ome
obviously useless, with their small force of cavalry; to follow any
longer, through a flooded country, an enemy who had abandoned his design,
he solemnly conferred the honour of knighthood, in the name of Queen
Elizabeth, on the officers who had most distinguished themselves during
the siege, Francis Vere, Baskerville, Powell, Parker, Knowles, and on the
two Netherland brothers, Paul and Marcellus Bax.

The Duke of Parma then went into winter quarters in Brabant, and, before
the spring, that obedient Province had been eaten as bare as Flanders had
already been by the friendly Spaniards.

An excellent understanding between England and Holland had been the
result of their united and splendid exertions against the Invincible
Armada. Late in the year 1588 Sir John Norris had been sent by the Queen
to offer her congratulations and earnest thanks to the States for their
valuable assistance in preserving her throne, and to solicit their
cooperation in some new designs against the common foe. Unfortunately,
however, the epoch of good feeling was but of brief duration. Bitterness
and dissension seemed the inevitable conditions of the English-Dutch
alliance. It will be, remembered, that, on the departure of Leicester,
several cities had refused to acknowledge the authority of Count Maurice
and the States; and that civil war in the scarcely-born commonwealth had
been the result. Medenblik, Naarden, and the other contumacious cities,
had however been reduced to obedience after the reception of the Earl's
resignation, but the important city of Gertruydenberg had remained in a
chronic state of mutiny. This rebellion had been partially appeased
during the year 1588 by the efforts of Willoughby, who had strengthened,
the garrison by reinforcements of English troops under command of his
brother-in-law, Sir John Wingfield. Early in 1589 however, the whole
garrison became rebellious, disarmed and maltreated the burghers, and
demanded immediate payment of the heavy arrearages still due to the
troops. Willoughby, who--much disgusted with his career in the
Netherlands--was about leaving for England, complaining that the States
had not only left him without remuneration for his services, but had not
repaid his own advances, nor even given him a complimentary dinner, tried
in vain to pacify them. A rumour became very current, moreover, that the
garrison had opened negotiations with Alexander Farnese, and accordingly
Maurice of Nassau--of