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History of Holland by George Edmundson

G >> George Edmundson >> History of Holland




The Burgundian dukes were among the most powerful rulers of their
time--the equals of kings in all but name--and they far surpassed all
contemporary sovereigns in their lavish display and the splendour of
their court. The festival at Bruges in 1430 in celebration of the
marriage of Philip the Good and Isabel of Portugal, at which the Order
of the Golden Fleece was instituted, excited universal wonder; while his
successor, Charles the Bold, contrived to surpass even his father in the
splendour of his espousals with Margaret of York in 1468, and at his
conference with the Emperor Frederick III at Trier in 1473. On this last
occasion he wore a mantle encrusted all over with diamonds.

The foundation of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1430 was an event of
great importance, as marking a step forward on the part of Philip in its
assumption of quasi-regal attributes. The title was very appropriate,
for it pointed to the wool and cloth trade as being the source of the
wealth of Flanders. The Order comprised thirty-one knights, chosen from
the flower of the Burgundian nobles and the chief councillors of the
sovereign. The statutes of the Order set forth in detail the privileges
of the members, and their duties and obligations to their prince. They
had a prescriptive claim to be consulted on all matters of importance,
to be selected for the chief government posts, and to serve on military
councils. The knights were exempt from the jurisdiction of all courts,
save that of their own chapter.

Philip died in 1467 and was succeeded by his son, Charles, who had
already exercised for some years authority in the Netherlands as his
father's deputy. Charles, as his surname _le Temeraire_ witnesses, was
a man of impulsive and autocratic temperament, but at the same time a
hard worker, a great organiser, and a brilliant soldier. Consumed with
ambition to realise that restoration of a great middle Lotharingian
kingdom stretching from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, for which
his father had been working during his long and successful reign, he
threw himself with almost passionate energy into the accomplishment of
his task. With this object he was the first sovereign to depart from
feudal usages and to maintain a standing army. He appeared at one time
to be on the point of accomplishing his aim. Lorraine, which divided his
southern from his northern possessions, was for a short time in his
possession. Intervening in Gelderland between the Duke Arnold of
Egmont and his son Adolf, he took the latter prisoner and obtained the
duchy in pledge from the former. Uprisings in the Flemish towns against
heavy taxation and arbitrary rule were put down with a strong hand. In
September, 1474, the duke, accompanied by a splendid suite, met the
emperor Frederick III at Trier to receive the coveted crown from the
imperial hands. It was arranged that Charles' only daughter and heiress
should be betrothed to Maximilian of Austria, the emperor's eldest son,
and the very day and hour for the coronation were fixed. But the
Burgundian had an enemy in Louis XI of France, who was as prudent and
far-seeing as his rival was rash and impetuous, and who was far more
than his match in political craft and cunning. French secret agents
stirred up Frederick's suspicions against Charles' designs, and the
emperor suddenly left Trier, where he had felt humiliated by the
splendour of his powerful vassal.

The duke was furious at his disappointment, but was only the more
obstinately bent on carrying out his plans. But Louis had been meanwhile
forming a strong league (League of Constance, March 1474) of various
states threatened by Charles' ambitious projects. Duke Sigismund of
Austria, Baden, Basel, Elsass, and the Swiss Cantons united under the
leadership of France to resist them. Charles led an army of 60,000 men
to aid the Archbishop of Cologne against his subjects, but spent eleven
months in a fruitless attempt to take a small fortified town, Neuss, in
which a considerable portion of his army perished. He was compelled to
raise large sums of money from his unwilling subjects in the Netherlands
to repair his losses, and in 1475 he attacked Duke Rene of Lorraine,
captured Nancy and conquered the duchy, which had hitherto separated his
Netherland from his French possessions. It was the first step in the
accomplishment of his scheme for the restoration of the Lotharingian
kingdom. In Elsass, however, the populace had risen in insurrection
against the tyranny of the Burgundian governor, Peter van Hagenbach, and
had tried and executed him. Finding that the Swiss had aided the rebels,
Charles now, without waiting to consolidate his conquest of Lorraine,
determined to lead his army into Switzerland. At the head of a
splendidly equipped force he encountered the Confederates near Granson
(March 2, 1476) and was utterly routed, his own seal and order of the
Golden Fleece, with vast booty, falling into the hands of the victors.
A few months later, having recruited and reorganised his beaten army, he
again led them against the Swiss. The encounter took place (June 21,
1476) at Morat and once more the chivalry of Burgundy suffered complete
defeat. Charles fled from the field, half insane with rage and
disappointment, when the news that Duke Rene had reconquered Lorraine
roused him from his torpor. He hastily gathered together a fresh army
and laid siege to Nancy. But in siege operations he had no skill, and in
the depth of winter (January 5, 1477) he was attacked by the Swiss and
Lorrainers outside the walls of the town. A panic seized the
Burgundians; Charles in person in vain strove to stem their flight, and
he perished by an unknown hand. His body was found later, stripped
naked, lying frozen in a pool.

