Robert the Frison, not satisfied with having beaten the king of France and the bishop of Liege, reinstated in 1076 the grandson of Thierry of Holland in the possessions which had been forced from him by the duke of Lower Lorraine, in the name of the emperor and the bishop of Utrecht; so that it was this valiant chieftain, who, above all others, is entitled to the praise of having successfully opposed the system of foreign domination on all the principal points of the country. Four years later, Othon of Nassau was the first to unite in one county the various cantons of Guelders. Finally, in 1086, Henry of Louvain, the direct descendant of Lambert, joined to his title that of count of Brabant; and from this period the country was partitioned pretty nearly as it was destined to remain for several centuries.

In the midst of this gradual organization of the various counties, history for some time loses sight of those Frisons, the maritime people of the north, who took little part in the civil wars of two centuries. But still there was no portion of Europe which at that time offered a finer picture of social improvement than these damp and unhealthy coasts. The name of Frisons extended from the Weser to the westward of the Zuyder Zee, but not quite to the Rhine; and it became usual to consider no longer as Frisons the subjects of the counts of Holland, whom we may now begin to distinguish as Hollanders or Dutch. The Frison race alone refused to recognize the sovereign counts. They boasted of being self-governed; owning no allegiance but to the emperor, and regarding the counts of his nomination as so many officers charged to require obedience to the laws of the country, but themselves obliged in all things to respect them. But the counts of Holland, the bishops of Utrecht, and several German lords, dignified from time to time with the title of counts of Friesland, insisted that it carried with it a personal authority superior to that of the sovereign they represented. The descendants of the Count Thierry, a race of men remarkably warlike, were the most violent in this assumption of power. Defeat after defeat, however, punished their obstinacy; and numbers of those princes met death on the pikes of their Frison opponents. The latter had no regular leaders; but at the approach of the enemy the inhabitants of each canton flew to arms, like the members of a single family; and all the feudal forces brought against them failed to subdue this popular militia.

The frequent result of these collisions was the refusal of the Frisons to recognize any authority whatever but that of the national judges. Each canton was governed according to its own laws. If a difficulty arose, the deputies of the nation met together on the borders of the Ems, in a place called "the Trees of Upstal" (Upstall-boomen), where three old oaks stood in the middle of an immense plain. In this primitive council-place chieftains were chosen, who, on swearing to maintain the laws and oppose the common enemy, were invested with a limited and temporary authority.

It does not appear that Friesland possessed any large towns, with the exception of Staveren. In this respect the Frisons resembled those ancient Germans who had a horror of shutting themselves up within walls. They lived in a way completely patriarchal; dwelling in isolated cabins, and with habits of the utmost frugality. We read in one of their old histories that a whole convent of Benedictines was terrified at the voracity of a German sculptor who was repairing their chapel. They implored him to look elsewhere for his food; for that he and his sons consumed enough to exhaust the whole stock of the monastery.

In no part of Europe was the good sense of the people so effectively opposed to the unreasonable practices of Catholicism in those days. The Frisons successfully resisted the payment of tithes; and as a punishment (if the monks are to be believed) the sea inflicted upon them repeated inundations. They forced their priests to marry, saying that the man who had no wife necessarily sought for the wife of another. They acknowledged no ecclesiastical decree, if secular judges, double the number of the priests, did not bear a part in it. Thus the spirit of liberty burst forth in all their proceedings, and they were justified in calling themselves Vri-Vriesen, Free-Frisons.

No nation is more interested than England in the examination of all that concerns this remote corner of Europe, so resolute in its opposition to both civil and religious tyranny; for it was there that those Saxon institutions and principles were first developed without constraint, while the time of their establishment in England was still distant. Restrained by our narrow limits, we can merely indicate this curious state of things; nor may we enter on many mysteries of social government which the most learned find a difficulty in solving. What were the rights of the nobles in their connection with these freemen? What ties of reciprocal interest bound the different cantons to each other? What were the privileges of the towns?—These are the minute but important points of detail which are overshadowed by the grand and imposing figure of the national independence. But in fact the emperors themselves, in these distant times, had little knowledge of this province, and spoke of it vaguely, and as it were at random, in their diplomas, the chief monuments of the history of the Middle Ages. The counts of Holland and the apostolic nuncios addressed their acts and rescripts indiscriminately to the nobles, clergy, magistrates, judges, consuls, or commons of Friesland. Sometimes appeared in those documents the vague and imposing title of "the great Frison," applied to some popular leader. All this confusion tends to prove, on the authority of the historians of the epoch, and the charters so carefully collected by the learned, that this question, now so impossible to solve, was even then not rightly understood—what were really those fierce and redoubtable Frisons in their popular and political relations? The fact is, that liberty was a matter so difficult to be comprehended by the writers of those times that Froissart gave as his opinion, about the year 1380, that the Frisons were a most unreasonable race, for not recognizing the authority and power of the great lords.

The eleventh century had been for the Netherlands (with the exception of Friesland and Flanders) an epoch of organization; and had nearly fixed the political existence of the provinces, which were so long confounded in the vast possessions of the empire. It is therefore important to ascertain under what influence and on what basis these provinces became consolidated at that period. Holland and Zealand, animated by the spirit which we may fairly distinguish under the mingled title of Saxon and maritime, countries scarcely accessible, and with a vigorous population, possessed, in the descendants of Thierry I., a race of national chieftains who did not attempt despotic rule over so unconquerable a people. In Brabant, the maritime towns of Berg-op-Zoom and Antwerp formed, in the Flemish style, so many republics, small but not insignificant; while the southern parts of the province were under the sway of a nobility who crushed, trampled on, or sold their vassals at their pleasure or caprice. The bishopric of Liege offered also the same contrast; the domains of the nobility being governed with the utmost harshness, while those prince-prelates lavished on their plebeian vassals privileges which might have been supposed the fruits of generosity, were it not clear that the object was to create an opposition in the lower orders against the turbulent aristocracy, whom they found it impossible to manage single-handed. The wars of these bishops against the petty nobles, who made their castles so many receptacles of robbers and plunder, were thus the foundation of public liberty. And it appears tolerably certain that the Paladins of Ariosto were in reality nothing more than those brigand chieftains of the Ardennes, whose ruined residences preserve to this day the names which the poet borrowed from the old romance writers. But in all the rest of the Netherlands, excepting the provinces already mentioned, no form of government existed, but that fierce feudality which reduced the people into serfs, and turned the social state of man into a cheerless waste of bondage.

It was then that the Crusades, with wild and stirring fanaticism, agitated, in the common impulse given to all Europe, even those little states which seemed to slumber in their isolated independence. Nowhere did the voice of Peter the Hermit find a more sympathizing echo than in these lands, still desolated by so many intestine struggles. Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lorraine, took the lead in this chivalric and religious frenzy. With him set out the counts of Hainault and Flanders; the latter of whom received from the English crusaders the honorable appellation of Fitz St. George. But although the valor of all these princes was conspicuous, from the foundation of the kingdom of Jerusalem by Godfrey of Bouillon in 1098, until that of the Latin empire of Constantinople by Baldwin of Flanders in 1203, still the simple gentlemen and peasants of Friesland did not less distinguish themselves. They were, on all occasions, the first to mount the breach or lead the charge; and the pope's nuncio found himself forced to prohibit the very women of Friesland from embarking for the Holy Land—so anxious were they to share the perils and glory of their husbands and brothers in combating the Saracens.

The outlet given by the crusaders to the overboiling ardor of these warlike countries was a source of infinite advantage to their internal economy; under the rapid progress of civilization, the population increased and the fields were cultivated. The nobility, reduced to moderation by the enfeebling consequences of extensive foreign wars, became comparatively impotent in their attempted efforts against domestic freedom. Those of Flanders and Brabant, also, were almost decimated in the terrible battle of Bouvines, fought between the Emperor Othon and Philip Augustus, king of France. On no occasion, however, had this reduced but not degenerate nobility shown more heroic valor. The Flemish knights, disdaining to mount their horses or form their ranks for the repulse of the French cavalry, composed of common persons, contemptuously received their shock on foot and in the disorder of individual resistance. The brave Buridan of Ypres led his comrades to the fight, with the chivalric war-cry, "Let each now think of her he loves!" But the issue of this battle was ruinous to the Belgians, in consequence of the bad generalship of the emperor, who had divided his army into small portions, which were defeated in detail.

