CHAPTER XIV

Peter de Coninck

But if the majores et potentiores were exuberant in their manifestations of loyalty, the people were dumb. In vain Philippe called the sheriffs to him, and bade them proclaim public games; no man would take part in them. Indeed, these very games were destined to be the source of the ill-fortune which afterwards befell the French.

The sheriffs essayed to place to the cost of the city companies the price of the gala uniforms expressly manufactured for the occasion. The latter refused to acknowledge the debt, and riots ensued which presently culminated in successful rebellion. In those days there dwelt in the city of Bruges a little wizened, one-eyed man who loved the people. Speaking no language but his own rude mother-tongue, he knew how to infuse so much fire into it, and to mould it into such pithy sayings, and there was so much shrewdness in his speech, and so much sense in his ugly head that, in spite of his physical infirmities and in spite of his uncouth form, his influence with them was unbounded. This man was the dean of the great Guild of Weavers, Petrus de Coninck, or, in plain English, Peter King.

What his original station in life may have been, and what public offices, if any, he may have filled, are questions, perhaps, which will never be determined. May be, as Gheldorf thinks, he was a man of noble birth who had formerly occupied some position of trust at Guy’s Court—it was by no means an unusual occurrence for Flemish noblemen in those days to become members of city companies. May be Kervyn is right in asserting that he was a son of the people; nor, if this were so, does it follow that De Coninck had not been attached to his sovereign’s household; men of doubtful origin, before and since, have sometimes been esteemed by princes, and Guy is known to have favoured his lesser folk. Perhaps he was a Flemish Karl of the Liberty of Bruges, one of those sturdy yeomen whose ancestors for generations back had, each of them, cultivated his own plot of land and held it by the strength of his own right arm.

Be this as it may, neither the baseness nor the brilliancy of De Coninck’s origin diminished or increased the esteem in which he was held by the people. They loved him for what he was, and not for what his forebears had been; and when, supported by the deans of five-and-twenty guilds, in the market-place of Bruges, beneath the shadow of the great bell tower which had just arisen from its ashes more beautiful than it was before, he thundered at the corruption and ambition of the city fathers and called them sycophants and knaves, the vast crowd which thronged the market-place rallied round him to a man, and swore to refuse the obnoxious tax—that not one groat of their hard-earned coin should find its way into the coffers of so corrupt a municipality. In vain the outraged sheriffs caused De Coninck and his comrades to be put under arrest; that very night the people burst open their prison and set them free, and when John of Ghistelle, the chief of the Leliaerts,[23] concerted with them a plot to fall on the Clauwaerts[24] unawares and cut down all their chiefs, the bell which should have signalled the work of destruction was for more than one of the plotters his own passing knell.

Somehow or other the Clauwaerts had got wind of the storm that was brewing, and as the first shrill cry of the tocsin clanged over the city, they flew to arms. Panic laid hold of the Leliaert host, and though the swiftness of their heels saved some, not a few of the leaders were reckoned amongst the slain, and others before nightfall were safely lodged in the prison which had so lately held De Coninck and his friends; but the measure of the great tribune’s vengeance was not filled up yet.

Jacques de Châtillon, the King’s lieutenant, had for days been encamped outside the city walls, but he deemed the force at his disposal too small to risk a conflict. Each day, however, was bringing him fresh recruits, and a bloody encounter was at hand, when certain men in whom each side trusted offered their mediation. Thanks to their good offices an arrangement was effected, and next day De Châtillon and his knights rode into the city at the same moment that De Coninck and his friends left it. That a man of De Coninck’s stamp should have consented to act thus is at first sight incomprehensible, but after events show that this seemingly cowardly and vacillating conduct was inspired by no mean or unworthy motive. So great were the odds against him that, if he had then hazarded an engagement, nothing short of a miracle could have saved his little band from being cut to pieces. He was well aware that if he surrendered unconditionally the best thing he could hope for would be a halter, and that with his life was linked at that juncture the liberty of Flanders. He knew, too, the man he had to deal with, and that if he gave him sufficient rope he would certainly end by hanging himself. In a word, Châtillon’s narrow, arbitrary and exasperating policy would soon drive not a few of the Lily’s staunchest supporters—for the greater number of them were only Leliaerts from self-interest—to throw in their lot with the Lion, and that then, with a united Flanders at his back, he might hope to accomplish something. These events occurred in the month of July 1301.

All this actually came to pass. No sooner had Châtillon entered Bruges and re-established his authority than he declared all its privileges forfeited on account of the late rebellion, and exacted, moreover, by way of further punishment, the fourth penny of every workman’s wages, and to overawe the discontented, he began the construction of a great citadel on the banks of the Minne Water.

In vain the burghers sent envoys to Paris to plead their cause before the King. Châtillon’s henchman, the Comte de St. Pol, had preceded them, and their prayer and humiliation only added to his triumph; and when on their return to Bruges they told the astonished burghers how during their visit to Paris the Bishop of Pamiers had arrived there, charged by the Pope to demand the release of Count Guy and of Phillippine, and how the King had received him with insults and cast him into prison, these men knew they had nothing to hope from the tender mercies of Philippe le Bel.

Meanwhile the discontent at Bruges was increasing day by day. So great was the indignation aroused by the governor’s arbitrary conduct that numbers of those who had formerly supported Philippe had now returned to their allegiance to Guy, and by the month of November the Clauwaerts had grown so strong that when De Coninck, taking advantage of Châtillon’s absence at Ghent, appeared once more in the market-place ‘no man dared lay hold of him.’ Indeed, so terrified were the Leliaert magistrates at his unlooked-for arrival that they fled the city, and, for the moment, De Coninck was master of Bruges. But the people are ever a timorous and vacillating herd, and when De Coninck failed in an attempt to win over the Ghenters to the national side, and news came that Châtillon, at the head of a vast host, was on his way to Bruges, so great was their terror that they forced him to quit the town. Indeed, if he had refused to do so he would have fallen a victim to their fury—and two days later Châtillon marched in.

De Coninck was in no way disheartened. He knew that the burghers would soon call him again to their aid. Moreover, during the period which had elapsed between his first and second exodus, the prospects of the little band of patriots had vastly improved. William of Juliers,[25] Provost of Maestricht, a grandson of Count Guy, aroused by the woes of his native land, had exchanged the cassock for the cuirass, and placed himself at their head; John Breidel, Dean of the Butchers’ Guild, one of the richest men in Bruges, and perhaps, like De Coninck himself, in brighter days a noble of Guy’s Court, had thrown in his lot with them, and by the united efforts of De Coninck and these men the standard of the Lion now waved over Damme, and Oostburg, and Ardenburg, and the castles of Sysseele and Maele, and if Bruges in her wild panic had thrust the great tribune from her doors, he was not doomed to wander shelterless and alone. Five thousand of her bravest sons were found ready to share exile with him, and all the country round was still staunch to the cause of freedom. And yet so unequally matched were the combatants that the final issue could hardly be doubtful.

