by the well-directed fire of the patriot artillery, fell back on their infantry and threw it into confusion.  The archduke at the same instant was wounded by a lance in the cheek, unhorsed, and forced to quit the field.  The report of his death, and the sight of his war-steed galloping alone across the field, spread alarm through the royalist ranks.  Prince Maurice saw and seized on the critical moment.  He who had so patiently maintained his position for three hours of desperate conflict now knew the crisis for a prompt and general advance.  He gave the word and led on to the charge, and the victory was at once his own.

The defeat of the royalist army was complete.  The whole of the artillery, baggage, standards, and ammunition, fell into the possession of the conquerors.  Night coming on saved those who fled, and the nature of the ground prevented the cavalry from consummating the destruction of the whole.  As far as the conflicting accounts of the various historians may be compared and calculated on, the royalists had three thousand killed, and among them several officers of rank; while the patriot army, including those who fell in the morning action, lost something more than half the number.  The archduke, furnished with a fresh horse, gained Bruges in safety; but he only waited there long enough to join his heroic wife, with whom he proceeded rapidly to Ghent, and thence to Brussels.  Mendoza was wounded and taken prisoner, and with difficulty saved by Prince Maurice from the fury of the German auxiliaries.

The moral effect produced by this victory on the vanquishers and vanquished, and on the state of public opinion throughout Europe, was immense; but its immediate consequences were incredibly trifling.  Not one result in a military point of view followed an event which appeared almost decisive of the war.  Nieuport was again invested three days after the battle; but a strong reinforcement entering the place saved it from all danger, and Maurice found himself forced for want of supplies to abandon the scene of his greatest exploit.  He returned to Holland, welcomed by the acclamations of his grateful country, and exciting the jealousy and hatred of all who envied his glory or feared his power.  Among the sincere and conscientious republicans who saw danger to the public liberty in the growing influence of a successful soldier, placed at the head of affairs and endeared to the people by every hereditary and personal claim, was Olden Barneveldt, the pensionary; and from this period may be traced the growth of the mutual antipathy which led to the sacrifice of the most virtuous statesman of Holland, and the eternal disgrace of its hitherto heroic chief.