That was the last straw. Coutherele was beside himself. He would hesitate no longer. Not one of these men should escape the sword of his vengeance. His plan was to advance on Louvain under cover of night with what men and arms he could muster, enter through one of the city gates, which, at a given signal, friends within would open, join forces with the craftsmen, stealthily break into the Town Hall, where he knew there were weapons, and then, when each man had armed himself, fall on their adversaries unawares, and slay them in their beds. The plot was doubtless suggested by the Bloody Matins of Bruges, and if it had been possible to carry it out a like result might have followed; but at Bruges the craftsmen were true to one another, at Louvain there was a traitor in the camp, and on the appointed night, when Coutherele and his little band were nearing the Castle of Heverlé,[12] on the outskirts of the city, they found themselves confronted by Winceslaus and an army of knights and burghers; a desperate encounter followed, and the rebels were put to flight.

Even now Winceslaus seems to have been loath to resort to extreme measures against his former friends and accomplices. Coutherele had fled the country, and was beyond his reach, Hanneman and Herengolys had also disappeared, and if he had been left to his own devices he would most likely have found it convenient to follow the advice of his friend Schoonvorst and take no further action in the matter, but the patricians, as was natural, objected.—As long as these murderous ruffians lived they were not safe in their beds; let a price be set on the head of each one of them, and warrants issued for their arrest. And they used another argument, one which experience told them would prove convincing: they jingled their moneybags. And Winceslaus signed the required edict and pocketed 300 florins d'or. This transaction had notable results. Herengolys was presently captured, condemned to death by the city magistrates, and in due course brought to the block; but the aldermen had reckoned without their host, the ex-mayor of Louvain was a clerk, and, as such, not amenable to their jurisdiction, and John of Arkel, who at this time ruled the Church of Liége, no sooner heard of his fate than he set Louvain under interdict. He would never suffer the rights of his clergy to be trampled on with impunity, and moreover he seems to have shared, at all events to a certain extent, Herengolys's political opinions. In his own principality he consistently favoured the aspirations of democracy, and in the struggle at Louvain he more than once intervened, and always on behalf of the people. Perhaps his action in the Herengolys affair was inspired by Peter Coutherele, who, immediately after the disaster of Heverlé, had fled to Liége.

Nothing daunted by the fate of his friend, Coutherele at once set to work to concoct new measures for the deliverance of his beloved city. Having ingratiated himself with Albert of Holland, he now took up his abode in that country, where presently a great conference was held of outlaws from every town in Brabant, during which was planned another attack on Louvain; but this scheme, like the last, was betrayed, and failed miserably.

For years the great agitator led a restless and vagabond life, sometimes in Holland, sometimes in Germany, sometimes in France, never long in one place, always intriguing wherever he went, and making plans which he could never carry out, and hatching plots which, for some reason or other, he could never bring to maturity. At last, at the intercession of his son-in-law, Henri de Cuyck, Winceslaus granted him a free pardon, and permitted him to return to his native city (March 1369), but he was a broken-down, worn-out old man, and he came back to Louvain to die. The few months he had to live he passed in strict retirement in his house in the Rue de la Fontaine, where he died the following year, poor and forgotten.

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[CHAPTER X]
The Peace of 1383