While they still sat at table many of the standards taken from the enemy were brought in and exhibited; the stadholder and others amusing themselves with reading the inscriptions and devices emblazoned upon them.

And thus on the 2nd July, 1600, the army of the States-General, led by Maurice of Nassau, had utterly defeated Albert of Austria.

["Enfin l’affaire vint auix mains et fut combattu bien furieusement de deux costes l’espace de deux heures.  Enfin Dieu par sa grace voulut que la victoire demeura de more coste.”  Such were the simple words in which Maurice announced to his cousin Lewis William his victory in the most important battle that had been fought for half a century.  Not even General Ulysses Grant could be more modest in the hour of immense triumph.]

Strange to say—­on another 2nd July, three centuries and two years before, a former Albert of Austria had overthrown the emperor Adolphus of Nassau, who had then lost both crown and life in the memorable battle of Worms.  The imperial shade of Maurice’s ancestor had been signally appeased.

In Ostend, as may well be imagined, ineffable joy had succeeded to the horrible gloom in which the day had been passed, ever since the tidings had been received of Ernest’s overthrow.

Those very cavalry men, who had remained all day cowering behind the walls of the city, seeing by the clouds of dust which marked the track of the fugitives that the battle had been won by the comrades whom they had so basely deserted in the morning, had been eager enough to join in the pursuit.  It was with difficulty that the States, who had been unable to drive them out of the town while the fight was impending or going on, could keep enough of them within the walls to guard the city against possible accident, now that the work was done.  Even had they taken the field a few hours earlier, without participating in the action, or risking their own lives, they might have secured the pass of Leffingen, and made the capture of the archduke or his destruction inevitable.

The city, which had seemed deserted, swarmed with the garrison and with the lately trembling burghers, for it seemed to all as if they had been born again.  Even the soldiers on the battle-field had embraced each other like comrades who had met in another world.  “Blessed be His holy name,” said the stadholder’s chaplain, “for His right hand has led us into hell and brought us forth again.  I know not,” he continued, “if I am awake or if I dream, when I think how God has in one moment raised us from the dead.”

Lewis Gunther, whose services had been so conspicuous, was well rewarded.  “I hope,” said that general, writing to his brother Lewis William, “that this day’s work will not have been useless to me, both for what I have learned in it and for another thing.  His Excellency has done me the honour to give me the admiral for my prisoner.”  And equally characteristic was the reply of the religious and thrifty stadholder of Friesland.