for they believed the execrations of the populace the
harbingers of their fate. As they entered the vessel, they felt convinced
that a watery death had been substituted for the gibbet. Poor old
Heinrich Dirckzoon, ex-burgomaster, pathetically rejected a couple of
clean shirts which his careful wife had sent him by the hands of the
housemaid. "Take them away; take them home again," said the rueful
burgomaster; "I shall never need clean shirts again in this world." He
entertained no doubt that it was the intention of his captors to scuttle
the vessel as soon as they had put a little out to sea, and so to leave
them to their fate. No such tragic end was contemplated, however, and, in
fact, never was a complete municipal revolution accomplished in so
good-natured and jocose a manner. The Catholic magistrates and friars
escaped with their fright. They were simply turned out of town, and
forbidden, for their lives, ever to come back again. After the vessel had
proceeded a little distance from the city, they were all landed high and
dry upon a dyke, and so left unharmed within the open country.

A new board of magistrates, of which stout William Bardez was one, was
soon appointed; the train-bands were reorganized, and the churches thrown
open to the Reformed worship--to the exclusion, at first, of the
Catholics. This was certainly contrary to the Ghent treaty, and to the
recent Satisfaction; it was also highly repugnant to the opinions of
Orange. After a short time, accordingly, the Catholics were again allowed
access to the churches, but the tables had now been turned for ever in
the capital of Holland, and the Reformation was an established fact
throughout that little province.

Similar events occurring upon the following day at Harlem, accompanied
with some bloodshed--for which, however, the perpetrator was punished
with death--opened the great church of that city to the Reformed
congregations, and closed them for a time to the Catholics.

Thus, the cause of the new religion was triumphant in Holland and
Zealand, while it was advancing with rapid strides through the other
provinces. Public preaching was of daily occurrence everywhere. On a
single Sunday; fifteen different ministers of the Reformed religion
preached in different places in Antwerp. "Do you think this can be put
down?" said Orange to the remonstrating burgomaster of that city. "'Tis
for you to repress it," said the functionary, "I grant your Highness full
po