as the
sympathies are stronger with popular rights or with prerogative. The
citizens claimed that the subsidy could only be granted by the unanimous
consent of the four estates of the province. Among other proofs of this
their unquestionable right, they appealed to a muniment, which had never
existed, save in the imagination of the credulous populace. At a certain
remote epoch, one of the Counts of Flanders, it was contended, had
gambled away his countship to the Earl of Holland, but had been
extricated from his dilemma by the generosity of Ghent. The burghers of
the town had paid the debts and redeemed the sovereignty of their lord,
and had thereby gained, in return, a charter, called the Bargain of
Flanders (Koop van Flandern). Among the privileges granted by this
document, was an express stipulation that no subsidy should ever be
granted by the province without the consent of Ghent. This charter would
have been conclusive in the present emergency, had it not labored under
the disadvantage of never having existed. It was supposed by many that
the magistrates, some of whom were favorable to government, had hidden
the document. Lieven Pyl, an ex-senator, was supposed to be privy to its
concealment. He was also, with more justice, charged with an act of great
baseness and effrontery. Reputed by the citizens to carry to the Queen
Regent their positive refusal to grant the subsidy, he had, on the
contrary, given an answer, in their name, in the affirmative. For these
delinquencies, the imaginary and the real, he was inhumanly tortured and
afterwards beheaded. "I know, my children," said he upon the scaffold,
"that you will be grieved when you have seen my blood flow, and that you
will regret me when it is too late." It does not appear, however, that
there was any especial reason to regret him, however sanguinary the
punishment which had requited his broken faith.

The mischief being thus afoot, the tongue of Roland, and the
easily-excited spirits of the citizens, soon did the rest. Ghent broke
forth into open insurrection. They had been willing to enlist and pay
troops under their own banners, but they had felt outraged at the
enormous contribution demanded of them for a foreign war, undertaken in
the family interests of their distant master. They could not find the
"Bargain of Flanders," but they got possession of the odious "calf skin,"
which was solemnly cut in two by the dean of the weavers. It was then
torn in shreds