of Guicciardini.

The siege of Groningen proceeded, and Parma ordered some forces under
Martin Schenck to advance to its relief. On the other hand, the meagre
states' forces under Sonoy, Hohenlo, Entes, and Count John of Nassau's
young son, William Louis, had not yet made much impression upon the city.
There was little military skill to atone for the feebleness of the
assailing army, although there was plenty of rude valor. Barthold Entes,
a man of desperate character, was impatient at the dilatoriness of the
proceedings. After having been in disgrace with the states, since the
downfall of his friend and patron, the Count De la Marck, he had recently
succeeded to a regiment in place of Colonel Ysselstein, "dismissed for a
homicide or two." On the 17th of May, he had been dining at Rolda, in
company with Hohenlo and the young Count of Nassau. Returning to the
trenches in a state of wild intoxication, he accosted a knot of superior
officers, informing them that they were but boys, and that he would show
them how to carry the faubourg of Groningen on the instant. He was
answered that the faubourg, being walled and moated, could be taken only
by escalade or battery. Laughing loudly, he rushed forward toward the
counterscarp, waving his sword, and brandishing on his left arm the cover
of a butter firkin, which he had taken instead of his buckler. He had
advanced, however, but a step, when a bullet from the faubourg pierced
his brain, and he fell dead without a word.

So perished one of the wild founders of the Netherland commonwealth--one
of the little band of reckless adventurers who had captured the town of
Brill in 1572, and thus laid the foundation stone of a great republic,
which was to dictate its laws to the empire of Charles the Fifth. He was
in some sort a type. His character was emblematical of the worst side of
the liberating movement. Desperate, lawless, ferocious--a robber on land,
a pirate by sea--he had rendered great service in the cause of his
fatherland, and had done it much disgrace. By the evil deeds of men like
himself, the fair face of liberty had been profaned at its first
appearance. Born of a respectable family, he had been noted, when a
student in this very Groningen where he had now found his grave, for the
youthful profligacy of his character. After dissipating his partrimony,
he had taken to the sea, the legalized piracy of the mortal struggle with
Spain offering a welcome refuge to spendthrifts