History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

Louvain, whom Luther styled "bloodthirsty
heretics, who, teaching impious doctrines which
they could make good neither by reason nor
Scripture, betook themselves to force, and disputed
with fire and sword.[12] This terrible work went on
from the 23rd of July, 1523, when the protomartyrs
of the provinces were burned in the great
square of Brussels,[13] to the day of the emperor's
abdication. The Dowager-queen, in a letter to her
brother, had given it as her opinion that the good
work of purgation should stop only when to go
farther would be to effect the entire depopulation
of the country. The "Christian Widow," as Erasmus
styled her, would not go the length of burning the
last Netherlander; she would leave a few orthodox
inhabitants to repeople the land.
Meanwhile the halter and the axe were
gathering their victims so fast, that the limits traced
by the regent -- -wide as they were -- bade fair
soon to be reached. The genius and activity of the
Netherlanders were succumbing to the terrible
blows that were being unremittingly dealt them.
Agriculture was beginning to languish; life was
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