with the despot and against his own townspeople, “here the Emperor was received as if the God of Paradise had descended.”  On the 9th of February, 1540, he left Brussels; on the 14th he came to Ghent.  His entrance into the city lasted more than six hours.  Four thousand lancers, one thousand archers, five thousand halberdmen and musqueteers composed his bodyguard, all armed to the teeth and ready for combat.  The Emperor rode in their midst, surrounded by “cardinals, archbishops, bishops, and other great ecclesiastical lords,” so that the terrors of the Church were combined with the panoply of war to affright the souls of the turbulent burghers.  A brilliant train of “dukes, princes, earls, barons, grand masters, and seignors, together with most of the Knights of the Fleece,” were, according to the testimony of the same eyewitness, in attendance upon his Majesty.  This unworthy son of Ghent was in ecstasies with the magnificence displayed upon the occasion.  There was such a number of “grand lords, members of sovereign houses, bishops, and other ecclesiastical dignitaries going about the streets, that,” as the poor soul protested with delight, “there was nobody else to be met with.”  Especially the fine clothes of these distinguished guests excited his warmest admiration.  It was wonderful to behold, he said, “the nobility and great richness of the princes and seignors, displayed as well in their beautiful furs, martins and sables, as in the great chains of fine gold which they wore twisted round their necks, and the pearls and precious stones in their bonnets and otherwise, which they displayed in great abundance.  It was a very triumphant thing to see them so richly dressed and accoutred.”

An idea may be formed of the size and wealth of the city at this period, from the fact that it received and accommodated sixty thousand strangers, with their fifteen thousand horses, upon the occasion of the Emperor’s visit.  Charles allowed a month of awful suspense to intervene between his arrival and his vengeance.  Despair and hope alternated during the interval.  On the 17th of March, the spell was broken by the execution of nineteen persons, who were beheaded as ringleaders.  On the 29th of April, he pronounced sentence upon the city.  The hall where it was rendered was open to all comers, and graced by the presence of the Emperor, the Queen Regent, and the great functionaries of Court, Church, and State.  The decree, now matured, was read at length.  It annulled all the charters, privileges, and laws of Ghent.  It confiscated all its public property, rents, revenues, houses, artillery, munitions of war, and in general every thing which the corporation, or the traders, each and all, possessed in common.  In particular, the great bell—­Roland was condemned and sentenced to immediate removal.  It was decreed that the four hundred thousand florins, which had caused the revolt, should forthwith be paid, together with an additional fine by Ghent of one hundred and fifty