powerful nobles. An army of forty thousand men was soon collected, which
marched, under the command of the Duke of Brabant, into the country of the
Stedinger. The latter mustered vigorously in defence of their lives and
liberties, but could raise no greater force, including every man capable
of bearing arms, than eleven thousand men to cope against the overwhelming
numbers of their foe. They fought with the energy of despair, but all in
vain. Eight thousand of them were slain on the field of battle; the whole
race was exterminated; and the enraged conquerors scoured the country in
all directions, slew the women and children and old men, drove away the
cattle, fired the woods and cottages, and made a total waste of the land.

[Illustration: PHILIP IV.]

Just as absurd and effectual was the charge brought against the Templars
in 1307, when they had rendered themselves obnoxious to the potentates and
prelacy of Christendom. Their wealth, their power, their pride, and their
insolence had raised up enemies on every side; and every sort of
accusation was made against them, but failed to work their overthrow,
until the terrible cry of witchcraft was let loose upon them. This
effected its object, and the Templars were extirpated. They were accused
of having sold their souls to the devil, and of celebrating all the
infernal mysteries of the witches' sabbath. It was pretended that, when
they admitted a novice into their order, they forced him to renounce his
salvation and curse Jesus Christ; that they then made him submit to many
unholy and disgusting ceremonies, and forced him to kiss the superior on
the cheek, the navel, and the breech, and spit three times upon a
crucifix; that all the members were forbidden to have connexion with
women, but might give themselves up without restraint to every species of
unmentionable debauchery; that when by any mischance a Templar infringed
this order, and a child was born, the whole order met, and tossed it about
like a shuttlecock from one to the other until it expired; that they then
roasted it by a slow fire, and with the fat which trickled from it
anointed the hair and beard of a large image of the devil. It was also
said that when one of the knights died, his body was burnt into a powder,
and then mixed with wine and drunk by every member of the order. Philip
IV., who, to exercise his own implacable hatred, invented, in all
probability, the greater part of these charges, issued orders fo