UPON the death of Marie of Burgundy the storm for a moment lulled. Philip of Hornes had fled the country; the Estates-General had assembled at Bruges to provide for the administration of the realm during the minority of the legal heir to all Marie’s domains, her son Philip, now an infant of three years of age; and Maximilian, who knew very well that, in accordance with the marriage treaty of 1479, his authority over the Netherlands should now come to an end, and who hoped, nevertheless, to prevail on the communes to appoint him Regent of Flanders and guardian of his infant son, was showing himself as conciliatory as possible. He consented to the perpetual banishment of his favourite Philip of Hornes, suffered the burghers to open negotiations with Louis XI., with a view to the instant termination of the war with France, and did not hesitate to confirm a treaty of peace, which they concluded at Arras on December 23, 1482, and that, notwithstanding that the King of France was thereby acknowledged suzerain of Flanders, and that as such Louis XI. had confirmed and renewed all the rights and privileges granted by Marie at the commencement of her reign.

Meanwhile little Philip had sworn to respect the liberties of Flanders, and the deputies of the Estates-General had quietly appointed a council of regency to act in his name, viz., Adolphe of ClÈves,[38] Lord of Ravestein, a kinsman of Maximilian’s, erst his competitor for Marie’s hand, and the most popular man in Flanders; Philip of Beveren;[38a] Adrien of Rasseghem; and Louis of Bruges, Lord of Oostcamp and Lord of Gruthuise, knight of the Golden Fleece, peer of Flanders, France and England—Edward IV. had created him Earl of Winchester in gratitude for the kindness which he had shown him in the days of his exile at Bruges—and, what he prized most of all, a burgher of his native town. The patron and friend of Caxton and of Colard Mansion, he was a marvellous lover of books, and had gathered together in the fascinating palace which he built for himself on the banks of the Roya—not his least glory, and which still bears witness to his love of the beautiful, and to the distinction and refinement of his taste—so rich a collection of choice manuscripts that the Gruthuise Library was said to equal, if not to surpass, the world-renowned library of the Dukes of Burgundy. In a word, he was a worthy scion of the house of Erembald, a patriot true to the core, the richest and the mightiest and the most beloved of the burgher-nobles of Bruges.

As for Maximilian, he was as meek as a lamb. A rebellion had broken out in Holland, and perhaps he was unusually short of cash. Certain it is that on the eve of his departure for that country, on June 5, 1483, he confirmed at Hoogstraeten, for an annual pension of twenty-four thousand Écus, the authority of the council of regency appointed by the Estates-General. Before the end of the year, however, the conjunction of events had changed the Duke’s dispositions. The man he most feared, the royal burgher of Ghent, that most incomprehensible of devotees, who stopped before no crime, and never undertook any matter of moment without first commending it to God, King Louis XI. of France, had at length set out on that inevitable journey which all his life long he had looked forward to with apprehension and dismay.

For years past the old man had been ailing. Some said that he was a leper; he had certainly had a paralytic stroke in the spring of 1480, and the sands of his life were fast running out when the Flemish ambassadors waited on him at the ChÂteau du Plessis, at the beginning of the year 1483, to obtain his ratification of the Treaty of Arras. It was evening when they reached the palace. They found the old King huddled up in the corner of a room purposely ill-lighted so as to hide the disfigurement which disease had wrought in his countenance, and so weak that he was unable to rise to receive them. His right hand was completely paralysed, and when they brought the Book of the Gospels, on which he was to swear to observe peace, he just managed to raise his arm sufficiently to touch it with his elbow.

Louis knew that his end was near. He had summoned FranÇois the thaumaturgus of Paula from the depths of Calabria to beseech him on bended knees for a few days’ respite, and the saint had given him no hope. ‘Set thy house in order,’ he had said, ‘for thou wilt die and not live.’ Presently, towards the close of the year, it became clear to the King’s physicians that there was no hope of further prolonging his life. Louis had strictly forbidden that any one should pronounce in his presence le cruel mot de la mort, his approaching end must be euphoniously announced to him by the sentence, ‘Parlez peu;’ but Olivier le Dain, erst barber of Thielt, now Count of Meulan, who had for thirty years past been in the King’s service—ever since the days when Louis was in exile at Bruges—with brutal levity hurled these words at his dying benefactor: ‘C’est fait de vous pensez À votre conscience,’ and a few hours afterwards the old King passed quietly away.

The news of Louis’s death found Maximilian elated by an easy and unexpected triumph over his Dutch rebels. Men wiser and more wicked than he had little difficulty in persuading the weak and vacillating prince that fortune herself had cancelled the bond of Hoogstraeten, and he lost no time in revoking the powers therein granted anent the government of Flanders. Nor were the Regents slow to reply. On the 15th of October they sent in a long memorial: in virtue of the marriage treaty of 1477, the right of mainbournie did not appertain to the Duke of Austria, his assumption of the arms of the county of Flanders was altogether illegal, he had overwhelmed the land with taxes, pledged the Sovereign’s domain, sold the crown jewels and given ear to the perfidious counsel of strangers—let France, the suzerain, judge betwixt them. To all of which Maximilian replied with reproaches and insult: he in no way recognized the right of the Regents to speak in the name of the country—men of little weight, headstrong, proud, who desired more their own profit than the welfare of the realm. Gruthuise and his comrades responded no less warmly: Adrien Villain, William Rym and the rest were men of as great weight as by far the larger number of the Duke’s friends, some of whom, alike Germans and Burgundians, were in a very small way before they came to Flanders; for the rest, they had in no wise usurped the government of the county, no prince had ever been acknowledged in Flanders save by the consent of the ‘three members,’ and in the absence of the Sovereign, or during his minority, it was for the Estates to provide for the government of the county, and after all, justice was better administered in Flanders than in Brabant, where Maximilian still retained about his person the murderers of Myn Heer van Dadizeele. Further declaration from Maximilian: whilst he in no way recognized the right of tradesmen to put themselves on a par with the gentlemen of his Court, he begged leave to observe that the treaty of 1477 was invalid; the Duchess of Burgundy had affixed her signature to a document the contents of which she did not understand; and he ended up by summoning the Lords of Gruthuise, and Ravestein, and Borsselle, and Beveren, who were knights of the Golden Fleece, to Brussels, on the feast of St. Andrew, November 30, there to submit their conduct to the judgment of their fellow knights.