On the one side was Philippe le Bel, the mightiest king of his day, with all the chivalry of Navarre, and all the chivalry of France, and whatever knights he had been able to recruit throughout the Continent of Europe; and on the other, the tradesmen of Flanders, headed by an exiled priest and a handful of outlawed nobles who had been driven from their native land.

But De Coninck regarded the matter from another point of view. On the one side he saw tyranny and injustice, and on the other liberty and right, and he knew that though sometimes these champions have the air of feeble folk, in the long run they are bound to conquer; and perchance too William, calling to mind the words which in the old church at Maestricht he had so often chanted at Vespers:—Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles, felt confident with a confidence not of earth that that God who chooses the feeble things of this world to confound the strong would surely fight their battle for them.

Be this as it may, on May 17, Châtillon marched into the city, but instead of bringing, as he had promised the burghers, only a small escort, two thousand well-armed knights marched in with him. Forthwith all kinds of rumours filled the air—Châtillon had brought great coils of rope to hang the chief citizens, there was to be a general massacre of Clauwaerts not even the women and children were to be spared. One French knight had been so sickened at his leader’s wholesale project of vengeance that, rather than have a hand in it, he had made good his escape from the city.

Next day the kennels of Bruges were red with blood, but it was not the blood of her burghers. In their fear and their misery these weaklings bethought them of the man whom they had turned from their doors. ‘If you have any pity for your fellow-citizens, if the bowels of your compassion are not shut up against our women and our little ones, come over and help us.’ Thus they sent word to De Coninck at Damme, and before daybreak he was at Ste. Croix, and with him was John Breidel and a host of stalwart Flemings. A handful of burghers went out to confer with them, and presently with a great cry the exiles burst into the city. ‘Schilt end vriendt, for the lion of Flanders,’ re-echoed through the narrow streets, and all those who could not pronounce this shibboleth, impossible of articulation for Gallic lips, were forthwith put to death. So stunned and confused were they by the suddenness of the attack, and the darkness of the night and the uncouth words of greeting which burst from the lips of their foes, that the Frenchmen hardly showed fight at all, but considered only how best they might quit the city, a matter not easy of

accomplishment, for a strong guard of Flemings was posted outside each gate. All day long the work of destruction continued, and when at last, worn out with slaying, the Flemish sheathed their swords, the streets and lanes of the city were red with blood and filled with dead men, and so great was the number of corpses that it took three whole days to cast them into the adjoining fields, and there give them burial. And yet fortune had been kind to some of them; the lives of forty knights had been spared, and perhaps of three-score soldiers. These men had been cast into prison; others more fortunate still had saved alike their lives and their liberty. Amongst them note the authors of all the mischief, Jacques de Châtillon and Chancellor Flotte. The former, who, with all his faults, was no coward, at first essayed to stem the tide, but when his horse had been slain under him, seeing that resistance was hopeless, he endeavoured to slip away unobserved, and in the darkness and confusion succeeded in doing so. Presently, wandering about the mazy byways in search of some refuge, he fell in with Pierre Flotte in like predicament with himself. At last they discovered the place they were seeking, perhaps the garret or the cellar of some warehouse giving on one of the canals. Here these two friends, the one a prince of the blood royal and the other the bastard of a courtezan, each of them men of wealth and might, without victuals and without drink, lay huddled up in a frowsy corner, expecting each moment would be their last, until once more the shades of night fell on the town.

Then slinking forth, not without trepidation, Châtillon in the garb of a clerk, Flotte disguised in some other fashion, each of them presently made good his escape, and found an interval of breathing time, the first at Courtrai, the second at Lille, during which to recruit themselves for the great contest so soon to follow.

Truly the fourteenth century was a century of noise and adventure, and yet somehow or other in those days, so we are told, men had no nerves.

CHAPTER XV

The Battle of the Golden Spurs

Meanwhile Châtillon had brought to Paris the news of the Bruges massacre, and by the end of June Philippe had gathered together an army to be wondered at. ‘So great was the number of chariots and horsemen,’ says Matthew of Westminster, ‘that the surface of the earth was hid by them.’ Every baron in France who could take the field was there, and mercenaries from Spain and Italy, and Hainault and Brabant. Their leader was the Count of Artois. Presently they set out for the Netherlands, and towards the close of June they reached Lille.

Nor was the army of resistance which the Regent had assembled one worthy of contempt. In addition to his own German auxiliaries and a handful of volunteers from Zealand, he had collected recruits from every commune and châtelaincy in Flanders. Even from Ghent, the only town which still held to France, came seven hundred men headed by two sheriffs. In the foremost rank were the burghers of Bruges, each man ranged under the banner of the guild to which he belonged and gorgeous in its rich livery—purple, blue, gold, or white embroidered with crimson crosses. Their leaders were Breidel and De Coninck and the redoubtable Provost of Maestricht. Hard-by, under Eustace Sporkin, one of the last of the old Saxon chiefs, stood the yeomen of the Liberty of Bruges; half naked, bare headed, sinewy of limb, carrying no weapon but the rude scharmsax of their ancestors, but for all that a force not to be contemned. From time immemorial the fathers of these men had borne the brunt of every foreign invasion and of every native tyranny. ‘So far as they are concerned,’ as Kervyn notes, ‘the history of the fourteenth century is the history of every century which had preceded it.’ Jacques de Châtillon, like so many tyrants before him, would fain have reduced them to slavery, and they had sworn to prevent it.

The Count of Artois set out from Lille during the early days of July, and, leaving behind him a long red streak, for in order to terrorize the peasant folk he had spared neither women nor children, he presently pitched his silken tents on a knoll of rising ground about two leagues from Courtrai. Before that time this hill had been called Mossenberg (the Mossy Mount), but on account of the revelry which then took place it has since been known as the Berg van Weelden, or the Mount of Feasting.

It took two days for the French force to assemble, and meanwhile the scouts, whom Artois had sent out to ascertain the position of the Flemish, brought back word that they were spread out in a single phalanx in the plain before the Abbey of Grœninghe, to the east of the town on the road to Ghent; that the river Lys on the north covered their rear; that on the west they were protected by the entrenchments of Courtrai, and on the south and east by the river Grœninghe, and that their position was impregnable; that, so far from showing fear at the approach of the enemy, as Artois had confidently expected, ‘they were drawn up man to man with their arms raised above their heads like valiant huntsmen awaiting the charge of the wild boar.’

Those of the French knights who best knew Flanders besought their chief to put off the battle till the morrow. The Flemish, they urged, were not accustomed to remain long in camp, and want of supplies would soon disperse them; but Artois rejected the counsel with disdain. ‘What!’ he cried. ‘We outnumber these men by half as many again; we are on horseback, they on foot; we are well armed and they are without weapons; shall we remain, before such a foe as this, rooted to the ground in terror?’

