A.D. 1585.
This celebrated fortified place has been several times besieged. The Spaniards attacked it in 1585, when it was defended by Morgan, an intelligent and brave English captain. The duke of Parma, knowing all the difficulties of the undertaking, thought to abridge them by attempting to win over two English officers, who passed for being not very delicate. These two soldiers discovered the duke’s proposals to their commander, who ordered them to carry on the negotiations. They went into the enemy’s camp; and a detachment of four thousand men was intrusted to their guidance, to take possession of the place. They marched at the head of them, between two soldiers, who had orders to poniard them if they were treacherous, or if they did not introduce them into the citadel. They did, in fact, introduce them; but scarcely had forty men passed through the gate, when the portcullis was let down. The Spaniards who were within Bergen-op-Zoom did not dare to kill their guides, whilst the artillery of the place opened its thunders upon the detachment under the walls. The dishonour and the defeat of this day both fell to the Spaniards, who, degenerating from Castilian valour, were taken in their own snare.