The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 07: 1561-62Motley, John Lothrop
History
The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 07: 1561-62
Motley, John Lothrop
Netherlands -- Church history; Netherlands -- History -- Eighty Years' War, 1568-1648
"Ah! Red-Rod," answered Peter, jocosely, "you deal with bad people.
I have nothing to fear, for I seize only the innocent and virtuous, who
make no resistance, and let themselves be taken like lambs."
"Mighty well," said the other; "but if you arrest all the good people
and I all the bad, 'tis difficult to say who in the world is to escape
chastisement." The reply of the inquisitor has not been recorded, but
there is no doubt that he proceeded like a strong man to run his day's
course.
He was the most active of all the agents in the religious persecution at
the epoch of which we are now treating, but he had been inquisitor for
many years. The martyrology of the provinces reeks with his murders.
He burned men for idle words or suspected thoughts; he rarely waited,
according to his frank confession, for deeds. Hearing once that a
certain schoolmaster, named Geleyn de Muler, of Audenarde, "was addicted
to reading the Bible," he summoned the culprit before him and accused him
of heresy. The schoolmaster claimed, if he were guilty of any crime,
to be tried before the judges of his town. "You are my prisoner," said
Titelmann, "and are to answer me and none other." The inquisitor
proceeded accordingly to catechize him, and soon satisfied himself of the
schoolmaster's heresy. He commanded him to make immediate recantation.
The schoolmaster refused. "Do you not love your wife and children?"
asked the demoniac Titelmann. "God knows," answered the heretic, "that
if the whole world were of gold, and my own, I would give it all only to
have them with me, even had I to live on bread and water and in bondage."
"You have then," answered the inquisitor, "only to renounce the error of
your opinions."--" Neither for wife, children, nor all the world, can I
renounce my God and religious truth," answered the prisoner. Thereupon
Titelmann sentenced him to the stake. He was strangled and then thrown
into the flames.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account