Nearly at the close of this year (1570) an incident occurred,
illustrating the ferocious courage so often engendered in civil
contests. On the western verge of the Isle of Bommel, stood the
castle of Lowestein. The island is not in the sea. It is the narrow
but important territory which is enclosed between the Meuse and the Waal.
The castle, placed in a slender hook, at the junction of the two rivers,
commanded the two cities of Gorcum and Dorcum, and the whole navigation
of the waters. One evening, towards the end of December, four monks,
wearing the cowls and robes of Mendicant Grey Friars, demanded
hospitality at the castle gate. They were at once ushered into the
presence of the commandant, a brother of President Tisnacq. He was
standing by the fire, conversing with his wife. The foremost monk
approaching him, asked whether the castle held for the Duke of Alva
or the Prince of Orange. The castellian replied that he recognized no
prince save Philip, King of Spain. Thereupon the monk, who was no other
than Herman de Ruyter, a drover by trade, and a warm partisan of Orange,
plucked a pistol from beneath his robe, and shot the commandant through
the head. The others, taking advantage of the sudden panic, overcame all
the resistance offered by the feeble garrison, and made themselves
masters of the place. In the course of the next day they introduced into
the castle four or five and twenty men, with which force they diligently
set themselves to fortify the place, and secure themselves in its
possession. A larger reinforcement which they had reckoned upon, was
detained by the floods and frosts, which, for the moment, had made the
roads and fivers alike impracticable.

Don Roderigo de Toledo, governor of Bois le Duc, immediately despatched
a certain Captain Perea, at the head of two hundred soldiers, who were
joined on the way by a miscellaneous force of volunteers, to recover the