The Story of Bruges

by Ernest Gilliat-Smith

Presently the Archduke of Austria himself arrived at Bruges, and, before the end of the month, a treaty of peace was signed, in virtue of which he obtained the regency he had so long coveted, and the guardianship of his son. He in return granted an amnesty to all who had taken arms against him, save only certain of the ringleaders. Amongst them note Jan van Keyt, erst Burgomaster of Bruges, and Franz van Bassevelde, famous for the boldness with which he had opposed Maximilian’s threats two years before. These men suffered death in the market-place, and their heads were set up on the turrets of the Halles. Note also among the excluded, Louis of Gruthuise, and that, notwithstanding that he had claims on Maximilian’s gratitude, for no man had done more than he to strengthen the tottering throne of Marie of Burgundy. As a knight of the Golden Fleece, Louis of Gruthuise had the right to be tried by the brethren of his order, but he refused to exercise it. He was a burgher, he said, of the city of Bruges, and desired no other judges than the magistrates of his native town. Maximilian, however, did not dare go to extremities, Gruthuise was too popular and too powerful; he sent him prisoner to the Château of Vilvorde, and made him pay a fine of three hundred thousand écus.

By the end of the year 1485 the Archduke of Austria had not only re-established his authority in Flanders, but also throughout the whole of his son’s domains.

Maximilian was one of those men whose appetites grow larger with eating. Conciliation increased his exigencies. Yield to him but an inch, and he asked for an ell, and when he got his ell he wanted a furlong. Fortune was singularly kind to him for a time; she gave him so much rope that he did not know what to do with it, and presently essayed to hang himself.

The first use which he made of his re-established authority was to break the oath which he had solemnly sworn at Bruges, and carry his son Philip out of the county; the second to further irritate the three bonnes villes by appointing the Franc fourth member of Flanders. The charter by which he committed this piece of folly was signed at Frankfort on February 16, 1486, immediately after he had been elected King of the Romans. The acquisition of this new and pompous title seems to have completely turned his head, and he gave himself over to the wildest dreams of ambition, fatuously believing that his would be the glorious destiny which the crowd of soothsayers and astrologers who frequented his Court had predicted for him. The kingdom of Hungary, the duchy of Milan were already his by right of conquest, and by the same right also the crown of Naples, and at the sword’s point he had demanded, and led back from France, his daughter Marguerite, whom the Treaty of Arras had made the bride of Charles VIII., that direst foe who had stirred up trouble for him at Liège, equipped fourteen great ships in support of his rebellious Dutch subjects, and, worst of all, by promises and deeds had aided and abetted the hated burghers of Flanders, and would, but for their suspicions, have brought their affairs to a successful issue.

Presently the time arrived when Maximilian believed that he was going to realize this vision. On the 14th of August 1486, at the head of a great army, he set out for France. At Bruges the day before he had listened to an harangue by Hermolao Barbaro, the Venetian ambassador, who told him that all his successes had been his own handiwork, and his reverses the work of destiny. Puffed up by this flattery, he started fully convinced that he would soon be reckoned amongst the greatest conquerors the world had ever seen, and so sure was he of his approaching success that he dated his letters from Lens, ‘première ville de notre conqueste.’

Never was man doomed to be more bitterly disappointed. Disaster followed disaster; the treasure which he had squandered in corruption brought in no return; the princes whose support he had purchased failed him in the hour of need; his mercenaries threw down their arms for lack of pay, and presently he was constrained, with his cap in his hand, to humbly ask the help of the men he most despised, and withal to endure the shame of a curt refusal. The burghers of Flanders, the three bonnes villes made answer, in no way approved of the war with France, and were perfectly content with the Treaty of Arras; and when Maximilian threatened to collect taxes himself, they not only laughed at his threats but clamoured for redress of grievances. Whereupon Maximilian, in desperation, led the remnant of his army against his own subjects; but his efforts in Flanders were no more successful than they had been in France, and he was constrained to fall back on Bruges, the one town which had not yet openly broken with him.

Great was the consternation of the burghers when on December 16, 1487, Maximilian entered their city. His German mercenaries, it was well known, had for months past received no pay, and were now living on plunder. This in itself was no small cause of alarm. Moreover, the burghers profoundly distrusted him. His shameless disavowal of the Treaty of Arras had shattered their dearest hopes and overwhelmed them, to boot, with taxes, and it was now more than suspected that the real object of his visit was to wring from them fresh supplies—nay, that the city was to be deprived of its franchise and handed over to plunder. There were some garrulous old men still living who remembered the horrors of fifty years ago under Philippe l’Asseuré, and a new exodus to Antwerp was the outcome of their harrowing stories. Whereat Maximilian sought to re-establish confidence with fair speech:—he desired nothing better than peace with France, had, in fact, demanded and received a safe conduct from the French King, with a view to a meeting anent this very object.

Meanwhile the Ghenters had taken Courtrai, and the Duke, in consequence, had sent an embassy to them to treat for peace, but the victors proudly refused to deal with any but Flemish, and Maximilian, at his wit’s end, besought the good offices of Bruges.

The burghers did not refuse, but they made their conditions:—the dismissal of the German guards, whose insolence and insubordination were intolerable in a commercial community, and until this was accomplished they would themselves take charge of the city gates.

After some hesitation the Duke deemed it prudent to yield: Philip of Hornes would soon be at Bruges with reinforcements and then he would be in a position to reassert his authority.