Concerning this Dean of Ronse it is also written, that having gone forth on a certain occasion with a small number of men, to apprehend these witnesses of God, and thus to deliver them into the hands of the torturers and slayers, he came; at evening, into an inn, where he met a bailiff, who had gone out with a great number of beadles, to apprehend vagrants and wicked men. The bailiff asked Ronse with surprise, how he dared trust his body with so few servants, to apprehend other people; for if I were to do so, said he, I would soon lose my life. Thereupon Ronse replied, that he had no fear in this respect, since he had gone out to catch only good men, from whom he had no danger to apprehend. Upon this the Bailiff, particularly reflecting upon Ronse’s words, answered: “If you arrest the good people, and I the bad, who then shall remain free?” Hereby this Dean of Ronse certainly bore testimony of himself, that he had laid his hands on the just, who had not resisted him. So it can also be perceived from this bailiff’s remark, that he himself well knew that the magistracy’s power ought to be used only for the punishment of the evil, and the protection of the good; and that therefore this Ronse and his adherents shamefully abused their authority on these people.
It also happened at Dixmuyden, in Flanders, in the year 1553, when the pious Wouter Capelle, who is mentioned in this book, was burnt for the truth, that there was a simple, harmless fellow, who was arrested by the lords of Dixmuyden. He begged in the streets, and was thus fed by good-hearted people. And since the aforementioned Wouter Capelle, (by trade a say-weaver) was very liberal in supplying the poor with food, communicating to them from the labor of his hands, it occurred, two or three days before Wouter was apprehended, that this simple fellow, late in the evening, came to Wouter’s house. Wouter asked him whether he wanted something to eat. He said: “Yes.” Hence Wouter brought him a piece twice until he did not wish any more. Now when it came to pass, that Wouter Capelle was sentenced to be burnt, this simple fellow cried: “You thieves and murderers, you shed innocent blood; this man has done no evil but has very kindly fed me.” And this he cried constantly, and as Wouter was brought forth to be burned, he also stepped near and wanted to run into the fire with the condemned man, so that they had to carry him away by force. And when he was dead, the burnt body having been brought outside of the city to the gallows-field, this simple fellow daily resorted thither, heeding neither snow nor rain, and stroked with his hands the burnt body, and said: “O poor fellow, you have surely done no evil, and yet they have shed your blood; and you have fed me so kindly.” Finally, when the body had been almost devoured by the birds, this man on a certain occasion took off the whole skeleton, laid it upon his shoulders, and ran in to the gate with it. Hence many people followed him, to see whither he should take it, but he went with it to the lord burgomaster of the city, and when the latter had opened his door, he threw the whole skeleton down into the hall, and said (also other lords being gathered there): “You thieves and murderers, if you have eaten the flesh of this man, eat the bones too.” And as the lords of Dixmuyden had erected an iron stake in the place where the aforesaid Wouter Capelle had been executed, for a token and lasting memorial, that such a heretic (as they regarded him) had been burned there; it came to pass that the burgomaster of said city, into whose house the skeleton had been thrown, became sick unto death, and his sickness so affected him, that in his delirium he cried out: That he had seen the angel of God fly over the stake with the soul of the burnt Wouter Capelle. And this he constantly cried, till the lords caused the iron stake to be removed; then he ceased his cry; but died most miserably shortly afterwards. In consequence of this, it seems, those of Dixmuyden were so frightened that afterwards they shed no more innocent blood.