R. Nisbet Bain - The Cambridge Modern History

Stirred up by the return of Adrian Vilain, Lord of Rasenghien, who had fled from the city at the time of the execution of William Rin, the mordans laingages at Ghent, as Molinet calls them, complained more loudly than ever of imposts and military oppression, and Maximilian was fain to summon the States of the chief provinces to Ypres, while at the same time he met the deans of the trades in person at Bruges and promised-sincerely or not-to enter into peace negotiations with France. But the Ghent democracy, brooking no delay, sent forth a force which seized Courtray, obliging it to take the oath to Duke Philip and Ghent, and holding it against Philip of Cleves. On February 1, 1488, the trades of Bruges in their turn took up arms, and the Carpenters occupied the gate towards Ghent. Then ensued the strangest and most humiliating episode in the whole history of Maximilian’s experiences in the Netherlands. The market-place was turned into a fortified camp, and for the better part of four months the Roman King was detained, first in his own lodging; then, as an actual prisoner in the Cranenburg, a house by the market; afterwards, when his soldiery had been driven out of the city, in the fortified mansion of Ravenstein. Bruges itself, afraid of Antwerp and plied with advice by Ghent (whence at one time several thousands arrived before the gates, • and later Coppenole appeared to proclaim the Peace of Arras), passed gradually into a state of terrorism, during which a series of executions of the King’s followers took place under his very eyes. In the midst of these proceedings the Brughelins sent forth their levies against Maximilian’s garrisons in other towns, seizing Middelburg and putting several nobles of his party to death; while the Ghenters on their own account committed similar excesses. Maximilian, although he at first gave fair words to the trades and afterwards made a pathetic appeal for consideration, bore himself throughout with courage and dignity.

At last, after Pope Innocent VIII had issued his censures at Bruges, it became known there that the Emperor in person was marching upon Flanders for the delivery of his son. Hitherto the States assembled round Duke Philip at Malines had transacted in a very business-like way with the other States at Ghent; but by the middle of May it was understood that now or never an arrangement must be made with the captive King. He was liberated on condition that he would withdraw from Flanders within four days of his deliverance, and that he approved, as did his son-in-law the King of France, the solemn League and Union entered into on May 1 by the States of several of the provinces for the sake of peace and good government, and for the maintenance of the Treaty of Arras.

He had thus yielded everything. But, though he had sworn a solemn oath and accepted a heavy pecuniary payment, it was felt that the nodus materiae lay in the question of hostages; nor was it till Philip of Cleves had arrived at Bruges in this capacity that the King was at last allowed to depart. On May 24 the Emperor arrived at Louvain at the head of a well-appointed army, and Maximilian, as a prince of the Empire (not “for his own quarrel”), felt himself compelled to take part in the punitive campaign against Flanders. On both sides the necessity was put forward of protecting the rights of Duke Philip; and, after the Germans and Walloons had seized Deinze, Ravenstein protested that he must take up arms in defence of his liege lord even against the Emperor. Henceforth the hostage became the guiding spirit of Flemish resistance to Maximilian. In September, 1488, he was received with acclamation at Brussels; soon Louvain and the smaller towns of Brabant fell into his hands. Flanders had likewise remained unreduced, while Maximilian was operating on the Lys and in Zeeland; Ypres was occupied by French troops, and the siege of Ghent, begun by the Emperor in person, had been abandoned. By October Frederick III had returned to Germany, and in the last days of the year Maximilian followed. In vain he had assembled the loyal States at Malines; for the time his field of action lay elsewhere. The Duke of Britanny had died in September, and the struggle with France would have to be resumed on a perhaps more favourable field. But his present task was to reconquer Austria.

Maximilian left behind him as governor-general, with full powers, Duke Albert of Saxony (Albertus Animosus, founder of the Albertine line), who in the organisation and conduct of armies was unsurpassed by any German commander of his age. With resources inferior to those which had been at Maximilian’s disposal, Albert had in the first instance to suppress a fresh outbreak of the Hoeks in Holland, who, under the leadership of young Francis van Brederode, after surprising Rotterdam, organised a petty warfare in the style of the gueux of later days. But the States of Holland resolved on putting an end to this Jonker-Franzen war, and the rebel fleet was finally all but annihilated at Brouwershaven (July, 1490), Brederode himself dying soon afterwards of his wounds. Several of the other Hoek leaders died a violent death at Delft; but one of them threw himself into Sluys, which was in the hands of Philip of Cleves. In 1489 Albert restored the authority of Maximilian in Brabant, where the Peace of Frankfort, concluded for temporary purposes with France by the Roman King, was eagerly welcomed, for Bruges and Louvain had suffered unspeakably from war and pestilence. But it was some time before, at Montils-les-Tours, Maximilian’s mambournie over Flanders was likewise acknowledged, and Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres undertook to sue to him for pardon, a commission being appointed to ascertain and restore the privileges enjoyed by them under Philip the Good and his successor.

The ink, however, was hardly dry upon the so-called Treaty of Flanders when, during Albert’s temporary absence in Germany, the communal insurrection broke out afresh. At Bruges George Picquanet, elected hooftman, held out for a time against famine and Engelbert of Nassau, by whose soldiery he was ultimately killed. At Ghent, in May, 1491, a cordwainer named Remieulx, after admitting some of Philip of Cleves’ adherents, slew the Grand Dean, and Coppenole was put in his place. A strange conflict ensued between this demagogue and one Arnoul Leclercq, a labourer who had been named hooftman by a body of 5000 peasants previously organised under arms by Coppenole and his brother, both of whom were in the end put to death. Then a deputation of notables waited upon Duke Philip at Malines; the usual penalties were once more inflicted, the wearing of white hoods was prohibited for ever, and a Peace of Ghent was once more proclaimed (June, 1492). Meanwhile, Albert had on his return been occupied with a rising in Kennemerland, Friesland, and the Texel, stirred up by emissaries from Alkmaar, where followers of Brederode had seized the power. The insurgent peasants bore banners of our Lady and certain saints of local repute, together with a strange ensign consisting of a loaf of rye-bread and a large lump of green cheese. (Arnoul Leclercq at Ghent had borne a plough in his banner, and we remember the Bundschuh.) After much debate they were admitted into Haarlem, which had itself been disaffected; but on the approach of Albert the peasant host, left to itself, was massacred at Hemskerke. Haarlem, Alkmaar, and the smaller towns all humbled themselves before him; and the Landsknechte, with the art-treasures of Haarlem stuck in their hats, prefigured their comrades of the sacco di Roma (May). It remained for Albert to finish his task by the reduction of Sluys, where Philip of Cleves, whom the death of his father during the siege made Lord zum Ravenstein, still held out. The slow progress of the siege, even after in ‘July English vessels, sent by Henry VII, had arrived to take part in it, finds its explanation in the tenderness invariably shown by the House of Burgundy, and by Maximilian, to his wife’s kinsman. In October Ravenstein very leisurely surrendered Sluys, and three years later he was formally acquitted of any imputation against his honour.