t foreign tyranny nor domestic sedition, but
against liberty and against law.

For the representative of the most ancient of the princely houses of
Europe, a youth whose ancestors had been emperors when the forefathers of
Philip, long-descended as he was, were but country squires, was now
knocking at their gates. Not as a conqueror and a despot, but as the
elected first magistrate and commander-in-chief of the freest
commonwealth in the world, Maurice of Nassau, at the head of fifteen
thousand Netherlanders, countrymen of their own, now summoned the
inhabitants of the town and province to participate with their fellow
citizens in all the privileges and duties of the prosperous republic.

It seemed impossible that such an appeal could be resisted by force of
arms. Rather it would seem that the very walls should have fallen at his
feet at the first blast of the trumpet; but there was military honour,
there was religious hatred, there was the obstinacy of party. More than
all, there were half a dozen Jesuits within the town, and to those ablest
of generals in times of civil war it was mainly owing that the siege of
Groningen was protracted longer than under other circumstances would have
been possible.

It is not my purpose to describe in detail the scientific operations
during the sixty-five days between the 20th May and the 24th July. Again
the commander-in-chief enlightened the world by an exhibition of a more
artistic and humane style of warfare than previously to his appearance on
the military stage had been known. But the daily phenomena of the
Leaguer--although they have been minutely preserved by most competent
eyewitnesses--are hardly entitled to a place except in special military
histories where, however, they should claim the foremost rank.

The fortifications of the city were of the most splendid and substantial
character known to the age. The ditches, the ravelins, the curtains, the
towers were as thoroughly constructed as the defences of any place in
Europe. It was therefore necessary that Maurice and his cousin Lewis
should employ all their learning, all their skill, and their best
artillery to reduce this great capital of the Eastern Netherlands. Again
the scientific coil of approaches wound itself around and around the
doomed stronghold; again were constructed the galleries, the covered
ways, the hidden mines, where soldiers, transformed to gnomes, burrowed
and fought within the bowels of the earth; aga