ds on the 11th July. He then moved along the Nyenoort through
the Seven Wolds and Drenthe to Steenwyk, before which strongly fortified
city he arrived on the 15th July.

Meantime, he received intercepted letters from Verdugo to the Duke of
Parma, dated 19th June from Groningen. In these, the Spanish stadholder
informed Farnese that the enemy was hovering about his neighbourhood, and
that it would be necessary for the duke to take the field in person in
considerable force, or that Groningen would be lost, and with it the
Spanish forces in the province. He enclosed a memorial of the course
proper to be adopted by the duke for his relief.

Notwithstanding the strictness by which Philip had tied his great
general's hands, Farnese felt the urgency of the situation. By the end of
June, accordingly, although full of his measures for marching to the
relief of the Leaguers in Normandy, he moved into Gelderland, coming by
way of Xanten, Rees, and neighbouring places. Here he paused for a moment
perplexed, doubting whether to take the aggressive in Gelderland or to
march straight to the relief of Groningen. He decided that it was better
for the moment to protect the line of the Waal. Shipping his army
accordingly into the Batavian Island or Good-meadow (Bet-uwe), which lies
between the two great horns of the Rhine, he laid siege to Fort
Knodsenburg, which Maurice had built the year before, on the right bank
of the Waal for the purpose of attacking Nymegen. Farnese, knowing that
the general of the States was occupied with his whole army far away to
the north, and separated from him by two great rivers, wide and deep, and
by the whole breadth of that dangerous district called the Foul-meadow
(Vel-uwe), and by the vast quagmire known as the Rouvenian morass, which
no artillery nor even any organised forces had ever traversed since the
beginning of the world, had felt no hesitation in throwing his army in
boats across the Waal. He had no doubt of reducing a not very powerful
fortress long before relief could be brought to it, and at the same time
of disturbing by his presence in Batavia the combinations of his young
antagonist in Friesland and Groningen.

So with six thousand foot and one thousand horse, Alexander came before
Knodsenburg. The news reached Maurice at Steenwyk on the 15th July.
Instantly changing his plans, the prince decided that Farnese must be
faced at once, and, if possible, driven from the ground, thinking it more