making common cause against the
same enemy.

As the Huguenots--for so they began to be called in Brabant as well as
in France--were as yet too few {256} to rebel, the only course open was
to appeal to the government once more. A petition to make the Edicts
milder was presented to Margaret in 1566. One of her advisers bade her
not to be afraid of "those beggars." Originating in the scorn of
enemies, like so many party names, the epithet "Beggars" (Gueux)
presently became the designation and a proud one, of the nobles who had
signed the Compromise and later of all the rebels.

Encouraged by the regent's apparent lack of power to coerce them, the
Calvinist preachers became daily bolder. Once again their religion
showed its remarkable powers of organization. Lacking nothing in
funds, derived from a constituency of wealthy merchants, the preachers
of the Reformation were soon able to forge a machinery of propaganda
and party action that stood them in good stead against the greater
numbers of their enemies. Especially in critical times, discipline,
unity, and enthusiasm make headway against the deadly hatred of enemies
and the deadlier apathy and timidity of the mass of mankind. It is
true that the methods of the preachers often aroused opposition.

[Sidenote: Iconoclasm]

The zeal of the Calvinists, inflamed by oppression and encouraged by
the weakness of the government, burst into an iconoclastic riot,
[Sidenote: August 11, 1566] first among the unemployed at Armentieres,
but spreading rapidly to Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, and then to the
northern provinces, Holland and Zeeland. The English agent at Brussels
wrote: "Coming into Oure Lady Church, yt looked like hell wher were
above 1000 torches brannyng and syche a noise as yf heven and erth had
gone together with fallyng of images and fallyng down of costly works."
Books and manuscripts as well as pictures were destroyed. The cry
"Long live the Beggars" resounded from one end of the land to the {257}
other. But withal there was no pillage and no robbery. The gold in
the churches was left untouched. Margaret feared a _jacquerie_ but,
lacking troops, had to look on with folded hands at least for the
moment. By chance there arrived just at this time an answer from
Philip to the earlier petition of the Beggars. The king promised to
abolish the Spanish inquisition and to soften the edicts. Freedom of
conscience was tacitly granted, but the government made an e