SEVEN BRETHREN AT BREDA, JAN PIETERSS, GELEYN CORNELISS, PIETER DE GULICKER WITH HIS SERVANT, ARENT BLOCK, CORNELIS GIJSELAER, AND ONE MICHIEL, IN THE YEAR 1572.

In the year 1572, when many exiles were residing in Nieuwvaert, near Breda, where they enjoyed a little more liberty than elsewhere, among whom there were also some who, for the testimony and following of Jesus Christ, had fled thither from other places; it happened in the beginning of the month of August of said year, that, many brethren and sisters having come there from without, from Brabant, from Breda, Sevenbergen, and several adjacent villages, also from Holland, from Leyden, Haerlem and elsewhere, which being discovered, it was reported to the Bailiff, while he was sitting at Gerrit Vorster’s, and drank with the steward, who hearing this, was filled with anger and said: “We will disturb that nest, and exterminate that band at once. Thereupon they gathered an armed force, in the evening of the fifth of August, about nine or ten o’clock, when these assembled to hear the preaching, and to marry a couple, in a house standing on the Voorstraet, in the front part of which resided Pieter de Gulicker, a tailor, and in the back part, Jan Pieterss, a weaver, where about one hundred men and women were assembled together. The steward and the bailiff with their men came twice to the house to listen, without accomplishing anything further; but the third time the steward sent a servant, who found them assembled, by the light of many candles, engaged in their preaching. Thereupon came the steward, stadtholder, and bailiff, with all their servants and people, well armed with pistols, halberds, swords, and other weapons, and thrusting open the doors of the house, they apprehended some whom they could get; but most of them broke through the walls, passages, and the roof of the house, and escaped. In all there were apprehended, Jan Pieterss of Vlaerdinge, who lived in the rear part of the house, and ministered to the assembly with the word of truth; Pieter de Gulicker, a tailor, who resided in the front part of the house, with one of his apprentices, who was but sixteen or seventeen years old; Geleyn Corneliss, a shoemaker of Middleharnisse, near Somerdijck; Arent Block of Sevenbergen; and Cornelis, the son of Koppen de Gijselaer, of Dortrecht; and two or three women. These having been apprehended they were brought to Gerrit Vorster’s house, and the men put in irons; but the women were placed unfettered in a chamber by themselves, whence they made good their escape. The next day in the morning there came to these six prisoners Michiel, the uncle of Cornelis de Gijselaer (married to the widow of Valerius, the schoolmaster, who in the year 1568, about three years prior to this, had been offered up at Brouwershaven), who having come to visit his friends, to comfort them from the word of God in their tribulation, the Bailiff happened upon them and apprehended him likewise, saying: “You also belong to this people; you must also stay here with them.”

All the property of these prisoners was immediately written down and confiscated, so that the women and children had to flee deprived and stripped of everything, which was lamented by many. In consequence of these things the people in Nieuwvaert were so terrified, that many dared not stay there any longer, the more so, as the steward had written to the duke of Alva, and having received a letter in return, had gone thither in person. In all, there fled about thirty, brethren as well as sisters, of those who resided in Nieuwvaert, besides all the others who had come there from other places.

The schoolmaster of Nieuwvaert, called Master Pieter Claess van der Linden, who had disputed five hours with Jan Pieterss (besides that the pastor had also disputed with him two or three times), and was greatly embittered against this people, gives nevertheless this testimony concerning them, that their chief and principal errors are: “That they do not baptize infants; that they cannot believe that Christ had his flesh and blood from Mary; and that they regard themselves as the little flock and the elect of God. But that, with this exception, their life and conversation is better than that of many others, and that they also seek to bring up their children in better discipline and fear of God, than many other people. That he also had of their children in his school, who were apter and learned more readily than any others. That he and many others deeply deplored the great persecution and vexation inflicted upon these people, and especially that on account of the men the poor women and children were so lamentably stripped of all their possessions, and driven away into misery.”