While the nobility thus declined, the towns began rapidly to develop the elements of popular force. In 1120, a Flemish knight who might descend so far as to marry a woman of the plebeian ranks incurred the penalty of degradation and servitude. In 1220, scarcely a serf was to be found in all Flanders. The Countess Jane had enfranchised all those belonging to her as early as 1222. In 1300, the chiefs of the gilden, or trades, were more powerful than the nobles. These dates and these facts must suffice to mark the epoch at which the great mass of the nation arose from the wretchedness in which it was plunged by the Norman invasion, and acquired sufficient strength and freedom to form a real political force. But it is remarkable that the same results took place in all the counties or dukedoms of the Lowlands precisely at the same period. In fact, if we start from the year 1200 on this interesting inquiry, we shall see the commons attacking, in the first place, the petty feudal lords, and next the counts and the dukes themselves, often as justice was denied them. In 1257, the peasants of Holland and the burghers of Utrecht proclaimed freedom and equality, drove out the bishop and the nobles, and began a memorable struggle which lasted full two hundred years. In 1260, the townspeople of Flanders appealed to the king of France against the decrees of their count, who ended the quarrel by the loss of his county. In 1303, Mechlin and Louvain, the chief towns of Brabant, expelled the patrician families. A coincidence like this cannot be attributed to trifling or partial causes, such as the misconduct of a single count, or other local evil; but to a great general movement in the popular mind, the progress of agriculture and industry in the whole country, superinducing an increase of wealth and intelligence, which, when unrestrained by the influence of a corrupt government, must naturally lead to the liberty and the happiness of a people.

The weaving of woollen and linen cloths was one of the chief sources of this growing prosperity. A prodigious quantity of cloth and linen was manufactured in all parts of the Netherlands. The maritime prosperity acquired an equal increase by the carrying trade, both in imports and exports. Whole fleets of Dutch and Flemish merchant ships repaired regularly to the coasts of Spain and Languedoc. Flanders was already become the great market for England and all the north of Europe. The great increase of population forced all parts of the country into cultivation; so much so, that lands were in those times sold at a high price, which are to-day left waste from imputed sterility.

Legislation naturally followed the movements of those positive and material interests. The earliest of the towns, after the invasion of the Normans, were in some degree but places of refuge. It was soon however, established that the regular inhabitants of these bulwarks of the country should not be subjected to any servitude beyond their care and defence; but the citizen who might absent himself for a longer period than forty days was considered a deserter and deprived of his rights. It was about the year 1100 that the commons began to possess the privilege of regulating their internal affairs; they appointed their judges and magistrates, and attached to their authority the old custom of ordering all the citizens to assemble or march when the summons of the feudal lord sounded the signal for their assemblage or service. By this means each municipal magistracy had the disposal of a force far superior to those of the nobles, for the population of the towns exceeded both in number and discipline the vassals of the seigniorial lands. And these trained bands of the towns made war in a way very different from that hitherto practiced; for the chivalry of the country, making the trade of arms a profession for life, the feuds of the chieftains produced hereditary struggles, almost always slow, and mutually disastrous. But the townsmen, forced to tear themselves from every association of home and its manifold endearments, advanced boldly to the object of the contest; never shrinking from the dangers of war, from fear of that still greater to be found in a prolonged struggle. It is this that it may be remarked, during the memorable conflicts of the thirteenth century, that when even the bravest of the knights advised their counts or dukes to grant or demand a truce, the citizen militia never knew but one cry—"To the charge!"

Evidence was soon given of the importance of this new nation, when it became forced to take up arms against enemies still more redoubtable than the counts. In 1301, the Flemings, who had abandoned their own sovereign to attach themselves to Philip the Fair, king of France, began to repent of their newly-formed allegiance, and to be weary of the master they had chosen. Two citizens of Bruges, Peter de Koning, a draper, and John Breydel, a butcher, put themselves at the head of their fellow-townsmen, and completely dislodged the French troops who garrisoned it. The following year the militia of Bruges and the immediate neighborhood sustained alone, at the battle of Courtrai, the shock of one of the finest armies that France ever sent into the field. Victory soon declared for the gallant men of Bruges; upward of three thousand of the French chivalry, besides common soldiers, were left dead on the field. In 1304, after a long contested battle, the Flemings forced the king of France to release their count, whom he had held prisoner. "I believe it rains Flemings!" said Philip, astonished to see them crowd on him from all sides of the field. But this multitude of warriors, always ready to meet the foe, were provided for the most part by the towns. In the seigniorial system a village hardly furnished more than four or five men, and these only on important occasions; but in that of the towns every citizen was enrolled as a soldier to defend the country at all times.

The same system established in Brabant forced the duke of that province to sanction and guarantee the popular privileges, and the superiority of the people over the nobility. Such was the result of the famous contract concluded in 1312 at Cortenbergh, by which the duke created a legislative and judicial assembly to meet every twenty-one days for the, provincial business; and to consist of fourteen deputies, of whom only four were to be nobles, and ten were chosen from the people. The duke was bound by this act to hold himself in obedience to the legislative decisions of the council, and renounced all right of levying arbitrary taxes or duties on the state. Thus were the local privileges of the people by degrees secured and ratified; but the various towns, making common cause for general liberty, became strictly united together, and progressively extended their influence and power. The confederation between Flanders and Brabant was soon consolidated. The burghers of Bruges, who had taken the lead in the grand national union, and had been the foremost to expel the foreign force, took umbrage in 1323 at an arbitrary measure of their count, Louis (called of Cressy by posthumous nomination, from his having been killed at that celebrated fight), by which he ceded to the count of Namur, his great-uncle, the port of Ecluse, and authorized him to levy duties there in the style of the feudal lords of the high country. It was but the affair of a day to the intrepid citizens to attack the fortress of Ecluse, carry it by assault, and take prisoner the old count of Namur. They destroyed in a short time almost all the strong castles of the nobles throughout the province; and having been joined by all the towns of western Flanders, they finally made prisoners of Count Louis himself, with almost the whole of the nobility, who had taken refuge with him in the town of Courtrai. But Ghent, actuated by the jealousy which at all times existed between it and Bruges, stood aloof at this crisis. The latter town was obliged to come to a compromise with the count, who soon afterward, on a new quarrel breaking out, and supported by the king of France, almost annihilated his sturdy opponents at the battle of Cassel, where the Flemish infantry, commanded by Nicholas Zannekin and others, were literally cut to pieces by the French knights and men-at-arms.

This check proved the absolute necessity of union among the rival cities. Ten years after the battle of Cassel, Ghent set the example of general opposition; this example was promptly followed, and the chief towns flew to arms. The celebrated James d'Artaveldt, commonly called the brewer of Ghent, put himself at the head of this formidable insurrection. He was a man of a distinguished family, who had himself enrolled among the guild of brewers, to entitle him to occupy a place in the corporation of Ghent, which he soon succeeded in managing and leading at his pleasure. The tyranny of the count, and the French party which supported him, became so intolerable to Artaveldt, that he resolved to assail them at all hazards, unappalled by the fate of his father-in-law, Sohier de Courtrai, who lost his head for a similar attempt, and notwithstanding the hitherto devoted fidelity of his native city to the count. One only object seemed insurmountable. The Flemings had sworn allegiance to the crown of France; and they revolted at the idea of perjury, even from an extorted oath. But to overcome their scruples, Artaveldt proposed to acknowledge the claim of Edward III. of England to the French crown. The Flemings readily acceded to this arrangement; quickly overwhelmed Count Louis of Cressy and his French partisans; and then joined, with an army of sixty thousand men, the English monarch, who had landed at Antwerp. These numerous auxiliaries rendered Edward's army irresistible; and soon afterward the French and English fleets, both of formidable power, but the latter of inferior force, met near Sluys, and engaged in a battle meant to be decisive of the war: victory remained doubtful during an entire day of fighting, until a Flemish squadron, hastening to the aid of the English, fixed the fate of the combat by the utter defeat of the enemy.

A truce between the two kings did not deprive Artaveldt of his well-earned authority. He was invested with the title of ruward, or conservator of the peace, of Flanders, and governed the whole province with almost sovereign sway. It was said that King Edward used familiarly to call him "his dear gossip"; and it is certain that there was not a feudal lord of the time whose power was not eclipsed by this leader of the people. One of the principal motives which cemented the attachment of the Flemings to Artaveldt was the advantage obtained through his influence with Edward for facilitating the trade with England, whence they procured the chief supply of wool for their manufactories. Edward promised them seventy thousand sacks as the reward of their alliance. But though greatly influenced by the stimulus of general interest, the Flemings loved their domestic liberty better than English wool; and when they found that their ruward degenerated from a firm patriot into the partisan of a foreign prince, they became disgusted with him altogether; and he perished in 1345, in a tumult raised against him by those by whom he had been so lately idolized. The Flemings held firm, nevertheless, in their alliance with England, only regulating the connection by a steady principle of national independence.

