On the death of Margaret of Austria the Emperor appointed his sister, Marie of Hungary, Regent of the Netherlands. The steady decline of its trade and the increasing poverty of the people caused the city of Ghent to seethe with discontent, and in 1539 an outbreak occurred that gave the Regent great alarm. Under the leadership of a group of demagogues the _Métiers_ or lower associations of artisans, overawed the magistrates and seized Liévin Pyn, an aged and honourable member of the Council and Dean of the _Métiers_ who was unjustly accused of giving the Queen Regent a false report on the situation and of having stolen the great banner of the city. This unfortunate old man was subjected to fearful tortures in the Château des Comtes, but resolutely refused to confess to any of the acts charged against him. Nevertheless, he was finally executed on the Place Ste. Pharaïlde--one of the most pitiful and unjust of the many cruel tragedies enacted there. Broken and weakened from the tortures to which he had been subjected, he had to be carried to the place of execution, where his indomitable spirit was such that before bowing before the axe of the executioner he sternly reproached his judges with their cowardice, and predicted that the people would soon have occasion to regret the fatuous course they were pursuing. The dying old man spoke the truth. The Emperor was then in Spain and matters connected with the government of his world-encircling realm demanded for the moment his attention, but he was none the less kept well informed as to what was going on in his native city, where affairs meanwhile progressed from bad to worse, until a veritable state of anarchy prevailed. When Charles learned of the virtual insurrection against his authority that prevailed, and of the death of Liévin Pyn, he was furious and vowed to inflict upon the rebellious city a vengeance that would deter all other cities in the empire from ever following its example. Slowly, but with a deliberateness that boded ill for the foolhardy rabble who for the moment guided the destinies of the commune, the Emperor made his preparations for a trip to the Low Countries. Two months after the execution of Pyn it became known in the city that their puissant sovereign was on his way. The news filled the mutineers with terror. No longer was Ghent in the proud position she had occupied under the Counts of Flanders and the first Dukes of Burgundy--the premier city of the realm and a foe to be respected and even feared. The power of Charles V was too vast for even the most ignorant to think of armed resistance to his authority, now that he was about to assert it in person. Many of those responsible for the period of anarchy fled, others went into hiding.