent by your Majesty, will arrive too late." He assured his master, that

he could not go on more than five or six days longer, that he had been

feeding his soldiers for a long time from hand to mouth, and that it

would soon be impossible for him to keep his troops together. If he did

not disband them they would run away.

His pictures were most dismal, his supplications for money very moving

but he never alluded to himself. All his anxiety, all his tenderness,

were for his soldiers. "They must have food," he said: "'Tis impossible

to sustain them any longer by driblets, as I have done for a long time.

Yet how can I do it without money? And I have none at all, nor do I see

where to get a single florin."

But these revelations were made only to his master's most secret ear. His

letters, deciphered after three centuries, alone make manifest the almost

desperate condition in which the apparently triumphant general was

placed, and the facility with which his antagonists, had they been well

guided and faithful to themselves, might have driven him into the sea.

But to those adversaries he maintained an attitude of serene and smiling

triumph. A spy, sent from the city to obtain intelligence for the anxious

burghers, had gained admission into his lines, was captured and brought

before the Prince. He expected, of course, to be immediately hanged. On

the contrary, Alexander gave orders that he should be conducted over

every part of the encampment. The forts, the palisades, the bridge, were

all to be carefully exhibited and explained to him as if he had been a

friendly visitor entitled to every information. He was requested to count

the pieces of artillery in the forts, on the bridge, in the armada. After

thoroughly studying the scene he was then dismissed with a safe-conduct

to the city.

"Go back to those who sent you," said the Prince. "Convey to them the

information in quest of which you came. Apprize them of every thing which

you have inspected, counted, heard explained. Tell them further, that the

siege will never be abandoned, and that this bridge will be my sepulcher

or my pathway into Antwerp."

And now the aspect of the scene was indeed portentous. The chimera had

become a very visible bristling reality. There stood the bridge which the

citizens had ridiculed while it was growing before their faces. There

scowled the Kowenstyn--black with cannon, covered all over with

fortresses which the butchers had so sedulously preserved. From Parma's

camp at Beveren and Kalloo a great fortified road led across the river

and along the fatal dyke all the way to the entrenchments at Stabroek,

where Mansfeld's army lay. Grim Mondragon held the "holy cross" and the

whole Kowenstyn in his own iron grasp. A chain of forts, built and

occupied by the contending hosts of the patriots and the Spaniards, were

closely packed together along both banks of the Scheldt, nine miles long

from Antwerp to Lillo, and interchanged perpetual cannonades. The country

all around, once fertile as a garden, had been changed into a wild and

wintry sea where swarms of gun-boats and other armed vessels manoeuvred

and contended with each other over submerged villages and orchards, and

among half-drowned turrets and steeples. Yet there rose the great

bulwark--whose early destruction would have made all this desolation a

blessing--unbroken and obstinate; a perpetual obstacle to communication

between Antwerp and Zeeland. The very spirit of the murdered Prince of

Orange seemed to rise sadly and reproachfully out of the waste of waters,

as if to rebuke the men who had been so deaf to his solemn warnings.

Brussels, too, wearied and worn, its heart sick with hope deferred, now

fell into despair as the futile result of the French negotiation became

apparent. The stately and opulent city had long been in a most abject

condition. Many of its inhabitants attempted to escape from the horrors

of starving by flying from its walls. Of the fugitives, the men were

either scourged back by the Spaniards into the city, or hanged up along

the road-side. The women were treated, leniently, even playfully, for it

was thought an excellent jest to cut off the petticoats of the

unfortunate starving creatures up to their knees, and then command them

to go back and starve at home with their friends and fellow-citizens. A

great many persons literally died of hunger. Matrons with large families

poisoned their children and themselves to avoid the more terrible death

by starving. At last, when Vilvoorde was taken, when the baseness of the

French King was thoroughly understood, when Parma's bridge was completed

and the Scheldt bridled, Brussels capitulated on as favourable terms as

could well have been expected.

ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

College of "peace-makers," who wrangled more than all

Military virtue in the support of an infamous cause

Not distinguished for their docility

Repentance, as usual, had come many hours too late

HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS

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

By John Lothrop Motley

History United Netherlands, 1585

Alexander Farnese, The Duke of Parma

CHAPTER V., Part 2.

