Holland - Thomas Colley Grattan
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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.