For the battle was a series of personal encounters in which high officers were doing the work of private, soldiers. Lord North, who had been lying "bed-rid" with a musket-shot in the leg, had got himself put on horseback, and with "one boot on and one boot off," bore himself, "most l.u.s.tily" through the whole affair. "I desire that her Majesty may know;"
he said, "that I live but to, serve her. A better barony than I have could not hire the Lord North to live, on meaner terms." Sir William Russell laid about him with his curtel-axe to such purpose that the Spaniards p.r.o.nounced him a devil and not a man. "Wherever," said an eye-witness, "he saw five or six of the enemy together; thither would he, and with his hard knocks soon separated their friendship." Lord Willoughby encountered George Crescia, general of the famed Albanian cavalry, unhorsed him at the first shock, and rolled him into the ditch.
"I yield me thy prisoner," called out the Epirote in French, "for thou art a "preux chevalier;"" while Willoughby, trusting to his captive"s word, galloped onward, and with him the rest of the little troop, till they seemed swallowed up by the superior numbers of the enemy. His horse was shot under him, his ba.s.ses were torn from his legs, and he was nearly taken a prisoner, but fought his way back with incredible strength and good fortune. Sir William Stanley"s horse had seven bullets in him, but bore his rider unhurt to the end of the battle. Leicester declared Sir William and "old Reads" to be "worth their weight in pearl."
Hannibal Gonzaga, leader of the Spanish cavalry, fell mortally wounded a The Marquis del Vasto, commander of the expedition, nearly met the same fate. An Englishman was just cleaving his head with a battle-axe, when a Spaniard transfixed the soldier with his pike. The most obstinate struggle took place about the train of waggons. The teamsters had fled in the beginning of the action, but the English and Spanish soldiers, struggling with the horses, and pulling them forward and backward, tried in vain to get exclusive possession of the convoy which was the cause of the action. The carts at last forced their way slowly nearer and nearer to the town, while the combat still went on, warm as ever, between the hostile squadrons. The action, lasted an hour and a half, and again and again the Spanish hors.e.m.e.n wavered and broke before the handful of English, and fell back upon their musketeers. Sir Philip Sidney, in the last charge, rode quite through the enemy"s ranks till he came upon their entrenchments, when a musket-ball from the camp struck him upon the thigh, three inches above the knee. Although desperately wounded in a part which should have been protected by the cuishes which he had thrown aside, he was not inclined to leave the field; but his own horse had been shot under him at the-beginning of the action, and the one upon which he was now mounted became too restive for him, thus crippled, to control. He turned reluctantly away, and rode a mile and a half back to the entrenchments, suffering extreme pain, for his leg was dreadfully shattered. As he past along the edge of the battle-field his attendants brought him a bottle of water to quench his raging thirst. At, that moment a wounded English soldier, "who had eaten his last at the same feast," looked up wistfully, in his face, when Sidney instantly handed him the flask, exclaiming, "Thy necessity is even greater than mine." He then pledged his dying comrade in a draught, and was soon afterwards met by his uncle. "Oh, Philip," cried Leicester, in despair, "I am truly grieved to see thee in this plight." But Sidney comforted him with manful words, and a.s.sured him that death was sweet in the cause of his Queen and country. Sir William Russell, too, all blood-stained from the fight, threw his arms around his friend, wept like a child, and kissing his hand, exclaimed, "Oh! n.o.ble Sir Philip, never did man attain hurt so honourably or serve so valiantly as you." Sir William Pelham declared "that Sidney"s n.o.ble courage in the face of our enemies had won him a name of continuing honour."
The wounded gentleman was borne back to the camp, and thence in a barge to Arnheim. The fight was over. Sir John Norris bade Lord Leicester "be merry, for," said he, "you have had the honourablest day. A handful of men has driven the enemy three times to retreat." But, in truth, it was now time for the English to retire in their turn. Their reserve never arrived. The whole force engaged against the thirty-five hundred Spaniards had never exceeded two hundred and fifty horse and three hundred foot, and of this number the chief work had beer done by the fifty or sixty volunteers and their followers. The heroism which had been displayed was fruitless, except as a proof--and so Leicester wrote to the Palatine John Casimir--"that Spaniards were not invincible." Two thousand men now sallied from the Loor Gate under Verdugo and Ta.s.sis, to join the force under Vasto, and the English were forced to retreat. The whole convoy was then carried into the city, and the Spaniards remained masters of the field.
