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Meantime the envoy had the honour of walking about the castle with the stadholder, and, in the course of their promenade, Maurice pointed to the thirty-eight standards taken at the battle of Turnhout, which hung from the cedarn rafters of the ancient banquetting hall.

Turnhout, in Brabant, was an open village the largest in all the Netherlands lying about twenty-five English miles in almost a direct line south from Gertruydenburg. It was nearly as far distant in an easterly direction from Antwerp, and was about five miles nearer Breda than it was to Gertruydenberg.

Thenceforth for foreign powers to talk of mediation between the republic and the ancient master, to suggest schemes of reconciliation and of a return to obedience, was to offer gratuitous and trivial insult, and we shall very soon have occasion to mark the simple eloquence with which the thirty-eight Spanish standards of Turnhout, hung up in the old hall of the Hague, were made to reply to the pompous rhetoric of an interfering ambassador.

Within this circle of flowing water, and about two miles from the city, is another circle, formed by twelve powerful forts. At a point almost due east from the center of the city and commanding the railroad to Holland, by way of Turnhout, is located the first of eight forts, designated by numbers.

The news that the allies had arrived close at hand reached Count Varras at midnight, and a retreat was at once ordered. Baggage waggons were packed and despatched, escorted by the cavalry, and before dawn the whole force was well on its road. Prince Maurice had set off an hour before daybreak, and on reaching Turnhout found that the rear- guard of the enemy had just left the village.

Assembling his well-seasoned and veteran troopers in force, he divided them into two formidable bands, one under the charge of his young brother Frederic Henry, the other under that most brilliant of cavalry officers, Marcellus Bax, hero of Turnhout and many another well-fought field. The river Ruhr was a wide but desultory stream, easily fordable in many places.

The year, begun with the signal victory of Turnhout, had worthily terminated, so far as military events were concerned, with the autumnal campaign on the Rhine, and great were the rejoicings throughout the little commonwealth. Thus, with diminished resources, had the republic been doing its share of the work which the anti-Spanish league had been called into existence to accomplish.

Already the lustre of Sluys, of Nieuport, and Turnhout were growing dim, for Maurice had so accustomed the republic to victories that his own past triumphs seemed now his greatest enemies.

Mansfeld at last came ponderously up in the neighbourhood of Turnhout. There was a brilliant little skirmish, in the neighbourhood of this place, in which a hundred and fifty Dutch cavalry under the famous brothers Bax defeated four hundred picked lancers of Spain and Italy. But Mansfeld could get nothing but skirmishes. In vain he plunged about among the caltrops and man-traps.

Already the lustre of Sluys, of Nieuport, and Turnhout were growing dim, for Maurice had so accustomed the republic to victories that his own past triumphs seemed now his greatest enemies.