No further correspondence between Maximilian and the council was carried on for the moment. The States sent a mission to Charles VIII. to appeal for his arbitration; as suzerain, they said, and affianced spouse of the heiress-apparent, he was doubly interested in the matter, they would abide by his decision; and Maximilian, on his side, prepared to make war on his subjects, hoping to prevent by his victories the mediation of the French King. With this object in view he advanced on Bruges with the army which had lately been victorious in Holland,—this was in the beginning of February 1484—with much trumpeting drew up his men in order of battle in front of the Bouverie gate, and sent a herald to the city fathers demanding that it should be opened. But Sheriff Van Bassevelde, who was their mouthpiece, would have none of it. ‘Go tell your master,’ he said, ‘that if he desires to speak with the magistrates of Bruges they are ready to give him audience in the council chamber of the HÔtel de Ville, where they are now assembled, provided his escort do not exceed ten or at most twelve persons.’

Maximilian had reckoned on a rising in his favour. A plot to assist him there certainly had been, but his friends, who were numerous, made no sign, and he retired to Oudenburg in dudgeon, thereby leaving them at the mercy of their foes. Active inquiries were at once set on foot as to the number of conspirators, and not a few leading citizens were found to be compromised. Note amongst them ex-burgomaster John Breidel, a descendant of the great patriot; this man, along with many others, was put to death, and Peter Lanchals, of whom we shall hear again, condemned to banishment.

For sixteen weary months the war dragged on. Backed, as they were, by a large French army, under the command of CrÉvcoeur, the greatest captain of the fourteen hundreds, it seemed at first almost certain that the Flemings would presently succeed in driving Maximilian back again to Germany; but CrÉvcoeur was not a persona grata to the burghers, they could never forget that he had fought against them in the days of Louis XI., and when the palm of victory was almost within their grasp, it was snatched from them by the frenzied hand of suspicion.

In the month of June 1485, CrÉvcoeur encamped at Ghent—here too was little Philip—nor were quarrels slow to arise between the burghers and the men who had come to defend them—matter for no great wonderment; the hosts were Flemish merchants, and the guests French soldiers.

One morning CrÉvcoeur set Philip on horseback, and made him ride through the city, in order to show him to the people. Forthwith a report was spread abroad that the French were going to carry the young prince off to Paris, and so threatening was the attitude of the mob that CrÉvcoeur deemed it prudent to quit Flanders and take up his headquarters at Tournai. This was on June 11, 1485.

Meanwhile Maximilian, profiting by these quarrels, for it was not only at Ghent, but throughout Flanders, that opinion was divided, had been scattering gold broadcast amongst those burghers who were known to be wavering in their allegiance to France, and by this means had succeeded in raising up a party in his favour at Ghent and at Bruges. On June 1, when the people of the latter city were making solemn procession round the Place du bourg, with relics, and incense, and torches, to implore the protection of Heaven for the armies of Flanders, news came that the town gates had been treacherously opened to Maximilian’s mercenaries, and immediately afterwards a great troop of knights and German horsemen galloped into the market.

So sudden and so unexpected was the calamity which had befallen them that the burghers, who seem to have lost their heads, made no show at resistance, and when John of Houthem, the German commander, made them a speech, and asked the vast throng assembled before him whether they wished for peace or war, a great cry went up: Peace! Peace! ‘Then will you accept the Archduke for regent,’ demanded Houthem, ‘and acknowledge his right to the guardianship of his son?’ and, with one mouth, the people answered, ‘We will.’

So too was it at Ghent. The funds expended in corruption there proved an equally satisfactory investment. Hardly had the burghers hounded their French friends out of the city than, just chastisement, Maximilian’s Germans took possession of it.

Presently the Archduke of Austria himself arrived at Bruges, and, before the end of the month, a treaty of peace was signed, in virtue of which he obtained the regency he had so long coveted, and the guardianship of his son. He in return granted an amnesty to all who had taken arms against him, save only certain of the ringleaders. Amongst them note Jan van Keyt, erst Burgomaster of Bruges, and Franz van Bassevelde, famous for the boldness with which he had opposed Maximilian’s threats two years before. These men suffered death in the market-place, and their heads were set up on the turrets of the Halles. Note also among the excluded, Louis of Gruthuise, and that, notwithstanding that he had claims on Maximilian’s gratitude, for no man had done more than he to strengthen the tottering throne of Marie of Burgundy. As a knight of the Golden Fleece, Louis of Gruthuise had the right to be tried by the brethren of his order, but he refused to exercise it. He was a burgher, he said, of the city of Bruges, and desired no other judges than the magistrates of his native town. Maximilian, however, did not dare go to extremities, Gruthuise was too popular and too powerful; he sent him prisoner to the ChÂteau of Vilvorde, and made him pay a fine of three hundred thousand Écus.

