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Updated: May 5, 2025
All the scruples and rules by which men had sought to moderate the needless cruelties of war were mocked and flung aside. Ruin marked the track of the German troops, and terror ran before their advance. On August 19 Aerschot was sacked and 150 of its inhabitants killed. On the 20th Andenne met the same fate and the number of the slain was 250.
The Duke of Aerschot, his brother, and son, were in his power, and could do nothing to prevent the co-operation of the colonels in the city with Treslong in the castle; so that the Governor would thus be enabled, laying his head tranquilly upon "the pillow of the Antwerp citadel," according to the reproachful expression subsequently used by the estates, to await the progress of events.
It seemed imprudent to wait until all the regiments had formally accepted the mutiny, and concentrated themselves into a single body. At this juncture, on the last day of July, the Marquis off Havre, brother to the Duke of Aerschot, arrived out of Spain. He was charged by the King with conciliatory but unmeaning phrases to the estates. The occasion was not a happy one.
In the course of the first conversation between Leoninus and the Prince at Middelburg, the envoy urged that Don John had entered the Netherlands without troops, that he had placed himself in the power of the Duke of Aerschot, that he had since come to Louvain without any security but the promise of the citizens and of the students; and that all these things proved the sincerity of his intentions.
There are, as might be expected, two versions of the happenings which precipitated that night of horrors in Aerschot. The German version I had it from the German commander himself is to the effect that after the German troops had entered Aerschot, the Chief of Staff and some of the officers were asked to dinner by the burgomaster.
He believed him a consummate hypocrite, and as deadly a foe to the Netherlands as the Duke of Alva, or Philip himself. He had carefully studied twenty-five intercepted letters from the King, the Governor, Jerome de Roda, and others, placed recently in his hands by the Duke of Aerschot, and had found much to confirm previous and induce fresh suspicion.
The first scene in the withdrawal of the troops had been the evacuation of the citadel of Antwerp, and it had been decided that the command of this most important fortress should be conferred upon the Duke of Aerschot.
With a good deal of inconsistency, the Governor was offended, not only with those who opposed his plans, but with those who favored them. He was angry with Viglius, who, at least nominally, disapproved of the pardon, and with Noircarmes, Aerschot, and others, who manifested a wish for a pacification.
"We hope, after the Duke of Aerschot is governor; that we shall fully carry out the intentions of his Majesty and the plans of his Highness. We shall also know how to circumvent the scandalous heretic with all his adherents and followers." Certainly, if this letter were true, it was high time for the friends of the "scandalous heretic" to look about them.
Ryhove considered himself the friend of the Prince. We have seen that he had consulted him previously to his memorable attack upon Aerschot, in the autumn of the preceding year, and we know the result of that conference.
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