Charles the Bold Part 3

In 1445, Ghent had been honoured by the celebration of the feast of the Order of the Golden Fleece within her gates. Two years later, Philip appeared in person at a meeting of the _collace_, or munic.i.p.al a.s.sembly, and delivered a harangue to the Ghentish magistrates and burghers, flattering them, moreover, by using their vernacular. The tenor of this speech was as follows[10]:

"My good and faithful friends, you know how I have been brought up among you from my infancy. That is why I have always loved you more than the inhabitants of all my other cities, and I have proved this by acceding to all your requests. I believe then that I am justified in hoping that you will not abandon me to-day when I have need of your support. Doubtless you are not ignorant of the condition of my father's treasury at the period of his death. The majority of his possessions had been sold. His jewels were in p.a.w.n. Nevertheless, the demands of a legitimate vengeance compelled me to undertake a long and b.l.o.o.d.y war, during which the defence of my fortresses and of my cities, and the pay of my army have necessitated outlays so large that it is impossible to estimate them. You know, too, that at the very moment when the war on France was at its height, I was obliged, in order to a.s.sure the protection of my country of Flanders, to take arms against the English in Hainaut, in Zealand, and in Friesland, a proceeding costing me more than 10,000 _saluts d'or,_ which I raised with difficulty. Was I not equally obliged to proceed against Liege, in behalf of my countship of Namur, which sprang from the bosom of Flanders? It is not necessary to add to all these outlays those which I a.s.sume daily for the cause of the Christians in Jerusalem, and the maintenance of the Holy Sepulchre.

"It is true, however, that, yielding to the persuasions of the pope and the Council, I have now consented to put an end to the evils multiplied by war by forgetting my father's death, and by reconciling myself with the king. Since the conclusion of this treaty, I considered that while I had succeeded in preserving to my subjects during the war the advantages of industry and of peace, they had submitted to heavy burdens in taxes and in voluntary contributions, and that it was my duty to re-establish order and justice in the administration. But everything went on as though the war had not ceased. All my frontiers have been menaced, and I found myself obliged to make good my rights in Luxemburg, so useful to the defence of my other lands, especially of Brabant and Flanders.

"In this way, my expenses continued to increase; all my resources are now exhausted, and the saddest part of it all is that the good cities and communes of Flanders and especially the country folk are at the very end of their sacrifices. With grief I see many of my subjects unable to pay their taxes, and obliged to emigrate.

Nevertheless, my receipts are so scanty that I have little advantage from them. Nor do I reap more from my hereditary lands, for all are equally impoverished.

"A way must be found to ease the poor people, and at the same time to protect Flanders from insult, Flanders for whose sake I would risk my own person, although to arrive at this end, important measures have become imperative."

After this affectionate preamble, Philip finally states that, in order to raise the requisite revenues, no method seemed to him so good and so simple as a tax on salt, three sous on every measure for a term of twelve years. He promised to dispense with all other subsidies and to make his son swear to demand nothing further as long as the _gabelle_ was imposed.

"Know [he added in conclusion] that even if you consent to it I will renounce it if others prove of a different opinion, for I do not desire that the communes of Flanders be more heavily weighted than any other portion of my territory."

The duke might have spared his trouble and his elaborate condescension. The answer to his conciliatory request was a flat refusal to consider the matter at all. Salt was a vital necessity to Flemish fisheries, and its cost could not be increased to the least degree without serious inconvenience. The Flemings were wroth at his imitating the worst custom of his French kinsmen.

Philip departed from Ghent in great dudgeon. After a time he was persuaded that the indisposition of the town to meet his reasonable wishes was not due to the citizens at large, but to the machinations of a few unruly agitators among the magistrates. In 1449, therefore, he took a high-handed course of trying to direct the issue of the regular munic.i.p.al elections, so as to ensure the choice of magistrates on whose obedience he could rely. The appearance of Burgundian troops in Ghent, before the election of mid-August, aroused the wrath of the community, who thought that their most cherished franchises were in jeopardy.

This was the beginning of a bitter struggle between Ghent and Philip.

The duke found it no light matter to coerce the independent burghers into remembering that they were simply part of the Burgundian state.

"_Tantae molis erat liberam gentem in servitutem adigere_!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es Meyer in the midst of his chronicle of the details of fourteen months of active hostilities.[11] Matters were long in coming to an outbreak.

Various points had been contended over, when Philip had endeavoured to change the seat of the great council, or to take divers measures tending to concentrate certain judicial or legislative functions for his own convenience, but in a manner prejudicial to the autonomy of Ghent. His centripetal policy was disliked, but when his policy went further, and he attempted to control purely civic offices, dislike grew into resentment and the Ghenters rose in open revolt.

For a time, their opposition pa.s.sed in Philip's estimation as mere insignificant unruliness. By 1452, however, the date of the tourney above described, it became evident that a vital issue was at stake.

The Estates of Flanders endeavoured to mediate between overlord and town, but without success. Owing to Philip's interference in the elections, the results were declared void, and when a new election was appointed, the Burgundians accused the city of hastily augmenting its number of legal voters by over-facile naturalisation laws. The gilds, too, evinced a readiness to be very lenient in their scrutiny of candidates for admission to their cherished privileges, preferring, for the nonce, numbers to quality. Occupancy of furnished rooms was declared sufficient for enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, and there were cases where mere guests of a bourgeois were hastily recorded on the lists as full-fledged citizens.

By these means the popular party waxed very strong numerically. The sheriffs found themselves quite unequal to holding the rampant spirit of democracy in check. The regular government was overthrown, and the demagogues succeeded in electing three captains _(hooftmans)_ invested with arbitrary power for the time being. The decrees of the ex-sheriffs were suspended, and a ma.s.s of very radical measures promulgated and joyfully confirmed by the populace, a.s.sembled on the Friday market. It was to be the judgment of the town meeting that ruled, not deputed authority. One ordinance stipulated that at the sound of the bell every burgher must hasten to the market-place, to lend his voice to the deliberations.

For a time various negotiations went on between Philip and envoys from Ghent. The latter took a high hand and insinuated in unmistakable terms that if the duke refused an accommodation with them, they would appeal to their suzerain, the King of France. No act of rebellion, overt or covert, exasperated Philip more than this suggestion. Charles VII. was only too ready to ignore those clauses in the treaty of Arras, releasing the duke from homage, and virtually acknowledging his complete independence in his French territories. The king accepted missives from his late va.s.sal's city, without reprimanding the writers for their presumption in signing themselves "Seigneurs of Ghent."[12]

His action, however, was confined to mild attempts at mediation.

It was plain to the duke that his other towns would follow Ghent's resistance to his authority if there were hopes of her success.

Therefore he threw aside all other interests for the time being, and exerted himself to levy a body of troops to crush Flemish pretensions.

His counsellors advised him to sound the temper of other citizens and to ascertain whether their sympathies were with Ghent. Answers of feeble loyalty came back to him from the majority of the other towns.

Undoubtedly they highly approved Ghent's efforts. They, too, could not afford to pay taxes fraught with danger to their commerce, nor to relinquish one jot of privileges dearly bought at successive crises throughout a long period of years. The only doubt in their minds was as to the ultimate success of the burghers to stem the course of Burgundian usurpation. Therefore, they first hedged, and then consented to aid the duke. This course was pursued by the Hollanders and the Zealanders, all alike short-sighted.

The Ghenters succeeded in possessing themselves of the castle of Poucque by force, and of the village of Gaveren by stratagem, taking advantage in the latter case of the castellan's absence at church.

When every part of his dominions had been canva.s.sed for troops, and Philip was prepared for his first active campaign against Ghent, he was anxious to leave his heir under the protection of the d.u.c.h.ess, conscious that the imminent contest would be bitter and deadly. A pretence was made that the young count's accoutrements were not ready, and that, therefore, he would have to remain in Brussels.

"But he whose ambitions waxed, hastened the completion of his accoutrements, and swore by St. George, the greatest oath he ever used, that he would rather go in his shirt than not accompany his father to punish his impudent rebel subjects."[13]

The approaching hostilities were watched by foreign merchants in dread of commercial disaster.

