During this period Catholic worship was strictly prohibited, many of the leading citizens were thrust into prison, amongst them the bishop, a large-minded and liberal man, who had done his utmost to stay Alva's hand, and most of the clergy were driven into exile. Some of them fared worse still--were tortured, scourged, burnt at the stake in front of the Cathedral. Nor was this all. Sanctuaries were pillaged, altars cast down, art treasures innumerable were wantonly destroyed, the Church of St. Anne was razed to the ground, and Notre Dame was turned into a stable. Two years later Balfour received his reward. It happened thus. About this time the Spaniards were threatening the city, and the Scotch colonel led out his troops to oppose them. Wounded in the conflict which followed, but apparently not grievously, for he was still able to keep his saddle, he turned his horse's head towards Bruges. Presently his comrades saw him reel, and then, without a cry or any other sign, he fell back dead. They carried him home to the city, and buried him in the churchyard of St. Sauveur. During these troublous times hundreds of the best and wealthiest families left the city, and when peace was at length restored in 1584, the population hardly numbered thirty thousand souls. If it had not been for the Church, Bruges would in all probability have gradually dwindled down to a mere village like Sluys or Damme, or even little Middelburg. The action of Pope Pius IV., who, at the instance of Philip II. in 1560, had made Bruges an Episcopal See, saved her from this fate. Bitterly opposed as the measure had been by all classes of society--by the higher clergy, who feared that the presence of a bishop amongst them would lessen their prestige; by the monks, who knew that they would be shorn of revenue for the endowment of the new See; by the nobles, who regarded the great abbeys as the appanage of their younger sons; by the people, who believed that this step was the prelude to the installation of the Spanish Inquisition--it proved in the outcome the town's salvation. And Bruges owed something more to the Church:--towards the close of the fifteen hundreds and during the opening years of the succeeding century, a vast immigration of wealthy families, who brought with them gold, and, better still, treasures of literature and treasures of art.