The decisive contest took place on Wednesday the 11th of July. The Flemish began the day with fasting and prayer. ‘Behold before ye,’ cried that militant prelate William of Juliers, ‘behold before ye men armed for your destruction! Our hope is in the name of the Lord, invoke His aid.’ Then, when a priest had raised the Sacred Host high above the kneeling throng, William of Renesse made known the battle cry—‘Flanders for the Lion,’ and then each man took up a handful of earth and pressed it to his lips, by way perhaps of spiritual communion, perhaps to testify their love for the soil of Flanders and that they were sworn to defend it.

Before the battle commenced, a frugal repast was served out to the men. The town archives of Bruges have preserved for us the bill of fare—fish, eggs, mustard and sorrel. Nor were omens lacking which presaged the fortune of the coming fray. A flock of doves hovered about the heads of the Flemish host, whilst over the French squadrons there wheeled ravens. Rumour said too that the Count of Artois had risen from his bed full of evil forebodings, that his favourite hound had attacked him and almost fastened to his throat, and that when he sprang into his saddle, his charger had reared three times before he would start. A more certain augury of misfortune was the impatient ardour which fretted his soul, and some grey-headed knights called to mind that fifty-three years before his father’s impetuous temper had, at the battle of Mansourah, wrecked another French host.

Amongst the mercenaries whose assistance the French King had bought was a band of famous archers recruited in Genoa. These men at the opening of the conflict, stealthily advancing along the road to Sweveghem, presently espied on the other side of a thick hedge which skirted the banks of a stream a company of Flemish bowmen, and in less than the twinkling of an eye the arrows of the Italians were playing havoc with them. But if the foreigners’ sharpshooting discomfited their opponents, it afforded no consolation to their French paymasters, and one of them appealed to Artois. ‘Sire,’ he burst out in the bitterness of his soul, ‘sire, if these villains do so much, the day will be theirs, and what share will the nobles have in the glory?’ ‘Then let them charge,’ was the reply. In vain that shrewd old fox Flotte pointed out that when once the Italian archers had broken the Flemish ranks and constrained them to quit their entrenchment, the nobles alone would have the glory of putting the enemy to flight. Artois refused to hear him. ‘By the devil,’ he cried, ‘Pierre, you have still the wolf’s skin,’ and the knights rushed forward, trampling under their horses’ hoofs the Italian archers, and even cutting their bow-strings with their swords.

There is some consolation in the thought that the littleness of these fine gentlemen was the cause of their overthrow. The marshy land—the Bloed Meersch, as it was afterwards called—in the foreground of the Flemish camp was everywhere intersected by streams, and deep and broad dykes, with hedges on their banks thick and high. (Such is still the character of the landscape in many parts of Flanders). These the Flemings had cut down, and with the felled brushwood they had concealed the water. The Frenchmen, unacquainted with the nature of the country, failed to perceive the trap which had been laid for them, and in an instant hundreds of men and horses were struggling in a watery grave, and the few who succeeded in reaching land were received by their opponents on the points of their spears. Then followed a hardly-fought contest, for though the knights who had first charged had been nearly all slain those behind them were legion, and the streams, now choked up with dead bodies, no longer barred the way. For a moment the Flemish were driven back and for a moment panic was imminent, but Guy of Namur, turning round to the great Abbey Church of St. Mary which towered behind him, cried out with a voice which echoed over the battlefield, ‘Great Queen of Heaven, help us,’ and with that cry he so heartened his wavering forces that they returned with renewed courage to battle.

During the mêlée which followed, Rudolphe of Nesle was struck down—a three-fold traitor this man; a traitor to his country, for he was a Fleming of pure blood; a traitor to the traditions of his own house, for in his veins flowed the blood of Dierick of Alsace, and the nobler blood of Erembald; and a traitor to his wife, for she was a daughter of the Count of Flanders. But in spite of it all he was a brave knight; he had gone farther that day than any Frenchman, and he preferred to die rather than to yield up his sword. By a strange coincidence, Jacques de Châtillon, who had been Rudolphe’s successor in the government of Bruges, was fighting by his side when Rudolphe fell, and he too was cut down by the Flemish pikes. Not far off an old man was seen to throw himself on his knees. He had that day put on mail for the first time, thinking when he did so, not to take part in the conflict, but to have his share in the triumph which every Frenchman believed that morning would be its issue. Somehow or other he had been drawn, in spite of himself, into the thick of battle, and now loudly cried to his friends to carry him out, but no man had pity on him, and he was presently trampled to death by his own comrades.

Thus perished Chancellor Flotte, the foremost of Philippe’s law lords, of that new noblesse de robe which he had raised up to counterbalance the might of the old noblesse d’épée, of that band of chevaliers ès lois, as they loved to style themselves, by whose astute aid he was gradually changing monarchy into despotism, and who, as Kervyn notes, ‘under the grandson of St. Louis, became the tyrants of France.’ Philippe had found him on the dunghill, and he made him to sit among the princes of his people. He was a shrewd, hard-headed man of business, and of good qualities, at least, he possessed these: fidelity to the cause he served, and loyalty to the man who made him. He had sworn not to return to France until he had wiped out the indignity which had been put on him by Bruges, and, as we have seen, he kept his word.

On the other side it had gone hard with the Provost of Maestricht, who was carried out of the battle with his temples streaming with blood. If it had not been for the presence of mind of his esquire, this circumstance would perhaps have caused a panic. He, swiftly buckling on his master’s armour and galloping into the thick of the fight, cried out, ‘It is I, William of Juliers, come back to do battle,’ and so saved the situation.

It was not yet noon when the Count of Artois dashed to the front, crying out as he did so, ‘Let those who are faithful follow.’ Presently he came to a great dyke. Digging his spurs into his horse’s flanks, he cleared it at a bound, and was alone in the midst of the Flemings. In an instant he had seized the banner of Flanders and torn it to shreds, but in bending forward to grasp it, his foot slipped out of his stirrup, and William Van Sæftingen, a monk of Hacket’s abbey at Lisseweghe, who had fled from his cell to join the fight, dragged him from his saddle, and at the same moment someone wrenched away his sword.

‘I surrender, I surrender,’ he cried, but with brutal irony his assailants feigned not to understand, and before Guy of Namur could interfere to save him, the Count of Artois was dead.

Although deprived of their leaders, the French knights fought with their wonted valour, but amid the slime and dykes of the Bloed-Meersch cavalry was worse than useless, and before nightfall the first and second lines of the great army of invasion were cut to pieces. The third battalion—the reserve force—had taken no part in the engagement, and a handful of the men who formed it succeeded in making their escape, but they fled in the greatest disorder, and their retreat was nothing less than a rout.

