By England's Aid; Or, the Freeing of the Netherlands, 1585-1604

by G. A. Henty

The army of the League was astir in equally good time. In its centre was the battalia, composed of six hundred splendid cavalry, all noblemen of France, supported by a column of three hundred Swiss and two thousand French infantry. On the left were six hundred French cuirassiers and the eighteen hundred troops of Parma, commanded by Count Egmont. They were supported by six regiments of French and Lorrainers, and two thousand Germans. The right wing was composed of three regiments of Spanish lancers, two troops of Germans, four hundred cuirassiers, and four regiments of infantry.

When the sun rose and lighted up the contending armies, the difference between their appearance was very marked. That of the League was gay with the gilded armour, waving plumes, and silken scarfs of the French nobles, whose banners fluttered brightly in the air, while the Walloons and Flemish rivalled their French comrades in the splendour of their appointments. In the opposite ranks there was neither gaiety nor show. The Huguenot nobles and gentlemen, who had for so many years been fighting for life and religion, were clad in armour dinted in a hundred battle-fields; and while the nobles of the League were confident of victory, and loud in demanding to be led against the foe, Henry of Navarre and his soldiers were kneeling, praying to the God of battles to enable them to bear themselves well in the coming fight. Henry of Navarre wore in his helmet a snow-white plume, which he ordered his troops to keep in view, and to follow wherever they should see it waving, in case his banner went down.

Artillery still played but a small part in battles on the field, and there were but twelve pieces on the ground, equally divided between the two armies. These opened the battle, and Count Egmont, whose cavalry had suffered from the fire of the Huguenot cannon, ordered a charge, and the splendid cavalry of Parma swept down upon the right wing of Henry. The cavalry under Marshal Biron were unable to withstand the shock and were swept before them, and Egmont rode on right up to the guns and sabred the artillerymen. Almost at the same moment the German riders under Eric of Brunswick, the Spanish and French lancers, charged down upon the centre of the Royal Army. The rout of the right wing shook the cavalry in the centre. They wavered, and the infantry on their flanks fell back, but the king and his officers rode among them, shouting and entreating them to stand firm. The ground in their front was soft and checked the impetuosity of the charge of the Leaguers, and by the time they reached the ranks of the Huguenots they were broken and disordered, and could make no impression whatever upon them.

As soon as the charge was repulsed, Henry set his troops in motion, and the battalia charged down upon the disordered cavalry of the League. The lancers and cuirassiers were borne down by the impetuosity of the charge, and Marshal Biron, rallying his troops, followed the king's white plume into the heart of the battle. Egmont brought up the cavalry of Flanders to the scene, and was charging at their head when he fell dead with a musket-ball through the heart. Brunswick went down in the fight, and the shattered German and Walloon horse were completely overthrown and cut to pieces by the furious charges of the Huguenot cavalry.

At one time the victorious onset was checked by the disappearance of the king's snow-white plumes, and a report ran through the army that the king was killed. They wavered irresolutely. The enemy, regaining courage from the cessation of their attacks, were again advancing, when the king reappeared bareheaded and covered with dust and blood, but entirely unhurt. He addressed a few cheerful words to his soldiers, and again led a charge. It was irresistible; the enemy broke and fled in the wildest confusion hotly pursued by the royalist cavalry, while the infantry of the League, who had so far taken no part whatever in the battle, were seized with a panic, threw away their arms, and sought refuge in the woods in their rear.

Thus the battle was decided only by the cavalry, the infantry taking no part in the fight on either side. Eight hundred of the Leaguers either fell on the battle-field or were drowned in crossing the river in their rear. The loss of the royalists was but one-fourth that number. Had the king pushed forward upon Paris immediately after the battle, the city would probably have surrendered without a blow; and the Huguenot leaders urged this course upon him. Biron and the other Catholics, however, argued that it was better to undertake a regular siege, and the king yielded to this advice, although the bolder course would have been far more in accordance with his own disposition.

He was probably influenced by a variety of motives. In the first place his Swiss mercenaries were in a mutinous condition, and refused to advance a single foot unless they received their arrears of pay, and this Henry, whose chests were entirely empty, had no means of providing. In the second place he was at the time secretly in negotiation with the pope for his conversion, and may have feared to give so heavy a blow to the Catholic cause as would have been effected by the capture of Paris following closely after the victory of Ivry. At any rate he determined upon a regular siege. Moving forward he seized the towns of Lagny on the Marne, and Corbeil on the Seine, thus entirely cutting off the food supply of Paris.

Lionel Vickars had borne his part in the charges of the Huguenot cavalry, but as the company to which he belonged was in the rear of the battalia, he had no personal encounters with the enemy.

After the advance towards Paris the duties of the cavalry consisted entirely in scouting the country, sweeping in provisions for their own army, and preventing supplies from entering Paris. No siege operations were undertaken, the king relying upon famine alone to reduce the city. Its population at the time the siege commenced was estimated at 400,000, and the supply of provisions to be sufficient for a month. It was calculated therefore that before the League could bring up another army to its relief, it must fall by famine.

But no allowance had been made for the religious enthusiasm and devotion to the cause of the League that animated the population of Paris. Its governor, the Duke of Nemours, brother of Mayenne, aided by the three Spanish delegates, the Cardinal Gaetano, and by an army of priests and monks, sustained the spirits of the population; and though the people starved by thousands, the city resisted until towards the end of August. In that month the army of the League, united with twelve thousand foot and three thousand horse from the Netherlands under Parma himself, advanced to its assistance; while Maurice of Holland, with a small body of Dutch troops and reinforcements from England, had strengthened the army of the king.