CHAPTER IVTHE FIRST BATTLE
Aremberg and his men came in sight of the "beggars," opened fire on the light troops on the hill from the Groningen cannon, then paused.
Louis of Nassau, waiting at the head of the main body of his army, felt his heart sink.
He discerned that the Stadtholder had noticed that to carry the rebels' position he must needs cross the swamp, and that he preferred to skirmish and wait for Meghem with reinforcements.
An hour of the bright morning passed heavily by; then, to the intense relief of Louis, Aremberg again opened fire.
The impatient Spanish officers had reproached the Netherlander for his slowness and caution; they had no wish to share glory and spoils with Meghem's men; they believed that the "beggars" would fly at sight of them; they even taunted Aremberg. Braccamonte, the general of the Sardinian troops, dared to suggest that the Stadtholder, like his rebellious countrymen, was at heart a heretic.
Aremberg, broken by illness, stung and inflamed by the Southern insolence, gave orders for an immediate attack—orders that were against his own knowledge and experience and against the trend of all Alva's advice.
So the guns of the city of Groningen again opened fire, and their sound was music in the ears of the rebel commander, and the acrid smell of the powder, sweeter thanthe fresh perfume of the flowers opening to the early morning in the convent garden.
The light force which had received the fire now fled from their position.
Louis smiled, keenly watching the enemy.
Again there was a pause in the royal ranks; again Aremberg suggested a stratagem and the dangerous nature of the ground.
But the Spanish officers were now beyond control.
Seeing the flight of the troops on the hillside (a flight that was, as Aremberg suspected, a snare), they believed the whole rabble of the "beggars" were in a rout before them, and rushed forward to attack and disperse the two squadrons of the main army.
As they dashed from the road and the wood, brandishing their swords and shouting to each other, man after man plunged into the morass, the treacherous grass gave way beneath them, while the deep pools left by the peat gatherers sucked in others to their necks.
In a few moments the entire advance guard of the Spaniards was entangled, helpless, and perishing in the swamp.
Louis now ordered up his musketeers, who opened a quick fire on the struggling enemy and drove them back again into the marsh.
Meanwhile, Braccamonte was bringing up his rearguard to the rescue. Louis, perceiving this, sent his concealed battalions round the base of the hill to cut off the Spanish.
Braccamonte, finding himself ambushed, and fresh contingents of the Netherlanders pouring in on his ranks, utterly lost his courage.
Shouting confused orders to his troop he turned and fled.
His men, surprised, left without a leader, were instantly driven back by the "beggars" and fell in helter-skelter confusion on to those already entrapped in the morass.
The battle field was now one red carnage; the verdantfields of grass were broken into trampled slime that disfigured the gay armour of the dead and dying Sardinian soldiers, whose dark faces were twisted into an expression of wrath and amazement.
The stagnant peat pools glowed horrid with blood, the once pure air smelt foul with smoke, the soft sounds of bird and insect were changed for broken curses, shouts of despair, and gasped prayers.
The proud, insolent, and arrogant troops of Spain knew themselves completely scattered and beaten by the rebels at whom they had so jeered and laughed.
Louis, gathering together the remainder of his men, dashed forward with weapons and banners uplifted, and fell upon the bewildered fugitives.
Aremberg had watched the troops, who had refused to listen to his orders, go to their steady defeat; when Braccamonte, riding hard for safety, dashed past him, a bitter smile curled his pale lip.
"Save yourself!" shouted the Spaniard.
But the Netherlander, at whose courage the Southerns had mocked, never left his post.
He saw perfectly that the day was lost; his men were being cut to pieces before his eyes, his officers had fled; under his own command he had only a few horsemen.
Turning his gaze from the bloodymêléewhere Louis was driving before him the boasted Sardinian regiments, Aremberg looked to the road, which was barred by Adolphus and his horsemen who still presented unbroken ranks though they had received the first shock of the artillery.
The few officers left in attendance on the Stadtholder urged his immediate flight along the road he had just traversed.
"How shall I account for this day's work to Alva?" answered the Netherlander sternly.
Rising in his stirrups he called to his men to follow him, and hurled himself on the young Nassau.
The two leaders singled each other out; they had last met in the tennis court at the Nassau palace in Brussels.
They smiled at each other, and both fired; Aremberg received the ball in his side, but fired again, then struck with his sword at the flame-like plume on the black casque.
It dipped and fell backwards; at the same moment a rush of "beggar" cavalry drove the Stadtholder before them.
He looked round, and perceived that all his men had fled save a few attendants; he had been shot twice through the side, his disease bowed him to the saddle with pain, the weight of his armour was almost intolerable; he cast away his helmet whose protection he despised, and retreated slowly, keeping his face to the enemy.
A musket ball struck his horse, which fell under him; two attendants picked him up and dragged the animal to its feet.
It staggered a few paces, then fell dead.
A second time Aremberg got to his feet; two rebel troopers approached him, he shot both, and continued to limp along the stone causeway on which the fresh blood was drying in the May sun.
