given;
and a shower of balls was poured upon the gallant band, from
upward of forty boats which the Zealanders sent rapidly toward
the spot. The only light afforded to either party was from the
flashes of their guns; and while the adventurers advanced with
undaunted firmness, their equally daring assailants, jumping
from their boats into the water, attacked them with oars and
hooked handspikes, by which many of the Spaniards were destroyed.
The rearguard, in this extremity, cut off from their companions,
was obliged to retreat; but the rest, after a considerable loss,
at length reached the land, and thus gained possession of the
island, on the night of the 28th of September, 1575.

Requesens quickly afterward repaired to the scene of this gallant
exploit, and commenced the siege of Zuriczee, which he did not
live to see completed. After having passed the winter months
in preparation for the success of this object which he had so
much at heart, he was recalled to Brussels by accounts of new
mutinies in the Spanish cavalry; and the very evening before
he reached the city he was attacked by a violent fever, which
carried him off five days afterward, on the 5th of March, 1516.

The suddenness of Requesen's illness had not allowed time for
even the nomination of a successor, to which he was authorized by
letters patent from the king. It is believed that his intention
was to appoint Count Mansfield to the command of the army, and De
Berlaimont to the administration of civil affairs. The government,
however, now devolved entirely into the hands of the council of
state, which was at that period composed of nine members. The
principal of these was Philip de Croi, duke of Arschot; the other
leading members were Viglius, Counts Mansfield and Berlaimont; and
the council was degraded by numbering, among the rest, Debris
and De Roda, two of the notorious Spaniards who had formed part
of the Council of Blood.

The king resolved to leave the authority in the hands of this
incongruous mixture, until the arrival of Don John of Austria,
his natural brother, whom he had already named to the office of
governor-general. But in the interval the government assumed an
aspect of unprecedented disorder; and widespread anarchy embraced
the whole country. The royal troops openly revolted, and fought
against each other like deadly enemies. The nobles, divided in
their views, arrogated to themselves in different places the
titles and powers of