of Leyden; but only for a time. After the victory at Mook the Spanish
troops were free to continue the task of reconquering rebel Holland for
the king. On May 26 a strong force under Valdez advanced to Leyden and
completely isolated the town by surrounding it with a girdle of forts.
The attack came suddenly, and unfortunately the place had not been
adequately provisioned. So strong was the position of the Spaniards that
the stadholder did not feel that any relieving force that he could send
would have any chance of breaking through the investing lines and
revictualling the garrison. In these circumstances he summoned, June 1,
a meeting of the Estates of Holland at Rotterdam and proposed, as a
desperate resource, that the dykes should be cut and the land submerged,
and that the light vessels of the Sea-Beggars under Boisot should sail
over the waters, attack the Spanish forts and force an entrance into the
town. After considerable opposition the proposal was agreed to and the
waters were allowed to flow out upon the low-lying fields, villages and
farms, which lie between the sea, the Rhine, the Waal and the Maas.
Unfortunately the season was not favourable, and though the water
reached nearly to the higher land round Leyden on which the Spanish
redoubts were erected, and by alarming Valdez caused him to press the
blockade more closely, it was not deep enough even for the light-draught
vessels, which Boisot had gathered together, to make their way to the
town. So the month of August passed and September began. Meanwhile the
prince, who was the soul of the enterprise, was confined to his sick-bed
by a violent attack of fever, and the pangs of famine began to be
cruelly felt within the beleaguered town. A portion of the citizens were
half-hearted in the struggle, and began to agitate for surrender and
even sent out emissaries to try to make terms with the Spanish
commander. But there were within Leyden leaders of iron resolution, the
heroic Burgomaster Pieter Adriaanzoon van der Werf; the commandant of
the garrison, Jan van der Does; Dirk van Bronkhorst, Jan van Hout and