Hans van der Straten, in the Year 1571

Shortly after Shrove Tuesday, in the year 1571, the Duke of Alva moved from Antwerp to Brussels, taking with him all the prisoners, those of the reformed as well as those of the Anabaptist religion. Among these prisoners were also this Hans van der Straten, about thirty-one years old, born at Kortrijck, and his wife Tanneken, past seventeen years old, born at Mechlin. Since Hans held firmly to his faith and to the divine truth, he was sentenced to death, and was led outside of Brussels with his mouth screwed open, and there burned alive to ashes, about the middle of Lent, in the year 1571. But his wife, to whom he had been married only six weeks, and who was still very young, at last, through many vexations and tortures, fell away from her faith, and was put into a convent at Breda. From there, at a favorable opportunity, she escaped, and went to Danswijck, where, after she had fully repented of her apostasy, she again united with the church, and from then on always led a pious life until her godly death.