History of the United Netherlands, 1588-89 | Page 4

flight. Lord
Willoughby, in full view of the retiring enemy, indulged the allied
forces with a chivalrous spectacle. Calling a halt, after it had become
obviously useless, with their small force of cavalry; to follow any

longer, through a flooded country, an enemy who had abandoned his
design, he solemnly conferred the honour of knighthood, in the name of
Queen Elizabeth, on the officers who had most distinguished
themselves during the siege, Francis Vere, Baskerville, Powell, Parker,
Knowles, and on the two Netherland brothers, Paul and Marcellus Bax.
The Duke of Parma then went into winter quarters in Brabant, and,
before the spring, that obedient Province had been eaten as bare as
Flanders had already been by the friendly Spaniards.
An excellent understanding between England and Holland had been the
result of their united and splendid exertions against the Invincible
Armada. Late in the year 1588 Sir John Norris had been sent by the
Queen to offer her congratulations and earnest thanks to the States for
their valuable assistance in preserving her throne, and to solicit their
cooperation in some new designs against the common foe.
Unfortunately, however, the epoch of good feeling was but of brief
duration. Bitterness and dissension seemed the inevitable conditions of
the English-Dutch alliance. It will be, remembered, that, on the
departure of Leicester, several cities had refused to acknowledge the
authority of Count Maurice and the States; and that civil war in the
scarcely-born commonwealth had been the result. Medenblik, Naarden,
and the other contumacious cities, had however been reduced to
obedience after the reception of the Earl's resignation, but the important
city of Gertruydenberg had remained in a chronic state of mutiny. This
rebellion had been partially appeased during the year 1588 by the
efforts of Willoughby, who had strengthened, the garrison by
reinforcements of English troops under command of his brother-in-law,
Sir John Wingfield. Early in 1589 however, the whole garrison became
rebellious, disarmed and maltreated the burghers, and demanded
immediate payment of the heavy arrearages still due to the troops.
Willoughby, who--much disgusted with his career in the
Netherlands--was about leaving for England, complaining that the
States had not only left him without remuneration for his services, but
had not repaid his own advances, nor even given him a complimentary
dinner, tried in vain to pacify them. A rumour became very current,
moreover, that the garrison had opened negotiations with Alexander
Farnese, and accordingly Maurice of Nassau--of whose patrimonial
property the city of Gertruydenberg made a considerable proportion, to

the amount of eight thousand pounds sterling a years--after summoning
the garrison, in his own name and that of the States, to surrender, laid
siege to the place in form. It would have been cheaper, no doubt, to pay
the demands of the garrison in full, and allow them to depart. But
Maurice considered his honour at stake. His letters of summons, in
which he spoke of the rebellious commandant and his garrison as
self-seeking foreigners and mercenaries, were taken in very ill part.
Wingfield resented the statement in very insolent language, and offered
to prove its falsehood with his sword against any man and in any place
whatever. Willoughby wrote to his brother-in-law, from Flushing,
when about to embark, disapproving of his conduct and of his language;
and to Maurice, deprecating hostile measures against a city under the
protection of Queen Elizabeth. At any rate, he claimed that Sir John
Wingfield and his wife, the Countess of Kent, with their newly-born
child, should be allowed to depart from the place. But Wingfield
expressed great scorn at any suggestion of retreat, and vowed that he
would rather surrender the city to the Spaniards than tolerate the
presumption of Maurice and the States. The young Prince accordingly,
opened his batteries, but before an entrance could be effected into the
town, was obliged to retire at the approach of Count Mansfield with a
much superior force. Gertruydenberg was now surrendered to the
Spaniards in accordance with a secret negotiation which had been
proceeding all the spring, and had been brought to a conclusion at last.
The garrison received twelve months' pay in full and a gratuity of five
months in addition, and the city was then reduced into obedience to
Spain and Rome on the terms which had been usual during the
government of Farnese.
The loss of this city was most severe to the republic, for the enemy had
thus gained an entrance into the very heart of Holland. It was a more
important acquisition to Alexander than even Bergen-op-Zoom would
have been, and it was a bitter reflection that to the treachery of
Netherlanders and of their English allies this great disaster was owing.
All the wrath aroused a year before by the famous treason of York and
Stanley, and which had been successfully