town was taken, an Eletto was appointed.
The country-side was black-mailed or plundered, and the rebellion lasted
some thirteen months. Before it was concluded there was another similar
outbreak among the Italians, together with the Walloons and other
obedient Netherlanders in Hainault, who obliged the city of Mons to
collect nine hundred florins a day for them. The consequence of these
military rebellions was to render the Spanish crown almost powerless
during the whole year, within the provinces nominally subject to its
sway. The cause--as always--was the non-payment of these veterans' wages,
year after year. It was impossible for Philip, with all the wealth of the
Indies and Mexico pouring through the Danaid sieve of the Holy League in
France, to find the necessary funds to save the bronzed and war-worn
instruments of his crimes in the Netherlands from starving and from
revolt.

Meantime there was much desultory campaigning in Friesland. Verdugo and
Frederic van den Berg picked up a few cities, and strong places which had
thrown off their allegiance September, to the king--Auerzyl,
Schlochteren, Winschoten, Wedde, Ootmarzum--and invested the much more
important town of Coeworden, which Maurice had so recently reduced to the
authority of the Union. Verdugo's force was insufficient, however, and he
had neither munitions nor provisions for a long siege. Winter was coming
on; and the States, aware that he would soon be obliged to retire from
before the well-garrisoned and fortified place, thought it unnecessary to
interfere with him. After a very brief demonstration the Portuguese
veteran was obliged to raise the siege.

There were also certain vague attempts made by the enemy to re-possess
himself of those most important seaports which had been pledged to the
English queen. On a previous page the anxiety has been indicated with
which Sir Robert Sydney regarded the withdrawal of the English troops in
the Netherlands for the sake of assisting the French king. This palpable
breach of the treaty had necessarily weakened England's hold on the
affections of the Netherlanders, and awakened dark suspicions that
treason might be impending at Flushing or Ostend. The suspicions were
unjust--so far as the governors of those places were concerned--for
Sydney and Norris were as loyal as they were intelligent and brave; but
the trust in their characters was not more implicit than it had been in
that of Sir William Stanley before the