Edward knew well how to conciliate and manage these faithful and important auxiliaries during all his continental wars. A Flemish army covered the siege of Calais in 1348; and, under the command of Giles de Rypergherste, a mere weaver of Ghent, they beat the dauphin of France in a pitched battle. But Calais once taken, and a truce concluded, the English king abandoned his allies. These, left wholly to their own resources, forced the French and the heir of their count, young Louis de Male, to recognize their right to self-government according to their ancient privileges, and of not being forced to give aid to France in any war against England. Flanders may therefore be pronounced as forming, at this epoch, both in right and fact, a truly independent principality.

But such struggles as these left a deep and immovable sentiment of hatred in the minds of the vanquished. Louis de Male longed for the re-establishment and extension of his authority; and had the art to gain over to his views not only all the nobles, but many of the most influential guilds or trades. Ghent, which long resisted his attempts, was at length reduced by famine; and the count projected the ruin, or at least the total subjection, of this turbulent town. A son of Artaveldt started forth at this juncture, when the popular cause seemed lost, and joining with his fellow-citizens, John Lyons and Peter du Bois, he led seven thousand resolute burghers against forty thousand feudal vassals. He completely defeated the count, and took the town of Bruges, where Louis de Male only obtained safety by hiding himself under the bed of an old woman who gave him shelter. Thus once more feudality was defeated in a fresh struggle with civic freedom.

The consequences of this event were immense. They reached to the very heart of France, where the people bore in great discontent the feudal yoke; and Froissart declares that the success of the people of Gheut had nearly overthrown the superiority of the nobility over the people in France. But the king, Charles VI., excited by his uncle, Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy, took arms in support of the defeated count, and marched with a powerful army against the rebellious burghers. Though defeated in four successive combats, in the latter of which, that of Roosbeke, Artaveldt was killed, the Flemings would not submit to their imperious count, who used every persuasion with Charles to continue his assistance for the punishment of these refractory subjects. But the duke of Burgundy was aware that a too great perseverance would end, either in driving the people to despair and the possible defeat of the French, or the entire conquest of the country and its junction to the crown of France. He, being son-in-law to Louis de Male, and consequently aspiring to the inheritance of Flanders, saw with a keen glance the advantage of a present compromise. On the death of Louis, who is stated to have been murdered by Philip's brother, the duke of Berri, be concluded a peace with the rebel burghers, and entered at once upon the sovereignty of the country.



CHAPTER V

FROM THE SUCCESSION OF PHILIP THE BOLD TO THE COUNTY OF FLANDERS, TO THE DEATH OF PHILIP THE FAIR

A.D. 1384—1506

Thus the house of Burgundy, which soon after became so formidable and celebrated, obtained this vast accession to its power. The various changes which had taken place in the neighboring provinces during the continuance of these civil wars had altered the state of Flanders altogether. John d'Avesnes, count of Hainault, having also succeeded in 1299 to the county of Holland, the two provinces, though separated by Flanders and Brabant, remained from that time under the government of the same chief, who soon became more powerful than the bishops of Utrecht, or even than their formidable rivals the Frisons.

During the wars which desolated these opposing territories, in consequence of the perpetual conflicts for superiority, the power of the various towns insensibly became at least as great as that of the nobles to whom they were constantly opposed. The commercial interests of Holland, also, were considerably advanced by the influx of Flemish merchants forced to seek refuge there from the convulsions which agitated their province. Every day confirmed and increased the privileges of the people of Brabant; while at Liege the inhabitants gradually began to gain the upper hand, and to shake off the former subjection to their sovereign bishops.

Although Philip of Burgundy became count of Flanders, by the death of his father-in-law, in the year 1384, it was not till the following year that he concluded a peace with the people of Ghent, and entered into quiet possession of the province. In the same year the duchess of Brabant, the last descendant of the duke of that province, died, leaving no nearer relative than the duchess of Burgundy; so that Philip obtained in right of his wife this new and important accession to his dominions. But the consequent increase of the sovereign's power was not, as is often the case, injurious to the liberties or happiness of the people. Philip continued to govern in the interest of the country, which he had the good sense to consider as identified with his own. He augmented the privileges of the towns, and negotiated for the return into Flanders of those merchants who had emigrated to Germany and Holland during the continuance of the civil wars. He thus by degrees accustomed his new subjects, so proud of their rights, to submit to his authority; and his peaceable reign was only disturbed by the fatal issue of the expedition of his son, John the Fearless, count of Nevers, against the Turks. This young prince, filled with ambition and temerity, was offered the command of the force sent by Charles III. of France to the assistance of Sigismund of Hungary in his war against Bajazet. Followed by a numerous body of nobles, he entered on the contest, and was defeated and taken prisoner by the Turks at the battle of Nicopolis. His army was totally destroyed, and himself only restored to liberty on the payment of an immense ransom.

John the Fearless succeeded in 1404 to the inheritance of all his father's dominions, with the exception of Brabant, of which his younger brother, Anthony of Burgundy, became duke. John, whose ambitious and ferocious character became every day more strongly developed, now aspired to the government of France during the insanity of his cousin Charles VI. He occupied himself little with the affairs of the Netherlands, from which he only desired to draw supplies of men. But the Flemings, taking no interest in his personal views or private projects, and equally indifferent to the rivalry of England and France, which now began so fearfully to affect the latter kingdom, forced their ambitious count to declare their province a neutral country; so that the English merchants were admitted as usual to trade in all the ports of Flanders, and the Flemings equally well received in England, while the duke made open war against Great Britain in his quality of a prince of France and sovereign of Burgundy. This is probably the earliest well-established instance of such a distinction between the prince and the people.

Anthony, duke of Brabant, the brother of Philip, was not so closely restricted in his authority and wishes. He led all the nobles of the province to take part in the quarrels of France; and he suffered the penalty of his rashness in meeting his death in the battle of Agincourt. But the duchy suffered nothing by this event, for the militia of the country had not followed their duke and his nobles to the war; and a national council was now established, consisting of eleven persons, two of whom were ecclesiastics, three barons, two knights, and four commoners. This council, formed on principles so fairly popular, conducted the public affairs with great wisdom during the minority of the young duke. Each province seems thus to have governed itself upon principles of republican independence. The sovereigns could not at discretion, or by the want of it, play the bloody game of war for their mere amusement; and the emperor putting in his claim at this epoch to his ancient rights of sovereignty over Brabant, as an imperial fief, the council and the people treated the demand with derision.

The spirit of constitutional liberty and legal equality which now animated the various provinces is strongly marked in the history of the time by two striking and characteristic incidents. At the death of Philip the Bold, his widow deposited on his tomb her purse, and the keys which she carried at her girdle in token of marriage; and by this humiliating ceremony she renounced her rights to a succession overloaded with her husband's debts. In the same year (1404) the widow of Albert, count of Holland and Hainault, finding herself in similar circumstances, required of the bailiff of Holland and the judges of his court permission to make a like renunciation. The claim was granted; and, to fulfil the requisite ceremony, she walked at the head of the funeral procession, carrying in her hand a blade of straw, which she placed on the coffin. We thus find that in such cases the reigning families were held liable to follow the common usages of the country. From such instances there required but little progress in the principle of equality to reach the republican contempt for rank which made the citizens of Bruges in the following century arrest their count for his private debts.

The spirit of independence had reached the same point at Liege. The families of the counts of Holland and Hainault, which were at this time distinguished by the name of Bavaria, because they were only descended from the ancient counts of Netherland extraction in the female line, had sufficient influence to obtain the nomination to the bishopric for a prince who was at the period in his infancy. John of Bavaria—for so he was called, and to his name was afterward added the epithet of "the Pitiless"—on reaching his majority, did not think it necessary to cause himself to be consecrated a priest, but governed as a lay sovereign. The indignant citizens of Liege expelled him, and chose another bishop. But the Houses of Burgundy and Bavaria, closely allied by intermarriages, made common cause in his quarrel; and John, duke of Burgundy, and William IV., count of Holland and Hainault, brother of the bishop, replaced by force this cruel and unworthy prelate.

This union of the government over all the provinces in two families so closely connected rendered the preponderance of the rulers too strong for that balance hitherto kept steady by the popular force. The former could on each new quarrel join together, and employ against any particular town their whole united resources; whereas the latter could only act by isolated efforts for the maintenance of their separate rights. Such was the cause of a considerable decline in public liberty during the fifteenth century. It is true that John the Fearless gave almost his whole attention to his French political intrigues, and to the fierce quarrels which he maintained with the House of Orleans. But his nephew, John, duke of Brabant, having married, in 1416, his cousin Jacqueline, daughter and heiress of William IV., count of Holland and Hainault, this branch of the House of Burgundy seemed to get the start of the elder in its progressive influence over the provinces of the Netherlands. The dukes of Guelders, who had changed their title of counts for one of superior rank, acquired no accession of power proportioned to their new dignity. The bishops of Utrecht became by degrees weaker; private dissensions enfeebled Friesland; Luxemburg was a poor, unimportant dukedom; but Holland, Hainault, and Brabant formed the very heart of the Netherlands; while the elder branch of the same family, under whom they were united, possessed Flanders, Artois, and the two Burgundies. To complete the prosperity and power of this latter branch, it was soon destined to inherit the entire dominions of the other.

