making in all a force of nearly 2500 men, were ordered to follow him with the utmost expedition.  Count Meghem, stadholder of Gueldres, with five vanderas of infantry, three of light horse, and some artillery, composing a total of about 1500 men, was directed to co-operate with Aremberg.  Upon this point the orders of the Governor-general were explicit.  It seemed impossible that the rabble rout under Louis Nassau could stand a moment before nearly 4000 picked and veteran troops, but the Duke was earnest in warning his generals not to undervalue the enemy.

On the 7th May, Counts Meghem and Aremberg met and conferred at Arnheim, on their way to Friesland.  It was fully agreed between them, after having heard full reports of the rising in that province, and of the temper throughout the eastern Netherlands, that it would be rash to attempt any separate enterprise.  On the 11th, Aremberg reached Vollenhoven, where he was laid up in his bed with the gout.  Bodies of men, while he lay sick, paraded hourly with fife and drum before his windows, and discharged pistols and arquebuses across the ditch of the blockhouse where he was quartered.  On the 18th, Braccamonte, with his legion, arrived by water at Harlingen.  Not a moment more was lost.  Aremberg, notwithstanding his gout, which still confined him to a litter, started at once in pursuit of the enemy.  Passing through Groningen, he collected all the troops which could be spared..  He also received six pieces of artillery.  Six cannon, which the lovers of harmony had baptized with the notes of the gamut, ‘ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la’, were placed at his disposal by the authorities, and have acquired historical celebrity.  It was, however, ordained that when those musical pieces piped, the Spaniards were not to dance.  On the 22d, followed by his whole force, consisting of Braccamonte’s legion, his own four vanderas, and a troop of Germans, he came in sight of the enemy at Dam.  Louis of Nassau sent out a body of arquebusiers, about one thousand strong, from the city.  A sharp skirmish ensued, but the beggars were driven into their entrenchments, with a loss of twenty or thirty men, and nightfall terminated the contest.

It was beautiful to see, wrote Aremberg to Alva, how brisk and eager were the Spaniards, notwithstanding the long march which they had that day accomplished.  Time was soon to show how easily immoderate, valor might swell into a fault.  Meantime, Aremberg quartered his troops in and about Wittewerum Abbey, close to the little unwalled city of Dam.

On the other hand, Meghem, whose co-operation had been commanded by Alva, and arranged personally with Aremberg a fortnight before, at Arnheim, had been delayed in his movements.  His troops, who had received no wages for a long time had mutinied.  A small sum of money, however, sent from Brussels, quelled this untimely insubordination.  Meghem then set forth to effect his junction with his colleague, having assured the Governor-general that the war would be ended in six days.  The beggars had not a stiver, he said, and must disband or be beaten to pieces as soon as Aremberg and he had joined forces.  Nevertheless he admitted that these same “master-beggars,” as he called them, might prove too many for either general alone.