Thus, then, stood affairs in the neighbouring countries.  The prospect was black in Germany, more encouraging in France, dubious, or worse, in England.  More work, more anxiety, more desperate struggles than ever, devolved upon the Prince.  Secretary Brunynck wrote that his illustrious chief was tolerably well in health, but so loaded with affairs, sorrows, and travails, that, from morning till night, he had scarcely leisure to breathe.  Besides his multitudinous correspondence with the public bodies, whose labors he habitually directed; with the various estates of the provinces, which he was gradually moulding into an organised and general resistance to the Spanish power; with public envoys and with secret agents to foreign cabinets, all of whom received their instructions from him alone; with individuals of eminence and influence, whom he was eloquently urging to abandon their hostile position to their fatherland; and to assist him in the great work which he was doing; besides these numerous avocations, he was actively and anxiously engaged during the spring of 1576, with the attempt to relieve the city of Zierickzee.

That important place, the capital of Schouwen, and the key to half Zealand, had remained closely invested since the memorable expedition to Duiveland.  The Prince had passed much of his time in the neighbourhood, during the month of May, in order to attend personally to the contemplated relief, and to correspond daily with the beleaguered garrison.  At last, on the 25th of May, a vigorous effort was made to throw in succor by sea.  The brave Admiral Boisot, hero of the memorable relief of Leyden, had charge of the expedition.  Mondragon had surrounded the shallow harbor with hulks and chains, and with a loose submerged dyke of piles and rubbish.  Against this obstacle Boisot drove his ship, the ‘Red Lion,’ with his customary audacity, but did not succeed in cutting it through.  His vessel, the largest of the feet, became entangled:  he was, at the same time, attacked from a distance by the besiegers.  The tide ebbed and left his ship aground, while the other vessels had been beaten back by the enemy.  Night approached; and there was no possibility of accomplishing the enterprise.  His ship was hopelessly stranded.  With the morning’s sun his captivity was certain.  Rather than fall into the hands of his enemy, he sprang into the sea; followed by three hundred of his companions, some of whom were fortunate enough to effect their escape.  The gallant Admiral swam a long time, sustained by a broken spar.  Night and darkness came on before assistance could be rendered, and he perished.  Thus died Louis Boisot, one of the most enterprising of the early champions of Netherland freedom—­one of the bravest precursors of that race of heroes, the commanders of the Holland navy.  The Prince deplored his loss deeply, as that of a “valiant gentleman, and one well affectioned to the common cause.”  His brother, Charles Boisot, as will be remembered,