By the end of the year 1485 the Archduke of Austria had not only re-established his authority in Flanders, but also throughout the whole of his son’s domains.

Maximilian was one of those men whose appetites grow larger with eating. Conciliation increased his exigencies. Yield to him but an inch, and he asked for an ell, and when he got his ell he wanted a furlong. Fortune was singularly kind to him for a time; she gave him so much rope that he did not know what to do with it, and presently essayed to hang himself.

The first use which he made of his re-established authority was to break the oath which he had solemnly sworn at Bruges, and carry his son Philip out of the county; the second to further irritate the three bonnes villes by appointing the Franc fourth member of Flanders. The charter by which he committed this piece of folly was signed at Frankfort on February 16, 1486, immediately after he had been elected King of the Romans. The acquisition of this new and pompous title seems to have completely turned his head, and he gave himself over to the wildest dreams of ambition, fatuously believing that his would be the glorious destiny which the crowd of soothsayers and astrologers who frequented his Court had predicted for him. The kingdom of Hungary, the duchy of Milan were already his by right of conquest, and by the same right also the crown of Naples, and at the sword’s point he had demanded, and led back from France, his daughter Marguerite, whom the Treaty of Arras had made the bride of Charles VIII., that direst foe who had stirred up trouble for him at LiÈge, equipped fourteen great ships in support of his rebellious Dutch subjects, and, worst of all, by promises and deeds had aided and abetted the hated burghers of Flanders, and would, but for their suspicions, have brought their affairs to a successful issue.

Presently the time arrived when Maximilian believed that he was going to realize this vision. On the 14th of August 1486, at the head of a great army, he set out for France. At Bruges the day before he had listened to an harangue by Hermolao Barbaro, the Venetian ambassador, who told him that all his successes had been his own handiwork, and his reverses the work of destiny. Puffed up by this flattery, he started fully convinced that he would soon be reckoned amongst the greatest conquerors the world had ever seen, and so sure was he of his approaching success that he dated his letters from Lens, ‘premiÈre ville de notre conqueste.’

Never was man doomed to be more bitterly disappointed. Disaster followed disaster; the treasure which he had squandered in corruption brought in no return; the princes whose support he had purchased failed him in the hour of need; his mercenaries threw down their arms for lack of pay, and presently he was constrained, with his cap in his hand, to humbly ask the help of the men he most despised, and withal to endure the shame of a curt refusal. The burghers of Flanders, the three bonnes villes made answer, in no way approved of the war with France, and were perfectly content with the Treaty of Arras; and when Maximilian threatened to collect taxes himself, they not only laughed at his threats but clamoured for redress of grievances. Whereupon Maximilian, in desperation, led the remnant of his army against his own subjects; but his efforts in Flanders were no more successful than they had been in France, and he was constrained to fall back on Bruges, the one town which had not yet openly broken with him.

Great was the consternation of the burghers when on December 16, 1487, Maximilian entered their city. His German mercenaries, it was well known, had for months past received no pay, and were now living on plunder. This in itself was no small cause of alarm. Moreover, the burghers profoundly distrusted him. His shameless disavowal of the Treaty of Arras had shattered their dearest hopes and overwhelmed them, to boot, with taxes, and it was now more than suspected that the real object of his visit was to wring from them fresh supplies—nay, that the city was to be deprived of its franchise and handed over to plunder. There were some garrulous old men still living who remembered the horrors of fifty years ago under Philippe l’AsseurÉ, and a new exodus to Antwerp was the outcome of their harrowing stories. Whereat Maximilian sought to re-establish confidence with fair speech:—he desired nothing better than peace with France, had, in fact, demanded and received a safe conduct from the French King, with a view to a meeting anent this very object.

Meanwhile the Ghenters had taken Courtrai, and the Duke, in consequence, had sent an embassy to them to treat for peace, but the victors proudly refused to deal with any but Flemish, and Maximilian, at his wit’s end, besought the good offices of Bruges.

The burghers did not refuse, but they made their conditions:—the dismissal of the German guards, whose insolence and insubordination were intolerable in a commercial community, and until this was accomplished they would themselves take charge of the city gates.

After some hesitation the Duke deemed it prudent to yield: Philip of Hornes would soon be at Bruges with reinforcements and then he would be in a position to reassert his authority.

Presently (January 24, 1488) the deputies returned from Ghent with news that they had failed in the object of their mission. Maximilian, who received them in the hall of his palace, was bitterly disappointed, and though at his urgent request the burghers promised to try again, from that moment he again resumed his machinations against them, and mistrust and suspicion and evil foreboding were once more rife in the city. That very night his conduct at a banquet given in his honour at the HÔtel de Richebourg by the widow of Martin Lem (burgomaster in the time of Charles the Terrible) was not a little disquieting. He had suddenly left the table to make a tour of the ramparts, carefully examining the number of guards at the gates, distributing money amongst them, and so forth. On January 27 he left the city, ostensibly for the purpose of hawking, but no one believed that sport alone was his object. So too on the 28th, and on the 31st he received two pieces of news:—Philip of Hornes was close to Bruges, and the second deputation to Ghent had been as unsuccessful as the first.

