This patience was not idleness. Various sects, banished from the

Netherlands and other districts of Germany, had taken refuge in

Friesland, where they found freedom. The Brussels government called upon

the countess to expel them. The princess and her advisers were quite

inclined to do so without further inquiry, but Alasco opposed this. He

conceived an excellent plan of action, but one very difficult to

execute. He would have liked to unite the different Protestant parties

in a single body, comprehending therein even the smallest sects. ‘You

have permitted,’ said he, ‘these strangers to settle among your people,

and we can not now, just to please those who pursue them, drive them

away without any form of trial. Let us examine first what they are. An

error of the understanding does not render a man liable to punishment;

but guilty intentions alone.’ The countess requested him to make such an

examination as he suggested. Alasco then, actuated by a generous longing

for unity and freedom, applied himself to the task; but he soon found

himself involved in a conflict with a great number of differing

opinions, often irreconcilable, and had to maintain a sad struggle with

grave errors. One man among them all appeared to him to be sincerely

pious, and to set before himself a really praiseworthy object. This was

Menno. Alasco invited him to a religious conference which turned upon

the subjects of the ministry, the baptism of children, and the

incarnation of the Son of God. It was chiefly this last point with which

he concerned himself. Menno taught a fantastical doctrine. He believed

that the birth of Jesus had been only in appearance, that He had not

received from the Virgin Mary his flesh and blood, but had brought them

from heaven. Alasco did not confine himself to a _vivâ voce_ opposition

to this Gnostic dogma; but wrote a treatise[695] on the subject. Menno

having put forward several other opinions which were peculiar to

himself, Alasco admitted that it was impossible to attach him to the

great evangelical body; but at the same time he did not ask for his

expulsion.[696]

Another divine, a far less estimable man than Menno, not only holding

fantastic notions, but also leading an immoral life, next appeared

before him. His name was David Joris (or George); and he was a native of

Delft in Holland. His father was a conjuror who, as well as his wife,

used to play off juggling tricks at fairs and markets. The young David,

endowed with an original and even profound intellect, remarkably clever

and of lively imagination, was at the same time filled with ambition and

vanity. He learnt the business of painting on glass; but on Sundays and

festival days he used to join his parents and amuse the spectators with

his legerdemain. This doubtless had a bad effect on him. He afterwards

heard the evangelical doctrine preached, and fastened upon it, but not

without admixture. He saw in it, not a means of salvation in heaven, but

a means of being great here below; and discontented with his modest

calling he aspired to become head of a sect. Joris composed treatises

and hymns, preached, gained adherents and baptized them. He was

prosecuted in several towns of Holland, wandered to and fro under

various disguises, and at last arrived in East Friesland. Here his ardor

obtained him some disciples. ‘The doctrine announced by the prophets,’

said he, ‘and even by Jesus Christ, is not perfection. The Pentecostal

spirit led man forward indeed, but only brought him to the age of youth.

Another spirit was needed for the development of a grown man, and this

spirit is in the Christ David (Joris). I am the first-born of the

regenerate, the new man of God, the Christ according to the Spirit. It

is necessary to believe unreservedly in me. This faith will bring the

man who possesses it to perfect freedom, and he will find himself above

all law, all sin, and all compulsion.’ Alasco, when he heard these

strange pretensions, said to him, ‘Prove to us by the testimony of the

Word of God that this vocation belongs to you. Many churches have been

troubled by men who, like you, arrogated for themselves a divine

mission; and it is to pretensions of this sort that we owe the tyranny

of the pope and of Mohammed.’[697]

David replied in the style of an infallible doctor. He told Alasco that

he would communicate to him his _Book of Miracle_,[698] that this book

would show him how he, David, surpassed him in the knowledge of the

truth, and that he would give himself up to be led by it to the highest

knowledge of God. Alasco replied that it was impossible for him to admit

his infallibility.[699] ‘In spiritual things,’ he added, ‘the Word of

God alone has any worth for me. I shut my eyes to all besides. May the

Lord govern me and keep me for his glory _by the true sceptre of his

royalty_.’

Joris quitted Friesland and betook himself to Basel. There he assumed

fictitious names, continued to direct his partisans in the north, who

sent him a good deal of money, and fared well and lived licentiously. It

was discovered after his death that this wretched man had several

illegitimate children. The men of Basel, alarmed at having had such a

man among them, testified their abhorrence of his memory in the most

energetic manner.[700]

[Sidenote: Church Government.]

Alasco, in the midst of these struggles, was diligent in the work of the

ministry. He explained the Holy Scriptures from the pulpit; but, while

he usually conformed to received customs, he allowed much freedom in the

outward arrangements of the service, because he feared that uniformity

would lull men’s minds to sleep, and that from too rigorous adherence to

this mode, or that rite, or such a vestment, there would soon arise a

new papacy. He therefore considered it desirable that from time to time

there should be some variety and change. The main point, in his view,

was the preaching of the Word of God. ‘Let us beware,’ he said, ‘of

letting our attention be distracted by a multitude of ceremonies.’ There

was, however, one matter to which he attached higher importance. He

desired that the life of Christians should be conformed to their

profession. ‘What,’ said he, ‘are we to contend against errors without,

and at the same time allow license to be established in our own houses,

and while we are severe towards others are we to be indulgent to our own

irregularities?‘[701] He therefore appointed in the church at Embden

four elders, grave and pious men, who in the name of the whole church

were to watch over good morals. Finally, not wishing the government of

the Church to be in the hands of a prince or a magistrate, or even of

national consistories established in various places, he entrusted this

office to what he called the _Cœtus_, the assembly of the pastors. His

error was the non-admission to it of the elders. This institution,

however, contributed to promote unity in sound doctrine, harmony of life

and faith, and a good theological culture. Brotherly conferences were

held in which were made mutual exhortations to sanctification. The

necessities of the flock were investigated and the means of providing

for them. The life of candidates, both inward and outward, engaged their

attention; and many of the members of the _Cœtus_ said that they had

learnt more in it than at the university.[702]

Alasco, who with regard to literature was a follower of Erasmus, with

regard to worship a follower of Zwinglius, and with regard to

discipline, the constitution of the Church, and the sacraments, a

follower of Calvin, was, with regard to the doctrine of grace, rather a

follower of Melanchthon. In 1544 he wrote an _Epitome of the doctrine of

the churches of East Friesland_. He sent this to Hardenberg, requesting

him to communicate it to Bucer at Strasburg and to Bullinger at

Zurich.[703] He firmly believed that an eternal counsel of God controls

all history; that Christ is the central point of Christianity, and that

apart from him there is no salvation. ‘But God,’ he said, ‘so far as it

rests with him, shuts out no one from his mercy. Christ, by his holy

death, has expiated the sins of the whole world. If a man be lost, it is

not because God created him for the purpose of suffering everlasting

punishment, but because he has voluntarily despised the grace of God in

Jesus Christ.... God is the Saviour of us all, the most loving Father of

all, most merciful to all, most pitiful for all. Let us then implore his

mercy through Him to whom nothing can be refused, to wit, Jesus

Christ.’[704] Some persons, bound to system, having accused Alasco to

Calvin on account of this doctrine, the latter would not listen to these

denunciations; and the brotherly affection of the two reformers was not

in the least interrupted.

It was not so in Friesland. Alasco encountered a sharp opposition on the

part of some of his colleagues and some of the magistrates. At the same

time, disorders prevailed and fatal opinions were spreading in the

country. Once more Alasco appealed to the princess. ‘The monks and their

idolatry still hold their ground, ecclesiastical discipline is

destroyed, and so much indulgence is shown for licentiousness, that if

any man lead a sober life, he might on this ground be called a sectary.

Nor is this all. The country is again the receptacle of the strangest

doctrines, and, after having waged war on the gnats, we are now giving

food to wasps and hornets, and are allowing ravens to croak at their

leisure.’[705]

[Sidenote: Alasco’s Resignation.]

Alasco, perhaps, aspired to a perfection which is not attainable in this

world. Struck with the divine element, he did not sufficiently apprehend

the influence of the human element in the things of this life. Finding

that his endeavors to purify the Church were useless, he could not

endure the responsibility imposed on him by his episcopal office. He

thought it burden enough to be responsible for his own errors, without

being also responsible for the faults of others. He therefore resigned

his office of superintendent, while retaining that of preacher. This

failure to achieve complete success did not, however, at all abate the

energy of his zeal. Faith had created within him a moral force which

could not decay. The princess having entreated him to resume his office,

he laid down certain conditions. He would be amenable only to God and

his Word. He could not endure that men of the world should come and

intrude themselves in his path. He required to be guaranteed against

interference of the magistrates in the internal affairs of the Church,

and against disturbance by pastors who would interrupt its unity.[706]

This was conceded; and he now resumed his work courageously. But the old

trials were followed by fresh ones. Count John and most of the courtiers

could not endure the seriousness of his character and his desire to see

the prevalence of order in the Church. His enemies reproached him for

protecting dangerous sectaries, perhaps because he contended against

them only by the word, and had no wish to proceed against them by

imprisonment or banishment. Other trials fell upon him. He was again

afflicted with fever and even threatened with loss of sight. One of his

children, little Paul, was taken from him. His heart was broken by this

loss. ‘Every thing makes me feel,’ he said, ‘that this earthly dwelling

is about to be destroyed, and that soon (so I hope) we shall be in the

Father’s house, with Christ. Our dear little one has gone before us, and

we shall soon follow him.’[707]

[Sidenote: His Country Home.]

These mournful events made him feel a longing for a more quiet life. He

sighed for some retreat in which he might pray at peace, while applying

himself diligently to the work of his ministry. He bought a house in the

country, with land adjoining, and in it he invested almost all his

property. In this situation he had some rural occupations. He was busied

about his house, and also a little about his fields; and it was a joy to

him to be in the midst of the works of God. He was a good father and,

according to the injunction addressed to bishops by St. Paul, he

endeavored to bring up his children in all purity and modesty. His wife

managed the house affairs, milked the cows, and made the butter. But

Alasco did not forget the main point. In his view the most indispensable

condition for the prosperity of his own personal piety and for the

success in his pastoral functions was the diligent study of the Holy

Scriptures. He carried on correspondence with Melanchthon, Bucer,

Bullinger, and others. He studied the works of Calvin, whom he highly

esteemed, although there was some difference in their opinions. He was a

large-hearted man. We do not find, however, that he wrote to Calvin

before the year 1548.[708]

His residence in the country by no means lessened his active exertions;

it appears, on the contrary, to have extended them. We find his

influence operative in West Friesland, where it was diffused both by the

ministry of the pastors of those districts who had taken refuge at

Embden, and by himself personally. He appears to have visited Franeker

and other towns. Far from narrowing his sphere of action, he enlarged

it. He devoted attention to every thing steadfastly and prudently. In

his case was demonstrated the truth that he who has an acquaintance with

the common life of men and practice in conducting worldly business is so

much the more qualified for guiding the Church of God.

[Sidenote: Viglius Of Zuychem.]

It is possible that Alasco may have found in West Friesland some

unexpectedly favorable conditions. If credit is to be given to authentic

documents, a man who has always passed for a persecutor, and who held an

important position in the government of the Netherlands, at this time

secretly favored the Reformation of Friesland. This was the celebrated

Viglius of Zuychem, a man endowed with great talents and a distinguished

jurisconsult, who had studied first at Franeker, and afterwards in the

universities of the Netherlands, France, and Italy. Viglius is so

famous, so well known for the ability which he displayed in opposition

to the Reformation that we can not refrain from lifting the veil for the

purpose of disclosing one side of his history which is very little

known. He is a striking example of a class of men too numerous in the

sixteenth century. His mind was not devoid of liberal tendencies, and in

his heart was some leaning to the religion of the Gospel. But he saw

that under Charles the Fifth he could secure his position and retain the

high honors with which he was loaded only by siding with those who

opposed the light and the Gospel. This, therefore, he did. Like Alasco,

he was indebted to Erasmus for his first impressions. While still a

young boy, he was an enthusiastic admirer of the learned Dutchman, his

fellow-countryman. ‘From my childhood,’ he wrote to Erasmus in March,

1529, ‘my feelings toward you have been of such a nature that in my

studies I had never felt a more powerful stimulus than the thought of

making such progress as would warrant the hope of my winning your kindly

regard.’[709] Afterwards, even before he made the personal acquaintance

of Erasmus, he took his part against those who assailed him. ‘I am

desirous,’ he wrote, ‘that you should know the great love I cherish for

you, and that I am ready vigorously to repel the rage of shameless and

perverse men who assailed you, and thus to protect a peaceful leisure

which you employ in the most useful studies.’ Erasmus, on his part, was

charmed with what he called the easy and amiable disposition of Viglius;

and he added that he had found in his letters powerful enchantments

which had completely won his heart. With respect to the attacks of which

the young man had spoken, he said, ‘Alas! it is my destiny to be engaged

in a perpetual conflict with the whole phalanx of sham monks and sham

theologians, monsters so frightful and so dangerous that it was

certainly easier for Hercules to contend with Cacus, Cerberus, the

Nemean lion, and the hydra of Lernæ. As for you, my dear young friend,’

he added, ‘consider by what means it may be possible for you to obtain

praise without hatred.’[710] Unfortunately Viglius followed his advice

too well, or at least allowed himself in following it to be led into

acts of culpable cowardice.

