Almost at the same time four clergymen, the eldest seventy years of age, were executed at the Hague, after an imprisonment of three years.  All were of blameless lives, having committed no crime save that of having favored the Reformation.  As they were men of some local eminence, it was determined that they should be executed with solemnity.  They were condemned to the flames, and as they were of the ecclesiastical profession, it was necessary before execution that their personal sanctity should be removed.  Accordingly, on the 27th May, attired in the gorgeous robes of high mass, they were brought before the Bishop of Bois le Duc.  The prelate; with a pair of scissors, cut a lock of hair from each of their heads.  He then scraped their crowns and the tips of their fingers with a little silver knife very gently, and without inflicting the least injury.  The mystic oil of consecration was thus supposed to be sufficiently removed.  The prelate then proceeded to disrobe the victims, saying to each one as he did so, “Eximo tibi vestem justitiae, quem volens abjecisti;” to which the oldest pastor, Arent Dirkzoon, stoutly replied, “imo vestem injustitiae.”  The bishop having thus completed the solemn farce of desecration, delivered the prisoners to the Blood Council, begging that they might be handled very gently.  Three days afterwards they were all executed at the stake, having, however, received the indulgence of being strangled before being thrown into the flames.

It was precisely at this moment, while the agents of the Duke’s government were thus zealously enforcing his decrees, that a special messenger arrived from the Pope, bringing as a present to Alva a jewelled hat and sword.  It was a gift rarely conferred by the Church, and never save upon the highest dignitaries, or upon those who had merited her most signal rewards by the most shining exploits in her defence.  The Duke was requested, in the autograph letter from his Holiness which accompanied the presents, “to remember, when he put the hat upon his head, that he was guarded with it as with a helmet of righteousness, and with the shield of God’s help, indicating the heavenly crown which was ready for all princes who support the Holy Church and the Roman Catholic faith.”  The motto on the sword ran as follows, “Accipe sanctum gladium, menus a Deo in quo dejicies adversarios populi mei Israel.”

The Viceroy of Philip, thus stimulated to persevere in his master’s precepts by the Vicegerent of Christ, was not likely to swerve from his path, nor to flinch from his work.  It was beyond the power of man’s ingenuity to add any fresh features of horror to the religious persecution under which the provinces were groaning, but a new attack could be made upon the poor remains of their wealth.