The success attained by the Catholic party in the Walloon negotiations
had caused a corresponding bitterness in the hearts of the Reformers
throughout the country. As usual, bitterness had begot bitterness;
intolerance engendered intolerance. On the 28th of May, 1579, as the
Catholics of Antwerp were celebrating the Ommegang--the same festival
which had been the exciting cause of the memorable tumults of the year
sixty-five--the irritation of the populace could not be repressed. The
mob rose in its wrath to put down these demonstrations--which, taken in
connection with recent events, seemed ill-timed and insolent--of a
religion whose votaries then formed but a small minority of the Antwerp
citizens. There was a great tumult. Two persons were killed. The
Archduke Matthias, who was himself in the Cathedral of Notre Dame
assisting at the ceremony, was in danger of his life. The well known cry
of "paapen uit" (out with the papists) resounded through the streets, and
the priests and monks were all hustled out of town amid a tempest of
execrations. Orange did his utmost to quell the mutiny, nor were his
efforts fruitless--for the uproar, although seditious and disgraceful,
was hardly sanguinary. Next day the Prince summoned the magistracy,
the Monday council, the guild officers, with all the chief municipal
functionaries, and expressed his indignation in decided terms. He
protested that if such tumults, originating in that very spirit of
intolerance which he most deplored, could not be repressed for the
future, he was determined to resign his offices, and no longer to affect
authority in a city where his counsels were derided. The magistrates,
alarmed at his threats, and sympathizing with his anger, implored him not
to desert them, protesting that if he should resign his offices, they
would instantly lay down their, own. An ordinance was then drawn up and
immediately, proclaimed at the Town House, permitting the Catholics to
re-enter the city, and to enjoy the privileges of religious worship. At
the same time, it was announced that a new draft of a religious peace