A fact the consequences of which were so important for the entire of Europe merits considerable attention; but it is most difficult to explain at once concisely and clearly the series of accidents, manoeuvres, tricks, and crimes by which it was accomplished. It must first be remarked that this John of Brabant, become the husband of his cousin Jacqueline, countess of Holland and Hainault, possessed neither the moral nor physical qualities suited to mate with the most lovely, intrepid, and talented woman of her times; nor the vigor and firmness required for the maintenance of an increased, and for those days a considerable, dominion. Jacqueline thoroughly despised her insignificant husband; first in secret, and subsequently by those open avowals forced from her by his revolting combination of weakness, cowardice, and tyranny. He tamely allowed the province of Holland to be invaded by the same ungrateful bishop of Liege, John the Pitiless, whom his wife's father and his own uncle had re-established in his justly forfeited authority. But John of Brabant revenged himself for his wife's contempt by a series of domestic persecutions so odious that the states of Brabant interfered for her protection. Finding it, however, impossible to remain in a perpetual contest with a husband whom she hated and despised, she fled from Brussels, where he held his ducal court, and took refuge in England, under the protection of Henry V., at that time in the plenitude of his fame and power.

England at this epoch enjoyed the proudest station in European affairs. John the Fearless, after having caused the murder of his rival, the duke of Orleans, was himself assassinated on the bridge of Montereau by the followers of the dauphin of France, and in his presence. Philip, duke of Burgundy, the son and successor of John, had formed a close alliance with Henry V., to revenge his father's murder; and soon after the death of the king he married his sister, and thus united himself still more nearly to the celebrated John, duke of Bedford, brother of Henry, and regent of France, in the name of his infant nephew, Henry VI. But besides the share on which he reckoned in the spoils of France, Philip also looked with a covetous eye on the inheritance of Jacqueline, his cousin. As soon as he had learned that this princess, so well received in England, was taking measures for having her marriage annulled, to enable her to espouse the duke of Gloucester, also the brother of Henry V., and subsequently known by the appellation of "the good duke Humphrey," he was tormented by a double anxiety. He, in the first place, dreaded that Jacqueline might have children by her projected marriage with Gloucester (a circumstance neither likely nor even possible, in the opinion of some historians, to result from her union with John of Brabant: Hume, vol. iii., p. 133), and thus deprive him of his right of succession to her states; and in the next, he was jealous of the possible domination of England in the Netherlands as well as in France. He therefore soon became self-absolved from all his vows of revenge in the cause of his murdered father, and labored solely for the object of his personal aggrandizement. To break his connection with Bedford; to treat secretly with the dauphin, his father's assassin, or at least the witness and warrant for his assassination; and to shuffle from party to party as occasion required, were movements of no difficulty to Philip, surnamed "the Good." He openly espoused the cause of his infamous relative, John of Brabant; sent a powerful army into Hainault, which Gloucester vainly strove to defend in right of his affianced wife; and next seized on Holland and Zealand, where he met with a long but ineffectual resistance on the part of the courageous woman he so mercilessly oppressed. Jacqueline, deprived of the assistance of her stanch but ruined friends,[1] and abandoned by Gloucester (who, on the refusal of Pope Martin V. to sanction her divorce, had married another woman, and but feebly aided the efforts of the former to maintain her rights), was now left a widow by the death of John of Brabant. But Philip, without a shadow of justice, pursued his designs against her dominions, and finally despoiled her of her last possessions, and even of the title of countess, which she forfeited by her marriage with Vrank Van Borselen, a gentleman of Zealand, contrary to a compact to which Philip's tyranny had forced her to consent. After a career the most checkered and romantic which is recorded in history, the beautiful and hitherto unfortunate Jacqueline found repose and happiness in the tranquillity of private life, and her death in 1436, at the age of thirty-six, removed all restraint from Philip's thirst for aggrandizement, in the indulgence of which he drowned his remorse. As if fortune had conspired for the rapid consolidation of his greatness, the death of Philip, count of St. Pol, who had succeeded his brother John in the dukedom of Brabant, gave him the sovereignty of that extensive province; and his dominions soon extended to the very limits of Picardy, by the Peace of Arras, concluded with the dauphin, now become Charles VII., and by his finally contracting a strict alliance with France.

[Footnote 1: We must not omit to notice the existence of two factions, which, for near two centuries, divided and agitated the whole population of Holland and Zealand. One bore the title of Hoeks (fishing-hooks); the other was called Kaabel-jauws (cod-fish). The origin of these burlesque denominations was a dispute between two parties at a feast, as to whether the cod-fish took the hook or the hook the cod-fish? This apparently frivolous dispute was made the pretext for a serious quarrel; and the partisans of the nobles and those of the towns ranged themselves at either side, and assumed different badges of distinction. The Hoeks, partisans of the towns, wore red caps; the Kaabeljauws wore gray ones. In Jacqueline's quarrel with Philip of Burgundy, she was supported by the former; and it was not till the year 1492 that the extinction of that popular and turbulent faction struck a final blow to the dissensions of both.]

Philip of Burgundy, thus become sovereign of dominions at once so extensive and compact, had the precaution and address to obtain from the emperor a formal renunciation of his existing, though almost nominal, rights as lord paramount. He next purchased the title of the duchess of Luxemburg to that duchy; and thus the states of the House of Burgundy gained an extent about equal to that of the existing kingdom of the Netherlands. For although on the north and east they did not include Friesland, the bishopric of Utrecht, Guelders, or the province of Liege, still on the south and west they comprised French Flanders, the Boulonnais, Artois, and a part of Picardy, besides Burgundy. But it has been already seen how limited an authority was possessed by the rulers of the maritime provinces. Flanders in particular, the most populous and wealthy, strictly preserved its republican institutions. Ghent and Bruges were the two great towns of the province, and each maintained its individual authority over its respective territory, with great indifference to the will or the wishes of the sovereign duke. Philip, however, had the policy to divide most effectually these rival towns. After having fallen into the hands of the people of Bruges, whom he made a vain attempt to surprise, and who massacred numbers of his followers before his eyes, he forced them to submission by the assistance of the citizens of Ghent, who sanctioned the banishment of the chief men of the vanquished town. But some years later Ghent was in its turn oppressed and punished for having resisted the payment of some new tax. It found no support from the rest of Flanders. Nevertheless this powerful city singly maintained the war for the space of two years; but the intrepid burghers finally yielded to the veterans of the duke, formed to victory in the French wars. The principal privileges of Ghent were on this occasion revoked and annulled.

During these transactions the province of Holland, which enjoyed a degree of liberty almost equal to Flanders, had declared war against the Hanseatic towns on its own proper authority. Supported by Zealand, which formed a distinct country, but was strictly united to it by a common interest, Holland equipped a fleet against the pirates which infested their coasts and assailed their commerce, and soon forced them to submission. Philip in the meantime contrived to manage the conflicting elements of his power with great subtlety. Notwithstanding his ambitious and despotic character, he conducted himself so cautiously that his people by common consent confirmed his title of "the Good," which was somewhat inappropriately given to him at the very epoch when he appeared to deserve it least. Age and exhaustion may be adduced among the causes of the toleration which signalized his latter years; and if he was the usurper of some parts of his dominions, he cannot be pronounced a tyrant over any.

Philip had an only son, born and reared in the midst of that ostentatious greatness which he looked on as his own by divine right; whereas his father remembered that it had chiefly become his by fortuitous acquirement, and much of it by means not likely to look well in the sight of Heaven. This son was Charles, count of Charolois, afterward celebrated under the name of Charles the Rash. He gave, even in the lifetime of his father, a striking specimen of despotism to the people of Holland. Appointed stadtholder of that province in 1457, he appropriated to himself several important successions; forced the inhabitants to labor in the formation of dikes for the security of the property thus acquired; and, in a word, conducted himself as an absolute master. Soon afterward he broke out into open opposition to his father, who had complained of this undutiful and impetuous son to the states of the provinces, venting his grief in lamentations instead of punishing his people's wrongs. But his private rage burst forth one day in a manner as furious as his public expressions were tame. He went so far as to draw his sword on Charles and pursue him through his palace; and a disgusting yet instructive spectacle it was, to see this father and son in mutual and disgraceful discord, like two birds of prey quarrelling in the same eyry; the old count outrageous to find he was no longer undisputed sovereign, and the young one in feeling that he had not yet become so. But Philip was declining daily. Yet even when dying he preserved his natural haughtiness and energy; and being provoked by the insubordination of the people of Liege, he had himself carried to the scene of their punishment. The refractory town of Dinant, on the Meuse, was utterly destroyed by the two counts, and six hundred of the citizens drowned in the river, and in cold blood. The following year Philip expired, leaving to Charles his long-wished-for inheritance.

