History of the United Netherlands, 1592 | Page 4

famous Compromise; and a most distinguished soldier of the republic, having been killed before the gates.
On the 31st July, Maurice returned to his entrenchments. The enemy professed unbounded confidence; Van den Berg not doubting that he should be relieved by Verdugo, and Verdugo being sure that Van den Berg would need no relief. The Portuguese veteran indeed was inclined to wonder at Maurice's presumption in attacking so impregnable a fortress. "If Coeworden does not hold," said he, "there is no place in the world that can hold."
Count Peter Ernest, was still acting as governor-general for Alexander Farnese, on returning from his second French campaign, had again betaken himself, shattered and melancholy, to the waters of Spa, leaving the responsibility for Netherland affairs upon the German octogenarian. To him; and to the nonagenarian Mondragon at Antwerp, the veteran Verdugo now called loudly for aides against the youthful pedant, whom all men had been laughing at a twelvemonth or so before. The Macedonian phalanx, Simon Stevinus and delving Dutch boors--unworthy of the name of soldiers- -seemed to be steadily digging the ground from under Philip's feet in his hereditary domains.
What would become of the world-empire, where was the great king--not of Spain alone, nor of France alone--but the great monarch of all Christendom, to plant his throne securely, if his Frisian strongholds, his most important northern outposts, were to fall before an almost beardless youth at the head of a handful of republican militia?
Verdugo did his best, but the best was little. The Spanish and Italian legions had been sent out of the Netherlands into France. Many had died there, many were in hospital after their return, nearly all the rest were mutinous for want of pay.
On the 16th August, Maurice formally summoned Coeworden to surrender. After the trumpeter had blown thrice; Count Van den Berg, forbidding all others, came alone upon the walls and demanded his message. "To claim this city in the name of Prince Maurice of Nassau and of the States- General," was the reply.
"Tell him first to beat down my walls as flat as the ditch," said Van den Berg, "and then to bring five or six storms. Six months after that I will think whether I will send a trumpet."
The prince proceeded steadily with his approaches, but he was infinitely chagrined by the departure out of his camp of Sir Francis Vere with his English contingent of three regiments, whom Queen Elizabeth had peremptorily ordered to the relief of King Henry in Brittany.
Nothing amazes the modern mind so much as the exquisite paucity of forces and of funds by which the world-empire was fought for and resisted in France, Holland, Spain, and England. The scenes of war were rapidly shifted--almost like the slides of a magic-lantern--from one country to another; the same conspicuous personages, almost the same individual armies, perpetually re-appearing in different places, as if a wild phantasmagoria were capriciously repeating itself to bewilder the imagination. Essex, and Vere, and Roger Williams, and Black Norris-Van der Does, and Admiral Nassau, the Meetkerks and Count Philip-Farnese and Mansfeld, George Basti, Arenberg, Berlaymont, La None and Teligny, Aquila and Coloma--were seen alternately fighting, retreating, triumphant, beleaguering, campaigning all along the great territory which extends from the Bay of Biscay to the crags of Brittany, and across the narrow seas to the bogs of Ireland, and thence through the plains of Picardy and Flanders to the swamps of Groningen and the frontiers of the Rhine.
This was the arena in which the great struggle was ever going on, but the champions were so few in number that their individual shapes become familiar to us like the figures of an oft-repeated pageant. And now the withdrawal of certain companies of infantry and squadrons of cavalry from the Spanish armies into France, had left obedient Netherland too weak to resist rebellious Netherland, while, on the other hand, the withdrawal of some twenty or thirty companies of English auxiliaries--most hard- fighting veterans it is true, but very few in number--was likely to imperil the enterprise of Maurice in Friesland.
The removal of these companies from the Low Countries to strengthen the Bearnese in the north of France, formed the subject of much bitter diplomatic conference between the States and England; the order having been communicated by the great queen herself in many a vehement epistle and caustic speech, enforced by big, manly oaths.
Verdugo, although confident in the strength of the place, had represented to Parma and to Mansfeld the immense importance of relieving Coeworden. The city, he said, was more valuable than all the towns taken the year before. All Friesland hung upon it, and it would be impossible to save Groningen should Coeworden fall.
Meantime Count Philip Nassau arrived from the campaign in France with his three regiments which he threw into garrison, and