It was the beginning of the great struggle which ended, so far as Bruges was concerned, in the cancelling of all her liberties, the total destruction of her commerce, and the utter and irreparable loss of her influence and her prestige.
There was one man who, had he lived, might perhaps have rescued Flanders—John of Dadizeele, the leader of the popular party. Himself the scion of an old and noble house, after making his studies at Arras and at Lille, he had entered the service of Simon de Lalainy, when that warrior was defending Audenarde against the men of Ghent, and had remained with him till his death in 1465. About this time he married Catherine Breidel, a descendant of the great patriot, and returned to his ancestral home, where it was his delight to give hospitality to the numerous pilgrims who came to offer their vows at the famous shrine of our Lady of Dadizeele, amongst them Philippe l’Asseuré, Charles the Terrible, the English Earl of Scales (Edward IV.’s brother-in-law), Marie of Burgundy, and Maximilian himself.
From this moment two varied occupations divided his time—the trade of war and the paternal administration of his estate. At one time we find him establishing a fair in the little town subject to his sway; at another, busying himself with the erection of new and more commodious dwellings for the poor; often leading his vassals to battle, as was the case at the great triumph of Guinegate, the yeomen mounted on horses which had lately drawn the plough, and the farm labourers armed with pitchforks. He had shown himself a loyal and a devoted friend to Charles the Terrible, and when that prince disappeared after the defeat of Nancy he became the counsellor and defender of Marie of Burgundy. He had received Maximilian on the Flemish frontier, and along with Louis of Gruthuise, as we have seen, was present at the marriage which took place next day. Later on, called by his victories to the supreme command of the Flemish host, on more than one occasion he succeeded in foiling the projects of Louis XI.; presently created Grand Bailiff of Ghent, and anon High Steward of Flanders, again and again by his moderate counsel he was able to quell the rising tide of sedition amongst the craftsmen of Bruges and of Ghent. Respected alike by the Court and the communes, he was the one man capable of defending the fatherland, threatened as she was by intrigue and conquest abroad, and by anarchy and treason at home.
It was destined to be otherwise. In the dusk of the evening of October 7, 1481, as John of Dadizeele was passing along an unfrequented lane in Antwerp, he was attacked by a band of armed ruffians, and so grievously wounded that he died three days afterwards.
The authors of this dastardly crime were never discovered, and perhaps there was no wish to discover them; but rumour pointed to the Lord of Montigny and the bastard of Gaesbeke, the first the father-in-law, and the second an illegitimate son of Philip of Hornes, a man known to be one of the chief foes of the victim and high in the favour of Maximilian. Had John of Dadizeele lived, he might perhaps have moderated the passions of his friends, and protected even those who hated him. ‘His death was the bursting of the last digue which opposed itself to the flood of civil discord which had so long been threatening the country. It was fatal alike to the men who had compassed it and to the burghers, who celebrated his funeral in a manner befitting a prince; it was the mourning of all Flanders, condemned as she now was to see the extinction alike of her domestic peace and of the last faint ebullitions of her power and liberty.’
Hardly had poor Dadizeele’s mangled body been put under the sod than the first clap of thunder rolled in the lowering heavens and the first flash of lightning glittered across the sky. It happened thus. Maximilian, as usual without cash and at his wit’s end to know how to replenish his empty treasury, ventured on a course of action which, had Dadizeele been still alive, he would never have attempted. Under various flimsy pretexts he caused to be put under arrest five of the principal magistrates of Bruges, men of standing and unblemished character, universally respected in the town and, to their cost, well known to be the possessors of great wealth—one of them, Martin Lem, had from his own purse lavished thousands on the war with France—hence the prosecution. Maximilian hungered for their gold, and presently for a consideration of two hundred thousand louis d’or, paid by way of a fine, he consented to release them.
Though the Echevins of Bruges were so terrified at the arrest of their colleagues that they not only made no protest, but in order to propitiate Maximilian granted him a very considerable subsidy, the Echevins of Ghent retaliated by pronouncing a sentence of exile for fifty years against Philip of Hornes, who immediately after Dadizeele’s murder had fled to Marie’s Court at Bruges, where, under shelter of her popularity, he knew that no man would dare lay hands on him, for the sweet and comely daughter of the Terrible Duke of Burgundy was very dear to the Flemish people. As Philippe de Commines quaintly has it, ‘Elle estoit très honneste dame et bien aimée de ses sujets, et lui portoient plus de révérence et de crainte qu’à son mary.’ Keeping herself entirely apart from the intrigues and machinations of her husband, and leaving the reins of government entirely in his hands, her delight was to mix with her people like the wife of some plain citizen. When before the victory of Guinegate all the women of Bruges walked through the streets in procession barefoot and with candles in their hands to implore God’s blessing on the Flemish hosts, Marie was among the rest. When in winter time the Minne Water was frozen and the lads and lasses of the city disported themselves on skates, many a happy burgher was as pleased and as proud at the skill and the grace of his beautiful girl-sovereign as if she had been his own daughter. So too was it when Marie, along with her ladies, went out to hunt. As she rode down the rue des Pierre, across the Grande Place, and along the rue aux Laines towards the Porte de Gand on her way to the marshes of Oostcamp or to the woods of Maele the people cheered her to the echo.
One morning early in the spring of 1482, about
