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At last in the spring of 1604, under the pressure of the States-General, Maurice led an army of 11,000 men into Flanders in April, 1604, and laid siege to Sluis on May 19. Both Maurice and William Lewis were still unwilling to run the risk of an attack on Spinola's army in its lines, and so the two sieges went on side by side, as it were independently.
Hastily gathering a force of some ten companies from the garrison of Utrecht, some of which very troops had recently and unluckily for government, been removed from Brill to that city, the Count crossed the Sluis to the island of Voorn upon Easter day, and sent a summons to the rebel force to surrender Brill.
At the moment he did not see his way to taking action, but in 1783 he took advantage of the embarrassments of the Dutch government to raise the question of a disputed boundary in Dutch Flanders; and in the autumn of that year a body of Imperial troops took forcible possession of some frontier forts near Sluis.
Hastily gathering a force of some ten companies from the garrison of Utrecht, some of which very troops had recently and unluckily for government, been removed from Brill to that city, the Count crossed the Sluis to the island of Voorn upon Easter day, and sent a summons to the rebel force to surrender Brill.
In early July, Charles had crossed from Sluis in Flanders to Middelburg, and thence made his progress through the cities of Zealand, receiving homage as he went. Next he passed to The Hague, where the nobles and civic deputies of Holland met him and gave him their oaths of fealty on July 21st.
Further seawards, or rather riverwards, at a place called "Sluis," they are fringed with wild rose and wild plum, and the ditches are deep in rushes, in willow herb, in purple nightshade, water-mint, and reeds. Camden gives a curious account of the island in his day. It was constantly almost submerged. The people lived by keeping sheep on it. There were four thousand of a very excellent flavour.
All West Flanders, except the sea-ports of Ostend and Sluis, had in the early autumn of 1584 been reduced to the obedience of the king. The campaign of the following year was to be even more successful.
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