The Earl of Leicester had advanced with a considerable force from
Ostend against the fortress of Blankenburg, but had retreated
hastily as soon as Parma despatched a portion of his army against
him; and so the town was left to its fate.
The last letter that the governor despatched said that longer
resistance was impossible. The garrison were reduced to a mere
remnant, and these utterly worn out by constant fighting and the
want of rest. He should ask for fair and honourable terms, but if
these were refused the garrison and the whole male inhabitants in
the city, putting the women and children in the centre, would sally
out and cut their way through, or die fighting in the midst of the
Spaniards. The swimmer who took the letter was drowned, but his
body was washed ashore and the letter taken to the Duke of Parma.
Three days afterwards a fresh force of the enemy embarked in forty
large boats, and were about to land on an unprotected wharf by
the riverside when Arnold de Groenvelt hung out the white flag.
His powder was exhausted and his guns disabled, and the garrison
so reduced that the greater portion of the walls were left wholly
undefended. The Duke of Parma, who was full of admiration at the
extraordinary gallantry of the defenders, and was doubtless also
influenced by the resolution expressed in his letter by the governor,
granted them most honourable terms.
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