est of Flanders
and Brabant. Despite the miserable inadequacy of the financial support
he received from Spain, the governor-general, at the head of a
numerically small but thoroughly efficient and well-disciplined army,
was capturing town after town. In 1583 Dunkirk, Nieuport, Lindhoven,
Steenbergen, Zutphen and Sas-van-Gent fell; in the spring of 1584 Ypres
and Bruges were already in Spanish hands, and on the very day of
William's death the fort of Liefkenshoek on the Scheldt, one of the
outlying defences of Antwerp, was taken by assault. In August
Dendermonde, in September Ghent, surrendered. All West Flanders, except
the sea-ports of Ostend and Sluis, had in the early autumn of 1584 been
reduced to the obedience of the king. The campaign of the following year
was to be even more successful. Brussels, the seat of government, was
compelled by starvation to capitulate, March 10; Mechlin was taken, July
19; and finally Antwerp, after a memorable siege, in which Parma
displayed masterly skill and resource, passed once more into the
possession of the Spaniards. The fall of this great town was a very
heavy blow to the patriot cause, and it was likewise the ruin of Antwerp
itself. A very large part of its most enterprising inhabitants left
their homes rather than abjure their religious faith and took refuge in
Holland and Zeeland, or fled across the Rhine into Germany. Access to
the sea down the Scheldt was closed by the fleets of the Sea Beggars,
and the commerce and industry of the first commercial port of western
Europe passed to Amsterdam and Middelburg. Meanwhile there had been no
signs of weakness or of yielding on the part of the sturdy burghers of
Holland and Zeeland. On the fatal July 10, 1584, the Estates of
Holland were in session at Delft. They at once took energetic action
under the able leadership of Paul Buys, Advocate of Holland, and John
van Oldenbarneveldt, Pensionary of Rotterdam. They passed a resolution
"to uphold the good cause with God's help without sparing gold or
blood." Despatches were at once sent to the Estates of the other
provinces, to the town councils and to the military and naval
commanders, affirming their own determined attitude and exhorting all
those who had accepted the leadership of the murdered Prince of Orange
"to bear themselves manfully and piously without abatement of zeal on
account of the aforesaid misfortune." Their calm courage at such a
moment of crisis reassured men's minds.