Charles left an only child, Mary, not yet twenty years of age. Mary
found herself in a most difficult and trying situation. Louis XI, the
hereditary enemy of her house, at once took possession of the duchy of
Burgundy, which by failure of heirs-male had reverted to its liege-lord.
The sovereignty of the county of Burgundy (Franche-Comte), being an
imperial fief descending in the female line, she retained; but, before
her authority had been established, Louis had succeeded in persuading
the states of the county to place themselves under a French
protectorate. French armies overran Artois, Hainault and Picardy, and
were threatening Flanders, where there was in every city a party of
French sympathisers. Gelderland welcomed the exiled duke, Adolf, as
their sovereign. Everywhere throughout the provinces the despotic rule
of Duke Charles and his heavy exactions had aroused seething discontent.
Mary was virtually a prisoner in the hands of her Flemish subjects; and,
before they consented to support her cause, there was a universal demand
for a redress of grievances. But Mary showed herself possessed of
courage and statesmanship beyond her years, and she had at this critical
moment in her step-mother, Margaret of York, an experienced and capable
adviser at her side. A meeting of the States-General was at once
summoned to Ghent. It met on February 3, 1477, Mary's 20th birthday.
Representatives came from Flanders, Brabant, Artois and Namur, in the
southern, and from Holland and Zeeland in the northern Netherlands. Mary
saw there was no course open to her but to accede to their demands. Only
eight days after the Assembly met, the charter of Netherland
liberties, called The Great Privilege, was agreed to and signed. By this
Act all previous ordinances conflicting with ancient privileges were
abolished. The newly-established Court of Appeal at Mechlin was replaced
by a Great Council of twenty-four members chosen by the sovereign from
the various states, which should advise and assist in the administration
of government. Mary undertook not to marry or to declare war without the
assent of the States-General. The States-General and the Provincial
States were to meet as often as they wished, without the summons of the
sovereign. All officials were to be native-born; no Netherlander was to
be tried by foreign judges; there were to be no forced loans, no
alterations in the coinage. All edicts or ordinances infringing
provincial rights were to be _ipso facto_ null and void. By placing her
seal to this document Mary virtually abdicated the absolute sovereign
power which had been exercised by her predecessors, and undid at a
stroke the results of their really statesmanlike efforts to create out
of a number of semi-autonomous provinces a unified State. Many of their
acts and methods had been harsh and autocratic, especially those of
Charles the Bold, but who can doubt that on the whole their policy was
wise and salutary? In Holland and Zeeland a Council was erected
consisting of a Stadholder and eight councillors (six Hollanders and two
Zeelanders) of whom two were to be nobles, the others jurists. Wolferd
van Borselen, lord of Veere, was appointed Stadholder.

The Great Privilege granted, the States willingly raised a force of
34,000 men to resist the French invasion, and adequate means for
carrying on the war. But the troubles of the youthful Mary were not yet
over. The hand of the heiress of so many rich domains was eagerly sought
for (1) by Louis of France for the dauphin, a youth of 17 years; (2) by
Maximilian of Austria to whom she had been promised in marriage; (3) by
Adolf, Duke of Gelderland, who was favoured by the States-General.
Adolf, however, was killed in battle. In Flanders there was a party who
favoured the French and actually engaged in intrigues with Louis, but
the mass of the people were intensely averse to French domination. To
such an extent was this the case that two influential officials, the
lords Hugonet and Humbercourt, on whom suspicion fell of treacherous
correspondence with the French king, were seized, tried by a special
tribunal, and, despite the tears and entreaties of the duchess, were
condemned and beheaded in the market-place of Ghent. Maximilian became
therefore the accepted suitor; and on August 19, 1477, his marriage with
Mary took place at Bruges. This marriage was to have momentous
consequences, not only for the Netherlands, but for Europe. The union
was a happy one, but, unfortunately, of brief duration. On March 29,
1482, Mary died from the effects of a fall from her horse, leaving two
children, Philip and Margaret.