Thirteen troopers and twenty-two foot soldiers; upon the English side, were killed. The enemy lost perhaps two hundred men. They were thrice turned from their position, and thrice routed, but they succeeded at last in their attempt to carry their convoy into Zutphen. Upon that day, and the succeeding ones, the town was completely victualled. Very little, therefore, save honour, was gained by the display of English valour against overwhelming numbers; five hundred against, near, four thousand.
Never in the whole course of the war had there been such fighting, for the troops upon both sides were picked men and veterans. For a long time afterwards it was the custom of Spaniards and Netherlanders, in characterising a hardly-contested action, to call it as warm as the fight at Zutphen.
"I think I may call it," said Leicester, "the most notable encounter that hath been in our age, and it will remain to our posterity famous."
Nevertheless it is probable that the encounter would have been forgotten by posterity but for the melancholy close upon that field to Sidney"s bright career. And perhaps the Queen of England had as much reason to blush for the incompetency of her general and favourite as to be proud.
of the heroism displayed by her officers and soldiers.
"There were too many indeed at this skirmish of the better sort," said Leicester; "only a two hundred and fifty horse, and most of them the best of this camp, and unawares to me. I was offended when I knew it, but could not fetch them back; but since they all so well escaped (save my dear nephew), I would not for ten thousand pounds but they had been there, since they have all won that honour they have. Your Lordship never heard of such desperate charges as they gave upon the enemies in the face of their muskets."
He described Sidney"s wound as "very dangerous, the bone being broken in pieces;" but said that the surgeons were in good hope. "I pray G.o.d to save his life," said the Earl, "and I care not how lame he be." Sir Philip was carried to Arnheim, where the best surgeons were immediately in attendance upon him. He submitted to their examination and the pain which they inflicted, with great cheerfulness, although himself persuaded that his wound was mortal. For many days the result was doubtful, and messages were sent day by day to England that he was convalescent--intelligence which was hailed by the Queen and people as a matter not of private but of public rejoicing. He soon began to fail, however. Count Hohenlo was badly wounded a few days later before the great fort of Zutphen. A musket-ball entered his mouth; and pa.s.sed through his cheek, carrying off a jewel which hung in his ear.
Notwithstanding his own critical condition, however, Hohenlo sent his surgeon, Adrian van den Spiegel, a man of great skill, to wait upon Sir Philip, but Adrian soon felt that the case was hopeless. Meantime fever and gangrene attacked the Count himself; and those in attendance upon him, fearing for his life, sent for his surgeon. Leicester refused to allow Adrian to depart, and Hohenlo very generously acquiescing in the decree, but, also requiring the surgeon"s personal care, caused himself to be transported in a litter to Arnheim.
Sidney was first to recognise the symptoms of mortification, which made a fatal result inevitable. His demeanour during his sickness and upon his death-bed was as beautiful as his life. He discoursed with his friends concerning the immortality of the soul, comparing the doctrines of Plato and of other ancient philosophers, whose writings were so familiar to him, with the revelations of Scripture and with the dictates of natural religion. He made his will with minute and elaborate provisions, leaving bequests, remembrances, and rings, to all his friends. Then he indulged himself with music, and listened particularly to a strange song which he had himself composed during his illness, and which he had ent.i.tled "La Cuisse rompue." He took leave of the friends around him with perfect calmness; saying to his brother Robert, "Love my memory. Cherish my friends. Above all, govern your will and affections by the will and word of your Creator; in me beholding the end of this world with all her vanities."
And thus this gentle and heroic spirit took its flight.
Parma, after thoroughly victualling Zutphen, turned his attention to the German levies which Leicester was expecting under the care of Count Meurs. "If the enemy is reinforced by these six thousand fresh troops,"
said Alexander; "it will make him master of the field." And well he might hold this opinion, for, in the meagre state of both the Spanish and the liberating armies, the addition of three thousand fresh reiters and as many infantry would be enough to turn the scale. The Duke of Parma--for, since the recent death of his father, Farnese had succeeded to his t.i.tle--determined in person to seek the German troops, and to destroy them if possible. But they never gave him the chance. Their muster-place was Bremen, but when they heard that the terrible "Holofernese" was in pursuit of them, and that the commencement of their service would be a pitched battle with his Spaniards and Italians, they broke up and scattered about the country. Soon afterwards the Duke tried another method of effectually dispersing them, in case they still retained a wish to fulfil their engagement with Leicester. He sent a messenger to treat with them, and in consequence two of their rittmeisters; paid him a visit. He offered to give them higher pay, and "ready money in place of tricks and promises." The mercenary heroes listened very favourably to his proposals, although they had already received--besides the tricks and promises--at least one hundred thousand florins out of the States"
treasury.
