Readiness to strike and bleed at any moment in her cause
     Repentant females to be buried alive
     Repentant males to be executed with the sword
     Sale of absolutions was the source of large fortunes to the priests
     Same conjury over ignorant baron and cowardly hind
     Scoffing at the ceremonies and sacraments of the Church
     Sharpened the punishment for reading the scriptures in private
     Slavery was both voluntary and compulsory
     Soldier of the cross was free upon his return
     St. Peter’s dome rising a little nearer to the clouds
     Tanchelyn
     The bad Duke of Burgundy, Philip surnamed “the Good,”
     The egg had been laid by Erasmus, hatched by Luther
     The vivifying becomes afterwards the dissolving principle
     Thousands of burned heretics had not made a single convert
     Thus Hand-werpen, hand-throwing, became Antwerp
     To prefer poverty to the wealth attendant upon trade
     Tranquillity of despotism to the turbulence of freedom
     Villagers, or villeins

MOTLEY’S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 3.

The rise of the Dutch republic
John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.
1855
Philip the second in the Netherlands
1555 [chapter I.]

Abdication of Charles resolved upon—­Brussels in the sixteenth century—­Hall of the palace described—­Portraits of prominent individuals present at the ceremony—­Formalities of the abdication—­ Universal emotion—­Remarks upon the character and career of Charles —­His retirement at Juste.

On the twenty-fifth day of October, 1555, the estates of the Netherlands were assembled in the great hall of the palace at Brussels.  They had been summoned to be the witnesses and the guarantees of the abdication which Charles V. had long before resolved upon, and which he was that day to execute.  The emperor, like many potentates before and since, was fond of great political spectacles.  He knew their influence upon the masses of mankind.  Although plain, even to shabbiness, in his own costume, and usually attired in black, no one ever understood better than he how to arrange such exhibitions in a striking and artistic style.  We have seen the theatrical and imposing manner in which he quelled the insurrection at Ghent, and nearly crushed the life forever out of that vigorous and turbulent little commonwealth.  The closing scene of his long and energetic reign he had now arranged with profound study, and with an accurate knowledge of the manner in which the requisite effects were to be produced.  The termination of his own career, the opening of his beloved Philip’s, were to be dramatized in a manner worthy the august character of the actors, and the importance of the great stage where they played their parts.  The eyes of the whole world were directed upon that day towards Brussels; for an imperial abdication was an event which had not, in the sixteenth century, been staled by custom.