* * * * *




CHAPTER II

HABSBURG RULE IN THE NETHERLANDS


Maximilian, on the death of Mary, found himself in a very difficult
position. The archduke was a man of high-soaring ideas, chivalrous,
brave even to the point of audacity, full of expedients and never
daunted by failure, but he was deficient in stability of character, and
always hampered throughout his life by lack of funds. He had in 1477 set
himself to the task of defending Flanders and the southern provinces of
the Netherlands against French attack, and not without considerable
success. In 1482, as guardian of his four-year old son Philip, the heir
to the domains of the house of Burgundy, he became regent of the
Netherlands. His authority however was little recognised. Gelderland and
Utrecht fell away altogether. Liege acknowledged William de la Marck as
its ruler. Holland and Zeeland were torn by contending factions.
Flanders, the centre of the Burgundian power, was specially hostile to
its new governor. The burghers of Ghent refused to surrender to him his
children, Philip and Margaret, who were held as hostages to secure
themselves against any attempted infringement of their liberties. The
Flemings even entered into negotiations with Louis XI; and the archduke
found himself compelled to sign a treaty with France (December 23,
1482), one of the conditions being the betrothal of his infant daughter
to the dauphin. Maximilian, however, found that for a time he must leave
Flanders to put down the rising of the Hook faction in Holland, who,
led by Frans van Brederode, and in alliance with the anti-Burgundian
party in Utrecht, had made themselves masters of Leyden. Beaten in a
bloody fight by the regent, Brederode nevertheless managed to seize
Sluis and Rotterdam; and from these ports he and his daring
companion-in-arms, Jan van Naaldwijk, carried on a guerrilla warfare for
some years. Brederode was killed in a fight at Brouwershaven (1490), but
Sluis still held out and was not taken till two years later.

Meanwhile Maximilian had to undertake a campaign against the Flemings,
who were again in arms at the instigation of the turbulent burghers of
Ghent and Bruges. Entering the province at the head of a large force he
compelled the rebel towns to submit and obtained possession of the
person of his son Philip (July, 1485). Elected in the following year
King of the Romans, Maximilian left the Netherlands to be crowned at
Aachen (April, 1486). A war with France called him back, in the course
of which he suffered a severe defeat at Bethune. At the beginning of
1488 Ghent and Bruges once more rebelled; and the Roman king, enticed to
enter Bruges, was there seized and compelled to see his friends executed
in the market-place beneath his prison window. For seven months he was
held a prisoner; nor was he released until he had sworn to surrender his
powers, as regent, to a council of Flemings and to withdraw all his
foreign troops from the Netherlands. He was forced to give hostages as a
pledge of his good faith, among them his general, Philip of Cleef, who
presently joined his captors.

Maximilian, on arriving at the camp of the Emperor Frederick III, who
had gathered together an army to release his imprisoned son, was
persuaded to break an oath given under duress. He advanced therefore at
the head of his German mercenaries into Flanders, but was able to
achieve little success against the Flemings, who found in Philip of
Cleef an able commander. Despairing of success, he now determined to
retire into Germany, leaving Duke Albert of Saxe-Meissen, a capable and
tried soldier of fortune, as general-in-chief of his forces and
Stadholder of the Netherlands. With the coming of Duke Albert order was
at length to be restored, though not without a severe struggle.

Slowly but surely Duke Albert took town after town and reduced province
after province into submission. The Hook party in Holland and Zeeland,
and their anti-Burgundian allies in Utrecht, and Robert de la Marck in
Liege, in turn felt the force of his arm. An insurrection of the
peasants in West Friesland and Kennemerland--the "Bread and Cheese
Folk," as they were called--was easily put down. Philip of Cleef with
his Flemings was unable to make head against him; and, with the fall of
Ghent and Sluis in the summer of 1492, the duke was able to announce to
Maximilian that the Netherlands, except Gelderland, were pacified. The
treaty of Senlis in 1493 ended the war with France. In the following
year, after his accession to the imperial throne, Maximilian retired to
his ancestral dominions in Germany, and his son, Philip the Fair, took
in his hands the reins of government. The young sovereign, who was a
Netherlander by birth and had spent all his life in the country, was
more popular than his father; and his succession to the larger part of
the Burgundian inheritance was not disputed. He received the homage of
Zeeland at Roemerswaal, of Holland at Geertruidenburg, and seized the
occasion to announce the abrogation of the Great Privilege, and at the
same time restored the Grand Council at Mechlin.

