Days and weeks had passed, July was followed by sultry August, and that, too, was drawing to a close.

The Spaniards still surrounded Leyden, and the city now completely resembled a prison.

The soldiers and armed citizens did their duty wearily and sullenly, there was business enough at the town-hall, but the magistrates' work was sad and disagreeable; for no message of hope came from the Prince or the Estates, and everything to be considered referred to the increasing distress and the terrible follower of war, the plague, which had made its entry into Leyden with the famine.

Moreover the number of malcontents weekly increased.

The friends of the old order of affairs now raised their voices more and more loudly, and many a friend of liberty, who saw his family sickening, joined the Spanish sympathizers and demanded the surrender of the city.