



Produced by David Widger





HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS

Volume II.

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

By John Lothrop Motley




CHAPTER IX. 1586

   Military Plans in the Netherlands--The Elector and Electorate of
   Cologne--Martin Schenk--His Career before serving the States--
   Franeker University founded--Parma attempts Grave--Battle on the
   Meuse--Success and Vainglory of Leicester--St. George's Day
   triumphantly kept at Utrecht--Parma not so much appalled as it was
   thought--He besieges and reduces Grave--And is Master of the Meuse--
   Leicester's Rage at the Surrender of Grave--His Revenge--Parma on
   the Rhine--He besieges aid assaults Neusz--Horrible Fate of the
   Garrison and City--Which Leicester was unable to relieve--Asel
   surprised by Maurice and Sidney--The Zeeland Regiment given to
   Sidney--Condition of the Irish and English Troops--Leicester takes
   the Field--He reduces Doesburg--He lays siege to Zutphen--Which
   Parma prepares to relieve--The English intercept the Convoy--Battle
   of Warnsfeld--Sir Philip Sidney wounded--Results of the Encounter--
   Death of Sidney at Arnheim--Gallantry of Edward Stanley.

Five great rivers hold the Netherland territory in their coils. Three are
but slightly separated--the Yssel, Waal, and ancient Rhine, while the
Scheldt and, Meuse are spread more widely asunder. Along each of these
streams were various fortified cities, the possession of which, in those
days, when modern fortification was in its infancy, implied the control
of the surrounding country. The lower part of all the rivers, where they
mingled with the sea and became wide estuaries, belonged to the Republic,
for the coasts and the ocean were in the hands of the Hollanders and
English. Above, the various strong places were alternately in the hands
of the Spaniards and of the patriots. Thus Antwerp, with the other
Scheldt cities, had fallen into Parma's power, but Flushing, which
controlled them all, was held by Philip Sidney for the Queen and States.
On the Meuse, Maastricht and Roermond were Spanish, but Yenloo, Grave,
Meghem, and other towns, held for the commonwealth. On the Waal, the town
of Nymegen had, through the dexterity of Martin Schenk, been recently
transferred to the royalists, while the rest of that river's course was
true to the republic. The Rhine, strictly so called, from its entrance
into Netherland, belonged to the rebels. Upon its elder branch, the
Yssel, Zutphen was in Parma's hands, while, a little below, Deventer had
been recently and adroitly saved by Leicester and Count Meurs from
falling into the same dangerous grasp.

Thus the triple Rhine, after it had crossed the German frontier, belonged
mainly, although not exclusively, to the States. But on the edge of the
Batavian territory, the ancient river, just before dividing itself into
its three branches, flowed through a debatable country which was even
more desolate and forlorn, if possible, than the land of the obedient
Provinces.

This unfortunate district was the archi-episcopal electorate of Cologne.
The city of Cologne itself, Neusz, and Rheinberg, on the river, Werll and
other places in Westphalia and the whole country around, were endangered,
invaded, ravaged, and the inhabitants plundered, murdered, and subjected
to every imaginable outrage, by rival bands of highwaymen, enlisted in
the support of the two rival bishops--beggars, outcasts, but high-born
and learned churchmen both--who disputed the electorate.

At the commencement of the year a portion of the bishopric was still in
the control of the deposed Protestant elector Gebhard Truchsess, assisted
of course by the English and the States. The city of Cologne was held by
the Catholic elector, Ernest of Bavaria, bishop of Liege; but Neusz and
Rheinberg were in the hands of the Dutch republic.

The military operations of the year were, accordingly, along the Meuse,
where the main object of Parma was to wrest Grave From the Netherlands;
along the Waal, where, on the other hand, the patriots wished to recover
Nymegen; on the Yssel, where they desired to obtain the possession of
Zutphen; and in the Cologne electorate, where the Spaniards meant, if
possible, to transfer Neusz and Rheinberg from Truchsess to Elector
Ernest. To clear the course of these streams, and especially to set free
that debatable portion of the river-territory which hemmed him in from
neutral Germany, and cut off the supplies from his starving troops, was
the immediate design of Alexander Farnese.

Nothing could be more desolate than the condition of the electorate. Ever
since Gebhard Truchsess had renounced the communion of the Catholic
Church for the love of Agnes Mansfeld, and so gained a wife and lost his
principality, he had been a dependant upon the impoverished Nassaus, or a
supplicant for alms to the thrifty Elizabeth. The Queen was frequently
implored by Leicester, without much effect, to send the ex-elector a few
hundred pounds to keep him from starving, as "he had not one groat to
live upon," and, a little later, he was employed as a go-between, and
almost a spy, by the Earl, in his quarrels with the patrician party
rapidly forming against him in the States.

At Godesberg--the romantic ruins of which stronghold the traveller still
regards with interest, placed as it is in the midst of that enchanting
region where Drachenfels looks down on the crumbling tower of Roland