picturesqueness of crime. The sieges of Naarden, Harlem, Leyden, were
tragedies of maddening interest, but the recovery of Zutphen, Deventer,
Nymegen, Groningen, and many other places--all important though they
were--was accomplished with the calmness of a consummate player, who
throws down on the table the best half dozen invincible cards which it
thus becomes superfluous to play.

There were several courses open to the prince before taking the field.
It was desirable to obtain control of the line of the Waal, by which that
heart of the republic--Holland--would be made entirely secure. To this
end, Gertruydenberg--lately surrendered to the enemy by the perfidy of
the Englishman Wingfield, to whom it had been entrusted--Bois le Duc, and
Nymegen were to be wrested from Spain.

It was also important to hold the Yssel, the course of which river led
directly through the United Netherlands, quite to the Zuyder Zee, cutting
off Friesland, Groningen, and Gelderland from their sister provinces of
Holland and Zeeland. And here again the keys to this river had been lost
by English treason. The fort of Zutphen and the city of Deventer had
been transferred to the Spaniard by Roland York and Sir William Stanley,
in whose honour the republic had so blindly confided, and those cities it
was now necessary to reduce by regular siege before the communications
between the eastern and western portions of the little commonwealth could
ever be established.

Still farther in the ancient Frisian depths, the memorable treason of
that native Netherlander, the high-born Renneberg, had opened the way
for the Spaniard's foot into the city of Groningen. Thus this whole
important province--with its capital--long subject to the foreign
oppressor, was garrisoned with his troops.