singularly attached couple, and their household, if extravagant and
imperial, was harmonious. They loved each other--so it was believed--
as sincerely as they abhorred heretics and rebels, but it does not appear
that they had a very warm affection for their Flemish subjects. Every
characteristic of their court was Spanish. Spanish costume, Spanish
manners, the Spanish tongue, were almost exclusively predominant, and
although the festivals, dances, banquets, and tourneys, were all very
magnificent, the prevailing expression of the Brabantine capital
resembled that of a Spanish convent, so severely correct, so stately, and
so grim, was the demeanour of the court.

The earliest military operations of the stadholder in the first year of
the new century were successful. Partly by menace; but more effectually
by judicious negotiation. Maurice recovered Crevecoeur, and obtained the
surrender of St. Andrew, the fort which the admiral had built the
preceding year in honour of Albert's uncle. That ecclesiastic, with whom
Mendoza had wrangled most bitterly during the whole interval of Albert's
absence, had already taken his departure for Rome, where he soon
afterwards died. The garrisons of the forts, being mostly Walloon
soldiers, forsook the Spanish service for that of the States, and were
banded together in a legion some twelve hundred strong, which became
known as the "New Beggars," and were placed under the nominal command of
Frederick Henry of Nassau, youngest child of William the Silent. The
next military event of the year was a mad combat, undertaken by formal
cartel, between Breaute, a young Norman noble in the service of the
republic, and twenty comrades, with an equal number of Flemish warriors
from the obedient provinces, under Grobbendonck. About one half of the
whole number were killed, including the leaders, but the encounter,
although exciting much interest at the time, had of course no permanent
importance.