He saw a large body of the enemy coming passionately behind him, and dragged himself painfully off the road on to a little meadow that sloped to the wood.
There he stood at bay leaning his back against a little fir tree that could hardly support his weight, and wiping, with the ragged ends of his sash, the cold sweat from his brow and the blood from his sword.
The enemy soon discovered him—there was half a regiment of them—he gathered all his strength to straighten his body that he might meet them standing.
Another shot struck him, he fell on his knees, still wielding his sword—one against many; one officer cried out to spare him, for it was the Stadtholder, but even ashe spoke Aremberg fell, shot through the throat, sinking on his own sword which broke and fell beneath him.
They picked him up and wrapped him in a cloak, and carried him through the morass filled with his dead soldiers to the victorious Louis of Nassau.
That young general was flushed with hope; he had seen the veteran troops of Spain go down before the onslaught of the "beggars" and the Nassau arms wave above the field of victory.
The sun was only just beginning to slant in the heavens, and there was not one of all the boastful hosts of that morning to fire a shot or raise a sword for Spain.
When the dead general was laid at his feet, Louis uncovered.
"He should have been spared," he said, in a moved voice.
They lifted up the mantle and Louis looked down at the fiery Stadtholder now mangled with shot and sword.
"He was too good to be Alva's pawn," he said. "Such bravery went ill with such a cause."
He ordered the body to be carried up to the convent, and sent a messenger to his brother; he was himself turning up the hill when the clear challenge of advancing trumpets came across the wood.
"Meghem!" cried Louis, and hastened back to the head of his troop.
It was in truth the Stadtholder of Gueldres; Louis hastily called off the pursuers and, in the fear of another attack, drew back his entire force on to the dry ground.
But Count Meghem was alone; his troops had been too exhausted to push on; he, however, with a small bodyguard, had hurried from Zaidlaren where he had found a letter from Aremberg bidding him hasten.
Before he reached the encampment of the "beggars" the stream of fugitives told him of disaster; from some flying Sardinians he learnt of Aremberg's utter defeat and death.
Wild with fury he pushed recklessly on, until he wasable to discern with his own eyes the distant swamp where had been engulfed the veterans of Spain, then turning his horse's head he pressed back to Zaidlaren and ordered his men to fall back and secure Groningen, in which city he sat down to write the news to Alva.
Louis, secure that there would be no further attack, now occupied himself in seeing to the troops and ordering the disposition of the wounded, who were not numerous, though more than a thousand of the enemy had been slain.
It was the hour of sunset when he returned to the convent; he expected there to find his brother, for whom he had repeatedly asked, but whom he had not seen since the battle.
He believed that Adolphus must have gone in pursuit of Braccamonte's flying battalions. With a sigh of fatigue he took off his casque and gloves and called for water and for his page to unbuckle his armour.
"Where is the Count Adolphus?" he asked again, looking round him.
The officers who filled the chamber were silent; then one of them drew Louis to the door of an inner room which had been a monk's cell.
This little apartment was flooded with light which poured through the dancing green branches of the fruit trees without and was musical with the evening song of birds.
The only furniture was a chair, a table, and a bed.
On the chair was a splendid stained sword, on the table a black casque with a flame-like plume, and on the bed something wrapped in the banner with the Nassau device which had waved that morning at the head of Adolphus' little troop of horse.
Louis could read quite plainly the words, "Nunc aut nunquam, recuperare aut mori,"—they were slightly sprinkled with blood.
And at the bottom of the bed the banner lifted, showing the soles of two mailed feet.
For a moment Louis felt his courage and strength leave him; he leant against the door-lintel as weak as a sick girl.
Then, "He is dead," he said; "why was I not told?" and with a firm step he approached the bed, and turned back the silk fold of the banner.
The young man lay with his head turned towards the wall. Aremberg's sword, cutting through steel and leather, had cloven the fair curls and the youthful forehead an inch deep; the reverently placed linen bandage was crimson with blood, and the long locks were clotted and tangled; the lips were strained into what seemed a stern smile, and the head had fallen so that the chin was raised haughtily. The orange scarf was pierced by a bullet that had entered under the edge of the cuirass, above this wound the young warrior's fine hands had been crossed.
Louis gazed long and earnestly, recalling every word of the youth's speech last night, every gesture, recalling his last embrace that morning—and the victory, bought with this dear blood, became as nothing to Louis of Nassau.
The first toll had been paid; very early in the fight had it been exacted; with the first crossing of swords a Nassau had laid down his life.
Louis bowed his head as he replaced the banner fold over the dead features, and his eyes swelled and burnt with tears.
Two of Adolphus' officers came softly forward now, gathering courage to speak.
"It was the Stadtholder slew His Excellency—they came together through all their troop—the Count fell, very valiantly wounded, at the first onslaught—his two esquires were shot by Count Aremberg also."
"We brought him here," added the other, "not to disturb your lordship with grief until the fight was over."
