to undervalue the enemy.

On the 7th May, Counts Meghem and Aremberg met and conferred at Arnheim,
on their way to Friesland. It was fully agreed between them, after
having heard full reports of the rising in that province, and of the
temper throughout the eastern Netherlands, that it would be rash to
attempt any separate enterprise. On the 11th, Aremberg reached
Vollenhoven, where he was laid up in his bed with the gout. Bodies of
men, while he lay sick, paraded hourly with fife and drum before his
windows, and discharged pistols and arquebuses across the ditch of the
blockhouse where he was quartered. On the 18th, Braccamonte, with his
legion, arrived by water at Harlingen. Not a moment more was lost.
Aremberg, notwithstanding his gout, which still confined him to a litter,
started at once in pursuit of the enemy. Passing through Groningen, he
collected all the troops which could be spared.. He also received six
pieces of artillery. Six cannon, which the lovers of harmony had
baptized with the notes of the gamut, 'ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la', were
placed at his disposal by the authorities, and have acquired historical
celebrity. It was, however, ordained that when those musical pieces
piped, the Spaniards were not to dance. On the 22d, followed by his
whole force, consisting of Braccamonte's legion, his own four vanderas,
and a troop of Germans, he came in sight of the enemy at Dam. Louis of
Nassau sent out a body of arquebusiers, about one thousand strong, from
the city. A sharp skirmish ensued, but the beggars were driven into
their entrenchments, with a loss of twenty or thirty men, and nightfall
terminated the contest.

It was beautiful to see, wrote Aremberg to Alva, how brisk and eager were
the Spaniards, notwithstanding the long march which they had that day
accomplished. Time was soon to show how easily immoderate, valor might