The Story of Brussels - Ernest Gilliat-Smith

At Brussels it was otherwise. When the craftsmen of Brussels at last obtained their hearts' desire, they had lived under an honest and capable government for at least fifty years, and if they had no voice in the legislature, they held the purse-strings and were thus indirectly able to make their influence felt, nor were they altogether excluded from offices of trust and emolument; and though, no doubt, they had not abandoned the hope of one day obtaining direct representation in the municipal senate, they seem to have so far acquiesced in the existing state of things that they had no thought of taking violent measures to change it. They were content to possess their souls in patience, and they were not defrauded of their expectation. By-and-by the fascinating dream of ages was a reality, and this was how it came about.

All that was best and all that was noblest in the three estates of Brabant had joined hands against the Sovereign—a wanton boy led astray by evil counsellors, who were squandering his wealth and the wealth of his towns, and suffering the honour of Brabant to be dragged in the dust; and when all seemed lost, when Brussels, betrayed by false brethren, was filled with German mercenaries breathing out threatening and slaughter, the energy and daring of the despised craftsmen had turned defeat into victory. And when the battle was won and the land once more had rest, these men received, by way of guerdon, the boon they had so long craved for.

The skein of the story is a long and intricate one, but it is worth the trouble of disentangling. It was during the reign of Duke John IV. that these things happened. John was a scion of the house of Bourgogne, which at this time was supreme in the Low Country, and as the events which we are about to relate were in large measure the outcome of the ambitious designs and selfish schemes of the Burgundians, it will be well for a moment to consider their origin and the means by which they mounted to power.[18]

The founder of the house was Philip of Valois, surnamed the Bold, a younger son of King John of France, and, like many other great houses, Court favour and a fortunate marriage were the foundation stones on which it was built.

Marguerite of Maele, the childless widow of her kinsman Philip of Rouvre, the last Duke of Burgundy of the old stock, was at this time the most to be desired of the marriageable princesses of Europe: she was young, beautiful, rich, heiress-apparent to the Counties of Flanders, Burgundy, Rethel, Artois and Nevers, and the only representative of the third generation of Duke John III. of Brabant. Among the princes who aspired to her hand was Philip of Valois, on whom, shortly after the death of her husband (1361), last of his race in the direct line, the French King had conferred his duchy (1363). After long and tedious negotiations and much haggling, for the Count of Flanders, her father, and the King of France, who conducted them, regarded one another with mutual distrust, the marriage treaty was signed (April 25, 1369), and in due course the widow of the last Duke of Burgundy of the old stock became the wife of the first Duke of the new dynasty (June 19, 1369).

A momentous marriage this, and one of which the consequences were far reaching. By it were presently united—when Louis of Maele died (January 30, 1384)—the two most formidable fiefs of the French crown; and the man who held them, a man of marvellous parts and vast ambition, unscrupulous, cunning, bold, had all the prestige of a prince of the blood, and, as the King's most trusted counsellor, all the resources of France at his back.

IV.—Genealogical Table of the Dukes of Brabant from John III. to Philip II.

It was thanks, indeed, to this last mighty asset that Philip was able to prepare the way for the union of the Netherlands to the profit of his own house. His intimate connection with France obtained for him the friendship of Duchess Jeanne, always French in her sympathies, and through her good offices he was able to marry his eldest son, John the Fearless, and his eldest daughter, Marguerite, to the only daughter and the eldest son of Albert of Bavaria, heir-apparent to Hainault, Holland and Zeeland, and thus to secure these counties for one of his descendants. The double marriage took place on the 12th of April 1385, and it will be interesting to note that the prelate who gave the nuptial blessing was no other than John T'Serclaes, Count Bishop of Cambrai, a brother of 'the liberator of Brussels.' Again, when shortly after the death of Duke Winceslaus (1385) war broke out between Brabant and Gelderland, and Jeanne, hard pressed, appealed to Philip for aid, it was with French troops and French gold that he was able to effectually help her, and thus to inspire—his main object in complying with her request—those sentiments of gratitude which later on, in 1390, induced her to acknowledge the right of her sister's child, Marguerite of Maele, to the reversion of her ancestral domains, and that, in spite of a previous engagement: in 1357, when smarting under the insult of the Flemish invasion, the work, as Jeanne firmly believed, of that same sister, she had pledged her word to the Emperor Charles IV., her husband's elder brother, that if she died childless her estate should not go to Marguerite of Brabant or to her issue, but to Charles himself, or, in his default, to his next-of-kin of the house of Luxembourg.