ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Forbidding the wearing of mourning at all
Hardly a distinguished family in Spain not placed in mourning
Invincible Armada had not only been vanquished but annihilated
Nothing could equal Alexander's fidelity, but his perfidy
One could neither cry nor laugh within the Spanish dominions
Security is dangerous
Sixteen of their best ships had been sacrificed
Sure bind, sure find
HISTORY OF THE UNITED NETHERLANDS
From the Death of William the Silent to the Twelve Year's Truce—1609
By John Lothrop Motley
History United Netherlands, Volume 59, 1588-1589
CHAPTER XX.
Alexander besieges Bergen-op-Zoom—Pallavicini's Attempt to seduce
Parma—Alexander's Fury—He is forced to raise the Siege, of Bergen
—Gertruydenberg betrayed to Parma—Indignation of the States—
Exploits, of Schenk—His Attack on Nymegen—He is defeated and
drowned—English-Dutch Expedition to Spain—Its meagre Results—
Death of Guise and of the Queen—Mother—Combinations after the
Murder of Henry III.—Tandem fit Surculus Arbor.
The fever of the past two years was followed by comparative languor. The deadly crisis was past, the freedom of Europe was saved, Holland and England breathed again; but tension now gave place to exhaustion. The events in the remainder of the year 1588, with those of 1589—although important in themselves—were the immediate results of that history which has been so minutely detailed in these volumes, and can be indicated in a very few pages.
The Duke of Parma, melancholy, disappointed, angry stung to the soul by calumnies as stupid as they were venomous, and already afflicted with a painful and lingering disease, which his friends attributed to poison administered by command of the master whom he had so faithfully served—determined, if possible, to afford the consolation which that master was so plaintively demanding at his hands.