‘What then would you have?’ faltered Paul de Baenst. ‘A new burgomaster and a new écoutète,’ replied the guildsmen, ‘instead of Peter Lanchals and Jan van Nieuwenhove, who merit death.’ So terrified was Maximilian that he dared not refuse the demand, and Josse de Decker was named burgomaster, and Peter Metteneye écoutète.
For two days Maximilian remained shut up in his palace; on the 4th of February he ventured out, and from the balcony of the Halles endeavoured to explain, but the people refused to hear him. ‘Wait,’ they shouted, ‘wait until the deputies of Ypres and Ghent come’; nor was this all. He was forced to listen in silence to a long letter from the sheriffs of Ghent, which must have been gall and wormwood to him, a letter promising help, announcing the defeat and death at Courtrai of his favourite Hornes, and offering congratulations that Bruges was now out of danger. Nor until he had heard the command given to make diligent search for his counsellors, in order to bring them to justice, was he at length suffered to return to his palace.
On the morrow fresh news came from Ghent. Adrien of Rasseghem had just torn up the kalfvel of 1485. ‘For God’s sake do not disarm. Be not deceived by Maximilian’s specious promises, but keep good watch over him until the meeting of the Estates-General, and make sure of the persons of his counsellors.’
Great was the enthusiasm of the burghers, and they set about pitching tents in the Grande Place, for the weather was bitterly cold, and they were determined to remain under arms until all danger was past. In the midst came news that Maximilian had fled, news which turned out to be false, but in order to calm the people the burghers invited him to show himself among them, and presently he appeared in the market-place, gorgeously arrayed in cloth of gold and seated on a magnificent charger. Nor did he meet with a lukewarm reception; the people cheered him to the echo. Their hatred was for the moment transferred to the members of his council. Whereat Maximilian, no doubt relieved, made them a speech: he had no thought of leaving Bruges; if they doubted his word, let them set a watch at the palace. The burghers, who were practical men, replied that they would consider his proposal, and at the end of half an hour informed him that the deputies of the three bonnes villes were just about to meet, and that while they were discussing matters it would be well for him to take up his abode in the Craenenburg.
The Craenenburg was at this time the property of Hendrieck Nieulandt, a merchant of great wealth, to whom Maximilian was heavily indebted. It was situated at the corner of the rue St. Amand, and was the most magnificent private residence in the market-place. From its balcony the Counts of Flanders were wont to witness the public games and festivities which so frequently delighted the citizens of Bruges, and there Maximilian had himself been diverted, some three weeks before, by the squeaks and grunts and ungainly bounds of a herd of frantic swine, and the no less uncouth shouts and falls of the blind sportsmen who were pursuing them. Not a very edifying spectacle, one would think, for a prince who longed for and afterwards grasped an imperial diadem, and who would, if he could, have put on his finger the ring of the fisherman. But, other times other manners, and let us never forget, as a recent writer aptly and pithily has it, ‘Notre ancêtre du moyen âge est un grand enfant, il s’amuse aux choses extraordinaires pullulant aux pays lointains, et par dessous tout ... il est grossièrement joyeux.’ He was all that certainly in Bruges at the close of the fourteen hundreds, and perhaps his descendants in the same city are all that to-day.
The King of the Romans, attended by a numerous suite, took up his abode in Nieulandt’s palace on the evening of the 4th February 1488. Shortly afterwards, perhaps the next day, the deputies from Ghent and Ypres arrived, the Ghenters bringing with them two thousand armed men. All the trades guilds of Bruges were assembled in the Grande Place to welcome them, and their advent was greeted with cheers and the thunder of cannon. After solemnly attending Mass in St. Donatian’s the general assembly of the three bonnes villes was declared open, and presently business commenced. There were some who were sanguine enough to believe that peace would be the outcome, but for the burghers to come to an understanding with Maximilian was in reality a task almost impossible of accomplishment. The Prince was so shifty and the people were so exacting. The chief point at issue was the guardianship of young Philip. Maximilian had shown himself in forty several ways, the men of Ghent alleged, unworthy to exercise the rights of a father, and he must never again be permitted to do so. Had he not sworn to educate his son in Flanders, and then taken him out of the county? Before any terms of peace were arranged they must have some solid guarantee that Philip would be brought back again. Then there was the question of the Treaty of Arras, and the alleged plot to ruin Bruges, a matter which called for instant investigation, and if their suspicions—they were more than suspicions—should prove correct, justice must be meted out to the men who had instigated it, and there were a hundred other grievances to be redressed before any lasting peace could be established.
Meanwhile Charles VIII. was doing all in his power to help the Flemish people. Divesting, as suzerain, of their legal authority all those officers who continued to act for and in the name of Maximilian, ‘who,’ he averred, ‘had usurped the regency, violated sworn treaties and minted base coin in his own name,’ authorizing the burghers to themselves appoint magistrates who should ‘act in the name of the child Philip, now held prisoner by the King’s enemies,’ and to coin their own cash, signing charters innumerable, confirming ancient privileges, conferring new rights, granting full liberty to the merchants of Flanders to travel without let or hindrance throughout the kingdom of France—in a word, showing himself generally the friend and staunch supporter of democracy, the last barrier, as it seemed to him, to the Germanisation of the Netherlands.
On the 13th February all these charters were solemnly read in the market-place at Bruges, as well as the text of the Treaty of Arras, and a long report on the attempted destruction of the city, whereat the guildsmen wax furious, break into Maximilian’s palace—the Princenhof—find there four hundred barrels of gunpowder, scaling ladders innumerable, and something more ominous still, coils upon coils of stout rope. What was this for? Not a man of them but believed that the Duke had meant to hang him. Next day, in consequence, arrest of fourteen privy councillors, Flemings, Burgundians, Germans, four of them in Maximilian’s own chamber. All of these men had fancied themselves safe because they were attached to the royal person.
The same evening a deputation of burghers pay Maximilian a visit of condolence, bid him take heart, and assure him that they bear him no enmity; that his person is perfectly safe in their hands, and that they are ready to do anything in their power to make him comfortable. Maximilian, nevertheless, unconvinced and exceedingly depressed. February 16, commencement of trial of Jan van Nieuwenhove and sundry others arrested the day before. Great deliberation on the part of the judges who, sitting with closed doors, have already spun out the proceedings for two days, when the mob outside, losing all patience and frantically shouting that the judges have gone