By the middle of July he sprang a mine under the fortifications, doing much damage and sending into the air a considerable portion of the garrison.  Two of the soldiers were blown into his own camp, and one of them, strangely enough, was but slightly injured.  Coming as he did through the air at cannon-ball speed, he was of course able to bring the freshest intelligence from the interior of the town.

His news as to the condition of the siege confirmed the theory of the stadholder.  He persisted in his operations for three weeks longer, and the place was then surrendered.  The same terms—­moderate and honourable were given to the garrison and the burghers as in all Maurice’s victories.  Those who liked to stay were at liberty to do so, accepting the prohibition of public worship according to the Roman ritual, but guaranteed against inquisition into household or conscience.  The garrison went out with the honours of war, and thus the place, whose military value caused it to change hands almost as frequently as a counter in a game, was once more in possession of the republic.  In the course of the following week Maurice laid siege to the city of Meurs, a little farther up the Rhine, which immediately capitulated.  Thus the keys to the debatable land of Cleves and Juliers, the scene of the Admiral of Arragon’s recent barbarities, were now held by the stadholder.

These achievements were followed by an unsuccessful attempt upon Bois-le-Duc in the course of November.  The place would have fallen notwithstanding the slenderness of the besieging army had not a sudden and severe frost caused the prudent prince to raise the siege.  Feeling that his cousin Frederic van den Berg, who had been despatched from before Ostend to command the relieving force near Bois-le-Duc, might take advantage of the prematurely frozen canals and rivers to make an incursion into Holland, he left his city just as his works had been sufficiently advanced to ensure possession of the prize, and hastened to protect the heart of the republic from possible danger.

Nothing further was accomplished by Maurice that year, but meantime something had been doing within and around Ostend.

For now the siege of Ostend became the war, and was likely to continue to be the war for a long time to come; all other military operations being to a certain degree suspended, as if by general consent of both belligerants, or rendered subsidiary to the main design.  So long as this little place should be beleaguered it was the purpose of the States, and of Maurice, acting in harmony with those authorities, to concentrate their resources so as to strengthen the grip with which the only scrap of Flanders was held by the republic,

And as time wore on, the supposed necessities of the wealthy province, which, in political importance, made up a full half of the archduke’s dominions, together with self-esteem and an exaggerated idea of military honour, made that prelate more and more determined to effect his purpose.