The reign of Philip had produced a revolution in Belgian manners; for his example and the great increase of wealth had introduced habits of luxury hitherto quite unknown. He had also brought into fashion romantic notions of military honor, love, and chivalry; which, while they certainly softened the character of the nobility, contained nevertheless a certain mixture of frivolity and extravagance. The celebrated order of the Golden Fleece, which was introduced by Philip, was less an institution based on grounds of rational magnificence than a puerile emblem of his passion for Isabella of Portugal, his third wife. The verses of a contemporary poet induced him to make a vow for the conquest of Constantinople from the Turks. He certainly never attempted to execute this senseless crusade; but he did not omit so fair an opportunity for levying new taxes on his people. And it is undoubted that the splendor of his court and the immorality of his example were no slight sources of corruption to the countries which he governed.

In this respect, at least, a totally different kind of government was looked for on the part of his son and successor, who was by nature and habit a mere soldier. Charles began his career by seizing on all the money and jewels left by his father; he next dismissed the crowd of useless functionaries who had fed upon, under the pretence of managing, the treasures of the state. But this salutary and sweeping reform was only effected to enable the sovereign to pursue uncontrolled the most fatal of all passions, that of war. Nothing can better paint the true character of this haughty and impetuous prince than his crest (a branch of holly), and his motto, "Who touches it, pricks himself." Charles had conceived a furious and not ill-founded hatred for his base yet formidable neighbor and rival, Louis XI. of France. The latter had succeeded in obtaining from Philip the restitution of some towns in Picardy; cause sufficient to excite the resentment of his inflammable successor, who, during his father's lifetime, took open part with some of the vassals of France in a temporary struggle against the throne. Louis, who had been worsted in a combat where both he and Charles bore a part, was not behindhand in his hatred. But inasmuch as one was haughty, audacious, and intemperate, the other was cunning, cool, and treacherous. Charles was the proudest, most daring, and most unmanageable prince that ever made the sword the type and the guarantee of greatness; Louis the most subtle, dissimulating, and treacherous king that ever wove in his closet a tissue of hollow diplomacy and bad faith in government. The struggle between these sovereigns was unequal only in respect to this difference of character; for France, subdivided as it still was, and exhausted by the wars with England, was not comparable, either as regarded men, money, or the other resources of the state, to the compact and prosperous dominions of Burgundy.

Charles showed some symptoms of good sense and greatness of mind, soon after his accession to power, that gave a false coloring to his disposition, and encouraged illusory hopes as to his future career. Scarcely was he proclaimed count of Flanders at Ghent, when the populace, surrounding his hotel, absolutely insisted on and extorted his consent to the restitution of their ancient privileges. Furious as Charles was at this bold proof of insubordination, he did not revenge it; and he treated with equal indulgence the city of Mechlin, which had expelled its governor and razed the citadel. The people of Liege, having revolted against their bishop, Louis of Bourbon, who was closely connected with the House of Burgundy, were defeated by the duke in 1467, but he treated them with clemency; and immediately after this event, in February, 1468, he concluded with Edward IV. of England an alliance, offensive and defensive, against France.

The real motive of this alliance was rivalry and hatred against Louis. The ostensible pretext was this monarch's having made war against the duke of Brittany, Charles's old ally in the short contest in which he, while yet but count, had measured his strength with his rival after he became king. The present union between England and Burgundy was too powerful not to alarm Louis; he demanded an explanatory conference with Charles, and the town of Peronne in Picardy was fixed on for their meeting. Louis, willing to imitate the boldness of his rival, who had formerly come to meet him in the very midst of his army, now came to the rendezvous almost alone. But he was severely mortified and near paying a greater penalty than fright for this hazardous conduct. The duke, having received intelligence of a new revolt at Liege excited by some of the agents of France, instantly made Louis prisoner, in defiance of every law of honor or fair dealing. The excess of his rage and hatred might have carried him to a more disgraceful extremity, had not Louis, by force of bribery, gained over some of his most influential counsellors, who succeeded in appeasing his rage. He contented himself with humiliating, when he was disposed to punish. He forced his captive to accompany him to Liege, and witness the ruin of this unfortunate town, which he delivered over to plunder; and having given this lesson to Louis, he set him at liberty.

From this period there was a marked and material change in the conduct of Charles. He had been previously moved by sentiments of chivalry and notions of greatness. But sullied by his act of public treachery and violence toward the monarch who had, at least in seeming, manifested unlimited confidence in his honor, a secret sense of shame embittered his feelings and soured his temper. He became so insupportable to those around him that he was abandoned by several of his best officers, and even by his natural brother, Baldwin of Burgundy, who passed over to the side of Louis. Charles was at this time embarrassed by the expense of entertaining and maintaining Edward IV. and numerous English exiles, who were forced to take refuge in the Netherlands by the successes of the earl of Warwick, who had replaced Henry VI. on the throne. Charles at the same time held out to several princes in Europe hopes of bestowing on them in marriage his only daughter and heiress Mary, while he privately assured his friends, if his courtiers and ministers may be so called, "that he never meant to have a son-in-law until he was disposed to make himself a monk." In a word, he was no longer guided by any principle but that of fierce and brutal selfishness.

In this mood he soon became tired of the service of his nobles and of the national militia, who only maintained toward him a forced and modified obedience founded on the usages and rights of their several provinces; and he took into his pay all sorts of adventurers and vagabonds who were willing to submit to him as their absolute master. When the taxes necessary for the support and pay of these bands of mercenaries caused the people to murmur, Charles laughed at their complaints, and severely punished some of the most refractory. He then entered France at the head of his army, to assist the duke of Brittany; but at the moment when nothing seemed to oppose the most extensive views of his ambition he lost by his hot-brained caprice every advantage within his easy reach: he chose to sit down before Beauvais; and thus made of this town, which lay in his road, a complete stumbling-block on his path of conquest.

The time he lost before its walls caused the defeat and ruin of his unsupported, or as might be said his abandoned, ally, who made the best terms he could with Louis; and thus Charles's presumption and obstinacy paralyzed all the efforts of his courage and power. But he soon afterward acquired the duchy of Guelders from the old Duke Arnoul, who had been temporarily despoiled of it by his son Adolphus. It was almost a hereditary consequence in this family that the children should revolt and rebel against their parents. Adolphus had the effrontery to found his justification on the argument that his father having reigned forty-four years, he was fully entitled to his share—a fine practical authority for greedy and expectant heirs. The old father replied to this reasoning by offering to meet his son in single combat. Charles cut short the affair by making Adolphus prisoner and seizing on the disputed territory; for which he, however, paid Arnoul the sum of two hundred and twenty thousand florins.

After this acquisition Charles conceived and had much at heart the design of becoming king, the first time that the Netherlands were considered sufficiently important and consolidated to entitle their possessor to that title. To lead to this object he offered to the emperor of Germany the hand of his daughter Mary for his son Maximilian. The emperor acceded to this proposition, and repaired to the city of Treves to meet Charles and countenance his coronation. But the insolence and selfishness of the latter put an end to the project. He humiliated the emperor, who was of a niggardly and mean-spirited disposition, by appearing with a train so numerous and sumptuous as totally to eclipse the imperial retinue; and deeply offended him by wishing to postpone the marriage, from his jealousy of creating for himself a rival in a son-in-law who might embitter his old age as he had done that of his own father. The mortified emperor quitted the place in high dudgeon, and the projected kingdom was doomed to a delay of some centuries.

Charles, urged on by the double motive of thirst for aggrandizement and vexation at his late failure, attempted, under pretext of some internal dissensions, to gain possession of Cologne and its territory, which belonged to the empire; and at the same time planned the invasion of France, in concert with his brother-in-law Edward IV., who had recovered possession of England. But the town of Nuys, in the archbishopric of Cologne, occupied him a full year before its walls. The emperor, who came to its succor, actually besieged the besiegers in their camp; and the dispute was terminated by leaving it to the arbitration of the pope's legate, and placing the contested town in his keeping. This half triumph gained by Charles saved Louis wholly from destruction. Edward, who had landed in France with a numerous force, seeing no appearance of his Burgundian allies, made peace with Louis; and Charles, who arrived in all haste, but not till after the treaty was signed, upbraided and abused the English king, and turned a warm friend into an inveterate enemy.

