To these disappointments were now added domestic dissensions in the republic, in consequence of the new taxes absolutely necessary for the exigencies of the state.  The conduct of Queen Elizabeth greatly added to the general embarrassment:  she called for the payment of her former loans; insisted on the recall of the English troops, and declared her resolution to make peace with Spain.  Several German princes promised aid in men and money, but never furnished either; and in this most critical juncture, Henry IV. was the only foreign sovereign who did not abandon the republic.  He sent them one thousand Swiss troops, whom he had in his pay; allowed them to levy three thousand more in France; and gave them a loan of two hundred thousand crowns—­a very convenient supply in their exhausted state.

The archdukes Albert and Isabella arrived in the Netherlands in September, and made their entrance into Brussels with unexampled magnificence.  They soon found themselves in a situation quite as critical as was that of the United Provinces, and both parties displayed immense energy to remedy their mutual embarrassments.  The winter was extremely rigorous; so much so as to allow of military operations being undertaken on the ice.  Prince Maurice soon commenced a Christmas campaign by taking the town of Wachtendenck; and he followed up his success by obtaining possession of the important forts of Crevecoeur and St. Andrew, in the island of Bommel.  A most dangerous mutiny at the same time broke out in the army of the archdukes; and Albert seemed left without troops or money at the very beginning of his sovereignty.

But these successes of Prince Maurice were only the prelude to an expedition of infinitely more moment, arranged with the utmost secrecy, and executed with an energy scarcely to be looked for from the situation of the states.  This was nothing less than an invasion poured into the very heart of Flanders, thus putting the archdukes on the defence of their own most vital possessions, and changing completely the whole character of the war.  The whole disposable troops of the republic, amounting to about seventeen thousand men, were secretly assembled in the island of Walcheren, in the month of June; and setting sail for Flanders, they disembarked near Ghent, and arrived on the 20th of that month under the walls of Bruges.  Some previous negotiations with that town had led the prince to expect that it would have opened its gates at his approach.  In this he was, however, disappointed; and after taking possession of some forts in the neighborhood, he continued his march to Nieuport, which place he invested on the 1st of July.