The die was cast. Maximilian drew up his German guard in the courtyard of the palace and sent messengers to Hornes to enter the town at once by the Porte des MarÉchaux. The same evening, accompanied by Burgomaster Van Nieuwenhove, one of his creatures, and a small band of attendants, to this gate he came, and demanded that it should be opened; but the gatekeepers, who suspected foul play, flatly refused. No power on earth, they said, should make them open their gates. There was no time to waste in parleying, the main object being to quietly admit Hornes and his reinforcements; but the burghers were aware of what was doing, and the Regent hastened with like result to the Porte de Gand and the Porte Ste. Croix. More fortunate at the Porte Ste. Catherine, by this exit he went forth—may be its guardians believed he was bent on some further excursion—dispatched messengers to Hornes to bid him enter at this spot and not to attempt to do so by the Porte des MarÉchaux, once more returned to the city and endeavoured by force to keep the way open for him. But the guardians, crying ‘Treason, treason,’ had meanwhile aroused the neighbours, and before Hornes could effect an entry they had lowered the portcullis. Whereupon Maximilian fled to the Princenhof and

PORTE DES BAUDETS
PORTE DES BAUDETS

summoning ÉcoutÈte Peter Lanchals bade him take measures to obtain possession of the city gates. It was too late. What had occurred at the Porte Ste. Catherine was now known throughout Bruges, and all the gates were strongly guarded by armed guildsmen. Almost in despair, the Regent gave orders to fire the town, hoping that in the confusion Hornes would somehow or other be able to effect an entrance—vain hope; the fires were no sooner kindled than extinguished. Maximilian, however, was not yet at the end of his tether. The Porte de Gand had been entrusted to Mathew Denys, Dean of Carpenters, who was said to be favourably disposed towards him. Again he sallied forth with a handful of faithful Germans, and again he was disappointed. With rude speech and violent gestures Mathew disdained his addresses. ‘Deliver your dean into my hands,’ cried Maximilian, furious at his refusal, ‘and I will load you with benefits.’ This, to the soldiers under Mathew’s command. ‘While there is a drop of blood in our veins,’ was the reply, ‘we will never abandon him.’ ‘Then at least let me leave the town,’ cried Maximilian, but neither would they grant this request; they felt sure he would be off to Damme to summon the little garrison there to join the army of Hornes.

Whereupon council of war, and assembly in the Place du bourg of all the Duke’s forces, strenuous exertions on the part of Peter Lanchals to rouse the burghers of his party to rally round Maximilian, much reluctance on their part to do so, great curiosity on the part of the multitude to learn what was going on, and no little anxiety on the part of the Germans to maintain order. Stact! Stact! they shouted, making a hedge with their halberds as the crowd pressed them closer and closer, which, in plain English, means ‘keep back,’ but in the excitement and turmoil of the moment, the people thought the soldiers cried slact, slact, that is ‘strike, strike,’ and fled helter-skelter, cry-out as they went that the Germans were going to slay them. Whereat panic unspeakable, and whilst the tocsin shrieks over the city, a host of armed guildsmen file into the market-place, bringing with them forty-nine cannons and fifty-two standards; and a crowd of trembling priests secrete in the crypt of St. Donatian’s, in the secret chambers in the thickness of the walls, in the vast grenier above the vaults, in holes and crannies, wherever they can, their relics and their art treasures, and frantically call on clerk and sacrist to save them from the Germans; messengers are sent off in hot haste to summon help from Ypres and Ghent; Maximilian, trembling for his life, withdraws to his palace, but not by way of the market-place; the whole town thrills with excitement and a burning desire for vengeance, increased tenfold when news comes of the arrest of the incendiaries, two Moors in the service of Count van Zollern. Not a burgher but was convinced that Bruges had escaped disaster by the skin of her teeth.

Meanwhile Lanchals’s house had been searched; it was found to be full of weapons, but Lanchals himself was not there—fresh proof of his nefarious designs—and in the market-place a reward of fifty livres de gros was publicly offered for his arrest.

Though the patriots Van Keyt and Van Bassevelde had been dead three years, their skulls were still impaled above the Halles—one on each of the turrets which flank its faÇade. To suffer them to remain there, now that the city was in their power, were an insult to the dead, and the burghers determined to remove them, were actually engaged in doing so, when suddenly the Regent’s ministers appeared on the scene, conciliatory, quaking. He was ready, they said, to pardon the people’s sedition. ‘Pardon us!’ roared a thousand throats, and a thousand fingers pointed to the ghastly relics of Maximilian’s vengeance. ‘Pardon us! The miscreant who offers us pardon is ten times more guilty than we.’

‘What then would you have?’ faltered Paul de Baenst. ‘A new burgomaster and a new ÉcoutÈte,’ replied the guildsmen, ‘instead of Peter Lanchals and Jan van Nieuwenhove, who merit death.’ So terrified was Maximilian that he dared not refuse the demand, and Josse de Decker was named burgomaster, and Peter Metteneye ÉcoutÈte.

