The difference between the two phenomena was, that the field-preaching was a crime committed by the whole mass of the Reformers; men, women, and children confronting the penalties of death, by a general determination, while the imagebreaking was the act of a small portion of the populace.

A hundred persons belonging to the lowest order of society sufficed for the desecration of the Antwerp churches.

It was, said Orange, "a mere handful of rabble" who did the deed.

Sir Richard Clough saw ten or twelve persons entirely sack church after church, while ten thousand spectators looked on, indifferent or horror-struck.

The bands of iconoclasts were of the lowest character, and few in number.