Louis did not answer; he stood heavily, looking at the straight outline beneath the banner and thinking of the gallant figure who had kissed him that morning before the battle, and of the Prince at Cleves and the women atDillenburg waiting for news, to whom would come this news—this and the news from Juliers which Adolphus had never known.
Barren and small seemed his victory to Louis, and heavy and mysterious the ways of God.
He left the little chamber, closing the door gently as if he feared to disturb his brother's solemn sleep, and went out into the still garden, now flushed rosy from the setting sun.
There against the wall leant a miserable figure, Duprès the skryer.
He glanced furtively and fearfully at Louis, yet with a pleading look like a dog waiting to be called.
Louis started at sight of him.
"Ah, you!" he exclaimed; "one of your prophecies has been fulfilled!"
Duprès abased himself before the young general.
"I knew," he said humbly. "But, seigneur, I never told him—I saw one star fall for Count Aremberg and one forhim—butheknew without my words."
"Yes, I think he knew," replied Louis; he looked keenly at the half-starved, ragged figure of the refugee. "And when shall I join him, wise fellow?"
Duprès crouched away.
"The contest will outlast all the warriors," he muttered, "and your horoscope is more dreadful than his—but how do I know? I cannot read the heavens as I could!"
"There is no need to look in the heavens for my portents," said Louis, as if speaking to himself, "they are blazed abroad before the eyes of men very clearly."
The golden dusk faded and darkness closed over Heiliger Lee, soft clouds passed over the setting sun which pierced them with level rays like spears; the dead men in the morass were hidden, the moving light of lanterns crossed and recrossed the victorious camp.
A mist, white and trembling, rose from the swamp and obscured the roadway; the young trees in the forest,shivered and faded to a dark hue against the last pearly glow of the west.
The birds were silent in the fruit garden, and all the flowers were closed away and hidden in the night.
Count Aremberg lay lonely with a crucifix on his breast and his cloak folded straight; but throughout the night Louis kept company with his brother, kneeling on the boards beside his bed and wetting the blood-stained banner with his tears, while the heads of the two young warriors, still so alike, rested for the last time on the same pillow, touched, for the last time, cheek to cheek and lip to lip.
CHAPTER VNEWS FROM THE NETHERLANDS
The news of the dear-bought victory of Heiliger Lee was late in coming to Dillenburg; it was soon followed by the tale of the complete rout and loss of the third party of the invaders, who had invaded Artois under the Seigneur de Cocqueville. He and his entire force had been cut down at St. Valéry, and the survivors of the defeat had been instantly hanged.
From Brussels, too, came other news, as disastrous as sad. Alva's wrath had found a swift vent; the impudence of the "master beggars," as Meghem had called them, who had dared to defeat Alva's veteran troops and slay his general, was cruelly revenged on those in Alva's power who were suspected of sympathy with the rebels.
The members of the House of Nassau and their adherents were banished on pain of death, and their property confiscated.
On the ruins of the Culemburg Palace, which he had burnt to the ground, was erected a pillar commemorating the hatching and overthrow of the "beggar" conspiracy which had begun at the famous banquet held between their walls; and before this desolated spot, eighteen nobles and gentlemen were publicly executed, their heads and bodies afterwards being fastened to stakes and left to moulder on the horse market.
And a few days later Egmont and Hoorne were brought to Brussels, and Alva filled in the blank death-warrants signed by Philip and brought from Spain, with the namesof two of the most illustrious men in the Netherlands and the most obstinately loyal to Spain of all those Netherland nobles who had hated Granvelle and served Philip.
And on the sixth day of June the most awful blow yet struck at the Netherlands fell, and Lamoral Egmont, Prince of Gravern, Stadtholder of Flanders, victor of St. Quentin and Gravelines, and Philip Montmorency, Count Hoorne and High Admiral, both councillors of the Netherlands and Knights of the Golden Fleece, were publicly executed in the great square at Brussels.
The whole country shuddered to the heart, and the hatred of Alva grew to a passion and a fury.
There came other news to Dillenburg, to agonize Count John and the waiting women there—news of more obscure victims. A lady and her servant who two years before had struck an image of the Virgin with a slipper were drowned by the hangman in a hogshead on the scaffold; a Lutheran who had died in prison was dragged to the place of execution and beheaded with his companions; people were arrested by the tens, the fifties, the hundreds, and put to death without trial.
Flight was no longer possible, as the ports were closed against heretics; trade was at a standstill, commerce at an end; all industries were destroyed, agriculture ruined; the rich properties had been all confiscated or plundered by Noircarmes, Meghem, and their followers.
The great nobles had perished or were in exile, and the nation lay stunned and bleeding before her slaughterers.
In every town, in every village, new scaffolds were built, new fires lit; in every field and orchard the festering bodies hung; on every high road wandered destitute, half-crazed survivors, homeless and bereaved.
