Janneken and Noele, in the Year 1558

A young maiden named Janneken was also arrested for her faith, at Antwerp; and when she appeared before the lords, she freely confessed her faith. The Margrave said: "Janneken, if you will renounce, I will show you favor; do according to my will, and I will give you your life." But she replied: "The life that you would give me I do not desire; for your promises are vain and as wavering as a reed, and would only bring me into greater sorrow: cursed is everyone who trusts in man." Jeremiah 17, verse 5.

There was a preacher named Balthazar, who tried to make her believe that God was in the sacrament; but she would not confess it, and said: "In this way you disgrace God in your body; but read the Lord's Prayer once." And when he read it, she said: "There, you see, you read that He is in heaven, and how dare you say, then, that He is in the sacrament?"

In the court she was asked by the bailiff whether she had been rebaptized. She said: "Question me about my faith, and I will freely confess it to you; or are you ashamed of it? I confess one baptism, which must follow faith, and does not pertain to infants, but requires an amendment of life beforehand." The bailiff said: "We have done enough to win you; if you had allowed yourself to be persuaded to recant, you would have done well." She replied: "You have loved my flesh, but not my soul, which you would gladly have devoured; but God will receive it as a child, and make it an heir. And though you are now a bailiff in your glory, you will lament it in the judgment of God, and wish that you had rather been a herdsman* in the fear of God." [n802-1] Then she was sentenced to death, and, having commended her spirit into the hands of God, was drowned in a tub, together with another woman named Noele.