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Updated: June 17, 2025
A large number of citizens were also ready to appear at his bidding with arms in their hands. On the 24th of May, he wrote to Sonoy, begging him to hold himself in readiness, as all was prepared within the city. At the same time, he requested the governor to send him forthwith a "morion and a buckler of proof;" for, he intended to see the matter fairly through.
At last, a carpenter in the city, Peter Van der Mey by name, undertook the adventure, and was entrusted with letters to Sonoy, to the Prince of Orange, and to the leading personages, in several cities of the province: These papers were enclosed in a hollow walking-staff, carefully made fast at the top. Affairs soon approached a crisis within the beleaguered city.
The siege of Groningen proceeded, and Parma ordered some forces under Martin Schenck to advance to its relief. On the other hand, the meagre states' forces under Sonoy, Hohenlo, Entes, and Count John of Nassau's young son, William Louis, had not yet made much impression upon the city.
The states desisted from their scheme of reducing the city by famine, but they did not the less encourage the secret and unofficial expeditions which were daily set on foot to accomplish the annexation by a sudden enterprise. Late in November, a desperate attempt had been made by Colonel Helling, in conjunction with Governor Sonoy, to carry the city by surprise.
He was himself, while anxiously writing, hoping, and waiting for supplies of troops from Germany or France, doing his best with such volunteers as he could raise. He was still established at Sassenheim, on the south of the city, while Sonoy with his slender forces was encamped on the north. He now sent that general with as large a party as he could muster to attack the Diemerdyk.
Sonoy, however who was so stanch a Leicestrian, that his Spanish contemporaries uniformly believed him to be an Englishman held out for a long time, as will be seen, against the threats and even the armed demonstrations of Maurice and the States.
It was therefore with regret that he saw himself obliged to take the opposite course, and to stifle all his gentler sentiments. Upon Diedrich Sonoy, Lieutenant-Governor for Orange in the province of North Holland, devolved the immediate responsibility of defending this part of the country.
He avowed his displeasure, that, within his own jurisdiction, Sonoy should give a special oath of obedience to Leicester; a thing never done before in the country, and entirely illegal. It would not even be tolerated in England, he said, if a private gentleman should receive a military appointment in Warwickshire or Norfolk without the knowledge of the lord-lieutenant of the shire.
He made good his entrance into the city, where, byword of mouth, he encouraged his fellow-burghers as to the intentions of the Prince and Sonoy. In the meantime his letters were laid before the general of the besieging army.
So soon as the news reached Sonoy, that contumacious chieftain found his position untenable, and he allowed the States' troops to take possession of Medenblik, and with it the important territory of North Holland. Maurice now saw himself undisputed governor. Sonoy was in the course of the summer deprived of all office, and betook himself to England.
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