Of all the professors of this comprehensive art, the terrible Martin Schenk was preeminent; and he was now ravaging the Cologne territory, having recently passed again to the service of the States.  Immediately connected with the chief military events of the period which now occupies us, he was also the very archetype of the marauders whose existence was characteristic of the epoch.  Born in 1549 of an ancient and noble family of Gelderland, Martin Schenk had inherited no property but a sword.  Serving for a brief term as page to the Seigneur of Ysselstein, he joined, while yet a youth, the banner of William of Orange, at the head of two men-at-arms.  The humble knight-errant, with his brace of squires, was received with courtesy by the Prince and the Estates, but he soon quarrelled with his patrons.  There was a castle of Blyenbeek, belonging to his cousin, which he chose to consider his rightful property, because he was of the same race, and because it was a convenient and productive estate and residence, The courts had different views of public law, and supported the ousted cousin.  Martin shut himself up in the castle, and having recently committed a rather discreditable homicide, which still further increased his unpopularity with the patriots, he made overtures to Parma.  Alexander was glad to enlist so bold a soldier on his side, and assisted Schenk in his besieged stronghold.  For years afterwards, his services under the King’s banner were most brilliant, and he rose to the highest military command, while his coffers, meantime, were rapidly filling with the results of his robberies and ‘brandschatzungs.’ “’Tis a most courageous fellow,” said Parma, “but rather a desperate highwayman than a valiant soldier.”  Martin’s couple of lances had expanded into a corps of free companions, the most truculent, the most obedient, the most rapacious in Christendom.  Never were freebooters more formidable to the world at large, or more docile to their chief, than were the followers of General Schenk.  Never was a more finished captain of highwaymen.  He was a man who was never sober, yet who never smiled.  His habitual intoxication seemed only to increase both his audacity and his taciturnity, without disturbing his reason.  He was incapable of fear, of fatigue, of remorse.  He could remain for days and nights without dismounting-eating, drinking, and sleeping in the saddle; so that to this terrible centaur his horse seemed actually a part of himself.  His soldiers followed him about like hounds, and were treated by him like hounds.  He habitually scourged them, often took with his own hand the lives of such as displeased him, and had been known to cause individuals of them to jump from the top of church steeples at his command; yet the pack were ever stanch to his orders, for they knew that he always led them where the game was plenty.  While serving under Parma he had twice most brilliantly defeated Hohenlo.  At the battle of Hardenberg Heath he had completely outgeneralled