r grace in that He has been
pleased to make use of your person as the instrument of so renowned and
signal a victory, for which, as you have derived therefrom not mediocre
praise, and acquired a great reputation, it should be now your duty to
humble yourself before God, and to acknowledge that it is He alone who
has thus honoured you . . . . You should reverence Him the more, that
while others are admonished of their duty by misfortunes and miseries,
the good God invites you to His love by benefits and honours . . . . I am
very glad, too, that his Excellency has given you the admiral for your
prisoner, both because of the benefit to you, and because it is a mark of
your merit on that day. Knowing the state of our affairs, you will now be
able to free your patrimony from encumbrances, when otherwise you would
have been in danger of remaining embarrassed and in the power of others.
It will therefore be a perpetual honour to you that you, the youngest of
us all, have been able by your merits to do more to raise up our house
out of its difficulties than your predecessors or myself have been able
to do."

The beautiful white horse which the archduke had ridden during the battle
fell into the hands of Lewis Gunther, and was presented by him to Prince
Maurice, who had expressed great admiration of the charger. It was a
Spanish horse, for which the archduke had lately paid eleven hundred
crowns.

A white hackney of the Infanta had also been taken, and became the
property of Count Ernest.

The news of the great battle spread with unexampled rapidity, not only
through the Netherlands but to neighbouring countries. On the night of
the 7th July (N.S.) five days after the event, Envoy Caron, in England,
received intimations of the favourable news from the French ambassador,
who had received a letter from the Governor of Calais. Next morning, very
early, he waited on Sir Robert Cecil at Greenwich, and was admitted to
his chamber, although the secretary was not yet out of bed. He, too, had
heard of the battle, but Richardot had informed the English ambassador in
Paris that the victory had been gained, not by the stadholder, but by the
archduke. While they were talking, a despatch-bearer arrived with letters
from Vere to Cecil, and from the States-General to Caron, dated on the
3rd July. There could no longer be any doubt on the subject, and the
envoy of the republic had now full details of the glorious triumph which
the Spanish age