despite his ban and edicts and outlawry,
as the Dutch commonwealth itself. For more than a twelvemonth the best
troops of the Spanish army had been thus established as a separate
empire, levying black-mail on the obedient provinces, hanging such of
their old officers as dared to remonstrate, and obeying their elected
chief magistrates with exemplary docility.

They had become a force of five thousand strong, cavalry and infantry
together, all steady, experienced veterans--the best and bravest soldiers
of Europe. The least of them demanded two thousand florins as owed to him
by the King of Spain and the archduke. The burghers of Bois-le-Duc and
other neighbouring towns in the obedient provinces kept watch and ward,
not knowing how soon the Spaniards might be upon them to reward them for
their obedience. Not a peasant with provisions was permitted by the
mutineers to enter Bois-le-Duc, while the priests were summoned to pay
one year's income of all their property on pain of being burned alive.
"Very much amazed are the poor priests at these proceedings," said Ernest
Nassau, "and there is a terrible quantity of the vile race within and
around the city. I hope one day to have the plucking of some of their
feathers myself."

The mutiny governed itself as a strict military democracy, and had caused
an official seal to be engraved, representing seven snakes entwined in
one, each thrusting forth a dangerous tongue, with the motto--

"tutto in ore
E sua Eccelenza in nostro favore."

"His Excellency" meant Maurice of Nassau, with whom formal articles of
compact had been arranged. It had become necessary for the archduke,
notwithstanding the steady drain of the siege of Ostend, to detach a
considerable army against this republic and to besiege them in their
capital of Hoogstraaten. With seven thousand foot and three thousand
cavalry Frederic Van den Berg took the field against them in the latter
part of July. Maurice, with nine thousand five hundred infantry and three
thousand horse, lay near Gertruydenberg. When united with the rebel
"squadron," two thousand five hundred strong, he would dispose of a force
of fifteen thousand veterans, and he moved at once to relieve the
besieged mutineers. His cousin Frederic, however, had no desire to
measure himself with the stadholder at such odds, and stole away from him
in the dark without beat of drum. Maurice entered Hoogstraaten, was
received with rapture by the Sp