Louis, whose crooked policy had so far succeeded on all occasions, now seemed to favor Charles's plans of aggrandizement, and to recognize his pretended right to Lorraine, which legitimately belonged to the empire, and the invasion of which by Charles would be sure to set him at variance with the whole of Germany. The infatuated duke, blind to the ruin to which he was thus hurrying, abandoned to Louis, in return for this insidious support, the constable of St. Pol; a nobleman who had long maintained his independence in Picardy, where he had large possessions, and who was fitted to be a valuable friend or formidable enemy to either. Charles now marched against, and soon overcame, Lorraine. Thence he turned his army against the Swiss, who were allies to the conquered province, but who sent the most submissive dissuasions to the invader. They begged for peace, assuring Charles that their romantic but sterile mountains were not altogether worth the bridles of his splendidly equipped cavalry. But the more they humbled themselves, the higher was his haughtiness raised. It appeared that he had at this period conceived the project of uniting in one common conquest the ancient dominions of Lothaire I., who had possessed the whole of the countries traversed by the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Po; and he even spoke of passing the Alps, like Hannibal, for the invasion of Italy.

Switzerland was, by moral analogy as well as physical fact, the rock against which these extravagant projects were shattered. The army of Charles, which engaged the hardy mountaineers in the gorges of the Alps near the town of Granson, were literally crushed to atoms by the stones and fragments of granite detached from the heights and hurled down upon their heads. Charles, after this defeat, returned to the charge six weeks later, having rallied his army and drawn reinforcements from Burgundy. But Louis had despatched a body of cavalry to the Swiss—a force in which they were before deficient; and thus augmented, their army amounted to thirty-four thousand men. They took up a position, skilfully chosen, on the borders of the Lake of Morat, where they were attacked by Charles at the head of sixty thousand soldiers of all ranks. The result was the total defeat of the latter, with the loss of ten thousand killed, whose bones, gathered into an immense heap, and bleaching in the winds, remained for above three centuries; a terrible monument of rashness and injustice on the one hand, and of patriotism and valor on the other.

Charles was now plunged into a state of profound melancholy; but he soon burst from this gloomy mood into one of renewed fierceness and fatal desperation. Nine months after the battle of Morat he re-entered Lorraine, at the head of an army, not composed of his faithful militia of the Netherlands, but of those mercenaries in whom it was madness to place trust. The reinforcements meant to be despatched to him by those provinces were kept back by the artifices of the count of Campo Basso, an Italian who commanded his cavalry, and who only gained his confidence basely to betray it. Rene, duke of Lorraine, at the head of the confederate forces, offered battle to Charles under the walls of Nancy; and the night before the combat Campo Basso went over to the enemy with the troops under his command. Still Charles had the way open for retreat. Fresh troops from Burgundy and Flanders were on their march to join him; but he would not be dissuaded from his resolution to fight, and he resolved to try his fortune once more with his dispirited and shattered army. On this occasion the fate of Charles was decided, and the fortune of Louis triumphant. The rash and ill-fated duke lost both the battle and his life. His body, mutilated with wounds, was found the next day, and buried with great pomp in the town of Nancy, by the orders of the generous victor, the duke of Lorraine.

Thus perished the last prince of the powerful House of Burgundy. Charles left to his only daughter, then eighteen years of age, the inheritance of his extensive dominions, and with them that of the hatred and jealousy which he had so largely excited. External spoliation immediately commenced, and internal disunion quickly followed. Louis XI. seized on Burgundy and a part of Artois, as fiefs devolving to the crown in default of male issue. Several of the provinces refused to pay the new subsidies commanded in the name of Mary; Flanders alone showing a disposition to uphold the rights of the young princess. The states were assembled at Ghent, and ambassadors sent to the king of France in the hopes of obtaining peace on reasonable terms. Louis, true to his system of subtle perfidy, placed before one of those ambassadors, the burgomaster of Ghent, a letter from the inexperienced princess, which proved her intention to govern by the counsel of her father's ancient ministers rather than by that of the deputies of the nation. This was enough to decide the indignant Flemings to render themselves at once masters of the government and get rid of the ministers whom they hated. Two Burgundian nobles, Hugonet and Imbercourt, were arrested, accused of treason, and beheaded under the very eyes of their agonized and outraged mistress, who threw herself before the frenzied multitude, vainly imploring mercy for these innocent men. The people having thus completely gained the upper hand over the Burgundian influence, Mary was sovereign of the Netherlands but in name.

It would have now been easy for Louis XI. to have obtained for the dauphin, his son, the hand of this hitherto unfortunate but interesting princess; but he thought himself sufficiently strong and cunning to gain possession of her states without such an alliance. Mary, however, thus in some measure disdained, if not actually rejected, by Louis, soon after married her first-intended husband, Maximilian of Austria, son of the emperor Frederick III.; a prince so absolutely destitute, in consequence of his father's parsimony, that she was obliged to borrow money from the towns of Flanders to defray the expenses of his suite. Nevertheless he seemed equally acceptable to his bride and to his new subjects. They not only supplied all his wants, but enabled him to maintain the war against Louis XI., whom they defeated at the battle of Guinegate in Picardy, and forced to make peace on more favorable terms than they had hoped for. But these wealthy provinces were not more zealous for the national defence than bent on the maintenance of their local privileges, which Maximilian little understood, and sympathized with less. He was bred in the school of absolute despotism; and his duchess having met with a too early death by a fall from her horse in the year 1484, he could not even succeed in obtaining the nomination of guardian to his own children without passing through a year of civil war. His power being almost nominal in the northern provinces, he vainly attempted to suppress the violence of the factions of Hoeks and Kaabeljauws. In Flanders his authority was openly resisted. The turbulent towns of that country, and particularly Bruges, taking umbrage at a government half German, half Burgundian, and altogether hateful to the people, rose up against Maximilian, seized on his person, imprisoned him in a house which still exists, and put to death his most faithful followers. But the fury of Ghent and other places becoming still more outrageous, Maximilian asked as a favor from his rebel subjects of Bruges to be guarded while a prisoner by them alone. He was then king of the Romans, and all Europe became interested in his fate. The pope addressed a brief to the town of Bruges, demanding his deliverance. But the burghers were as inflexible as factious; and they at length released him, but not until they had concluded with him and the assembled states a treaty which most amply secured the enjoyment of their privileges and the pardon of their rebellion.

But these kind of compacts were never observed by the princes of those days beyond the actual period of their capacity to violate them. The emperor having entered the Netherlands at the head of forty thousand men, Maximilian, so supported, soon showed his contempt for the obligations he had sworn to, and had recourse to force for the extension of his authority. The valor of the Flemings and the military talents of their leader, Philip of Cleves, thwarted all his projects, and a new compromise was entered into. Flanders paid a large subsidy, and held fast her rights. The German troops were sent into Holland, and employed for the extinction of the Hoeks; who, as they formed by far the weaker faction, were now soon destroyed. That province, which had been so long distracted by its intestine feuds, and which had consequently played but an insignificant part in the transactions of the Netherlands, now resumed its place; and acquired thenceforth new honor, till it at length came to figure in all the importance of historical distinction.

The situation of the Netherlands was now extremely precarious and difficult to manage, during the unstable sway of a government so weak as Maximilian's. But he having succeeded his father on the imperial throne in 1493, and his son Philip having been proclaimed the following year duke and count of the various provinces at the age of sixteen, a more pleasing prospect was offered to the people. Philip, young, handsome, and descended by his mother from the ancient sovereigns of the country, was joyfully hailed by all the towns. He did not belie the hopes so enthusiastically expressed. He had the good sense to renounce all pretensions to Friesland, the fertile source of many preceding quarrels and sacrifices. He re-established the ancient commercial relations with England, to which country Maximilian had given mortal-offence by sustaining the imposture of Perkin Warbeck. Philip also consulted the states-general on his projects of a double alliance between himself and his sister with the son and daughter of Ferdinand, king of Aragon, and Isabella, queen of Castile; and from this wise precaution the project soon became one of national partiality instead of private or personal interest. In this manner complete harmony was established between the young prince and the inhabitants of the Netherlands. All the ills produced by civil war disappeared with immense rapidity in Flanders and Brabant, as soon as peace was thus consolidated. Even Holland, though it had particularly felt the scourge of these dissensions, and suffered severely from repeated inundations, began to recover. Yet for all this, Philip can be scarcely called a good prince: his merits were negative rather than real. But that sufficed for the nation; which found in the nullity of its sovereign no obstacle to the resumption of that prosperous career which had been checked by the despotism of the House of Burgundy, and the attempts of Maximilian to continue the same system.