Position of Alexander and his Army--La Motte attempts in vain

Ostend--Patriots gain Liefkenshoek--Projects of Gianibelli--Alarm on

the Bridge--The Fire Ships--The Explosion--Its Results--Death of the

Viscount of Ghent--Perpetual Anxiety of Farnese--Impoverished State

of the Spaniards--Intended Attack of the Kowenstyn--Second Attack of

the Kowenstyn--A Landing effected--A sharp Combat--The Dyke pierced

--Rally of the Spaniards--Parma comes to the Rescue--Fierce Struggle

on the Dyke--The Spaniards successful--Premature Triumph at Antwerp

--Defeat of the Patriots--The Ship War's End--Despair of the Citizens

Notwithstanding these triumphs, Parma was much inconvenienced by not

possessing the sea-coast of Flanders. Ostend was a perpetual

stumbling-block to him. He therefore assented, with pleasure to a

proposition made by La Motte, one of the most experienced and courageous

of the Walloon royalist, commanders, to attempt the place by surprise.

And La Motte; at the first blow; was more than half successful.

On the night of the 29th March, (1585) with two thousand foot and twelve

hundred cavalry, he carried the whole of the old port of Ostend. Leaving

a Walloon officer, in whom he had confidence, to guard the position

already gained, he went back in person for reinforcements. During his

advance, the same ill luck attended his enterprise which had blasted

Hohenlo's achievement at Bois-le-Duc. The soldiers he left behind him

deserted their posts for the sake of rifling the town. The officer in

command, instead of keeping them to their duty, joined in the chase. The

citizens roused themselves, attacked their invaders, killed many of them,

and put the rest to flight. When La Motte returned; he found the panic

general. His whole force, including the fresh soldiers just brought to

the rescue, were beside themselves with fear. He killed several with his

own hand, but the troops were not to be rallied. His quick triumph was

changed into an absolute defeat.

Parma, furious at the ignominious result of a plan from which so much had

been expected, ordered the Walloon captain, from whose delinquency so

much disaster had resulted, to be forthwith hanged. "Such villainy," said

he, "must never go unpunished."

It was impossible for the Prince to send a second expedition to attempt

the reduction of Ostend, for the patriots were at last arousing

themselves to the necessity of exertion. It was very obvious--now that

the bridge had been built, and the Kowenstyn fortified--that one or the

other was to be destroyed, or Antwerp abandoned to its fate.

The patriots had been sleeping, as it were, all the winter, hugging the

delusive dream of French sovereignty and French assistance. No language

can exaggerate the deadly effects from the slow poison of that

negotiation. At any rate, the negotiation was now concluded. The dream

was dispelled. Antwerp must now fall, or a decisive blow must be struck

by the patriots themselves, and a telling blow had been secretly and

maturely meditated. Certain preparatory steps were however necessary.

The fort of Liefkenshoek, "darling's corner," was a most important post.

The patriots had never ceased to regret that precious possession, lost,

as we have seen, in so tragical a manner on the very day of Orange's

death. Fort Lillo, exactly opposite, on the Brabant shore of the Scheldt,

had always been securely held by them; and was their strongest position.

Were both places in their power, the navigation of the river, at least as

far as the bridge, would be comparatively secure.

A sudden dash was made upon Liefkenshoek. A number of armed vessels

sailed up from Zeeland, under command of Justinus de Nassau. They were

assisted from Fort Lillo by a detachment headed by Count Hohenlo. These

two officers were desirous of retrieving the reputation which they had

lost at Bois-le-Duc. They were successful, and the "darling" fort was

carried at a blow. After a brief cannonade, the patriots made a breach,

effected a landing, and sprang over the ramparts. The Walloons and

Spaniards fled in dismay; many of them were killed in the fort, and along

the dykes; others were hurled into the Scheldt. The victors followed up

their success by reducing, with equal impetuosity, the fort of Saint

Anthony, situate in the neighbourhood farther down the river. They thus

gained entire command of all the high ground, which remained in that

quarter above the inundation, and was called the Doel.

The dyke, on which Liefkenshoek stood, led up the river towards Kalloo,

distant less than a league. There were Parma's head-quarters and the

famous bridge. But at Fort Saint Mary; where the Flemish head of that

bridge rested, the dyke was broken. Upon that broken end the commanders

of the expedition against Liefkenshoek were ordered to throw up an

entrenchment, without loss of a moment, so soon as they should have

gained the fortresses which they were ordered first to assault. Sainte

Aldegonde had given urgent written directions to this effect. From a

redoubt situated thus, in the very face of Saint Mary's, that position,

the palisade-work, the whole bridge, might be battered with all the

artillery that could be brought from Zeeland.

