frontier town which might give him trouble if in the hands of a relieving
force. The place fell at once, with the loss of but one life to the
States army, but that a very valuable one; General de Famars, one of the
original signers of the famous Compromise; and a most distinguished
soldier of the republic, having been killed before the gates.

On the 31st July, Maurice returned to his entrenchments. The enemy
professed unbounded confidence; Van den Berg not doubting that he should
be relieved by Verdugo, and Verdugo being sure that Van den Berg would
need no relief. The Portuguese veteran indeed was inclined to wonder at
Maurice's presumption in attacking so impregnable a fortress. "If
Coeworden does not hold," said he, "there is no place in the world that
can hold."

Count Peter Ernest, was still acting as governor-general for Alexander
Farnese, on returning from his second French campaign, had again betaken
himself, shattered and melancholy, to the waters of Spa, leaving the
responsibility for Netherland affairs upon the German octogenarian. To
him; and to the nonagenarian Mondragon at Antwerp, the veteran Verdugo
now called loudly for aides against the youthful pedant, whom all men had
been laughing at a twelvemonth or so before. The Macedonian phalanx,
Simon Stevinus and delving Dutch boors--unworthy of the name of soldiers-
-seemed to be steadily digging the ground from under Philip's feet in his
hereditary domains.

What would become of the world-empire, where was the great king--not of
Spain alone, nor of France alone--but the great monarch of all
Christendom, to plant his throne securely, if his Frisian strongholds,
his most important northern outposts, were to fall before an almost
beardless youth at the head of a handful of republican militia?