For the rest, seventy-five noblemen, a thousand knights and three thousand esquires were among the slain, and the sum-total of the French losses are said to have amounted to twenty thousand, whilst the Flemish estimated theirs at a hundred all told.

So great was the number of the golden spurs which the conquerors wrenched from the heels of the French knights who had fallen that they measured them by the bushel, and be it noted that the cavaliers of the period in question wore but one spur. Some of these trophies William of Juliers sent to his church at Maestricht, and the rest were hung up in the Church of St. Mary at Courtrai.

This brilliant victory which the tradesmen of Flanders had gained over the flower of French chivalry made such an impression on the hearts of the people that to this day there is hardly a Fleming who is ignorant of the battle of the Golden Spurs. Nay, at the news of the victory of Courtrai, on all sides hope was re-born in the breast of the people, and the cry of liberty resounded throughout Europe. In France, at Toulouse and Bordeaux, the citizens took heart and drove out Philippe’s officers. In Italy, while Florence showed signs of restiveness, Bologna, Mantua, Parma and Verona made solemn treaty together to defend their rights. In Switzerland the echoes of Morgarten responded to the shout of triumph which had gone up from the battlefield of Grœninghe. In Hainault, at Liège, in Brabant, in Holland, a like enthusiasm was shown, and it was the same elsewhere. Thus Kervyn poetically,[26] and it is worthy of note that at Rome Pope Boniface VIII., who seems to have held the Flemish in no little esteem, caused public rejoicing to be made in honour of this triumph of democracy.

Breidel and De Coninck are said to have been knighted on the field of battle—a tradition which hardly supports that other tradition which makes them men of noble birth. Be this as it may, the men of Bruges have not forgotten them, and some ten years since they were sufficiently ill-advised to set up beneath the shadow of their historic belfry a statue in honour of these heroes, which in no way harmonizes with its surroundings, and every year since its erection it has been their wont to deck it with garlands, and, grouped around its base, to sing hymns in honour of the men who rescued their city from tyranny and drove the French out of Flanders.

Notwithstanding her enormous losses at the battle of Courtrai, France had not yet disarmed, nor was it until July 1303 that Philippe le Bel, in order to save Courtrai, which was at that time being threatened by the Flemish, at last consented to liberate their Count as a preliminary to negotiations for peace, but on condition that if terms were not agreed on by the following spring, he would again yield himself prisoner.

Great was the joy of the men of Bruges when, towards the close of October, their Sovereign returned to Winendael. They had forgotten the evil things which they themselves had endured at his hands in the days of his prosperity, and were mindful only of his own suffering during his long imprisonment, and many of them, says the Friar of Ghent, when they saw him once more amongst them, were affected to tears. Guy’s sojourn at Bruges was not destined to be a long one. The negotiations with France fell through, and he scorned to break his word. When in the month of June (1304) the appointed day arrived, he quietly went back to his prison at Compiègne, and Philippe once more led his troops into Flanders, and with some measure of success. But the French King was in reality weary of the conflict. If the campaign should be prolonged, experience told him that in all probability fortune would favour the Flemish, and he again consented to treat with Guy and his burghers. Early in the new year terms had been practically agreed upon, and a treaty of peace was on the point of being signed when, on the 7th March (1305), the old Count died. The negotiations, however, were not broken off. Robert of Bethune was at once released from prison, Philippe acknowledged his right to the county of Flanders, by May he had reached his dominions, and early in June a definite treaty of peace was at length signed. Robert, however, was now an old man enfeebled in health and broken in spirit by the hard captivity he had so long endured, and the treaty to which he had set his hand, behind, it would seem, the backs of his burghers, was presently found to contain conditions to which they had never assented—conditions so disastrous to the interests of Flanders that they refused to ratify it. Then followed fresh negotiations

III.—Genealogical Table of the Counts of Flanders from Baldwin VIII. to Guy de Dampierre.


III.—Genealogical Table of the Counts of Flanders from Baldwin VIII. to Guy de Dampierre.

which dragged on for fifteen years, during which time Philippe himself was gathered to his fathers, nor was it until May 20, 1320, that terms of peace were at length agreed upon.

A 14th Century Chimney

CHAPTER XVI

The Great Charter—The Belfry and the Tower of Notre Dame

STRANGE as it may seem, not only during the civil conflicts in the early days of Guy’s reign, but during the turmoil and warfare which succeeded them, Bruges increased alike in prosperity, and comeliness, and might. True, she lost her charters when the belfry was burned down in 1280. Some said that the Count himself had fired it with a view to their destruction, and the new law which Guy had promulgated on May 25, 1281, as the burghers bitterly complained to the French King, was not worthy of the name of law, ‘seeing that amongst other errors it ordained that criminals, in certain cases, should not be served with notice of trial nor suffered to state their defence, and that all the ancient rights and liberties of the city were either abrogated or curtailed.’ Nevertheless, when Guy was hard pressed by Philippe le Bel, in order to conciliate the burghers he had re-established the ancient charter, and when in 1297 Philippe annexed Flanders, he, in his turn, confirmed it. Finally, after the expulsion of the French in 1304, one of Guy’s sons, Philip of Thielt, who was at that time carrying on the government in the name of his captive father, filled with gratitude at the part which Bruges had taken, granted her a new and most liberal charter, in which all her old liberties were confirmed and even extended. This charter was probably drawn up by the sheriffs of Bruges themselves. When Robert of Bethune ascended the throne, in 1305, he at once confirmed it. Every succeeding Count, when he first entered the city, solemnly swore to maintain it intact, and it remained the fundamental basis of the civil and criminal law of Bruges until 1619.

The charter in question contains seventy articles, forty-eight of which deal with criminal law, and the remainder with civil law. Many of them express a breadth of view and liberality of spirit which, considering the epoch at which they were drawn up, is not a little surprising. Gheldorf in his Ville de Bruges (p. 321, etc.) gives the whole document in the original Flemish.

Note, amongst not a few prudent enactments, Article 33. It is so interesting, and denotes so clearly what progress Bruges had now made in the paths of law and order, that we cannot pass it over in silence. By it the citizen of Bruges was entirely set free from the superstitious and barbarous obligation of trial by battle. Henceforth, any man convicted of sending a challenge to a burgher was liable to a fine of sixty livres, in these days no small sum.

If such challenge had been accepted, half of the fine went to the Count, and half to the town, and the challenged burgher was also mulcted in a similar sum; if, however, he had refused the challenge he himself received a quarter of the fine, and, in that case, the Count received his full thirty livres, and the town only fifteen. Any man amenable to the city magistrates, who had lived for a year and a day within the limits of the city franchise and paid his taxes, was considered a citizen.

There were, no doubt, a number of persons living in Bruges who were not amenable to the city magistrates. The feudal lords, for example, though it was open to them, if they would, to enrol themselves as citizens, and not a few availed themselves of the privilege; persons submitted to the jurisdiction of the Franc; perhaps also the members of the Count’s household, and the members of religious communities; and we know that from time immemorial there had been a large colony of foreign merchants in Bruges.

