Stories of persons and places in Europe . other conquerorscame to the shore of the North Sea they too found these people of themarshes hard to subdue. But when once conquered they became a quietorderly race, too busy with their battles against the sea to engage in uselessfighting. At the time of the Reformation the Netherlands were a part of thedominions of Charles V., Emperor of Austria. He was strongly attached Netherlands, 191 to the church of Rome, and when he found that many of his Dutch subjectswere being converted to the teachings of Luther he was very angry. Hedetermined to root out th
Stories of persons and places in Europe . other conquerorscame to the shore of the North Sea they too found these people of themarshes hard to subdue. But when once conquered they became a quietorderly race, too busy with their battles against the sea to engage in uselessfighting. At the time of the Reformation the Netherlands were a part of thedominions of Charles V., Emperor of Austria. He was strongly attached Netherlands, 191 to the church of Rome, and when he found that many of his Dutch subjectswere being converted to the teachings of Luther he was very angry. Hedetermined to root out this heresy at once. So he sent into the countryspecial officers to hunt out, arrest, torture and burn all who showed anybelief in these dangerous doctrines. Spies were sent into every house, and upon the least suspicion the peo-ple were arrested and shut up in a dungeon. If a suspected person con-fessed his crime and swore to remain faithful to the church of Rome everafterward,he was allowed to go free, but must give up all his WINDMILL. If, however, he declared himself innocent of the charges, he was tried bytorture. At midnight the black robed executioner entered his dungeon,bound him upon a wooden bench, and with weights, pulleys and screwsstrained and racked his poor body until the life was well-nigh crushed he endured this with no sign of suffering, an utter impossibility, his judgeswould take it as a sign that he was innocent of all the errors against theholy mother church ; but if he showed that no miraculous power had cometo him to save him, such as came to Daniel to shut the lions mouths, then 192 Persons and Places in Europe. they said it was a clear evidence of his guilt. If he still persisted in sayinglie was not guilty he was put through the same process the next few people are said to have endured such torture for fifteen years, butmany escaped it by confession which took them at once to the stake andended their suffering in one fierce fla
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