In 1524, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, arrived at Valenciennes, and – even when Henry II of France allied with him against the Protestants in 1552 – Valenciennes became (c. 1560) an early center of Calvinism and in 1562 was location of the first act of resistance against persecution of Protestants in the Spanish Netherlands. On the "Journée des Mals Brûlés" (Bad Burnings Day) in 1562, a mob freed some Protestants condemned to die at the stake. In the wave of iconoclastic attacks called the "Beeldenstorm" that swept the Habsburg Netherlands in the summer of 1566, the city was the furthest south to see such an attack on 24 August 1566. It was also one of the first to feel the hand of repression after the siege and fall of the city on 23 March 1567. One of the victims of that repression was Guido de Bres, the author of the Belgic Confession. Following the "révolte des gueux's victory at Brielle, the army of Louis of Nassau, one of the major commanders of the Dutch rebel forces and supported by the Huguenot leader Gaspard de Coligny, invaded the Spanish Netherlands with an army composed of German, English, Scottish and French soldiers, and took Valenciennes on 21 May 1572. However, Louis went on to Mons, and the