But Parma was beforehand with them. Notwithstanding his rage and

mortification that Spanish soldiers should have ignominiously lost the

important fortress which Richebourg had conquered so brilliantly nine

months before, he was not the man to spend time in unavailing regrets.

His quick eye instantly, detected the flaw which might soon be fatal. In

the very same night of the loss of Liefkenshoek, he sent as strong a

party as could be spared, with plenty of sappers and miners, in

flat-bottomed boats across from Kalloo. As the morning dawned, an

improvised fortress, with the Spanish flag waving above its bulwarks,

stood on the broken end of the dyke. That done, he ordered one of the two

captains who had commanded in Liefkenshoek and Saint Anthony to be

beheaded on the same dyke. The other was dismissed with ignominy. Ostend

was, of course, given up; "but it was not a small matter," said Parma,

"to fortify ourselves that very night upon the ruptured place, and so

prevent the rebels from doing it, which would have been very

mal-a-propos."

Nevertheless, the rebels had achieved a considerable success; and now or

never the telling blow, long meditated, was to be struck.

There lived in Antwerp a subtle Mantuan, Gianibelli by name, who had

married and been long settled in the city. He had made himself busy with

various schemes for victualling the place. He had especially urged upon

the authorities, at an early period of the siege, the propriety of making

large purchases of corn and storing it in magazines at a time when

famine-price had by no means been reached. But the leading men had then

their heads full of a great ship, or floating castle, which they were

building, and which they had pompously named the 'War's End,' 'Fin de la

Guerre.' We shall hear something of this phenomenon at a later period.

Meanwhile, Gianibelli, who knew something of shipbuilding, as he did of

most other useful matters, ridiculed the design, which was likely to

cost, in itself before completion, as much money as would keep the city

in bread for a third of a year.

Gianibelli was no patriot. He was purely a man of science and of great

acquirements, who was looked upon by the ignorant populace alternately as

a dreamer and a wizard. He was as indifferent to the cause of freedom as

of despotism, but he had a great love for chemistry. He was also a

profound mechanician, second to no man of his age in theoretic and

practical engineering.

He had gone from Italy to Spain that he might offer his services to

Philip, and give him the benefit of many original and ingenious

inventions. Forced to dance attendance, day after day, among sneering

courtiers and insolent placemen, and to submit to the criticism of

practical sages and philosophers of routine, while, he was constantly

denied an opportunity of explaining his projects, the quick-tempered

Italian had gone away at last, indignant. He had then vowed revenge upon

the dulness by which his genius had been slighted, and had sworn that the

next time the Spaniards heard the name of the man whom they had dared to

deride, they should hear it with tears.

He now laid before the senate of Antwerp a plan for some vessels likely

to prove more effective than the gigantic 'War's End,' which he had

prophesied would prove a failure. With these he pledged himself to

destroy the bridge. He demanded three ships which he had selected from

the city fleet; the 'Orange,' the 'Post,' and the 'Golden Lion,'

measuring, respectively, one hundred and fifty, three hundred and fifty,

and five hundred tons. Besides these, he wished sixty flat-bottomed

scows, which he proposed to send down the river, partially submerged,

disposed in the shape of a half moon, with innumerable anchors and

grapnel's thrusting themselves out of the water at every point. This

machine was intended to operate against the raft.

Ignorance and incredulity did their work, as usual, and Gianbelli's

request was refused. As a quarter-measure, nevertheless, he was allowed

to take two smaller vessels of seventy and eighty tons. The Italian was

disgusted with parsimony upon so momentous an occasion, but he at the

same time determined, even with these slender materials, to give an

exhibition of his power.

Not all his the glory, however, of the ingenious project. Associated with

him were two skilful artizans of Antwerp; a clockmaker named Bory, and a

mechanician named Timmerman--but Gianibelli was the chief and

superintendent of the whole daring enterprise.

He gave to his two ships the cheerful names of the 'Fortune' and the

'Hope,' and set himself energetically to justify their titles by their

efficiency. They were to be marine volcanos, which, drifting down the

river with tide, were to deal destruction where the Spaniards themselves

most secure.

