The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1561-62 | Page 6

provinces reeks with his murders.
He burned men for idle words or suspected thoughts; he rarely waited,
according to his frank confession, for deeds. Hearing once that a certain
schoolmaster, named Geleyn de Muler, of Audenarde, "was addicted to
reading the Bible," he summoned the culprit before him and accused
him of heresy. The schoolmaster claimed, if he were guilty of any
crime, to be tried before the judges of his town. "You are my prisoner,"

said Titelmann, "and are to answer me and none other." The inquisitor
proceeded accordingly to catechize him, and soon satisfied himself of
the schoolmaster's heresy. He commanded him to make immediate
recantation. The schoolmaster refused. "Do you not love your wife and
children?" asked the demoniac Titelmann. "God knows," answered the
heretic, "that if the whole world were of gold, and my own, I would
give it all only to have them with me, even had I to live on bread and
water and in bondage." "You have then," answered the inquisitor, "only
to renounce the error of your opinions."--" Neither for wife, children,
nor all the world, can I renounce my God and religious truth," answered
the prisoner. Thereupon Titelmann sentenced him to the stake. He was
strangled and then thrown into the flames.
At about the same-time, Thomas Calberg, tapestry weaver, of Tournay,
within the jurisdiction of this same inquisitor, was convicted of having
copied some hymns from a book printed in Geneva. He was burned
alive. Another man, whose name has perished, was hacked to death
with seven blows of a rusty sword, in presence of his wife, who was so
horror- stricken that she died on the spot before her husband. His crime,
to be sure, was anabaptism, the most deadly offence in the calendar. In
the same year, one Walter Kapell was burned at the stake for heretical
opinions. He was a man of some property, and beloved by the poor
people of Dixmuyde, in Flanders, where he resided, for his many
charities. A poor idiot, who had been often fed by his bounty, called out
to the inquisitor's subalterns, as they bound his patron to the stake, "ye
are bloody murderers; that man has done no wrong; but has given me
bread to eat." With these words, he cast himself headlong into the
flames to perish with his protector, but was with difficulty rescued by
the officers. A day or two afterwards, he made his way to the stake,
where the half-burnt skeleton of Walter Kapell still remained, took the
body upon his shoulders, and carried it through the streets to the house
of the chief burgomaster, where several other magistrates happened
then to be in session. Forcing his way into their presence, he laid his
burthen at their feet, crying, "There, murderers! ye have eaten his flesh,
now eat his bones!" It has not been recorded whether Titelmann sent
him to keep company with his friend in the next world. The fate of so
obscure a victim could hardly find room on the crowded pages of the
Netherland martyrdom.

This kind of work, which went on daily, did not increase the love of the
people for the inquisition or the edicts. It terrified many, but it inspired
more with that noble resistance to oppression, particularly to religious
oppression, which is the sublimest instinct of human nature. Men
confronted the terrible inquisitors with a courage equal to their cruelty:
At Tournay, one of the chief cities of Titelmann's district, and almost
before his eyes, one Bertrand le Blas, a velvet manufacturer, committed
what was held an almost incredible crime. Having begged his wife and
children to pray for a blessing upon what he was about to undertake, he
went on Christmas-day to the Cathedral of Tournay and stationed
himself near the altar. Having awaited the moment in which the priest
held on high the consecrated host, Le Blas then forced his way through
the crowd, snatched the wafer from the hands of the astonished
ecclesiastic, and broke it into bits, crying aloud, as he did so,
"Misguided men, do ye take this thing to be Jesus Christ, your Lord and
Saviour?" With these words, he threw the fragments on the ground and
trampled them with his feet.
[Histoire des Martyrs, f. 356, exev.; apud Brandt, i. 171,172. It may be
well supposed that this would be regarded as a crime of almost
inconceivable magnitude. It was death even to refuse to kneel in the
streets when the wafer was carried by. Thus, for example, a poor
huckster, named Simon, at Bergen-op-Zoom, who neglected to
prostrate himself before his booth at the passage of the host, was
immediately burned. Instances of the same punishment for that offence
might be multiplied. In this particular case, it is recorded that the sheriff
who