[777] "So pena de proceder contra los Predicadores ministros y semejantes con el ultimo suplicio y confiscacion de hacienda por aplicarlo al provecho de los que havian la apprehension de ellos y por falta de hacienda, su magestad madará librar del suyo seiscientos florines." Renom de Francia, Alborotos de Flandes, MS.

[778] "Je suis forcée avecq douleur et angoisse d'esprit lui dire de rechief que nonobstant tous les debvoirs que je fais journellement, ... je ne puis remédier ny empescher les assemblées des presches publicques." Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 72.

[779] "Sains aide et sans ordres, de manière que, dans tout ce qu'elle fait, elle doit aller en tâtonnant et au hasard." Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. II. p. 428.

[780] "Le prince se prépare de longue main à la défense qu'il sera forcé de faire contre le Roi." Ibid., p. 431.

It was natural that the relations of William with the party of reform should have led to the persuasion that he had returned to the opinions in which ha had been early educated. These were Lutheran. There is no reason to suppose that at the present time he had espoused the doctrines of Calvin. The intimation of Armenteros respecting the prince's change of religion seems to have made a strong impression on Philip. On the margin of the letter he wrote against the passage, "No one has said this so unequivocally before;"—"No lo ha escrito nadie así claro."

[781] "Vos os engañariades mucho en pensar que yo no tubiese toda confianza de vos, y quando hubiese alguno querido hazer oficio con migo en contrario á esto, no soy tan liviano que hubiese dado credito á ello, teniendo yo tanta esperiencia de vuestra lealtad y de vuestros servicios." Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne, tom. II. p. 171.

[782] "Que le roi, résolu de les tromper tous, commençait par tromper sa sœur." Vandervynckt, Troubles des Pays-Bays, tom. II. p. 148.

[783] This responsibility is bluntly charged on them by Renom de Francia. "El dia de las predicaciones oraciones y cantos estando concertado, se acordó con las principales villas que fuese el San Juan siguiente y de continuar en adelante, primero en los Bosques y montañas, despues en los arrabales y Aldeas y pues en las villas, por medida que el numero, la andacia y sufrimiento creciese." Alborotos de Flandes, MS.

[784] "Qui vulgari joco duodecim Apostoli dicebantur." Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 248.

[785] "S'est mise en une telle colère contre nous, qu'elle a pensé crever." Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, tom. II. p. 178.

[786] "Alioqui externa remedia quamvis invitos postremò quæsituros." Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 248.

[787] The memorials are given at length by Groen, Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, tom. II. pp. 159-167.

[788] See the letter of Louis to his brother dated July 26, 1566, Ibid., p. 178.

[789] The person who seems to have principally served her in this respectable office was a "doctor of law," one of the chief counsellors of the confederates. Count Megen, her agent on the occasion, bribed the doctor by the promise of a seat in the council of Brabant. Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 435.

[790] "Le tout est en telle désordre," she says in one of her letters, "que, en la pluspart du païs, l'on est sans loy, foy, ni roy." Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 91.

Anarchy could not be better described in so few words.

[791] "Il ne reste plus sinon qu'ils s'assemblent et que, joincts ensemble, ils se livrent à faire quelque sac d'églises villes, bourgs, ou païs, de quoy je suis en merveilleusement grande crainte;" Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 121.

[792] Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 432.

[793] The fullest account of the doings of the council is given by Hopper, one of its members. Recueil et Mémorial, pp. 81-87.

[794] "Ceux du conseil d'Etat sont étonnés du délai que le Roi met à répondre." Montigny to Margaret, July 21. Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 434.

[795] "Pour l'inclination naturelle que j'ay toujours eu de traieter mes vassaulx et subjects plus par voye d'amour et clémence, que de crainte et de rigeur, je me suis accommodé à tout ce que m'a esté possible." Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 100.

[796] "Ay treuvé convenir et nécessaire que l'on conçoive certaine aultre forme de modération de placcart par delà, ayant égard que la saincte foy catholique et mon authorité soyent gardées ... et y feray tout ce que possible sera." Ibid., p. 103.