While still imbued with elevated sentiments, the young Frisian at first

avoided making any engagement with Charles the Fifth, with whose cruel

policy he was too well acquainted. He refused several offers of this

prince, and particularly an invitation to take charge of the education

of his son Philip; but ambition ultimately gained the ascendency. As an

eminent jurisconsult, Viglius entered in 1542 into the great council of

Mechlin, of which in the following year he was named president. The

emperor next made him president of the privy council at Brussels and

head of the order of the Golden Fleece. From the time that he accepted

these offices, the enthusiastic disciple of Erasmus saw the beginning of

a conflict in his inner life which seems to have ended only with his

death. On the one side, he declared boldly against freedom of conscience

and against heresy, things which he regarded as the ruin of nations. He

even went so far as to call those atheists who desired to be free in

their faith. But if he thus satisfied Charles the Fifth and his

ministers, he was unable entirely to stifle the best aspirations of his

youth; and he secretly showed for the Protestants a tolerance which was

quite contrary to his principles. He was accused; and the government of

the Netherlands, having received orders to get precise information about

him, requested, with the utmost secrecy and under the seal of an oath, a

churchman and a man of letters, whose names have not been divulged, to

state what they knew respecting him.[711] The report made by these

priests presents a strange contrast to the judgment of history on this

man. ‘Viglius is accused,’ said these two anonymous reporters, ‘of

having been from his youth greatly suspected of heresy, and chiefly of

the heresy of Luther; of having been and of still being reputed a

heretic, not only in the Netherlands, but in France, Italy, and Germany;

of having associated only with heretics, as, for example, those of

Augsburg, Basel, and Würtemberg; of having given promotion, since his

elevation to the post which he fills, only to men of the same character;

of having caused the nomination, as councillor to the Imperial chamber,

of Albada, who had resigned his office of councillor in Friesland

because he would not consent to the punishment of Anabaptists,

Calvinists, and other sectaries; of having introduced into the

university of Douai, for the purpose of exercising jurisdiction over

churchmen, _lay_ and _married_ rectors; of having lavishly conferred

offices upon his brothers, kinsmen, and friends in Friesland, _all of

them tainted and infected with heresy_; and of many other things of the

like kind.’[712]

In quoting this passage, we do not profess to reform the judgment of

history; but only to show what sometimes lay hidden under the rude and

menacing manners of the councillors of Charles the Fifth.

The testimony of the two priests astonished the duchess of Parma. ‘With

me,’ she said, ‘the president has always appeared to be a good

Catholic.’ Was Viglius then secretly a follower of Luther? By no means.

But he cherished some of the liberal notions of his illustrious

fellow-countryman, Erasmus, and even felt some regard for the

Reformation. When he was censured for having taken part in drawing up

the persecuting edicts of 1530, he denied the charge, and asserted that

he had done all he could to induce the emperor to mitigate their

severity. A priest, who is not suspected of partiality for Protestants,

has said of Viglius—‘This great man used his influence to moderate the

harshness of the duke of Alva by milder counsels.’[713] Viglius, while a

thorough Roman Catholic in his speeches, was less so in his deeds, when

he could be so without risking the loss of the favor of princes. He was

not a hypocrite in virtue, as so many are; he was a hypocrite in

fanaticism. But fanaticism then passed for a virtue, and secured him

wonderful advantages.

[Sidenote: Alasco And Viglius.]

What a contrast between the two men whose names were at this time so

widely known in the two Frieslands! The influence of Alasco was not

confined to these countries. On the banks of the Rhine he took part, in

conjunction with his friend Hardenberg, in the attempts at reform in the

diocese of Cologne. The time was, however, soon to arrive when he would

find himself compelled to leave Friesland, and would be removed to a

larger sphere, to labor there, in the midst of distinguished men, at the

work of the Reformation.

Footnote 679:

‘Jam sum hac scriptione fatigatus ... cum hæc pauca toto hoc die ex

intervallis vix etiamnum absolverim.’—Alasco, _Opp._ ii. p. 553.

Footnote 680:

Alasco, _Opp._ ii. p. 552.

Footnote 681:

Bartels, _John a Lasco_, p. 12.

Footnote 682:

Alasco, _Opp._ ii. p. 556.

Footnote 683:

‘Quæ tu de pudore, dolore, tristitia atque ea quæ, te perpetuo, ut

scribis, excarnificat, miseria adfers.’—Alasco to Hardenberg, _Opp._

ii. p. 556.

Footnote 684:

‘Qui sabbathum in Christo suum sanctificat, non est cur apud homines

turbetur.’—_Ibid._

Footnote 685:

The reference is doubtless to the host in the mass.

Footnote 686:

Alasco, _Opp._ ii. p. 588.

Footnote 687:

‘Spem magni cujusdam episcopatus, si redirem.’—Alasco, _Opp._ ii. p.

588.

Footnote 688:

‘His jam respondi me nolle esse neque _cornutum_ neque _cucullatum_

apostolum.’—_Ibid._

Footnote 689:

‘Desiderabatur ultima adhuc lima.’—Gerdesius, iii. p. 148.

Footnote 690:

‘Audis fulmina,’ &c.—Alasco, _Opp._ ii. 588.

Footnote 691:

‘Adversus hæc me tutata est divina bonitas.’—_Ibid._

Footnote 692:

Bartels, Joh. a Lasco, p. 14.

Footnote 693:

‘Expectanda nova fulmina ab Aula Brabantia; sed potentior est Deus.’

(Embden, August 31, 1544).—_Ibid._

Footnote 694:

‘. . Sed usque ad aras; hæc septa transilire non posse, etiam si

deserenda sit omnium amicitia, atque adeo familia in summa inopia et

mendicitate relinquenda.’—_Opp._ ii. p. 560. According to the

statement of Kuyper, he has reconstructed the letter from citations

made _oratione obliqua_ by Emmius, _Hist. Fris._ p. 919.

Footnote 695:

‘Defensio veræ doctrinæ de Christi incarnatione adversus Mennonem

Simonis.’—_Opp._ i. pp. 5-60.

Footnote 696:

Bartels, _Joh. a Lasco_, p. 18.

Footnote 697:

‘Huic sane debemus omnem Papæ et Mahumetis tyrannidem.’—Alasco, _Epp.

Opp._ ii. p. 567.

Footnote 698:

Wonderboek, 4to. 1542.

Footnote 699:

‘In quo videlicet nec falli possis nec fallere.’—Alasco, _Opp._ ii. p.

571.

Footnote 700:

Alasco, _Opp._ passim. Trechsel, _Antitrinitarier_, in Herzog i. pp.

30-35. Bartels, _Joh. a Lasco_, pp. 18-20. Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p.

116.

Footnote 701:

‘Si dum in alios severi sumus, in vitiis interim ipsi nobis

indulgeamus.’—To Hardenberg, July 28, 1544.—_Opp._ ii. p. 574.

Footnote 702:

Alasco, _Opp._ ii. p. 575. _Gutachten über die Stellung des Cœtus_,

Embden, 1857. Bartels, Joh. a Lasco, p. 22.

Footnote 703:

Alasco, _Opp._ ii. p. 586. To Bullinger, August 31, 1544.

Footnote 704:

‘Ad eum, ut ad servatorem nostrum omnium ac patrem omnium longe

optimum, omnium beneficentissimum longeque omnium indulgentissimum,

decurramus.’—Epitome Doctrinæ Ecclesiarum Phrisiæ Orientalis.—_Opp._

i. p. 493.

Footnote 705:

‘Ut qui paulo frugalius velit vivere, mox pro sectario habeatur... In

his culices, si Deo placet, persecuti sumus, et vespas interim et

crabrones ipsos alimus: danda est corvis venia.’ The letter is written

to Hermann Lenthius, councillor of the Countess Ann.—Alasco, _Opp._

ii. p. 597. September 6, 1545.

Footnote 706:

Alasco, _Opp._ ii. pp. 606, 607.

Footnote 707:

Alasco, _Opp._ ii. pp. 609, 617.

Footnote 708:

The first letter of Alasco to Calvin is dated from Windsor, December

14, 1548. Among the works of Alasco there are extant only four letters

from the Polish reformer to the Genevese. These are of the years 1548,

1551, 1555 and 1557. But Alasco sent some books to Calvin. In the

public library of Geneva are preserved two folio volumes, printed at

Louvain in 1555, bearing this title:—

‘Explicatio articulorum venerandæ facultatis sacræ theologiæ Generalis

Studii Lovaniensis.’—The author of these volumes is Ruard Tapper of

Enkhuizen. Below the title of the first volume are the following

words, in an elegant handwriting:—‘Viro sanctissimo, D. Jo. Calvin,

Jo. a Lasco mittit.’

Footnote 709:

‘Quo tuæ me insinuari benevolentiæ posse sperarem. A puero non alius

mihi vehementior ad studia stimulus fuerit quam ut sic proficerem,’

&c. _Erasmi Epp._ lib. xx. _Ep._ 80.

Footnote 710:

‘Meditare quibus rationibus laudem absque invidia tibi pares.’—_Ibid._

_Ep._ 81.

Footnote 711:

Letter of the Duchess of Parma, written from Brussels, in the

_Correspondance de Philippe II._, from the archives of Simancas,

published by M. Gachard, archivist-general of the kingdom, vol. i. p.

318.

Footnote 712:

The informations laid against Viglius are to be found in the

_Correspondance de Philippe II._, vol i. p. 319.

Footnote 713:

Moreri, art. _Viglius_.

CHAPTER IX.

BEGINNING OF REFORMATION IN THE NETHERLANDS.

(1518-1524).

The Reformation was Catholic or universal in the sense that it appeared

in all the nations of Christendom. It gained, undoubtedly, the most

powerful hold on the sympathy of the northern nations. But the peoples

of central Europe would all have welcomed it but for the persecutions by

princes and priests. In the south it achieved the most beautiful

conquests, and had its martyrs even in Rome. Our task is to follow up

its traces in every direction.

It was in the Netherlands that the first echo of Luther’s voice was

heard. There dwelt a people who had been free since the eleventh

century. Each of the provinces had its States, without whose consent no

law was made, no tax imposed. The love of freedom and the love of the

Gospel together actuated these interesting communities in the first half

of the sixteenth century, and both contributed to their glorious

revolution.

Other elements, however, had their share in the great movements of this

people. Agriculture, which had been called ‘the foundation of human

life,’ was thriving there in the midst of numerous canals. The

mechanical arts were held in honor. Everywhere throughout these

provinces hands and bodies were in motion. They were animated by an

inventive spirit; and Brussels was already renowned for its carpets. The

Netherlands had risen into importance by bold ventures upon the seas,

and their innumerable seamen exchanged their productions with all the

known world. Commerce and industry had given to these regions great

prosperity, and had created rich and powerful towns. In the sixteenth

century, they contained above three hundred and fifty great cities.[714]

At the head of these stood Antwerp, a vast market of the world, thronged

by merchants of all nations, and having a population of 100,000—only

50,000 less than that of London.

[Sidenote: Charles The Fifth.]

The suzerainty of the Netherlands had passed in 1477 from the house of

Burgundy to that of Austria. Under Maximilian the people had retained

the full enjoyment of their liberties. Charles the Fifth, who was by

birth a Fleming, loved his native country and enjoyed from time to time

making some stay in it. The joyous festivals of the Belgian cities

lightened his cares. He appointed Flemings to high offices; opened for

their commerce numerous channels in his vast empire; and everywhere

protected transactions which were so profitable to himself. Those

generous merchants, indeed, did not hesitate to testify their gratitude

to the emperor by rich tribute. But the ambition of the monarch ere long

began to disturb these agreeable relations. Fond of power, Charles the

Fifth did not intend to be satisfied with the modest functions of a

stadtholder. He aimed at making of all these republics a single kingdom,

of which he would be absolute sovereign. The citizens of these free

provinces were no less determined to maintain their rights. The

Reformation came in to double their energies; and the land became the

scene of long-continued and cruel conflicts. The Church in the sixteenth

century was indeed to the Belgians and the Dutch the Church under the

cross. Other reformed countries—France, Hungary, Spain, and Italy—had

their share in the martyrs’ crown. But the Netherlands, groaning under

the treacherous blows of a Philip II. and a duke of Alva, have a title

to the brightest jewels of that crown.

