Eindhoven, Diest, Dunkirk, Newport, and other places, were successively surrendered to royalist generals.  On the 22nd of September, 1583, the city of Zutfen, too, was surprised by Colonel Tassis, on the fall of which most important place, the treason of Orange’s brother-in-law, Count Van den Berg, governor of Gueldres, was revealed.  His fidelity had been long suspected, particularly by Count John of Nassau, but always earnestly vouched for by his wife and by his sons.  On the capture of Zutfen, however, a document was found and made public, by which Van den Berg bound himself to deliver the principal cities of Gueldres and Zutfen, beginning with Zutfen itself, into the hands of Parma, on condition of receiving the pardon and friendship of the King.

Not much better could have been expected of Van den Berg.  His pusillanimous retreat from his post in Alva’s time will be recollected; and it is certain that the Prince had never placed implicit confidence in his character.  Nevertheless, it was the fate of this great man to be often deceived by the friends whom he trusted, although never to be outwitted by his enemies.  Van den Berg was arrested, on the 15th of November, carried to the Hague, examined and imprisoned for a time in Delftshaven.  After a time he was, however, liberated, when he instantly, with all his sons, took service under the King.

While treason was thus favoring the royal arms in the north, the same powerful element, to which so much of the Netherland misfortunes had always been owing was busy in Flanders.

Towards the end of the year 1583, the Prince of Chimay, eldest son of the Duke of Aerschot, had been elected governor of that province.  This noble was as unstable in character, as vain, as unscrupulous, and as ambitious as his father and uncle.  He had been originally desirous of espousing the eldest daughter of the Prince of Orange, afterwards the Countess of Hohenlo, but the Duchess of Aerschot was too strict a Catholic to consent to the marriage, and her son was afterwards united to the Countess of Meghem, widow of Lan celot Berlaymont.

As affairs seemed going on prosperously for the states in the beginning, of this year, the Prince of Chimay had affected a strong inclination for the Reformed religion, and as governor of Bruges, he had appointed many members of that Church to important offices, to the exclusion of Catholics.  By so decided a course, he acquired the confidence of the patriot party and at the end of the year he became governor of Flanders.  No sooner was he installed in this post, than he opened a private correspondence with Parma, for it was his intention to make his peace with the King, and to purchase pardon and advancement by the brilliant service which he now undertook, of restoring this important province to the royal authority.  In the arrangement of his plans he was assisted by Champagny, who, as will be recollected, had long been a prisoner in Ghent, but whose confinement was not