Notwithstanding this well known denial, however, Renneberg thought it facetious to send the letter into Steenvayk, where it produced but small effect upon the minds’ of the burghers.  Meantime, they had received intimation that succor was on its way.  Hollow balls containing letters were shot into the town, bringing the welcome intelligence that the English colonel, John Norris, with six thousand states’ troops, would soon make his appearance for their relief, and the brave Cornput added his cheerful exhortations to heighten the satisfaction thus produced.  A day or two afterwards, three quails were caught in the public square, and the commandant improved the circumstance by many quaint homilies.  The number three, he observed, was typical of the Holy Trinity, which had thus come symbolically to their relief.  The Lord had sustained the fainting Israelites with quails.  The number three indicated three weeks, within which time the promised succor was sure to arrive.  Accordingly, upon the 22nd of February, 1581, at the expiration of the third week, Norris succeeded in victualling the town, the merry and steadfast Cornput was established as a true prophet, and Count Renneberg abandoned the siege in despair.

The subsequent career of that unhappy nobleman was brief.  On the 19th of July his troops were signally defeated by Sonny—­and Norris, the fugitive royalists retreating into Groningen at the very moment when their general, who had been prevented by illness from commanding them, was receiving the last sacraments.  Remorse, shame, and disappointment had literally brought Renneberg to his grave.

“His treason,” says a contemporary, “was a nail in his coffin, and on his deathbed he bitterly bemoaned his crime.  ‘Groningen!  Groningen!’ would that I had never seen thy walls!” he cried repeatedly in his last hours.  He refused to see his sister, whose insidious counsels had combined with his own evil passions to make him a traitor; and he died on the 23rd of July, 1581, repentant and submissive.  His heart, after his decease, was found “shrivelled to the dimensions of a walnut,” a circumstance attributed to poison by some, to remorse by others.  His regrets; his early death, and his many attractive qualities, combined to:  save his character from universal denunciation, and his name, although indelibly stained by treason, was ever mentioned with pity rather than with rancor.

Great changes, destined to be perpetual, were steadily preparing in the internal condition of the provinces.  A preliminary measure of an important character had been taken early this year by the assembly of the united provinces held in the month of January at Delft.  This was the establishment of a general executive council.  The constitution of the board was arranged on the 13th of the month, and was embraced in eighteen articles.  The number of councillors was fixed at thirty, all to be native Netherlanders; a certain proportion to be appointed from each province by its estates.  The advice and consent of this body as to treaties with foreign powers were to be indispensable, but they were not to interfere with the rights and duties of the states-general, nor to interpose any obstacle to the arrangements with the Duke of Anjou.