pain had been weakened, that
Alexander, a prey to melancholy and to lingering disease, had gone to the
baths of Spa to recruit his shattered health, and that his attention and
the schemes of Philip for the year 1589 and the following period were to
be directed towards France. Otherwise the commonwealth could hardly have
escaped still more severe disasters than those already experienced in
this unfortunate condition of its affairs, and this almost hopeless
misunderstanding with its most important and vigorous friend.

While these events had been occurring in the heart of the republic,
Martin Schenk, that restless freebooter, had been pursuing a bustling and
most lucrative career on its outskirts. All the episcopate of
Cologne--that debatable land of the two rival paupers, Bavarian Ernest
and Gebhard Truchsess--trembled before him. Mothers scared their children
into quiet with the terrible name of Schenk, and farmers and
land-younkers throughout the electorate and the land of Berg, Cleves, and
Juliers, paid their black-mail, as if it were a constitutional impost, to
escape the levying process of the redoubtable partisan.

But Martin was no longer seconded, as he should have been, by the States,
to whom he had been ever faithful since he forsook the banner of Spain
for their own; and he had even gone to England and complained to the
Queen of the short-comings of those who owed him so much. His ingenious
and daring exploit--the capture of Bonn--has already been narrated, but
the States had neglected the proper precautions to secure that important
city. It had consequently, after a six months' siege, been surrendered to
the Spaniards under Prince Chimay, on the 19th of September; while, in
December following, the city of Wachtendonk, between the Rhine and Meuse,
had fallen into Mansfeld's hands. Rheinberg, the only city of the
episcopate which remained to the deposed Truchsess, was soon afterwards
invested by the troops of Parma, and Schenk in vain summoned the
States-General to take proper measures for its defence. But with the
enemy now eating his way towards the heart of Holland, and with so many
dangers threatening them on every side, it was thought imprudent to go so
far away to seek the enemy. So Gebhard retired in despair into Germany,
and Martin did what he could to protect Rheinberg, and to fill his own
coffers at the expense of the whole country side.

He had built a fort, which then and long afterwards bore his