the appointment of Fuentes, had lost all further chance of
governing the Netherlands, had now left Philip's service and gone to the
Turkish wars. For Amurath III., who had died in the early days of the
year, had been succeeded by a sultan as warlike as himself. Mahomet III.,
having strangled his nineteen brothers on his accession, handsomely
buried them in cypress coffins by the side of their father, and having
subsequently sacked and drowned ten infant princes posthumously born to
Amurath, was at leisure to carry the war through Transylvania and
Hungary, up to the gates of Vienna, with renewed energy. The Turk, who
could enforce the strenuous rules of despotism by which all
secundogenitures and collateral claimants in the Ottoman family were thus
provided for, was a foe to be dealt with seriously. The power of the
Moslems at that day was a full match for the holy Roman Empire. The days
were far distant when the grim Turk's head was to become a mockery and a
show; and when a pagan empire, born of carnage and barbarism, was to be
kept alive in Europe when it was ready to die, by the collective efforts
of Christian princes. Charles Mansfeld had been received with great
enthusiasm at the court of Rudolph, where he was created a prince of the
Empire, and appointed to the chief command of the Imperial armies under
the Archduke Matthias. But his warfare was over. At the siege of Gran he
was stricken with sickness and removed to Comorn, where he lingered some
weeks. There, on the 24th August, as he lay half-dozing on his couch, he
was told that the siege was at last successful; upon which he called for
a goblet of wine, drained it eagerly, and then lay resting his head on
his hand, like one absorbed in thought. When they came to arouse him from
his reverie they found that he was dead. His father still remained
superfluous in the Netherlands, hating and hated by Fuentes; but no
longer able to give that governor so much annoyance as during his son's
life-time the two had been able to create for Alexander Farnese. The
octogenarian was past work and past mischief now; but there was one older
soldier than he still left upon the stage, the grandest veteran in
Philip's service, and now the last survivor, except the decrepit Peter
Ernest, of the grim commanders of Alva's school. Christopher
Mondragon--that miracle of human endurance, who had been an old man when
the great duke arrived in the Netherlands--was still governor of Antwerp
ci