They were immediately followed by Richebourg, at the head of his regiment.  The day was a fatal one.  It was the 10th July, 1584 and William of Orange was falling at Delft by the hand of Balthazar Gerard.  Liefkenshoek was carried at a blow.  Of the eight hundred patriots in the place, scarcely a man escaped.  Four hundred were put to the sword, the others were hunted into the river, when nearly all were drowned.  Of the royalists a single man was killed, and two or three more were wounded.  “Our Lord was pleased,” wrote Parma piously to Philip, that we “should cut the throats of four hundred of them in a single instant, and that a great many more should be killed upon the dykes; so that I believe very few to have escaped with life.  We lost one man, besides two or three wounded.”  A few were taken prisoners, and among them was the commander John Pettin.  He was at once brought before Richebourg, who was standing in the presence of the Prince of Parma.  The Marquis drew his sword, walked calmly up to the captured Colonel, and ran him through the body.  Pettin fell dead upon the spot.  The Prince was displeased.  “Too much choler, Marquis, too much choler,”—­said he reprovingly.  “Troppa colera, Signor Marchese, a questa.”  But Richebourg knew better.  He had, while still Viscount of Ghent, carried on a year previously a parallel intrigue with the royalists and the patriots.  The Prince of Parma had bid highest for his services, and had, accordingly, found him a most effectual instrument in completing the reduction of the Walloon Provinces.  The Prince was not aware, however, that his brave but venal ally had, at the very same moment, been secretly treating with William of Orange; and as it so happened that Colonel Pettin had been the agent in the unsuccessful negotiation, it was possible that his duplicity would now be exposed.  The Marquis had, therefore, been prompt to place his old confederate in the condition wherein men tell no tales, and if contemporary chronicles did not bely him, it was not the first time that he had been guilty of such cold-blooded murder.  The choler had not been superfluous.

The fortress of Lille was garrisoned by the Antwerp volunteers, called the “Young Bachelors.”  Teligny, the brave son of the illustrious “Iron-armed” La None, commanded in chief:  and he had, besides the militia, a company of French under Captain Gascoigne, and four hundred Scotchmen under Colonel Morgan—­perhaps two thousand men in all.

Mondragon, hero of the famous submarine expeditions of Philipsland and Zierickzee, was ordered by Parma to take the place at every hazard.  With five thousand men—­a large proportion of the Spanish effective force at that moment—­the veteran placed himself before the fort, taking possession, of the beautiful country-house and farm of Lille, where he planted his batteries, and commenced a regular cannonade.  The place was stronger than Liefkenshoek, however, and Teligny thoroughly comprehended the importance