The municipal machinery by which the city was governed seems to have been, at this time, at all events, of a somewhat complicated nature. There were two distinct corporations, each presided over by its burgomaster.

The first consisted of the écoutète, or representative of the Count, the burgomaster and thirteen Echevins, who, according to Gheldorf, were the sole judges in Bruges. The manner of their appointment is uncertain; but we know that, save in the case of their having been convicted of felony or of having falsely administered justice, they were irremovable during the single year which they held office, and that convicted criminals, artisans who had not abstained from manual labour for a year and a day, and the Echevins of the preceding year, were ineligible.

The second corporation consisted of its burgomaster and thirteen town councillors. It is doubtful what were the functions performed respectively by these corporations. Perhaps the first, in addition to its judicial functions, was a legislative assembly, and the second administered the affairs of the town.

Curiously enough the original Flemish version of the charter of 1304 is mute as to the method of election alike of the college of Echevins and the town council, but Gheldorf has discovered among the archives of Bruges another version containing an article which gives minute directions on this head.

It was evidently drawn up in the interest of the members of the great city guilds, and awards to them the lion’s share of all the appointments in question, viz.: the right to name absolutely all the town councillors and five of the thirteen Echevins, as well as a voice indirectly in the election of four others and in the nomination of each of the burgomasters. It allots to the burghers generally the right only to present eight persons to the Count in order that he may select from among them four more Echevins, and ordains that the members of the city council, and the nine Echevins thus appointed, shall elect the remaining four, and furthermore that the Echevins shall elect their own burgomaster, and the Echevins and councillors together, the burgomaster of the city council. Gheldorf conjectures that the charter which he discovered among the archives of Bruges was only a rough draft of the charter of 1304; that for some reason or other the clause anent elections was omitted from the fair copy, but that the method of procedure therein ordained was later on sanctioned by Philip of Thiette in a separate charter. If this be so, the document in question would seem to have disappeared.

It has been conjectured above that the Echevins of Bruges were not only magistrates, but also legislators, but even if this were so, the power which they wielded was less than it at first sight appears, for overshadowing the might of the Echevins was the might of the Colossus which appointed them, and the trade guilds had a practical veto over all their acts. These to be legal and valid must first have been stamped with the city seal, and the city seal was stored up along with the city archives in a strong chamber in the thickness of the belfry walls, secured by four wrought-iron doors with ten locks and ten keys, eight of which were in the hands of the guildsmen. Butchers, bakers, shoemakers, tailors, weavers, brokers, carpenters, smiths, the deans of each of these companies possessed a key without which it was impossible to open the doors of the municipal treasury, and these were the men who in reality governed Bruges when she was at the zenith of her power, and who continued to do so until her glory had faded away and she

THIRTEENTH-CENTURY IRON GATES IN BELFRY
THIRTEENTH-CENTURY IRON GATES IN BELFRY

was rapidly sinking to the position of a second-rate provincial town. To-day the old archive chamber is without its rolls, and without its great seal, but it is still closed by the wrought-iron gates which once secured them, though they are now seldom locked, and whosoever will may come and go at pleasure. It will be interesting to note anent these gates that the town accounts for the year 1290 has the following entry: Item, Erembaldo fabro, pro januis ferreis ad thesaurarium in Halla, lxxxi. lb. The name then of the smith who forged them was Erembald, and he received for his labour the sum of eighty-one livres, not on the whole an exorbitant fee.

The mention of the archive chamber brings us naturally enough to the great tower which contains it, to that belfry of Bruges which had just risen from its ashes more beautiful than of yore, the belfry of Bruges as it is now, without indeed its crowning glory, the octagonal lantern of the later fourteen hundreds, but without also the sorry disfigurements inflicted by the hand of the restorer a hundred years after.

The original structure was built in the days of the first Counts of Flanders, perhaps before the close of the eight hundreds, not of wood, as was formerly supposed, but probably of rough velt stone, the material employed for nearly all the buildings of that period. Whether any portion of the first belfry was left standing after the great fire of 1280 is a moot point, but maybe the foundations of the lower portion of the walls were spared, and that these were incorporated into the new building. Monsieur Gilliodts, who at present holds the office of city archivist, and probably knows more about his native town than anyone else, is of this opinion. Whether or no it be well founded is a question for experts to decide, if they can. In any case there can be no doubt as to the appositeness of the learned archivist’s remark anent the present building. ‘For six hundred years,’ he says, ‘this belfry has watched over the city of Bruges. It has beheld her triumphs and her failures, her glory and her shame, her prosperity and her gradual decay, and, in spite of so many vicissitudes, it is still standing to bear witness to the genius of our forefathers, to awaken alike memories of old times and admiration for one of the most splendid monuments of civic architecture which the middle age has produced.’

The other great tower of Bruges dates also from this period. It equals the first in comeliness and, calmly rising into the heavens some hundred feet above the highest point of the Bell-tower, surpasses it in the unadorned majesty of its grand proportions, for the sublime steeple of Notre Dame is in itself beautiful, and neither possesses nor requires embellishment. It is the first object which meets the eye of the Ostend fisherman as he nears his native coast, and seems more completely to dominate the old Flemish city, and the fair emerald landscape which surrounds it, than does the Belfry itself.

It took the men of Bruges, it is said, a hundred years to pile up this huge mass of tawny stone and golden-hued and blushing brick, and so marshy and unstable was the site on which they placed it, that as much material was needed for the foundations as is contained in that portion of the structure which rises above the soil, and the tower of Notre Dame, be it noted, measures from base to weathercock no less than four hundred and eleven English feet. It is said to be slightly out of the perpendicular, and a story is told—it is probably only a story—that the architect, on its completion, perceiving this defect, in despair threw himself from the summit and so was dashed to pieces; but for all that they buried him in consecrated ground, and his mausoleum was the splendid monument which he himself had erected.

The Church of Notre Dame was without the city boundary until the year 909. Up to that date it formed part of the domain of the lords of Sysseele. This ancient manor was submitted to the jurisdiction of Bruges towards the close of Guy’s reign. The great square tower which was formerly the home of the lords of Sysseele is still standing, pleasantly situated on the outskirts of Maele Woods. With its Gothic gateway, its corner turrets, and its high-pitched roof it still forms a sufficiently picturesque group, but alas! it has recently been restored, and has thereby lost all trace of its conflict with time.

Bruges obtained also during the reign of Guy of Dampierre recognition of her disputed right to exercise jurisdiction over Sluys and Damme, and in 1289 a concession of less moment, but nevertheless one not to be despised. At the instance of his Countess, Isabelle of Namur, and ‘in consideration for services rendered,’ Guy made over, at this time, to the city for ever his right to succeed to the property of bastards dying without issue.

