History of the United Netherlands, 1585 part 2 | Page 2

patriots had never ceased to regret that precious possession, lost, as
we have seen, in so tragical a manner on the very day of Orange's death.
Fort Lillo, exactly opposite, on the Brabant shore of the Scheldt, had
always been securely held by them; and was their strongest position.
Were both places in their power, the navigation of the river, at least as
far as the bridge, would be comparatively secure.
A sudden dash was made upon Liefkenshoek. A number of armed
vessels sailed up from Zeeland, under command of Justinus de Nassau.
They were assisted from Fort Lillo by a detachment headed by Count
Hohenlo. These two officers were desirous of retrieving the reputation
which they had lost at Bois-le-Duc. They were successful, and the
"darling" fort was carried at a blow. After a brief cannonade, the
patriots made a breach, effected a landing, and sprang over the ramparts.
The Walloons and Spaniards fled in dismay; many of them were killed
in the fort, and along the dykes; others were hurled into the Scheldt.
The victors followed up their success by reducing, with equal
impetuosity, the fort of Saint Anthony, situate in the neighbourhood
farther down the river. They thus gained entire command of all the high
ground, which remained in that quarter above the inundation, and was
called the Doel.
The dyke, on which Liefkenshoek stood, led up the river towards
Kalloo, distant less than a league. There were Parma's head-quarters
and the famous bridge. But at Fort Saint Mary; where the Flemish head
of that bridge rested, the dyke was broken. Upon that broken end the
commanders of the expedition against Liefkenshoek were ordered to
throw up an entrenchment, without loss of a moment, so soon as they
should have gained the fortresses which they were ordered first to
assault. Sainte Aldegonde had given urgent written directions to this
effect. From a redoubt situated thus, in the very face of Saint Mary's,
that position, the palisade-work, the whole bridge, might be battered
with all the artillery that could be brought from Zeeland.
But Parma was beforehand with them. Notwithstanding his rage and
mortification that Spanish soldiers should have ignominiously lost the
important fortress which Richebourg had conquered so brilliantly nine
months before, he was not the man to spend time in unavailing regrets.
His quick eye instantly, detected the flaw which might soon be fatal. In

the very same night of the loss of Liefkenshoek, he sent as strong a
party as could be spared, with plenty of sappers and miners, in flat-
bottomed boats across from Kalloo. As the morning dawned, an
improvised fortress, with the Spanish flag waving above its bulwarks,
stood on the broken end of the dyke. That done, he ordered one of the
two captains who had commanded in Liefkenshoek and Saint Anthony
to be beheaded on the same dyke. The other was dismissed with
ignominy. Ostend was, of course, given up; "but it was not a small
matter," said Parma, "to fortify ourselves that very night upon the
ruptured place, and so prevent the rebels from doing it, which would
have been very mal-a-propos."
Nevertheless, the rebels had achieved a considerable success; and now
or never the telling blow, long meditated, was to be struck.
There lived in Antwerp a subtle Mantuan, Gianibelli by name, who had
married and been long settled in the city. He had made himself busy
with various schemes for victualling the place. He had especially urged
upon the authorities, at an early period of the siege, the propriety of
making large purchases of corn and storing it in magazines at a time
when famine-price had by no means been reached. But the leading men
had then their heads full of a great ship, or floating castle, which they
were building, and which they had pompously named the 'War's End,'
'Fin de la Guerre.' We shall hear something of this phenomenon at a
later period. Meanwhile, Gianibelli, who knew something of
shipbuilding, as he did of most other useful matters, ridiculed the
design, which was likely to cost, in itself before completion, as much
money as would keep the city in bread for a third of a year.
Gianibelli was no patriot. He was purely a man of science and of great
acquirements, who was looked upon by the ignorant populace
alternately as a dreamer and a wizard. He was as indifferent to the
cause of freedom as of despotism, but he had a great love for chemistry.
He was also a profound mechanician, second to no man of his age in
theoretic and practical engineering.
He had gone from Italy to Spain that he might offer his services to
Philip, and give him the benefit of many original and ingenious
inventions. Forced to dance attendance, day after