An attempt upon Lochum, an important city, in Gelderland, was unsuccessful, the place being relieved by the Duke of Anjou’s forces, and Parma’s troops forced to abandon the siege.  At Steenwyk, the royal arms were more successful, Colonel Tassis, conducted by a treacherous Frisian peasant, having surprised the city which had so, long and so manfully sustained itself against Renneberg during the preceding winter.  With this event the active operations under Parma closed for the year.  By the end of the autumn, however, he had the satisfaction of numbering, under his command, full sixty thousand well-appointed and disciplined troops, including the large reinforcements recently despatched:  from Spain and Italy.  The monthly expense of this army-half of which was required for garrison duty, leaving only the other moiety for field Operations—­was estimated at six hundred and fifty thousand florins.  The forces under Anjou and the united provinces were also largely increased, so that the marrow of the land was again in fair way of being thoroughly exhausted by its defenders and its foes.

The incidents of Anjou’s administration, meantime, during the year 1582, had been few and of no great importance.  After the pompous and elaborate “homage-making” at Antwerp, he had, in the month of July, been formally accepted, by writing, as Duke of Guelders and Lord of Friesland.  In the same month he had been ceremoniously, inaugurated at Bruges as Count of Flanders—­an occasion upon which the Prince of Orange had been present.  In that ancient and stately city there had been, accordingly, much marching about under triumphal arches, much cannonading and haranguing, much symbol work of suns dispelling fogs, with other cheerful emblems, much decoration of ducal shoulders with velvet robes lined with weasel skin, much blazing of tar-barrels and torches.  In the midst of this event, an attempt was made upon the lives both of Orange and Anjou.  An Italian, named Basa, and a Spaniard, called Salseda, were detected in a scheme to administer poison to both princes, and when arrested, confessed that they had been hired by the Prince of Parma to compass this double assassination.  Basa destroyed himself in prison.  His body was, however, gibbeted, with an inscription that he had attempted, at the instigation of Parma, to take the lives of Orange and Anjou.  Salseda, less fortunate, was sent to Paris, where he was found guilty, and executed by being torn to pieces by four horses.  Sad to relate, Lamoral Egmont, younger son and namesake of the great general, was intimate with Salseda, and implicated in this base design.  His mother, on her death-bed, had especially recommended the youth to the kindly care of Orange.  The Prince had ever recognized the claim, manifesting uniform tenderness for the son of his ill-started friend; and now the youthful Lamoral—­as if the name of Egmont had not been sufficiently contaminated by the elder brother’s treason at Brussels—­had