CHAPTER XVII

Louis of Nevers

Towards the close of the year 1320 when Robert, after signing at Paris the treaty in question, once more returned to his native land, thinking to obtain some little breathing time before he set out on the last dread journey, his chamberlain introduced to his presence a young man, who, in a voice broken with tears, avowed that he had been commissioned to poison him. ‘And wherefore didst thou think to commit this crime?’ said the old Count. ‘Sir,’ replied the youth, ‘I was driven to it by the Prince of Nevers, who bade me follow the instructions of Brother Walter the hermit’—a monk whom Robert loved well—and little by little he learned that his death was to have been the signal for an outbreak which was to hand over all Flanders to the King of France.

Whatever may have been the truth of the mysterious youth’s story; Robert believed it, presently Prince Louis was arrested and thrust into prison, and it was probably owing to the intervention of the burghers, who either did not credit the charge against him, or were still influenced by feelings of regard for their old champion, that his life was spared. Be this as it may, the Count of Nevers was shortly afterwards set at liberty on his undertaking to leave Flanders within eight days. This was on the 6th of April.

No sooner was Louis a free man than he set out for the French capital, where, three months later, on July 6, 1322, his inglorious career came to an end, and only two months afterwards Count Robert himself paid the debt of nature.

Rumour said that both Robert and Louis had been poisoned by Robert of Cassel—a younger son of Robert of Bethune—and that he had driven his elder brother out of Flanders with a view to his own succession.

Certain it is that the Lord of Cassel at once set claim to the throne, and at first it seemed probable that he would obtain it. He had for a long time past been mustering his forces, and now he had at his disposal a considerable army; all the stronghold in Flanders were in his hands, his father’s ministers were his staunch and devoted friends, and so redoubtable did he seem that the French King refused to accept the homage of Louis of Nevers’ eldest son, who also claimed the throne, and was now in Paris, alleging that it was for the Court of Peers to decide who was the rightful heir to the county of Flanders.

If Robert had been able to gain the support of the burghers, his triumph would have been assured, but they knew him to be a proud and ambitious man; the crime of parricide was associated with his name, and in spite of his professed devotion to the popular cause they profoundly distrusted him. More than a year before, Bruges and Ghent had made a solemn league and covenant together to defend their rights and liberties against any man who should attempt to infringe them, and had appointed a committee of ten burghers to watch over their common interests. These men, convinced that the feeble hands of a youth would lightly hold the reins of government, without waiting for the decision of the peers, invited the Count of Nevers to Flanders, proffered him their homage, and shortly afterwards informed the French King that if he should any longer delay to acknowledge Louis’s right to the throne, they would themselves undertake the administration of the county.

King Charles submitted the more easily because he too saw in the youth of the burghers’ candidate a guarantee of his own influence, but before he would consent to receive Louis’s homage he exacted from him a secret promise that as soon as he should have consolidated his power, he would choose for his advisers the men whom he (Charles) should select.

Louis’s first act upon taking possession of his dominions was one calculated to cause profound irritation to the citizens of Bruges. His uncle, Count John of Namur, had thrown in his lot with Robert of Cassel, and in order to purchase his support, Louis appointed him warden of Sluys, an office which had hitherto been held by the burghers of Bruges and Damme. Whereupon the committee of ten began to tremble for their commerce. Soon a mob of angry citizens, headed by Louis himself, who hoped by his presence to keep them in hand, were on the road to Sluys, and presently they returned to Bruges with the Count of Namur in chains. Louis had just succeeded in saving his life (July 1323). In vain his wife besought the intervention of Charles le Bel. The time-honoured rights of the citizens of Bruges must be maintained—thus the committee of ten, and Louis retired in dudgeon to France, and his uncle into the burghers’ prison.

Although John grumbled not a little at the restraint, and especially that his gaolers would not suffer him to hear Mass at St. Donatian’s, his life in the Steen was not without compensations. The beds there were good, prisoners were permitted to receive their friends, on festivals his rooms were decked with flowers, and the burghers supplied him with good cheer in abundance. Singing and music beguiled the day, cards and dice the night, and it was owing to the disorder consequent upon these revels that he presently made his escape. When, at length, the news leaked out, Bruges was in consternation. In the midst of it, Count Louis returned, and not alone. The burghers noted with indignation that he had brought with him as chief Minister a Frenchman, and a Frenchman who bore a name of evil repute—Chancellor Flotte’s son William, the lordly Abbot of Vezelay—and worse still, that he shunned the counsel of those of his own race.

For the moment, however, Bruges had nothing to fear. Her rights over the port of Sluys were acknowledged, and John of Namur publicly forgave the burghers for his arrest and imprisonment. But Louis of Nevers was no longer the ingenuous orphan who in days of yore had sought the protection of his faithful commons. If he were lacking in strength of will, it was not the committee of ten, but the King of France who knew how to manipulate him. But in reality he was no weakling. True he was the tool of Charles le Bel, but in favouring his interests he was playing at the same time his own game. He was a voluptuary, if you will, and a voluptuary who found pleasure in low company and unrefined vice. He delighted in the buffoonery of dwarfs and jesters, whom he enriched at his subjects’ cost. His chief favourite was one John Gheylinc, a groom whom he calls in his charters his counsellor and his friend, and if he had had his way he would have given him his daughter to wife. Added to this he was proud and revengeful, devoid of pity, and not only an unfaithful husband, but a cruel one into the bargain.

But for all that Louis was no fool; he had inherited alike the perverse humour and the brilliant intellect of his father and his great-grandfather. With consummate skill he played Ghent against Bruges, and Bruges against Ghent, and Edward of England against Charles of France; and though the chief object of his life was the gratification of his wayward impulses, in his efforts to attain it he showed no little ability.

Such was the prince whom the communes of Flanders had set over them, but Louis rarely honoured the Netherlands with his presence. The dissipation of his Court at Nevers was more to his taste than the humdrum respectability of his burgher nobles, and his vicious life was there less en evidence and less criticised than in the democratic towns of Flanders. His absence, however, was a greater cause of embarrassment to his Flemish subjects than his presence in their midst would have been, for his lieutenant, the Lord of Aspremont, vexed them with oppressive taxes to enrich foreign favourites, and though in the great towns the influence of the burghers was powerful enough to hold him in check, in the country he had a free hand. Here dominated great Leliaert lords who had been for years past in the pay of France: the Moerkerkes, the Praets, the Ghistelles, and the rest, men who had fought, or whose fathers had fought, at Courtrai, and mindful how many of their kinsmen had fallen beneath the rude battle-axes of the Saxon Karls, thought only of vengeance. These men were wont to sally forth from their castles to take fines from those whom they feared most, and if their victims resisted, they put them to death.

