an it had displayed
in the sphere of diplomacy. In vain did the envoy of the republic urge
Henry and his counsellors to follow up the crushing blow dealt to the
cardinal at Turnhout by vigorous operations in conjunction with the
States' forces in Artois and Hainault. For Amiens had meantime been
taken, and it was now necessary for the king to employ all his energy and
all his resources to recover that important city. So much damage to the
cause of the republic and of the new league had the little yellow Spanish
captain inflicted in an hour, with his bags of chestnuts and walnuts. The
siege of Amiens lasted nearly six months, and was the main event of the
campaign, so far as Henry was concerned. It is true--as the reader has
already seen, and as will soon be more clearly developed--that Henry's
heart had been fixed on peace from the moment that he consented in
conjunction with the republic to declare war, and that he had entered
into secret and separate negotiations for that purpose with the agents of
Philip so soon as he had bound himself by solemn covenant with Elizabeth
to have no negotiations whatever with him except with her full knowledge
and consent.

The siege of Amiens, however, was considered a military masterpiece, and
its whole progress showed the revolution which the stadholder of Holland
had already effected in European warfare. Henry IV. beleaguered Amiens as
if he were a pupil of Maurice, and contemporaries were enthusiastic over
the science, the patience, the inventive ingenuity which were at last
crowned with success. The heroic Hernan Tello de Porto Carrero was killed
in a sortie during the defence of the place which he had so gallantly
won, and when the city was surrendered to the king on the 19th of
September it was stipulated in the first article of the capitulation that
the tomb, epitaph, and trophies, by which his memory was honoured in the
principal church, should not be disturbed, and that his body might be
removed whenever and whither it seemed good to his sovereign. In vain the
cardinal had taken the field with an army of eighteen thousand foot and
fifteen hundred light cavalry. The king had learned so well to entrench
himself and to moderate his ardour for inopportune pitched battles, that
the relieving force could find, no occasion to effect its purpose. The
archduke retired. He came to Amiens like a soldier, said Henry, but he
went back like a priest. Moreover, he was obliged to renounce, be