contemporary, “but they would have scorned to march under the banner of a brewer; having dared to raise their eyes for a chief, to the most illustrious warrior of his ages.”  No doubt, had Egmont ever listened to these aspirations, he might have taken the field against the government with an invincible force, seized the capital, imprisoned the Regent, and mastered the whole country, which was entirely defenceless, before Philip would have had time to write more than ten despatches upon the subject.

These hopes of the Reformers, if hopes they could be called, were now destined to be most bitterly disappointed.  Egmont entered Flanders, not as a chief of rebels—­not as a wise pacificator, but as an unscrupulous partisan of government, disposed to take summary vengeance on all suspected persons who should fall in his way.  He ordered numerous executions of image-breakers and of other heretics.  The whole province was in a state of alarm; for, although he had not been furnished by the Regent with a strong body of troops, yet the name of the conqueror at Saint Quentin and Gravelines was worth many regiments.  His severity was excessive.  His sanguinary exertions were ably seconded also by his secretary Bakkerzeel, a man who exercised the greatest influence over his chief, and who was now fiercely atoning for having signed the Compromise by persecuting those whom that league had been formed to protect.  “Amid all the perplexities of the Duchess Regent,” Says a Walloon historian, “this virtuous princess was consoled by the exploits of Bakkerzeel, gentleman in Count Egmont’s service.  On one occasion he hanged twenty heretics, including a minister, at a single heat.”

Such achievements as these by the hands or the orders of the distinguished general who had been most absurdly held up as a possible protector of the civil and religious liberties of the country, created profound sensation.  Flanders and Artois were filled with the wives and children of suspected I thousands who had fled the country to escape the wrath of Egmont.  The cries and piteous lamentations of these unfortunate creatures were heard on every side.  Count Louis was earnestly implored to intercede for the persecuted Reformers.  “You who have been so nobly gifted by Heaven, you who have good will and singular bounty written upon your face,” said Utenhove to Louis, “have the power to save these poor victims from the throats of the ravenous wolves.”  The Count responded to the appeal, and strove to soften the severity of Egmont, without, however, producing any very signal effect.  Flanders was soon pacified, nor was that important province permitted to enjoy the benefits of the agreement which had been extorted, from the Duchess.  The preachings were forbidden, and the ministers and congregations arrested and chastised, even in places where the custom had been established previously to the 23d August.  Certainly such vigorous exertions upon the part both of master and man did not savor of treason to Philip, and hardly seemed to indicate the final doom of Egmont and Bakkerzeel.