Charles, however, exacted a punishment more humiliating, if not so savage as that contemplated by the _bourreau_ of the church, by repealing all the charters of the city, dismounting their famous bell, Roland, fining the community, and compelling the ringleaders to supplicate his mercy in their shirts, with halters round their necks, a ceremony which is erroneously said to have been commemorated by the magistrates of Ghent continuing to wear the rope, as a part of their official costume, and which is still kept alive in the distich which enumerates the characteristics of the Flemish cities:-- Nobilibus Bruxella viris--Antuerpiæ nummis Gandavum laqueis, formosis Brugia puellis Lovanium doctis, gaudet Mechlinia stultis.[15] With the abdication of Charles V, that most remarkable incident in the history of kings, which took place in the church of St. Gudule at Brussels, and the accession of Philip II, arose the reign of terror in the Netherlands, when Alva and his bloodhounds ravaged Flanders, and their successors, for twenty years, rendered her cities abattoirs of Europe. In these events, Ghent took a prominent part, and the siege of her citadel, which was garrisoned by the Spaniards, affords the noble story of its defence till reduced by famine, when the Flemish, on its surrender, discovered that its heroic resistance had been the work of a woman, Madame Mondragon, the wife of the commandant, who, in the absence of her husband, had assumed his command, and capitulated only when hunger and disease had reduced her little garrison to one hundred and fifty souls, including herself and her children. Philip, weary of the war, and assured of the loss of Holland, which had adopted its liberator, the Prince of Orange, as its sovereign, compromised in some degree with the Flemish, by separating their country from the crown of Spain, and conferring it on his daughter, Isabella, by whose marriage with Albert, it became again united to the house of Austria, under whose dominion it remained, with the exception of its brief occupation by Louis XIV previous to the treaty of Utrecht, till incorporated with the French republic in 1794, and subsequently annexed to Holland in February 1815. The streets of Ghent are full of monuments and reminiscences of these stormy and singular times. In a small triangular place, called the Toad’s-corner (Padden hoek), stood the house of the elder Artevelde and the scene of his murder; that which has been erected upon the spot, bears an inscription on its front:--“ICI PERIT VICTIME D’UNE FACTION, LE XXVII JUILLET MCCCXXXXV, JACQUES VON ARTAVELDE QUI ELEVA LES COMMUNES DE FLANDRE A UNE HAUTE PROSPERITÉ.”