palace, was wounded and driven back together with a few of his adherents.
The rest of the garrison fled helter-skelter into the town. Never had the
musketeers of Italy--for they all belonged to Spinola's famous Sicilian
Legion--behaved so badly. They did not even take the precaution to
destroy the bridge between the castle and the town as they fled
panic-stricken before seventy Hollanders. Instead of encouraging the
burghers to their support they spread dismay, as they ran, through every
street.
Young Lanzavecchia, penned into a corner of the castle; began to parley;
hoping for a rally before a surrender should be necessary. In the midst
of the negotiation and a couple of hours before dawn, Hohenlo; duly
apprised by the boatman, arrived with the vanguard of Maurice's troops
before the field-gate of the fort. A vain attempt was made to force this
portal open, but the winter's ice had fixed it fast. Hohenlo was obliged
to batter down the palisade near the water-gate and enter by the same
road through which the fatal turf-boat had passed.
Soon after he had marched into the town at the head of a strong
detachment, Prince Maurice himself arrived in great haste, attended by
Philip Nassau, the Admiral Justinus Nassau, Count Solms, Peter van der
Does, and Sir Francis Vere, and followed by another body of picked
troops; the musicians playing merrily that national air, then as now so
dear to Netherlanders--
"Wilhelmus van Nassouwen
Ben ick van Duytaem bloed."
The fight was over. Some forty of the garrison had been killed, but not a
man of the attacking party. The burgomaster sent a trumpet to the prince
asking permission to come to the castle to arrange a capitulation; and
before sunrise, the city and fortress of Breda had surrendered to the
authority of the States-General and of his Excellency.
The terms were moderate. The plundering was commuted for the payment of
two months' wages to every soldier engaged in the affair. Burghers who
might prefer to leave the city were allowed to do so with protection to
life, and property. Those who were willing to remain loyal citizens were
not to be molested, in their consciences or their households, in regard
to religion. The public exercise of Catholic rites was however suspended
until the States-General should make some universal provision on this
subject.
Subsequently, it must be allowed, the bargain of commutation proved a bad
one for the burghers. S
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