In the hold of each vessel, along the whole length, was laid down a solid

flooring of brick and mortar, one foot thick and five feet wide. Upon

this was built a chamber of marble mason-work, forty feet long, three and

a half feet broad, as many high, and with side-walks [walls? D.W.] five

feet in thickness.

This was the crater. It was filled with seven thousand of gunpowder, of a

kind superior to anything known, and prepared by Gianibelli himself. It

was covered with a roof, six feet in thickness, formed of blue

tombstones, placed edgewise. Over this crater, rose a hollow cone, or

pyramid, made of heavy marble slabs, and filled with mill-stones, cannon

balls, blocks of marble, chain-shot, iron hooks, plough-coulters, and

every dangerous missile that could be imagined. The spaces between the

mine and the sides of each ship were likewise filled with paving stones,

iron-bound stakes, harpoons, and other projectiles. The whole fabric was

then covered by a smooth light flooring of planks and brick-work, upon

which was a pile of wood: This was to be lighted at the proper time, in

order that the two vessels might present the appearance of simple

fire-ships, intended only to excite a conflagration of the bridge. On the

'Fortune' a slow match, very carefully prepared, communicated with the

submerged mine, which was to explode at a nicely-calculated moment. The

eruption of the other floating volcano was to be regulated by an

ingenious piece of clock-work, by which, at the appointed time, fire,

struck from a flint, was to inflame the hidden mass of gunpowder below.

In addition to these two infernal machines, or "hell-burners," as they

were called, a fleet of thirty-two smaller vessels was prepared. Covered

with tar, turpentine, rosin, and filled with inflammable and combustible

materials, these barks were to be sent from Antwerp down the river in

detachments of eight every half hour with the ebb tide. The object was to

clear the way, if possible, of the raft, and to occupy the attention of

the Spaniards, until the 'Fortune' and the `Hope' should come down upon

the bridge.

The 5th April, (1885) being the day following that on which the

successful assault upon Liefkenshoek and Saint Anthony had taken place,

was fixed for the descent of the fire-ships. So soon as it should be

dark, the thirty-two lesser burning-vessels, under the direction of

Admiral Jacob Jacobzoon, were to be sent forth from the neighborhood of

the 'Boor's Sconce'--a fort close to the city walls--in accordance with

the Italian's plan. "Run-a-way Jacob," however, or "Koppen Loppen," had

earned no new laurels which could throw into the shade that opprobrious

appellation. He was not one of Holland's naval heroes, but, on the whole,

a very incompetent officer; exactly the man to damage the best concerted

scheme which the genius of others could invent. Accordingly,

Koppen-Loppen began with a grave mistake. Instead of allowing the

precursory fire-ships to drift down the stream, at the regular intervals

agreed upon, he despatched them all rapidly, and helter skelter, one

after another, as fast as they could be set forth on their career. Not

long afterwards, he sent the two "hellburners," the 'Fortune' and the

'Hope,' directly in their wake. Thus the whole fiery fleet had set forth,

almost at once, upon its fatal voyage.

It was known to Parma that preparations for an attack were making at

Antwerp, but as to the nature of the danger he was necessarily in the

dark. He was anticipating an invasion by a fleet from the city in

combination with a squadron of Zeelanders coming up from below. So soon

as the first vessels, therefore, with their trains not yet lighted, were

discovered bearing down from the city, he was confirmed in his

conjecture. His drama and trumpets instantly called to arms, and the

whole body of his troops was mustered upon the bridge; the palisades, and

in the nearest forts. Thus the preparations to avoid or to contend with

the danger, were leading the Spaniards into the very jaws of destruction.

Alexander, after crossing and recrossing the river, giving minute

directions for repelling the expected assault, finally stationed himself

in the block-house at the point of junction, on the Flemish aide, between

the palisade and the bridge of boats. He was surrounded by a group of

superior officers, among whom Richebourg, Billy, Gaetano, Cessis, and the

Englishman Sir Rowland Yorke, were conspicuous.

It was a dark, mild evening of early spring. As the fleet of vessels

dropped slowly down the river, they suddenly became luminous, each ship

flaming out of the darkness, a phantom of living fire. The very waves of

the Scheldt seemed glowing with the conflagration, while its banks were

lighted up with a preternatural glare. It was a wild, pompous, theatrical

spectacle. The array of soldiers on both aides the river, along the dykes

and upon the bridge, with banners waving, and spear and cuirass glancing

in the lurid light; the demon fleet, guided by no human hand, wrapped in

flames, and flitting through the darkness, with irregular movement; but

portentous aspect, at the caprice of wind and tide; the death-like

silence of expectation, which had succeeded the sound of trumpet and the

shouts of the soldiers; and the weird glow which had supplanted the

darkness-all combined with the sense of imminent and mysterious danger to

excite and oppress the imagination.