The death-bell was now the only music in a land once given to merriment, and the only dancing that of the dead swinging and shaking in their chains on gibbets, stakes, and trees; the great squares of the great cities, once worn smooth by the passing of thousands of busy feet,were now covered with rank grass and weeds, which were only disturbed by the tramp of the soldiery or the feeble steps of some half-starving wretches creeping into hiding.
Only the churches remained wealthy amid the poverty, only the priests and the Spaniards remained gorged and fat among the miserable and ruined; for while Netherland blood watered Netherland earth, Netherland gold streamed into Spanish pockets.
So had the Duke of Alva redeemed his boast that he would "tame these men of butter." So with the sword, the fire, the rope, the axe, he strove to uproot and destroy the seed Martin Luther had planted too deep for any man's uprooting and destroying.
The messenger who brought the news of the Artois disaster to Count John, and also dispatches from William, who was holding his position as well as was possible, was Francis Junius, the young minister who had preached in the now destroyed Culemburg palace on Parma's wedding day.
This man, who was absolutely without fear (on one occasion he had preached in a room lit by the flames of fellow-heretics perishing at the stake without), had been in Brussels, and had actually mingled with the crowd that had been a horrified witness of the death of Hoorne and Egmont.
Then, after wandering through the desolate country and administering such comfort as he was able to the persecuted people, he had joined William at Cleves and, by him, been sent to Dillenburg.
When Junius had left Count John, Juliana of Stolberg sent for him.
He found her in a quiet room of the castle with her three daughters, Anne of Saxony, the Countess of Hoogstraaten, and several of her women.
The chamber was hung with worsted tapestry in sombre and faded hues; against this background the group of women, all in the dull black of mourning, with black capson their fair hair and white ruffs surrounding their fair faces, made a startling picture. She in the deepest mourning of all was Hoogstraaten's wife; her dress was dull, without a touch even of white, for the Countess Hoogstraaten was the sister of Count Hoorne. She was seated next the Countess van der Berg, and the two were embroidering a child's dress with white and black thread.
The Princess of Orange, pale and haggard in the bitter black robes, played with a little white dog that lay on her knee; Rénèe, also in mourning, sat on a low stool beside her mistress.
Francis Junius was also in a plain black gown a little worn and rusty, and a linen band without lace.
He was not discomposed by the presence of all these great ladies, but saluted them with the civil calm that was his habitual manner.
The Countess of Nassau rose and received him with a sweet courtesy.
"You come from my son," she said, as she set him a chair with her own hands, "from the Prince of Orange? If you are not fatigued, I would hear some news of him."
The slim young minister sat gravely facing the semicircle of ladies; his worn and hollow face bore traces of disease and anxiety, but was animated with ardour and enthusiasm.
"The Prince is very well, gracious Madame, and bore most valiantly the grievous news. He is engaged in raising fresh levies for another attempt on the Netherlands. He sends these letters to your princely self and to Her Highness his wife."
With movements as precise as his words he delivered the letters to the ladies. The Countess slipped hers into the bosom of her dress; the Princess's letter remained on her lap, on the back of the little dog.
Francis Junius kept a reserved silence, as if waiting his dismissal, while the young women whose husbands andbrothers were fighting in the cause he preached gazed at him with wide eyes of sympathy and awe.
But Juliana of Stolberg wished to hear more of that country where now all her interests were so passionately centred.
"Tell us," she said, with a sad, gentle earnestness, "of the Netherlands."
The preacher flushed and started from his abstraction.
"Of the Netherlands?" he repeated. "Alas, I have seen nothing in the Netherlands you or any lady would care to hear."
"Do you think we are so weak-hearted?" smiled the Countess, pointing to the mourning of all. "What we have endured and what we must endure, our thoughts and our anxieties, serve to steel us."
Her lips trembled and she put out her hand to clasp the sympathetic hand of her daughter Catherine, which crept on to her knee.
"Did you see my son Adolphus before he died?" she asked in a firmer voice.
"No, Madame—but I have heard of the great honour he had in his death. And I heard that the Count Louis was doing very wonderfully and resolutely with his little means."
"He had always a high, hopeful heart," replied the Countess, "and a very gallant way of cheerfulness. God grant that it be not overthrown nor dimmed."
"The House of Nassau," said the preacher, "is greatly blessed by all the poor people of these unhappy provinces—in that noble name alone," he added, with reverence, "they place their hopes."
"My sons can do much, not everything," answered Juliana of Stolberg. "The people too are valiant and patient, and fearful of God—give credit to the people and to such men as yourself, sir."
"I?" he exclaimed, in genuine astonishment. "I am as helpless before Alva as a straw before the wind!"
Hoogstraaten's wife spoke; her voice was grave, in tone like that of the Admiral, her brother.
"But you have been in great peril, there is a price on your head, and yet you stayed?"
"Ah, that, yes," he admitted simply, as if these things were a matter of course.
"Why did you stay?" asked Catherine van der Berg earnestly.
