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Updated: June 12, 2025
On the next day, Wednesday, the 11th of July, a party of our troops, under the command of Biron, which had been sent on in advance to the Escaut, discovered, after passing it as they could, for the bridges were not yet made, all the army of the enemy bending round towards them, the rear of their columns touching at Oudenarde, where they also had crossed.
Having gone quietly home after doing the deed, he was pursued, arrested, and upon the Saturday ensuing taken to the market-place of Oudenarde. Here the right hand with which he had committed the offence was cut off, and he was then fastened to the stake and burned to death over a slow fire.
His wing at Oudenarde consisted entirely of English troops, while Marlborough's own wing was composed of men of various other nationalities. Almost all writers on military tactics agree that the battle of Oudenarde was one of the most involved and intricate on record, and that it is well nigh impossible to give any detailed account of the puzzling movements. The leading points were these.
With this view he halted his troops, and drew them up hastily in order of battle. This brought on the great and glorious action which followed, towards the due understanding of which, a description of the theatre of combat is indispensable. "At the distance of a mile north of Oudenarde, is the village of Eynes. Here the ground rises into a species of low, but spacious amphitheatre.
The second army corps held the ground on the right of the first, and extended to Oudenarde on the Scheldt. The cavalry, with the exception of the Brunswick brigade, were posted at Grammont, Mons, and Roeulx, their outposts being thrown forward as far as Maubeuge and Beaumont.
A great many merchants had left Antwerp, and in the region of Oudenarde alone eight thousand weavers were unemployed. The Church was held responsible for the misery endured by the people; class hatred and fanaticism combined to make it the scapegoat for all grievances.
Darkness alone prevented the slaughter from being greater than it was. The numbers of those who fell on the field of Oudenarde, important as the battle was, were in fact far short of those killed at Blenheim or Ramillies. What was there now to prevent Marlborough from marching straight on Paris itself? He was actually on the borders of France, victorious, the French army behind him.
The village of Eynes lies about a mile below Oudenarde and a quarter of a mile from the Scheldt. Through it flows a stream formed by the junction of the two rivulets. At a distance of about a mile from the Scheldt, and almost parallel with that river, runs the Norken, a considerable stream, which falls into the Scheldt below Gavre.
Prince Eugene and the Dutch deputies, understanding that the duke of Ormond had begun his march towards Ghent, began to be in pain for that city, and sent count Nassau Woodenburgh to him with a written apology, condemning and disavowing the conduct and commandants of Bouchain and Douay; but, notwithstanding these excuses, the English troops afterwards met with the same treatment at Tournay, Oudenarde, and Lisle: insults which were resented by the whole British nation.
A dramatic story, of which van der Weyden made the most, in designing his wonderfully decorative tapestries. The originals were lost, but similar copies remain. As early as 1441 tapestries were executed in Oudenardes; usually these were composed of green foliage, and known as "verdures." In time the names "verdure" and "Oudenarde" became interchangeably associated with this class of tapestry.
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