United States or São Tomé and Príncipe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
For himself, he washed his hands of the consequences if the offer were rejected. The soldiers answered by deposing the Eletto and choosing another in his room. Three days after, a mutiny broke out in the citadel an unexampled occurrence. The rebels ordered Sancho d'Avila, the commandant, to deliver the keys of the fortress. He refused to surrender them but with his life.
At Easter the whole city learned that Don Luis d'Avila had eloped with the beautiful Anna Van Hoogstraten, after killing her betrothed bridegroom in a duel on Maundy-Thursday at Hals on his way to Brussels scarcely twenty-four hours before the wedding. "I shall never forget how Junker Van Hoogstraten raged.
The oath to stand by each other was then solemnly renewed, and a parting health was drunk. The captains then returned to their ships. As the Lepanto warrior, Don Juan d'Avila, saw the little vessels slowly moving towards him, he summoned a Hollander whom he had on board, one Skipper Gevaerts of a captured Dutch trading bark, and asked him whether those ships in the distance were Netherlanders.
The AEolus now fired a broadside into her antagonist, making fearful havoc, and killing Admiral D'Avila. The commanders-in-chief of both contending fleets had thus fallen at the very beginning of the battle. While the St. Augustine was engaged in deadly encounter, yardarm and yardarm, with the AEolus and the Tiger, Vice-admiral Alteras had, however, not carried out his part of the plan.
Encountering off Gibraltar an enemy force of 11 large galleons and as many galleys under Alvarez d'Avila, a veteran of Lepanto, he destroyed half the Spanish force and drove the rest into port, killing about 2000 Spanish and coming out of the fight with the loss of only 100 men.
The surest means of gaining information was to seek that very day a reliable messenger, by whom to send Anna d'Avila money, and if possible bring her to Holland. The burgomaster declared himself ready to advance from his own property, a portion of the legacy bequeathed Henrica's sister by Fraulein Van Hoogstraten, and accepted his guest's thanks without constraint. "But whom could they send?"
His aristocratic officers also frequented our house, among them Don Luis d'Avila, a nobleman of ancient family, who was one of the duke's favorites.
Sancho d'Avila ordered food and refreshments to be laid before them, but they refused everything but a draught of wine. They would dine in Paradise, they said, or sup in Antwerp. Finding his allies in such spirit, Don Sancho would not balk their humor. Since early morning, his own veterans had been eagerly awaiting his signal, "straining upon the start."
Such is often the judgment passed upon those who fish in troubled waters only to fill their own nets. The Duke, however, was appointed Governor of the citadel. Sancho d'Avila, the former constable, refused, with Castillian haughtiness, to surrender the place to his successor, but appointed his lieutenant, Martin d'Oyo, to perform that ceremony.
The Governor and his discomfited, but philosophical lieutenant, then returned to Bergen, and thence to Brussels, acknowledging that the city of Middelburg must fall, while Sancho d'Avila, hearing of the disaster which had befallen his countrymen, brought his fleet, with the greatest expedition, back to Antwerp. Thus the gallant Mondragon was abandoned to his fate.
Word Of The Day