of Orange, however, was so often republished, and the copies so carefully distributed, that the Prince had thought it important to add an express repudiation of its authorship, by way of appendix to his famous Apology.  He took the occasion to say, that if a particle of proof could be brought that he had written the letter, or any letter resembling it, he would forthwith leave the Netherlands, never to show his face there again.

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.