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A stream of water, the Neethe, one of the tributaries of the Scheld, separated Ravels from Turnhout, and was crossed by a stone bridge. It was an anxious moment. Maurice discovered by his scouts that he was almost within cannon-shot of several of the most famous regiments in the Spanish army lying fresh, securely posted, and capable of making an attack at any moment.
The aged but still vigorous statesman, ripe with half a century of political lore, and the high-born, brilliant, and scientific soldier, with the laurels of Turnhout and Nieuwpoort and of a hundred famous sieges upon his helmet, reformer of military science, and no mean proficient in the art of politics and government, were the representatives and leaders of the two great parties into which the Commonwealth had now unhappily divided itself.
Long before daylight his baggage and ammunition trains had been sent off in a southerly direction, and his whole force had already left the village of Turnhout. It was the intention of the commander to take refuge in the fortified city of Herenthals, and there await the attack of Maurice.
Thenceforth for foreign powers to talk of mediation between the republic and the ancient master, to suggest schemes of reconciliation and of a return to obedience, was to offer gratuitous and trivial insult, and we shall very soon have occasion to mark the simple eloquence with which the thirty-eight Spanish standards of Turnhout, hung up in the old hall of the Hague, were made to reply to the pompous rhetoric of an interfering ambassador.
Already the lustre of Sluys, of Nieuport, and Turnhout were growing dim, for Maurice had so accustomed the republic to victories that his own past triumphs seemed now his greatest enemies.
Turnhout, in Brabant, was an open village the largest in all the Netherlands lying about twenty-five English miles in almost a direct line south from Gertruydenburg. It was nearly as far distant in an easterly direction from Antwerp, and was about five miles nearer Breda than it was to Gertruydenberg.
The military events of the year did not testify to a much more successful activity on the part of the new league in the field than it had displayed in the sphere of diplomacy. In vain did the envoy of the republic urge Henry and his counsellors to follow up the crushing blow dealt to the cardinal at Turnhout by vigorous operations in conjunction with the States' forces in Artois and Hainault.
Marcellus Bax, that boldest and most brilliant of Holland's cavalry officers, had come to Maurice early in January with an urgent suggestion that no time might be lost in making an attack upon the force of Turnhout, before they should succeed in doing any mischief.
The stadholder reached the bank of that fatal stream only to witness this maddening spectacle, instead of the swift and brilliant triumph which he was justified in expecting. He did his best to stem the retreating tide. He called upon the veterans, by the memory of Turnhout and Nieuport, and so many other victories, to pause and redeem their name before it was too late.
The envoy, especially, and justly, reproached the royal government for having taken no advantage of the opportunity offered by the victory of Turnhout, in which the republic had utterly defeated the principal forces of the common enemy.
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