The Sea Beggars - pirates to their enemies - had captured the strategic ports
of North Holland; Hoorn, Enkhuizen, Edam and Monnickendam, after their
remarkable coup in taking Brielle in Zeeland. This stone set into the wall of the
Weeshuis, commemorates the defeat of the Spanish fleet under Admiral Bossu
in October 1573 and in time ensured naval superiority for the nascent Dutch
Republic that emerged from the Eighty Years War in 1648.
[See Bossuhuizen below].