[797] "N'abhorrissant riens tant que la voye de rigeur." Ibid., ubi supra.

[798] "Y assí vos no lo consentais, ni yo lo consentiré tan poco." Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 439.

[799] "Pero no conviene que esto se entienda allá, ni que vos teneis esta órden mia, sino es para lo de agora, pero que la esperais para adelante, no desesperando ellos para entonces dello." Ibid., ubi supra.

[800] Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, pp. 106, 114.

[801] "Comme il ne l'a pas fait librement, ni spontanément, il n'entend être lié par cette autorisation, mais au contraire il se réserve de punir les coupables, et principalement ceux qui ont été les auteurs et fauteurs des séditions." Correspondance de Philippe II, tom. I. p. 443.

One would have been glad to see the original text of this protest, which is in Latin, instead of M. Gachard's abstract.

[802] Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 236.

Among those who urged the king to violent measures, no one was so importunate as Fray Lorenzo de Villacancio, an Augustin monk, who distinguished himself by the zeal and intrepidity with which he ventured into the strongholds of the Reformers, and openly denounced their doctrines. Philip, acquainted with the uncompromising temper of the man, and his devotion to the Catholic Church, employed him both as an agent and an adviser in regard to the affairs of the Low Countries. where Fray Lorenzo was staying in the earlier period of the troubles. Many of the friar's letters to the king are still preserved in Simancas, and astonish one by the boldness of their criticisms on the conduct of the ministers, and even of the monarch himself, whom Lorenzo openly accuses of a timid policy towards the Reformers.

In a memorial on the state of the country, prepared, at Philip's suggestion, in the beginning of 1566, Fray Lorenzo urges the necessity of the most rigorous measures towards the Protestants in the Netherlands. "Since your majesty holds the sword which God has given to you, with the divine power over our lives, let it be drawn from the scabbard, and plunged in the blood of the heretics, if you do not wish that the blood of Jesus Christ, shed by these barbarians, and the blood of the innocent Catholics whom they have oppressed, should cry aloud to Heaven for vengeance on the sacred head of your majesty!... The holy king David showed no pity for the enemies of God. He slew them, sparing neither man nor woman. Moses and his brother, in a single day, destroyed three thousand of the children of Israel. An angel, in one night, put to death more than sixty thousand enemies of the Lord. Your majesty is a king, like David; like Moses, a captain of the people of Jehovah; an angel of the Lord,—for so the Scriptures style the kings and captains of his people;—and these heretics are the enemies of the living God!" And in the same strain of fiery and fanatical eloquence he continues to invoke the vengeance of Philip on the heads of his unfortunate subjects in the Netherlands.

That the ravings of this hard-hearted bigot were not distasteful to Philip may be inferred from the fact that he ordered a copy of his memorial to be placed in the hands of Alva, on his departure for the Low Countries. It appears that he had some thoughts of sending Fray Lorenzo to join the duke there,—a project which received little encouragement from the latter, who probably did not care to have so meddlesome a person as this frantic friar to watch his proceedings.

An interesting notice of this remarkable man is to be found in Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. II., Rapport, pp. xvi.-1.

[803] "Y por la priesa que dieron en esto, no ubo tiempo de consultarlo á Su Santidad, como fuera justo, y quiza avra sido así mejor, pues no vale nada, sino quitandola Su Santidad que es que la pone; pero en esto conviene que aya el secreto que puede considerar." Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 445.

[804] "Y en esto conviene el mismo secreto que en lo de arriba." Ibid., ubi supra.

These injunctions of secrecy are interpolations in the handwriting of the "prudent" monarch himself.

[805] "Perderé todos mis estados, y cien vidas que tuviesse, porque yo no pienso ni quiero ser señor de hereges." Ibid., p. 446.

[806] "Et, au regard de la convocation des dicts Estats généraulx, comme je vous ay escript mon intention, je ne treuve qu'il y a matière pour la changer ne qu'il conviengne aulcunement qu'elle se face en mon absence, mesmes comme je suis si prest de mon partement." Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 165.

