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On the possession of this town depended in a great measure that of the whole province of Brabant, which by this channel chiefly derived its supplies of corn from Zealand, while the capture of this place would secure to the victor the command of the Scheldt.
When the new route by the Cape of Good Hope was discovered, and the East India trade of Portugal undermined that of the Levant, the Netherlands did not feel the blow which was inflicted on the Italian republics. The Portuguese established their mart in Brabant, and the spices of Calicut were displayed for sale in the markets of Antwerp.
Its fall would sooner or later necessarily draw after it that of all Brabant, and the preponderance of power in that quarter would decide the whole dispute in favor of the king. Determined by these grave considerations, the Duke of Parma drew his forces together in July, 1584, and advanced from his position at Dornick to the neighborhood of Antwerp, with the intention of investing it.
She again took up her reading and studying; the Brabant ladies were much scandalized at the amount of money which Madame Cheverny spent on books. She again had her music and singing masters to attend her. She did all these things diligently, though she had lost much of the enjoyment they once gave her.
Your Highness, by means of the garrisons, and fortresses, will be easily master of the principal cities in Flanders and Brabant, even if the citizens were opposed to you. Afterwards you will compel them without difficulty to any religion which may seem most conducive to the interests of your Highness." Odious and cynical as was the whole tone of the letter, it was extensively circulated.
Some surnames, though they seem quite English now, show that the first member of the family to bear the name was looked upon as a foreigner. Sometimes the nationality to which the stranger belonged is shown by the name. The ancestors of the people called Fleming, for instance, must have come from Flanders, as so many did in the Middle Ages. The Brabazons must have come from Brabant.
Meanwhile the trumpets sounded, largess of gold and silver coins was scattered among the people, and the heralds cried aloud, "Long live the Duke of Brabant." A procession was then formed to escort the new Duke to his commercial capital. A stately and striking procession it was.
The mercantile patrician interest, embodied in the states of Holland and Zeeland and inclined to a large toleration in the matter of religion, which afterwards took the form of Arminianism, was opposed by a strict Calvinist party, which desired to subject the political commonwealth to the reformed church; which nevertheless indulged in very democratic views of the social compact; and which was controlled by a few refugees from Flanders and Brabant, who had succeeded in obtaining the confidence of Leicester.
The result of the Haelen engagement was thus described in the dispatches of August 13: "The battle centered around Haelen, in the Belgian province of Limbourg, extending to Diest, in the north of the province of Brabant, after passing round Zeelhem.
He had assured them that he had no intention of receding, and that the province of Brabant ought to feel itself indebted to him for having given them prelates instead of abbots to take care of their eternal interests, and for having erected their religious houses into episcopates.
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