But there were also throngs of well-dressed citizens and women, who loudly and fearlessly mocked at the gay music and exulting simpletons, who allowed themselves to be cajoled by empty promises.

Where was the relief?
What could the handful of Beggars--which at the utmost were all the troops the Prince could bring--do against King Philip's terrible military power, that surrounded Leyden?
And the inundation of the country?
The ground on which the city stood was too high for the water ever to reach it.

The peasants had been injured, without benefitting the citizens.

There was only one means of escape--to trust to the King's mercy.
"What is liberty to us ?" shouted a brewer, who, like all his companions in business, had long since been deprived of his grain and forbidden to manufacture any fresh beer.

"What will liberty be to us, when we're cold in death?
Let whoever means well go the town-hall and demand a surrender before it is too late." "Surrender! The mercy of the King!" shouted the citizens.
"Life comes first, and then the question whether it shall be free or under Spanish rule, Calvanistical or Popish!" screamed a master-weaver.
"I'll march to the town-hall with you." "You are right, good people," said Burgomaster Baersdorp, who, clad in his costly fur-bordered cloak, was coming from the town-hall and had heard the last speaker's words.