For two days Maximilian remained shut up in his palace; on the 4th of February he ventured out, and from the balcony of the Halles endeavoured to explain, but the people refused to hear him. ‘Wait,’ they shouted, ‘wait until the deputies of Ypres and Ghent come’; nor was this all. He was forced to listen in silence to a long letter from the sheriffs of Ghent, which must have been gall and wormwood to him, a letter promising help, announcing the defeat and death at Courtrai of his favourite Hornes, and offering congratulations that Bruges was now out of danger. Nor until he had heard the command given to make diligent search for his counsellors, in order to bring them to justice, was he at length suffered to return to his palace.

On the morrow fresh news came from Ghent. Adrien of Rasseghem had just torn up the kalfvel of 1485. ‘For God’s sake do not disarm. Be not deceived by Maximilian’s specious promises, but keep good watch over him until the meeting of the Estates-General, and make sure of the persons of his counsellors.’

Great was the enthusiasm of the burghers, and they set about pitching tents in the Grande Place, for the weather was bitterly cold, and they were determined to remain under arms until all danger was past. In the midst came news that Maximilian had fled, news which turned out to be false, but in order to calm the people the burghers invited him to show himself among them, and presently he appeared in the market-place, gorgeously arrayed in cloth of gold and seated on a magnificent charger. Nor did he meet with a lukewarm reception; the people cheered him to the echo. Their hatred was for the moment transferred to the members of his council. Whereat Maximilian, no doubt relieved, made them a speech: he had no thought of leaving Bruges; if they doubted his word, let them set a watch at the palace. The burghers, who were practical men, replied that they would consider his proposal, and at the end of half an hour informed him that the deputies of the three bonnes villes were just about to meet, and that while they were discussing matters it would be well for him to take up his abode in the Craenenburg.

The Craenenburg was at this time the property of Hendrieck Nieulandt, a merchant of great wealth, to whom Maximilian was heavily indebted. It was situated at the corner of the rue St. Amand, and was the most magnificent private residence in the market-place. From its balcony the Counts of Flanders were wont to witness the public games and festivities which so frequently delighted the citizens of Bruges, and there Maximilian had himself been diverted, some three weeks before, by the squeaks and grunts and ungainly bounds of a herd of frantic swine, and the no less uncouth shouts and falls of the blind sportsmen who were pursuing them. Not a very edifying spectacle, one would think, for a prince who longed for and afterwards grasped an imperial diadem, and who would, if he could, have put on his finger the ring of the fisherman. But, other times other manners, and let us never forget, as a recent writer aptly and pithily has it, ‘Notre ancÊtre du moyen Âge est un grand enfant, il s’amuse aux choses extraordinaires pullulant aux pays lointains, et par dessous tout ... il est grossiÈrement joyeux.’ He was all that certainly in Bruges at the close of the fourteen hundreds, and perhaps his descendants in the same city are all that to-day.

The King of the Romans, attended by a numerous suite, took up his abode in Nieulandt’s palace on the evening of the 4th February 1488. Shortly afterwards, perhaps the next day, the deputies from Ghent and Ypres arrived, the Ghenters bringing with them two thousand armed men. All the trades guilds of Bruges were assembled in the Grande Place to welcome them, and their advent was greeted with cheers and the thunder of cannon. After solemnly attending Mass in St. Donatian’s the general assembly of the three bonnes villes was declared open, and presently business commenced. There were some who were sanguine enough to believe that peace would be the outcome, but for the burghers to come to an understanding with Maximilian was in reality a task almost impossible of accomplishment. The Prince was so shifty and the people were so exacting. The chief point at issue was the guardianship of young Philip. Maximilian had shown himself in forty several ways, the men of Ghent alleged, unworthy to exercise the rights of a father, and he must never again be permitted to do so. Had he not sworn to educate his son in Flanders, and then taken him out of the county? Before any terms of peace were arranged they must have some solid guarantee that Philip would be brought back again. Then there was the question of the Treaty of Arras, and the alleged plot to ruin Bruges, a matter which called for instant investigation, and if their suspicions—they were more than suspicions—should prove correct, justice must be meted out to the men who had instigated it, and there were a hundred other grievances to be redressed before any lasting peace could be established.

Meanwhile Charles VIII. was doing all in his power to help the Flemish people. Divesting, as suzerain, of their legal authority all those officers who continued to act for and in the name of Maximilian, ‘who,’ he averred, ‘had usurped the regency, violated sworn treaties and minted base coin in his own name,’ authorizing the burghers to themselves appoint magistrates who should ‘act in the name of the child Philip, now held prisoner by the King’s enemies,’ and to coin their own cash, signing charters innumerable, confirming ancient privileges, conferring new rights, granting full liberty to the merchants of Flanders to travel without let or hindrance throughout the kingdom of France—in a word, showing himself generally the friend and staunch supporter of democracy, the last barrier, as it seemed to him, to the Germanisation of the Netherlands.

On the 13th February all these charters were solemnly read in the market-place at Bruges, as well as the text of the Treaty of Arras, and a long report on the attempted destruction of the city, whereat the guildsmen wax furious, break into Maximilian’s palace—the Princenhof—find there four hundred barrels of gunpowder, scaling ladders innumerable, and something more ominous still, coils upon coils of stout rope. What was this for? Not a man of them but believed that the Duke had meant to hang him. Next day, in consequence, arrest of fourteen privy councillors, Flemings, Burgundians, Germans, four of them in Maximilian’s own chamber. All of these men had fancied themselves safe because they were attached to the royal person.

