ssembled at the terrible Council of
Blood-with rows of Protestant martyrs burning and hanging in the
distance. Another print showed Prince Maurice and the States-General
shaking the leading statesmen of the Commonwealth in a mighty sieve
through which came tumbling head foremost to perdition the hated Advocate
and his abettors. Another showed the Arminians as a row of crest-fallen
cocks rained upon by the wrath of the Stadholder--Arminians by a
detestable pun being converted into "Arme haenen" or "Poor cocks." One
represented the Pope and King of Spain blowing thousands of ducats out of
a golden bellows into the lap of the Advocate, who was holding up his
official robes to receive them, or whole carriage-loads of Arminians
starting off bag and baggage on the road to Rome, with Lucifer in the
perspective waiting to give them a warm welcome in his own dominions; and
so on, and so on. Moving through the throng, with iron calque on their
heads and halberd in hand, were groups of Waartgelders scowling fiercely
at many popular demonstrations such as they had been enlisted to
suppress, but while off duty concealing outward symptoms of wrath which
in many instances perhaps would have been far from genuine.

For although these mercenaries knew that the States of Holland, who were
responsible for the pay of the regular troops then in Utrecht, authorized
them to obey no orders save from the local authorities, yet it was
becoming a grave question for the Waartgelders whether their own wages
were perfectly safe, a circumstance which made them susceptible to the
atmosphere of Contra-Remonstrantism which was steadily enwrapping the
whole country. A still graver question was whether such resistance as
they could offer to the renowned Stadholder, whose name was magic to
every soldier's heart not only in his own land but throughout
Christendom, would not be like parrying a lance's thrust with a bulrush.
In truth the senior captain of the Waartgelders, Harteveld by name, had
privately informed the leaders of the Barneveld party in Utrecht that he
would not draw his sword against Prince Maurice and the States-General.
"Who asks you to do so?" said some of the deputies, while Ledenberg on
the other hand flatly accused him of cowardice. For this affront the
Captain had vowed revenge.

And in the midst of this scene of jollity and confusion, that midsummer
night, entered the stern Stadholder with his fellow commissioners; the
feeble plans fo