"It was the land where I was sent to labour, Madame, and perhaps I have been some use—to comfort one on his way to martyrdom, to console the bereaved, to utter a prayer over an unconsecrated grave, to encourage the soldiers of Prince William."
His expression became sad and thoughtful, and he bent his head as if it was heavy.
"It is all one can do," he added wistfully.
"It is enough," said Juliana of Stolberg. "God has guided your steps that you have come safely through such dangers."
Junius did not reply; he knew that he was doomed sooner or later to the torture and the stake, for he did not falter from his determination to continue his simple and heroic ministrations in the Netherlands.
"You saw the executions in Brussels?" asked Lenore Hoogstraaten in a low tone. "You saw Count Egmont die? And the Admiral?"
"Yes," replied the minister. "He died bravely in his mistaken faith and his mistaken loyalty."
Countess van der Berg had known the brilliant Egmont in the old glorious days, and she asked with a fearful curiosity after the last moments of that unfortunate grandee, looking tearfully the while at Hoorne's sad sister.
Junius answered in a low voice, quietly giving his impressions of that last scene as he had witnessed it from the crowd. He was not greatly moved by what he recited; his fiery, single-minded piety had never had anythingbut contempt for such as Egmont, and he had seen more horrible things by far than the death of that nobleman.
"He came walking very composedly. The scaffold was covered with black cloth, with two black velvet cushions. There were Spanish soldiers round, three thousand of them. I think there were great fears of a rescue. It was hot weather, and the Count came about midday, when the sun was strong; he had asked, I heard, that he might die first. I was close enough to see him quite clearly. His hair was almost white, and he looked very tall; he wore a crimson velvet robe with a black velvet cape, and underneath one could see the badge of the Golden Fleece and his doublet cut away about the neck—by his own hand, I think.
"He made no speech, but walked up and down twisting a handkerchief in his hand. He seemed very passionate, and showed rage and despair, asking, I believe, to the very last if there was not to be a pardon.
"He disarranged himself and took off the badge of the Fleece, kissed the crucifix the Bishop of Yprès gave him, and knelt.
"The Spanish captain gave a signal, and I saw the executioner spring out from under the scaffold cloth, and it was over very swiftly."
The women remained pale and silent, only Hoogstraaten's wife asked, "And Hoorne—my brother?"
"The Admiral was more unmoved. He was all in black, and conducted himself without passion save when he saw his escutcheon hanging reversed on the scaffold, when he protested hotly. He looked on the body of Egmont, then wished the crowd happiness, and begged them to pray for his soul—which I, for one, have done," added Junius simply. "He was not wept for like Count Egmont, but I think he was the better man."
"He lived, and died, gloomily," said the Countess Hoogstraaten. "He had no joy in wife or child. I wish I had been with him at the end."
"Even in his coffin he was lonely," answered JuniusHe lay in Ste Gudule, and no one went near him; but when Egmont was in St. Clara you could not move for the crowd weeping and praying. Yet, Madame,"—he turned to Hoorne's sister,—"the Admiral will always have the greater honour before God."
"And the Countess Egmont?" asked Juliana of Stolberg.
"She and her children were in the utmost poverty, for every thaler he possessed was confiscate. The day of the execution they were supperless, and fled to a convent. Alva, it was said," smiled the preacher, "recommended them to Philip's charity."
The Nassau ladies exchanged commiserating glances, but Anne looked coldly; the Countess of Egmont had always been an object of her dislike and envy.
"It is a good lesson to one who was ever over-proud," she remarked.
These harsh words, the first that she had uttered since Junius entered her presence, caused the preacher to look at her with a stern surprise.
"You think I am uncharitable?" commented Anne boldly, returning his gaze with all her bitter, rebellious discontent unveiled in her heavy eyes. "But I am one who has lost as much as Countess Egmont in this miserable 'beggar' war."
The Countess of Nassau gave her a look of austere reproach.
"Are you not ashamed to speak so, you who have a husband, a home, and friends, while she is an outcast exile? Are you not ashamed to speak so before the sister of Hoorne and Montigny?"
"My husband! My home! My friends!" muttered Anne, and she bent over the little dog, clutching it till it yelped, and William's letter fell to the ground.
Rénèe picked it up, the blood receding from her face as she touched the inscription he had written, the wax and cord he had sealed, and her mind pictured him inthe midst of his pitiful little army, harassed with a thousand cares, penning this letter to an unworthy woman.
Juliana of Stolberg turned again to the young preacher.
"You will stay with us a while at Dillenburg," she said, "and, after all your labours, rest?"
He smiled at the idea that rest was any part of his life.
"Indeed I must return to the Netherlands," he answered. "I shall go back to meet the Prince at Strasburg, and afterwards to the Provinces."
"It is to step into hell's mouth," said the Prince's mother, "but it is so noble a resolve that I am ashamed to endeavour to dissuade you."
They talked a little longer about his work among the persecuted Netherlanders, and then he left them to prepare himself for the service he was to take that evening in the chapel.
