Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 2, 2025
"Of Symbols, however, I remark farther, that they have both an extrinsic and intrinsic value; oftenest the former only. Or in the Wallet-and-staff round which the Netherland Gueux, glorying in that nickname of Beggars, heroically rallied and prevailed, though against King Philip himself?
A crowd of spectators, landlopers, mendicants, daily aggregated themselves to the aristocratic assembly, joining, with natural unction, in the incessant shout of "Vivent les gueux!" It was impossible that so soon after their baptism the self-styled beggars should repudiate all connection with the time-honored fraternity in which they had enrolled themselves.
"But," Egmont asserted in his written defence, "we drank only one single small glass, and thereupon they cried, 'Long live the King and the Gueux! This was the first time that I heard that appellation, and it certainly did not please me. But the times were so bad that one was often compelled to share in much that was against one's inclination, and I knew not but I was doing an innocent thing."
A writing also was produced in which the high nobility were made to promise their services to the "Gueux," to procure the assembly of the states general, the genuineness of which, however, the former strenuously denied. Four different seditious parties were, they said, to be noticed in the Netherlands, which were all more or less connected with one another, and all worked towards a common end.
We do not find it anywhere stated whether the prince really withdrew at this time from the council of state; at all events, if he did, he must soon have altered his mind, for shortly after he appears again in public transactions. Meanwhile the Gueux had dispersed themselves through the provinces, and spread everywhere the most favorable reports of their success.
Subsequently, when Duke Erich entered Viane, he found nothing but deserted streets, the inhabitants having left it with the garrison on the first alarm. He immediately razed the fortifications, and reduced this arsenal of the Gueux to an open town without defences.
The name of the "Gueux" was extolled in all the provinces; they were called the pillars of religion and liberty; their party increased daily, and many of the merchants began to wear their insignia.
The latter made an alteration in the "Gueux" penny, by introducing two travellers' staffs, laid crosswise, to intimate that they stood prepared and ready at any instant to forsake house and hearth for the sake of religion. The Gueux league, in short, had now given to things an entirely different form.
As the regent resided in the palace, he took up his quarters temporarily in Kuilemberg house, the same in which the association of the Gueux had received its name, and before which, through a wonderful vicissitude, Spanish tyranny now planted its flag. A dead silence reigned in Brussels, broken only at times by the unwonted clang of arms.
A more probable motive seems to have been a fear lest the Catholics should attack the army of the Gueux general in the rear, or lest Launoy should prove victorious, and try to force his way into the town. In clamorous crowds they all ran to the walls and ramparts, from which, as the wind drove the smoke from the contending armies, they commanded a full view of the whole battle.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking