served the important city of Groningen for Philip, during an
additional quarter of a century, and had been received in that city with
rapture. Several startling years of victory and rapine he had thus run
through as a royalist partisan. He became the terror and the scourge of
his native Gelderland, and he was covered with wounds received in the
King's service. He had been twice captured and held for ransom. Twice he
had effected his escape. He had recently gained the city of Nymegen. He
was the most formidable, the most unscrupulous, the most audacious
Netherlander that wore Philip's colours; but he had received small public
reward for his services, and the wealth which he earned on the high-road
did not suffice for his ambition. He had been deeply disgusted, when, at
the death of Count Renneberg, Verdugo, a former stable-boy of Mansfeld, a
Spaniard who had risen from the humblest rank to be a colonel and
general, had been made governor of Friesland. He had smothered his
resentment for a time however, but had sworn within himself to desert at
the most favourable opportunity. At last, after he had brilliantly saved
the city of Breda from falling into the hands of the patriots, he was
more enraged than he had ever been before, when Haultepenne, of the house
of Berlapmont, was made governor of that place in his stead.

On the 25th of May, 1585, at an hour after midnight, he had a secret
interview with Count Meurs, stadholder for the States of Gelderland, and
agreed to transfer his mercenary allegiance to the republic. He made good
terms. He was to be lieutenant-governor of Gelderland, and he was to have
rank as marshal of the camp in the States' army, with a salary of twelve
hundred and fifty guilders a month. He agreed to resign his famous castle
of Blyenbeek, but was to be reimbursed with estates in Holland and
Zeeland, of the annual value of four thousand florins.

After this treaty, Martin and his free lances served the States
faithfully, and became sworn foes to Parma and the King. He gave and took
no quarter, and his men, if captured, "paid their ransom with their
heads." He ceased to be the scourge of Gelderland, but he became the
terror of the electorate. Early in 1586, accompanied by Herman Kloet, the
young and daring Dutch commandant of Neusz, he had swept down into the
Westphalian country, at the head of five hundred foot and five hundred
horse. On the 18th of March he captured the city of Werll by a neat
strata