The same evening a deputation of burghers pay Maximilian a visit of condolence, bid him take heart, and assure him that they bear him no enmity; that his person is perfectly safe in their hands, and that they are ready to do anything in their power to make him comfortable. Maximilian, nevertheless, unconvinced and exceedingly depressed. February 16, commencement of trial of Jan van Nieuwenhove and sundry others arrested the day before. Great deliberation on the part of the judges who, sitting with closed doors, have already spun out the proceedings for two days, when the mob outside, losing all patience and frantically shouting that the judges have gone

HÔtel Gruthuise

to sleep and it is time to awaken them, break into the Court House, drag the accused forth into the market-place, and presently bring hither the rack.

On the evening of February 17, Carnival. Hell let loose:—a weird farrago of gibbering masks, and wailing ghosts, and gorgeous dresses; a veritable pandemonium of obscene songs and lecherous yells and hysterical laughter; a drunken whirlwind of mad furies shrieking vengeance, whilst, to the strains of delirious music, they wildly dance around the headsman’s block and bloody axe, and, a still ghastlier thing, a rack of new and improved fashion, which has never yet been used, but soon will be, set out in grim array before the Halles. Suddenly the air grows thick with smoke, the Belfry gleams out roseate against the black sky, and great tongues of flame dart up to heaven. Somehow or other the venders of fruit and fried fish and cheap finery have managed to fire their booths, and thus, during the small hours of Ash-Wednesday morning, the fierce orgies are fittingly brought to a close with a fiercer conflagration.

The tumult of Monday night seems to have had the desired effect. When the Court re-assembled on Ash-Wednesday morning the judges were wide awake, and one after another in rapid succession the accused were found guilty and condemned to death. Before, however, the sentences which had been passed were carried out, it was deemed prudent to change the place of Maximilian’s imprisonment. On more than one occasion he had almost effected his escape, and the Craenenburg was not thought to be sufficiently secure. Moreover, it was not roomy enough to accommodate the numerous retinue of gaolers with which, under the guise of attendants, it was deemed necessary to surround him. Perhaps too the burghers wished to spare Maximilian the pain of seeing his friends die. During the whole period of his captivity they seem to have treated him with the utmost consideration, regarding him not so much as a criminal as an amiable but dangerous lunatic, whom, indeed, for the sake of the public weal, they were bound to put under restraint, but whom, at the same time, they were no less bound to make as comfortable as possible. When he passed through the Grande Place on his way to his new prison and in trembling accents besought the people to see that no harm befell him, ‘have no fear,’ they cried, ‘we bear you no grudge, your counsellors alone are to blame,’ and the palace to which they led him, in the rue St. Jacques—it had recently been occupied by Jean Gros, Chancellor of the Golden Fleece—was in all probability hardly less spacious and no less luxuriously furnished than the Princenhof itself.

KITCHEN IN GRUTHUISE
KITCHEN IN GRUTHUISE

Some idea may be gathered of the stately homes of the burgher-nobles of Bruges during this period from the recently-restored habitation of the Lords of Gruthuise, the most perfect and the best preserved of the few mediÆval palaces still left to the city; and be it noted that the HÔtel Gruthuise[39] of to-day is only a fragment of the original building; there was another great wing on the further bank of the river connected with it by a bridge, nor is it likely that the mansion of the Chancellor of the Golden Fleece was in any way less magnificent. Here, then, we may picture to ourselves the same beautiful pavements of glistening white tiles relieved by delicately-designed patterns in red and blue and green and gold; the same wealth of carved oak in door and shutter and ceiling; the same huge chimney-pieces of carved stone, brilliant with colour, jutting out over hearths not deeply set in the thickness of the wall, as in England, but shallow and broad and high and all lined with fair ceramic tiles of russet and sage green, and glowing now, for it is winter-time, in the light of flaming timber placed on dogs richly wrought in brass or iron. We know that costly tapestry was hung on the walls and that curtains of silk and velvet draped the windows; of their delicate texture and marvellous design a visit to the museum beneath the Belfry will show something, and here, too, are treasured up not a few specimens of the beautiful carved oak furniture, as well as of the glassware and pottery, which was used at Bruges when Maximilian was a prisoner there; whilst the pictures of the Van Eycks of Memlinc and of other artists of the period bear witness to the glorious colouring of the woven fabrics and the embroidery of those days.

Nor was the King of the Romans without companions or means of distraction. Twelve members of his household were permitted to share his prison. Tir À l’oiseau was inaugurated in the courtyard. From time to time the trade guilds with flaunting banners marched past his windows, ‘in order to occupy his leisure and to drive away his melancholy.’ His table too was sumptuously served. The burghers had even got his plate out of pawn for him, and every evening some of the most stately of them were wont to pay him visits, in order, as they said, to cheer him with conversation friendly and loving—vriendelic end mimusamelic.

CHIMNEY-PIECE IN THE GRUTHUISE PALACE
CHIMNEY-PIECE IN THE GRUTHUISE PALACE

Nor was this all. ÉcoutÈte Peter Metteneye was in constant attendance, as he was in duty bound to be, and at his beck and call were thirty-six servants, who, like their chief, never left the house. But Maximilian knew very well that all this solicitude on the part of Myn Heer Peter was not the outcome of a keen desire to exactly fulfil the obligations of his office, but was rather prompted by fear lest his victim should escape; that his thirty-six servants were in reality thirty-six turnkeys, and that the ÉcoutÈte himself was gaoler-in-chief. What wonder that when Antoine de Fontaine came to visit Maximilian in Master Jean Gros’s mansion he found him ‘fort amaigry et pÂle.’[40]

In consenting to quit the Craenenburg Maximilian had removed the last obstacle which might perhaps have prevented or at all events retarded the execution of those of his friends who were prisoners like himself. The day after he left a great scaffold draped in black was erected in the Grande Place. Gilbert du Homme, a Norman, erst Burgomaster of the Franc, died first, then came Jan van Nieuwenhove; so battered and weak was he with the torture which he had undergone that they had to give him an armchair in which to await his turn for death. Perhaps the sight of his misery had unnerved the executioner; he struck three times before he succeeded in severing the head from the body.

