ANDRIES LANGEDUL, MATTHEUS POTTEBACKER, AND LAUWERENS VAN DER LEYEN, A. D. 1559.

APPREHENSION OF ANDRIES LANGEDUL.

At Antwerp three brethren, named Andries Langedul, Mattheus Pottebacker and Lauwerens van der Leyen, were apprehended for the truth. Andries Langedul was apprehended at a time when a meeting had just been held in his house for the preaching of the word of God. Some one had spied it out, and thus the Margrave came there just after the congregation had dispersed, and while Andries was sitting on his porch, reading the Bible. He arrested him on the spot.

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His wife was confined at the time, which the Margrave discovered when he walked towards the chamber, and saw that the midwife had the child on her lap; for the woman had just been delivered. Perceiving this, the Margrave withdrew from the chamber, but apprehended also the women who had come to assist the woman in her distress, and caused the lying-in woman to be guarded by some of his servants. But the nurse, vexed at this, prevented the apprehension of the woman, by entertaining them very liberally, and plying them with wine, so that the sick woman was, without their knowledge, conducted, on planks, across a well belonging to the two neighbors in common, and thus went from her neighbor’s house to the house of Christian Langedul, her husband’s brother, whose wife was also confined at that time.

It has not come to our knowledge, on what particular day Andries Langedul was apprehended, but he offered up his sacrifice with Mattheus Pottebacker and Lauwerens van der Leyen on Thursday, November the 9th, A. D. 1559, and this not publicly, but they were beheaded in prison, in a place where the other prisoners, of whom there were many at that time, could see it from the windows of their cells.

When Andries knelt down to submit to the sword, he folded his hands, saying: “Father, into thy hands I commend”—but: “I commend my spirit” was not finished, the rapid descent of the sword preventing it. Thus all three were put to death as lambs of Christ for the slaughter.

Lauwerens van der Leyen wrote several letters in prison, the following of which have come to our hands.