Presently, the Spaniards, as they gazed from the bridge, began to take

heart again. One after another, many of the lesser vessels drifted

blindly against the raft, where they entangled themselves among the hooks

and gigantic spearheads, and burned slowly out without causing any

extensive conflagration. Others grounded on the banks of the river,

before reaching their destination. Some sank in the stream.

Last of all came the two infernal ships, swaying unsteadily with the

current; the pilots of course, as they neared the bridge, having

noiselessly effected their escape in the skiffs. The slight fire upon the

deck scarcely illuminated the dark phantom-like hulls. Both were carried

by the current clear of the raft, which, by a great error of judgment, as

it now appeared, on the part of the builders, had only been made to

protect the floating portion of the bridge. The 'Fortune' came first,

staggering inside the raft, and then lurching clumsily against the dyke,

and grounding near Kalloo, without touching the bridge. There was a

moment's pause of expectation. At last the slow match upon the deck

burned out, and there was a faint and partial explosion, by which little

or no damage was produced.

Parma instantly called for volunteers to board the mysterious vessel. The

desperate expedition was headed by the bold Roland York, a Londoner, of

whom one day there was more to be heard in Netherland history. The party

sprang into the deserted and now harmless volcano, extinguishing the

slight fires that were smouldering on the deck, and thrusting spears and

long poles into the hidden recesses of the hold. There was, however,

little time to pursue these perilous investigations, and the party soon

made their escape to the bridge.

The troops of Parma, crowding on the palisade, and looking over the

parapets, now began to greet the exhibition with peals of derisive

laughter. It was but child's play, they thought, to threaten a Spanish

army, and a general like Alexander Farnese, with such paltry fire-works

as these. Nevertheless all eyes were anxiously fixed upon the remaining

fire-ship, or "hell-burner," the 'Hope,' which had now drifted very near

the place of its destination. Tearing her way between the raft and the

shore, she struck heavily against the bridge on the Kalloo side, close to

the block-house at the commencement of the floating portion of the

bridge. A thin wreath of smoke was seen curling over a slight and

smouldering fire upon her deck.

Marquis Richebourg, standing on the bridge, laughed loudly at the

apparently impotent conclusion of the whole adventure. It was his last

laugh on earth. A number of soldiers, at Parma's summons, instantly

sprang on board this second mysterious vessel, and occupied themselves,

as the party on board the 'Fortune' had done, in extinguishing, the

flames, and in endeavoring to ascertain the nature of the machine.

Richebourg boldly directed from the bridge their hazardous experiments.

At the same moment a certain ensign De Vega, who stood near the Prince of

Parma, close to the block-house, approached him with vehement entreaties

that he should retire. Alexander refused to stir from the spot, being

anxious to learn the result of these investigations. Vega, moved by some

instinctive and irresistible apprehension, fell upon his knees, and

plucking the General earnestly by the cloak, implored him with such

passionate words and gestures to leave the place, that the Prince

reluctantly yielded.

It was not a moment too soon. The clockwork had been better adjusted than

the slow match in the 'Fortune.' Scarcely had Alexander reached the

entrance of Saint Mary's Fort, at the end of the bridge, when a horrible

explosion was heard. The 'Hope' disappeared, together with the men who

had boarded her, and the block-house, against which she had struck, with

all its garrison, while a large portion of the bridge, with all the

troops stationed upon it, had vanished into air. It was the work of a

single instant. The Scheldt yawned to its lowest depth, and then cast its

waters across the dykes, deep into the forts, and far over the land. The

earth shook as with the throb of a volcano. A wild glare lighted up the

scene for one moment, and was then succeeded by pitchy darkness. Houses

were toppled down miles away, and not a living thing, even in remote

places, could keep its feet. The air was filled with a rain of

plough-shares, grave-stones, and marble balls, intermixed with the heads,

limbs, and bodies, of what had been human beings. Slabs of granite,

vomited by the flaming ship, were found afterwards at a league's

distance, and buried deep in the earth. A thousand soldiers were

destroyed in a second of time; many of them being torn to shreds, beyond

even the semblance of humanity.

