Otherwise the commonwealth could hardly have escaped still more severe disasters than those already experienced in this unfortunate condition of its affairs, and this almost hopeless misunderstanding with its most important and vigorous friend.
While these events had been occurring in the heart of the republic, Martin Schenk, that restless freebooter, had been pursuing a bustling and most lucrative career on its outskirts.

All the episcopate of Cologne--that debatable land of the two rival paupers, Bavarian Ernest and Gebhard Truchsess--trembled before him.

Mothers scared their children into quiet with the terrible name of Schenk, and farmers and land-younkers throughout the electorate and the land of Berg, Cleves, and Juliers, paid their black-mail, as if it were a constitutional impost, to escape the levying process of the redoubtable partisan.
But Martin was no longer seconded, as he should have been, by the States, to whom he had been ever faithful since he forsook the banner of Spain for their own; and he had even gone to England and complained to the Queen of the short-comings of those who owed him so much.

His ingenious and daring exploit--the capture of Bonn--has already been narrated, but the States had neglected the proper precautions to secure that important city.

It had consequently, after a six months' siege, been surrendered to the Spaniards under Prince Chimay, on the 19th of September; while, in December following, the city of Wachtendonk, between the Rhine and Meuse, had fallen into Mansfeld's hands.