It was not yet noon when the Count of Artois dashed to the front, crying out as he did so, ‘Let those who are faithful follow.’ Presently he came to a great dyke. Digging his spurs into his horse’s flanks, he cleared it at a bound, and was alone in the midst of the Flemings. In an instant he had seized the banner of Flanders and torn it to shreds, but in bending forward to grasp it, his foot slipped out of his stirrup, and William Van Sæftingen, a monk of Hacket’s abbey at Lisseweghe, who had fled from his cell to join the fight, dragged him from his saddle, and at the same moment someone wrenched away his sword.
‘I surrender, I surrender,’ he cried, but with brutal irony his assailants feigned not to understand, and before Guy of Namur could interfere to save him, the Count of Artois was dead.
Although deprived of their leaders, the French knights fought with their wonted valour, but amid the slime and dykes of the Bloed-Meersch cavalry was worse than useless, and before nightfall the first and second lines of the great army of invasion were cut to pieces. The third battalion—the reserve force—had taken no part in the engagement, and a handful of the men who formed it succeeded in making their escape, but they fled in the greatest disorder, and their retreat was nothing less than a rout.
For the rest, seventy-five noblemen, a thousand knights and three thousand esquires were among the slain, and the sum-total of the French losses are said to have amounted to twenty thousand, whilst the Flemish estimated theirs at a hundred all told.
So great was the number of the golden spurs which the conquerors wrenched from the heels of the French knights who had fallen that they measured them by the bushel, and be it noted that the cavaliers of the period in question wore but one spur. Some of these trophies William of Juliers sent to his church at Maestricht, and the rest were hung up in the Church of St. Mary at Courtrai.
This brilliant victory which the tradesmen of Flanders had gained over the flower of French chivalry made such an impression on the hearts of the people that to this day there is hardly a Fleming who is ignorant of the battle of the Golden Spurs. Nay, at the news of the victory of Courtrai, on all sides hope was re-born in the breast of the people, and the cry of liberty resounded throughout Europe. In France, at Toulouse and Bordeaux, the citizens took heart and drove out Philippe’s officers. In Italy, while Florence showed signs of restiveness, Bologna, Mantua, Parma and Verona made solemn treaty together to defend their rights. In Switzerland the echoes of Morgarten responded to the shout of triumph which had gone up from the battlefield of Grœninghe. In Hainault, at Liège, in Brabant, in Holland, a like enthusiasm was shown, and it was the same elsewhere. Thus Kervyn poetically,[26] and it is worthy of note that at Rome Pope Boniface VIII., who seems to have held the Flemish in no little esteem, caused public rejoicing to be made in honour of this triumph of democracy.
Breidel and De Coninck are said to have been knighted on the field of battle—a tradition which hardly supports that other tradition which makes them men of noble birth. Be this as it may, the men of Bruges have not forgotten them, and some ten years since they were sufficiently ill-advised to set up beneath the shadow of their historic belfry a statue in honour of these heroes, which in no way harmonizes with its surroundings, and every year since its erection it has been their wont to deck it with garlands, and, grouped around its base, to sing hymns in honour of the men who rescued their city from tyranny and drove the French out of Flanders.
Notwithstanding her enormous losses at the battle of Courtrai, France had not yet disarmed, nor was it until July 1303 that Philippe le Bel, in order to save Courtrai, which was at that time being threatened by the Flemish, at last consented to liberate their Count as a preliminary to negotiations for peace, but on condition that if terms were not agreed on by the following spring, he would again yield himself prisoner.
Great was the joy of the men of Bruges when, towards the close of October, their Sovereign returned to Winendael. They had forgotten the evil things which they themselves had endured at his hands in the days of his prosperity, and were mindful only of his own suffering during his long imprisonment, and many of them, says the Friar of Ghent, when they saw him once more amongst them, were affected to tears. Guy’s sojourn at Bruges was not destined to be a long one. The negotiations with France fell through, and he scorned to break his word. When in the month of June (1304) the appointed day arrived, he quietly went back to his prison at Compiègne, and Philippe once more led his troops into Flanders, and with some measure of success. But the French King was in reality weary of the conflict. If the campaign should be prolonged, experience told him that in all probability fortune would favour the Flemish, and he again consented to treat with Guy and his burghers. Early in the new year terms had been practically agreed upon, and a treaty of peace was on the point of being signed when, on the 7th March (1305), the old Count died. The negotiations, however, were not broken off. Robert of Bethune was at once released from prison, Philippe acknowledged his right to the county of Flanders, by May he had reached his dominions, and early in June a definite treaty of peace was at length signed. Robert, however, was now an old man enfeebled in health and broken in spirit by the hard captivity he had so long endured, and the treaty to which he had set his hand, behind, it would seem, the backs of his burghers, was presently found to contain conditions to which they had never assented—conditions so disastrous to the interests of Flanders that they refused to ratify it. Then followed fresh negotiations