n
Ryssel, seized John de Swarte, his wife and four children, together with
two newly-married couples, and two other persons, convicted them of
reading the Bible, and of praying in their own doors, and had them all
immediately burned.

Are these things related merely to excite superfluous horror? Are the
sufferings of these obscure Christians beneath the dignity of history? Is
it not better to deal with murder and oppression in the abstract, without
entering into trivial details? The answer is, that these things are the
history of the Netherlands at this epoch; that these hideous details
furnish the causes of that immense movement, out of which a great
republic was born and an ancient tyranny destroyed; and that Cardinal
Granvelle was ridiculous when he asserted that the people would not open
their mouths if the seigniors did not make such a noise. Because the
great lords "owed their very souls"--because convulsions might help to
pay their debts, and furnish forth their masquerades and
banquets--because the Prince of Orange was ambitious, and Egmont jealous
of the Cardinal--therefore superficial writers found it quite natural
that the country should be disturbed, although that "vile and mischievous
animal, the people," might have no objection to a continuance of the
system which had been at work so long. On the contrary, it was exactly
because the movement was a popular and a religious movement that it will
always retain its place among the most important events of history.
Dignified documents, state papers, solemn treaties, are often of no more
value than the lambskin on which they are engrossed. Ten thousand
nameless victims, in the cause of religious and civil freedom, may build
up great states and alter the aspect of whole continents.

The nobles, no doubt, were conspicuous, and it was well for the cause of
the right that, as in the early hours of English liberty, the crown and
mitre were opposed by the baron's sword and shield. Had all the seigniors
made common cause with Philip and Granvelle, instead of setting their
breasts against the inquisition, the cause of truth and liberty would
have been still more desperate. Nevertheless they were directed and
controlled, under Providence, by humbler, but more powerful agencies than
their own. The nobles were but the gilded hands on the outside of the
dial--the hour to strike was determined by the obscure but weighty
movements within.

Nor is it, perhaps, always better