In Utrecht the authority of Bishop David of Burgundy was now firmly
re-established; and on his death, Philip of Baden, an obsequious
adherent of the house of Austria, was elected. These results of the
pacification carried out so successfully by Duke Albert had, however,
left Maximilian and Philip deeply in debt to the Saxon; and there was no
money wherewith to meet the claim, which amounted to 300,000 guilders.
After many negotiations extending over several years, compensation was
found for Albert in Friesland. That unhappy province and the adjoining
territory of Groningen had for a long time been torn by internal
dissensions between the two parties, the _Schieringers_ and the
_Vetkoopers_, who were the counterparts of the Hooks and Cods of
Holland. The Schieringers called in the aid of the Saxon duke, who
brought the land into subjection. Maximilian now recognised Albert as
hereditary Podesta or governor of Friesland on condition that the House
of Austria reserved the right of redeeming the territory for 100,000
guilders; and Philip acquiesced in the bargain by which Frisian freedom
was sold in exchange for the cancelling of a debt. The struggle with
Charles of Egmont in Gelderland was not so easily terminated. Not till
1505 was Philip able to overcome this crafty and skilful adversary.
Charles was compelled to do homage and to accompany Philip to Brussels
(October, 1505). It was, however, but a brief submission. Charles made
his escape once more into Gelderland and renewed the war of
independence.

Before these events had taken place, the marriage of Philip with Juana,
the daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile, had brought
about a complete change in his fortunes. Maximilian, always full of
ambitious projects for the aggrandisement of his House, had planned with
Ferdinand of Aragon a double marriage between their families, prompted
by a common hatred and fear of the growing power of France. The
Archduke Philip was to wed the Infanta Juana, the second daughter of
Ferdinand and Isabel; the Infante Juan, the heir to the thrones of
Aragon and Castile, Philip's sister, Margaret. Margaret had in 1483,
aged then three years, been betrothed to the Dauphin Charles, aged
twelve, and she was brought up at the French Court, and after the death
of Louis XI (August 30, 1483) had borne the title of Queen and had lived
at Amboise with other children of the French royal house, under the care
of the Regent, Anne de Beaujeu. The marriage, however, of Charles VIII
and Margaret was never to be consummated. In August, 1488, the male line
of the Dukes of Brittany became extinct; and the hand of the heiress,
Anne of Brittany, a girl of twelve, attracted many suitors. It was
clearly a matter of supreme importance to the King of France that this
important territory should not pass by marriage into the hands of an
enemy. The Bretons, on the other hand, clung to their independence and
dreaded absorption in the unifying French state. After many intrigues
her council advised the young duchess to accept Maximilian as her
husband, and she was married to him by proxy in March, 1490. Charles
VIII immediately entered Brittany at the head of a strong force and,
despite a fierce and prolonged resistance, conquered the country, and
gained possession of Anne's person (August, 1491). The temptation was
too strong to be resisted. Margaret, after residing in France as his
affianced wife for eight years, was repudiated and finally, two years
later, sent back to the Netherlands, while Anne was compelled to break
off her marriage with Margaret's father, and became Charles' queen. This
double slight was never forgiven either by Maximilian or by Margaret,
and was the direct cause of the negotiations for the double Spanish
marriage, which, though delayed by the suspicious caution of the two
chief negotiators, Ferdinand and Maximilian, was at length arranged. In
August, 1496, an imposing fleet conveyed the Infanta Juana to Antwerp
and she was married to Philip at Lille. In the following April Margaret
and Don Juan were wedded in the cathedral of Burgos. The union was
followed by a series of catastrophes in the Spanish royal family. While
on his way with his wife to attend the marriage of his older sister
Isabel with the King of Portugal, Juan caught a malignant fever and
expired at Salamanca in October, 1497.

The newly-married Queen of Portugal now became the heiress to the crowns
of Aragon and Castile, but she died a year later and shortly afterwards
her infant son. The succession therefore passed to the younger sister,
Juana; and Philip the Fair, the heir of the House of Austria and already
through his mother the ruler of the rich Burgundian domain, became
through his wife the prospective sovereign of the Spanish kingdoms of
Ferdinand and Isabel. Fortune seemed to have reserved all her smiles for
the young prince, when on February 24, 1500, a son was born to him at
Ghent, who received the name Charles. But dark days were soon to follow.
Philip was pleasure-loving and dissolute, and he showed little affection
for his wife, who had already begun to exhibit symptoms of that weakness
of mind which was before long to develop into insanity. However in 1501,
they journeyed together to Spain, in order to secure Juana's rights to
the Castilian succession and also to that of Aragon should King
Ferdinand die without an heir-male.