Richebourg disappeared, and was not found until several days later, when

his body was discovered; doubled around an iron chain, which hung from

one of the bridge-boats in the centre of the river. The veteran Robles,

Seigneur de Billy, a Portuguese officer of eminent service and high

military rank, was also destroyed. Months afterwards, his body was

discovered adhering to the timber-work of the bridge, upon the ultimate

removal of that structure, and was only recognized by a peculiar gold

chain which he habitually wore. Parma himself was thrown to the ground,

stunned by a blow on the shoulder from a flying stake. The page, who was

behind him, carrying his helmet, fell dead without a wound, killed by the

concussion of the air.

Several strange and less tragical incidents occurred. The Viscomte de

Bruxelles was blown out of a boat on the Flemish side, and descended safe

and, sound into another in the centre of the stream. Captain Tucci, clad

in complete armour, was whirled out of a fort, shot perpendicularly into

the air, and then fell back into the river. Being of a cool temperament,

a good swimmer, and very pious, he skilfully divested himself of cuirass

and helmet, recommended himself to the Blessed Virgin, and swam safely

ashore. Another young officer of Parma's body-guard, Francois de Liege by

name, standing on the Kalloo end of the bridge, rose like a feather into

the clouds, and, flying quite across the river, alighted on the opposite

bank with no further harm than a contused shoulder. He imagined himself

(he said afterwards) to have been changed into a cannon-ball, as he

rushed through the pitchy atmosphere, propelled by a blast of

irresistible fury.

[The chief authorities used in the foregoing account of this famous

enterprise are those already cited on a previous page, viz.: the MS.

Letters of the Prince of Parma in the Archives of Simancas; Bor, ii.

596, 597; Strada, H. 334 seq.; Meteren, xii. 223; Hoofd Vervolgh,

91; Baudartii Polemographia, ii. 24-27; Bentivoglio, etc., I have

not thought it necessary to cite them step by step; for all the

accounts, with some inevitable and unimportant discrepancies, agree

with each other. The most copious details are to be found in Strada

and in Bor.]

It had been agreed that Admiral Jacobzoon should, immediately after the

explosion of the fire-ships, send an eight-oared barge to ascertain the

amount of damage. If a breach had been effected, and a passage up to the

city opened, he was to fire a rocket. At this signal, the fleet stationed

at Lillo, carrying a heavy armament, laden with provisions enough to

relieve Antwerp from all anxiety, and ready to sail on the instant, was

at once to force its way up the river.

The deed was done. A breach, two hundred feet in width was made. Had the

most skilful pilot in Zeeland held the helm of the 'Hope,' with a choice

crew obedient to his orders, he could not have guided her more carefully

than she had been directed by wind and tide. Avoiding the raft which lay

in her way, she had, as it were, with the intelligence of a living

creature, fulfilled the wishes of the daring genius that had created her;

and laid herself alongside the bridge, exactly at the most telling point.

She had then destroyed herself, precisely at the right moment. All the

effects, and more than all, that had been predicted by the Mantuan wizard

had come to pass. The famous bridge was cleft through and through, and a

thousand picked men--Parma's very "daintiest"--were blown out of

existence. The Governor-General himself was lying stark and stiff upon

the bridge which he said should be his triumphal monument or his tomb.

His most distinguished officers were dead, and all the survivors were

dumb and blind with astonishment at the unheard of, convulsion. The

passage was open for the fleet, and the fleet, lay below with sails

spread, and oars in the rowlocks, only waiting for the signal to bear up

at once to the scene of action, to smite out of existence all that

remained of the splendid structure, and to carry relief and triumph into

Antwerp.

Not a soul slept in the city. The explosion had shook its walls, and

thousands of people thronged the streets, their hearts beating high with

expectation. It was a moment of exquisite triumph. The 'Hope,' word of

happy augury, had not been relied upon in vain, and Parma's seven months

of patient labour had been annihilated in a moment. Sainte Aldegonde and

Gianibelli stood in the 'Boors' Sconce' on the edge of the river. They

had felt and heard the explosion, and they were now straining their eyes

through the darkness to mark the flight of the welcome rocket.

That rocket never rose. And it is enough, even after the lapse of three

centuries, to cause a pang in every heart that beats for human liberty to

think of the bitter disappointment which crushed these great and

legitimate hopes. The cause lay in the incompetency and cowardice of the

man who had been so unfortunately entrusted with a share in a noble

enterprise.