The reign of Philip, unfortunately a short one was rendered remarkable by two intestine quarrels; one in Friesland, the other in Guelders. The Frisons, who had been so isolated from the more important affairs of Europe that they were in a manner lost sight of by history for several centuries, had nevertheless their full share of domestic disputes; too long, too multifarious, and too minute, to allow us to give more than this brief notice of their existence. But finally, about the period of Philip's accession, eastern Friesland had chosen for its count a gentleman of the country surnamed Edzart, who fixed the headquarters of his military government at Embden. The sight of such an elevation in an individual whose pretensions he thought far inferior to his own induced Albert of Saxony, who had well served Maximilian against the refractory Flemings, to demand as his reward the title of stadtholder or hereditary governor of Friesland. But it was far easier for the emperor to accede to this request than for his favorite to put the grant into effect. The Frisons, true to their old character, held firm to their privileges, and fought for their maintenance with heroic courage. Albert, furious at this resistance, had the horrid barbarity to cause to be impaled the chief burghers of the town of Leuwaarden, which he had taken by assault. But he himself died in the year 1500, without succeeding in his projects of an ambition unjust in its principle and atrocious in its practice.

The war of Guelders was of a totally different nature. In this case it was not a question of popular resistance to a tyrannical nomination, but of patriotic fidelity to the reigning family. Adolphus, the duke who had dethroned his father, had died in Flanders, leaving a son who had been brought up almost a captive as long as Maximilian governed the states of his inheritance. This young man, called Charles of Egmont, and who is honored in the history of his country under the title of the Achilles of Guelders, fell into the hands of the French during the combat in which he made his first essay in arms. The town of Guelders unanimously joined to pay his ransom; and as soon as he was at liberty they one and all proclaimed him duke. The emperor Philip and the Germanic diet in vain protested against this measure, and declared Charles a usurper. The spirit of justice and of liberty spoke more loudly than the thunders of their ban; and the people resolved to support to the last this scion of an ancient race, glorious in much of its conduct, though often criminal in many of its members. Charles of Egmont found faithful friends in his devoted subjects; and he maintained his rights, sometimes with, sometimes without, the assistance of France—making up for his want of numbers by energy and enterprise. We cannot follow this warlike prince in the long series of adventures which consolidated his power; nor stop to depict his daring adherents on land, who caused the whole of Holland to tremble at their deeds; nor his pirates—the chief of whom, Long Peter, called himself king of the Zuyder Zee. But amid all the consequent troubles of such a struggle, it is marvellous to find Charles of Egmont upholding his country in a state of high prosperity, and leaving it at his death almost as rich as Holland itself.

The incapacity of Philip the Fair doubtless contributed to cause him the loss of this portion of his dominions. This prince, after his first acts of moderation and good sense, was remarkable only as being the father of Charles V. The remainder of his life was worn out in undignified pleasures; and he died almost suddenly, in the year 1506, at Burgos in Castile, whither he had repaired to pay a visit to his brother-in-law, the king of Spain.



CHAPTER VI

FROM THE GOVERNMENT OF MARGARET OF AUSTRIA TO THE ABDICATION OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V.

A.D. 1506—1555

Philip being dead, and his wife, Joanna of Spain, having become mad from grief at his loss, after nearly losing her senses from jealousy during his life, the regency of the Netherlands reverted to Maximilian, who immediately named his daughter Margaret stadtholderess of the country. This princess, scarcely twenty-seven years of age, had been, like the celebrated Jacqueline of Bavaria, already three times married, and was now again a widow. Her first husband, Charles VIII. of France, had broken from his contract of marriage before its consummation; her second, the Infante of Spain, died immediately after their union; and her third, the duke of Savoy, left her again a widow after three years of wedded life. She was a woman of talent and courage; both proved by the couplet she composed for her own epitaph, at the very moment of a dangerous accident which happened during her journey into Spain to join her second affianced spouse.

"Ci-git Margot la genre demoiselle, Qui eut deux maris, et si mourut pucelle."

"Here gentle Margot quietly is laid, Who had two husbands, and yet died a maid."

She was received with the greatest joy by the people of the Netherlands; and she governed them as peaceably as circumstances allowed. Supported by England, she firmly maintained her authority against the threats of France; and she carried on in person all the negotiations between Louis XII., Maximilian, the pope Julius II., and Ferdinand of Aragon, for the famous League of Venice. These negotiations took place in 1508, at Cambray; where Margaret, if we are to credit an expression to that effect in one of her letters, was more than once on the point of having serious differences with the cardinal of Amboise, minister of Louis XII. But, besides her attention to the interests of her father on this important occasion, she also succeeded in repressing the rising pretensions of Charles of Egmont; and, assisted by the interference of the king of France, she obliged him to give up some places in Holland which he illegally held.

From this period the alliance between England and Spain raised the commerce and manufactures of the southern provinces of the Netherlands to a high degree of prosperity, while the northern parts of the country were still kept down by their various dissensions. Holland was at war with the Hanseatic towns. The Frisons continued to struggle for freedom against the heirs of Albert of Saxony. Utrecht was at variance with its bishop, and finally recognized Charles of Egmont as its protector. The consequence of all these causes was that the south took the start in a course of prosperity, which was, however, soon to become common to the whole nation.

A new rupture with France, in 1513, united Maximilian, Margaret, and Henry VIII. of England, in one common cause. An English and Belgian army, in which Maximilian figured as a spectator (taking care to be paid by England), marched for the destruction of Therouenne, and defeated and dispersed the French at the battle of Spurs. But Louis XII. soon persuaded Henry to make a separate peace; and the unconquerable duke of Guelders made Margaret and the emperor pay the penalty of their success against France. He pursued his victories in Friesland, and forced the country to recognize him as stadtholder of Groningen, its chief town; while the duke of Saxony at length renounced to another his unjust claim on a territory which engulfed both his armies and his treasure.

About the same epoch (1515), young Charles, son of Philip the Fair, having just attained his fifteenth year, was inaugurated duke of Brabant and count of Flanders and Holland, having purchased the presumed right of Saxony to the sovereignty of Friesland. In the following year he was recognized as prince of Castile, in right of his mother, who associated him with herself in the royal power—a step which soon left her merely the title of queen. Charles procured the nomination of bishop of Utrecht for Philip, bastard of Burgundy, which made that province completely dependent on him. But this event was also one of general and lasting importance on another account. This Philip of Burgundy was deeply affected by the doctrines of the Reformation, which had burst forth in Germany. He held in abhorrence the superstitious observances of the Romish Church, and set his face against the celibacy of the clergy. His example soon influenced his whole diocese, and the new notions on points of religion became rapidly popular. It was chiefly, however, in Friesland that the people embraced the opinions of Luther, which were quite conformable to many of the local customs of which we have already spoken. The celebrated Edzard, count of eastern Friesland, openly adopted the Reformation. While Erasmus of Rotterdam, without actually pronouncing himself a disciple of Lutheranism, effected more than all its advocates to throw the abuses of Catholicism into discredit.

We may here remark that, during the government of the House of Burgundy, the clergy of the Netherlands had fallen into considerable disrepute. Intrigue and court favor alone had the disposal of the benefices; while the career of commerce was open to the enterprise of every spirited and independent competitor. The Reformation, therefore, in the first instance found but a slight obstacle in the opposition of a slavish and ignorant clergy, and its progress was all at once prodigious. The refusal of the dignity of emperor by Frederick "the Wise," duke of Saxony, to whom it was offered by the electors, was also an event highly favorable to the new opinions; for Francis I. of France, and Charles, already king of Spain and sovereign of the Netherlands, both claiming the succession to the empire, a sort of interregnum deprived the disputed dominions of a chief who might lay the heavy hand of power on the new-springing doctrines of Protestantism. At length the intrigues of Charles, and his pretensions as grandson of Maximilian, having caused him to be chosen emperor, a desperate rivalry resulted between him and the French king, which for a while absorbed his whole attention and occupied all his power.

From the earliest appearance of the Reformation, the young sovereign of so many states, having to establish his authority at the two extremities of Europe, could not efficiently occupy himself in resisting the doctrines which, despite their dishonoring epithet of heresy, were doomed so soon to become orthodox for a great part of the Continent. While Charles vigorously put down the revolted Spaniards, Luther gained new proselytes in Germany; so that the very greatness of the sovereignty was the cause of his impotency; and while Charles's extent of dominion thus fostered the growing Reformation, his sense of honor proved the safeguard of its apostle. The intrepid Luther, boldly venturing to appear and plead its cause before the representative power of Germany assembled at the Diet of Worms, was protected by the guarantee of the emperor; unlike the celebrated and unfortunate John Huss; who fell a victim to his own confidence and the bad faith of Sigismund, in the year 1415.

