They were also, even in their abject plight, made still more forlorn by the forays of Balagny, who continued in command of Cambray.

Catharine de' Medici claimed that city as her property, by will of the Duke of Anjou.

A strange title--founded upon the treason and cowardice of her favourite son--but one which, for a time, was made good by the possession maintained by Balagny.

That usurper meantime, with a shrewd eye to his own interests, pronounced the truce of Cambray, which was soon afterwards arranged, from year to year, by permission of Philip, as a "most excellent milch-cow;" and he continued to fill his pails at the expense of the "reconciled" provinces, till they were thoroughly exhausted.
This large south-western section of the Netherlands being thus permanently re-annexed to the Spanish crown, while Holland, Zeeland, and the other provinces, already constituting the new Dutch republic, were more obstinate in their hatred of Philip than ever, there remained the rich and fertile territory of Flanders and Brabant as the great debateable land.

Here were the royal and political capital, Brussels, the commercial capital, Antwerp, with Mechlin, Dendermonde, Vilvoorde, and other places of inferior importance, all to be struggled for to the death.