[257] Brandt’s History of the Reformation ... in the Low Countries (London, 1720), i. 172.
[258] Gachard, Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne, ii. 136 ff.
[259] Brandt, History of the Reformation, etc. i. 191.
[260] For this and earlier disturbances at Antwerp, cf. Correspondance de Philippe II., etc. i. 321, 327, 379.
[261] Brandt, History of the Reformation, etc. i. 261, 266. The executions were latterly accompanied by additional atrocious cruelty. “It being perceived with what constancy and alacrity many persons went to the fire, and how they opened their mouths to make a free confession of their faith, and that the wooden balls or gags were wont to slip out, a dreadful machine was invented to hinder it for the future: they prepared two little irons, between which the tongue was screwed, which being seared at the tip with a glowing iron, would swell to such a degree as to become immovable and incapable of being drawn back; thus fastened, the tongue would wriggle about with the pain of burning, and yield a hollow sound” (i. 275).
[262] Gachard, Correspondance de Guillaume le Taciturne, iii. 17.
[263] Cf. William’s letters, Correspondance, etc. iii. 47-73.
[264] Groen van Prinsterer, Archives ou Correspondance inédite de la Orange-Nassau (Utrecht, 1841-61).
[265] The small principality of Orange-Chalons was situated in the south of France on the river Rhone, its south-west corner being about ten miles north of the city of Avignon. Henry of Nassau, the uncle of our William of Orange, had married Claude, the sister of Philibert, the last male of the House of Orange-Chalons; and Philibert had bequeathed his principality to his nephew René, the son of Henry and Claude. The principality was of no great value compared with the other possessions of the House of Nassau, but as it was under no overlord, its possessor took rank among the sovereign princes of Europe.
[266] Putnam, William the Silent, the Prince of Orange, the moderate man of the Sixteenth Century, 2 vols., New York, 1895.