Naarden and Muiden are curiously mediaeval. The steam-tram has been
rushing along for some miles, past beer gardens and villas, when
suddenly it slows to walking pace as we twist in and out over the
bridges of a moat, and creeping through the tunnel of a rampart are
in the narrow streets of a fortified town. Both Naarden and Muiden
are surrounded by moats and fortifications.
Naarden's crowning hour of agony was in 1572, since it had the
misfortune to stand in the path of Don Frederic on his way from
Zutphen, where not a citizen had been left alive, to Amsterdam. The
story of the surrender of the city to Don Romero under the pledge
that life and property should be respected, and of the dastardly and
fiendish disregard of this pledge by the Spaniards, is the most ghastly
in the whole war. From Motley I take the account of the tragedy:--
"On the 22nd of November a company of one hundred troopers was sent to
the city gates to demand its surrender. The small garrison which had
been left by the Prince was not disposed to resist, but the spirit of
the burghers was stouter than their walls. They answered the summons
by a declaration that they had thus far held the city for the King
and the Prince of Orange, and, with God's help, would continue so
to do.
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