On the 16th of October she was at the gates of Heusden. The city surrendered without a blow, and the next day she was solemnly enthroned there as Duchess of Brabant. Four days later she sat down before Gertruidenberg. On Saint Martin's Day the city went up in flames, and on the 24th of November, flushed with victory, she returned at the head of her troops to Brussels. It was her last triumph. For a brief space her star had been in the ascendant, and now it was already beginning to wane. Henceforth sorrow was to dog her heel, and ill-fortune to confront her at every turn. The Estates were again sitting, sometimes in the Coudenberg, sometimes in the Town Hall, but the prelates and knights and burghers assembled had other food for discussion than Jacqueline's Dutch affairs--the country was threatened with invasion, perhaps with civil war: John at Bois-le-Duc was hatching mischief. What particular form his mischief would take no man could tell, not even the Duke himself, for he inclined sometimes to one scheme, sometimes to another. All that was certainly known was that he was endeavouring to recruit an army in the land between the Meuse and the Rhine, that men of adventure were flocking to his standard from the hope of obtaining loot, and that he had turned a deaf ear to the deputation which the Regent had sent to Bois-le-Duc to entreat him to desist from his evil designs. At Brussels amongst the patricians he was known to have a considerable following, though many of them dissembled their true sentiments. Several of the aldermen were suspected of disaffection: at best they were but half-hearted patriots, and Amman Cluting was known to be the Duke's man, and was divested of his office in consequence.