nscience eventually to prevail. "Upon
these reports," says a contemporary, "all the vermin of exiles and
fugitives for religion, as well as those who had kept in concealment,
began to lift up their heads and thrust forth their horns." It was known
that Margaret of Parma had ordered the inquisitors and magistrates to
conduct themselves "modestly and discreetly." It was known that the privy
council was hard at work upon the project for "moderating" the edicts.
Modestly and discreetly, Margaret of Parma, almost immediately after
giving these orders, and while the "moderation" was still in the hands of
the lawyers, informed her brother that she had given personal attention
to the case of a person who had snatched the holy wafer from the priest's
hand at Oudenarde. This "quidam," as she called him--for his name was
beneath the cognizance of an Emperor's bastard daughter--had by her
orders received rigorous and exemplary justice. And what was the
"rigorous and exemplary justice" thus inflicted upon the "quidam?" The
procurator of the neighboring city of Tournay has enabled us to answer.
The young man, who was a tapestry weaver, Hans Tiskaen by name, had, upon
the 30th May, thrown the holy wafer upon the ground. For this crime,
which was the same as that committed on Christmas-day of the previous
year by Bertrand le Blas, at Tournay, he now met with a similar although
not quite so severe a punishment. Having gone quietly home after doing
the deed, he was pursued, arrested, and upon the Saturday ensuing taken
to the market-place of Oudenarde. Here the right hand with which he had
committed the offence was cut off, and he was then fastened to the stake
and burned to death over a slow fire. He was fortunately not more than a
quarter of an hour in torment, but he persisted in his opinions, and
called on God for support to his last breath.

This homely tragedy was enacted at Oudenarde, the birth place of Duchess
Margaret. She was the daughter of the puissant Charles the Fifth, but her
mother was only the daughter of a citizen of Oudenarde; of a "quidam"
like the nameless weaver who had thus been burned by her express order.
It was not to be supposed, however, that the circumstance could operate
in so great a malefactor's favor. Moreover, at the same moment, she sent
orders that a like punishment should be inflicted upon another person
then in a Flemish prison, for the crime of anabaptism.

The privy council, assisted by thirteen kn