"On May 18th, the _nations_[14] of the merchants of Bruges departed thence to go to Ghent to try to make peace between that city and the Duke of Burgundy, and there were _nations_ of Spain, Aragon, Portugal, and Scotland, besides the Venetians, Milanese, Genoese, and Luccans."[15]

But the men of Ghent were beyond the point where commercial arguments could stem their course. The very day that this company arrived in the city, the burghers sallied forth six or seven thousand strong, fully equipped for offensive warfare.

Both the actual engagements and guerilla skirmishes that raged over a minute stretch of territory were characterised by an extraordinary ferocity. Around Oudenarde, which town Philip was determined to relieve, men were beheaded like sheep.

In the first regular engagement in which Charles took part, he showed a brave front and learned the duties of a prince by rewarding others with the honour of knighthood. Among those slain in the course of the war, were Cornelius, b.a.s.t.a.r.d of Burgundy, and the gallant Jacques de Lalaing. Philip grieved deeply over the death of the former, his favourite among his natural sons, and buried him with all honours in the Church of Ste-Gudule in Brussels. The t.i.tle by which he was known, hardly a proud one it would seem, pa.s.sed to his brother Anthony.

Lalaing, too, was greatly mourned, thus prematurely cut down in his thirty-third year.

There was so much fear lest the duke's sole legitimate heir might also perish in these conflicts where there was no mercy, that Charles was persuaded to go to visit his mother in the hope that she would keep him by her side. She made a feast in his honour, but, to the surprise of all, the d.u.c.h.ess, who had wished to protect her son from the mild perils of a tourney, now encouraged him with brave words to return to fight in all earnest for his inheritance.[16] He himself was very indignant at the efforts to treat him as a child.

The first truce and negotiations for peace, initiated in the summer of 1452, were broken off because the conditions were unbearable to the Ghenters. Another year of warfare followed before the decisive battle of Gaveren, in July, 1453, forced them sadly to succ.u.mb. There was no other course open to them. Not only were they defeated but their numbers were decimated.[17] With full allowance for exaggeration, it is certain that the loss was very heavy. Terms scornfully rejected at an earlier date were, in 1453, accepted with every humiliating detail.

More, the defeated rebels were bidden to be grateful that their kind sovereign had imposed nothing further to the conditions. As to abating the severity of the articles, he declared that he would not change an _a_ for a _b_.[18]

The chief provisions were as follows: The deans of the gilds were deprived of partic.i.p.ation in the election of sheriffs. The privileges of the naturalisation laws were considerably abridged. No sentence of banishment could be p.r.o.nounced without the intervention of the duke's bailiff, whose authorisation, too, was required before the publication of edicts, ordinances, etc. The sheriffs were forbidden to place their names at the head of letters to the officers of the duke. The banners were to be delivered to the duke and placed under five locks, whose several keys should be deposited with as many different people, without whose consensus the banners could not be brought forth to lead the burghers to sedition. One gate was to be closed every Thursday in memory of the day when the citizens had marched through it to attack their liege lord, and another was to be barred up in perpetuity or at the pleasure of their sovereign. To reimburse the duke for his enforced outlay, a heavy indemnity was to be paid by the city.

July 30th was the date appointed for the final act of submission, the _amende honorable_ of the unfortunate city. The scene was very similar to that played at Bruges in 1440. Two thousand citizens headed by the sheriffs, councillors, and captains of the burgher guard met the duke and his suite a league without the walls of Ghent. Bareheaded, barefooted, and divested of all their robes of office and of dignity, clad only in shirts and small clothes, these magistrates confessed that they had wronged their loving lord by unruly rebellion, and begged his pardon most humbly.

The duke spent the night of July 29th at Gaveren, prepared to march out in the morning with his whole army in handsome array. Philip was magnificently apparelled, but he rode the same horse which he had used on the day of battle, with the various wounds received on that day ostentatiously plastered over to make a dramatic show of what the injured sovereign had suffered at the hands of his disloyal subjects.

The civic procession was headed by the Abbot of St. Bavon and the Prior of the Carthusians. The burghers who followed the half-clad officials were fully dressed but they, too, were barefoot and ungirdled. All prostrated themselves in the dust and cried, "Mercy on the town of Ghent." While they were thus prostrate, the town spokesman of the council made an elaborate speech in French, a.s.suring the duke that if, out of his benign grace. he would take his loving and repentant subjects again into his favour, they would never again give him cause for reproach.

