It would have been impossible for Parma, with 100,000 men at his back, to undertake a regular and simultaneous siege of these important places.

His purpose was to isolate them from each other and from the rest of the country, by obtaining the control of the great river, and so to reduce them by famine.

The scheme was a masterly one, but even the consummate ability of Farnese would have proved inadequate to the undertaking, had not the preliminary assassination of Orange made the task comparatively easy.

Treason, faint-heartedness, jealousy, were the fatal allies that the Governor-General had reckoned upon, and with reason, in the council-rooms of these cities.

The terms he offered were liberal.