The four Estates of Flanders, in a solemn address to the king, described in vigorous language the enormities committed by the inquisitors, and called upon Philip to suppress these horrible practices so manifestly in violation of the ancient charters which he had sworn to support.  Philip, so far from having the least disposition to yield in this matter, dispatched orders in August, 1564, to the regent, ordering that the decrees of the Council of Trent should be published and enforced without delay throughout the Netherlands.  By these decrees the heretic was excluded, so far as ecclesiastical dogma could exclude him, from the pale of humanity, from consecrated earth, and from eternal salvation.  The decrees conflicted with the privileges of the provinces, and at a meeting of the council William of Orange made a long and vehement discourse, in which he said that the king must be unequivocally informed that this whole machinery of placards and scaffolds, of new bishops and old hangmen, of decrees, inquisitors and informers, must once and for ever be abolished.  Their day was over; the Netherlands were free provinces, and were determined to vindicate their ancient privileges.

The unique effect of these representations was stringent instructions from Philip to Margaret to keep the whole machinery of persecution constantly at work.  Fifty thousand persons were put to death in obedience to the edicts, 30,000 of the best of the citizens migrated to England.  Famine reigned in the land.  Then followed the revolt of the confederate nobles and the episode of the “wild beggars.”  Meantime, during the summer of 1556, many thousands of burghers, merchants, peasants, and gentlemen were seen mustering and marching through the fields of every province, armed, but only to hear sermons and sing hymns in the open air, as it was unlawful to profane the churches with such rites.  The duchess sent forth proclamations by hundreds, ordering the instant suppression of these assemblies and the arrest of the preachers.  This brought the popular revolt to a head.

III.—­The Image-Breaking Campaign

There were many hundreds of churches in the Netherlands profusely adorned with chapels.  Many of them were filled with paintings, all were peopled with statues.  Commencing on August 18, 1556, for the space of only six or seven summer days and nights, there raged a storm by which nearly every one of these temples was entirely rifled of its contents; not for plunder, but for destruction.

It began at Antwerp, on the occasion of a great procession, the object of which was to conduct around the city a colossal image of the Virgin.  The rabble sacked thirty churches within the city walls, entered the monasteries burned their invaluable libraries, and invaded the nunneries.  The streets were filled with monks and nuns, running this way and that, shrieking and fluttering, to escape the claws of fiendish Calvinists.  The terror was imaginary, for not the least remarkable feature in these transactions was that neither insult nor injury was offered to man or woman, and that not a farthing’s value of the immense amount of property was appropriated.  Similar scenes were enacted in all the other provinces, with the exception of Limburg, Luxemburg, and Namur.