of the Spaniards and of the patriots. Thus Antwerp, with the other
Scheldt cities, had fallen into Parma's power, but Flushing, which
controlled them all, was held by Philip Sidney for the Queen and States.
On the Meuse, Maastricht and Roermond were Spanish, but Yenloo, Grave,
Meghem, and other towns, held for the commonwealth. On the Waal, the
town of Nymegen had, through the dexterity of Martin Schenk, been
recently transferred to the royalists, while the rest of that river's
course was true to the republic. The Rhine, strictly so called, from its
entrance into Netherland, belonged to the rebels. Upon its elder branch,
the Yssel, Zutphen was in Parma's hands, while, a little below, Deventer
had been recently and adroitly saved by Leicester and Count Meurs from
falling into the same dangerous grasp.

Thus the triple Rhine, after it had crossed the German frontier, belonged
mainly, although not exclusively, to the States. But on the edge of the
Batavian territory, the ancient river, just before dividing itself into
its three branches, flowed through a debatable country which was even
more desolate and forlorn, if possible, than the land of the obedient
Provinces.

This unfortunate district was the archi-episcopal electorate of Cologne.
The city of Cologne itself, Neusz, and Rheinberg, on the river, Werll and
other places in Westphalia and the whole country around, were endangered,
invaded, ravaged, and the inhabitants plundered, murdered, and subjected
to every imaginable outrage, by rival bands of highwaymen, enlisted in
the support of the two rival bishops--beggars, outcasts, but high-born
and learned churchmen both--who disputed the electorate.

At the commencement of the year a portion of the bishopric was still in
the control of the deposed Protestant elector Gebhard Truchsess, assisted