And the poor commonalty and the woeful burgesses waited ever for the valiant and trusty chief that would lead them to battle for freedom.
And they said among themselves: “Where are the illustrious signatories to the Compromise, all united, so they said, for the good of the country? Why did these two-faced men make such a ‘holy alliance,’ if they were to break it at once? Why meet together with so much commotion, rouse the king’s wrath, to dissolve like cowards and traitors after? Five hundred as they were, great lords and low lords banded like brothers, they saved us from the fury of Spain; but they sacrificed the welfare of the land of Belgium to their own profit, even as did d’Egmont and de Hoorn.
“Alas!” said they, “see Don Juan come now, handsome and ambitious, the enemy of Philip, but more the enemy of his country. He is coming for the Pope and for himself. Nobles and clergy are traitors.”
And they began a semblance of war. Upon the walls along the main streets and the little streets of Ghent and Brussels, nay even upon the masts of the Beggars’ ships, were then to be seen posted up the names of traitors, army chiefs, and commanders of fortresses: the names of the Count of Liederkerke, who did not defend his castle against Don Juan; of the provost of Liége, who would have sold the city to Don Juan; of Messieurs d’Aerschot, de Mansfeldt, de Berlaymont, de Rassenghien; the name, of the Council of State, of Georges de Lalaing, governor of Frisia, that of the army leader the seigneur de Rossignol, an emissary of Don Juan, the go-between for murder between Philip and Jaureguy, the clumsy assassin of the Prince of Orange; the name of the Archbishop of Cambrai, who would have given the Spaniards entry into the town; the names of the Jesuits of Antwerp, offering three casks of gold to the States—that was two million florins—not to demolish the castle and to hold it for Don Juan; of the Bishop of Liége; of Roman preachers defaming and abusing the patriots; of the Bishop of Utrecht, whom the citizens sent elsewhere to pasture on the grass of treachery; the orders of begging friars, which intrigued and plotted at Ghent in favour of Don Juan. The folk of Bois-le-Duc nailed on the pillory the name of Peter the Carmelite, who helped by their bishop and his clergy, undertook to hand over the town to Don Juan.
At Douai they did not indeed hang the rector of the university in effigy, a man no less Spaniardized; but upon the ships of the Beggars were seen on the breast of mannikins hanging by their necks the names of monks, abbots, and prelates, of eighteen hundred rich women and girls of the nunnery of Malines who with their money sustained, gilded, and beplumed the country’s butchers.
And on these mannikins, the pillories of traitors, were to be read the names of the Marquis d’Harrault, the commander of the fortress of Philippeville, wasting and squandering munitions of war and food uselessly in order to give up the place to the enemy under pretence of a lack of provisions; the name of Belver, who surrendered Lembourg, when the town might have held out another eight months; that of the President of the Council of Flanders; of the magistrate of Bruges, of the magistrate of Malines, holding their towns for Don Juan, of the members of the Exchequer Council of Guelderland, closed by reason of treachery; of those of the Council of Brabant, of the Chancellery of the Duchy; of the Privy Council and the Council of Finance; of the Grand Bailiff and the Burgomaster of Menin; and of the ill neighbours of Artois, who gave passage without let to two thousand Frenchmen bent upon pillage.
“Alas!” said the city folk among themselves, “here is the Duke of Anjou with a footing in our country: he would fain be king among us; did ye behold him entering into Mons, a little man, with fat hips, big nose, a yellow phiz, a fleering mouth? ’Tis a great prince, loving loves out of the common; he is called, that he may have in his name woman’s grace and man’s force, Monseigneur monsieur Sa Grande Altesse d’Anjou.”
Ulenspiegel was pensive. And he sang:
“Blue are the skies, the clear bright skies;
Cover the banners all in crêpe,