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There, in virtue of his seignorial rights, he had removed all statues and other popish emblems from the churches, performing the operation, however, with much quietness and decorum. He had also collected many disorderly men at arms in this city, and had strengthened its fortifications, to resist, as he said, the threatened attacks of Duke Eric of Brunswick and his German mercenaries.
Ramifications of detail had necessitated the use of a larger force; a force so large, indeed, that anything like an equal distribution of booty would have intolerably eaten into the profits of the principals. Therefore the rank and file of employes were merely mercenaries, working for a flat wage.
The surrender of Dover came to fill his cup of joy, for Richard and Amaury of Montfort had sailed with the Earl's treasure to enlist foreign mercenaries, and it was by this port that their force was destined to land. But a rising of the prisoners detained there compelled its surrender in October, and the success of the royalists seemed complete. In reality their difficulties were but beginning.
"It is you, Philip, who are in a foreign service. The Irish nation is in exile, and in the territories of its French allies. Irish traitors are not here; they march alone under the accursed flag of the Saxon, whom the great Napoleon would have swept from the face of the earth, but for the fatal valor of Irish mercenaries! Accept this offer, and my heart, my hand, my all are yours.
The ambition of the patrician might have seemed satisfied, but he soon discovered, before the end of the first year, that he must either be the slave or the victim of his barbarian mercenaries. The soldiers demanded a third part of the land of Italy.
"And this time with some reason," replied Don John in a tone of assent, "for the men who kindled them are mercenaries of the King, formerly our own troops, who have been driven to desperation." Then he continued passionately: "And Philip sends me me, a man of the sword to these provinces. What is the warrior to do here?
This tactic for a second must have disconcerted the Air Trust mercenaries. Gabriel's speed was terrific. With stupefying suddenness, the épervier loomed up ahead of him. "Now!" he shouted. "Take this, from me!" Half rising from his seat, he hurled his last remaining projectile full at Slade, then wrenched his own 'plane off sharply to the left.
He had taken possession of a palace belonging to the Rajput Raja as his head-quarters, and his army of horsemen were encamped in tents on the vast sandy plain that extended from both sides of the river Nahal: the local name of this river was "The Stream of Blood," so named because a fierce force of Arab mercenaries in the employ of Sindhia, many years before, had butchered the entire tribe of Nahals man, woman, and child, higher up in the hills.
In conclusion, in mercenaries dastardy is most dangerous; in auxiliaries, valour. The wise prince, therefore, has always avoided these arms and turned to his own; and has been willing rather to lose with them than to conquer with the others, not deeming that a real victory which is gained with the arms of others. I shall never hesitate to cite Cesare Borgia and his actions.
The confederates and sectaries had boasted that they could easily raise an army of sixty thousand men within the provinces, that twelve hundred thousand florins monthly would be furnished by the rich merchants of Antwerp, and that it was ridiculous to suppose that the German mercenaries enrolled by the Duchess in Saxony, Hesse, and other Protestant countries, would ever render serious assistance against the adherents of the reformed religion.
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