Another man who had been Burgomaster of Bruges perished the same day, Jacob van Dudzeele, Lord of Ghistelle. He had been arrested in the Craenenburg under the very eyes of Maximilian, and to the last he protested his innocence. ‘For fifty years,’ he said, ‘I have served the princes who have succeeded one another in the government of this county, and I have never played the traitor. If any man affirm the contrary, I am ready to do battle with him, no matter who he may be, and to do all that behoveth a good and loyal knight, a nobleman, and a burgher of this town.’

Note that Ghistelle here esteems his citizenship no less highly than his knighthood or his nobility. Such was the wont of the burgher-nobles of Bruges. In vain the lady of Ghistelle besought the guildsmen to spare her lord. In vain his children, the Provost of St. Donatian’s, the Dean of Notre Dame and the foreign merchants, joined their supplication to hers. Jacob’s head rolled on the scaffold.

On the 15th March Peter Lanchals, long sought for, was at last found, betrayed by one of his friends for a hundred livres de gros and to save his own head, for death had been decreed against any man who should shelter him. He was arrested the same day by Burgomaster Jan van Haman, who conducted him to the Steen, and the howls of contempt and hatred which greeted his passage through the city were kept up around his prison all night. The men of Bruges were beside themselves with a delirium of fierce gladness. Volleys of cannon were fired off, bands of music paraded the town, and they danced and drank in the streets till morning, for had not this man been Maximilian’s head and heart and right hand in all his infernal machinations? Had he not intended to deliver Bruges over to be pillaged by the Germans? Had not the whole devilish plot been of his hatching? That cruel instrument of torture which he had invented, more cruel than any known hitherto in Flanders, should persuade him to own it. And it did, whatever we may think of an assertion made under such circumstances. By a strange irony of fate Lanchals was the first to test the efficacy of his own invention. Tortured as he had been, and in pitiable plight, Peter still clung to dear life. ‘Put me in some black hole and there let me eat out my heart,’ he vainly pleaded, ‘but for God’s sake let me live!’ When at length he saw that the people had no pity, he suffered the executioner to strip him of his clothes. One of the guild deans touched the gold chain which he wore round his neck. ‘Sir Dean,’ said the dying man, ‘you know well that no burgher of Bruges can be condemned to forfeit his life and his goods,’ and he handed the chain to his confessor and begged him to give it to his wife; then he besought the people that his body might receive honourable burial, and having commended his soul to God, he bade the executioner do his duty. In addition to his tomb and the chantry erected by his widow in the Church of Notre Dame—the same chantry in which now stand the tombs of Charles the Terrible and Marie of Burgundy—there is yet another souvenir at Bruges, and a more pleasing one, of poor Peter Lanchals:—the graceful, long-necked birds which disport themselves in great flocks, sometimes as many as thirty or forty of them together, on the canals and streams of the city. These birds belong to the corporation, and they are the descendants, tradition says, of the swans which Maximilian, when he regained his liberty, bade Bruges maintain for ever as a perpetual memorial of his favourite’s death. Lanchals, it should be noted, signifies in Flemish, long neck, and the swan is a prominent figure in the Lanchals family arms.

The news of these executions and of others, which, like them, were the outcome, it was said, of ‘the justice of the people,’ made Maximilian tremble in his prison. Perhaps he had cause to do so. The men of Venice had written to the men of Bruges to urge them to cut off his head: Homo mortuus non fecit guerram. And there were others who trembled for him—his father, the Emperor Frederick III., who wrote to the magistrates of Bruges warning them that he should hold them personally responsible for any evil which might befall the King of the Romans; the Pope, who threatened interdict; several German princes, who were making ready, it was said, for invasion; and his son Philip, who summoned the estates of Hainault and of Brabant with a view to obtaining their good offices. They invited the communes of Ghent and Bruges to meet them in conference at Malines. Louis of Gruthuise, now set at liberty, threw in his weight on the side of conciliation, and early in the spring of 1488 the Estates-General of all the provinces of the Netherlands met in solemn conclave at Ghent. Two great measures were the outcome of their deliberations—a treaty of confederation by which the various provinces mutually bound themselves to defend their rights and privileges, and a treaty of peace with Maximilian of which the conditions are sufficiently curious. The communes on their part promised to set their prince at liberty without further delay, on condition that he should undertake to dismiss his foreign gens de guerre within four days. In order to facilitate their departure the three bonnes villes undertook to pay Maximilian within a month twenty-five thousand livres Flemish upon the understanding ‘that if the aforesaid gens de guerre’ had not departed within the stipulated period, the money should be expended in the payment of ‘autres gens de guerre who by force should expulse them.’