‘Intolerable are the manners of the Karls: with dishevelled beards, garments in tatters, and shoes in shreds, they would fain tame knights. With their knotted clubs and their long knives thrust into their girdles they are as proud as lords, and think that all the universe is theirs—God blast them! But we shall know how to chastise these men. They shall be drawn on hurdles and hanged on gibbets. The Karls must bend before us.’[27]

Thus the Leliaert nobles; but they reckoned without their hosts. The spirit which animated the Saxons of Flanders in the fourteenth century was the same which had hurled their ancestors against the tyranny of Richilde in the twelfth; which had driven the Erembalds to dash themselves to pieces rather than submit to Charles the Dane; which had inspired the Blauvoets in the eleven hundreds to resist the exactions of Mathilde, and which only yesterday had nerved their fathers to withstand and conquer the armies of France.

And, as in those days, there was no lack of leaders—a Bertulph, a Wulfringhen, a Sporkin was always at hand when he was wanted—so now, in the time of their extremity, captains were found. These men led their ragged hosts against the castles of their oppressors, and soon the land was filled with smouldering ruins. Aspremont, unable to quell the storm, summoned the Count from Nevers, who entered Flanders early in 1325; but Louis had no army to curb his turbulent subjects and was thus compelled to treat with them. Philip of Axel, a citizen of Ghent, was appointed Governor of Flanders in place of the Lord of Aspremont. Fines were imposed, promises of amendment were made, but the armed bands were not dissolved, and no sooner had Louis turned his back than the trouble began again, whilst the efforts made to extinguish the conflagration only increased it. Here and there a homestead razed, some stray farmer kidnapped and perhaps hanged or broken on the wheel; these things but nerved the Karls to greater efforts, for every man believed that his turn would come next. Their chief leader was one Nicholas Zannekin, the richest and the mightiest of them all, a man of the same class as Bertulph, who, like him, despised the nobles of the Court, and, like him, was regarded as a slave.

During the temporary lull of hostilities at the opening of the year, he had deemed it prudent to seek refuge in Bruges, the only town in Flanders where a man obnoxious to the authorities had some chance of saving his head, and there he soon obtained as much influence with the burghers as he had hitherto exercised over the country-folk of his own race (the men of Furnes). Nor did he cease to remind them, ground down as they were by odious and illegal taxes, of their rights as free citizens and the duties which their station imposed, and when Sohier Janssone (another popular leader) who had taken possession of Ghistelle Castle, presently appeared before the city walls with booty and captives, Bruges flew to arms. Zannekin soon rallied to his banner all the neighbouring communes. Thorhout, Roulers, Poperinghe, Nieuport, Dunkirk, Cassel, Bailleul, Furnes, threw open their gates at his approach, and wherever he went he was hailed as his country’s saviour. ‘The men of Furnes,’ says the Flemish chronicle, ‘received him as the angel of the Lord, and showed more submission to him than to any other man, and gave him greater honour than if he had been Count or King.’[28] Robert of Cassel, who had gathered together a small band to oppose him, withdrew when he saw how matters stood, but Zannekin, backed as he was by the communes, had little fear of him, and it was, moreover, bruited abroad that Robert himself was not hostile to the insurrection.

Louis was now in Flanders; sometimes at Courtrai, sometimes at Ypres, often at Ghent, lavish in flattering promises to the burghers, holding out to them bright hopes of new liberties and larger privileges than any yet accorded to Flemish towns.

Presently the French King sent them gold, and passed his word that no treaty should be made with the insurgents without first taking the advice of the burghers of Ghent. From all which politic proceedings came this result—the Ghenters forgot their compact with Bruges of 1321, at first posed as mediators, and then openly went over to Louis’s side and aided him with cash and men. At this juncture Louis attempted to treat with the insurgents. Let the points at issue be submitted to the arbitration of Robert of Cassel and the sheriffs of Ypres and of Ghent, and no sentence of death (this he guaranteed), or banishment, or mutilation, should be pronounced on any of the rebels. Bruges and her allies consented, and the arbiters made it known that they would receive a deputation of the insurgents on the 11th of June ensuing, at the great Abbey of Dunes. But meanwhile a Karl of Furnes was slain by a knight. This incident sufficed to throw the whole country round into uproar, and when, on the appointed day, Zannekin and his friends, all armed to the teeth, reached the abbey, not one of the judges was there to meet them—fear had kept them away—and the flame of rebellion waxed fiercer than before. Louis, at his wit’s end, grew doubtful of his uncle’s good faith. The Lord of Cassel, he thought, was secretly allied with his enemies to wrest from him his crown. Why not make away with him? and soon letters were dispatched to the bailiff of Warneton to keep a watch on Robert’s movements, and when an opportunity offered, to cut off his head. This sentence was never executed. Louis’s own chancellor warned Robert of his danger, and himself informed Louis of the motive which had impelled him to do so. ‘I wished,’ he said, ‘to save the honour of the Count of Flanders in the eyes of men, and his soul from the vengeance of God.’

More hated than ever by reason of this odious attempt, and filled with fear at the news that Bruges had already garrisoned all the principal towns of West Flanders, Louis, at the head of four hundred knights, marched into Courtrai, prepared to renew hostilities in good earnest. It so happened that six burghers of Bruges arrived there at the same moment, and Louis forthwith put them under arrest. Thereupon Bruges made ready for battle, and sent messages to Courtrai that five thousand staunch men and true were on their way to rescue the imprisoned burghers. Louis, filled with consternation, broke down the bridges over the Lys and fired the faubourgs along its banks. There had been no rain for weeks, and the thatched roofs on the opposite side of the stream had been baked by a blazing sun. A strong wind was blowing in the direction of the city, and soon Courtrai itself was in flames. Meanwhile Louis was stationed in the market-place, and with him were the six merchants from Bruges. Perhaps he had intended to cut off their heads, perhaps to carry them with him to Lille, but the sight of their prince standing there surrounded by the Leliaert counsellors, by whose advice he had fired the town, and now preparing to seek safety in flight, so worked on the men of Courtrai that they forgot their burning homes and thought only of vengeance. The very women took part in the combat which ensued, and their sobs and cries excited their husbands yet more than the tocsin which all this time was shrieking over the city. Presently Louis was left alone. Some of his knights had fled, some had been taken prisoners, not a few had been slain, and when next day the men of Bruges reached Courtrai, her citizens delivered him bound into their hands. They placed the Count of Flanders on a sorry steed, and loaded his counsellors with chains, and thus conducted them all to the capital, where the sheriffs at once proceeded to try them, for they had murdered, it was alleged, the peasants of Furnes, and reduced Courtrai to ashes—with this result: Louis was retained a prisoner in the Halles, and his counsellors were hurled from the windows of the Steen.