[807] Brantôme, Œuvres, tom. III. p. 321.

[808] "Accendunt animos Ministri, fugienda non animo modò, sed et corpore idola: eradicari, extirpari tantam summi Dei contumeliam opportere affirmant." Vander Haer, De Initiis Tumultuum, p. 236.

[809] Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. pp. 250-252.—Vander Haer, De Initiis Tumultuum, p. 232 et seq.—Hopper, Recueil et Mémorial, p. 96.—Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, pp. 183, 185.

[810] "Si Mariette avait peur, qu'elle se retirât sitôt en son nid." Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne, tom. II., Préface, p. lii.

[811] Ibid., ubi supra.

[812] "Nullus ex eo numero aut casu afflictus, aut ruinâ oppressus decidentium ac transvolantium fragmentorum, aut occursu collisuque festinantium cum fabrilibus armis levissimè sauciatus sit." Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 257.

"No light argument," adds the historian, "that with God's permission the work was done under the immediate direction of the demons of Hell!"

[813] Ibid., pp. 255-258.—Vander Haer, De Initiis Tumultuum, p. 237 et seq.—Brandt, Reformation in the Low Countries, vol. I. p. 193.—Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne, tom. II., Préface, pp. liii, liv.

[814] "Pro focis pugnatur interdum acriùs quàm pro aris." Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 260.

[815] Brandt, Reformation in the Low Countries, vol. I. p. 201.

[816] But the Almighty, to quote the words of a contemporary, jealous of his own honor, took signal vengeance afterwards on all those towns and villages whose inhabitants had stood tamely by, and seen the profanation of his temples.—"Dios que es justo y zelador de su honra por caminos y formas incomprehensibles, lo ha vengado despues cruelmente, por que todos esos lugares donde esas cosas han acontecido ban sido tomados, saqueados, despojados y arruinados por guerra, pillage, peste y incomodidades, en que, asi los males y culpados, como los buenos por su sufrimiento y connivencia, han conocido y confesado que Dios ha sido corrido contra ellos." Renom de Francia, Alborotos de Flandes, MS.

[817] Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 259.

[818] "En tous ces monastères et cloistres, ils abattent touttes sépultures des comtes et comtesses de Flandres et aultres." Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 183.

[819] "Hic psittaco sacrosanctum Domini corpus porrigerent: Hic ex ordine collocatis imaginibus ignem subijeerent, cadentibus insultarent: Hic statuis arma induerent, in armatos depugnarent, deiectos, Viuant Geusij clamare imperarent, ut ad scopum sic ad Christi imaginem iaculaturi collimarent, libros bibliothecarum butiro inunctos in ignem conijcerent, sacris vestibus summo ludibrio per vicos palàm vterentur." Vander Haer, De Initiis Tumultuum, p. 238.

[820] Hopper, Recueil et Mémorial, p. 98.

[821] Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 182.

[822] Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 260.

[823] "Y de lo que venia del saco de la plateria y cosas sagradas de la yglesia (que algunos ministros y los del consistorio juntavan en una) distribuyendo á los fieles reformados algunos frutos de su reformacion, para contentar á los hambrientos." Renom de Francia, Alborotos de Flandes, MS.

[824] "Haciéndoles pagar el precio de los azotes con que fueron azotados." Ibid.

[825] "Il répondit que la première chose à faire était de conserver l'Etat; que, ensuite on s'occuperait des choses de la religion. Elle répliqua, non sans humeur, qu'il lui paraissait plus nécessaire de pourvoir d'abord à ce qu'exigeait le service de Dieu, parce que la ruine de la religion serait un plus grand mal, que la perte du pays." Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 449.

[826] "Il repartit que tous ceux qui avaient quelque chose à perdre, ne l'entendaient pas de cette manière." Ibid., p. 450.

[827] Vide ante, p. 265.

[828] "Et me disoient..... que les sectaires voulloient venir tuer, en ma présence, tous les prestres, gens d'église et catholicques." Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 188.