Charles was nevertheless a zealous and rigid Catholic; and in the Low Countries, where his authority was undisputed, he proscribed the heretics, and even violated the privileges of the country by appointing functionaries for the express purpose of their pursuit and punishment. This imprudent stretch of power fostered a rising spirit of opposition; for, though entertaining the best disposition to their young prince, the people deeply felt and loudly complained of the government; and thus the germs of a mighty revolution gradually began to be developed.

Charles V. and Francis I. had been rivals for dignity and power, and they now became implacable personal enemies. Young, ambitious, and sanguine, they could not, without reciprocal resentment, pursue in the same field objects essential to both. Charles, by a short but timely visit to England in 1520, had the address to gain over to his cause and secure for his purpose the powerful interest of Cardinal Wolsey, and to make a most favorable impression on Henry VIII.; and thus strengthened, he entered on the struggle against his less wily enemy with infinite advantage. War was declared on frivolous pretexts in 1521. The French sustained it for some time with great valor; but Francis being obstinately bent on the conquest of the Milanais, his reverses secured the triumph of his rival, and he fell into the hands of the imperial troops at the battle of Pavia in 1525. Charles's dominions in the Netherlands suffered severely from the naval operations during the war; for the French cruisers having, on repeated occasions, taken, pillaged, and almost destroyed the principal resources of the herring fishery, Holland and Zealand felt considerable distress, which was still further augmented by the famine which desolated these provinces in 1524.

While such calamities afflicted the northern portion of the Netherlands, Flanders and Brabant continued to flourish, in spite of temporary embarrassments. The bishop of Utrecht having died, his successor found himself engaged in a hopeless quarrel with his new diocese, already more than half converted to Protestantism; and to gain a triumph over these enemies, even by the sacrifice of his dignity, he ceded to the emperor in 1527 the whole of his temporal power. The duke of Guelders, who then occupied the city of Utrecht, redoubled his hostility at this intelligence; and after having ravaged the neighboring country, he did not lay down his arms till the subsequent year, having first procured an honorable and advantageous peace. One year more saw the term of this long-continued state of warfare by the Peace of Cambray, between Charles and Francis, which was signed on the 5th of August, 1529.

This peace once concluded, the industry and perseverance of the inhabitants of the Netherlands repaired in a short time the evils caused by so many wars, excited by the ambition of princes, but in scarcely any instance for the interest of the country. Little, however, was wanting to endanger this tranquillity, and to excite the people against each other on the score of religious dissension. The sect of Anabaptists, whose wild opinions were subversive of all principles of social order and every sentiment of natural decency, had its birth in Germany, and found many proselytes in the Netherlands. John Bokelszoon, a tailor of Leyden, one of the number, caused himself to be proclaimed king of Jerusalem; and making himself master of the town of Munster, sent out his disciples to preach in the neighboring countries. Mary, sister of Charles V., and queen-dowager of Hungary, the stadtholderess of the Netherlands, proposed a crusade against this fanatic; which was, however, totally discountenanced by the states. Encouraged by impunity, whole troops of these infuriate sectarians, from the very extremities of Hainault, put themselves into motion for Munster; and notwithstanding the colds of February, they marched along, quite naked, according to the system of their sect. The frenzy of these fanatics being increased by persecution, they projected attempts against several towns, and particularly against Amsterdam. They were easily defeated, and massacred without mercy; and it was only by multiplied and horrible executions that their numbers were at length diminished. John Bokelszoon held out at Munster, which was besieged by the bishop and the neighboring princes. This profligate fanatic, who had married no less than seventeen women, had gained considerable influence over the insensate multitude; but he was at length taken and imprisoned in an iron cage—an event which undeceived the greater number of those whom he had persuaded of his superhuman powers.

The prosperity of the southern provinces proceeded rapidly and uninterruptedly, in consequence of the great and valuable traffic of the merchants of Flanders and Brabant, who exchanged their goods of native manufacture for the riches drawn from America and India by the Spaniards and Portuguese. Antwerp had succeeded to Bruges as the general mart of commerce, and was the most opulent town of the north of Europe. The expenses, estimated at one hundred and thirty thousand golden crowns, which this city voluntarily incurred, to do honor to the visit of Philip, son of Charles V., are cited as a proof of its wealth. The value of the wool annually imported for manufacture into the Low Countries from England and Spain was calculated at four million pieces of gold. Their herring fishery was unrivalled; for even the Scotch, on whose coasts these fish were taken, did not attempt a competition with the Zealanders. But the chief seat of prosperity was the south. Flanders alone was taxed for one-third of the general burdens of the state. Brabant paid only one-seventh less than Flanders. So that these two rich provinces contributed thirteen out of twenty-one parts of the general contribution; and all the rest combined but eight. A search for further or minuter proofs of the comparative state of the various divisions of the country would be superfluous.

The perpetual quarrels of Charles V. with Francis I. and Charles of Guelders led, as may be supposed, to a repeated state of exhaustion, which forced the princes to pause, till the people recovered strength and resources for each fresh encounter. Charles rarely appeared in the Netherlands; fixing his residence chiefly in Spain, and leaving to his sister the regulation of those distant provinces. One of his occasional visits was for the purpose of inflicting a terrible example upon them. The people of Ghent, suspecting an improper or improvident application of the funds they had furnished for a new campaign, offered themselves to march against the French, instead of being forced to pay their quota of some further subsidy. The government having rejected this proposal, a sedition was the result, at the moment when Charles and Francis already negotiated one of their temporary reconciliations. On this occasion, Charles formed the daring resolution of crossing the kingdom of France, to promptly take into his own hands the settlement of this affair—trusting to the generosity of his scarcely reconciled enemy not to abuse the confidence with which he risked himself in his power. Ghent, taken by surprise, did not dare to oppose the entrance of the emperor, when he appeared before the walls; and the city was punished with extreme severity. Twenty-seven leaders of the sedition were beheaded; the principal privileges of the city were withdrawn, and a citadel built to hold it in check for the future. Charles met with neither opposition nor complaint. The province had so prospered under his sway, and was so flattered by the greatness of the sovereign, who was born in the town he so severely punished, that his acts of despotic harshness were borne without a murmur. But in the north the people did not view his measures so complacently; and a wide separation in interests and opinions became manifest in the different divisions of the nation.

Yet the Dutch and the Zealanders signalized themselves beyond all his other subjects on the occasion of two expeditions which Charles undertook against Tunis and Algiers. The two northern provinces furnished a greater number of ships than the united quotas of all the rest of his states. But though Charles's gratitude did not lead him to do anything in return as peculiarly favorable to these provinces, he obtained for them, nevertheless, a great advantage in making himself master of Friesland and Guelders on the death of Charles of Egmont. His acquisition of the latter, which took place in 1543, put an end to the domestic wars of the northern provinces. From that period they might fairly look for a futurity of union and peace; and thus the latter years of Charles promised better for his country than his early ones, though he obtained less success in his new wars with France, which were not, however, signalized by any grand event on either side.

Toward the end of his career, Charles redoubled his severities against the Protestants, and even introduced a modified species of inquisition into the Netherlands, but with little effect toward the suppression of the reformed doctrines. The misunderstandings between his only son Philip and Mary of England, whom he had induced him to marry, and the unamiable disposition of this young prince, tormented him almost as much as he was humiliated by the victories of Henry II. of France, the successor of Francis I., and the successful dissimulation of Maurice, elector of Saxony, by whom he was completely outwitted, deceived, and defeated. Impelled by these motives, and others, perhaps, which are and must ever remain unknown, Charles at length decided on abdicating the whole of his immense possessions. He chose the city of Brussels as the scene of the solemnity, and the day fixed for it was the 25th of October, 1555. It took place accordingly, in the presence of the king of Bohemia, the duke of Savoy, the dowager queens of France and Hungary, the duchess of Lorraine, and an immense assemblage of nobility from various countries. Charles resigned the empire to his brother Ferdinand, already king of the Romans; and all the rest of his dominions to his son. Soon after the ceremony, Charles embarked from Zealand on his voyage to Spain. He retired to the monastery of St. Justus, near the town of Placentia, in Estremadura. He entered this retreat in February, 1556, and died there on the 21st of September, 1558, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. The last six months of his existence, contrasted with the daring vigor of his former life, formed a melancholy picture of timidity and superstition.