But Captain Marin, upon an order from Messire de Lumey, held the nineteen monks as prisoners, and let the soldiers and the citizens go free.
And Ulenspiegel said:
“The word of a soldier should be a word of gold. Why doth he fail of his?”
An ancient Beggar made answer to Ulenspiegel:
“The monks are sons of Satan, the leprosy of nations, the shame of countries. Since the coming of the Duke of Alba, these fellows lifted up their noses high in Gorcum. There is among them one, the priest Nicolas, prouder than a peacock and fiercer than a tiger. Every time he passed in the street with his pyx in which was his host made with dog’s fat, he would look with eyes full of fury at the houses from which the women did not come and kneel, and would denounce to the judge all that did not bend the knee before his idol of dough and gilded brass. The other monks imitated him. That was the cause of many great oppressions, burnings, and cruel punishments in the town of Gorcum. Captain Marin does well to keep prisoner the monks who would else go off with their likes into villages, burgs, towns, and townlets, to preach against us, stirring up the populace and causing the poor reformers to be burned. Mastiffs are put on the chain until they die: to the chain with the monks; to the chain with the bloed-honden, the duke’s blood-hounds; to the cage with the butchers. Long live the Beggar!”
“But,” said Ulenspiegel, “Monseigneur d’Orange, our prince of liberty, wills that we should respect, among those who surrender, the property of individuals and freedom of conscience.”
The ancient Beggars replied:
“The admiral wills it not for the monks: he is master; he took Briele. To the cage with the monks!”
“Word of a soldier, word of gold! why does he fail of it?” answered Ulenspiegel. “The monks kept in prison suffer a thousand insults.”
“The ashes beat no longer upon thy heart,” said they: “a hundred thousand families, in consequence of the edicts, have taken over yonder, to the north-west, to the land of England, the trades, the industry, the wealth of our country; bemoan then those that wrought our ruin! Under the Emperor Charles the Fifth, Butcher the First, under this one, the king of Blood, Butcher the Second, one hundred and eighteen thousand persons have perished by execution. Who carried the taper of the obsequies in murder and in tears? Monks and soldiers of Spain. Dost thou not hear the souls of the dead lamenting?”