Norris succeeded in victualling the town, the merry and steadfast Cornput
was established as a true prophet, and Count Renneberg abandoned the
siege in despair.

The subsequent career of that unhappy nobleman was brief. On the 19th of
July his troops were signally defeated by Sonny--and Norris, the fugitive
royalists retreating into Groningen at the very moment when their
general, who had been prevented by illness from commanding them, was
receiving the last sacraments. Remorse, shame, and disappointment had
literally brought Renneberg to his grave.

"His treason," says a contemporary, "was a nail in his coffin, and on his
deathbed he bitterly bemoaned his crime. 'Groningen! Groningen!' would
that I had never seen thy walls!" he cried repeatedly in his last hours.
He refused to see his sister, whose insidious counsels had combined with
his own evil passions to make him a traitor; and he died on the 23rd of
July, 1581, repentant and submissive. His heart, after his decease, was
found "shrivelled to the dimensions of a walnut," a circumstance
attributed to poison by some, to remorse by others. His regrets; his
early death, and his many attractive qualities, combined to: save his
character from universal denunciation, and his name, although indelibly
stained by treason, was ever mentioned with pity rather than with rancor.

Great changes, destined to be perpetual, were steadily preparing in the
internal condition of the provinces. A preliminary measure of an
important character had been taken early this year by the assembly of the
united provinces held in the month of January at Delft. This was the
establishment of a general executive council. The constitution of the
board was arranged on the 13th of the month, and was embraced in eighteen
articles. The number of councillors was fixed at thirty, all to be native
Netherlanders; a certain proportion to be appointed from each province by
its estates. The advice and consent of this body as to treaties with
foreign powers were to be indispensable, but they were not to interfere
with the rights and duties of the states-general, nor to interpose any
obstacle to the arrangements with the Duke of Anjou.

While this additional machine for the self-government of the provinces
was in the course of creation; the Spanish monarch, on the other hand,
had made another effort to recover the authority which he felt slipping
from his grasp. Philip was in Portugal, preparing for his coronati