Soon afterwards the place capitulated without waiting for a battery, upon moderate terms.  Schenk’s wife was sent away (28 June 1586) courteously with her family, in a coach and four, and with as much “apparel” as might be carried with her.  His property was confiscated, for “no fair wars could be made with him.”

Thus, within a few weeks after taking the field, the “dejected, melancholy” man, who was so “out of courage,” and the soldiers who were so “marvellously beginning to run away”—­according to the Earl of Leicester—­had swept their enemy from every town on the Meuse.  That river was now, throughout its whole course, in the power of the Spaniards.  The Province of Brabant became thoroughly guarded again by its foes, and the enemy’s road was opened into the northern Provinces.

Leicester, meantime, had not distinguished himself.  It must be confessed that he had been sadly out-generalled.  The man who had talked of following the enemy inch by inch, and who had pledged himself not only to protect Grave, and any other place that might be attacked, but even to recover Antwerp and Bruges within a few weeks, had wasted the time in very desultory operations.  After the St. George feasting, Knewstub sermons, and forces of Hercules, were all finished, the Earl had taken the field with five thousand foot and fifteen hundred horse.  His intention was to clear the Yssel; by getting possession of Doesburg and Zutphen, but, hearing of Parma’s demonstrations upon Grave, he abandoned the contemplated siege of those cities, and came to Arnheim.  He then crossed the Rhine into the Isle of Batavia, and thence, after taking a few sconces of inferior importance—­while Schenk, meanwhile, was building on the Island of Gravenweert, at the bifurcation of the Rhine and Waal, the sconce so celebrated a century later as ‘Schenk’s Fort’ (Schenkenschans)—–­he was preparing to pass the Waal in order to attack Farnese, when he heard to his astonishment, of the surrender of Grave.

He could therefore—­to his chagrin—­no longer save that important city, but he could, at least, cut off the head of the culprit.  Leicester was in Bommel when he heard of Baron Hemart’s faint-heartedness or treachery, and his wrath was extravagant in proportion to the exultation with which his previous success had inspired him.  He breathed nothing but revenge against the coward and the traitor, who had delivered up the town in “such lewd and beastly sort.”

“I will never depart hence,” he said, “till by the goodness of God I be satisfied someway of this villain’s treachery.”  There could be little doubt that Hemart deserved punishment.  There could be as little that Leicester would mete it out to him in ample measure.  “The lewd villain who gave up Grave,” said he, “and the captains as deep in fault as himself, shall all suffer together.”

Hemart came boldly to meet him.  “The honest man came to me at Bommel,” said Leicester, and he assured the government that it was in the hope of persuading the magistrates of that and other towns to imitate his own treachery.