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Twenty thousand troops were to sail with the Armada; Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, was to add 17,000 veterans from Flanders and assume supreme command. With the Spanish infantry once landed, under the best general in Europe, it was not beyond reason that England might become a province of Spain.
He also painted upon copper plates, and it is said that he hired Begarelli, a sculptor of much fame, to make models in relief for him to copy for the pictures he painted on the cupolas of the churches in Parma. That sculptor's services must have been expensive.
His word, once given, was sacred, and he had given his word to do his best towards effecting a reconciliation of the Provinces with Spain, and frustrating the efforts of England. "Through the agency of Ste. Aldegonde and that of others" wrote Parma, "I shall watch, day and night, to bring about a reduction of Holland and Zeeland, if humanly possible.
Wherefore it is related that, having received at Parma a payment of sixty crowns in copper coins, and wishing to take them to Correggio to meet some demand, he placed the money on his back and set out to walk on foot; but, being smitten by the heat of the sun, which was very great, and drinking water to refresh himself, he was seized by pleurisy, and had to take to his bed in a raging fever, nor did he ever raise his head from it, but finished the course of his life at the age of forty, or thereabout.
In the first rank of the brilliant circle of distinguished ecclesiastics, ambassadors and grandees, who surrounded the queen, stood the Austrian archdukes, and the handsome, youthful figures of Alexander of Parma and of Don Juan, the half-brother of King Philip.
I was at that battle, and therefore this gentleman might very well have remarked me; in fact, I think I can recollect him." And, continuing to speak to me, he named the regiment in which we were brother officers. Of course we embraced one another, congratulating each other upon the pleasure we both felt in meeting again in Parma.
He had made a contract in a very-business-like way with the States, to defend the city of Rheinberg and all the country, round against the Duke of Parma, pledging himself to keep on foot for that purpose an army of 3300 foot and 700 horse.
Parma, on his side, pressed the hand of Mayenne as he watched the movement, saying quietly, "We have already fought our battle and gained the victory."
The burghers scoffed at the idea that Parma could bridge the Scheldt, or that his bridge, if built, could resist the ice-blocks that would come down in the winter. But he built his bridge, and it resisted the ice-blocks. An ingenious Italian in Antwerp devised the destruction of the bridge, and the passage of relief-ships, by blowing up the bridge with a sort of floating mines.
They were reminded that the Prince of Parma was using this minor negotiation "as a second string to his bow;" that nothing could be more puerile than to suppose the Spaniards capable, after securing Maestricht, of sending away their troops thus "deserting the bride in the midst of the honeymoon."
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