He began the year brilliantly by surprising in January, while still in its winter quarters, a Spanish force of 4500 near Turnhout.  More than half the force was destroyed.  On the side of the Netherlands eight men only fell.  With the spring began a series of sieges; and, one after the other, Rheinberg, Meurs, Groenloo, Breedevoort, Enschede, Ootmarsum, Oldenzaal and Lingen were captured.  Gelderland, Overyssel and Drente were entirely freed from the presence of the enemy.  With the opening of 1598 Henry IV and Philip II entered upon negotiations for a peace.  The French king felt the necessity of a respite from war in order to reorganise the resources of his country, exhausted by a long continuance of civil strife; and Philip was ill and already feeling his end approaching.  The States strove hard to prevent what they regarded as desertion, and two embassies were despatched to France and to England to urge the maintenance of the alliance.  Oldenbarneveldt himself headed the French mission, but he failed to turn Henry from his purpose.  A treaty of peace between France and Spain was signed at Vervins, May 2, 1598.  Oldenbarneveldt went from Paris to England and was more successful.  Elizabeth bargained however for the repayment of her loan by annual installments, and for armed assistance both by land and sea should an attack be made by the Spaniards on England.  The queen, however, made two concessions.  Henceforth only one English representative was to have a seat in the Council of State; and all the English troops in the Netherlands, including the garrisons of the cautionary towns, were to take an oath of allegiance to the States.

This year saw the accomplishment of a project on which the Spanish king had for some time set his heart—­the marriage of the Cardinal Archduke Albert to his cousin the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia, and the erection of the Netherlands into an independent sovereignty under their joint rule.  Philip hoped in this way to provide suitably for a well-beloved daughter and at the same time, by the grant of apparent independence to the Netherland provinces, to secure their allegiance to the new sovereigns.  The use of the word “apparent” is justified, for provision was made in the deed of cession that the Netherlands should revert to the Spanish crown in case the union should prove childless; and there was a secret agreement that the chief fortresses should still be garrisoned by Spanish troops and that the archdukes, as they were officially styled, should recognise the suzerainty of the King of Spain.  Philip did not actually live to carry his plan into execution.  His death took place on September 13, 1598.  But all the necessary arrangements for the marriage and the transfer of sovereignty had already been made.  Albert, having first divested himself of his ecclesiastical dignities, was married by proxy to Isabel at Ferrara in November.  It was not until the end of the following year that the new rulers made their joyeuse entree into Brussels,