to the chains which they had so recently broken, the affairs of the Prince of Orange were not improving in Zealand.  Never was a twelvemonth so marked by contradictory fortune, never were the promises of a spring followed by such blight and disappointment in autumn than in the memorable year 1572.  On the island of Walcheren, Middelburg and Arnemuyde still held for the King—­Campveer and Flushing for the Prince of Orange.  On the island of South Bevelaad, the city of Goes or Tergoes was still stoutly defended by a small garrison of Spanish troops.  As long as the place held out, the city of Middelburg could be maintained.  Should that important city fall, the Spaniards would lose all hold upon Walcheren and the province of Zealand.

Jerome de ’t Zeraerts, a brave, faithful, but singularly unlucky officer, commanded for the Prince in Walcheren.  He had attempted by various hastily planned expeditions to give employment to his turbulent soldiery, but fortune had refused to smile upon his efforts.  He had laid siege to Middelburg and failed.  He had attempted Tergoes and had been compelled ingloriously to retreat.  The citizens of Flushing, on his return, had shut the gates of the town in his face, and far several days refused to admit him or his troops.  To retrieve this disgrace, which had sprung rather from the insubordination of his followers and the dislike which they bore his person than from any want of courage or conduct on his part, he now assembled a force of seven thousand men, marched again to Tergoes, and upon the 26th of August laid siege to the place in forma.  The garrison was very insufficient, and although they conducted themselves with great bravery, it was soon evident that unless reinforced they must yield.  With their overthrow it was obvious that the Spaniards would lose the important maritime province of Zealand, and the Duke accordingly ordered D’Avila, who commanded in Antwerp, to throw succor into Tergoes without delay.  Attempts were made, by sea and by land, to this effect, but were all unsuccessful.  The Zealanders commanded the waters with their fleet,—­and were too much at home among those gulfs and shallows not to be more than a match for their enemies.  Baffled in their attempt to relieve the town by water or by land, the Spaniards conceived an amphibious scheme.  Their plan led to one of the most brilliant feats of arms which distinguishes the history of this war.

The Scheld, flowing past the city of Antwerp and separating the provinces of Flanders and Brabant, opens wide its two arms in nearly opposite directions, before it joins the sea.  Between these two arms lie the isles of Zealand, half floating upon, half submerged by the waves.  The town of Tergoes was the chief city of South Beveland, the most important part of this archipelago, but South Beveland had not always been an island.  Fifty years before, a tempest, one of the most violent recorded in the stormy annals of that exposed country, had overthrown all barriers,