The Catholicism of the Netherlands was not at this time a fanatical

system of religion. The cheerful-hearted people were especially fond of

indulgences, pictures, and festivals; but the majority had not even this

amount of piety. ‘Preaching was rare,’ says an old author, ‘the churches

were poorly attended, the feast-days and holidays ill observed; the

people ignorant of religion, not instructed in the articles of faith.

There were many comic actors, corrupt in morals and religion, in whose

performances the people delighted; and some poor monks and young nuns

always took part in the plays. It seemed as if people could not take

their pleasure without indulging in mockery of God and the Church.’[715]

Nevertheless, the civil liberty enjoyed in the Netherlands had for a

long time been favorable to reforming tendencies. If there was not much

religion within the Church, there was a good deal outside its pale. The

Lollards and the Vaudois, who were numerous among the weavers and

clothiers, had sown in these regions the good seed of the Word. In the

Church likewise, the Brethren of the common life, founded by Gerard

Groot in the fourteenth century, had diffused instruction, so that every

one could read and write. In no quarter had forerunners of the

Reformation been more numerous. Jan van Goch had called for a reform

according to the Bible. Thomas à Kempis, sick of the devotional

practices which then made up religion, had sought after an inward light

which might bring with it life. Erasmus of Rotterdam, king of the

schools, had diffused knowledge which was not in itself the Reformation,

but was a preparation for it. Johan Wessel, born at Groningen in 1419,

had preached Christ as alone the way, the truth, and the life. At

length, among the wealthy merchants and other laymen, men were to be met

with who had a certain knowledge of the Gospel. This people, more

enlightened, more civilized, and more free than most of the European

nations, could not fail to be one of the first to accept this precious

reformation of the Church, so congenial to its own character, and so

well adapted to increase its greatness.[716]

[Sidenote: Reform At Antwerp.]

It was at Antwerp that the fire first blazed forth. In the convent of

the Augustine order there was a simple, sensitive, and affectionate man,

who, although not a German, was one of the first to be impressed by the

preaching of Luther. He had been a student at Wittenberg, had heard the

great doctor, and had been attracted at the same time both by the

sweetness of the Gospel and by the pleasing character of the man who

proclaimed it. It was the prior, Jacob Spreng, commonly called _Probst_

(provost), after the name of his office. He had not the heroic courage

of his master, nor would he have made at Worms such an energetic

declaration. But he was filled with admiration for Luther; and when any

daring deed of the reformer was made known and the monks talked of it

with one another, he used to say, lifting up his head, ‘I have been a

disciple of his.’ He gloried in it, as if he, a feeble and timid man,

had a share in the heroism of his master. Then unable to repress the

affectionate feeling that filled his heart, he added, ‘I love him

ardently; I love him above every thing.’[717]

At the outset of his career, the reformer was looked upon, not as a

heretic, but as a monk of genius. Consequently the monks, filled with

admiration, regarded their chief with respect. The Word of God which the

professor _Ad Biblia_ expounded at Wittenberg had entered into the heart

of Spreng; and while the Antwerp priests were preaching nothing but

fables, he proclaimed Christ.[718] Some of the monks and several

inhabitants of the town were converted to God by the reformer’s

disciple.

It was likewise through Luther’s influence that the light reached the

university town of Louvain. Some of the shorter writings of this

reformer, printed at Basel in 1518, were read at Louvain in 1519. A

storm immediately burst forth. The theologians of the university put

forth all their efforts against the book, prohibited booksellers from

selling it and the faithful from reading it; but the latter courageously

defended the writings and their author.[719] ‘’Tis heresy!’ exclaimed

the theologians. ‘Not so,’ replied the townsmen, ‘it is a doctrine

really Christian.’[720] Increasing in number day by day, they determined

to judge for themselves, read the books, and were convinced. The

theologians were more angry than ever. Disparagement, falsehood,

imposture, craft, and every available means were resorted to by them.

They ascended the pulpit, and exclaimed in tones of thunder ‘These

people are heretics; they are antichrists; the Christian faith is in

danger.’ They occasioned in houses and in families _astonishing

tragedies_.[721]

It was not Luther’s writings and influence alone which began the work of

the Reformation in the Netherlands. Brought into contact by their

commerce with all the countries of Europe, they received from them, not

only things salable for money, but in addition and without money that

which Christianity calls the pearl of great price. Foreigners of every

class, both residents and travellers, merchants, German and Swiss

soldiers, students from various universities, everywhere scattered on a

well-prepared soil the living seed. It was to the conscience that the

Gospel appealed; and thus it struck its roots deeper than if it had only

spoken to the reasoning faculty, or to an imagination fantastic and

prone to superstition. One man especially contributed, not to the

establishment, but to the preparation of the Reformation.

[Sidenote: Erasmus Assailed.]

Erasmus was at this time at Louvain. Some of the monks went to him and

accused him of being an accomplice of Luther. ‘I,’ he replied—‘I do not

know him, any more than the most unknown of men. I have hardly read more

than a page or two of his books.[722] If he has written well, it is no

credit to me; and if ill no disgrace. All I know is that the purity of

his life is such that his enemies themselves find nothing in it to

reproach.’ In vain Erasmus spoke thus. Day by day the Dominicans in

their discourses[723] threw stones at him and at Luther; but they did

this so stupidly that even the most ignorant people said that it was the

monks who were wrong and not Luther. The theologians, perceiving the

state of things, published on the 7th of November, 1519, a bull of

condemnation, hoping thus to have the last word.[724]

The light appeared also in the provinces of the North. Dort, a town of

South Holland, was one of the first to receive it. A Dominican named

Vincent, one of those violent men who passionately disparage their

opponent and are desperate in conflict,[725] delivered a foolish and

aggravating discourse against the Reformation. The hearers went away

greatly excited, and there was immense agitation around the church. The

excitement soon passed from honest and religious men to that ignorant

and passionate class which is always ready to make a riot. When the monk

came out, they uttered loud cries and were almost ready to stone him.

Vincent, in alarm, threw himself into a cart, and fled to Louvain, where

he presented himself as a martyr. ‘I have all but lost my life for the

sake of the faith,’ he said.[726] ‘Erasmus is the cause of it, and the

letters which he has written.’ To burn Erasmus would in his opinion have

been a truly Roman exploit.

The Dominicans availed themselves of this incident, and appealed to the

Count of Nassau, governor of Flanders, Brabant, and Holland. The

States-general were to be assembled at the Hague. The Dominicans

vehemently complained to the count of the progress which the principles

of reform were everywhere making, and demanded that the States should

without delay put a stop to it. ‘Go, then,’ said Nassau to them, ‘preach

the Gospel of Christ in sincerity, as Luther does, without attacking any

body, and you will have no enemies to contend against.’[727] Henry of

Nassau thus sounded the prelude to the noble aspirations of his family.

Disheartened by such an answer, the enemies of the Reformation fancied

that they would meet with a better reception at the hands of Margaret of

Austria, the governess of the Netherlands. The Nassau family were

essentially Germans; but this princess, said the priests, is a good

Catholic. She professed, indeed, to be so; but she was a clever

diplomatist and very zealous in her administration. She was anxious to

see great progress made in literature and the arts. The doctors of

Louvain said to her, ‘Luther, by his writings, is overthrowing

Christianity.’ The princess feigned ignorance, and replied, ‘Who is this

Luther?’ ‘An ignorant monk,’ replied the priests. ‘Well, then,’[728]

rejoined the aunt of Charles the Fifth, ‘there are many of you; write

against this ignorant fellow, and the whole world will place more faith

in many learned men than in one unlearned.’

[Sidenote: Tirades Of The Monks.]

A wind was now blowing that was favorable to the Gospel, and voices were

raised in behalf of Luther, even at the court festivals. One day, when a

great imperial banquet was held, the conversation turned upon the

reformer. Some assailed him, but others boldly undertook his defence. De

Ravestein exclaimed, ‘A single Christian man has arisen in the course of

four centuries, and the Pope wants to kill him.’[729] The monks,

restless and alarmed, asked one another whether the world had gone mad.

Rejected by the learned, they endeavored to stir up the common people. A

Minorite preaching at Bruges in the church of St. Donatianus, and

speaking of Luther and Erasmus, exclaimed—‘They are simpletons, they are

asses, beasts, blockheads, antichrists.’[730] In this style he ran on

for an hour. His hearers, amazed at his stupid vociferations, in their

turn wondered whether he had not himself lost his head. A magistrate

sent for him, and requested him to inform him what errors there were in

the writings of Erasmus. ‘I have not read them,’ said he; ‘I did indeed

once open his Paraphrases, but I closed the book again immediately; from

their excellent Latinity I was afraid that heresy lay beneath.’ Another

Minorite friar, weary of continually hearing the people about him

demanding to have the Gospel preached to them, said aloud, ‘If you want

the Gospel, you must listen to it from the mouths of your priests;’ and

he ventured to add, ‘even though you know that they are given up to

licentiousness.’[731] The debauchery and the despotism of a great many

of the priests brought discredit on the clergy. ‘I value the order of

the Dominicans,’ said Erasmus, ‘and I do not hate the Carmelites; but I

have known some of them who were of such a stamp that I would sooner

obey the Turk than endure their tyranny.’[732]

The fanatical priests now set in motion more powerful engines of war.

Aleander, the papal nuncio, obtained on the 8th of May, 1531, a special

decree of persecution for the Netherlands;[733] and, misusing the name

of the emperor, exerted all his influence to induce Margaret rigorously

to execute the cruel edict. The princess, if left to herself, would have

been more tolerant; but she felt bound to comply with the requirements

of her powerful nephew. Placards were posted up in all the towns, which

spread alarm everywhere. The middle classes in the Netherlands,

sympathizing with progress of every kind, had looked upon Luther as a

glorious champion of Gospel truth; and now they read at every street

corner, that it was forbidden under pain of death to read his writings,

and that his books would be burnt. This was the beginning of the

persecution which was to devastate the Netherlands during the sixteenth

century. During the single reign of Charles the Fifth more than fifty

thousand persons, accused of having read the prohibited books, of having

on a certain day eaten meat, or of having entered into the bonds of

marriage in defiance of the canonical prohibition, were beheaded,

drowned, hung, buried alive or burnt, or suffered death in other

ways.[734] Erasmus therefore exclaimed, ‘What then is Aleander? A

maniac, a fool, a bad man.’[735]

[Sidenote: Jacob Spreng.]

Fanaticism had not waited for the edict of Worms. The provost of Antwerp

had been one of its first victims. Jacob Spreng, we have seen, as early

as 1517 proclaimed with earnestness the salvation which Luther had found

in Jesus Christ, and which he had also found himself. Luther’s courage

increased his own, which was not great. He repeated that he had seen him

and heard him, and that he was his disciple. He did not cease to preach,

like his master, that man is saved by grace, through faith. One day, it

was in 1519, the provost was arrested in his own convent, and, in spite

of the commotion among his friars, was carried off prisoner to Brussels.

There he appeared before the judge and was examined, was exceedingly

worried, and appears even to have been put to the torture and condemned

to death by burning.[736] Spreng, we have said, was not strong. They

worried, threatened, and terrified him. He had not yet the steadfastness

of a rock. The prospect of being burnt alive made him shudder. He was

not what his master would have been; he yielded and, with bowed head and

dim eye and a heart cast down and broken, he agreed to every thing that

was required of him. What a triumph for his enemies! They determined to

make a great display of it. In February, 1520, Aleander, Jerome van der

Nood, chancellor of Brabant, Herbaut, suffragan of Cambray, Glapio,

chaplain to the emperor, and several other dignitaries of the Church,

met together in the presence of a large assembly; for the business in

hand was to invest the recantation of the unhappy man with all possible

solemnity. The president announced to him that thirty of Luther’s

articles were going to be read, and that he must condemn them under pain

of death.[737] These articles had been skilfully selected. The secretary

read—‘Every work of the free will (of the natural will of man), however

good it may be, is a sin, and is in need of the pardon and the mercy of

God.’ ‘I condemn this doctrine,’ said Spreng, terrified at the thought

of death. He did the same with respect to other points. ‘Ah!’ said

Erasmus, who was acquainted with the unbelief of a great number of Roman

priests, ‘many make a great hubbub against Luther on account of some

assertions of little importance, while themselves do not even believe

that the soul continues to exist after death.’[738]

Aleander and his colleagues were not satisfied with having forced

Spreng, with the dagger at his throat, to retract the doctrines of the

reformer. They also compelled him to assert the contrary doctrines.

