At any rate, he claimed that Sir John Wingfield and his wife, the Countess of Kent, with their newly-born child, should be allowed to depart from the place.  But Wingfield expressed great scorn at any suggestion of retreat, and vowed that he would rather surrender the city to the Spaniards than tolerate the presumption of Maurice and the States.  The young Prince accordingly, opened his batteries, but before an entrance could be effected into the town, was obliged to retire at the approach of Count Mansfield with a much superior force.  Gertruydenberg was now surrendered to the Spaniards in accordance with a secret negotiation which had been proceeding all the spring, and had been brought to a conclusion at last.  The garrison received twelve months’ pay in full and a gratuity of five months in addition, and the city was then reduced into obedience to Spain and Rome on the terms which had been usual during the government of Farnese.

The loss of this city was most severe to the republic, for the enemy had thus gained an entrance into the very heart of Holland.  It was a more important acquisition to Alexander than even Bergen-op-Zoom would have been, and it was a bitter reflection that to the treachery of Netherlanders and of their English allies this great disaster was owing.  All the wrath aroused a year before by the famous treason of York and Stanley, and which had been successfully extinguished, now flamed forth afresh.  The States published a placard denouncing the men who had thus betrayed the cause of freedom, and surrendered the city of Gertruydenberg to the Spaniards, as perjured traitors whom it was made lawful to hang, whenever or wherever caught, without trial or sentence, and offering fifty florins a-head for every private soldier and one hundred florins for any officer of the garrison.  A list of these Englishmen and Netherlanders, so far as known, was appended to the placard, and the catalogue was headed by the name of Sir John Wingfield.

Thus the consequences of the fatal event were even more deplorable than the loss of the city itself.  The fury of Olden-Barneveld at the treason was excessive, and the great Advocate governed the policy of the republic, at this period, almost like a dictator.  The States, easily acknowledging the sway of the imperious orator, became bitter—­and wrathful with the English, side by side with whom they had lately been so cordially standing.

Willoughby, on his part, now at the English court, was furious with the States, and persuaded the leading counsellors of the Queen as well as her Majesty herself, to adopt his view of the transaction.  Wingfield, it was asserted, was quite innocent in the matter; he was entirely ignorant of the French language, and therefore was unable to read a word of the letters addressed to him by Maurice and the replies which had been signed by himself.  Whether this strange excuse ought to be accepted or not, it is quite certain that he was no traitor like York and Stanley, and no