be beheaded.  These four sufferers were a Frisian nobleman, named Galena, the secretaries of Egmont and Horn, Bakkerzeel and La Loo, and the distinguished burgomaster of Antwerp, Antony Van Straalen.  The arrest of the three last-mentioned individuals, simultaneously with that of the two Counts, has been related in a previous chapter.  In the case of Van Straalen, the services rendered by him to the provinces during his long and honorable career, had been so remarkable, that even the Blood-Council, in sending his case to Alva for his sentence, were inspired by a humane feeling.  They felt so much compunction at the impending fate of a man who, among other meritorious acts, had furnished nearly all the funds for the brilliant campaign in Picardy, by which the opening years of Philip’s reign had been illustrated, as to hint at the propriety of a pardon.  But the recommendation to mercy, though it came from the lips of tigers, dripping with human blood, fell unheeded on the tyrant’s ear.  It seemed meet that the man who had supplied the nerves of war in that unforgiven series of triumphs, should share the fate of the hero who had won the laurels.

[Bor, Cappella, Hoofd, ubi sup.  The last words of the Burgomaster as he bowed his neck to the executioner’s stroke were, “Voor wel gedaan, kwaclyk beloud,”—­“For faithful service, evil recompense.”  —­Cappella, 232.]

Hundreds of obscure martyrs now followed in the same path to another world, where surely they deserved to find their recompense, if steadfast adherence to their faith, and a tranquil trust in God amid tortures and death too horrible to be related, had ever found favor above.  The “Red-Rod,” as the provost of Brabant was popularly designated, was never idle.  He flew from village to village throughout the province, executing the bloody behests of his masters with congenial alacrity.  Nevertheless his career was soon destined to close upon the same scaffold where he had so long officiated.  Partly from caprice, partly from an uncompromising and fantastic sense of justice, his master now hanged the executioner whose industry had been so untiring.  The sentence which was affixed to his breast, as he suffered, stated that he had been guilty of much malpractice; that he had executed many persons without a warrant, and had suffered many guilty persons for a bribe, to escape their doom.  The reader can judge which of the two clauses constituted the most sufficient reason.

During all these triumphs of Alva, the Prince of Orange had not lost his self-possession.  One after another, each of his bold, skilfully-conceived and carefully-prepared plans had failed.  Villers had been entirely discomfited at Dalhena, Cocqueville had been cut to pieces in Picardy, and now the valiant and experienced Louis had met with an entire overthrow in Friesland.  The brief success of the patriots at Heiliger Zee had been washed out in the blood-torrents of Jemmingen.  Tyranny was more triumphant, the