Day after day the attack continued and was repulsed.  Meanwhile, unknown to the Spaniards, the besieged burghers were silently and swiftly building inside the ravelin a solid half-moon shaped battlement.  On the 31st of December, the last day of 1572, the great assault was made.  “The attack was unexpected, but the forty or fifty sentinels defended the walls while they sounded the alarm.  The tocsin bells tolled, and the citizens, whose sleep was not apt to be heavy during that perilous winter, soon manned the ramparts again.  The daylight came upon them while the fierce struggle was still at its height.  The besieged, as before, defended themselves with musket and rapier, with melted pitch, with firebrands, with clubs and stones.  Meantime, after morning prayers in the Spanish camp, the trumpet for a general assault was sounded.  A tremendous onset was made upon the gate of the Cross, and the ravelin was carried at last.  The Spaniards poured into this fort, so long the object of their attack, expecting instantly to sweep into the city with sword and fire.  As they mounted its wall they became for the first time aware of the new and stronger fortification which had been secretly constructed on the inner side.  The reason why the ravelin had been at last conceded was revealed.  The half moon, whose existence they had not suspected, rose before them bristling with cannon, A sharp fire was instantly opened upon the besiegers, while at the same instant the ravelin, which the citizens had undermined, blew up with a severe explosion, carrying into the air all the soldiers who had just entered it so triumphantly.  This was the turning point.  The retreat was sounded, and the Spaniards fled to their camp, leaving at least three hundred dead beneath the walls.  Thus was a second assault, made by an overwhelming force and led by the most accomplished generals of Spain, signally and gloriously repelled by the plain burghers of Haarlem.”

Cold and famine now began to assist the Spaniards, and the townsfolk were reduced to every privation.  The Spaniards also suffered and Don Frederic wished to raise the siege.  He suggested this step to his father, but Alva was made of sterner stuff.  He sent from Nymwegen a grim message:  “‘Tell Don Frederic,’ said Alva, ’that if he be not decided to continue the siege till the town be taken, I shall no longer consider him my son, whatever my opinion may formerly have been. Should he fall in the siege, I will myself take the field to maintain it; and when we have both perished, the Duchess, my wife, shall come from Spain to do the same.’  Such language was unequivocal, and hostilities were resumed as fiercely as before.  The besieged welcomed them with rapture, and, as usual, made daily the most desperate sallies.  In one outbreak the Haarlemers, under cover of a thick fog, marched up to the enemy’s chief battery, and attempted to spike the guns before his face.  They were all slain at the cannon’s mouth, whither patriotism, not vainglory, had led them,