In the meantime, the Duke had carefully studied the whole position of affairs, and had arrived at his conclusion.  He was determined not to fight.  It was obvious that the Prince would offer battle eagerly, ostentatiously, frequently, but the Governor was resolved never to accept the combat.  Once taken, his resolution was unalterable.  He recognized the important difference between his own attitude at present, and that in which he had found himself during the past summer in Friesland.  There a battle had been necessary, now it was more expedient to overcome his enemy by delay.  In Friesland, the rebels had just achieved a victory over the choice troops of Spain.  Here they were suffering from the stigma of a crushing defeat.  Then, the army of Louis Nassau was swelling daily by recruits, who poured in from all the country round.  Now, neither peasant nor noble dared lift a finger for the Prince.  The army of Louis had been sustained by the one which his brother was known to be preparing.  If their movements had not been checked, a junction would have been effected.  The armed revolt would then have assumed so formidable an aspect, that rebellion would seem, even for the timid, a safer choice than loyalty.  The army of the Prince, on the contrary, was now the last hope of the patriots:  The three by which it had been preceded had been successively and signally vanquished.

Friesland, again, was on the outskirts of the country.  A defeat sustained by the government there did not necessarily imperil the possession of the provinces.  Brabant, on the contrary, was the heart of the Netherlands.  Should the Prince achieve a decisive triumph then and there, he would be master of the nation’s fate.  The Viceroy knew himself to be odious, and he reigned by terror.  The Prince was the object of the people’s idolatry, and they would rally round him if they dared.  A victory gained by the liberator over the tyrant, would destroy the terrible talisman of invincibility by which Alva governed.  The Duke had sufficiently demonstrated his audacity in the tremendous chastisement which he had inflicted upon the rebels under Louis.  He could now afford to play that scientific game of which he was so profound a master, without risking any loss of respect or authority.  He was no enthusiast.  Although he doubtless felt sufficiently confident of overcoming the Prince in a pitched battle, he had not sufficient relish for the joys of contest to be willing to risk even a remote possibility of defeat.  His force, although composed of veterans and of the best musketeers and pikemen in Europe, was still somewhat inferior in numbers to that of his adversary.  Against the twenty thousand foot and eight thousand, horse of Orange, he could oppose only fifteen or sixteen thousand foot and fifty-five hundred riders.  Moreover, the advantage which he had possessed in Friesland, a country only favorable to infantry, in which he had been stronger than his opponent, was now transferred