History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

courageous, notwithstanding, he exhorted the bystanders,
if they had attained a knowledge of the
truth, not to be deterred by the fear of death from
confessing it. In the following month, two youths
were discovered outside the town of Tournay
reading the Scriptures. An intimacy of the closest
kind, hallowed by their love of the Gospel, had knit
them together all their lives; nor were they parted
now. They were strangled and burned at the same
stake.[5] Considering the number and the barbarity
of these executions, it does not surprise one that
Orange and his associates believed that if the
methods of extirpating heresy were to be changed,
it could only be for milder inflictions. They had yet
to learn the fertility of Philip's inventive genius.
Scarcely had Egmont given in his report of his
mission, when new instructions arrived from
Philip, to the effect that not only were the old
placards to be rigorously enforced, but, over and
above, the canons of the Council of Trent were to
be promulgated as law throughout the Netherlands.
These canons gave the entire power of trying and
punishing heretics to the clergy. In short, they
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