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Date: |
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Description: | 1588, June 15. O.S. Hulst.
My grief and sorrow for my unfortunate overthrow are not so great as my comfort for your care in trying to obtain my release, for which I vow my service to you during life. I pray you, if possible, to procure the liberty of that Bodwyng who is prisoner at Flushing ; he is but a mean man, and his ransom not above three or four hundred gulders. If he may not be gotten, then that you will cause the Dutch lieutenant to write to his captain to make means to the Duke of Parma for my release, for I lie here at great charges.
"There are sent from Hulste seventeen of our Dutch soldiers of Bergen. As the governor saith, they are sent to Dormounte [Termunde], to release certain soldiers of the town that are prisoners in Selande, but so far as I can learn, they are all sent to Dunkirk to the galleys.
"The news is here that the peace is concluded betwixt her Majesty and the King of Spain. If it be so, there are great wars toward in some other part, for sithence the 10th of June there hath passed by Dormounte more than five thousand new Spaniards and Italians, and doth daily march towards Bridges." The ships of war, gallies &c., are sent to the Ecleuse, Dunkirk and other haven towns, and it is believed that some exploit is intended against Tergoosse or Tertowle, for great store of ships are in readiness at the Sasse."
The Duke is having three forts built in the land of Hulst, the charge of which is so great to the country that most of the boors have fled into Dormounte. The boors work on these forts, with but one company of foot and twenty or thirty horse to guard them. "I do marvel there are none of our ships of war to beat them from the dykes."
I have procured the governor to ransom the rest of the soldiers that are left. A Frenchman, once serjeant to Col. Fremyng, who was sent to the Prince and should have been hanged "about some villany," has offered (to save his life) "to take all the principal guides and those soldiers that doth go upon hazard of Bergen, and hath accused all the boors of the country that did harbour or gave our men any intelligence, and doth mean from time to time, to lie in those houses for the cutting off our men." It were not amiss to let our guides know this. I could get very good intelligence if I had money. | Subjects: | Country Estates | Temporal: | 15 June 1588 | Source: | Lincolnshire County Council | Identifier: | http://www.lincstothepast.com/Records/Re... | Go to resource |
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