POTTER United Families

Almost all narrative sources, both Protestant and Catholic, show the
animosity of the artisans (metal engravers such as Jan’s father) and
the common people against the alderman oligarchies.
The aversion to the ordinary man against the magisterial group is a
tradition deeply rooted since King Charles The Fifth.
Reporter Jan de Potter could not forgive the aldermen such rude a
conduct towards citizens in Brussels. Here are more extracts of his
diary:
“Political indecision culminated at the beginning of 1570 when the
States-General exhorted Utrecht about the great difficulties that arose
for the "common homeland", from the fact that these local
authorities no longer sent any delegates to the meeting in Antwerp.”
Almost all remonstrance of states and cities demand measures against
the crimes of the Spanish soldiers. Jan de Potter said that the thefts
and the bullying by the Spanish soldiers stationed with him in
Brussels were legion.
There is no doubt that, under Alva, the immense aversion to the
presence of the Spanish troops (the army of the “legal prince”!)
caused a “widespread awareness”.
Citizens felt more and more became like a form of foreign
domination in their free countries. Jan de Potter depicts the aldermen
and their daughters, who celebrated with Spaniards in February 1572
in Brussels, as a kind of "collaborators of the enemy"...
Protestantism had taken away the power of the States everywhere,
handing it over to the people's government of the cities. Brussels and
Antwerp adapted to Ghent's example.
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