The session had been a frightful one. The unhappy Spreng withdrew

broken-hearted and filled with bitter sorrow. He had denied his faith;

he had not, however, sinned with any desperate evil intent. He confessed

his fault to God, gradually recovered himself from his fall, and became

afterwards one of the heralds of the Gospel.

He went out of prison indignant with those who had compelled him to

renounce his faith, but especially with himself. He now went to Bruges,

and there began to speak boldly against his own unfaithfulness, and to

spread abroad the knowledge of the Saviour. He was once more arrested

and was taken to Brussels. As a relapsed heretic he had nothing to look

for but death. A rumor was even current that he had been burnt

alive.[739] But there were many who cried to God to obtain his

deliverance. A Franciscan monk, affected by his fate, succeeded in

procuring his escape. Without remaining longer in the Netherlands, he

betook himself in 1522 to Wittenberg, his _Alma Mater_,[740] and from

thence to Bremen. He became one of the pastors of this place, happy in

being able to lead souls in peace in the sweet smiling pastures of the

Gospel.

[Sidenote: The Inquisition.]

It was not without good reason that he fled from the Netherlands.

Charles the Fifth could not remain a stranger to what was going on

there. He was doubtless first of all a politician; and when his temporal

interests required it, he could display a little tolerance, either in

Germany or elsewhere. But in secular affairs he was a despot, and in

religious affairs a bigot. He had no doubt that the Reformation, if it

were introduced in the Netherlands, would cross his autocratic projects.

He therefore indemnified himself in these provinces for the cautious

proceedings to which he was obliged to resign himself in other regions.

He had recourse to the Inquisition. It was not, however, that terrible

institution as it was known in Castile, where it found a people

enthusiastic for its cruelties. The free people of the Netherlands

rejected with abhorrence that criminal institution. Nevertheless, the

two inquisitors of the faith nominated at this time by the Emperor, one

a layman, Franz van der Hulst, a ‘great enemy of letters,’ said Erasmus;

the other a monk, Nicholas van Egmont, ‘a very madman armed with a

sword,’ did not do their work badly. They first committed people to

prison, and afterwards inquired into their faults.[741] All those who

had any leaning to the doctrine of Luther were ordered to appear within

the space of thirty days before these judges, who were invested with the

power of excommunication.

[Sidenote: Cornelius Grapheus.]

The departure of Spreng was a loss to Antwerp and the Netherlands. There

were not many men whose faith was so simple and so genuine. Some eminent

laymen, indeed, declared early for the Reformation; but the relation of

these to the Gospel was rather that of _amateurs_ than of believers.

Cornelius Grapheus (in Flemish, Schryver), secretary of the town of

Antwerp, and a friend of Erasmus, was a superior man. He had travelled a

good deal and learnt a good deal; and although he was invested with one

of the first offices of the imperial town in which he lived, he spent

much time in reading. Jan van Goch’s work on the freedom of the

Christian religion charmed him; and desirous of imparting to others the

enjoyment which he had himself experienced, he translated it into

Flemish. He also wrote a preface to it, in which he censured, but not

ill-naturedly, those who imposed on Christians a useless yoke. Every

well-informed man said as much. Grapheus, finding that these words were

received with approbation, did not suppose that in saying them he had

done a deed of courage. But the two inquisitors, who felt the need of

making some splendid arrest, exclaimed that it was a crime to dare to

speak of a _yoke_, leaped upon their prey, and seized Grapheus in his

own house, in the presence of his terrified wife and children. The whole

city was astounded. What! one of the first magistrates of the town, a

distinguished man, who had travelled in Italy, who cultivated painting,

music, and poetry, such a man as this a heretic! The victim once in

prison, the inquisitors read the criminated treatise, picked out line

after line, and drew up a terrible indictment. Grapheus, a humanist, a

magistrate, an artist, and man of letters, was the most astonished of

all. He had fancied that he was doing nothing more than a literary

exercise, and was distressed at being taken for a theologian. This was

in his eyes an honor of which he was not worthy, and by no means dreamed

of. He said, like Erasmus—no martyrdom. To be restored to a beloved

family, of which he was the sole support, this was the object of his

desire. He sought honorably to apologize. ‘If I have spoken of a

_yoke_,’ said he, ‘it is in no controversial spirit; I entreat pardon

for my rashness, and am willing to retract my errors.’ But the Popish

party were implacable, and they cast him into a black dungeon.[742]

The two inquisitors, not venturing to touch Erasmus, were bent on

striking his friend, and on terrifying by this example the partisans of

literature. They had a platform erected in the principal square of

Brussels; a crowd of people stood round it, and the secretary of Antwerp

appeared upon it. His only thought was to recover his peaceful life, to

be once more in his study, to sit again at his family table. For this

end he was prepared to do any thing. At the command of the inquisitors

he hastened to retract publicly the articles of his preface; and he

threw it into the fire, so much harm had it done him. Grapheus was not a

Lutheran; he was only an Erasmian; and he would have done much more to

regain his liberty. He supposed that he had gained it; but the judges to

whose clemency he had appealed condemned him to the confiscation of his

property, to deprivation of office, and to imprisonment for life. This

is what a man gets by venturing to speak of a _yoke_ in a country where

there are inquisitors.

The unfortunate man, solitary in his dungeon, lamented his essay in

literature, and thought only of his wife and his children. He determined

to appeal to the chancellor of Brabant. ‘I wrote that preface,’ said he,

‘as a literary task for the exercise of my understanding. Alas! how much

better it would have been for me had I been a blockhead, a buffoon, a

comedian, or any other despicable creature, instead of obtaining by my

limited abilities important offices. While so many people are allowed to

publish their tales, their comedies, their farces, their satires, no

matter how rude and improper they may be, a citizen is oppressed because

he has had a share in human frailty.’ Sinking beneath the cruel yoke of

Rome, Grapheus was quite ready to assert that this very yoke had no

existence. He requested, as a great favor, that the town of Antwerp

might be assigned as his prison, in order that he might be able to earn

a livelihood for his family. All his entreaties were fruitless. For a

mere literary peccadillo one of the first magistrates of the Netherlands

groaned for years in the prisons of the town the government of which he

had administered. It appears, however, that he was afterwards liberated,

but he was not reinstated in his office. Instances of this kind show

that Rome had a grudge not only against the Gospel, but against

civilization, intelligence, and freedom.

In this same town of Antwerp, a more cruel fate was to overtake a true

evangelist, a man of great intelligence, and also endowed with deep

feeling and a living and steadfast faith.

[Sidenote: Henry Of Zutphen.]

Henry Mollerus, of the town of Zutphen, the name of which he usually

bore, had entered the Augustinian order. He had distinguished himself in

it, and after having several times changed his convent had settled in

that of Antwerp. Here he had soon risen to an important position. Eager

to advance, he strove continually to attain to a loftier knowledge and

to a more powerful faith.[743] He was not one of those Christians who

lie down and slumber, but of those who awake, go on, press forward, and

run to the goal which they have set before them. In consequence of

hearing the prior, Jacob Spreng, speak much about Martin Luther, he

betook himself in 1521 to Wittenberg, was admitted to the convent of the

Augustines, was joyfully welcomed by Luther, and began immediately to

study in earnest. The reformer, who often conversed with him, was struck

with his capacity and his faith, and considered him worthy to be a

recipient of the honors of the University. Henry applied himself

especially to the study of man; he descended into the depths of his

nature, and made discoveries there which alarmed him. He was struck with

the holiness of the Divine law; he perceived that he could not fulfil

its commandments; and falling to the ground, with closed lips, he

confessed himself guilty. But ere long Christ having been revealed to

his soul, he had lifted up his head and contemplated the Saviour in all

his beauty. From that time he had lived with Christ, and had been eager

to walk in his steps.

Henry of Zutphen requested permission of the University to maintain

publicly some theses, with a view to his taking the degree of bachelor

in theology. The friars of the convent of the Augustines, professors and

students, and other inhabitants of Wittenberg, assembled to hear him.

Zutphen began:—‘Man, having turned aside from the Divine word, wherein

is his life, died immediately, that is to say he was deprived of the

spirit of God.[744]

‘Oh, the impiety of the philosophy which aims at persuading us that this

death of the soul with which we are affected is a life! Oh, vanity of

the human heart, which, in not esteeming the knowledge of God as the

supreme good, and in choosing rather to follow a blind philosophy, goes

astray and rushes into the paths of perdition!

‘As there is nothing good in the root, there is consequently nothing in

the fruit that is not tainted with the poison.

‘The maxims of morality which men stitch together are nothing but

fig-leaves intended to hide their shame.[745]

‘Man is therefore twice dead; once because this is his nature, and yet

again because, instructed by philosophy, he dares to assert—I live.

‘The law does not create sin, but it makes it plainly appear, as the sun

draws out the foul smell of a corpse.[746]

‘The law is a sword which drives us violently out of paradise and kills

us.

‘Faith is a steadfast witnessing of the Spirit of Christ with our spirit

that we are children of God.’

The hearers had, for the most part, attained in their own experience to

a certain knowledge of the truths which the Dutchman avowed; but all of

them appreciated the power with which he set them forth, and the

picturesque style in which his thought was dressed. He continued:—

‘Christ is the servant and the master of the law. He it is who, while

sinking under the burden of sin, takes it away and casts it far from us

and destroys it. He is at once the victim of death, and the medium by

which death is destroyed. He is the captive of hell, and yet it is he

who bursts open its gates.[747]

‘Perish the faith which lies slumbering and torpid, and does not

vigorously press and drive on to charity. If thou hast faith indeed,

fear not, thou hast also charity!’

After having thus delivered a good testimony of his faith, Henry of

Zutphen left Wittenberg, came to Dort, and passed thence to Antwerp,

where he labored zealously. In the cells of his brethren, the

Augustines, in the refectory, as they went to the chapel and returned

from it, he did not cease to urge the monks to draw from the Scriptures

the treasures which had enriched himself.[748] He preached with so much

fervor that the church of the Augustines would not hold the multitude

that flocked to it. The learned, the ignorant, the magistrates, all

classes wanted to hear him. He was the great preacher of the age;

Antwerp hung upon his lips.[749] It appears that he was at this time

nominated prior of the Augustines, as successor to Spreng.

But the more enthusiasm one party displayed, the more wrath was

displayed by the other. Certain monks of other convents, certain

priests, with the inquisitor Van der Hulst at their head, enraged at

this concourse of people, applied to the governess of the Netherlands.

They put forward false witnesses, who declared that they had heard from

the lips of the preacher heretical statements. At the same time they

sought to stir up the people. But God, says Zutphen, prevented any

tumult, however sharp the provocation might be. Van der Hulst had

already prepared at Brussels the prison in which he reckoned on

confining him. Zutphen expected it.

[Sidenote: His Arrest.]

On Michaelmas Day (September 29) he was arrested. The agents of the

inquisitors laid before him certain articles of faith, extracted from

his discourses, and required him to retract them. But he replied with

intrepid courage, and well knew from that moment that he had nothing to

look for but death. It was in the morning; and the inquisitors, fearing

the people, determined to wait till night to remove him to

Brussels.[750] The prisoner therefore remained all day in peace within

the convent walls, engaged in meditation and in preparation for giving

up his life. Suddenly the noise of a great disturbance was heard. In the

evening, after sunset,[751] men were seen, and women too, usually timid

but now made valiant by their love for the Word of God, hurrying

together from all quarters and surrounding the monastery.[752] The most

determined among them burst open the doors; the crowd rushed into the

convent; some men and some women penetrated into Henry’s prison, took

him by the hand, and conducting him to the house of one of his friends,

concealed him there. Three days elapsed, and no one had any suspicion of

his place of refuge. His enemies moved heaven and earth to discover him,

and ransacked all nooks, and corners. They summoned his friends, and

with threats demanded of them whether they knew his place of

concealment. Flight alone could save him from death. ‘I will go to

Wittenberg,’ he said. The difficulty was to get out of the town. He

effected his escape, however, and succeeded in reaching Enkhuysen, a

town of Holland, and there took up his abode in the monastery of the

Augustines. An order arrived to arrest Henry, to bind him and to take

him before Margaret at Antwerp. He had just before left Enkhuysen, and

was arriving at Amsterdam. He set out with all speed from the town and

betook himself to his native place, Zutphen. But here he was presently

recognized and seized. He appeared before the ecclesiastical tribunals.

