Fifty Four Persons, Brothers as Well as Sisters

After much and long tyranny, torturing, murdering and killing of the children of God, it happened further, in the year 1574, by the order of that most dreadful, bloodthirsty tyrant, the Duke of Alva, that thirty seven persons were arrested in a meeting at Antwerp, in Brabant, and at Brussels, in Brabant, seventeen persons at one time, men, women, widows, and young maidens, who, in the places named here, were very severely confined, and tortured and examined with dreadful tyranny, to make them apostatize from the truth of the holy Gospel, and from following Christ, and to obey once more the papistic superstitions, together with all their trumpery of human ordinances and commandments that fight against God. They were especially tyrannized and dreadfully tortured to make them inform against their fellow believers, and deliver them up into the hands of the executioners and torturers, since these were by no means satisfied yet, but thirsted greatly after more innocent blood. But these valiant heroes and men of God courageously resisted and overcame the subtle and tyrannical wiles of the devil, through faith and the invincible power of God (which was in them). So the blind scribes declared them heretics, and delivered them into the hands of the secular authorities. These, made drunk with the wine of the Babylonian whore, allowed themselves, this time and many other times, to be used as the executioners and obedient servants of these idolatrous priests and monks, and caused all these fifty four persons to be burned unmercifully, at different times, so that they all died steadfastly, and spread abroad and confirmed the faith of the eternal truth with their death and blood. And though open thieves and murderers were allowed to open their mouths and confess their distress to the people standing by, and also to call upon the God of heaven for forgiveness of their sins, the awful tyranny and envy against the true children of God were so great that this was often denied them; and to that end they filled the mouths of the pious witnesses of God with gags and balls, so that they were not able to proclaim to the people standing by their innocence and the true reason why they suffered this. But the priests and monks had noticed that these pious men of God, when they came to the place of execution, freed themselves from these gags and balls, and spoke to the people from the word of God; so the monks, in order to prevent this, had instruments made like vises, between which they made the prisoners put their tongues, which they then had screwed fast, and the tips of them touched with a red hot iron, so that they would swell up and thus not slip back. And this new and abominable invention of the monks these tyrants used, to their own everlasting shame, on the persons mentioned here.

All this these true witnesses of Jesus suffered, and they were led to the slaughter as humble sheep and lambs of Christ, who did not resist, but were thus unjustly put to death by them. But it is to be feared that this deed will, at the coming of Christ, when it will be too late to repent, sting their eyes exceedingly; while these brave heroes and heroines, who strove so valiantly for the name of the Lord, will be rewarded by their Bridegroom Christ Jesus upon mount Zion with the crown of eternal glory; for the fight is now fought, and they are now resting under the altar.

Whoever wishes may read Emanuel van Meteren, the praiseworthy historian of the High Lords States; printed in the year 1614. On page 99 this matter will be found verified.