Admiral Jacobzoon, paralyzed by the explosion, which announced his own

triumph, sent off the barge, but did not wait for its return. The

boatmen, too, appalled by the sights and sounds which they had witnessed,

and by the murky darkness which encompassed them, did not venture near

the scene of action, but, after rowing for a short interval hither and

thither, came back with the lying report that nothing had been

accomplished, and that the bridge remained unbroken. Sainte Aldegonde and

Gianibelli were beside themselves with rage, as they surmised the

imbecility of the Admiral, and devoted him in their hearts to the

gallows, which he certainly deserved. The wrath of the keen Italian may

be conceived, now that his ingenious and entirely successful scheme was

thus rendered fruitless by the blunders of the incompetent Fleming.

On the other side, there was a man whom no danger could appall. Alexander

had been thought dead, and the dismay among his followers was universal.

He was known to have been standing an instant before the explosion on the

very block-house where the 'Hope' had struck. After the first terrible

moments had passed, his soldiers found their general lying, as if in a

trance, on the threshold of St. Mary's Fort, his drawn sword in his hand,

with Cessis embracing his knees, and Gaetano extended at his side,

stunned with a blow upon the head.

Recovering from his swoon, Parma was the first to spring to his feet.

Sword in hand, he rushed at once upon the bridge to mark the extent of

the disaster. The admirable structure, the result of so much patient and

intelligent energy, was fearfully shattered; the bridge, the river, and

the shore, strewed with the mangled bodies of his soldiers. He expected,

as a matter of certainty, that the fleet from below would instantly force

its passage, destroy, the remainder of his troops-stunned as they were

with the sudden catastrophe complete the demolition of the bridge, and

then make its way to Antwerp, with ample reinforcements and supplies. And

Alexander saw that the expedition would be successful. Momently expecting

the attack, he maintained his courage and semblance of cheerfulness, with

despair in his heart.

His winter's work seemed annihilated, and it was probable that he should

be obliged to raise the siege. Nevertheless, he passed in person from

rank to rank, from post to post, seeing that the wounded were provided

for, encouraging those that remained unhurt, and endeavouring to infuse a

portion of his own courage into the survivors of his panic-stricken army.

Nor was he entirely unsuccessful, as the night wore on and the expected

assault was still delayed. Without further loss of time, he employed his

men to collect the drifting boats, timber, and spar-work, and to make a

hasty and temporary restoration--in semblance at least--of the ruined

portion of his bridge. And thus he employed himself steadily all the

night, although expecting every instant to hear the first broadside of

the Zeeland cannon. When morning broke, and it became obvious that the

patriots were unable or unwilling to follow up their own success, the

Governor-General felt as secure as ever. He at once set about the

thorough repairs of his great work, and--before he could be again

molested--had made good the damage which it had sustained.

It was not till three days afterwards that the truth was known in

Antwerp. Hohenlo then sent down a messenger, who swam, under the bridge,

ascertained the exact state of affairs, and returned, when it was too

late, with the first intelligence of the triumph which had been won and

lost. The disappointment and mortification were almost intolerable. And

thus had. Run-a-way Jacob, 'Koppen Loppen,' blasted the hopes of so many

wiser and braver spirits than his own.

The loss to Parma and to the royalist cause in Marquis Richebourg, was

very great. The death of De Billy, who was a faithful, experienced, and

courageous general, was also much lamented. "The misfortune from their

death," said Parma, "is not to be exaggerated. Each was ever ready to do

his duty in your Majesty's service, and to save me much fatigue in all my

various affairs. Nevertheless," continued the Prince, with great piety,

"we give the Lord thanks for all, and take as a favour everything which

comes from His hand."