‘Who art thou? Whence comest thou? Whither goest thou?’ they said to

him. ‘Art thou not come hither to preach?’ ‘If that is agreeable to

you,’ said he, ‘I shall do so with much pleasure.’ ‘Get you gone!’

exclaimed his enraged judges.

[Sidenote: His Murder In Holstein.]

He then set out for Bremen. Here he remained some time without any one

suspecting who he was. Some good townsmen, however, having made his

acquaintance, requested him to preach. He did so, on St. Martin’s Day

(Sunday), 1522, and was immediately cited by the magistrate of the town.

‘Why have you preached?’ said the canons to him. ‘Because the word of

God must not be bound.’ ‘Expel him from the town,’ said the canons to

the magistrates. The latter replied that they could not do this; and

Henry continued to preach. The nobles and the prelates of two dioceses

then demanded that he should be delivered to the bishop; and they

invited the notables of the town and the heads of the trades to unite

with them for this purpose. But they all replied, ‘We have never heard

any thing from his lips but the pure Gospel.’ Henry’s preaching became

more and more powerful, and danger was incessantly increasing. ‘I will

not leave Bremen unless I am driven away by force,’ said Zutphen. He

therefore remained at Bremen, preaching the Gospel fervently and

successfully. ‘Christ lives,’ he said; ‘Christ is conqueror, Christ

commands.’ His prosperous career was suddenly interrupted. Called into

Holstein, he went there, and preached energetically. But, on the day

after the Feast of the Conception, the _Ave Maria_ was sounded at

midnight. Five hundred peasants, instigated by the monks, assailed him,

pulled him from his bed, bound his hands behind his back, dragged him

almost naked over the ice and the snow through the bitter cold air,

struck him a blow with a club, and burnt him. His tragical end we have

narrated in our account of the German Reformation.[753] Luther described

and deplored his martyrdom.

A convent which sent forth such men as Spreng and Zutphen could not be

allowed to subsist. Its suppression was obtained by the inquisitors. All

the friars were turned out of the monastery.[754] The governess of the

Netherlands herself attended this sinister expedition of the inquisitors

of the faith. Those monks who were from Antwerp were confined in the

house of the Beghards, others in other places; and a small number who

had renounced the Gospel were set at liberty. The host was solemnly

removed from this heretical place and carried in great pomp into the

church of the Holy Virgin, at which the governess of the Netherlands,

the aunt of Charles the Fifth, was present for the purpose of receiving

it with high honors. All the vessels of the monastery were sold; the

church and the cloisters were closed, and the passages stopped up. At

length, in the month of October, 1522, the convent was demolished and

razed to the ground.[755] These ruins were to teach every one, and

especially the monks, not to read, and above all not to preach, the Word

of God.

Three of the Augustine monks, Esch, Voes, and Lambert, were eminent for

their faith. We have elsewhere narrated their noble and affecting

martyrdom, and have mentioned the beautiful hymn composed in honor of

them by Luther.[756]

But it was vain to burn those who had awakened to a new life; there were

still many who were no longer willing to sleep.

Holland and other states of the North were beginning to assume the

position which they were afterwards to hold as the United Provinces.

At Delft, Frederick Canirmius, by some discourses delivered in the

Gymnasium, had damaged the cause of the monks. The enemy strove to

stifle his voice by orders, epistles, and deputations. But the brave

Christian man had said with proud confidence, ‘The Lord will cause this

mountain in labor to bring forth nothing but a mouse.[757] Oh!’ he

exclaimed, ‘if only it were permitted us to preach publicly, the cause

of the monks would be ruined.’ But obstacles were every day increasing,

and the ruin of monachism seemed more and more remote. Canirmius did not

lose courage. ‘The Lord withdraws his arm,’ said he, ‘because we

attribute every thing to our own efforts. But if he see that we cling to

him with all our soul as to the sole salvation of Israel, then he will

suddenly present himself in the midst of his Church.’[758]

[Sidenote: A Christian Triumvirate.]

A Christian triumvirate had been formed in these provinces. At the

Hague, William Gnapheus, director of the Gynasium, was diffusing the

Gospel in the midst of his pupils and his connections, substituting for

false worship a living faith in Christ. A learned jurisconsult,

Cornelius Hoen, an excellent man, says Erasmus, and John Rhodius, rector

of the college of Utrecht, assisted him. They carried on their labors in

common; and to them is attributed the translation of the New Testament

into the vulgar tongue, which was published in 1523.[759] The necessity

of an intimate union with Christ was a distinctive feature of the

teaching of these three Dutchmen. ‘Our Lord Jesus Christ,’ said Hoen in

1521, ‘when announcing to his people the pardon of their sins, added a

pledge to his promise, lest their faith should waver. Just as a

bridegroom desirous of ratifying an engagement gives a ring to his bride

and says to her, Take this, I give myself to thee; just as the bride

receiving this ring believes that her husband is hers, turns her heart

away from all other men, and desires only to please her husband; so also

must he who receives the Supper, the precious pledge by which the

Heavenly Bridegroom desires to testify that he gives himself to him,

firmly believe that Christ[760] gave himself for him, and must

consequently turn his heart from all that he has hitherto loved, and

seek after Christ alone, must be anxious only about what pleases him and

cast all his cares upon him. This is what is meant by _eating the flesh

of Christ and drinking his blood_.’ These words did not completely

satisfy Luther, but Zwinglius heartily approved them. The reformed

symbol was early adopted in Holland. These three Dutchmen were peaceably

disseminating the Gospel in their respective spheres, when a storm

suddenly burst over them. Hoen and Gnapheus[761] were arrested and

thrown into prison, without any trial of their cause.

These two men, no friends to noise or display, never speaking of

themselves, intent on the duties of their calling, believing that the

truth ought to be sown in peace, had never supposed that any danger

could overtake them; and now, in the twinkling of an eye, they found

themselves in a dungeon. They were astounded. ‘Every one knows,’ said

Gnapheus,[762] ‘with what diligence I have always devoted myself to the

instruction of the young, but without representing to them ceremonies as

the essence of religion. This is my crime!’ After three months, the

Count of Holland, who highly esteemed these excellent men, became bail

for them. They were then removed to the Hague, and this town was

assigned as their prison. Some time afterwards, Hoen fell asleep in

peace; and Gnapheus, at the end of the second year, was set at liberty.

There were in the Netherlands men of more decided faith than the three

humanists. At Groningen, where that pastor Frederick lived whom Erasmus

proclaimed to be a second Augustine, the doctor of law, Abring, and the

masters of arts, Timmermann, Pistoris, and Lesdrop, sharply attacked the

papal monarchy. ‘We refuse,’ they said, ‘to the Roman pontiff that sword

which is commonly assigned to him. Christ, when speaking of heretics,

said, Beware of them;[763] but He did not say, Massacre and destroy

them.[764] Christ gave to his Church teachers and not satraps.’ Thus

spake, despising danger, these energetic doctors. Boldness was

discretion and won the victory. But such cases were rare, especially in

the southern portion of the Netherlands.

[Sidenote: A Martyr.]

The enemies of the Reformation seemed to be more thoroughly awake in the

south than in the north. At Antwerp and in the surrounding districts

there were (1524) a great number of people of every rank who began to

relish that divine word which had been proclaimed by Spreng, Henry of

Zutphen, and others. The preaching of a pious Augustine monk having been

prohibited, those who longed for the light arranged to meet on Sundays

near the Scheldt, at the place where ships were built, thinking that if

men should hold their peace the very stones would cry out. The

congregation was assembled, and there was no preacher; but, after some

seconds, a young man, perhaps a seamen, rose. His name was Nicholas; and

the word of God which he had received was warmly stirring in his heart.

When he saw all these poor people gathered together in this lonely spot,

ardently desiring good for their souls, and finding none, Nicholas

remembered the five thousand who were without victuals in the

desert.[765] He went to the margin of the river, stepped into a boat

that he might be better heard by the multitude, and read that part of

the Gospel which relates how Jesus fed the hungry ones. This word told

him that the power of God was not tied to outward means; and that it is

all one to him whether there be few or many to edify his people. In

short, God so blessed his word that all those who heard it were

satisfied.[766] The multitude standing on the bank, who had listened

with sympathy, then dispersed. The report of this preaching having

spread through the whole town, the enemies of the Reformation were very

much enraged, and they resolved to get rid of Nicholas, but to do it

clandestinely because they feared the people. The next day the plot was

executed. A band of their accomplices came noiselessly upon the young

man; two or three seized him, while others held a great sack. They

forced Nicholas into it, bound the sack with a cord, then carried it to

the river and threw it into the water.[767] Since he was fond of

preaching on the Scheldt, let him do it now at his leisure! When the

execution was accomplished, these wretches made a boast of it. This

crime filled the hearts of honest men with terror; and the friends of

the Gospel perceived the dangers which surrounded them.

More freedom was sometimes allowed to priests than to laymen. At Meltza,

a place distant two German miles from Antwerp, an eloquent preacher made

a spirited attack on Romish superstitions, without perhaps thoroughly

comprehending evangelical doctrine. Hearers flocked to him in such

multitudes that he had to preach in the fields. ‘We priests,’ said he,

speaking one day of the mass, ‘we are worse than the traitor Judas. For

Judas sold the Lord Jesus and delivered him up; while we, for our part,

sell him indeed, but _we do not deliver him over to you_.’[768] People

had for a long time been accustomed to these epigrams, and they were

less dreaded than a serious and living word.

There were, moreover, in the ranks of the higher clergy of the

Netherlands enlightened men who, without being on the side of the

reformers, were preparing the way for the Reformation. Philip, bishop of

Utrecht, was one of their number. He devoted the beginning of the day to

prayer, and he liked especially in prayer to make use of the words of

the Bible. He had read the sacred writings several times, and Erasmus

boasted of his wisdom and the purity of his morals.[769] He was above

all struck with the licentiousness occasioned by the celibacy of priests

and monks, and expressed the hope that, within his lifetime, all

compulsory celibacy would be abolished by the unanimous consent of

bishops and priests.[770]

This did not fail to produce some impression. In Holland, Brabant, and

Flanders, many monks and nuns quitted the convents. A large number of

the inhabitants of these provinces embraced the reformed doctrine. Great

meetings were held outside the town of Antwerp, in spite of the placards

of Charles the Fifth. But it would have been an easier task to stop the

sun’s rays than to prevent the light of the Gospel from penetrating into

the hearts of men.

Unfortunately the evangelical work encountered adversaries of another

kind. One day a man who came from the Netherlands presented himself to

Luther, and said to him, in a tone at once emphatic and coarse—‘God, who

created the heavens and the earth, sends me to thee.’ ‘One more!’

thought Luther; ‘all these famous men are pressed by the desire to break

a lance with me! What do you want with me?’ he said to the Netherlander.

‘I request you,’ he replied, ‘to read to me the books of Moses.’ ‘And

what sign have you,’ said the reformer, ‘that God sends you to me?’

‘This sign is to be found in the Gospel according to St. John,’ said the

Netherlander. Luther had enough of this. ‘Good,’ said he, ‘come again

another time. The books of Moses are too long for me to find time just

now to read them to you.’

[Sidenote: Illuminism.]

The prophet indeed came back. His religion was a kind of rationalism

embellished with illuminism. ‘Every man,’ he said, ‘has the Holy Spirit;

for this is nothing but his own reason. There is no hell; our flesh

alone is condemned, and every soul will have eternal life.’

Luther, alarmed, wrote immediately to the Antwerp Christians.[771] ‘I

see,’ said he, ‘that there are spirits of error stirring among you; and

I will not by my silence allow an evil to spread which I may have power

to prevent. Under the papacy Satan held his court in peace. But one who

is mightier (Christ) having now come and conquered him, Satan is furious

and creates an uproar. If therefore one of these men wishes to talk with

you about high and difficult questions worked out by them, say to

him—What God reveals to us suffices us.... Art thou mocking us that thou

wouldst induce us to search into things which thyself knowest not? The

devil attempts to bring forward profitless and incomprehensible

questions to the end that he may draw giddy minds out of the right path.

We have enough to do for our whole life if we endeavor to become well

acquainted with Jesus Christ. Let useless prattlers alone.’