For the rest, it was agreed that Maximilian should at once bring back his son to Flanders, and that during his minority the county should be administered by the three Estates in Philip’s name, that Maximilian should strictly adhere to the Treaty of Arras, cease to quarter the arms of Flanders on his escutcheon and promise to protect Flemish merchants all the world over, and that the communes should pay him by way of solatium an annual pension of a thousand livres.

There was some difficulty at first as to sureties. Maximilian had named the Duke of Saxony and the Marquis of Baden, but these princes hesitated to guarantee his good faith; it were an undertaking, they averred, too risky. The knot was at length cut by Philip of Cleves, who, on learning of the difficulty, wrote to Maximilian offering to do anything in his power to help him. Philip was the son of the Lord of Ravestein, one of the four regents whom Maximilian had accepted at the commencement of his son’s reign. He was a man deservedly popular amongst the burghers, his influence with them had contributed in great measure to the successful issue of the negotiations, and in due course his name appeared at the head of the list of guarantors.

The communes, however, were not yet satisfied, and that, though Maximilian, in order to further reassure them, had renounced Philip’s homage so that he might be free to take up arms against him in the event of his breaking his troth, and Philip, at his request, had bound himself by oath to do so. The treaty of peace, they said, must be ratified by the Pope, the Emperor and the imperial Electors, and before Maximilian was set free he must undertake to obtain such ratification. He seems to have had no hesitation in doing so, for the same day he left Jean Gros’s palace and, preceded by priests with relics, and guildsmen with banners and torches, betook himself to the market-place, where, on the very spot on which the scaffold had lately stood, a magnificent throne had been erected, surmounted by a richly-embroidered canopy. Hard-by there stood an altar, and on it was set a Book of the Gospels and amid flaming torches the Host. Before these sacred objects Maximilian presently knelt down and ‘with much seeming fear and reverence took the appointed oath. “Of our free will we promise,” he said, in a voice so sweet’—we are quoting the words of one who heard him—‘that it would have melted a heart of stone, “of our free will we promise and swear in good faith on the Sacred Host here present, on the cross, on the Book of the Gospels, on the precious body of St. Donatian and on the Canon of the Mass to carry out wholly and entirely the treaty of peace and alliance which we have concluded with our well-beloved Estates ... and on our princely and royal word, on our honour, and on our faith we hereby promise never to do anything to violate it.”’ Maximilian having thus pledged himself, the Bishop of Tournai solemnly blessed all those who should keep inviolate, and afterwards solemnly cursed all those who should presume to infringe, the treaty agreed to that day (May 16, 1488). Then followed a sumptuous banquet, then, at St. Donatian’s a Te Deum, after which Philip of Cleves, who had only just reached Bruges, took oath ‘to aid them of Flanders against all infractors of the said peace, union and alliance.’ At length, after an imprisonment of eleven weeks, Maximilian was once more free. Towards sundown he set out for his chÂteau at Maele, the deputies of the Estates of Flanders accompanied him part of the way, and before he bade them farewell he again confirmed his promises. ‘Monseigneur,’ Philip had said, ‘you are now a free man, tell me frankly your intentions.’ ‘Fair cousin of Cleves,’ replied Maximilian, ‘believe me I shall keep my word,’ and thus they parted.

Great was the joy of the city of Bruges, and the people determined to make a night of it in the Grande Place, as is still their wont upon festive occasions, with malt liquor and music and dancing, without which accompaniments no Flemish festival ever has been, or probably ever will be, complete. Suddenly the band of musicians who had stationed themselves on the summit of the Belfry ceased playing. They had descried a hundred tongues of flame rising up from the woods of Maele. Maximilian’s foreign gens de guerre were celebrating their master’s return by firing the peasants’ homesteads, and though next day Maximilian sent word to Bruges that the incendiaries had not acted under his instructions, and perhaps he spoke the truth, what had happened was far from reassuring, and men began to doubt whether the peace which had just been signed would after all be one of long duration; nor were their fears ill founded. From the first the King of the Romans had been playing a double part. Even whilst the negotiations with his burghers were pending he was secretly pressing the imperial Electors to send their armies against them; four days after the peace of May 16 had been publicly proclaimed in the cities of Flanders he felt himself strong enough to drop the mask.

Maximilian had now taken up his abode in the impregnable fortress of Hulse, and from thence he issued a proclamation to all the communes of Flanders informing them that he did not intend to observe the treaty he had sworn to. An oath, he said, taken under obligation had no binding force.

It was enough. Maximilian had once more shown the cloven hoof, the Flemings had once more been deceived, and soon in every city and in every hamlet in Flanders the tocsin was shrieking war.

In an age when treason and suspicion of treason were rampant throughout the realm, when on all sides men were plotting against their neighbours and at the same time were surely convinced that their neighbours were plotting against them, Philip of Cleves affords us a bright and shining example of loyalty and good faith. An honest, straightforward, generous man, conscious of the cleanness of his own heart and his own hands, he found it difficult to convince himself that even those whom he felt it his duty to oppose were inspired in any sort by motives less conscientious than his own. As soon as he had learned of Maximilian’s treachery he thus wrote to him:—

‘Prince Monseigneur,—In fulfilment of my oath, and for fear of offending God our Creator, I have promised to aid and assist the three members of Flanders. This with very great regret of heart I now signify to you, for, inasmuch as it toucheth your noble person, as your very humble kinsman I would fain do you all service and honour, but inasmuch as it toucheth the observance of my oath I am bound to God, the Sovereign King of Kings.’