The Story of Bruges

by Ernest Gilliat-Smith

‘If this Dane should be cut down,’ Burchard was reported to have said a few days before the murder—‘If this Dane should be cut down, who will rise up to avenge him?’ and now that the blow had been struck and Charles was dead, it at first seemed that Burchard had accurately gauged the situation.

Thémard, Châtelain of Brudburch, who was kneeling by Charles’s side when the fatal blow was struck, indeed made some show at defending him, but he was quickly overpowered by numbers, and fell, mortally wounded, beside the body of his master. As to the other members of the Count’s household, those of them who were not privy to the conspiracy were too terrified to think of anything but their own safety. The Stratens and their adherents had fled the county. William of Löo, the next heir to the throne, sent letters of salutation and promises of help. Even the clergy were silent, and the burghers, amongst whom the Erembalds had always been popular, so far from showing signs of disapproval of the crime, were working night and day at the fortifications of the town, in order to enable it to withstand a possible attack.

For the moment the Erembalds had triumphed. The death of their sovereign had brought them life.

After the long months of shame and suspense, during which wealth, honour, liberty, all that makes life dear, were trembling in the balance, it must have been no little consolation to these fierce, proud Karls to know that their enemy, the man who had persecuted them, had himself been brought low. But there was one thing which was a cause of anxiety and of reproach—that thing which to many another murderer before and after has been the source of no little embarrassment—the body.

There it lay, in the place where the deed had been done, set out in ghastly state amid flaming torches, a silent witness to their broken troth. What should they do with it?

Bertulph and Hacket had indeed from the first disclaimed all knowledge of the murder, and though perhaps their ignorance was wilful, in doing so they probably spoke the truth; but the guilt of Burchard and of several other members of the family was notorious and undenied, and so strong were ties of blood in the eyes of the Karl, that when one of them had sinned all his kindred deemed themselves not only responsible for, but, in a certain measure, also participators in the crime.

The ghastly trophy, then, in the choir of St. Donatian’s, was as dire a reproach to Bertulph and his brother as to the blood-stained Burchard himself.

Time pressed. Every moment that the mutilated corpse remained above ground was increasing the risk that pity would goad men to rebellion. What should they do with it? This was the problem which the Erembalds assembled in Bertulph’s house[9] had now to solve, and, if their new-born hope was not to be stifled, to solve quickly.

There were several weighty reasons why the interment should not take place at Bruges. To bury Charles in the capital, where the circumstances of his death were notorious, were to indelibly grave their own ignominy in the hearts of future generations. Perhaps, too, the presence of the body would entail also the presence of an avenging shade. Moreover, there was no precedent for a royal interment at Bruges, and the only church in the city where such a function could be fittingly celebrated had been defiled by blood, none but the Bishop of Tournai had the right to reconsecrate it, and even if there were time to communicate with him, it was in the highest degree improbable that old Simon of Tournai, Charles’s own brother-in-law, would consent to smooth the path of his kinsman’s murderers.

On the other hand, there was a strong feeling amongst the people in favour of Bruges, and Bertulph was sufficiently acquainted with the temper of his fellow-townsmen to know that any attempt to run counter to their wishes would be hazardous. After much confabulation, it was at length decided to request Arnulph, Abbot of Blandinium, a man whom Bertulph could trust, to secretly convey the body of Charles to his cloister and there give it Christian burial. Nor did Arnulph belie the confidence placed in him.