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.