It became now almost evident that the city could be taken neither by regular approaches nor by sudden attack.  It was therefore resolved that it should be reduced by famine.  Still, as the winter wore on, the immense army without the walls were as great sufferers by that scourge as the population within.  The soldiers fell in heaps before the diseases engendered by intense cold and insufficient food, for, as usual in such sieges, these deaths far outnumbered those inflicted by the enemy’s hand.  The sufferings inside the city necessarily increased day by day, the whole population being put on a strict allowance of food.  Their supplies were daily diminishing, and with the approach of the spring and the thawing of the ice on the lake, there was danger that they would be entirely cut off.  If the possession of the water were lost, they must yield or starve; and they doubted whether the Prince would be able to organize a fleet.  The gaunt spectre of Famine already rose before them with a menace which could not be misunderstood.  In their misery they longed for the assaults of the Spaniards, that they might look in the face of a less formidable foe.  They paraded the ramparts daily, with drums beating, colors flying, taunting the besiegers to renewed attempts.  To inflame the religious animosity of their antagonists, they attired themselves in the splendid, gold-embroidered vestments of the priests, which they took from the churches, and moved about in mock procession, bearing aloft images bedizened in ecclesiastical finery, relics, and other symbols, sacred in Catholic eyes, which they afterwards hurled from the ramparts, or broke, with derisive shouts, into a thousand fragments.

It was, however, at that season earnestly debated by the enemy whether or not to raise the siege.  Don Frederic was clearly of opinion that enough had been done for the honor of the Spanish arms.  He was wearied with seeing his men perish helplessly around him, and considered the prize too paltry for the lives it must cost.  His father thought differently.  Perhaps he recalled the siege of Metz, and the unceasing regret with which, as he believed, his imperial master had remembered the advice received from him.  At any rate the Duke now sent back Don Bernardino de Mendoza, whom Don Frederic had despatched to Nimwegen, soliciting his father’s permission to raise the siege, with this reply:  “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.”