At the ninth, the outer wall was carried, and the Spaniards shouting “Santiago” poured over it, bearing back all resistance.  An Italian Knight of the Sepulchre, Cesar Guidiccioni by name, and a Spanish ensign, one Alphonao de Mesa, with his colours in one hand and a ladder in the other, each claimed the honour of having first mounted the breach.  Both being deemed equally worthy of reward, Parma, after the city had been won, took from his own cap a sprig of jewels and a golden wheat-ear ornamented with a gem, which he had himself worn in place of a plume, and thus presented each with a brilliant token of his regard.  The wall was then strengthened against the inner line of fortification, and all night long a desperate conflict was maintained in the dark upon the narrow space between the two barriers.  Before daylight Kloet, who then, as always, had led his men in the moat desperate adventures, was carried into the town, wounded in five places, and with his leg almost severed at the thigh. “’Tis the bravest man,” said the enthusiastic Lord North, “that was ever heard of in the world.”—­“He is but a boy,” said Alexander Farnese, “but a commander of extraordinary capacity and valour.”

Early in the morning, when this mishap was known, an officer was sent to the camp of the besiegers to treat.  The soldiers received him with furious laughter, and denied him access to the general.  “Commander Kloet had waked from his nap at a wrong time,” they said, “and the Prince of Parma was now sound asleep, in his turn.”  There was no possibility of commencing a negotiation.  The Spaniards, heated by the conflict, maddened by opposition, and inspired by the desire to sack a wealthy city, overpowered all resistance.  “My little soldiers were not to be restrained,” said Farnese, and so compelling a reluctant consent on the part of the commander-in-chief to an assault, the Italian and Spanish legions poured into the town at two opposite gates; which were no longer strong enough to withstand the enemy.  The two streams met in the heart of the place, and swept every living thing in their, path out of existence.  The garrison was butchered to a man, and subsequently many of the inhabitants—­men, women, and children-also, although the women; to the honour of Alexander, had been at first secured from harm in some of the churches, where they had been ordered to take refuge.  The first blast of indignation was against the commandant of the place.  Alexander, who had admired, his courage, was not unfavourably disposed towards him, but Archbishop Ernest vehemently, demanded his immediate death, as a personal favour to himself.  As the churchman was nominally sovereign of the city although in reality a beggarly dependant on Philip’s alms, Farnese felt bound to comply.  The manner in which it was at first supposed that the Bishop’s Christian request had; been complied, with, sent a shudder through every-heart in the Netherlands.  “They took Kloet, wounded as he was,” said Lord North, “and first strangled, him, then smeared him with pitch, and burnt him with gunpowder; thus, with their holiness, they, made a tragical end of an heroical service.  It is wondered that the Prince would suffer so great an outrage to be done to so noble a soldier, who did but his duty.”