Meantime the turbulent Scheldt, lashed by the storms of winter, was becoming a more formidable enemy to Parma’s great enterprise than the military demonstrations of his enemies, or the famine which was making such havoc, with his little army.  The ocean-tides were rolling huge ice-blocks up and down, which beat against his palisade with the noise of thunder, and seemed to threaten its immediate destruction.  But the work stood firm.  The piles supporting the piers, which had been thrust out from each bank into the stream, had been driven fifty feet into the river’s bed, and did their duty well.  But in the space between, twelve hundred and forty feet in width, the current was too deep for pile-driving and a permanent bridge was to be established upon boats.  And that bridge was to be laid across the icy and tempestuous flood, in the depth of winter, in the teeth of a watchful enemy, with the probability of an immediate invasion from France, where the rebel envoys were known to be negotiating on express invitation of the King—­by half-naked, half-starving soldiers and sailors, unpaid for years, and for the sake of a master who seemed to have forgotten their existence.

“Thank God,” wrote Alexander, “the palisade stands firm in spite of the ice.  Now with the favour of the Lord, we shall soon get the fruit we have been hoping, if your Majesty is not wanting in that to which your grandeur, your great Christianity, your own interests, oblige you.  In truth ’tis a great and heroic work, worthy the great power of your Majesty.”  “For my own part,” he continued, “I have done what depended upon me.  From your own royal hand must emanate the rest;—­men, namely, sufficient to maintain the posts, and money enough to support them there.”

He expressed himself in the strongest language concerning the danger to the royal cause from the weak and gradually sinking condition of the army.  Even without the French intrigues with the rebels, concerning which, in his ignorance of the exact state of affairs, he expressed much anxiety, it would be impossible, he said, to save the royal cause without men and money.

“I have spared myself,” said the Prince, “neither day nor night.  Let not your Majesty impute the blame to me if we fail.  Verdugo also is uttering a perpetual cry out of Friesland for men—­men and money.”

Yet, notwithstanding all these obstacles, the bridge was finished at last.  On the 25th February, (1585) the day sacred to Saint Matthew, and of fortunate augury to the Emperor Charles, father of Philip and grandfather of Alexander, the Scheldt was closed.