Never had the citizens of Bruges been so mighty as they were now. On the 30th of June her sheriffs had met in the Halles, and, in union with the Franc, the city of Ypres, of which town Zannekin was now governor, and of the other confederates, had appointed Robert Regent of Flanders. Louis from his prison had issued a charter approving what had been done, and the ambassadors of the French King, who on the 15th of July had reached Bruges with offers that the charges against Louis should be submitted to his judgment, were present to witness their triumph.

True, Ghent was still loyal to the captive at Bruges, but Ghent had been humbled in battle, and even Ghent was not united. Three thousand of her weavers had fled for refuge to the camp of Robert of Cassel, and Bruges replied to the French ambassadors that Louis could not be set free until Ghent had renounced her treaty with him, and had frankly joined hands with her. The ambassadors were disposed to agree to these terms, even though they knew that this meant all sovereignty in the hands of Bruges, but Ghent was too proud to submit. Though Louis had oppressed and misgoverned the rest of Flanders he had showered blessings on Ghent, and now that the worm had turned and conquered, and Louis was in prison, she would never consent to enter into an alliance with her hated rival. Far better that all the Karls should perish, far better that Flanders should become France.

In face of this opposition the French King cited Robert to Paris to justify his conduct in supporting rebels. The citizens of Bruges received the bearers of the summons ‘with horns raised and dire threats,’ and Robert refused to comply. Then came interdict and excommunication (the French Kings claimed the right to direct these ecclesiastical thunders); a few days later, in their conflict with Ghent, a check; presently, in consequence of the rigour of winter, the forced raising of the siege of that town; and lastly, rumours of a French invasion.

To retain Louis longer in prison were to risk, thought many, all that had been gained. Better release him now of their own free will, and when they were in a position to make terms, than be compelled to do so six months hence unconditionally at the point of the sword, which, seeing the trend and conjunction of events, would probably be the case.

Thus argued Bruges, and presently Louis went forth from the Halles to the Chapel of St. Basil, where he swore on the Holy Blood that he nourished no resentment against his captors, and that he would do his utmost to ward off the threatened invasion. This done he was once more a free man, and forthwith, after a hurried visit to faithful Ghent, hastened to Paris, where his patron assured him that as long as he followed his counsel, he could count on his friendship (this was in the month of March 1325), but that he was not in a position to help him for the moment, as he had other business in hand. Then once more Louis returned to Flanders, and after much confabulation, terms were agreed upon. The burghers were to build a monastery, and to send some hundreds of pilgrims to sundry shrines, to rebuild the churches destroyed during the recent tumult, to pay their just debts to the King and to the Count, and to swear fealty to the latter. Louis, on his part, undertook to respect their liberties, the King to re-establish free trade betwixt France and Flanders and to silence the thunder of the Church. Towards the close of April 1326 this convention was ratified, though, in all probability, none of the parties signing it had any intention of observing its terms. The burghers retained their former leaders, Louis refused to enter the town where he had lived eight months a captive, but neither party was at present in a position to recommence hostilities; for two years matters dragged on, and then the storm broke.

On February 1, 1327, King Charles le Bel had died, leaving an only daughter, a child of tender years, and a widow who was expecting some two months hence the hour of her delivery. France at this time was divided into two great parties. On the one side were the feudal lords, who, since the days of Philippe le Bel, had seen their power gradually passing from them into the hands of the King, and on the other, the citizens, who, during the same period, had witnessed their privileges daily contemned, their rights trampled on, and their trade threatened by the avidity of royal harpies. Each of these parties, then, was equally discontented with the present state of affairs, and each of them found the present moment a propitious one for changing it. The barons turned their eyes to Philippe of Valois, the next heir in the direct male line to the throne of St. Louis. The burghers hoped when the old King died that his Queen would give birth to a son, and failing this, they wished that the crown should devolve on his eldest daughter. Their hopes, as we know, were dashed to the ground by the birth of a second princess and the succession of Philippe of Valois. But they saw the finger of God in the extinction of the house of Philippe le Bel; they felt that the time had come to strike a blow for freedom, and they were only waiting for the Flemish burghers, who during thirty years had lavished blood and treasure in behalf of this sacred cause, to raise the standard of revolt.

‘If once these Flemings cross our borders,’ the barons had warned the new King, ‘all France will join them.’ Philippe determined to take the bull by the horns, and at Rheims on the day of his coronation he made his purpose known.

On the Count of Flanders devolved the duty of bearing the King’s sword, but although he was present, with four-score knights, when the royal heralds called on him to perform his duty, he made no sign. Thrice they summoned him, and still he was silent. All men were filled with wonder, and the King demanded an explanation. ‘Sire,’ he replied, ‘they ‘summoned the Count of Flanders; I am Louis of Nevers.’ ‘What,’ said Philippe, in feigned astonishment, ‘art thou not also Count of Flanders?’ ‘Such men call me,’ was the reply, ‘but I hold not this office in fact. In no Flemish city save Ghent do I dare show my face.’ ‘Fair cousin,’ replied the King, ‘by the Holy Unction which hath this day flowed on our head, we will not go back to Paris until we have established thee in the peaceful possession of thy realm.’ Some of his counsellors would have persuaded him to defer the expedition. France, they said, was unprepared, and to invade Flanders in the autumn was to risk disaster; but the King, who saw the importance of himself beginning the campaign, refused to hear them. He consulted Gauthier de Châtillon, who had served seven kings in their wars in the Netherlands. ‘For the man who has a stout heart,’ he answered, ‘this is no inopportune season for battle.’ ‘Good,’ replied the delighted King, as he embraced the old soldier. ‘Let those who love me follow.’

With all speed he set about his preparations, and the great army which two months later (August 1328) assembled at Arras, collected from all parts of Europe, was such that the like of it had been never seen there before, and Arras had beheld the armies of Philippe IV. and Louis X.

Nicholas Zannekin, with ten thousand Karls, occupied Cassel, a fortified town some six miles inland from Dunkirk, perched on the top of a hill which rises well-nigh a thousand feet above the level of the sea, and stands solitary in the midst of the low land which surrounds it. Sohier Jansonne had brought him reinforcements to the number of six thousand men, and though messengers had been despatched to Bruges, to warn them of the French invasion, these men believed themselves strong enough to alone save Flanders.

During three days the French King sat down before Cassel awaiting the retreat of his foes. His knights’ heavy chargers, weighted as they were with their own trappings, and the armour of the men who bestrode them, were unable to climb the steep sides of the mountain, and thus the cavalry were forced to remain idle spectators of the skirmishes which succeeded one another without ceasing. In vain the footmen multiplied their efforts; they were in each case driven back, till at length Philippe in despair gave the word to burn the surrounding country, and presently the fertile plain was filled with flames and desolation, and all the land re-echoed with the wailing of old men and women and the shrieks of frightened children; but the Karls in their lofty fortress were as stable as the hill on which they stood, and at last, weary with slaughter, the French returned to camp, took off their heavy armour, and gave themselves over to revelry.