The patriots had been sleeping, as it were, all the winter, hugging the delusive dream of French sovereignty and French assistance.  No language can exaggerate the deadly effects from the slow poison of that negotiation.  At any rate, the negotiation was now concluded.  The dream was dispelled.  Antwerp must now fall, or a decisive blow must be struck by the patriots themselves, and a telling blow had been secretly and maturely meditated.  Certain preparatory steps were however necessary.

The fort of Liefkenshoek, “darling’s corner,” was a most important post.  The patriots had never ceased to regret that precious possession, lost, as we have seen, in so tragical a manner on the very day of Orange’s death.  Fort Lillo, exactly opposite, on the Brabant shore of the Scheldt, had always been securely held by them; and was their strongest position.  Were both places in their power, the navigation of the river, at least as far as the bridge, would be comparatively secure.

A sudden dash was made upon Liefkenshoek.  A number of armed vessels sailed up from Zeeland, under command of Justinus de Nassau.  They were assisted from Fort Lillo by a detachment headed by Count Hohenlo.  These two officers were desirous of retrieving the reputation which they had lost at Bois-le-Duc.  They were successful, and the “darling” fort was carried at a blow.  After a brief cannonade, the patriots made a breach, effected a landing, and sprang over the ramparts.  The Walloons and Spaniards fled in dismay; many of them were killed in the fort, and along the dykes; others were hurled into the Scheldt.  The victors followed up their success by reducing, with equal impetuosity, the fort of Saint Anthony, situate in the neighbourhood farther down the river.  They thus gained entire command of all the high ground, which remained in that quarter above the inundation, and was called the Doel.

The dyke, on which Liefkenshoek stood, led up the river towards Kalloo, distant less than a league.  There were Parma’s head-quarters and the famous bridge.  But at Fort Saint Mary; where the Flemish head of that bridge rested, the dyke was broken.  Upon that broken end the commanders of the expedition against Liefkenshoek were ordered to throw up an entrenchment, without loss of a moment, so soon as they should have gained the fortresses which they were ordered first to assault.  Sainte Aldegonde had given urgent written directions to this effect.  From a redoubt situated thus, in the very face of Saint Mary’s, that position, the palisade-work, the whole bridge, might be battered with all the artillery that could be brought from Zeeland.