On being respectfully asked sometimes who such a magistrate might be whose face and name were equally unknown to his colleagues and to the townsmen in general; “Do I know the fellows?” he would say with a cheerful laugh.  And indeed they might have all been dead men, those new functionaries, for aught he did know.  And so on through Medemblik and Alkmaar, Brielle, Delft, Monnikendam, and many other cities progressed the Prince, sowing new municipalities broadcast as he passed along.  At the Hague on his return a vote of thanks to the Prince was passed by the nobles and most of the cities for the trouble he had taken in this reforming process.  But the unanimous vote had not yet been secured, the strongholds of Arminianism, as it was the fashion to call them, not being yet reduced.

The Prince, in reply to the vote of thanks, said that “in what he had done and was going to do his intention sincerely and uprightly had been no other than to promote the interests and tranquillity of the country, without admixture of anything personal and without prejudice to the general commonwealth or the laws and privileges of the cities.”  He desired further that “note might be taken of this declaration as record of his good and upright intentions.”

But the sincerest and most upright intentions may be refracted by party atmosphere from their aim, and the purest gold from the mint elude the direct grasp through the clearest fluid in existence.  At any rate it would have been difficult to convince the host of deposed magistrates hurled from office, although recognized as faithful servants of the Fatherland, that such violent removal had taken place without detriment to the laws and privileges.

And the Stadholder went to the few cities where some of the leaven still lingered.

He arrived at Leyden on the 22nd October, “accompanied by a great suite of colonels, ritmeesters, and captains,” having sent on his body-guard to the town strengthened by other troops.  He was received by the magistrates at the “Prince’s Court” with great reverence and entertained by them in the evening at a magnificent banquet.

Next morning he summoned the whole forty of them to the town-house, disbanded them all, and appointed new ones in their stead; some of the old members however who could be relied upon being admitted to the revolutionized board.

The populace, mainly of the Stadholder’s party, made themselves merry over the discomfited “Arminians”.  They hung wisps of straw as derisive wreaths of triumph over the dismantled palisade lately encircling the town-hall, disposed of the famous “Oldenbarneveld’s teeth” at auction in the public square, and chased many a poor cock and hen, with their feathers completely plucked from their bodies, about the street, crying “Arme haenen, arme haenen”—­Arminians or poor fowls—­according to the practical witticism much esteemed at that period.  Certainly the unfortunate Barneveldians or Arminians, or however the Remonstrants might be designated, had been sufficiently stripped of their plumes.