Letter VII
The Prince of Parma has checked the progress of Alençon’s reinforcements by encamping at Arras. They are obliged, therefore, to make a détour to Calais, so as to reach their destination by sea. Alençon has divided the army which he already had in the Netherlands into garrisons for different places. Thus he has quartered some in Brussels, some in Mechlin, some in Vilvorde, and some also in Gelderland and Friesland.
The Spanish Ambassador having sent one of his people with despatches to the Prince of Parma, the man had but just left the first stage, when he fell in with some horsemen, whose names I do not know, and was compelled to surrender his papers. As the man was a Netherlander, he was allowed to escape unharmed. The horsemen told him, with many a threat, that if he had been a Spaniard he would not have got off so easily, but would have paid with his life for the butchery of their kinsmen in the Azores.
September 12, 1582.