to quarter them there had been requested by the Governor-General.  The ’authorities had been assured that the troops were necessary for the protection of their city, but the magistrates had learned, but too recently, the nature of the protection which Van Ende, with his mercenaries, would afford.  A detachment of states troops under De Yers, Champagny’s nephew, encountered the regiment of Van Ende, and put it to flight with considerable loss.  At the same time, an officer in the garrison of the citadel itself, Captain De Bours, undertook secretly to carry the fortress for the estates.  His operations were secret and rapid.  The Seigneur de Liedekerke had succeeded Champagny in the government of the city.  This appointment had been brought about by the agency of the Greffier Martini, a warm partisan of Orange.  The new Governor was known to be very much the Prince’s friend, and believed to be at heart a convert to the Reformed religion.  With Martini and Liedekerke, De Bours arranged his plot.  He was supplied with a large sum of money, readily furnished in secret by the leading mercantile houses of the city.  These funds were successfully invested in gaining over the garrison, only one company holding firm for Treslong.  The rest, as that officer himself informed Don John, were ready at any moment “to take him by the throat.”

On the 1st of August, the day firmed upon in concert with the Governor and Greffier, he was, in fact, taken by the throat.  There was but a brief combat, the issue of which became accidentally doubtful in the city.  The white-plumed hat of De Bours had been struck from his head in the struggle, and had fallen into the foss.  Floating out into the river, it had been recognized by the scouts sent out by the personages most interested, and the information was quickly brought to Liedekerke, who was lying concealed in the house of Martini, awaiting the result.  Their dismay was great, but Martini, having more confidence than the Governor, sallied forth to learn the whole truth.  Scarcely had he got into the streets than he heard a welcome cry, “The Beggars have the castle! the Beggars have the castle!” shouted a hundred voices.  He soon met a lieutenant coming straight from the fortress, who related to him the whole affair.  Learning that De Bours was completely victorious, and that Treslong was a prisoner, Martini hastened with the important intelligence to his own home, where Liedekerke lay concealed.  That functionary now repaired to the citadel, whither the magistrates, the leading citizens, and the chief merchants were instantly summoned.  The castle was carried, but the city was already trembling with apprehension lest the German mercenaries quartered within its walls, should rise with indignation or panic, and repeat the horrid tragedy of The Antwerp Fury.