History of the United Netherlands, 1588-1589


CHAPTER XX.

Alexander besieges Bergen-op-Zoom--Pallavicini's Attempt to seduce
Parma--Alexander's Fury--He is forced to raise the Siege, of Bergen
--Gertruydenberg betrayed to Parma--Indignation of the States--
Exploits, of Schenk--His Attack on Nymegen--He is defeated and
drowned--English-Dutch Expedition to Spain--Its meagre Results--
Death of Guise and of the Queen--Mother--Combinations after the
Murder of Henry III.--Tandem fit Surculus Arbor.

The fever of the past two years was followed by comparative languor.
The deadly crisis was past, the freedom of Europe was saved, Holland and
England breathed again; but tension now gave place to exhaustion. The
events in the remainder of the year 1588, with those of 1589--although
important in themselves--were the immediate results of that history which
has been so minutely detailed in these volumes, and can be indicated in a
very few pages.

The Duke of Parma, melancholy, disappointed, angry stung to the soul by
calumnies as stupid as they were venomous, and already afflicted with a
painful and lingering disease, which his friends attributed to poison
administered by command of the master whom he had so faithfully served--
determined, if possible, to afford the consolation which that master was
so plaintively demanding at his hands.

So Alexander led the splendid army which had been packed in, and unpacked
from, the flat boats of Newport and Dunkerk, against Bergen-op-Zoom, and