Dutch led to the revival of the stadholderate, which was made hereditary in the house of Orange. This internal revolution and the want of supplies crippled Cumberland's movements. He had hoped to recover Antwerp, but the French precautions and the Dutch dilatoriness made him renounce that design. He then wished to attack the French in their position behind the Dyle, but his generals thought the risk too great. His troops suffered much from sickness, and Saxe, whose army was much better supplied, wished to prolong the situation; but in the beginning of June Louis XV joined the army, and the siege of Maestricht was decided on. Saxe was unwilling to commit himself to this siege while the allies remained free either to interrupt him or to march on Brussels. He skilfully drew them towards Maestricht, forestalled them in the strong position which they hoped to occupy between that place and Tongres, and defeated them in the battle of Laeffelt—or Val, as the English called it—on 2 July (N.S.)
Saxe had about 125,000 men, the allies ninety thousand, of which about ten thousand were British and twenty thousand Hanoverians and Hessians in British pay. While holding in check the Austrians, who were on the right, and the Dutch, who were in the centre, Saxe dealt his blow against the left. The hamlet of Laeffelt was taken and retaken four times. After three hours' obstinate fighting a fifth assault was made upon it by nearly twenty-five thousand men. At the same time the French cavalry charged and routed some Dutch squadrons drawn up on the right of it. These in their flight swept away some reinforcements that were coming from the reserve, and the duke himself was nearly made prisoner while trying to rally them. Laeffelt was lost, and the left wing retreated on Maestricht. The right and centre retired northward, but the French pursuit was slack, and the allied army reunited next day on the right bank of the Meuse.
The whole brunt of the battle and nine-tenths of the loss had fallen upon the Anglo-Hanoverians; and the duke was asked to explain how it was that here, as at Rocour the year before, the Austrians had found themselves unable to take any share in it. He had no fault to find with them, but he owned it could be wished ‘that so great a proportion of the whole force had not been employed to strengthen what was itself so very strong, but that part of it had been made use of on the left, or at least been kept as a reserve to follow occasions’ (Coxe, i. 493). For this he was himself responsible. As Horace Walpole wrote: ‘He behaved as bravely as usual, but his prowess is so well established that it grows time for him to exert other qualities of a general’ (Letters, ii. 92).
The French lost more men than the allies, and the victory was not decisive enough for Saxe to attempt the siege of Maestricht. He fell back on an alternative which he personally favoured, the siege of Berg-op-Zoom. This was begun by Löwendahl on 14 July, and lasted two months. The duke was pressed by the Prince of Orange to march to its relief, but he thought Maestricht of more importance. There was friction between the two brothers-in-law. In August Pelham wrote: ‘Our two young heroes agree but little. Our own is open, frank, resolute, perhaps hasty; the other assuming, pedantic, ratiocinating, and tenacious’ (Stanhope, iii. 332). However, the Dutch troops and others to the extent of nearly half his army were gradually sent off by Cumberland for the defence of the Dutch frontier, while Saxe made corresponding detachments to reinforce Löwendahl. Berg-op-Zoom was taken on 16 Sept., and the campaign ended soon afterwards.
The French wished for peace; and Saxe suggested through Ligonier, who had been made prisoner at Laeffelt, that ‘it would be very glorious for his most Christian majesty, as well as for his royal highness, that peace should be made at the head of the two armies.’ The duke liked the idea; but the British government preferred to leave the business to diplomatists, and sent out Lord Sandwich. A new campaign opened before terms were settled. Early in April 1748 Saxe invested Maestricht with more than a hundred thousand men. The allied army assembled at Roermond under Cumberland amounted at that time only to thirty-five thousand men, and could do nothing to save the place, which was still holding out, however, when preliminaries of peace were signed at Aix-la-Chapelle at the end of the month. The duke went to Hanover in August, and to England in September, to arrange about the reductions in the British forces; otherwise he remained with the army in Holland until it was broken up, after the final signature of peace on 18 Oct.
On his return to England he lived chiefly at Windsor, sometimes at the Ranger's (now Cumberland) Lodge, which he enlarged, and sometimes at Cranbourne Lodge, being appointed warden of Cranbourne Chase on 29 Oct. 1751. With the assistance of Thomas Sandby [q. v.], whom he made deputy ranger, he greatly improved the park, especially by
