To these terms she refused to consent, and the city was in consequence on the verge of rebellion. In vain she had gone down to the Town Hall (June 16) and made a personal appeal to the honour and chivalry of the burghers.
'Not only did they refuse to help me,' runs the letter from which the above facts are culled, 'but they said that my knights were doing their utmost to compass their destruction, and then, in spite of me, took Sergeant Macquaert and cut off his head, and put no less than two hundred and fifty of your most devoted followers under arrest, and at last told me plainly that if I any longer refused to make peace they would themselves deliver me into the hands of my cousin of Brabant. I have only eight days' delay and then they will send me to Flanders, grievous affliction, and I shall never see you again unless you make speed to save me, my only hope, my sole and sovereign joy. All that I suffer is for love of you; for God's sake, then, have pity on your sorrowing creature if you would not bring about her ruin. I have some hope that you will help me, for never have I done aught to offend you, nor will I as long as I live, but on the contrary I am ready to die for love of you and of your person, so greatly doth your noble domination delight me, by my faith, most redoubted lord and prince. For the love of God and of my Lord Saint George, consider then my wretched plight, this you have not yet done and methinks you have clean forgotten me. Inform me of your good pleasure and I will do it with all my heart, as the Blessed Son of God doth know right well. May He grant you a good and a long life and give me the joy of seeing you. Written in the false and traitorous town of Mons on the 6th day of July 1425. Your grieving and devoted handmaid, suffering great pain by your commandment.—Your handmaid,
'Jacqueline.'
This letter was intercepted en route and handed to Philip of Burgundy, but had it reached Gloucester it would probably not have touched him. If he indeed loved Jacqueline, she was not the sole mistress of his heart; her rival, Eleanor Cobham, had accompanied him to Hainault and returned with him to England, and doubtless the society of this lady was some consolation for the grief which, as Vinchant informs us, he had publicly displayed at parting with the woman he called his wife.
As for the hapless Jacqueline, she accepted the terms of surrender arranged on the 1st of June, and was presently conducted to Philip's palace at Ghent, where she was virtually a prisoner. She recognised John of Brabant as rightful Sovereign of her domains until such time as the Pope should pronounce judgment on her appeal: John, in his turn, undertook to provide for her maintenance, and in accordance with the terms of the treaty appointed Philip of Burgundy Regent of Hainault and Holland.
Jacqueline, however, was not yet at the end of her adventures. In Holland the Hoeks[25] were still devoted to her, a plan was contrived for her deliverance, and presently it was successfully carried out. Vinchant tells us how it all happened.
'One evening early in October two of her most trusty and loyal friends, Dirk Merwede and Arnulph Spyerink, arrived in the city of Ghent, and having left their horses saddled and bridled in a certain place, went to visit their lady, bringing with them, done up in a bundle, a suit of male attire, which she, whilst her people were at supper, hastily put on, and thus disguised departed with the aforesaid knights without being recognised by any of her guards, and riding hard all night never halted till she reached Wondelghem, and from thence she went to the castle of the Lord of Vianen, who received her gladly, and having arrayed her in some of his wife's garments led her to Schoonhaven, where all the town was marvellously glad at her coming. Next day she journeyed to Gouda, from thence to Oudenwater ... and wherever she went she was welcomed, caressed and entreated as Lady and Countess of Holland—always accompanied by the Lord of Vianen, whom she named her commander-in-chief.'
For three years this indomitable princess was able to defy her opponents, but the issue of the contest was from the first a foregone conclusion. Philip was able to pour into Holland the élite of his soldiery, 'tous exercités,' as Monstrellet says, 'et excités en armes et faits de guerre.' He had, too, the support, of the Duke of Gelderland and of course of John of Brabant, and in Holland itself the Church, the burghers, the great mass of the industrial population, were all in his favour.
What chance had Jacqueline of victory in face of such odds? At first, indeed, she had some help from Gloucester, who, in spite of his brother of Bedford, Philip's friend, made shift to send her three thousand archers, but on the 27th of January 1426, the Pope affirmed the validity of Jacqueline's former marriage, and Gloucester, constrained to sever his connection with the woman who had suffered so much for his sake, made her cup yet more bitter by espousing her rival, Eleanor Cobham, and by withdrawing his troops from Holland. Henceforth she stood alone at the head of her loyal Hoeks. Inspired by her heroic courage, her indomitable will and the glamour of her misfortunes and her beauty, these stalwart Dutch knights were able to prolong the unequal contest for nearly three years, and then at last she was constrained to own herself vanquished.
On the 3rd of July 1428, by the Treaty of Delft, she acknowledged Philip as Regent of her domains, delivered into his hands all her strongholds and solemnly engaged not to marry again without his consent, for Jacqueline was now a widow—on the 17th of April, 1427, Duke John of Brabant had gone the way of all flesh.