William II de la Marck, Lord of Lumey, captain general of the Sea Beggars, is in 1576 banned from the Netherlands, either by the States of Holland or the Prince of Orange.

He returns to his homeland, the Bishopric of Liège.

The Geuzen are largely Calvinist Dutch guerrilla and privateering forces composed of common Calvinist troops led by noble commanders, who are drawn from all of the Netherlands' provinces.

They are centered in the maritime provinces of Holland and Zeeland.

Having by 1573 secured these maritime provinces against Spanish attack, the Geuzen have been the Dutch revolt's primary military force. The other provinces join in  1576 in resistance to Spain and more regular military contingents are formed.

Queen Elizabeth, in sending Leicester to the United Provinces at the head of six thousand troops to command Dutch and English auxiliary forces in aid of the Netherlandish Protestants and Jews against Spain, forces the Spaniards to wage a two-front war.

Vlissingen, or Flushing, fortified by Charles V, had been the first town to rebel against Spanish rule in 1572 and had become the headquarters of the insurgents' navy (the Sea Beggars).

It is held by England from 1585 as a “security town” under the agreement to assist the Dutch.

Situated on the southern coast of Walcheren Island, at the mouth of the western Schelde (Scheldt) estuary, its importance lies in its position controlling the approach to Antwerp.

Several of Federico Spinola’s galleys had been destroyed by English warships on his way up the Channel; he himself had been slain in an action with the Dutch on May 24, 1603.

Ambrogio Spinola had meanwhile marched overland to Flanders in 1602 with the men he had raised at his own expense.

During the first months of his stay in Flanders the Spanish government had played with schemes for employing him on an invasion of England, which had come to nothing.

At the close of the year he had returned to Italy for more men.

His experience as a soldier does not begin until, as general, and at the age of thirty-four, he undertakes to continue the siege of Ostend on September 29, 1603.

Ostend’s strategic position on the North Sea coast has major advantages for the Flemish city as a harbor but has also proved to be a source of trouble.

The city has been frequently taken, ravaged, ransacked and destroyed by conquering armies.

The most important of these events is the three-year Siege of Ostend that had begun in 1601.

In their fight against the Spanish Empire during the Eighty Years' War, the Dutch rebels, the Geuzen, had occupied the city.

The Archdukes had decided that before taking on the Republic, it was important to subdue the last Protestant enclave on the Flemish coast, the port of Ostend.

The Spanish, under Spinola’s able leadership, have torn Ostend's outer defenses from the exhausted Dutch and put what remains of the city under the muzzles of their guns, compelling the Dutch to surrender on September 22, 1604.

By this point the Spanish have lost almost sixty thousand men in the blasted trenches and dugouts surrounding the ruined city.

The siege has taken three years and eighty days.

Described as a "long carnival of death", with on both sides combined more than eighty thousand dead or wounded, the ruin and devastation of the siege leads to negotiations that are to produce a Twelve-Year Truce (1609-1621) between Spain and the United Provinces.

The years since the Battle of Nieuwpoort have shown an apparent stalemate.

Meanwhile the stadtholders have mopped up some more Spanish fortresses, like Grave in Brabant and Sluys and Aardenburg in what is to become States Flanders.

Though these victories have deprived the Archdukes of much of the propaganda value of their own victory at Ostend, the loss of the city is a severe blow to the Republic, and it brings about another Protestant exodus to the North.

The supreme command of the Army of Flanders has now been transferred to Spinola, who proves to be a worthy opponent of Maurice.

In a brilliant campaign in 1605, he first outwits Maurice by feigning an attack on Sluys, but when Maurice comes down to block that, ...

Spinola leaves Maurice far in his rear while he makes a surprise attack on the eastern Netherlands by way of Münsterland in Germany.

He soon appears before Oldenzaal (only recently captured by Maurice) and this preponderantly Catholic city opens its gates to him without firing a shot.

After taking Oldenzaal, Spinola captures Lingen.

With both towns in Spanish hands, the Dutch have to evacuate Twente, the most urbanized and easterly part of the province of Overijssel, and retire to the IJssel river.

Spinola returns in 1606 and causes a panic in the Republic when he invades the Zutphen quarter of Gelderland, showing that the interior of the Republic is still vulnerable to Spanish attack.

However, Spinola is satisfied with the psychological effect of his incursion and does not press the attack.

Maurice, thoroughly disturbed by all of this, decides on a rare autumn campaign in an attempt to close the apparent gap in the Republic's eastern defenses.

He retakes Lochem, but ...