[829] "La duchesse se trouve sans conseil ni assistance, pressée par l'ennemi au dedans et au dehors." Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 455.

[830] "Nonobstant touttes ces raisons et remonstrances, par plusieurs et divers jours, je n'y ay voullu entendre, donnant par plusieurs fois soupirs et signe de douleur et angoisse de cœur, jusques à là que, par aulcuns jours, la fiebvre m'a détenue, et ay passé plusieurs nuiets sans repos." Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 194.

[831] Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 454.

[832] "Egmont a tenu le même langage, en ajoutant qu'on lèverait 40,000 hommes, pour aller assiéger Mons." Ibid., ubi supra.

[833] Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 196.—Strada, De Bello Belgico tom. I. p. 266.—Vita Viglii, p. 48.—Hopper, Recueil et Mémorial, p. 99.

[834] At Margaret's command, a detailed account of the circumstances under which these concessions were extorted from her was drawn up by the secretary Berty. This document is given by Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. II., Appendix, p. 588.

[835] The particulars of the agreement are given by Meteren, Hist. des Pays-Bas, fol. 45. See also Brandt, Reformation in the Low Countries, vol. I. p. 204.—Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne, tom. II. pp. 455, 459.—Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. cxliv.

[836] "Elle le supplie d'y venir promptement, à main armée, afin de le conquérir de nouveau." Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 453.

[837] Raumer, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, vol. II. p. 177.

[838] Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne, tom. II. pp. 220, 223, 231, 233; Préface, pp. lxii.-lxiv.

[839] The document is given entire by Groen, Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, tom. II. p. 429 et seq.

[840] Tiepolo, the Venetian minister at the court of Castile at this time, in his report made on his return, expressly acquits the French nobles of what had been often imputed to them, having a hand in these troubles. Their desire for reform only extended to certain crying abuses; but, in the words of his metaphor, the stream which they would have turned to the irrigation of the ground soon swelled to a terrible inundation.—"Contra l'opinion de'principali della lega, che volevano indur timore et non tanto danno.... Dico che questo fu perchè essi non hebbero mai intentione di ribellarsi dal suo sig^re ma solamente con questi mezzi di timore impedir che non si introducesse in quei stati il tribunal dell'Inquisitione." Relatione di M. A. Tiepolo, 1567, MS.

[841] "En supposant que le Roi voulût admettre deux religions (ce qu'elle ne pouvait croire), elle ne voulait pas, elle, être l'exécutrice d'une semblable détermination; qu'elle se laisserait plutôt mettre en pièces." Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 453.

[842] The report of this curious dialogue, somewhat more extended than in these pages, is to be found in the Vita Viglii, p. 47.

[843] "En paroles et en faits, ils se sont déclarés contre Dieu et contre le Roi." Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 453.

[844] Ibid., ubi supra.

[845] "Le président, qu'on menace de tous côtés d'assommer et de mettre en pièces, est devenu d'une timidité incroyable." Ibid., p. 460.

Viglius, in his "Life," confirms this account of the dangers with which he was threatened by the people, but takes much more credit to himself for presence of mind than the duchess seems willing to allow. Vita Viglii, p. 48.

[846] Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. pp. 255, 260.

[847] "Disant n'avoir aulcun d'elle, mais bien de Vostre Majesté, laquelle n'avoit esté content me laisser en ma maison, mais m'avoit commandé me trouver à Bruxelles vers Son Altesse, ou avoie receu tant de facheries." Supplément à Strada, tom. II. p. 505.

[848] "Ne me samblant debvoir traicter affaires de honneur avecq Dames." Ibid., ubi supra.

[849] "They tell me," writes Morillon to Granvelle, "it is quite incredible how old and gray Egmont has become. He does not venture to sleep at night without his sword and pistols by his bedside!" (Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, Supplément, p. 36.) But there was no pretence that at this time Egmont's life was in danger. Morillon, in his eagerness to cater for the cardinal's appetite for gossip, did not always stick at the improbable.