In November, 1504, Isabel the Catholic had died; and Philip and his
consort at once assumed the titles of King and Queen of Castile, in
spite of the opposition of Ferdinand, who claimed the right of regency
during his life-time. Both parties were anxious to obtain the support of
Henry VII. Already since the accession of Philip the commercial
relations between England and the Netherlands had been placed on what
proved to be a permanently friendly basis by the treaty known as the
_Magnus Intercursus_ of 1496. Flanders and Brabant were dependent upon
the supply of English wool for their staple industries, Holland and
Zeeland for that freedom of fishery on which a large part of their
population was employed and subsisted. In reprisals for the support
formerly given by the Burgundian government to the house of York, Henry
had forbidden the exportation of wool and of cloth to the Netherlands,
had removed the staple from Bruges to Calais, and had withdrawn the
fishing rights enjoyed by the Hollanders since the reign of Edward I.
But this state of commercial war was ruinous to both countries; and, on
condition that Philip henceforth undertook not to allow any enemies of
the English government to reside in his dominions, a good understanding
was reached, and the _Magnus Intercursus_, which re-established
something like freedom of trade between the countries, was duly signed
in February, 1496. The treaty was solemnly renewed in 1501, but shortly
afterwards fresh difficulties arose concerning Yorkist refugees, and a
stoppage of trade was once more threatened. At this juncture a storm
drove Philip and Juana, who had set sail in January, 1506, for Spain, to
take refuge in an English harbour. For three months they were hospitably
entertained by Henry, but he did not fail to take advantage of the
situation to negotiate three treaties with his unwilling guest: (1) a
treaty of alliance, (2) a treaty of marriage with Philip's sister, the
Archduchess Margaret, already at the age of 25 a widow for the second
time, (3) a revision of the treaty of commerce of 1496, named from its
unfavourable conditions, _Malus Intercursus_. The marriage treaty came
to nothing through the absolute refusal of Margaret to accept the hand
of the English king.

Philip and Juana left England for Spain, April 23, to assume the
government of the three kingdoms, Castile, Leon and Granada, which Juana
had inherited from her mother. Owing to his wife's mental incapacity
Philip in her name exercised all the powers of sovereignty, but his
reign was very short, for he was suddenly taken ill and died at Burgos,
September 25, 1506. His hapless wife, after the birth of a posthumous
child, sank into a state of hopeless insanity and passed the rest of her
long life in confinement. Charles, the heir to so vast an inheritance,
was but six years old. The representatives of the provinces, assembled
at Mechlin (October 18), offered the regency of the Burgundian dominions
to the Emperor Maximilian; he in his turn nominated his daughter,
Margaret, to be regent in his place and guardian of his grandson during
Charles' minority, and she with the assent of the States-General took
the oath on her installation as _Mambour_ or Governor-General of the
Netherlands, March, 1507. Margaret was but 27 years of age, and for
twenty-four years she continued to administer the affairs of the
Netherlands with singular discretion, firmness and Statesmanlike
ability. The superintendence and training of the young archduke could
have been placed in no better hands. Charles, who with his three sisters
lived with his aunt at Mechlin, was thus both by birth and education a
Netherlander.

One of the first acts of Margaret was a refusal to ratify the _Malus
Intercursus_ and the revival of the _Magnus Intercursus_ of 1496. This
important commercial treaty from that time forward continued in force
for more than a century. The great difficulty that Margaret encountered
in her government was the lack of adequate financial resources. The
extensive privileges accorded to the various provinces and their mutual
jealousies and diverse interests made the task of levying taxes arduous
and often fruitless. Margaret found that the granting of supplies, even
for so necessary a purpose as the raising of troops to resist the raids
of Charles of Gelderland, aided by the French king, into Utrecht and
Holland, was refused. She fortunately possessed in a high degree those
qualities of persuasive address and sound judgment, which gave to her a
foremost place among the diplomatists and rulers of her time. Such was
the confidence that her brilliant abilities inspired that she was
deputed both by the Emperor Maximilian and by Ferdinand of Aragon to be
their plenipotentiary at the Peace Congress that assembled at Cambray in
November, 1508. Chiefly through her exertions the negotiations had a
speedy and successful issue, and the famous treaty known as the League
of Cambray was signed on December 10. By this treaty many of the
disputes concerning the rights and prerogatives of the French crown in
the Burgundian Netherlands were amicably settled; and it was arranged
that Charles of Egmont should be provisionally recognised as Duke of
Gelderland on condition that he should give up the towns in Holland that
he had captured and withdraw his troops within his own borders.

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