the friendship of the citizens.  The mercenaries, yielding to a violent paroxysm of fear, fled hither and thither, panting, doubling, skulking, like wolves before the hounds.  Their flight was ludicrous.  Without staying to accept the money which the merchants were actually offering, without packing up their own property, in many cases even throwing away their arms, they fled, helter skelter, some plunging into the Scheid, some skimming along the dykes, some rushing across the open fields.  A portion of them under Colonel Fugger, afterwards shut themselves up in Bergen op Zoom, where they were at once besieged by Champagny, and were soon glad to compromise the matter by surrendering their colonel and laying down their arms.  The remainder retreated to Breda, where they held out for two months, and were at length overcome by a neat stratagem of Orange.  A captain, being known to be in the employment of Don John, was arrested on his way to Breda.  Carefully sewed up in his waistband was found a letter, of a finger’s breadth, written in cipher, and sealed with the Governor-General’s seal.  Colonel Frondsberger, commanding in Breda, was in this missive earnestly solicited to hold out two months longer, within which time a certain relief was promised.  In place of this letter, deciphered with much difficulty, a new one was substituted, which the celebrated printer, William Sylvius, of Antwerp, prepared with great adroitness, adding the signature and seal of Don John.  In this counterfeit epistle; the Colonel was directed to do the best he could for himself, by reason that Don John was himself besieged, and unable to render him assistance.  The same captain who had brought the real letter was bribed to deliver the counterfeit.  This task he faithfully performed, spreading the fictitious intelligence besides, with such ardor through the town, that the troops rose upon their leader, and surrendered him with the city and their own arms, into the custody of the estates.  Such was the result of the attempt by Don John to secure the citadel—­of Antwerp.  Not only was the fortress carried for the estates, but the city itself, for the first time in twelve years, was relieved from a foreign soldiery.

The rage and disappointment of the Governor-General were excessive.  He had boasted to Marolles a day too soon.  The prize which he thought already in his grasp had slipped through his fingers, while an interminable list of demands which he dreamed not of, and which were likely to make him bankrupt, were brought to his door.  To the states, not himself, the triumph seemed for the moment decreed.  The “dice” had taken a run against him, notwithstanding his pains in loading and throwing.  Nevertheless, he did not yet despair of revenge.  “These rebels,” he wrote to the Empress-dowager, his sister, “think that fortune is all smiles for them now, and that all is ruin for me.  The wretches are growing proud enough, and forget that their chastisement, some fine morning, will yet arrive.”