After proceeding thus far in the negotiation, however, Parma concluded, as the season was so far advanced, that it was sufficient to have dispersed them, and to have deprived the English and patriots of their services. So he gave the two majors a gold chain a-piece, and they went their way thoroughly satisfied. "I have got them away from the enemy for this year," said Alexander; "and this I hold to be one of the best services that has been rendered for many a long day to your Majesty."
During the period which intervened between the action at Warnsfeld and the death of Sidney, the siege-operations before Zutphen had been continued. The city, strongly garrisoned and well supplied with provisions, as it had been by Parma"s care, remained impregnable; but the sconces beyond the river and upon the island fell into Leicester"s hands.
The great fortress which commanded the Veluwe, and which was strong enough to have resisted Count Hohenlo on a former, occasion for nearly a whole year, was the scene of much hard fighting. It was gained at last by the signal valour of Edward Stanley, lieutenant to Sir William. That officer, at the commencement of an a.s.sault upon a not very practicable breach, sprang at the long pike of a Spanish soldier, who was endeavoring to thrust him from the wall, and seized it with both hands. The Spaniard struggled to maintain his hold of the weapon, Stanley to wrest it from his grasp. A dozen other soldiers broke their pikes upon his cuira.s.s or shot at him with their muskets. Conspicuous by his dress, being all in yellow but his corslet, he was in full sight of Leicester and of fire thousand men. The earth was so shifty and sandy that the soldiers who were to follow him were not able to climb the wall. Still Stanley grasped his adversary"s pike, but, suddenly changing his plan, he allowed the Spaniard to lift him from the ground. Then, a.s.sisting himself with his feet against the wall, he, much to the astonishment of the spectators, scrambled quite over the parapet, and dashed sword in hand among the defenders of the fort. Had he been endowed with a hundred lives it seemed impossible for him to escape death. But his followers, stimulated by his example, made ladders for themselves of each others" shoulders, clambered at last with great exertion over the broken wall, overpowered the garrison, and made themselves masters of the sconce. Leicester, transported with enthusiasm for this n.o.ble deed of daring, knighted Edward Stanley upon the spot, besides presenting him next day with forty pounds in gold and an annuity of one hundred marks, sterling for life.
"Since I was born, I did never see any man behave himself as he did,"
said the Earl. "I shall never forget it, if I live a thousand year, and he shall have a part of my living for it as long as I live."
The occupation of these forts terminated the military operations of the year, for the rainy season, precursor of the winter, had now set in.
Leicester, leaving Sir William Stanley, with twelve hundred English and Irish horse, in command of Deventer; Sir John Burrowes, with one thousand men, in Doesburg; and Sir Robert Yorke, with one thousand more, in the great sconce before Zutphen; took his departure for the Hague. Zutphen seemed so surrounded as to authorize the governor to expect ere long its capitulation. Nevertheless, the results of the campaign had not been encouraging. The States had lost ground, having been driven from the Meuse and Rhine, while they had with difficulty maintained themselves on the Flemish coast and upon the Yssel.
It is now necessary to glance at the internal politics of the Republic during the period of Leicester"s administration and to explain the position in which he found himself at the close of the year.
ETEXT EDITOR"S BOOKMARKS:
And thus this gentle and heroic spirit took its flight Five great rivers hold the Netherland territory in their coils High officers were doing the work of private, soldiers I did never see any man behave himself as he did There is no man fitter for that purpose than myself
HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year"s Truce--1609
By John Lothrop Motley
History of the United Netherlands, Volume 49, 1586
CHAPTER X.
Should Elizabeth accept the Sovereignty?--The Effects of her Anger-- Quarrels between the Earl and the Staten--The Earl"s three Counsellors--Leicester"s Finance--Chamber--Discontent of the Mercantile Cla.s.ses--Paul Buys and the Opposition--Been Insight of Paul Buys--Truchsess becomes a Spy upon him--Intrigues of Buys with Denmark--His Imprisonment--The Earl"s Unpopularity--His Quarrels with the States--And with the Norrises--His Counsellors Wilkes and Clerke--Letter from the Queen to Leicester--A Supper Party at Hohenlo"s--A drunken Quarrel--Hohenlo"s a.s.sault upon Edward Norris-- Ill Effects of the Riot.
The brief period of sunshine had been swiftly followed by storms. The Governor Absolute had, from the outset, been placed in a false position.
Before he came to the Netherlands the Queen had refused the sovereignty.
Perhaps it was wise in her to decline so magnificent an offer; yet certainly her acceptance would have been perfectly honourable. The const.i.tuted authorities of the Provinces formally made the proposition.