"At the conclusion of this harangue, the duke and the Count of Charolais, there present, pardoned the pet.i.tioners for their evil deeds. The men of Ghent re-entered their town more happy and rejoiced than can be expressed, and the duke departed for Lille, having disbanded his army, that every one might return to their several homes." [19]

The joy experienced by the conquered, here described by La Marche, as he looked back at the event from the calm retirement of his old age, was not visible to all eye-witnesses. The progress of this war was watched eagerly from other parts of Philip's dominion. His army was full of men from both the Burgundies, who sent frequent reports to their own homes. Some pa.s.sages from one of these reports by an unknown war correspondent run as follows:

"As to news from here, Monday after St. Magdalen's Day, Monseigneur the duke got the better of the Ghenters near Gaveren between ten and eleven o'clock. They attacked him near his quarters.... The duke risked his own person in advance of his company in the very worst of the slaughter, which lasted from the said place up to Ghent, a distance of about two leagues. The slain number three or four thousand, more or less, and those drowned in the river of Quaux about two hundred.... This Tuesday, the date of writing, the army departs from their quarters to advance on Ghent to demand the conditions lately offered them, and the bearer of this letter will tell you what is the result. M. the duke and his army marched up to Ghent and I have seen the bearing of the citizens. They are very bitter and despondent. M. the marshall has been parleying. I hear that matters have been settled. I hear that the Ghenters' loss is thirteen to fourteen thousand men. I cannot write more for I have no time owing to the haste of the messenger."

This was written July 23d. There is another despatch of July 31st, giving the last news, which was "very joyous." The public apology had just been enacted--

"and afterwards, in token of being conquered and as a confession that my said seigneur was victorious, those of Ghent have delivered up all their banners to the number of eighty. And on this day my said lord has created seven or eight knights and heralds in honour of his triumph, which is inestimable."[20]

The duke's victory was certainly "inestimable" in its value to him, yet, in spite of the rigour enforced on this defeated people, they were not as crushed as they might have been had they submitted in 1445. Philip was clever enough to be more lenient than appeared at first. Ancient privileges were confirmed in a special compact, and the duke swore to maintain all former concessions in their entirety except in the points above specified. Liberty of person was guaranteed, and it was expressly stipulated that if the bailiff refused to sustain the sheriffs in their exercise of justice, or tried to arrogate to himself more than his due authority, he should forfeit his office. Lastly, and more important than all, the duke made no attempt to revive the demand for the _gabelle_--salt was left free and untaxed. As a matter of fact, too, the duke was not exigeant in the fulfilment of every item of the treaty and, two years later, he increased certain privileges.

He had cut the lion's claws but he had no desire to pit his strength again with Flemish communes. He had taught the audacious rebels a lesson and that sufficed him.[21]

[Footnote 1: Blok, _Eene Hollandsche stad onder de Bourg.

Oostenrijksche Heerschappij,_ p. 84.]

[Footnote 2: La Marche, ii., 79, etc.]

[Footnote 3: See also _Chronijcke van Nederlant,_ p. 76, and _Vlaamsche Kronijk,_ p. 203. Ed. C. Piot.]

[Footnote 4: D'Escouchy, _Chronique_, i., 110.]

[Footnote 5: The items of the funeral expenses can be found in Laborde, i., 380. There were 600 ma.s.ses at two sous apiece.]

[Footnote 6: In that same year, 1440, in which this gift is recorded, there is another item showing how Charles took his amus.e.m.e.nt not only on the harp but in planning some of the elaborate surprises regularly introduced between courses in the banquets. "To Barthelmy the painter, for making the cover of a pasty for the Count of Charolais to present to Monseigneur on the night of St. Martin in the previous year, v francs" (Laborde, i., 381).]

[Footnote 7: La Marche, ii., 214.]

[Footnote 8: Gachard puts this tournament in Lent, 1452. Charles's outfit cost 360 livres.]

[Footnote 9: La Marche, i., ch. 21.]