Willem Adriaan Van Der Stel, and Other Historical Sketches

by George McCall Theal

Historical Sketches.

Requesens, however, was unable to gather the full harvest of the victory, for the day after the battle the Spanish troops mutinied. Their pay was three years in arrear. They marched to Antwerp, which city they took possession of on the 26th of April, and quartered themselves on the wealthiest inhabitants. There they remained until the municipal authorities provided Requesens with money to pay them their arrears, when he granted them a full amnesty, and they returned to obedience. Just as this was effected Admiral Boisot made his appearance at Antwerp, and burned or sank fourteen ships of Sancho d’Avila’s squadron that had returned from Flushing three months before.

Requesens was now able to resume the siege of Leyden, and on the 26th of May 1574 the second investment was commenced by General Francisco Valdez with eight thousand German and Walloon soldiers. Spanish and Italian troops afterwards arrived, and a chain of forts was completed right round the walls, which prevented ingress or egress. The villages in the neighbourhood were also occupied, and Leyden was completely isolated from the rest of the country. The residents knew that if the city was taken, the whole of Holland must fall, and they had resolved to die rather than surrender. There was no possibility of raising an army to relieve them.

The prince of Orange took up his headquarters at Delft, and bent all his energy to save the devoted city in the only way in which it could be done. He got together more than two hundred flat-bottomed vessels, the largest drawing when laden not more than two feet of water, armed some of them with such cannons as were then in use, and provided all of them with oars for rowing. The relief of Leyden was to be entrusted to the Sea Beggars, the men who knew no fear, who hated the Spaniards with such a deadly loathing that they would neither ask nor give quarter. On the 1st of September Admiral Louis Boisot arrived from Flushing to take command of the flotilla, and with him came forty officers and eight hundred of the hardiest and roughest of the Zeeland Beggars, burning with a desire to harpoon Spanish soldiers as if they were devil-fish. Already two thousand four hundred men, mostly sailors or canal workers, but a few French and German soldiers with even a sprinkling of Englishmen and Scotchmen, were on board, and a large quantity of provisions had been shipped. With Boisot’s arrival all was complete.

Siege of Leyden.

The outer dyke was now cut, and the sea rushed over the land, sweeping away farmhouses and cultivated fields and rich meadows, but opening a way towards Leyden. On went Boisot with the flotilla till the next of the dykes which lay between him and Leyden was reached. He had expected to find it defended, but the Spaniards had neglected it, and so it was cut and he went farther on. The next dyke was held by the Spaniards, but the fierce Zeelanders drove them from it and harpooned them to their hearts’ content.

Meantime the heroic defenders of Leyden were in the very last stage of distress. Everything that under ordinary circumstances would be considered eatable had been consumed, and nothing remained but dried hides, rats, mice, the leaves of the trees, and the weeds of the ground. They were dying of hunger, and pestilence arising from want of food carried off from six to seven thousand of them. But still they held out. A few indeed in their despair upbraided the burgomaster Van der Werf with consigning them to death, but when he replied that he would never surrender Leyden, though they might cut him to pieces and eat him if they chose, they desisted and even applauded him.

Historical Sketches.

The flotilla was aground, and a strong easterly wind was blowing, which drove the waters back and day after day caused Boisot and his gallant followers almost to abandon hope of success. A great and apparently impregnable fortress was in front of them, and it would have to be passed before the starving city could be reached. Then in man’s deepest extremity came God’s hand to aid the cause of freedom. During the night of the 1st of October a violent gale set in from the north-west, which drove gigantic waves along the coast of Holland, then the wind veered round to the south-west and sent the heaped up water through the broken dykes, and soon the flotilla was free again. Valdez was a brave soldier, but he felt unequal to a contest with the rising flood and the Sea Beggars on their own element. During the night of the 2nd of October he abandoned his camps, withdrew the garrison from the great fort Lemmen, and fled in the darkness. That same night part of the city wall fell down with a crash, which would have given him an entrance had it happened a few hours sooner.

In the early morning of the 3rd of October 1574 Boisot, finding all impediments removed, swept with his flotilla into the canals of Leyden, and the city after its great agony was saved. He had lost only forty men in this marvellous feat, surely one of the most wonderful events recorded in history, while of his enemy over a thousand were slain or drowned. Property to the value of over a million gulden—£83,333—had been destroyed by cutting the dykes, but what was that compared with the rescue of Leyden from the Spaniards!