There is no doubt whatever that the whole population ardently desired to become her subjects. So far as the Netherlands were concerned, then, she would have been fully justified in extending her sceptre over a free people, who, under no compulsion and without any, diplomatic chicane, had selected her for their hereditary chief. So far as regarded England, the annexation to that country of a continental cl.u.s.ter of states, inhabited by a race closely allied to it by blood, religion, and the instinct for political freedom, seemed, on the whole, desirable.
In a financial point of view, England would certainly lose nothing by the union. The resources of the Provinces were at leant equal to her own. We have seen the astonishment which the wealth and strength of the Netherlands excited in their English visitors. They were amazed by the evidences of commercial and manufacturing prosperity, by the spectacle of luxury and advanced culture, which met them on every side. Had the Queen--as it had been generally supposed--desired to learn whether the Provinces were able and willing to pay the expenses of their own defence before she should definitely decide on, their offer of sovereignty, she was soon thoroughly enlightened upon the subject. Her confidential agents all--held one language. If she would only, accept the sovereignty, the amount which the Provinces would pay was in a manner boundless. She was a.s.sured that the revenue of her own hereditary realm was much inferior to that of the possessions thus offered to her sway.
In regard to const.i.tutional polity, the condition of the Netherlands was at least, as satisfactory as that of England. The great amount of civil freedom enjoyed by those countries--although perhaps an objection--in the eyes of Elizabeth Tudor--should certainly have been a recommendation to her liberty-loving subjects. The question of defence had been satisfactorily answered. The Provinces, if an integral part of the English empire, could protect themselves, and would become an additional element of strength--not a troublesome enc.u.mbrance.
The difference of language was far, less than that which already existed between the English and their Irish fellow-subjects, while it was counterbalanced by sympathy, instead of being aggravated by mutual hostility in the matter of religion.
With regard to the great question of abstract sovereignty, it was certainly impolitic for an absolute monarch to recognize the right of a nation to repudiate its natural allegiance. But Elizabeth had already countenanced that step by a.s.sisting the rebellion against Philip. To allow the rebels to transfer their obedience from the King of Spain to herself was only another step in the same direction. The Queen, should she annex the Provinces, would certainly be accused by the world of ambition; but the ambition was a n.o.ble one, if, by thus consenting to the urgent solicitations of a free people, she extended the region of civil and religious liberty, and raised up a permanent bulwark against sacerdotal and royal absolutism.
A war between herself and Spain was inevitable if she accepted the sovereignty, but peace had been already rendered impossible by the treaty of alliance. It is true that the Queen imagined the possibility of combining her engagements towards the States with a conciliatory att.i.tude towards their ancient master, but it was here that she committed the gravest error. The negotiations of Parma and his sovereign with the English court were a masterpiece of deceit on the part of Spain. We have shown, by the secret correspondence, and we shall in the sequel make it still clearer, that Philip only intended to amuse his antagonists; that he had already prepared his plan for the conquest of England, down to the minutest details; that the idea of tolerating religious liberty had never entered his mind; and that his fixed purpose was not only thoroughly to chastise the Dutch rebels, but to deprive the heretic Queen who had fostered their rebellion both of throne and life. So far as regarded the Spanish King, then, the quarrel between him and Elizabeth was already mortal; while in a religious, moral, political, and financial point of view, it would be difficult to show that it was wrong, or imprudent for England to accept the sovereignty over his ancient subjects. The cause of human, freedom seemed likely to gain by the step, for the States did not consider themselves strong enough to maintain the independent republic which had already risen.
It might be a question whether, on the whole, Elizabeth made a mistake in declining the sovereignty. She was certainly wrong, however, in wishing the lieutenant-general of her six thousand auxiliary troops to be clothed, as such, with vice-regal powers. The States-General, in a moment of enthusiasm, appointed him governor absolute, and placed in his hands, not only the command of the forces, but the entire control of their revenues, imposts, and customs, together with the appointment of civil and military officers. Such an amount of power could only be delegated by the sovereign. Elizabeth had refused the sovereignty: it then rested with the States. They only, therefore, were competent to confer the power which Elizabeth wished her favourite to exercise simply as her lieutenant-general.
Her wrathful and vituperative language damaged her cause and that of the Netherlands more severely than can now be accurately estimated. The Earl was placed at once in a false, a humiliating, almost a ridiculous position. The authority which the States had thus a second time offered to England was a second time and most scornfully thrust back upon them.
Elizabeth was indignant that "her own man" should clothe himself in the supreme attributes which she had refused. The States were forced by the violence of the Queen to take the authority into their own hands again, and Leicester was looked upon as a disgraced man.
