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Updated: June 5, 2025
So soon as the Prince was informed of this important demonstration of the enemy he broke up after brief debate with his officers his camp before Rheinberg, and came to Wesel. At this place he built a bridge over the Rhine, and fortified it with two block-houses.
The whole electorate of Cologne had become the constant seat of partisan warfare, and the resort of organised bands of brigands. Truchsess had fled to Delft, where he had been countenanced and supported by Orange. Two cities still held for him, Rheinberg and Neuss.
For this extensive and important operation, he was to receive 20,000 florins a month from the general exchequer; and in addition he was to be allowed the brandschatz the black-mail, that is to say of the whole country-side, and the taxation upon all vessels going up and down the river before Rheinberg; an ad valorem duty, in short, upon all river-merchandise, assessed and collected in summary fashion.
Having reduced the town and castle of Alphen, the stadholder came before Rheinberg, which he very expeditiously invested. During a preliminary skirmish William Lewis received a wound in the leg, while during the brief siege Maurice had a narrow escape from death, a cannon-ball passing through his tent and over his head as he lay taking a brief repose upon his couch.
Nevertheless he had now the satisfaction of having gained an important city in Flanders; and on subsequently joining the army under his uncle, he indulged the hope of earning still greater distinction. Martin Schenk had meanwhile been successfully defending Rheinberg, for several weeks, against Parma's forces.
But with the enemy now eating his way towards the heart of Holland, and with so many dangers threatening them on every side, it was thought imprudent to go so far away to seek the enemy. So Gebhard retired in despair into Germany, and Martin did what he could to protect Rheinberg, and to fill his own coffers at the expense of the whole country side.
The city of Cologne itself, Neusz, and Rheinberg, on the river, Werll and other places in Westphalia and the whole country around, were endangered, invaded, ravaged, and the inhabitants plundered, murdered, and subjected to every imaginable outrage, by rival bands of highwaymen, enlisted in the support of the two rival bishops beggars, outcasts, but high-born and learned churchmen both who disputed the electorate.
An army very slowly organized, against the wishes of the emperor, the bishops, and the Catholic party took the field, and made a feeble demonstration upon Rheinberg and upon Rees entirely without result and then disbanded itself ingloriously. Meantime the admiral had withdrawn from German territory, and was amusing himself with a variety of blows aimed at vital points of the republic.
An army very slowly organized, against the wishes of the emperor, the bishops, and the Catholic party took the field, and made a feeble demonstration upon Rheinberg and upon Rees entirely without result and then disbanded itself ingloriously. Meantime the admiral had withdrawn from German territory, and was amusing himself with a variety of blows aimed at vital points of the republic.
There was less than a hundred of the States' troops killed, and it is probable that a larger number of the Spaniards fell. But the loss of Philip Nassau, despite the debauched life and somewhat reckless valour. of that soldier, was a very severe one to the army and to his family. He was conveyed to Rheinberg, where his wounds were dressed.
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