The calumny, as Archdeacon Walter calls it, came like a bolt from the blue. The Erembalds had been châtelains of Bruges for well-nigh a hundred years, and no man heretofore had ever ventured even to hint at the possibility of a flaw in their escutcheon. Walter had aimed his shaft well, it had flown far and pierced deep. By it was threatened not only the honour and the liberty and the purse of every man in whose veins flowed the blood of an Erembald, but alike the honour and the liberty and the purse of each one of the score or more of proud barons allied by marriage to the dishonoured race. The Erembalds were cut to the quick, and the words of defiance which Bertulph himself hurled back, words which in the light of after events seem almost prophetic, voiced the indignation of the whole clan. ‘I am a free man,’ he thundered out; ‘my forefathers were free men, and no one shall be found mighty enough to take away my freedom.’ Strange as it may seem, the aristocracy, almost to a man, rallied round the attainted house, whilst almost alone at the side of his friend stood the Count.
He still hesitated, however, to show his true colours; he would himself, he said, in no way interfere, but leave the matter in the hands of his judges—a commission should be appointed to examine the affair, and he would abide by their decision. But Bertulph was not to be hoodwinked, and spread it abroad that the Count was plotting his ruin:—‘This Charles of Denmark, whom I made, would fain through his judges reduce me to slavery. Let him try.’ Nor did he hesitate to fling back in Charles’s teeth the retort that he himself was illegitimate, aye and a bastard, too, base born. ‘This Charles of Denmark!’ he contemptuously cried—Bertulph, who was a true Fleming, could never forget or forgive his master’s foreign extraction—‘This Charles of Denmark, who boasts that he is a king’s son! In good sooth, a scullion begat him! By what right doth he torment us?’ Truly Provost Bertulph had a bitter tongue. But neither scorn nor threats nor bitter speech could turn the Count from his purpose. The promised commission was duly appointed, and after a lengthy inquiry made its award:—Let the Lady of Raeske swear that she is of free birth in the presence of twelve nobles who shall confirm her oath with their own; but with no little inconsistency a proviso was added that this decision concerned only the case of the Lady of Raeske personally, and in no way derogated from the Count’s right, if he would, to proceed against any other member of the Erembald family. This compromise Charles accepted, and, partially laying aside the cloak of neutrality which hitherto prudence had bade him assume, lost no time in claiming the Erembalds for his serfs, nor until the day of his death, more than a year later, did he cease so to regard them.
They no less persistently repudiated the claim, and Charles either could not or would not enforce it, and for the moment was fain to content himself with slighting words and half-veiled threats. Meanwhile the Erembalds and the Stratens were flying at one another’s throats. Cattle were being looted, boundaries were being razed, and blood was flowing in torrents. A hurricane of strife had been let loose on the land, and all the efforts of the sower of the wind, now thoroughly afraid at his own handiwork, and clumsily playing the double rôle of peacemaker and partisan, were powerless to quell it.
Suddenly, when the turmoil was at its height, Charles was called to France. An intermittent warfare had for years been carried on between the Count of Auvergne and the Bishop of Clermont, and things had at length come to a crisis. The former had made appeal to his liege lord, Duke William of Aquitaine, and the latter, by their united efforts, driven from his See, had now invoked, not vainly, the aid of Louis the Fat, who forthwith summoned his vassals (amongst whom of course was Charles) and set out for Clermont.
The Count of Flanders was undoubtedly placed in a very awkward predicament. To leave his realm at the present juncture was to risk revolution, and by staying at home he would certainly estrange his one reliable friend. The civil war at the beginning of his reign, and the famine and pestilence which followed, had sown broadcast misery and discontent, whilst the well-meant but arbitrary measures which Charles had taken for the relief of the poor, especially his edict as to the price of wheat, had alienated the rich, who openly accused him of showing favour to the people at their expense. ‘If it be so,’ he was wont to reply, ‘it is because I know the misery of the poor and the pride of the upper classes,’ but, unfortunately for Charles, in his day the classes alone counted, and the classes were in a high fever of suspicion and unrest. The great purveyors of bread-stuffs had been touched in their pockets, the free landholders of the sea-board thought themselves already slaves, the honour of the first family in Flanders had been trampled in the dust. No one was sure that it would not be his turn next. Others besides Bertulph were questioning Charles’s right to torment them. The whole land was sick of foreign rule, and men were beginning to whisper in corners of William of Löo. It was probably this last consideration which prompted Charles to obey. If he had failed to do so, his powerful kinsman might have veered round to the side of the legitimate heir, and in that case he would in all probability have lost his county.
Charles must have taken a heavy heart with him to Clermont, but his biographers do not inform us that he was in any way disquieted.
Before starting, however, he seems to have summoned the Erembalds and the Stratens to his presence and to have made them swear to a truce, but to swear to a truce under existing circumstances was little better than a farce. Such was the hatred of the belligerents for one another, that even a temporary suspension of hostilities had become impossible, and during the whole period of Charles’s absence the land was a prey to their mutual depredations.
It was not till the fall of the year that Charles came back to his domains. At Ypres he was met by a deputation of peasants, retainers seemingly of the Stratens, who made complaint that the Erembalds, headed by the provost’s nephew Burchard, had plundered their dwellings, laid waste their land and driven off their cattle. Charles promised them justice, and having taken counsel with his barons, decreed that Burchard’s house at Straten should be razed to the ground. The sentence was promptly carried out, and Walter adds that the Count in person superintended its execution. That this was only a prelude there can be no doubt. Charles had returned to Flanders crowned with the laurels of victory. His successes at Clermont had earned for him the gratitude of Louis the Fat, who had most likely promised him help. The time had come when he felt himself strong enough to carry out his plan against the Erembalds. Nor were these last ignorant of his intentions. At length, driven to bay, they were determined to make one desperate stand for liberty. They would save their honour, even if the price paid for it should be their sovereign’s life.
Charles had arrived at Bruges late on the evening of 28th February, and towards the close of the next day a deputation waited on him on behalf of the threatened clan. There seems to have been little hope of bringing about a reconciliation, but Bertulph had most likely insisted that no effort should be left untried before having recourse to violence. The accounts which the contemporary lives give of this interview do not tally, but they are at one as to its issue—Charles was adamant. The die was cast. That night the Erembalds met in secret conclave. Early next morning Charles rose, feverish and ill at ease, from a couch overshadowed by the wraith of his coming doom. His servants would have had him remain indoors. Some rumour of the midnight meeting had leaked out, and they suspected foul play, but Charles refused to listen, and notwithstanding that the day had dawned so thick, ‘that a man could see no further than a spear’s length before him,’ betook himself almost unattended to St. Donatian’s, there to hear Mass.[8]
Hardly had the service begun than Burchard, accompanied by a crowd of retainers, entered the church by a side door, and sheltering himself behind the great columns of the northern aisle, stealthily crept up to the place where Charles was kneeling before the Lady altar, and touched him on the shoulder. The Count turned his head to see who was there, and for a moment their eyes met, and then, quick as thought, a blow from Burchard’s sword felled him dead on the pavement.