Alexander had indeed reason to deplore the loss of Robert de Melun,

Viscount of Ghent, Marquis of Roubaix and Richebourg. He was a most

valuable officer. His wealth was great. It had been recently largely

increased by the confiscation of his elder brother's estates for his

benefit, a measure which at Parma's intercession had been accorded by the

King. That brother was the patriotic Prince of Espinoy, whom we have

recently seen heading the legation of the States to France. And

Richebourg was grateful to Alexander, for besides these fraternal spoils,

he had received two marquisates through his great patron, in addition to

the highest military offices. Insolent, overbearing, truculent to all the

world, to Parma he was ever docile, affectionate, watchful, obsequious. A

man who knew not fatigue, nor fear, nor remorse, nor natural affection,

who could patiently superintend all the details of a great military work,

or manage a vast political intrigue by alternations of browbeating and

bribery, or lead a forlorn hope, or murder a prisoner in cold blood, or

leap into the blazing crater of what seemed a marine volcano, the Marquis

of Richebourg had ever made himself most actively and unscrupulously

useful to his master. Especially had he rendered invaluable services in

the reduction, of the Walloon Provinces, and in the bridging of the

Scheldt, the two crowning triumphs of Alexander's life. He had now passed

from the scene where he had played so energetic and dazzling a part, and

lay doubled round an iron cable beneath the current of the restless

river.

And in this eventful night, Parma, as always, had been true to himself

and to his sovereign. "We expected," said he, "that the rebels would

instantly attack us on all sides after the explosion. But all remained so

astonished by the unheard-of accident, that very few understood what was

going on. It seemed better that I--notwithstanding the risk of letting

myself be seen--should encourage the people not to run away. I did so,

and remedied matters a little but not so much as that--if the enemy had

then attacked us--we should not have been in the very greatest risk and

peril. I did not fail to do what I am obliged to do, and always hope to

do; but I say no more of what passed, or what was done by myself, because

it does not become me to speak of these things."

Notwithstanding this discomfiture, the patriots kept up heart, and were

incessantly making demonstrations against Parma's works. Their

proceedings against the bridge, although energetic enough to keep the

Spanish commander in a state of perpetual anxiety, were never so

efficient however as on the memorable occasion when the Mantuan engineer

and the Dutch watchmaker had exhausted all their ingenuity. Nevertheless,

the rebel barks swarmed all over the submerged territory, now threatening

this post, and now that, and effecting their retreat at pleasure; for

nearly the whole of Parma's little armada was stationed at the two

extremities of his bridge. Many fire-ships were sent down from time to

time, but Alexander had organized a systematic patrol of a few

sentry-boats, armed with scythes and hooks, which rowed up and down in

front of the rafts, and protected them against invasion.

Some little effect was occasionally produced, but there was on the whole

more anxiety excited than damage actually inflicted. The perturbation of

spirit among the Spaniards when any of these 'demon fine-ships,' as they

called them, appeared bearing down upon their bridge, was excessive. It

could not be forgotten, that the `Hope' had sent into space a thousand of

the best soldiers of the little army within one moment of time.

Such rapid proceedings had naturally left an uneasy impression on the

minds of the survivors. The fatigue of watching was enormous. Hardly an

officer or soldier among the besieging forces knew what it was to sleep.

There was a perpetual exchanging of signals and beacon-fires and rockets

among the patriots--not a day or night, when a concerted attack by the

Antwerpers from above, and the Hollanders from below, with gun-boats and

fire-ships, and floating mines, and other devil's enginry, was not

expected.

"We are always upon the alert," wrote Parma, "with arms in our hands.

Every one must mount guard, myself as well as the rest, almost every

night, and the better part of every day."

He was quite aware that something was ever in preparation; and the

nameless, almost sickening apprehension which existed among

his stout-hearted veterans, was a proof that the Mantuan's

genius--notwithstanding the disappointment as to the great result--had

not been exercised entirely in vain. The image of the Antwerp devil-ships

imprinted itself indelibly upon the Spanish mind, as of something

preternatural, with which human valour could only contend at a

disadvantage; and a day was not very far distant--one of the memorable

days of the world's history, big with the fate of England, Spain,

Holland, and all Christendom--when the sight of a half-dozen blazing

vessels, and the cry of "the Antwerp fireships," was to decide the issue

of a most momentous enterprise. The blow struck by the obscure Italian

against Antwerp bridge, although ineffective then, was to be most

sensibly felt after a few years had passed, upon a wider field.

Meantime the uneasiness and the watchfulness in the biesieging army were

very exhausting. "They are never idle in the city," wrote Parma. "They

are perpetually proving their obstinacy and pertinacity by their

industrious genius and the machines which they devise. Every day we are

expecting some new invention. On our side we endeavour to counteract

their efforts by every human means in our power. Nevertheless, I confess

that our merely human intellect is not competent to penetrate the designs

of their diabolical genius. Certainly, most wonderful and extraordinary

things have been exhibited, such as the oldest soldiers here have never

before witnessed."