Note 1215 — Chapter V

The Flemish councillor, Hessels, who, it may be remembered, had particular charge of the provincial prosecutions, incurred still greater odium by the report of his being employed to draft the sentences of the two lords. He subsequently withdrew from the bloody tribunal, and returned to his native province, where he became vice-president of the council of Flanders. This new accession of dignity only made him a more conspicuous mark for the public hatred. In 1577, in a popular insurrection which overturned the government of Ghent, Hessels was dragged from his house, and thrown into prison. After lying there a year, a party of ruffians broke into the place, forced him into a carriage, and, taking him a short distance from town, executed the summary justice of Lynch law on their victim by hanging him to a tree. Some of the party, after the murder, were audacious enough to return to Ghent, with locks of the gray hair of the wretched man displayed in triumph on their bonnets.

Some years later, when the former authorities were reëstablished, the bones of Hessels were removed from their unhallowed burial-place, and laid with great solemnity and funeral pomp in the church of St. Michael. Prose and verse were exhausted in his praise. His memory was revered as that of a martyr. Miracles were performed at his tomb; and the popular credulity went so far, that it was currently reported in Ghent that Philip had solicited the pope for his canonization! See the curious particulars in Vandervynckt, Troubles des Pays-Bas, tom. II. pp. 451-456.