With such rough but cheerful admonitions did the honest soldier, at the head of his little handful, sustain the courage of the beleaguered city.  Meantime Renneberg pressed it hard.  He bombarded it with red-hot balls, a new invention introduced five years before by Stephen Bathor, King of Poland, at the siege of Dantzig.  Many houses were consumed, but still Cornput and the citizens held firm.  As the winter advanced, and the succor which had been promised still remained in the distance, Renneberg began to pelt the city with sarcasms, which, it was hoped, might prove more effective than the red-hot balls.  He sent a herald to know if the citizens had eaten all their horses yet; a question which was answered by an ostentatious display of sixty starving hacks—­all that could be mustered-upon the heights.  He sent them on another occasion, a short letter, which ran as follows: 

“Most honorable, most steadfast,—­As, during the present frost, you have but little exercise in the trenches—­as you cannot pass your time in twirling your finger-rings, seeing that they have all been sold to pay your soldiers’ wages—­as you have nothing to rub your teeth upon, nor to scour your stomachs withal, and as, nevertheless, you require something if only to occupy your minds, I send you the enclosed letter, in hope it may yield amusement.—­January 15, 1581.”

The enclosure was a letter from the Prince of Orange to the Duke of Anjou, which, as it was pretended, had been intercepted.  It was a clumsy forgery, but it answered the purpose of more skilful counterfeiting, at a period when political and religious enmity obscured men’s judgment.  “As to the point of religion,” the Prince was made to observe, for example, to his illustrious correspondent, “that is all plain and clear.  No sovereign who hopes to come to any great advancement ought to consider religion, or hold it in regard.  Your Highness, by means of the garrisons, and fortresses, will be easily master of the principal cities in Flanders and Brabant, even if the citizens were opposed to you.  Afterwards you will compel them without difficulty to any religion which may seem most conducive to the interests of your Highness.”

Odious and cynical as was the whole tone of the letter, it was extensively circulated.  There were always natures base and brutal enough to accept the calumny and to make it current among kindred souls.  It may be doubted whether Renneberg attached faith to the document; but it was natural that he should take a malicious satisfaction in spreading this libel against the man whose perpetual scorn he had so recently earned.  Nothing was more common than such forgeries, and at that very moment a letter, executed with equal grossness, was passing from hand to hand, which purported to be from the Count himself to Parma.  History has less interest in contradicting the calumnies against a man like Renneberg.  The fictitious epistle