Meantime, the grass was growing and the cattle were grazing in the streets of Ghent, where once the tramp of workmen going to and from their labor was like the movement of a mighty army.  The great majority of the burghers were of the Reformed religion, and disposed to make effectual resistance to the Malcontents, led by the disaffected nobles.  The city, considering itself the natural head of all the southern country, was indignant that the Walloon provinces should dare to reassert that supremacy of Romanism which had been so effectually suppressed, and to admit the possibility of friendly relations with a sovereign who had been virtually disowned.  There were two parties, however, in Ghent.  Both were led by men of abandoned and dangerous character.  Imbize, the worse of the two demagogues, was inconstant, cruel, cowardly, and treacherous, but possessed of eloquence and a talent for intrigue.  Ryhove was a bolder ruffian—­wrathful, bitter, and unscrupulous.  Imbize was at the time opposed to Orange, disliking his moderation, and trembling at his firmness.  Ryhove considered himself the friend of the Prince.  We have seen that he had consulted him previously to his memorable attack upon Aerschot, in the autumn of the preceding year, and we know the result of that conference.

The Prince, with the slight dissimulation which belonged less to his character than to his theory of politics, and which was perhaps not to be avoided, in that age of intrigue, by any man who would govern his fellow-men, whether for good or evil, had winked at a project which he would not openly approve.  He was not thoroughly acquainted, however, with the desperate character of the man, for he would have scorned an instrument so thoroughly base as Ryhove subsequently proved.  The violence of that personage on the occasion of the arrest of Aerschot and his colleagues was mildness compared with the deed with which he now disgraced the cause of freedom.  He had been ordered out from Ghent to oppose a force of Malcontents which was gathering in the neighbourhood of Courtray; but he swore that he would not leave the gates so long as two of the gentlemen whom he had arrested on the twenty-eighth of the previous October, and who yet remained in captivity, were still alive.  These two prisoners were ex-procurator Visch and Blood-Councillor Hessels.  Hessels, it seemed, had avowed undying hostility to Ryhove for the injury sustained at his hands, and he had sworn, “by his grey beard,” that the ruffian should yet hang for the outrage.  Ryhove, not feeling very safe in the position of affairs which then existed, and knowing that he could neither trust Imbize, who had formerly been his friend, nor the imprisoned nobles, who had ever been his implacable enemies, was resolved to make himself safe in one quarter at least, before he set forth against the Malcontents.  Accordingly, Hessels and Visch, as they sat together in their prison, at chess, upon the 4th of October, 1578, were suddenly summoned to leave the house, and to enter a carriage which stood at the door.  A force of armed men brought the order, and were sufficiently strong to enforce it.  The prisoners obeyed, and the coach soon rolled slowly through the streets, left the Courtray gate, and proceeded a short distance along the road towards that city.