That night Count Brederode gave in his mansion a fine banquet to all his colleagues. The tables were set for three hundred, the board glittered with gold and silver and was loaded with rich food, and all was merriment and glee among the cavaliers, now that the serious business of the day was done.

Amid the laughter and gayety the talk came round more than once to the cause in which they were come together, and at one of these times the contemptuous speech of the Duchess's adviser was repeated, to the great anger of those who heard it for the first time. As the talk about this insult grew more wild and violent, Count Brederode sprang to his feet: "Beggars!" he cried, "do they call us beggars? It were no shame to be beggars for our country's good. Let us accept the name!"

He beckoned to one of his pages, who brought him at his request a leather wallet, such as was worn in that day by professional beggars, and a large wooden bowl, such as they carried from house to house begging kind housewives to fill it with food. The count hung the wallet round his neck, filled the bowl with wine, and drained it.

"To the Health of the Beggars! Long live the Beggars!" he cried, and all the company took up the cry.

Brederode slipped off the wallet and threw it to his nearest neighbor, handing him at the same time the bowl. He in his turn slipped it round his neck, took the bowl, and filled it with wine, drinking to the same toast, "Long live the Beggars!" And so the wallet and the bowl passed around the table, and every man pushed aside his silver goblet to drink with his fellows out of the common wooden bowl. Each, as he held the bowl in his hand, threw a pinch of salt into the wine, for to take bread and salt together has always been in every land a symbol of friendship, and as he threw in the salt he repeated:

"By the salt, by the bread, by the wallet too, The Beggars will not change, no matter what they do."

They laughed as they did it, but there was much behind their laughter. They did not change. The name chosen that night was to spread like wildfire over the Netherlands, and to stand to every Dutch-man for a lover of liberty. There were to be "Beggars of the Sea," who would drive off the Spanish warships; "Beggars of the Land," who would defend the homes of Holland; "Beggars of Leyden," who were to say, "Better our land be ruined than be conquered," and were to open the dikes and let the sea flow in over their fields ripe with the harvest, in order to drive back by water the enemy whom they were not strong enough in numbers to turn back by the sword.

Count Brederode's guests had come to his banquet in velvets and gold laces. They went out to array themselves in doublets and hose of ashen gray, with short cloaks of the same color, all of coarsest materials. The next day they appeared in the streets carrying beggars' pouches round their necks and beggars' bowls slung at their sides.

The Netherlands were not to be delivered in a day. It took the life and death of William of Orange, "Father of the Dutch Republic," to free the land; it took the life and death of many a brave "Beggar" besides; and it took fifteen years of struggle. Englishmen came over in great numbers and helped the Dutch, seeing that these brothers across the Channel were fighting a battle not only for themselves but for all liberty-loving people. But when the war was over, the Dutch had won not only the religious freedom for which they began their fight but political freedom as well. King Philip of Spain was deposed; his authority was denounced by the Dutch nation. On the twenty-sixth of July, 1581, the seventeen provinces of United Netherlands published their Declaration of Independence, throwing off their allegiance to King Philip. "All mankind know," began this Declaration, "that a prince is appointed by God to cherish his subjects, even as a shepherd to guard his sheep. When, therefore, the prince does not fulfill his duty as protector; when he oppresses his subjects, destroys their ancient liberties, and treats them as slaves, he is to be considered, not a prince, but a tyrant." Thus they formed a republic which was the forerunner of our great republic across the seas, and adopted their motto of union, "By concord, little things become great."

To this republic of United Netherlands, with its newly won liberty, came within thirty years a company of English folk,—men, women, and children,—fleeing from persecution for their religious faith. In the earlier days, when Spain ruled the Netherlands, it had been Dutch people who had slipped away and sought shelter in tolerant England. Now a wave of persecution was sweeping England.

In one of the eastern counties of England, right in the heart of the district that had been settled in olden times by the adventurous and freedom-loving Danes, there had grown up in the minds of a little company of people a great longing for religious liberty. The church had come to be managed by the rulers of the land. They began to see that what they felt to be one of the rights of man was being taken away from them. They could not worship as they chose. The state decreed how the church should be managed, and what should be its forms of service. The leaders of these people had seen how free the people were in Holland, and they desired greatly to live in such liberty, and worship in the simplicity which was their wish.

But when these English folk attempted to do this in England, they were not allowed. When their views became known, "they could not continue in any peaceful condition," says William Bradford, their chronicler, "but were hunted and persecuted on every side,—for some were taken and clapped into prison, others had their houses beset and watched night and day, and the most were fain to flee and leave their houses and habitations, and the means of their livelihood. So, seeing themselves thus molested, by a joint consent they resolved to go into the Netherlands, where they heard was Freedom of Religion for all men." And from the time when, with many difficulties, they escaped by ship from England, these people were called Pilgrims, and so they are known to us who live in the land where they finally made their home.

But first the Pilgrims went to Holland, and were kindly received, as Bradford tells us, by the hospitable Dutch. As they came into the waterways of these lowlands, it seemed to these English folk as if they were come into a new world. "They saw many goodly cities, strongly walled. Also they heard a strange and uncouth language, and beheld the different manners and customs of the people, with their strange fashions and attire:—all differing from the plain country villages wherein they were bred, and had so long lived."

They settled first in Amsterdam and then a large number of them desired to go to the fair city of Leyden. So they sent a memorial to the magistrates, asking that one hundred of them might come to dwell in Leyden, and the Court responded that their coming "would be agreeable and welcome."

In Leyden they went to work at trades and other employments to earn their livelihood, and of their record we may well be proud. "Though many of them were poor," says the chronicler, "yet there was none so poor but if they were known to be of that congregation, the Dutch (either bakers or others) would trust them in any reasonable matter, when they wanted money. This was because they had found by experience how careful they were to keep their word, and how diligent in their callings." And the magistrates, "about the time of their coming away, gave in the public place of justice this commendable testimony. These English, said they, have lived amongst us now these twelve years, and yet we never had any suit or accusation come against any of them."

Fortunately for us they did not stay in Holland. The atmosphere of liberty was pleasant to them, but they could not remain in a land of foreign speech and customs and faith. "We live here but as men in exile, and in a poor condition," they said, and they began to long for a land which should be their own, and where they might establish themselves according to their own faith. They feared, too, that the little company would be scattered, and that the children would grow up in the Dutch ways. "Lastly (and what was not least) they had a great hope and inward zeal of laying some good foundation, or at least to make some way thereunto." Therefore they took thought of "those vast and unpeopled countries of America, which are fruitful and fit for habitation," and they departed from the Netherlands and set sail in the Mayflower, in 1620; for the new land of America, where the Teuton love of independence, which had inspired Hermann and Wittekind and Hereward and all the other patriots, was to create out of all nations of the earth a new nation of liberty.