In 1572, following the first Calvinist synod at Embden in the Netherlands, the Watergeuzen heretics seized 17 priests and two laybrothers in Gorkum and its environs. They threw them into prison, and, after transferring them to Brielle, cruelly mutilated and hanged them, July 9, for refusing to deny their belief in the Blessed Sacrament and the papal supremacy; this in spite of an order of William of Orange that priests should not be molested. They were beatified in 1675 and canonized in 1865.