d at the different field-preachings
within that province. "All they needed was a Jacquemart, or a Philip van
Artevelde," says a Catholic, contemporary, "but they would have scorned
to march under the banner of a brewer; having dared to raise their eyes
for a chief, to the most illustrious warrior of his ages." No doubt, had
Egmont ever listened to these aspirations, he might have taken the field
against the government with an invincible force, seized the capital,
imprisoned the Regent, and mastered the whole country, which was entirely
defenceless, before Philip would have had time to write more than ten
despatches upon the subject.

These hopes of the Reformers, if hopes they could be called, were now
destined to be most bitterly disappointed. Egmont entered Flanders, not
as a chief of rebels--not as a wise pacificator, but as an unscrupulous
partisan of government, disposed to take summary vengeance on all
suspected persons who should fall in his way. He ordered numerous
executions of image-breakers and of other heretics. The whole province
was in a state of alarm; for, although he had not been furnished by the
Regent with a strong body of troops, yet the name of the conqueror at
Saint Quentin and Gravelines was worth many regiments. His severity was
excessive. His sanguinary exertions were ably seconded also by his
secretary Bakkerzeel, a man who exercised the greatest influence over his
chief, and who was now fiercely atoning for having signed the Compromise
by persecuting those whom that league had been formed to protect. "Amid
all the perplexities of the Duchess Regent," Says a Walloon historian,
"this virtuous princess was consoled by the exploits of Bakkerzeel,
gentleman in Count Egmont's service. On one occasion he hanged twenty
heretics, including a minister, at a single heat."

Such achievements as these by the hands or the orders of the
distinguished general who had been most absurdly held up as a possible
protector of the civil and religious liberties of the country, created
profound sensation. Flanders and Artois were filled with the wives and
children of suspected I thousands who had fled the country to escape the
wrath of Egmont. The cries and piteous lamentations of these unfortunate
creatures were heard on every side. Count Louis was earnestly implored to
intercede for the persecuted Reformers. "You who have been so nobly
gifted by Heaven, you who have good will and singular bounty written upon
your f