He personally supplied Zutphen at first, but as the Anglo-Dutch siege continued, he assembled a large convoy whose delivery to the town he entrusted to Alfonso Félix de Ávalos Aquino y Gonzaga, Marquis del Vasto/Guasto.

England dispatched 5,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry soldiers to the Low Countries, and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was proclaimed Governor-General of the Netherlands.

[3] Commanding untrained and badly paid levies, Leicester was unable to prevent the Army of Flanders under Alessandro Farnese, from seizing the towns of Grave, Venlo and Neuss, though he managed to take Axel.

[3] When Farnese besieged Rheinberg in September 1586, Leicester's army marched towards Zutphen and took a Spanish sconce on the left bank of the IJssel river.

[5] Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, led the cavalry, John Norreys the infantry, and William Pelham the camp, in which Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, the deposed Archbishop of Cologne, and Manuel, son of the Prior of Crato, claimant to the Portuguese crown, all resided.

[6] As the siege continued, Farnese left some troops to blockade Rheinberg and supplied Zutphen in person with 600 cavalry and a convoy of 300 wagons of wheat.

[8] Leicester was informed of the possible ways through which the Spanish army might attempt to supply the town, but because of a misunderstanding no troops were deployed to guard the roads.

[8] Led by Farnese himself and Francisco Verdugo, the Spanish troops left Borculo at night, passed next to the Dutch town of Lochem and reached Zutphen through a narrow way flanked by deep woods.

[10] Farnese considered the possibility of defending the town himself, but Verdugo dissuaded him to avoid "giving the Queen of England the fame that Prince of Parma was like a prisoner inside Zutphen".

[12] To preserve Zutphen's garrison, Farnese gathered enough food to feed 4,000 men for three months in the towns of Groenlo, Oldenzaal, Lingen and Münster.

[4] Famiano Strada increases these numbers to 3,000 infantry and 400 cavalry,[14] and Alonso Vázquez to about 8,000, many of them veteran Frisons under Count William Louis of Nassau-Dillenburg.

He deployed his cavalry in two squadrons, formed a large infantry battalion, put 300 or 350 advanced pikemen under Sir William Stanley and Lord Audley[18] next to the way, and flanked the road with sleeves of musketeers and arquebusiers.

As the fight approached Zutphen and Francisco Verdugo noticed the musketry fire, he ordered a wagon to be loaded with powder and bullets and sent it to the Spanish arquebusiers.

[24] Del Vasto retired from the fight and met Verdugo and Johann Baptista von Taxis, who sallied from Zutphen with several troops to join the battle.

At the same time they were conversing, English troops unsuccessfully attacked Zutphen's sconce on the other side of the IJssel, which was defended by Count Herman van den Bergh with some men.

[26] During the confusion, the cavalry left behind by Del Vasto, which included the Italian and Epirote companies under Appio Conti, Hannibal Gonzaga, George Crescia, the Marquis of Bentivoglio and Nicolo Cefis,[27] reached Zutphen.

Crescia was dismounted and taken prisoner by Lord Willoughby,[21] while Gonzaga, not wearing his close helmet, received a serious slash in the neck and fell from his horse.

Seeing the good order of Verdugo and Del Vasto's men, the English and Dutch commanders did not renew the action and began to retire back to their camp.

[36] Leicester expressed his full confidence in both soldiers, but in 1587 Stanley and York shifted sides to the Spanish party and handed Deventer and Zutphen's sconce over to Taxis.

[3] Stanley and York's acts not only negated the gains of the 1586 campaign, but also undermined Leicester's reputation and the Dutch States confidence in the English troops.