When de Villeroi, who commanded the French in Flanders, heard that Marlborough was coming back from the Moselle, he hastily retired to a series of fortified lines stretching from Namur to Antwerp. These lines the Duke determined to force, and by a series of brilliant manœuvres and rapid marches succeeded in driving de Villeroi from them, with much loss to the French and little to the Allies. But to inflict a decisive blow upon the enemy a great battle was necessary. Marlborough twice placed the French in situations where they would have to fight at a disadvantage, and twice the Dutch generals, in their insane jealousy of the British Commander-in-Chief, forbade the action by refusing to allow their soldiers to engage. The XVIIIth appears to have spent much of the campaign in levelling the captured lines, and when the work was finished, wintered at Worcom, where in January, 1706, Lieutenant-Colonel Stearne received his brevet of Colonel. The opening of the campaign of 1706 found Marlborough more determined than ever to defeat de Villeroi in a pitched battle; and in order to draw the French general from his fortified lines on the river Dyle, he gave him to understand through a secret agent that, as the Allies realised the Marshal was afraid of them, they were about to besiege Namur, one of the fortresses of which Louis had repossessed himself by his vigorous action in 1701. The bait took. Stung by this insult, de Villeroi quitted the shelter of his fortifications and marched to Tirlemont, apparently heading for Namur. When Marlborough heard the welcome news, he pushed south-west from Maestricht, with an army little inferior in numbers to de Villeroi’s 60,000 troops, and on the 22nd of May encamped at Coswaren, where he learned that de Villeroi was moving upon Judoigne. The Duke decided to attack the French there, and at 1 A.M. on Whitsunday, May 23, 1706, he sent an advance party under his Quartermaster-General, Cadogan, to select a camping-ground near the village of Ramillies, which lies on the eastern edge of the highest table-land in this part of Belgium.[42] Owing to a heavy mist, it was not until eight o’clock that Cadogan discovered that there were hostile troops upon the plateau. Two hours later the sun came out, and revealed to each army the presence of the other, the French moving eastward across the plateau, the Allies advancing from the opposite direction.