Under her wise rule the Netherlands had attained the greatest prosperity ever known. Industry and commerce flourished, peace and safety reigned throughout her broad dominions. At her court in Malines Margaret gathered a brilliant group of artists, poets and men of letters. Mabuse (Jan Gossaert), Bernard Van Orley and Michel Coxcie were among the famous Flemish artists patronised by the Duchess. Rombaut Keldermans received many commissions as architect from the great Lady of Savoy and her Imperial nephew for important edifices not only at Malines but at Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent and throughout the Low Countries. In 1451 the Pope, Nicholas V, had proclaimed a Holy Year at Malines and enormous numbers of pilgrims visited the city in consequence. Their lavish gifts made possible the rapid erection of most of the splendid religious edifices with which the city is so amply provided, and it was during the reign of Margaret that these structures were completed and decorated. Among the beautiful buildings executed during this period may be mentioned the Belfry at Bruges, the tower of St. Rombaut, the Hotel de Ville at Ghent, the spire of the cathedral at Antwerp, the cathedral of Ste. Gudule at Brussels, and many minor churches throughout the Low Countries.
Margaret displayed rare taste for works of art, and her palace was a veritable treasure house of masterpieces, as an inventory prepared at her direction shows. One of the most famous of these was the portrait of Jean Arnolfini and his wife by Jean Van Eyck, which—after many vicissitudes—has now found a permanent resting place in the National Gallery at London, unless some militant suffragette adds another chapter to its chequered history. Another treasure has been less fortunate, namely the portrait of La belle Portugalaise, wife of Philip the Good, which was painted by Jean Van Eyck under circumstances already described in another chapter. This famous picture disappeared during the religious wars and has never been discovered. The inventory lists a great many other paintings, of which some are still in existence and some have been lost. The descriptions are often quaint and charming, and may have been dictated by the Duchess herself, as for example: “Une petite Nostre-Dame disant ses heures, faicte de la main de Michel (Coxcie) que Madame appelle sa mignonne et le petit dieu dort,” and “Ung petit paradis ou sont touxs les apôtres.” Other artists of note in the collection were Bernard Van Orley, Hans Memling, Roger Van der Weyden, Dierick Bouts, Jerome Bosch and Gerard Horembout.
PORTRAIT OF JEAN ARNOLFINI AND HIS WIFE BY JEAN VAN EYCK.
Among the men of letters whom Margaret gathered around her were Jean Molinet, her librarian and a poet who often celebrated her charms; Jean Lemaire de Belges, who became her historian; Erasmus, Nicolas Everard, Adrian of Utrecht, Cornelius Agrippa, Massé, Rénacle de Florennes, Louis Vivés, and many others. Her library was as choice as her collection of paintings and included a Book of Hours and several other illuminated manuscripts now in the Bibliotheque Royale at Brussels, and many of the mediæval classics. History records few great personages whose personality, considered from every aspect, is more pleasing than that of this gracious lady, whose very pets are known to us through the frequent references made to them by her literary courtiers. Her career, though shaded by sadness and disappointment, was a great and noble one, and, while she lived, the land over which she ruled remained in almost uninterrupted peace and prosperity—the wars of the Emperor being for the most part waged far away on the plains of Italy or in France.
On the last day of November, 1530, the Regent Margaret passed away at her palace at Malines in the fiftieth year of her age and the twenty-third of her regency. For forty-five days the bells of the churches throughout the city tolled at morning, noon and night in expression of the profound grief of the people at their great loss. The dirges may well have been for the departure of the city’s greatness as well, for the death of its great patroness proved the beginning of its decline. The new Regent, Marie of Hungary, removed her court to Brussels, and although Malines, by way of compensation, was made the seat of an arch-bishopric it never recovered its former splendour and sank rapidly into the quiet town that it was when the great war added a new and tragic chapter to its history.
[CHAPTER XVI]
GHENT UNDER CHARLES THE FIFTH—AND SINCE
