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Down to 1100 this is the chronicle of Sigebert of Gemblours with additions, and it becomes a wholly original chronicle only with 1147.
King William was encamped at Gemblours when the duke's envoy notified the separate peace which his master had concluded with the king of France. Though he was extremely chagrined at the information, he dissembled his anger and listened to the minister without the least emotion.
If he refused upon this occasion a general battle, those who reflected upon the usual results to the patriot banner of such engagements, might confess, perhaps, that one disaster the more had been avoided. Don John, finding it impossible to accomplish his purpose, and to achieve another Gemblours victory, fell back again to the neighbourhood of Namur.
That prince, though once repulsed at Rimenant by the valor of the English, under Norris, and though opposed, as well by the army of the states as by Prince Casimir, who had conducted to the Low Countries a great body of Germans paid by the queen, gained a great advantage over the Flemings at Gemblours; but was cut off in the midst of his prosperity by poison, given him secretly, as was suspected, by orders from Philip, who dreaded his ambition.
The treaty was hailed with boundless joy in Holland and Zealand, while countless benedictions were invoked upon the "blessed peace-makers," as the Utrecht deputies walked through the streets of Amsterdam. There is no doubt that the triumph thus achieved by the national party far counterbalanced the Governor-General's victory at Gemblours.
As a monument, not only of his genius, but of the elevated aspirations of a whole people in an age of intolerance, the "closer Union of Brussels" deserves especial place in the history of human progress. Unfortunately, it was destined to a brief existence. The battle of Gemblours was its death-blow, and before the end of a month, the union thus hopefully constructed was shattered for ever.
As a monument, not only of his genius, but of the elevated aspirations of a whole people in an age of intolerance, the "closer Union of Brussels" deserves especial place in the history of human progress. Unfortunately, it was destined to a brief existence. The battle of Gemblours was its death-blow, and before the end of a month, the union thus hopefully constructed was shattered for ever.
Nor were all the towns which had recently fallen into the hands of Don John at all comparable in importance to the city of Amsterdam, which now, by a most timely arrangement, furnished a rich compensation to the national party for the disaster of Gemblours.
At Jemmingen, Alva had lost seven soldiers, and slain seven thousand; in the Antwerp Fury, two hundred Spaniards, at most, had fallen, while eight thousand burghers and states' troops had been butchered; and now at Gemblours, six, seven, eight, ten Heaven knew how many thousand had been exterminated, and hardly a single Spaniard had been slain!
But she was to see the war drift nearer and nearer to her shores. Now that the Netherlands were all but lost Philip's slow stubborn temper strung itself to meet the greatness of the peril. The Spanish army was reinforced; and in January 1578 it routed the army of the States on the field of Gemblours.
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