When he had left a silence fell over the little group of black-clad women; only Anne, who was like a firebrand of discord in that peaceful household, was restless.
She threw the dog off her knee at last and limped fretfully about the room; with feverish fingers she tore open the Prince's letter, then cast it down.
The Countess noticed this and flushed.
"What have you read that displeases you?" she asked.
"What can I read that will please me?" flashed Anne. "What good news can come from a man ruined by his own folly?"
"You speak of my son," returned the Countess, trembling.
"I speak of the man who has reduced me to beggary," cried the Princess passionately. "And I will use my tongue as I list; it is you who do not use the respect you should—all of you—little nobles that you are, to the Elector Maurice's daughter."
The Countess rose.
"Had you beenmydaughter, you had been better bred," she said, "and learnt many a lesson at the rod'send. You may be finely born, but you are foully trained, or else you are mad, God pity you! If you were not my son's wife, I should have other things to say to you; since you are, I beg you to stay apart from me, for my soul is too troubled to support cursed humours."
Anne was silenced. The Countess, like William, could overawe her if she chose. The Princess shuddered with suppressed passion and, as always when defeated, hurried from the room.
The Countess seated herself, pale with distaste; such scenes as these, and worse, were but too common now. Anne had threatened Count John with a dinner-knife, and again and again wounded her attendants with any weapon she could lay her hands on; Rénèe bore a bruise on her forehead where the Princess had struck her with a wine-bottle.
"She is mad," said Magdalena, with the indignant frankness of youth. "She should be put away; indeed she should."
"I think she is mad," admitted Rénèe slowly and humbly. She had so completely assumed the burden of Anne's life that she felt as if Anne's faults were her own; she rose now to follow the Princess.
"Stay here, you poor child," said the Countess of Nassau tenderly.
Rénèe thanked her affectionately, but hastened after her mistress.
She dared not leave Anne alone; it was always before her, a constant terror, that Anne might escape to Cologne and utterly disgrace the Prince; and she felt intensely the responsibility of being the only one who knew how low Anne had descended, even in the days of her prosperity.
CHAPTER VITHE PRINCE AT BAY
In that July, William moved to Strasburg, steadily and boldly preparing his advance against the Spaniards, his daring inroad into the Netherlands. He had now no allies save his brother Louis, who, in desperate want of money, with mutinous troops, was using all his brilliant audacity and resource to keep his men together in Friesland, where his barren victory of Heiliger Lee had been followed by no fruits save what little money he could wring from the Abbots of Wittewerum and Heiliger Lee and the forced supplies obtained from the inhabitants of the district.
And against this force of ill-disciplined, ill-fed, mutinous, and ill-equipped troops, held together by one man's courage and influence, Alva himself was marching with fifteen thousand of his veteran regiments.
William, pressing forward his own preparations, using all his eloquence, all his energy to raise new levies, to obtain money, hardly dared to think of Louis awaiting the approach of Alva in the marshes of Friesland.
He had heard of the entire failure of the two other expeditions he had so carefully and adroitly planned, the utter annihilation of the forces of De Cocqueville and De Villars, and he had received an even more cruel blow in the news of the death of Adolphus; but in his own task he did not hesitate for a moment in his strenuous preparations, nor in his unfaltering endeavours.
He had now every one against him save his own familyand a few faithful friends, such as Hoogstraaten and Culemburg. The Emperor, at first favourable to his enterprise, was now drawing closer in an alliance with Spain, and ordered the Prince to abandon the cause of the Netherlands on pain of forfeiting all his Imperial privileges and dignities; and the German Princes, from whose alliance William had hoped so much, became daily colder and colder in the cause of the unhappy Provinces.
And it was a cause that might seem indeed hopeless; so mighty and terrible was Alva, so supine, so stifled, so exhausted, so crouching the wretched people he had crushed beneath his armed feet and bound and gagged with the chains and bits of the Holy Inquisition.
Since the executions of Egmont and Hoorne the heart of the country seemed to cease to beat. Nowhere was any resistance made; the tyranny was too extensive, the punishment too swift and universal.
The people, drained of blood and money, bowed to the new power, went to mass, and feebly tried to pick up the threads of their former occupations.
No one came forward to join Louis, and fewer and more timid became the promises sent to the Prince.
He continued, however, to plan his own expedition as if all had been so far successful instead of completely disastrous.
The continued campaign of Louis in Friesland was against his advice; he wished his brother to fall back on Cleves instead of awaiting Alva's coming.
He himself had brought his levies from Cleves to Strasburg, where he was nearer the central Provinces and able to retreat into French territory if need were. He had good hopes from the French Huguenots; he was still on friendly territory, though far from Dillenburg and from Louis, whose news reached him slowly, passing as it did from hand to hand by secret agents across a country cowering under the Spanish rule. He was alsoon the borders of the Palatinate, and the Elector Palatine was warmer in the cause of the Netherlands than the Princes of Hesse or Saxony; the Court of Heidelberg was indeed the sure refuge for any exiled Protestant, and the stern Calvinist Frederic was moved by neither fear of Philip's power nor tolerance towards his faith.
