Meanwhile John and the Treasurer had betaken themselves to Mons, where the latter presently endured a worse punishment than exile: on the 23rd of March 1419, during the absence of the Duke and the Duchess hawking, Vandenberghe, sick and slumbering in his chamber, 'was suddenly aroused by the bastards of Holland' (Jacqueline's natural brothers), 'who very soon sent him to sleep again, and so soundly that no man shall ever wake him more; for without any respite they struck him stone dead, and forthwith went their way.' 'Spite,' says Secretary De Dynter, 'because he had stopped their pensions'; and Monstrelet adds, 'The Duchess, according to common report, was a sufficiently consenting party to what her brethren had done.' Be this as it may, the removal of Vandenberghe was certainly, for the moment, of advantage to Jacqueline and her friends. For three days John was inconsolable, but at the expiration of that time his Duchess managed to appease him, and Rotslaere, a man devoted to the popular cause, was appointed Treasurer of Brabant (April 12, 1419). Maybe that John, in acting thus, was dissembling to gain time; maybe that, brooding over his wrongs alone (for shortly after the murder the ducal couple had separated), he was presently impelled to go back on his decision; certain it is that within a month after their appointment the new ministers were dismissed. Before the end of April the Court had returned to Brabant: Jacqueline to Vilvorde, and John, cast down and restless, flitting from place to place--sometimes at Tervueren, sometimes at Antwerp, never at Brussels, where Assche was still in prison, at last he found himself at Bois-le-Duc, and by that time he had made up his mind.