declaring that the conduct of the Ghenters was exciting regret throughout the world, and affording a proof that it was their object to protract, not suppress, the civil war which had so long been raging.  Such proceedings, he observed, created doubts whether they were willing to obey any law or any magistracy.  As, however, it might be supposed that the presence of John Casimir in Ghent at that juncture was authorized by Queen Elizabeth—­inasmuch as it was known that he had received a subsidy from her—­the envoy took occasion to declare that her Majesty entirely disavowed his proceedings.  He observed further that, in the opinion of her Majesty, it was still possible to maintain peace by conforming to the counsels of the Prince of Orange and of the states-general.  This, however, could be done only by establishing the three points which he had laid down.  Her Majesty likewise warned the Ghenters that their conduct would soon compel her to abandon the country’s cause altogether, and, in conclusion, she requested, with characteristic thriftiness, to be immediately furnished with a city bond for forty-five thousand pounds sterling.

Two days afterwards, envoys arrived from Brussels to remonstrate, in their turn, with the sister city, and to save her, if possible, from the madness which had seized upon her.  They recalled to the memory of the magistrates the frequent and wise counsels of the Prince of Orange.  He had declared that he knew of no means to avert the impending desolation of the fatherland save union of all the provinces and obedience to the general government.  His own reputation, and the honor of his house, he felt now to be at stake; for, by reason of the offices which he now held, he had been ceaselessly calumniated as the author of all the crimes which had been committed at Ghent.  Against these calumnies he had avowed his intention of publishing his defence.  After thus citing the opinion of the Prince, the envoys implored the magistrates to accept the religious peace which he had proposed, and to liberate the prisoners as he had demanded.  For their own part, they declared that the inhabitants of Brussels would never desert him; for, next to God, there was no one who understood their cause so entirely, or who could point out the remedy so intelligently.

Thus reasoned the envoys from the states-general and from Brussels, but even while they were reasoning, a fresh tumult occurred at Ghent.  The people had been inflamed by demagogues, and by the insane howlings of Peter Dathenus, the unfrocked monk of Poperingen, who had been the servant and minister both of the Pope and of Orange, and who now hated each with equal fervor.  The populace, under these influences, rose in its wrath upon the Catholics, smote all their images into fragments, destroyed all their altar pictures, robbed them of much valuable property, and turned all the Papists themselves out of the city.  The riot was so furious that it seemed, says a chronicler, as if all the inhabitants had gone raving mad.  The drums beat the alarm, the magistrates went forth to expostulate, but no commands were heeded till the work of destruction had been accomplished, when the tumult expired at last by its own limitation.