[850] "Il leur en coûtera cher (s'écria-t-il en se tirant la barbe), il leur en coûtera cher; j'en jure par l'âme de mon père." Gachard, Analectes Belgiques, p. 254.

[851] "De tout cela (disje) ne se perdit un seul moment en ce temps, non obstant la dicte maladie de Sa Maj^te, la quelle se monstra semblablement selon son bon naturel, en tous ces negoces et actions tousjours tant modeste, et temperée et constante en iceulx affaires, quelques extremes qu'ilz fussent, que jamais l'on n'a veu en icelle signal, ou de passion contre les personnes d'une part, ou de relasche en ses negoces de l'aultre." Hopper, Recueil et Mémorial, p. 104.

[852] At this period stops the "Recueil et Mémorial des Troubles des Pays-Bas" of Joachim Hopper, which covers a hundred quarto pages of the second volume (part second) of Hoynck van Papendrecht's "Analecta Belgica." Hopper was a jurist, a man of learning and integrity. In 1566 he was called to Madrid, raised to the post of keeper of the seals for the affairs of the Netherlands, and made a member of the council of state. He never seems to have enjoyed the confidence of Philip in anything like the degree which Granvelle and some other ministers could boast; for Hopper was a Fleming. Yet his situation in the cabinet made him acquainted with the tone of sentiment as well as the general policy of the court; while, as a native of Flanders, he could comprehend, better than a Spaniard, the bearing this policy would have on his countrymen. His work, therefore, is of great importance as far as it goes. It is difficult to say why it should have stopped in mediis, for Hopper remained still in office, and died at Madrid ten years after the period to which he brings his narrative. He may have been discouraged by the remarks of Viglius, who intimates, in a letter to his friend, that the chronicler should wait to allow time to disclose the secret springs of action. See the Epistolæ ad Hopperum, p. 419.

[853] Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 206.

[854] "Questo è il nuvolo che minaccia ora i nostri paesi; e n'uscirà la tempesta forse prima che non si pensa. Chi la prevede ne dà l'avviso; e chi n'è avvisato, o con intrepidezza l'incontri, o con avvedimento la sfugga." Bentivoglio, Guerra di Fiandra, p. 118.

[855] "Nullum prodire è Regis ore verbum seu privatè seu publicè, quin ad ejus aures in Belgium fideliter afferatur." Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 281.

[856] An abstract of the letter is given by Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II. tom. I. p. 485.

[857] "Sa Ma^té et ceulx du Conseil seront bien aise que sur le prétext de la religion ils pourront parvenir à leur pretendu, de mestre le pais, nous aultres, et nous enfans en la plus misérable servitude qu'on n'auroit jamais veu, et come on ast tousjours craint cela plus que chose que soit." Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, tom. II. p. 324.

[858] Egmont's deposition at his trial confirms the account given in the text—that propositions for resistance, though made at the meeting, were rejected. Hoorne in his "Justification," refers the failure to Egmont. Neither one nor the other throws light on the course of discussion. Bentivoglio, in his account of the interview, shows no such reserve; and he gives two long and elaborate speeches from Orange and Egmont, in as good set phrase as if they had been expressly reported by the parties themselves for publication. The Italian historian affects a degree of familiarity with the proceedings of this secret conclave by no means calculated to secure our confidence. Guerra di Fiandra, pp. 123-128.

[859] "Siesse qu'elle jure que s'et la plus grande vilagnerie du monde..... et que s'et ung vray pasquil fameulx et qui doit ettre forgé pardechà, et beaucoup de chozes semblables." Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, tom. II. p. 400.

[860] "En fin s'et une femme nourie en Rome, il n'y at que ajouter foy." Ibid., p. 401.

Yet Egmont, on his trial, affirmed that he regarded the letter as spurious! (Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 327.) One who finds it impossible that the prince of Orange could lend himself to such a piece of duplicity, may perhaps be staggered when he calls to mind his curious correspondence with the elector and with King Philip in relation to Anne of Saxony, before his marriage with that princess. Yet Margaret, as Egmont hints, was of the Italian school; and Strada, her historian, dismisses the question with a doubt,—"in medio ego quidem relinquo." A doubt from Strada is a decision against Margaret.