But his present encouragement to William was little more than good wishes, for to him too the Provinces seemed lost.
It was in late July, when William was almost ready to take the field, that a knight with a few attendants rode into Strasburg and demanded to see the Prince of Orange.
He had no difficulty in obtaining his wish, for the German officers recognized him as the Landgrave William, son of Philip of Hesse and cousin to Anne of Saxony.
He found William and Count Hoogstraaten together in an upper chamber of the modest house where they lodged.
It was a sultry night and the windows were wide open; between them sat the Prince at a plain table writing by the light of a little copper lamp.
He was writing to his wife, and the words he penned as the Landgrave entered were these:—
"I go to-morrow, but when I shall return or when I shall see you I cannot, on my honour, tell you with certainty. I have resolved to place myself in the hands of the Almighty that He may guide me where it is His good pleasure that I should go. I see well enough that I am destined to pass this life in misery and labour——"
As he heard the door open, he closed his letter hastily and put it away.
As he rose to greet the Landgrave his eyes shone; he had a moment's hope that Hesse was sending troops to his aid, or at least bringing promises of future assistance.
Count Hoogstraaten also wore an eager look as he saluted the German Prince.
But the appearance of the Landgrave was neither cheerful nor hopeful; he seated himself heavily, took off his black silk hat, and wiped his forehead.
"It is something important," said William quickly, "that has brought you from Hesse here to seek my poor company."
"I came myself," returned the Landgrave, "because my father could think of no better messenger. I have been at Dresden, and bear also the messages of the Elector Augustus."
"Ah!" said William softly.
He seated himself and glanced at Hoogstraaten.
The Landgrave was a man of blunt words and a stern courtesy; without preamble he came to what was the gist of his errand.
"Turn back—wait—leave the Provinces; it is impossible to assist them. No one can withstand Alva and his army."
This was the sum of what the Landgrave William had ridden rapidly from Hesse to say.
The argument was not new to William, already he had heard a great deal of such discouragement; but perhaps it had never before been put to him so weightily by so important a personage. He listened with his elbow on the desk and his chin in his hand, his firm, small-featured profile towards the speaker, his eyes cast down.
So plain was he, so modest were his appointments, that even the unimaginative mind of the Landgrave contrasted him with the gorgeous bridegroom who had come to Leipsic for his marriage seven years before.
"Have you not," he exclaimed, "sacrificed enough already? Are you not sufficiently stripped?"
"I am," answered William, "greatly hampered for want of money."
"How much have you on this enterprise?" asked the Landgrave.
"Everything," said the Prince, "all I and my brothers and my friends possess."
"Then you are ruined men!"
"If we fail, yes," admitted William.
"It is not possible that you can succeed."
"It is not possible to turn back," replied the Prince, not arrogantly but rather gently.
"You defy the Emperor?" demanded the Landgrave hotly.
"I have answered the Emperor—I have answered King Philip—I have explained myself to all Europe." He exerted himself to speak pleasantly, but behind the tolerance of his tone was a certain indignation.
The Landgrave was baffled and irritated.
"You are obstinate, Highness, but that will not save you. What do you hope to do?"
"To enter the Netherlands while Louis holds Alva in check in Friesland."
"And if you fail? Can you pay the troops? Have you a means of retreat?"
"I have not counted the cost so closely," replied William. "I hope that the great cities will open to me and that I shall not lack wherewith to pay my troops—if not, I can but pledge my word that these debts shall be redeemed when I can achieve the means."
"Do you ever hope to obtain your estates again?"
"I hope everything," said William, and he smiled with his unconquerable cheerfulness, which was like the cheerfulness of Louis, impervious to all attacks. Gloom, melancholy, and despondency were unknown to the House of Nassau. "And yet I expect nothing," he added. "I make neither boasts nor prophecies, Landgrave; I but take the instruments to my hand and do what I may with them."
"Your motive?" cried the other. "Is Your Highness ambitious or fanatic?"
The Prince replied rather wearily—
"I have proclaimed my motives again and again, Excellency. I have explained myself at every German Court, before England, before France—I fight Alva and the Spanish rule over the Netherlands."
"You fight King Philip," answered the Landgrave, "though you keep up a fiction of loyalty; and who do you think will unite with you against Spain, who is half the old world and all the new?"
William smiled again.
"Let him keep his new world and his old, I but want the Netherlands. Ah, Excellency," he added, "it is in your power to refuse me help and to turn your back on me—it is not in your power to discourage me nor hold me back."
The Landgrave rose impatiently with a rough gesture.
"You are madmen, you and your brothers, and will meet with the fate of madmen."
The Prince thought of Adolphus, and winced.
"It may well be," he said quietly; "believe that we counted that cost before we undertook our tasks."
"It is useless to speak any more!" exclaimed the Landgrave angrily.
