The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 11: 1566, part IIMotley, John Lothrop
History
The Rise of the Dutch Republic — Volume 11: 1566, part II
Motley, John Lothrop
Netherlands -- Church history; Netherlands -- History -- Eighty Years' War, 1568-1648
The course of Orange at Antwerp was consistent with his whole career. He
honestly came to arrange a pacification, but he knew that this end could
be gained only by loyally maintaining the Accord which had been signed
between the confederates and the Regent. He came back to the city on the
26th August, and found order partially re-established. The burghers
having at last become thoroughly alarmed, and the fury of the image-
breakers entirely appeased, it had been comparatively easy to restore
tranquillity. The tranquillity, however, rather restored itself, and
when the calm had succeeded to the tempest, the placid heads of the
burgomasters once, more emerged from the waves.
Three image-breakers, who had been taken in the act, were hanged by order
of the magistrates upon the 28th of August. The presence of Orange gave
them courage to achieve these executions which he could not prevent, as
the fifth article of the Accord enjoined the chastisement of the rioters.
The magistrates chose that the "chastisement" on this occasion should be
exemplary, and it was not in the power of Orange to interfere with the
regular government of the city when acting according to its laws. The
deed was not his, however, and he hastened, in order to obviate the
necessity of further violence, to prepare articles of agreement, upon the
basis of Margaret's concessions. Public preaching, according to the
Reformed religion, had already taken place within the city. Upon the
22d, possession had been taken of at least three churches. The senate
had deputed pensionary Wesenbeck to expostulate with the ministers, for
the magistrates were at that moment not able to command. Taffin, the
Walloon preacher, had been tractable, and had agreed to postpone his
exercises. He furthermore had accompanied the pensionary to the
cathedral, in order to persuade Herman Modet that it would be better for
him likewise to defer his intended ministrations. They had found that
eloquent enthusiast already in the great church, burning with impatience
to ascend upon the ruins, and quite unable to resist the temptation of
setting a Flemish psalm and preaching a Flemish sermon within the walls
which had for so many centuries been vocal only to the Roman tongue and
the Roman ritual. All that he would concede to the entreaties of his
colleague and of the magistrate, was that his sermon should be short.
In this, however, he had overrated his powers of retention, for the
sermon not only became a long one, but he had preached another upon the
afternoon of the same day. The city of Antwerp, therefore, was clearly
within the seventh clause of the treaty of the 24th August, for preaching
had taken place in the cathedral, previously to the signing of that
Accord.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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