Then came the neglect with which the Earl was treated by her Majesty and her ill-timed parsimony towards the cause. No letters to him in four months, no remittances for the English troops, not a penny of salary for him. The whole expense of the war was thrown for the time upon their hands, and the English soldiers seemed only a few thousand starving, naked, dying vagrants, an inc.u.mbrance instead of an aid.
The States, in their turn, drew the purse-strings. The two hundred thousand florins monthly were paid. The four hundred thousand florins which had been voted as an additional supply were for a time held back, as Leicester expressly stated, because of the discredit which had been thrown upon him from home.
[Strangely enough, Elizabeth was under the impression that the extra grant of 400,000 florins (L40,000) for four months was four hundred thousand pounds sterling. "The rest that was granted by the States, as extraordinary to levy an army, which was 400,000 florins, not pounds, as I hear your Majesty taketh it. It is forty thousand pounds, and to be paid In March, April, May, and June last," &c.
Leicester to the Queen, 11 Oct. 1586. (S. P. Office MS.)]
The military operations were crippled for want of funds, but more fatal than everything else were the secret negotiations for peace. Subordinate individuals, like Grafigni and De Loo, went up and down, bringing presents out of England for Alexander Farnese, and bragging that Parma and themselves could have peace whenever they liked to make it, and affirming that Leicester"s opinions were of no account whatever.
Elizabeth"s coldness to the Earl and to the Netherlands was affirmed to be the Prince of Parma"s sheet-anchor; while meantime a house was ostentatiously prepared in Brussels by their direction for the reception of an English amba.s.sador, who was every moment expected to arrive. Under such circ.u.mstances it was in, vain for the governor-general to protest that the accounts of secret negotiations were false, and quite natural that the States should lose their confidence in the Queen. An unfriendly and suspicious att.i.tude towards her representative was a necessary result, and the demonstrations against the common enemy became still more languid. But for these underhand dealings, Grave, Venlo, and Neusz, might have been saved, and the current "of the Meuse and Rhine have remained in the hands of the patriots.
The Earl was industrious, generous, and desirous of playing well his part. His personal courage was undoubted, and, in the opinion of his admirers--themselves, some of them, men of large military experience--his ability as a commander was of a high order. The valour displayed by the English n.o.bles and gentlemen who accompanied him was magnificent, worthy the descendants of the victors at Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt; and the good behaviour of their followers--with a few rare exceptions--had been equally signal. But now the army was dwindling to a ghastly array of scarecrows, and the recruits, as they came from England, were appalled by the spectacle presented by their predecessors. "Our old ragged rogues here have so discouraged our new men," said Leicester; "as I protest to you they look like dead men." Out of eleven hundred freshly-arrived Englishmen, five hundred ran away in two days. Some were caught and hanged, and all seemed to prefer hanging to remaining in the service, while the Earl declared that he would be hanged as well rather than again undertake such a charge without being a.s.sured payment for his troops beforehand!
The valour of Sidney and Ess.e.x, Willoughby and Pelham, Roger Williams and Martin Schenk, was set at nought by such untoward circ.u.mstances. Had not Philip also left his army to starve and Alexander Farnese to work miracles, it would have fared still worse with Holland and England, and with the cause of civil and religious liberty in the year 1586.
The States having resumed, as much as possible; their former authority, were on very unsatisfactory terms with the governor-general. Before long, it was impossible for the twenty or thirty individuals called the States to be in the same town with the man whom, at the commencement of the year, they had greeted so warmly. The hatred between the Leicester faction and the munic.i.p.alities became intense, for the foundation of the two great parties which were long to divide the Netherland commonwealth was already laid. The mercantile patrician interest, embodied in the states of Holland and Zeeland and inclined to a large toleration in the matter of religion, which afterwards took the form of Arminianism, was opposed by a strict Calvinist party, which desired to subject the political commonwealth to the reformed church; which nevertheless indulged in very democratic views of the social compact; and which was controlled by a few refugees from Flanders and Brabant, who had succeeded in obtaining the confidence of Leicester.
Thus the Earl was the nominal head of the Calvinist democratic party; while young Maurice of Na.s.sau; stadholder of Holland and Zeeland, and guided by Barneveld, Buys, and other leading statesmen of these Provinces; was in an att.i.tude precisely the reverse of the one which he was destined at a later and equally memorable epoch to a.s.sume. The chiefs of the faction which had now succeeded in gaining the confidence of Leicester were Reingault, Burgrave, and Deventer, all refugees.