"On this subject, yes."
The Prince rose and held out his hand affectionately. "You will stay with us to-night?" he added with courtesy.
The Landgrave refused.
"I go to my lodging; I will come to-morrow to see if you are in a better frame of mind, Highness."
He saluted both, and abruptly left; the Prince returned to his unfinished letter.
"It is a strange thing," said Count Hoogstraaten, "how many are ready to hold a man back, how few to push him forward! Always these councils of prudence, of caution, of non-resistance, of humility, and cringing!"
And the fiery little soldier went angrily to the window and stared fiercely out on the hot night; there was something lion-like in his slender heavy-shouldered figure, in his blunt-featured face, in his pose of noble anger as he gazed out on the darkness as if it concealed the numberless hosts of his foes.
The Prince finished his letter and joined his friend in the window-place.
"If we live we shall succeed," he said. "If we die as the others died—well, a worse thing might befall us. And what does submission ever gain? Better to fall like Adolphus than like—Egmont."
His voice saddened on his friend's name and his eyes too turned towards the darkness as if he also pictured there the swarming battalions of his mighty enemies.
"We have had our pleasant times, Hoogstraaten," he added; "our gay morning was fair and easy, and now we are men and must take the labour and heat of the day——"
He stopped abruptly; his quick ear had caught the sound of an opening door. It was the Seigneur de Louverwal who entered; he carried dispatches which had, he said, been forwarded to one Van Baren—an agent of the Prince in Brussels—and by him to Strasburg.
The letters were from Count Louis and the agent himself.
William's lips tightened, the blood receded from his dark cheek, and he caught his under lip with his teeth as he read his brother's letter.
It was written from a farmhouse on the German frontier, and announced the Count's pitiable and utter overthrow.
Out-manœuvred by Alva, harassed by mutinous troops, lack of money, and provision, betrayed by his own fiery impatience, Louis had been driven to the village of Jemmingen on the Ems, and there his wretched forces had been wiped out by Alva's splendid army and Alva's cool skill.
Those who had escaped the battle were massacred; the blood of nearly ten thousand rebels had washed from Alva's laurels the stain left by the little victory of Heiliger Lee.
William read the letter over twice, then sank into a chair; he was never sanguine, but he had not been prepared for such a blow as this. He felt his head reel and his heart beat fast; the light of the little lamp grew dim before his eyes and the room dark. It was with an unsteady hand that he handed the letter to Hoogstraaten.
So the third of the armies he had got together with such infinite pains and toil and sacrifice had disappeared before Alva like chaff before a bright flame.
De Cocqueville in Artois, De Villars in Juliers, Louis at Jemmingen—all defeated, utterly, completely, for ever.
A passionate exclamation broke from Hoogstraaten as he and De Louverwal read the dispatch; it roused William, who took up the agent's letter and read it slowly.
This contained fuller details of the disaster brought by a Spanish soldier to Maestricht, where Van Baren had been.
He now wrote to the Prince that only a handful of the rebels had escaped, and that they, with Count Louis, had swum the Ems and fled into Germany. He wrote of the ghastly butchery which had followed the victory, how all the dikes and swamps were red, and the sky red also with burning crops and houses, for Alva had laid waste Friesland from end to end, sparing neither woman nor child.
And against this background of horrors stood out the desperate heroism of Louis who had dashed again and again among his reluctant troops, who had hurled himself single-handed on the enemy, who had, when the gunners had fled, fired his only artillery—the Groningen cannon, the poor spoils of Heiliger Lee—with his own hand, going from one to the other with the firebrand; and that desperate volley had been the last volley of the rebels.
When William read of his brother's piteous and splendid attempts to turn back the dark tides of disaster, when he read of the slaying and burning of his little army ("the dead were so thick they choked the river"), he rose with a movement of intolerable agony, and a sharp sound unconsciously escaped him—the cry of one swiftly and unexpectedly wounded.
"O Christ! O, Christ!" muttered Hoogstraaten, and he looked about him bewildered. "Who will give us levies now? How shall we do anything?"
De Louverwal turned his face away and wept.
The Prince still said nothing; he loosened his falling collar and wiped his face and neck bathed in cold sweat; he put his hand to his throat, and his lips parted as if he stifled; then he closed his mouth firmly and continued to pass the handkerchief over his face.
It was the same unconscious gesture of mental agony that Lamoral Egmont had used on the scaffold.
"Ah, Highness," cried Hoogstraaten—"ah, Highness, what news is this?" and his voice was hoarse with love and pity and wrath.
"Eh?" said the Prince faintly. "Eh?"
He turned to face his friend, and looked at him a moment almost blankly.
Then he spoke.
"We must go on—there is the more need that we go on."
"Is it possible?" broke from De Louverwal.
"Before God, it is very possible," answered William, and his voice was suddenly strong.
He had now recovered complete mastery of himself; he sat down and wrote a letter of consolation and encouragement to Louis.