The Christians of the Netherlands profited by these counsels. A great

number of men enlightened by the Gospel enlightened others by means of

it. These unknown men were Gerard Wormer, William of Utrecht, Peter

Nannius, Lawrence, Hermann Coq, Nicholas Quicquius, the learned Walter

Delenus, and at the imperial court, Philip de Lens, secretary of

Brabant.[772] In spite of all the efforts of the _censura sacra_, the

truth was spreading in all directions; and a people of believers was

forming who were to become a people of martyrs.

Footnote 714:

‘Urbes supra trecentas et quinquaginta censenter.’—Strada, _De Bello_,

i. p. 32.

Footnote 715:

_Histoire de la Cause de la Désunion des Pays-Bas_, by Messer Renom de

France, chevalier, vol. i. chap. 5.

Footnote 716:

For fuller details on the forerunners of the Reformation in the

Netherlands, see _Hist. of the Reform._ First series, vol. i. book i.

ch. 6 and 8.

Footnote 717:

‘Est Antverpiæ Prior, qui te unice deamat.’—Erasmus to Luther, _Epp._

427, in Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 18.

Footnote 718:

‘Is omnium pæne solus Christum prædicat.’—_Ibid._

Footnote 719:

‘Curavimus ne in nostra universitate liber publice venderetur.’—Bulla

damnatoria. Luther, _Opp. Lat._ i. p. 416.

Footnote 720:

‘Asserentes hujus libri doctrinam vere esse Christianam.’—_Ibid._

Footnote 721:

‘Miras excitarunt tragœdias.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 19.

Footnote 722:

‘Nec adhuc vacavit hominis libros evolvere præter unam et alteram

pagellam.’—Erasmus, _Epp._ 317; in Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 17.

Footnote 723:

‘Ego in quotidianis concionibus lapidor a prædicatoribus.’—Erasmus,

_Epp._ 234.

Footnote 724:

Luther, _Opp. lat._ i. p. 416. Löscher, iii. p. 850.

Footnote 725:

‘Obtrectator pertinacissimus.’—Erasmus, _Epp_. 562.

Footnote 726:

‘Pro fide capitis subire periculum.’—Erasmus, _Epp._ 562.

Footnote 727:

‘Ite et prædicate sincere evangelium Christi sicut

Lutherus.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 22. Seckendorf, lib. i. s. 81.

Footnote 728:

‘Totus mundus plus credet multis doctis quam uni indocto.’—Gerdesius,

_Ann._ iii. p. 22. Seckendorf, lib. i. s. 81, p. 23.

Footnote 729:

‘Unus homo Christianus surrexit in quadringentis annis, quem Papa vult

occidere.’—_Ibid._

Footnote 730:

‘Vocavit nos grues, asinos, bestias, stipites,

anti-christos.’—Erasmus, _Epp._ 314.

Footnote 731:

‘Etiam si noctis concubuerint cum aliquo scorto.’—_Ibid._

Footnote 732:

‘Ut malim parere Turcæ quam horum ferre tyrannidem.’—Erasmus, _Epp.

App._ p. 307.

Footnote 733:

‘Ordonnantie en Statuten van Vlaenderen.’—Deel, i. p. 88.

Footnote 734:

‘Capite truncata, submersa, suspensa, defossa, exusta, aliisque mortis

generibus extincta, ultra quinquaginta hominum millia.’—Scultetus,

_Ann._ p. 87.

Footnote 735:

‘Aleander plane maniacus est, vir malus et stultus.’—Erasmus, _Epp._

317.

Footnote 736:

‘Captivus ducitur Bruxellas, ubi mire divexatus, atque ignis supplicio

gravissimo perterrefactus.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 23.

Footnote 737:

‘Articulos ad abjurandos miserum Jacobum metu mortis cogere veriti non

fuerunt.’—_Ibid._ p. 24.

Footnote 738:

‘Cum ipsi non credant . . animum superesse a morte corporis.’—Erasmus,

_Epp._ p. 587; in Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 24.

Footnote 739:

‘Præsumitur jam exustus esse.’ . . Luther, _Epp._ ii. pp. 76, 80. Ad

Langium et ad Hausmannum.—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 25.

Footnote 740:

Luther, _Epp._ ii. p. 182.

Footnote 741:

Erasmus, _Epp._ 669; in Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 27.

Footnote 742:

Letter of Grapheus to the Archbishop of Palermo, chancellor of the

court of Brabant.—Brandt, _Hist. der Reformatie_, i. p. 71.

Footnote 743:

‘Profecisse atque ad altiora esse enisum.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p.

28.

Footnote 744:

We give only a portion of the remarkable theses of Henry of

Zutphen.—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. _App._ p. 16.

Footnote 745:

‘Sola quippe folia sunt ficus et occultamenta dedecoris quicquid

unquam est ab hominibus morale consutum.’—_Ibid._

Footnote 746:

‘Sicut sol excitat fœtorem cadaveris.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 16.

Footnote 747:

‘Mortis rapina simul et laqueus. Captus in infero quem

disrupit.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 16.

Footnote 748:

‘Omnem movebat lapidem.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 29.

Footnote 749:

‘Ab ejus ore pependerant.’—_Ibid._ p. 30.

Footnote 750:

‘Ex quo noctu fueram educendus et Bruxellas deducendus.’—Henrici

_Epist._ ad Jac. Spreng. Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. _App._ p. 13.

Footnote 751:

‘Vespere dum sol occubuisset.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. _App._ p. 13.

Footnote 752:

‘Aliquot mulierum millia concurrentibus simul viris.’—_Ibid._ ‘Credo

te nosse quomodo mulieres vi Henricum liberarint.’—Luther, _Epp._ ii.

p. 265.

Footnote 753:

First series, vol. iii. l. x. chap. vi.

Footnote 754:

‘Monasterio expulsi fratres, alii aliis locis captivi.’—Luther, _Epp._

ii. p. 265. De Wette.

Footnote 755:

‘Monasterium illud solo plane esse æquatum.’—Cochlæus. Gerdesius,

_Ann._ iii p. 29.

Footnote 756:

First series, vol. iii. book x. chap. iv.

Footnote 757:

‘Ut monte parturiente nascatur ridiculus mus.’—Ep. Fr. Canirmii ad

Hedionem, 1522.

Footnote 758:

‘Tum demum ex improviso aderit ecclesiæ suæ.’—_Ibid._

Footnote 759:

Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 55. See also Van Till, Le Long, &c.

Footnote 760:

‘Similiter sumens eucharistiam pignus sponsi sui, firmiter credere

debet Christum jam esse suum.’—Epistola Christina per Honium.

Footnote 761:

‘Causa inaudita in carcerem conjici jusserunt.’—Gnapheus, _Tobias and

Lazarus_.

Footnote 762:

‘Regnum illud cæremoniarum et falsorum cultuum non assectari.’—_Ibid._

Preface.

Footnote 763:

Matt. vii. 15.

Footnote 764:

‘Non ait: _Perdite_, _trucidate_, _jugulate_.’—Disputatio habita.

Groningæ, 1529. Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. _App._ pp. 29-60.

Footnote 765:

Matt. xiv. 14-21.

Footnote 766:

‘Juvenis quidam Nicolaus in navem littori proximam ascendit et

Evangelium. . . pie explicavit.’—Scultetus, _Ann._ sec. i. p. 192 in

Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 37.

Footnote 767:

‘Postero autem die sacco indutus. . . subito in profluentem projectus

est.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 37.

Footnote 768:

‘Nos vero eum vobis vendimus et non tradimus.’—Scultetus, _Ann._ p.

210.

Footnote 769:

Erasmus, _Epp._ 266. Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 40.

Footnote 770:

‘Ut omnis compulsæ castitatis necessitas tolleretur.’—Mathæi,

_Analecta_, vol. i. pp. 192-203.

Footnote 771:

Luther, _Epp._ Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 42 and _App._ p. 63.

Footnote 772:

Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 44.

CHAPTER X.

‘TOOTHING-STONES.’

(1525-1528.)

[Sidenote: Charles The Fifth.]

If Rome was for some centuries to crush the new people, the offspring of

the Gospel in the east of Europe, in Hungary, there was at the western

extremity of the European continent another people which she was to

strive, with still greater violence, to annihilate. The Netherlands were

to become the theatre selected by the adherents of the papacy for the

accomplishment on the grandest scale of their greatest crimes. Charles

the Fifth, a prince who on some occasions displayed a tolerant spirit,

was the man from whom were to proceed the cruel edicts; and his

successor was to go beyond him in the art of destruction.

Charles the Fifth had some remarkable qualities. He was active,

intelligent, a keen politician, brave, energetic, and calm. But a lofty

soul was wanting to him. He was destitute of faith, of compassion and of

justice, addicted to intemperance of every kind, especially to that of

the table. He did not eat, he devoured; and his excesses hastened his

end. But if he made no scruple of transgressing the greatest

commandments of God, he was all the more eager to observe cold and

trivial ceremonies. He used holy water and had mass sung to him every

day. He invoked the saints; and, in drawing up his will, in order to

make more sure of the pardon of his sins, he commended his soul not only

to God, but also to the blessed Virgin Mary, the blessed St. Peter, St.

Paul, St. George, St. Anne, and generally to all the saints, male and

female, of Paradise, _and to the converted thief_ (_au bon

larron_).[773] He appeared zealous for the ordinances of God, affected

like certain Jews to ‘write them on his door-posts,’ but he did not put

them in his heart; and he sought to make up for great offences ‘by some

paltry trash of satisfaction.’ His son Philip, and others who after him

occupied the throne of Spain, likewise adopted and carried out, in a

manner yet more striking, this hypocritical and shameful system. Charles

was not a bigot from fanaticism; he was not afraid to imprison the Holy

Father himself. He did not in reality put much difference between

evangelical and Romish creeds. But, endowed with considerable judgment,

he understood that the doctrine which offered resistance to the

despotism of the popes would assuredly in certain cases offer resistance

to the despotism of princes; and he feared that, if liberty were once

established in the Church, people would end with wanting to introduce it

in the State. Now, this was in his eyes the crime of crimes. Thus,

although the schemes of his policy often led him to spare the

Protestants, Charles was really a decided enemy of the Reformation. He

found it a difficult matter at this epoch to destroy it in Germany,

where he was not sovereign master, and by doing so he would have damaged

his influence. But it was otherwise in the Netherlands. If he had

received the empire by free election of his peers, he held these

provinces by right of succession, and was determined to treat them

according to his own good pleasure. He assumed therefore to hold _carte

blanche_ with regard to them.

The generous inhabitants of these provinces had liberties of ancient

date, and they freely lavished their treasures on the emperor. But the

prince was not in the humor to be stayed in his course either by their

rights or their gifts. He would massacre, burn, and crush them. Thirty

thousand men, some say fifty thousand, were sacrificed in the

Netherlands as heretics during the reign of Charles the Fifth. In this

matter he did not stand much upon ceremony. His secretaries fabricated

frightful placards, which, being silently posted up in the streets of

the towns, proclaimed cruel penalties, filled peaceful citizens with

terror, and soon made numerous victims. The most excellent of his

subjects were burnt, drowned, buried alive or strangled for having read

the Word of God and maintained the doctrines which it teaches. The most

cruel methods were the best. This great prince, therefore, who has been

and is still extolled by so many voices, instead of being crowned with

glory, ought to be branded by posterity with the mark of its

reprobation.

[Sidenote: Charles Of Egmont.]

Charles found co-operators both in the pope, Clement VII., and in some

of the leading men of the country. One of these was Charles of Egmont,

Duke of Guelderland, an ambitious and violent man, who had spent his

life (he was nearly sixty) in perpetual agitation and wars; a sour and

gloomy man, who died of grief when, in 1538, his duchy was given to the

Duke of Cleves. Egmont was one of those who feared, not without reason,

that the religious change would draw after it a political change.

Alarmed at the progress which the Reformation was making around him,

actuated by a blind and impetuous zeal, he wrote from Arnheim to the

pope to enlist him in the war which he intended to undertake. ‘In all

humility,’ he said to him, ‘we kiss your feet, most holy Father, and we

inform you that as the pernicious heresy of Luther does nothing, alas,

but propagate and strengthen itself from day to day, we are striving to

extirpate it. We are extremely distressed at finding that some princes,

our neighbors, permit many things which they ought to repress. This is

the reason for our entreating your Holiness to command them to use more

vigilance lest the many-headed beast should swallow up the church of

Jesus Christ. And as the ecclesiastics are themselves infected, and as

we dare not lay our hands on the Lord’s anointed, we pray you to

authorize us to compel them to return to the good path, and if they do

not repent to inflict on them the punishment of death.’[774]

The pope did not keep him long waiting for an answer. A pontifical brief

of Clement VII., addressed to Erhard de la Marck, cardinal bishop of

Liége, said to him—‘We are convinced that for the extirpation of this

pestilence a higher authority is needed than that of the inquisitors

established by Campeggio; we therefore require you to put forth all your

ability and anxious endeavors to support the labors of the holy

inquisition, and we give you full authority over it. Apply yourself with

all your heart to root out the tares which Lutheran treachery has sown

in the Lord’s field. Never will you find a more splendid opportunity of

obeying God and of making yourself agreeable to us.’[775]

This brief was not to remain long without effect. Indeed, there were

already in the Netherlands many, both men and women, who were suffering

tortures or death that they might bear witness to the Gospel. We shall

describe some cases.

