"The English think they are going to do great things," said he; "and consider themselves masters of the field." Nevertheless, on the 11th May, the dejected melancholy man had left Brussels, and joined his little army, consisting of three thousand Spaniards and five thousand of all other nations.

His veterans, though unpaid; ragged, and half-starved were in raptures to, have their idolized commander among them again, and vowed that under his guidance there was nothing which they could not accomplish.

The King's honour, his own, that of the army, all were pledged to take the city.

On the success of, that enterprise, he said, depended all his past conquests, and every hope for the future.

Leicester and the English, whom he called the head and body of the rebel forces, were equally pledged to relieve the place, and were bent upon meeting him in the field.