ace," said Utenhove to Louis, "have the power to save these poor
victims from the throats of the ravenous wolves." The Count responded to
the appeal, and strove to soften the severity of Egmont, without,
however, producing any very signal effect. Flanders was soon pacified,
nor was that important province permitted to enjoy the benefits of the
agreement which had been extorted, from the Duchess. The preachings were
forbidden, and the ministers and congregations arrested and chastised,
even in places where the custom had been established previously to the
23d August. Certainly such vigorous exertions upon the part both of
master and man did not savor of treason to Philip, and hardly seemed to
indicate the final doom of Egmont and Bakkerzeel.

The course of Orange at Antwerp was consistent with his whole career. He
honestly came to arrange a pacification, but he knew that this end could
be gained only by loyally maintaining the Accord which had been signed
between the confederates and the Regent. He came back to the city on the
26th August, and found order partially re-established. The burghers
having at last become thoroughly alarmed, and the fury of the
image-breakers entirely appeased, it had been comparatively easy to
restore tranquillity. The tranquillity, however, rather restored itself,
and when the calm had succeeded to the tempest, the placid heads of the
burgomasters once, more emerged from the waves.

Three image-breakers, who had been taken in the act, were hanged by order
of the magistrates upon the 28th of August. The presence of Orange gave
them courage to achieve these executions which he could not prevent, as
the fifth article of the Accord enjoined the chastisement of the rioters.
The magistrates chose that the "chastisement" on this occasion should be
exemplary, and it was not in the power of Orange to interfere with the
regular government of the city when acting according to its laws. The
deed was not his, however, and he hastened, in order to obviate the
necessity of further violence, to prepare articles of agreement, upon the
basis of Margaret's concessions. Public preaching, according to the
Reformed religion, had already taken place within the city. Upon the 22d,
possession had been taken of at least three churches. The senate had
deputed pensionary Wesenbeck to expostulate with the ministers, for the
magistrates were at that moment not able to command. Taffin, the Walloon
preacher, had been tracta