[Sidenote: John Van Bakker.]

At Woerden, a town situated between Leyden and Utrecht, lived a simple

man, warden of the collegiate church, an office which gave him a certain

position. He was well-informed, was of a religious spirit, liked his

office, and discharged its duties zealously. But his warmest affection

was fixed on the person of his son John. John van Bakker, called in

Latin Pistorius, studied under Rhodius at the college of Utrecht. He

made great progress there in literature, but he also learnt something

else. It was at the period of the revival of the Christian religion. The

young man was struck by the glorious brightness of the truth, and a

living light was shed abroad in his heart.[776] Rhodius was attached to

his young disciple; and they were often seen conversing together, like

father and son. The canons of Utrecht took offence. The two evangelicals

were watched, attacked, threatened, and denounced as Lutherans; and word

had been hastily sent to the father that his son was fallen into heresy.

The old churchwarden, thunderstruck by the news, trembling at the

thought of the danger impending over his beloved son, at once recalled

him to Woerden. But the very evil which he wished to avoid was by this

means only increased. John, filled with ardent desire for the

propagation of the truth, let slip no opportunity of proclaiming the

Gospel to his fellow-citizens. Attacks were renewed; the alarm of the

father grew greater. He now sent his son to Louvain to improve himself

in literature, and also because this town passed for the stronghold of

popery. But old ties of hospitality united the father with Erasmus; and

John was therefore placed under the influential patronage of this

scholar. Out of deference to the wishes of his father, but sorely

against his own will, he became a priest. He immediately availed

himself, however, of this office to contend more effectively against the

anti-christian traditions and to spread abroad more extensively the

knowledge of Christ. The canons of Utrecht, who had not lost sight of

him, summoned him to appear before them. He refused to do this; and upon

this refusal, the prefect of Woerden put him in prison. But Philip,

bishop of Utrecht, was favorably disposed towards the Gospel; and John

regained his liberty and without delay betook himself to Wittenberg.

Here he lived in intimate intercourse with Luther and Melanchthon, and

with many pious young men from all the countries of Europe. He thus

became established in the faith. On his return to Holland, he taught

evangelical truth with still more energy than before. The chapter of

Utrecht, whose inquisitorial glance followed him everywhere, now

sentenced him to banishment for three years, and ordered him to go to

Rome, that he might give himself up to the penances required for the

expiation of his errors. But instead of setting out for Italy, he began

to travel all over Holland, instructing, confirming, and building up the

Christians scattered abroad and the churches. He visited Hoen and

Gnapheus, who were at the time prisoners for the Gospel’s sake, and

consoled them. His father followed him with both joy and anxiety in his

Christian wanderings. Although he feared that John’s faith would bring

down persecution upon him, he nevertheless felt attracted towards it. If

the sky looked threatening, the old man in alarm would fain have

recalled his son; but if no cloud seemed likely to disturb the serenity

of the evangelical day, the father rejoiced in the piety of his son and

triumphed in his triumphs.[777]

[Sidenote: His Trial.]

We have now reached the year 1523. Hitherto Bakker had outwardly

belonged to the Church of Rome. He now began to consider whether he

ought not to bring his outward actions into harmony with his inward

convictions. This harmony is not always attained at the first step.

Bakker discontinued officiating in the church, and renounced all profit

and advantage proceeding from Rome. When he understood that sacerdotal

life is opposed to the Gospel, he married; and, calling to mind the

example of Paul, who was a tentmaker, the lettered disciple of Rhodius

set himself to earn his livelihood by baking bread, digging the ground,

and other manual labor. But at the same time he preached in private

houses, and welcomed all who came to seek at his hands consolation and

instruction. A step at this time taken by Rome tended to increase his

zeal. The pope, anxious to consolidate his tottering see, invented a new

species of indulgences, which were not to be offered for sale like those

of Tetzel, but were to be given gratuitously by the priests to all

persons who, at certain times and in certain places, should come to hear

a mass. These indulgences having been preached in Woerden, Bakker rose

in opposition to them. He unveiled the craft of those who distributed

them, boldly proclaimed the grace of Christ, strengthened the feeble,

and pacified troubled consciences. The inhabitants of Woerden, affected

by such zeal, resorted in crowds to the lowly dwelling in which they

found the peace of God, a Christian woman who sympathized with all their

sorrows and endeavored to relieve their necessities, and a pious

minister who earned his living by the labor of his own hands. The

ordinary priest of the place, provoked by the neglect into which he had

fallen, denounced Bakker, at first to the magistrate, and next to the

governess of the Netherlands. He made such desperate efforts[778] that

one day, in 1525, the officers of justice, by order of Margaret,

arrested Bakker and committed him to prison at the Hague. The poor

father on hearing the news was struck as by a thunderbolt. Bakker,

doomed to harsh and solitary confinement, perceived the danger which

hung over him. He looked all round and saw no defender except the Holy

Scriptures. His enemies, who were afraid of his superior knowledge, sent

for theologians and inquisitors from Louvain; and an imperial commission

was instructed to watch the proceedings and see that the heretic was not

spared. The doctors came to an understanding about the trial, and every

one’s part was fixed. The inquisitorial court was formed, and the young

Christian—he was now twenty-seven years of age—appeared before it.

Cross-pleadings were set up. The following are some of the affirmations

and negations which were then heard at the Hague:—

_The Court._—‘It is ordered that every one should submit to all the

decrees and traditions of the Roman church.’

_Bakker._—‘There is no authority except the Holy Scriptures; and it is

from them only that I can receive the doctrine that saves.’[779]

_The Court._—‘Do you not know that it is the church itself which, by its

testimony, gives to the Holy Scriptures their authority?’

_Bakker._—‘I want no other testimony in favor of the Scriptures than

that of the Scriptures themselves, and that of the Holy Spirit which

inwardly convinces us of the truths which Scripture teaches.’

_The Court._—‘Did not Christ say to the apostles—He who heareth you

heareth me?’

_Bakker._—‘We would assuredly listen to you if you could prove to us

that you are sent by Christ.’

_The Court._—‘The priests are the successors of the apostles.’

_Bakker._—‘All Christians born of water and of the Spirit are priests;

and, although all do not publicly preach, all offer to God through

Christ spiritual sacrifices.’

_The Court._—‘Take care! heretics are to be exterminated with the

sword.’

_Bakker._—‘The church of Christ is to make use only of meekness and the

power of the word of God.’

It was not for one day only, but during many days, and in long sessions,

that the inquisitors plagued Bakker. They charged him especially with

three crimes—despising indulgences, discontinuing to say mass, and

marrying.[780]

[Sidenote: His Condemnation.]

As Bakker’s steadfastness frustrated all the efforts of the inquisitors,

they bethought themselves of making him go to confession, hoping thus to

obtain some criminating admission. So they had him into a niche in the

wainscoting, where the confessor received penitents; and a priest

questioned him minutely on all kinds of subjects. They could only get

one answer from him—‘I confess freely before God that I am a most

miserable sinner, worthy of the curse and of eternal death; but at the

same time I hope, and have even a strong confidence that, for the sake

of Jesus Christ my Lord and my only Saviour, I shall certainly obtain

everlasting blessedness.’ The confessor then pronounced him altogether

unworthy of absolution, and he was thrown into a dark dungeon.

So long as Philip, bishop of Utrecht, lived, the canons, although they

had indeed persecuted Bakker, had not ventured to put him to death. This

moderate bishop, so friendly to good men, having died on the 7th of

April, 1525, the chapter felt more at liberty, and Bakker’s death was

resolved on. The tidings of his approaching execution spread alarm

through the little city;[781] and people of all classes immediately

hastened to him and implored him to make the required recantation. But

he refused. Calm and resolved, one care alone occupied his thoughts, the

state of his father. The old man had followed all the phases of the

trial. He had seen the steadfastness of his son’s faith and the supreme

love which he had for Jesus Christ, so that nothing in the world could

separate him from the Saviour. This sight had filled him with joy and

had strengthened his own faith. The inquisitors, who were very anxious

to induce Bakker to recant, thought that one course was still open to

them. They betook themselves therefore to the old man, and entreated him

to urge John to submit to the pope. ‘My son,’ he replied, ‘is very dear

indeed to me; he has never caused me any sorrow; but I am ready to offer

him up a sacrifice to God, as in old time Abraham offered up

Isaac.’[782]

[Sidenote: His Martyrdom.]

It was then announced to Bakker that the hour of his death was at hand.

This news, says a chronicler, filled him with unusual and astonishing

joy.[783] During the night he read and meditated on the divine word.

Then he had a tranquil sleep. In the morning (September 15) they led him

upon an elevated stage, stripped him of the priestly vestments which he

had been obliged to wear, put on him a yellow coat, and on his head a

hat of the same color. This done, he was led to execution. As he passed

by one part of the prison, where several Christians were confined for

the sake of the faith, he was affected and cried aloud—‘Brothers! I am

going to suffer martyrdom. Be of good courage like faithful soldiers of

Jesus Christ, and defend the truths of the Gospel against all

unrighteousness.’ The prisoners started when they heard these words,

clapped their hands, uttered cries of joy, and then with one voice

struck up the _Te Deum_. They determined not to cease singing until the

Christian hero should have ceased to live. Bakker, indeed, could not

hear them, but these songs, associated with the thoughts of the martyr,

ascended to the throne of God. First they sang the _Magnum Certamen_;

then the hymn beginning with the words, ‘_O beata beatorum martyrum

solemnia_.’ This holy concert was the prelude to the festival which was

to be celebrated in heaven. The martyr went up to the stake, took from

the hands of the executioner the rope with which he was to be strangled

before being given up to the flames, and passing it round his neck with

his own hands, he said with joy—‘O death! where is thy sting?’ A moment

afterwards he said—‘Lord Jesus, forgive them, and remember me, O Son of

God.’ The executioner pulled the rope and strangled him. Then the fire

consumed him. The great conflict was finished, the solemnity of the

martyrdom was over. Such was the death of John van Bakker. His father

survived to mourn his loss.[784]

John van Bakker was not the only one visited with these extreme

penalties which the duke of Guelderland had demanded of the pope. There

was in the convent of his order at Britz, a Carmelite, named Bernard,

about fifty years of age. As a fearless preacher of the Gospel the monks

detested him, and they succeeded in getting him sentenced to death. His

execution was attended by some singular circumstances, which gave rise

to one of those legends so numerous in the Romish church, and from which

all the evangelicals had not yet freed themselves. Rome still left her

mark occasionally on the Reformation. When Bernard was cast into the

flames the fire went out. This was thrice repeated. The executioner then

seized a hammer and struck the victim. Thus far the story is credible;

but at this point it is changed, and passes from history to fable. The

body being cast for the fourth time upon the pile, the fire again went

out, and the body, it was said, was no longer visible to the bystanders;

so that a report was circulated that this man of God had been translated

to heaven.[785]

The death of these pious men did not extirpate evangelical Christianity.

The seed scattered abroad in the Netherlands had everywhere sprung up

and had borne fruit at Antwerp, and especially at Bois-le-Duc, both

wealthy and powerful towns. ‘At Antwerp,’ said Erasmus, ‘we see, in

spite of the edicts of the emperor, the people flocking in crowds

wherever the word is to be heard. It is found necessary for the guards

to be under arms night and day. Bois-le-Duc,’ added the Rotterdam

scholar, ‘has banished from its walls all the Franciscans and

Dominicans.’[786] By the vast commerce of the Netherlands men were

attracted to the country from all quarters, and many of these immigrants

were lovers of the Gospel. These provinces, it was said, resembled a

valley which receives in its bosom the waters of many different regions,

so that the plants which are to be found there thrive and bear the

finest fruits. The year 1525 produced the most excellent of all. The New

Testament in the Dutch language had been published at Amsterdam as early

as 1523. The Old Testament appeared at Antwerp in 1525; and the same

year, in the same town, Liesveld published the whole Bible. The Roman

doctors, indeed, ridiculed the missionaries ‘whose office it is to sow

in remote lands the leaves of a book which the winds carry one knows not

whither.’[787] But these leaves, in conjunction with the preaching of

the reformers, took from the pope, in the sixteenth century, the centre

and the north of Europe.