[861] Correspondance de Philippe II., tom I. p. 474.

[862] Ibid., p. 491.

[863] Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 282.

[864] Ibid., ubi supra.

[865] Hopper, Recueil et Mémorial, p. 109.

[866] Ibid., p. 113.

[867] Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, tom. II. p. 391.

[868] "Prætereà consistoria, id est senatus ac cœtus, multis in urbibus, sicuti jam Antverpiæ cæperant, instituerunt: creatis Magistratibus, Senatoribusque, quorum consiliis (sed anteà cum Antverpianâ curiâ, quam esse principem voluere, communicatis) universa hæreticorum Resput. temperaretur." Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I p. 283.

[869] Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Nassau, tom. II. pp. 455, 456.

[870] Ibid., p. 496.

[871] I quote almost the words of William in his famous Apology, which suggests the same explanation of his conduct that I have given in the text.—"Car puis que dès le berceau j'y avois esté nourry, Monsieur mon Pere y avoit vescu, y estoit mort, ayant chassé de ses Seigneuries les abus de l'Eglise, qui est-ce qui trouvera estrange si cette doctrine estoit tellement engravée en mon cœur, et y avoit jetté telles racines, qu'en son temps elle est venuë à apporter ses fruits." Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, tom. V. part i. p. 392.

[872] "Il y a plus de trois mois, qu'elle se lève avant le jour, et que le plus souvent elle tient conseil le matin et le soir; et tout le reste, de la journée et de la nuit, elle le consacre à donner des audiences, à lire les lettres et les avis qui arrivent de toutes parts, et à déterminer les résponses à y faire." Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 496.

Sleep seems to have been as superfluous to Margaret as to a hero of romance.

[873] Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. pp. 289, 290.

[874] "J'aimerais mieux que my langue fût attachée au palais, et devenir muet, comme un poisson, que d'ouvrir la bouche pour persuader au peuple chose tant cruelle et déraisonnable." Chronique contemporaine, cited by Gachard. Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. p. 561, note.

[875] "Suadere itaque illis, ut à publicis certè negotiis abstineant, ac res quique suas in posterum curent: néve Regem brevi affecturum ingenitæ benignitatis oblivisci cogant. Se quidem omni ope curaturam, ne, quam ipsi ruinam comminentur, per hæc vulgi turbamenta Belgium patiatur." Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 295.

[876] "Nec ullis conditionibus flecti te patere ad clementiam; sed homines scelestos, atque indeprecabile supplicium commeritos, ferro et igni quamprimùm dele." Ibid., p. 300.

[877] "Periere in eâ pugnâ quæ prima cum rebellibus commissa est in Belgio, Gheusiorum mille ac quingenti: capti circiter trecenti, jugulatique pænè omnes Beavorii jussu, quod erupturi Antverpienses, opemque reliquiis victæ factionis allaturi crederentur." Ibid., p. 301.

[878] For the account of the troubles in Antwerp, see Correspondance de Marguerite d'Autriche, p. 226 et seq.—Archives de la Maison d'Orange-Naussau, tom. III. p. 59.—Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. pp 300-303.—Brandt, Reformation in the Low Countries, vol. I. p. 247.—Correspondance de Philippe II., tom. I. pp. 526, 527.—Vander Haer, De Initiis Tumultuum, pp. 314-317.—Renom de Francia, Alborotos de Flandes, MS.

[879] Strada, De Bello Belgico, tom. I. p. 310.

[880] Strada gives an extract from the letter: "Deinde si deditio non sequeretur, invaderent quidem urbem, quodque militum est, agerent; à cædibus tamen non puerorum modò, senúmque ac mulierum abstinerent; sed civium nullus, nisi dum inter propugnandum se hostem gereret, enecaretur." Ibid., p. 311.