cause of the Elector had not set them in motion, so his dismissal could
not disarm them. War was their object; it was all the same to them in
whose cause or name it was waged. After some vain attempts on the part
of Mansfeld to be received into the Emperor's service, both marched into
Lorraine, where the excesses of their troops spread terror even to the
heart of France. Here they long waited in vain for a master willing to
purchase their services; till the Dutch, pressed by the Spanish General
Spinola, offered to take them into pay. After a bloody fight at Fleurus
with the Spaniards, who attempted to intercept them, they reached
Holland, where their appearance compelled the Spanish general forthwith
to raise the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom. But even Holland was soon weary
of these dangerous guests, and availed herself of the first moment to
get rid of their unwelcome assistance. Mansfeld allowed his troops to
recruit themselves for new enterprises in the fertile province of East
Friezeland. Duke Christian, passionately enamoured of the Electress
Palatine, with whom he had become acquainted in Holland, and more
disposed for war than ever, led back his army into Lower Saxony, bearing
that princess's glove in his hat, and on his standards the motto "All
for God and Her". Neither of these adventurers had as yet run their
career in this war.

All the imperial territories were now free from the enemy; the Union was
dissolved; the Margrave of Baden, Duke Christian, and Mansfeld, driven
from the field, and the Palatinate overrun by the executive troops of
the empire. Manheim and Heidelberg were in possession of Bavaria, and
Frankenthal was shortly afterwards ceded to the Spaniards. The
Palatine, in a distant corner of Holland, awaited the disgraceful
permission to appease, by abject submission, the vengeance of the
Emperor; and an Electoral Diet was at last summoned to decide his fate.
That fate, however, had been long before decided at the court of the