Protestants were permitted to think differently from the ruling church
upon the sacrament, but to receive it differently was a crime; baptism,
marriage, burial, after their fashion, were probibited under pain of
death. It was a cruel mockery to allow them their religion, and forbid
the exercise of it; but this mean artifice of the regent to escape from
the obligation of her pledged word was worthy of the pusillanimity with
which she had submitted to its being extorted from her. She took
advantage of the most trifling innovations and the smallest excesses to
interrupt the preachings; and some of the preachers, under the charge of
having performed their office in places not appointed to them, were
brought to trial, condemned, and executed. On more than one occasion
the regent publicly declared that the confederates had taken unfair
advantage of her fears, and that she did not feel herself bound by an
engagement which had been extorted from her by threats.

Of all the Belgian towns which had participated in the insurrection of
the Iconoclasts none had caused the regent so much alarm as the town of
Valenciennes, in Hainault. In no other was the party of the Calvinists
so powerful, and the spirit of rebellion for which the province of
Hainault had always made itself conspicuous, seemed to dwell here as in
its native place. The propinquity of France, to which, as well by
language as by manners, this town appeared to belong, rather than to the
Netherlands, had from the first led to its being governed with great
mildness and forbearance, which, however, only taught it to feel its own
importance. At the last outbreak of the church-desecrators it had been
on the point of surrendering to the Huguenots, with whom it maintained
the closest understanding. The slightest excitement night renew this
danger. On this account Valenciennes was the first town to which the
regent proposed, as soon as should be in her power, to send a strong
garrison. Philip of Noircarmes, Baron of St. Aldegonde, Governor of