This, then, was the attitude of the principal personages in the Netherlands, and the situation of affairs at the end of the eventful year 1566, the last year of peace which the men then living or their children were to know.  The government, weak at the commencement, was strong at the close.  The confederacy was broken and scattered.  The Request, the beggar banquets, the public preaching, the image-breaking, the Accord of August, had been followed by reaction.  Tournay had accepted its garrison.  Egmont, completely obedient to the crown, was compelling all the cities of Flanders and Artois to receive soldiers sufficient to maintain implicit obedience, and to extinguish all heretical demonstrations, so that the Regent was at comparative leisure to effect the reduction of Valenciennes.

This ancient city, in the province of Hainault, and on the frontier of France, had been founded by the Emperor Valentinian, from whom it had derived its name.  Originally established by him as a city of refuge, it had received the privilege of affording an asylum to debtors, to outlaws, and even to murderers.  This ancient right had been continued, under certain modifications, even till the period with which we are now occupied.  Never, however, according to the government, had the right of asylum, even in the wildest times, been so abused by the city before.  What were debtors, robbers, murderers, compared to heretics? yet these worst enemies of their race swarmed in the rebellious city, practising even now the foulest rites of Calvin, and obeying those most pestilential of all preachers, Guido de Bray, and Peregrine de la Grange.  The place was the hot-bed of heresy and sedition, and it seemed to be agreed, as by common accord, that the last struggle for what was called the new religion, should take place beneath its walls.

Pleasantly situated in a fertile valley, provided with very strong fortifications and very deep moats, Valenciennes, with the Scheld flowing through its centre, and furnishing the means of laying the circumjacent meadows under water, was considered in those days almost impregnable.  The city was summoned, almost at the same time as Tournay, to accept a garrison.  This demand of government was met by a peremptory refusal.  Noircarmes, towards the middle of December, ordered the magistrates to send a deputation to confer with him at Conde.  Pensionary Outreman accordingly repaired to that neighboring city, accompanied by some of his colleagues.  This committee was not unfavorable to the demands of government.  The magistracies of the cities, generally, were far from rebellious; but in the case of Valenciennes the real power at that moment was with the Calvinist consistory, and the ministers.  The deputies, after their return from Conde, summoned the leading members of the reformed religion, together with the preachers.  It was urged that it was their duty forthwith to use their influence in favor of the demand made by the government upon the city.