“If Count Maurice and his base brother, the Admiral (Justinus de Nassau), be too young to govern, must Holland and Zeeland lose their countries and towns to make them expert men of war?” asked Roger Williams.’  A pregnant question certainly, but the answer was, that by suspicion and jealousy, rather than by youth and inexperience, the arms were paralyzed which should have saved the garrison.  “If these base fellows (the States) will make Count Hollock their instrument,” continued the Welshman; “to cover and maintain their folly and lewd dealing, is it necessary for her royal Majesty to suffer it?  These are too great matters to be rehearsed by me; but because I am in the town, and do resolve to, sign with my blood my duty in serving my sovereign and country, I trust her Majesty will pardon me.”  Certainly the gallant adventurer on whom devolved at least half the work of directing the defence of the city, had a right to express his opinions.  Had he known the whole truth, however, those opinions would have been modified.  And he wrote amid the smoke and turmoil of daily and nightly battle.

“Yesterday was the fifth sally we made,” he observed:  “Since I followed the wars I never saw valianter captains, nor willinger soldiers.  At eleven o’clock the enemy entered the ditch of our fort, with trenches upon wheels, artillery-proof.  We sallied out, recovered their trenches, slew the governor of Dam, two Spanish captains, with a number of others, repulsed them into their artillery, kept the ditch until yesternight, and will recover it, with God’s help, this night, or else pay dearly for it. . . .  I care not what may become of me in this world, so that her Majesty’s honour,—­with the rest of honourable good friends, will think me an honest man.”

No one ever doubted the simple-hearted Welshman’s honesty, any more than his valour; but he confided in the candour of others who were somewhat more sophisticated than himself.  When he warned her, royal Majesty against the peace-makers, it was impossible for him to know that the great peace-maker was Elizabeth herself.

After the expiration of a month the work had become most fatiguing.  The enemy’s trenches had been advanced close to the ramparts, and desperate conflicts were of daily occurrence.  The Spanish mines, too, had been pushed forward towards the extensive wine-caverns below the city, and the danger of a vast explosion or of a general assault from beneath their very feet, seemed to the inhabitants imminent.  Eight days long, with scarcely an intermission, amid those sepulchral vaults, dimly-lighted with torches, Dutchmen, Englishmen, Spaniards, Italians, fought hand to hand, with pike, pistol, and dagger, within the bowels of the earth.