troops, as decisive as the counter charge of Lewis's cavalry had been
unsuccessful. The English and Frisians, sorely tried during those hours
of fighting with superior numbers in the intolerable heat, broke at last
and turned their backs upon the foe. Some of them fled panic-stricken
quite across the downs and threw themselves into the sea, but the mass
retreated in a comparatively orderly manner, being driven from one down
to another, and seeking a last refuge behind the battery placed on the
high-water line of the beach. In the confusion and panic Sir Francis
Vere went down at last. His horse, killed by a stray shot fell with and
upon him, and the heroic Englishman would then and there have finished
his career--for he would hardly have found quarter from the Spaniards--
had not Sir Robert Drury, riding by in the tumult, observed him as he lay
almost exhausted in the sand. By his exertion and that of his servant
Higham, Vere was rescued from his perilous situation, placed on the
crupper of Sir Robert's horse, and so borne off the field.

The current of the retreating and pursuing hosts swept by the spot where
Maurice sat on horseback, watching and directing the battle. His bravest
and best general, the veteran Vere, had fallen; his cousin Lewis was now
as utterly overthrown as his brother Ernest had been but a few hours
before at the fatal bridge of Leffingen; the whole army, the only army,
of the States was defeated, broken, panic-struck; the Spanish shouts of
victory rang on every side. Plainly the day was lost, and with it the
republic. In the blackest hour that the Netherland commonwealth had ever
known, the fortitude of the stadholder did not desert him. Immoveable
as a rock in the torrent he stemmed the flight of his troops. Three
squadrons of reserved cavalry, Balen's own, Vere's own, and Cecil's, were
all that was left him, and at the head of these he essayed an advance.
He seemed the only man on the field not frightened; and menacing,
conjuring, persuading the fugitives for the love of fatherland, of