Catholics. A third outbreak in the next year recalled him again to Ghent, where de Hembyze and Dathenus were denouncing him as a papist, a traitor, and an atheist. In a grand message he justified himself to the citizens, and appealed to their patriotism and good sense. A third time he came to Ghent; de Hembyze and Peter, the incendiary monk, hid at his approach. Both were seized and dragged before him. He sternly rebuked them and sent them away unharmed. They fled to John Casimir; and years afterwards de Ryhove caught de Hembyze in manifest treachery, and had him executed. Such were the elements of discord with which the Prince had to deal, and such were the men with whom he was forced to work.
In the clash of these competing bigotries William of Orange strove to enforce mutual toleration by stirring appeals, by indignant rebuke, and by vigorous action. Time after time he drew up and obtained assent to a scheme of religious compromise or peace, on the basis of each party being free to exercise their own worship, subject to conditions to secure public order, and to avoid offence to their opponents. Both Catholic and Reformed communions were to have equal liberty, where either were in sufficient numbers to form a congregation, and were to have separate churches assigned to them. The rites, ornaments, and property of all religious bodies were to be held free from interference, attack, or insult by word or deed. Open-air and tumultuous preaching was forbidden, and everything which could invite strife or wound the conscience of believers in any creed. William now extended this toleration even to Anabaptists, by which his own chief agent was much