Nevertheless, the best minds at the court, and especially the Governess

Margaret herself, an enlightened princess, and one who was sincerely

anxious for the prosperity of the Netherlands, were asking themselves

what was the source of the evil, and whether the death of such men as

Bakker and Bernard could check it. Erasmus and others replied that a

reform of the priests and monks would render useless that which Luther

called for. This was a mistake. More than once, in different ages, such

a reform had been tried; some outward improvements had been effected,

but the change had been only of short duration, because inwardly the

deep principles of Christian faith and life had not been re-established.

The government, however, attempted this superficial reform. About the

close of September, 1523, Margaret addressed the magistrates of the

Netherlands. ‘Be on your guard,’ she said to them, ‘lest the teaching of

the priests, which abounds in fables, and their impure manner of life,

give a blow to the prosperity of the church.’[788] She did more.

Appealing to the priests themselves, she said—‘It is our intention that

those men only should be allowed to preach who are prudent, intelligent,

and moral.[789] Let the preachers avoid every thing which might

scandalize the people; and let them not speak so much against Luther,

and against his doctrines and those of the ancient heretics.’[790]

Such were the sentiments of enlightened Catholics; but neither Margaret

nor Charles the Fifth had power to transform the Church. Their letters

even called forth murmurs and objections. ‘Why, they are laying the

blame on the priests for the wrongs caused by the reformers. Luther did

the mischief, and now the monks must bear the burden and the penalty!’

It was a penalty for those who thus complained to have to begin to do

well.

[Sidenote: A New Edict.]

After a gleam of good sense, the authorities went astray once more and

resumed their rigorous proceedings. In the judgment of many this was the

easier and more logical course. The papist party regained the

ascendency, and declared with all their might that there was only one

thing to do—to extirpate evangelical doctrine. A new edict was published

in the provinces. Religious meetings, whether public or private, were

prohibited. The reading of the Gospels, of the epistles of St. Paul, and

of other pious works, was forbidden. Any person who asserted, either in

his own house or elsewhere, any thing respecting faith, the sacraments,

the pope and the councils, incurred the heaviest penalties. No work

could be printed before being approved, and every heretical book was to

be burnt.[791] This ordinance was carried into execution without delay,

and its provisions were extended even to writings inspired by the most

praiseworthy benevolence. A noble lady of Holland having lost her

husband, her trial excited warm sympathy in the heart of Gnapheus. He

wrote a book in which he set forth all the consolations to be found in

evangelical doctrine, pointing out at the same time that the doctrine of

the priests was destitute of them. He was immediately arrested and

confined in a monastery, was fed on bread alone, and was condemned to

three months’ penance. The humanist felt keenly the distress of the days

in which he lived; and, desirous of alleviating his own bitter

sufferings and those of his contemporaries, he began in his cell a work

to which he gave the title of _Tobias and Lazarus_. Therein he offers to

all Christians the most precious consolations, and shows how much those

are mistaken who see in the first evangelical Christians of the

Netherlands only more or less violent adversaries of the pope. ‘Receive

afflictions with resignation and a joyful spirit,’ said he, ‘thou wilt

straightway discern in them a source of true and permanent consolation.

Give to God in faith the name of Father, and every thing which thou

shalt receive from His fatherly hand will seem good to thee. Lay hold on

Christ by faith, and then nothing will strengthen you like trials.

Fatherly love is never better seen than in its chastisements; and it is

in the midst of tribulations that the glory of the kingdom of God shines

forth.’ This book bore wholesome fruit, and many by reading it were led

to the knowledge of the truth.[792] Gnapheus in his day fulfilled the

office of a comforter.

This was not the part which Charles the Fifth had chosen. On concluding

(January 15, 1526) with Francis I. the peace of Madrid, he declared in

the preamble that the object of this peace was ‘to be able to turn the

common arms of all Christian kings, princes, and potentates to the

expulsion and destruction of miscreants, and the extirpation of the

Lutheran sect and of all the said heretics alienated from the bosom of

Holy Church.’[793] It was very soon seen that this resolution was

sincere.

[Sidenote: Wendelmutha Klaessen.]

In the town of Monnikendam, on the shores of the Zuyder Zee, there was

living at this time a widow named Wendelmutha Klaessen, who had sorrowed

greatly for the death of the partner of her life, but had also shed

other and still more bitter tears over the sad state of her own soul.

She had found the peace which Christ gives, and had clung to the Saviour

with a constancy and a courage which some of her friends called

obstinacy. The purity of her life created a sanctifying influence around

her; and as she openly avowed her full trust in Christ, she was

arrested, taken to the fortress of Woerden, and soon after to the Hague

to be tried there.

The more steadfast her faith was, the more the priests set their hearts

on getting her to renounce it. Monks were incessantly going to see her,

and omitted no means of shaking her resolution. They assailed her

especially on the subject of transubstantiation, and required her to

worship as if they were God the little round consecrated wafers of which

they made use in the mass.[794] But Wendelmutha, certain that what they

presented to her as God was nothing more than thin bread, replied—‘I do

not adore them, I abhor them.’ The priests, provoked at seeing her cling

so tenaciously to her ideas, urged her kinsfolk and her friends to try

all means of getting her to retract her speeches. This they did.

Among these friends was a noble lady who tenderly loved

Wendelmutha.[795] These two Christian women, although they were as one

soul, had nevertheless different characters. The Dutch lady was full of

anxiety and distress at the prospect of what awaited her friend, and

said to her in the trouble of her soul—‘Why not be silent, my dear

Wendelmutha,[796] and keep what thou believest in thine own heart, so

that the schemes of those who want to take away thy life may be

baffled?’ Wendelmutha replied, with simple and affecting firmness—‘Dost

thou not know, my sister, the meaning of these words—With the heart man

believeth unto righteousness, _and with the mouth confession is made

unto salvation_?’

Another day, one of her kinsfolk, after having endeavored in vain to

shake her resolution, said to her—‘You look as if you had no fear of

death. But wait a little, you have not yet tasted it.’ She replied

immediately with firm hope—‘I confess that I have not yet tasted it; but

I also know that I never shall taste it; for Christ has endured it for

me and has positively said—If a man keep my saying he shall never see

death.’

Shortly afterwards, Wendelmutha appeared before the Dutch Supreme Court

of Justice, and answered that nothing should separate her from her Lord

and her God. When taken back into prison, the priest urged her to

confess. ‘Do this,’ he said, ‘while you are still in life.’ She

replied—‘I am already dead, and God is my life. Jesus Christ has

forgiven me all my sins, and if I have offended any one of my neighbors,

I humbly beg him to pardon me.’

On the 20th of November, 1527, the officers of justice conducted her to

execution. They had placed near her a certain monk who held in his hand

a crucifix, and asked her to kiss the image in token of veneration. She

replied—‘I know not this wooden Saviour; he whom I know is in heaven at

the right hand of God, the Almighty Saviour.’[797] She went modestly to

the stake: and when the flames gathered round her she peacefully closed

her eyes, bowed down her head, as if she were falling asleep, and gave

up her soul to God, while the fire reduced her body to ashes.

Other victims besides were sacrificed. Among their number was an

Augustinian monk of Tournay, whose name was Henry. Having been brought

to a knowledge of the Gospel, and finding the inactivity of cloister

life insupportable, he betook himself to Courtrai, a neighboring town,

scattered there the seed of faith, married, and to preaching added the

example of the domestic virtues. Arrested at Courtrai,[798] he was

committed to prison at Tournay. He was tried, deprived of the symbols of

the priesthood, and condemned to the flames. At this moment, the sense

of the blessedness which he was about to enjoy in the presence of the

Saviour so powerfully possessed his soul that, unmindful of the priests

and the judges who were around him, he began singing aloud that fine old

hymn attributed to Ambrose and to Augustine—_Te Deum Laudamus_. The

spectators went away from the stake touched by the courage of his soul

and the greatness of his faith.[799]

[Sidenote: The ‘Revived Gospel.’]

The Reformation therefore showed itself to be in truth the _revived

Gospel_, as it has been called.[800] It was this Gospel, not only on

account of its conformity with the writings of the apostles, but for yet

other reasons. In the presence of the splendid palaces of a proud

hierarchy, it restored apostolical poverty and humility to a declining

Christendom. In the midst of death it created life. Light sprang up in

the midst of darkness; devotion and self-sacrifice stood face to face

with monkish and sacerdotal egotism. It was a holy religion, holy to the

pitch of heroism, and formed Christians whose life, full of good works,

was crowned by the triumphant death of martyrdom. This faith, this

courage, and these deaths were the preparation for and the introduction

to the formidable and immortal conflict which was afterwards to make the

Church of the Netherlands illustrious. They were only the outworks of

the fortress which this people would one day erect against the

oppression of the papacy. They formed the junction between the lowly

walls which the faith of the little ones was at this time constructing

in these lands and the glorious building which was afterwards erected.

They served as the beginning of a great future. Moreover, these lives

and these deaths were not isolated events. They were continually

recurring in all countries during the epoch of the Reformation, and they

filled it with glory. Nothing like them has been produced either by Rome

or by systems of philosophy.

Footnote 773:

State Papers of Cardinal Granvella, vol. i. p. 253.

Footnote 774:

‘Suppliciis etiam extremis adficiendi.’—Pontanus, _Hist. Gueld._ lib.

xi. fol. 720. Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 46.

Footnote 775:

Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 46.

Footnote 776:

‘Fulgore veritatis quæ tum renasci cœperat tactus.’—_Ibid._ p. 48.

Footnote 777:

Joh. Pistorii Woerdenatis Martyrium e MS. editum a Jac. Revio. Lugd.

Batav. 1649.—Scultetus, _Ann._ ad annos. Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. pp.

48, 49.

Footnote 778:

‘Manibus pedibusque egit.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 49.

Footnote 779:

‘Se extra scripturam sacram nil quicquam quod ad salutarem attinet

doctrinam fide accipere.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 50.

Footnote 780:

‘Diuque et multum ab inquisitoribus vexatus.’—Scultetus, _Ann._ ad

annum.

Footnote 781:

Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii p. 51.

Footnote 782:

‘Paratum se quidem Abrahami exemplo filium oppido carum ... Deo

offerre.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 51.

Footnote 783:

‘Stupendo quodam et inusitato animi gaudio.’—Gnapheus, _Hist.

Pistorii_, p. 163.

Footnote 784:

Revius, Schroeckh, Brandt, Scultetus, ad annum.

Footnote 785:

‘Cadaver ex oculis adstantium disparuisse, secuta constanti fama virum

Dei ad cœlum translatum esse.’—Schelhorn, _Amœnit. litterar._ iv. p.

418, &c.

Footnote 786:

Erasmus, _Epp._ 757. Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 43.

Footnote 787:

Phrase used by the Rev. Father Félix, in his discourses at Notre Dame,

Paris.

Footnote 788:

‘Per eorum doctrinam fabulis refertam vel mores

impurissimos.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 54.

Footnote 789:

Document dated from the Hague, September 27, 1525.—_Ibid._

Footnote 790:

_Ibid._

Footnote 791:

Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 53.

Footnote 792:

‘Ejus virtute permulti ad veritatis cognitionem sunt

perducti.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 56.

Footnote 793:

Dumont, _Corps universel diplomatique du droit des gens_, iv. i. p.

399.

Footnote 794:

‘Illas rotundas hostiolas.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 62.

Footnote 795:

‘Nobili cuidam feminæ Wendelmutham unice diligenti.’—_Ib._ 63.

Footnote 796:

‘Cur non taces, mea Wendelmutha?‘—_Ibid._

Footnote 797:

‘Hunc ego ligneum salvatorem non agnosco.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p.

63.

Footnote 798:

‘Propter verbum Dei captus.’—Scultetus, _Ann._ ad annum.

Footnote 799:

‘Magna animi fortitudine et fidei magnitudine supplicium sustinuisse

traditur.’—Gerdesius, _Ann._ iii. p. 64.

Footnote 800:

This term is used by Gerdesius and Scultetus in the title of their

_Annales_.

CHAPTER XI.

THE VICTIMS OF CHARLES THE FIFTH.

(1529-1535.)

[Sidenote: ‘Tender Mercies’ Of Charles.]