Jacob Hessels or Hessels ( Dutch: Jacob Hessels ; 1506 , the village of Nyukerke , now Belgium - October 4, 1578 , Ghent ) - Attorney General of the Netherlands since 1554 (during the Spanish occupation of the Netherlands). Member of the Bloody Council , established by the Duke of Alba . Hanged for high treason in Ghent. The verdict to Gessel and other Dutch accomplices of the Spanish invaders became a historical precedent, since in the Middle Ages subjects of the Catholic monarchs were considered at the same time as subjects of the Holy Roman Emperor, and the very concept of “high treason” did not make sense.
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Hessels became the hero of Charles de Coster 's fairytale story “Smets Smeee”, where he is a ghost in the main character, the blacksmith Smets Smey, a former participant in the war of independence of the Netherlands, to lead him to hell, because he sold his soul to the devil. Nevertheless, Smetsa deceives him and beats him (and later does the same with other ghosts of hell - the Duke of Alba and King Philip II, the characters equally hated by the Dutch of that era). Later, when the question is decided where to go to the hero - to hell or to paradise - the beating of Hessel and the like executioners becomes the decisive argument that the hero should go to heaven.