most a patriarchal length. At the age of nineteen he had taken
part in the battle of St. Quentin, and when once the war of freedom
opened, his sword was never to be sheathed. His days were filled with
life, and when he fell into his bloody but unknown grave, he was to leave
a name as distinguished for heroic valor and untiring energy as for
spotless integrity. He was small of stature, but well formed; athletic in
all knightly exercises, with agreeable features, a dark laughing eye,
close-clipped brown hair, and a peaked beard.

"Golden Fleece," as Nicholas de Hammes was universally denominated, was
the illegitimate scion of a noble house. He was one of the most active of
the early adherents to the league, kept the lists of signers in his
possession, and scoured the country daily to procure new confederates. At
the public preachings of the reformed religion, which soon after this
epoch broke forth throughout the Netherlands as by a common impulse, he
made himself conspicuous. He was accused of wearing, on such occasions,
the ensigns of the Fleece about his neck, in order to induce ignorant
people to believe that they might themselves legally follow, when they
perceived a member of that illustrious fraternity to be leading the way.
As De Hammer was only an official or servant of that Order, but not a
companion, the seduction of the lieges by such false pretenses was
reckoned among the most heinous of his offences. He was fierce in his
hostility to the government, and one of those fiery spirits whose
premature zeal was prejudicial to the cause of liberty, and disheartening
to the cautious patriotism of Orange. He was for smiting at once the
gigantic atrocity of the Spanish dominion, without waiting for the
forging of the weapons by which the blows were to be dealt. He forgot
that men and money were as necessary as wrath, in a contest with the most
tremendous despotism of the world. "They wish," he wrote to Count Louis,
"that we should meet these hungry wolves with remonstrances, using gentle
words, while they are burning and cutting off heads.--Be it so then. Let
us take the pen let them take the sword. For them deeds, for us words. We
shall weep, they will laugh. The Lord be praised for all; but I can not
write this without tears." This nervous language painted the situation
and the character of the writer.

As for Charles Mansfeld, he soon fell away from the league which he had
embraced originally with excessive ardor.