h have always claimed to be
descended from the relics of Troy." A simpler-minded antiquary might have
babbled of green fields, since 'groenighe,' or greenness, was a
sufficiently natural appellation for a town surrounded as was Groningen
on the east and west by the greenest and fattest of pastures. In
population it was only exceeded by Antwerp and Amsterdam. Situate on the
line where upper and nether Germany blend into one, the capital of a
great province whose very name was synonymous with liberty, and whose
hardy sons had clone fierce battle with despotism in every age, so long
as there had been human record of despotism and of battles, Groningen had
fallen into the hands of the foreign foe, not through the prowess of the
Spaniard but the treason of the Netherlander. The baseness of the
brilliant, trusted, valiant, treacherous young Renneberg has been
recorded on a previous page of these volumes. For thirteen years long the
republic had chafed at this acquisition of the hated enemy within its
very heart. And now the day had come when a blow should be struck for its
deliverance by the ablest soldier that had ever shown himself in those
regions, one whom the commonwealth had watched over from his cradle.

For in Groningen there was still a considerable party in favour of the
Union, although the treason of Renneberg had hitherto prevented both city
and province from incorporating themselves in the body politic of the
United Netherlands. Within the precincts were five hundred of Verdugo's
veterans under George Lanckema, stationed at a faubourg called
Schuytendiess. In the city there was, properly speaking, no garrison, for
the citizens in the last few years had come to value themselves on their
fidelity to church and king, and to take a sorry pride in being false to
all that was noble in their past. Their ancestors had wrested privilege
after privilege at the sword's point from the mailed hands of dukes and
emperors, until they were almost a self-governing republic; their courts
of justice recognizing no appeal to higher powers, even under the
despotic sway of Charles V. And now, under the reign of his son, and in
the feebler days of that reign, the capital of the free Frisians--the men
whom their ancient pagan statutes had once declared to be "free so long
as the wind blew out of the clouds"--relied upon the trained bands of her
burghers enured to arms and well-provided with all munitions of war to
protect her, not agains