holder could move
a step to its assistance, even had he deemed it prudent to leave
Yssel-side for an hour. The summer was passing away, the rain was still
descending, and it was the 1st of August before Spinola left Lochem. He
then made a rapid movement to the north, between Zwoll and Hasselt,
endeavouring to cross the Blackwater, and seize Geelmuyden, on the Zuyder
Zee. Had he succeeded, he might have turned Maurice's position. But the
works in that direction had been entrusted to an experienced campaigner,
Warmelo, sheriff of Zalant, who received the impetuous Spinola and his
lieutenant, Count Solre, so warmly, that they reeled backwards at last,
after repeated assaults and great loss of men, and never more attempted
to cross the Yssel.

Obviously, the campaign had failed. Utrecht and Holland were as far out
of the Catholic general's reach as the stars in the sky, but at least,
with his large armies, he could earn a few trophies, barren or
productive, as it might prove, before winter, uniting with the deluge,
should drive him from the field.

On the 3rd August, he laid siege to Groll (or Groenlo), a fortified town
of secondary importance in the country of Zutphen, and, squandering his
men with much recklessness, in his determination not to be baffled,
reduced the place in eleven days. Here he paused for a breathing spell,
and then, renouncing all his schemes upon the inner defences of the
republic, withdrew once more to the Rhine and laid siege to Rheinberg.

This frontier place had been tossed to and fro so often between the
contending parties in the perpetual warfare, that its inhabitants must
have learned to consider themselves rather as a convenient circulating
medium for military operations than as burghers who had any part in the
ordinary business of life. It had old-fashioned defences of stones which,
during the recent occupation by the States, had been much improved, and
had been strengthened with earthworks.

Before it was besieged, Maurice sent his brother Frederic Henry, with
some picked companies, into the place, so that the garrison amounted to
three thousand effective men.

The Prince de Soubise, brother of the Duc de Rohan, and other French
volunteers of quality, also threw themselves into the place, in order to
take lessons in the latest methods of attack and defence. It was now
admitted that no more accomplished pupil of the stadholder in the
beleaguering art had appeared in Europe than his prese