His own reputation, and the honor of his house, he felt now to be at stake; for, by reason of the offices which he now held, he had been ceaselessly calumniated as the author of all the crimes which had been committed at Ghent.

Against these calumnies he had avowed his intention of publishing his defence.

After thus citing the opinion of the Prince, the envoys implored the magistrates to accept the religious peace which he had proposed, and to liberate the prisoners as he had demanded.
For their own part, they declared that the inhabitants of Brussels would never desert him; for, next to God, there was no one who understood their cause so entirely, or who could point out the remedy so intelligently.
Thus reasoned the envoys from the states-general and from Brussels, but even while they were reasoning, a fresh tumult occurred at Ghent.

The people had been inflamed by demagogues, and by the insane howlings of Peter Dathenus, the unfrocked monk of Poperingen, who had been the servant and minister both of the Pope and of Orange, and who now hated each with equal fervor.

The populace, under these influences, rose in its wrath upon the Catholics, smote all their images into fragments, destroyed all their altar pictures, robbed them of much valuable property, and turned all the Papists themselves out of the city.