An attempt to storm the place (December 21) was beaten off with heavy loss to the assailants; so Toledo, despite the inclemency of the weather, had to invest the city.

Another desperate assault, January 31, disastrously failed, and the siege was turned into a blockade.

The position, however, of the besiegers was in some respects worse than that of the besieged; and Toledo would have abandoned his task in despair had not his father ordered him at all costs to proceed.
William meanwhile made several efforts to relieve the town.

Bodies of skaters in the winter, and when the ice disappeared, numbers of boats crossed over the Haarlem lake from Leyden and managed to carry supplies of food into the town, and resistance might have been indefinitely prolonged had not Bossu put a stop to all intercourse between Haarlem and the outside world by convoying a flotilla of armed vessels from the Y into the lake.

Surrender was now only a question of time.