pledging himself to send her Spanish thistles, enough in return for the
Florentine lilies which she had thus bestowed upon him.

In the midst of the perplexities thus thickening around him, the Duke
preserved his courage, if not his temper. Blinded, for a brief season,
by the rapid attacks made upon him, he had been uncertain whither to
direct his vengeance. This last blow in so vital a quarter determined
him at once. He forthwith despatched Don Frederic to undertake the siege
of Mons, and earnestly set about raising large reinforcements to his
army. Don Frederic took possession, without much opposition, of the
Bethlehem cloister in the immediate vicinity of the city, and with four
thousand troops began the investment in due form.

Alva had, for a long time, been most impatient to retire from the
provinces. Even he was capable of human emotions. Through the sevenfold
panoply of his pride he had been pierced by the sharpness of a nation's
curse. He was wearied with the unceasing execrations which assailed his
ears. "The hatred which the people bear me," said he, in a letter to
Philip, "because of the chastisement which it has been necessary for me
to inflict, although with all the moderation in the world, make all my
efforts vain. A successor will meet more sympathy and prove more
useful." On the 10th June, the Duke of Medina Coeli; with a fleet of
more than forty sail, arrived off Blankenburg, intending to enter the
Scheld. Julian Romero, with two thousand Spaniards, was also on board
the fleet. Nothing, of course, was known to the new comers of the
altered condition of affairs in the Netherlands, nor of the unwelcome
reception which they were like to meet in Flushing. A few of the lighter
craft having been taken by the patriot cruisers, the alarm was spread
through all the fleet. Medina Coeli, with a few transports, was enabled
to effect his escape to Sluys, whence he hastened to Brussels in a much