It was also important to hold the Yssel, the course of which river led directly through the United Netherlands, quite to the Zuyder Zee, cutting off Friesland, Groningen, and Gelderland from their sister provinces of Holland and Zeeland.  And here again the keys to this river had been lost by English treason.  The fort of Zutphen and the city of Deventer had been transferred to the Spaniard by Roland York and Sir William Stanley, in whose honour the republic had so blindly confided, and those cities it was now necessary to reduce by regular siege before the communications between the eastern and western portions of the little commonwealth could ever be established.

Still farther in the ancient Frisian depths, the memorable treason of that native Netherlander, the high-born Renneberg, had opened the way for the Spaniard’s foot into the city of Groningen.  Thus this whole important province—­with its capital—­long subject to the foreign oppressor, was garrisoned with his troops.

Verdugo, a veteran officer of Portuguese birth, who had risen from the position of hostler to that of colonel and royal stadholder, commanded in Friesland.  He had in vain demanded reinforcements and supplies from Farnese, who most reluctantly was obliged to refuse them in order that he might obey his master’s commands to neglect everything for the sake of the campaign in France.

And Verdugo, stripped of all adequate forces to protect his important province, was equally destitute of means for feeding the troops that were left to him.  “I hope to God that I may do my duty to the king and your Highness,” he cried, “but I find myself sold up and pledged to such an extent that I am poorer than when I was a soldier at four crowns a month.  And everybody in the town is as desperate as myself.”

Maurice, after making a feint of attacking Gertruydenberg and Bois le Duc, so that Farnese felt compelled, with considerable difficulty, to strengthen the garrison of those places, came unexpectedly to Arnhem with a force of nine thousand foot and sixteen hundred horse.  He had previously and with great secrecy sent some companies of infantry under Sir Francis Vere to Doesburg.

On the 23rd May (1591) five peasants and six peasant women made their appearance at dawn of day before the chief guard-house of the great fort in the Badmeadow (Vel-uwe), opposite Zutphen, on the west side of the Yssel.  It was not an unusual occurrence.  These boors and their wives had brought baskets of eggs, butter, and cheese, for the garrison, and they now set themselves quietly down on the ground before the gate, waiting for the soldiers of the garrison to come out and traffic with them for their supplies.  Very soon several of the guard made their appearance, and began to chaffer with the peasants, when suddenly one of the women plucked a pistol from under her petticoats and shot dead the soldier who was cheapening her eggs.  The rest of the party, transformed in an instant from boors to soldiers, then sprang upon the rest of the guard, overpowered and bound them, and took possession of the gate.  A considerable force, which had been placed in ambush by Prince Maurice near the spot, now rushed forward, and in a few minutes the great fort of Zutphen was mastered by the States’ forces without loss of a man.  It was a neat and perfectly successful stratagem.