German fiction -- Translations into English; Netherlands -- History -- Eighty Years' War, 1568-1648 -- Fiction
The next day after the meeting of the council, Burgomaster Van der Werff,
Herr Van Hout, and a notary, attended by two constables, went to
Nobelstrasse to set old Fraulein Van Hoogstraten's property in order.
The fathers of the city had determined to seize the Glippers' abandoned
dwellings and apply the property found in them to the benefit of the
common cause.
The old lady's hostility to the patriots was known to all, and as her
nearest relatives, Herr Van Hoogstraten and Matanesse Van Wibisma, had
been banished from Leyden, the duty of representing the heirs fell upon
the city. It was to be expected that only notorious Glippers would be
remembered in the dead woman's will, and if this was the case, the
revenue from the personal and real estate would fall to the city, until
the deserters mended their ways, and adopted a course of conduct that
would permit the magistrates to again open their gates to them. Whoever
continued to cling to the Spaniards and oppose the cause of liberty,
would forfeit his share of the inheritance. This was no new procedure.
King Philip had taught its practice, nay not only the estates of
countless innocent persons who had been executed, banished or gone into
voluntary exile for the sake of the new religion, but also the property
of good Catholic patriots had been confiscated for his benefit. After
being anvil so many years, it is pleasant to play hammer; and if that was
not always done in a proper and moderate way, people excused themselves
on the ground of having experienced a hundred-fold harsher and more cruel
treatment from the Spaniards. It might have been unchristian to repay in
the same coin, but they dealt severe blows only in mortal conflict, and
did not seek the Glippers' lives.
At the door of the house of death, the magistrates met the musician
Wilhelm Corneliussohn and his mother, who had come to offer Henrica a
hospitable reception in their house. The mother, who had at first
refused to extend her love for her neighbor to the young Glipper girl,
now found it hard to be deprived of the opportunity to do a good work,
and gave expression to these feelings in the sturdy fashion peculiar to
her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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