One event, however, had happened in the meantime, which completely cooled throughout Flanders that ardour for innovation, and that desire of democratic rule, which is one of the evils consequent upon every struggle for increased liberty, whether just or unjust--the wild spray which the waves of freedom cast beyond their legitimate bound. The morning after the return of Albert Maurice to Ghent, some of his attendants, finding the door of his bedchamber open, entered, and discovered that he had never been in bed; and the alarm spreading, he was soon after found, seated in the chair in which he had been writing, cold, stiff, and dead.
Of the letters which were cast upon the table before him, one was addressed to the princess, and one to his uncle; and both distinctly alluded to his intention of destroying himself. Left suddenly without a leader, pressed by a powerful enemy, and encumbered with the management of a state, all the springs and wheels of which they themselves had disarranged, the people of Ghent began to ask themselves what they had gained by pressing exaction and discontent beyond the mere recovery of their rights and privileges. The simplest amongst them saw that they had gained nothing and lost much; and the more clear-sighted discovered, that in carrying their efforts beyond the straightforward object which they had proposed at first, they had only made the government of the state an object of contention to bold and ambitious party leaders--a race of men who, for the purpose of success, must always necessarily prolong that confusion and anarchy, which is more baleful than the worst of tyrannies; and who, when success is obtained, must end in tyranny to uphold their power.
The very day that the death of Albert Maurice was discovered, intelligence arrived that the armies of France, marching on from the side of Cassel, had burned some villages within four leagues of Ghent; and the council of the states, confused, terrified, and surprised, without chief, without union, and without resource, proceeded in a body to the palace; and resigning at the feet of the princess the authority they had usurped, demanded her orders and directions, in the imminent peril to which the state was exposed. It was then that Mary of Burgundy made that famous answer, which has been transmitted to us by almost every historian who has mentioned her name; but it was in sorrow, not in anger, that she spoke; and the tears were in her eyes, when--after hearing the details of a ruined country, an invaded territory, the rich harvests of Flanders reaped by strange husbandmen while they were green, her frontier fortresses taken, and her troops proving false--she replied to the subjects, whose turbulence and discontent had fostered, if not caused, all the evils they recapitulated,--"You have banished my best friends, and slain my wisest counsellors, and now what can I do to deliver you?"
But misfortune had taught the people of Ghent their own errors, and the excellence of her they had so basely outraged. The news that the Archduke of Austria, the long-betrothed husband and the favoured lover of Mary of Burgundy, was advancing with rapid steps towards Ghent, spread as much joy through the city as if the tidings had been of some personal good fortune to each individual citizen. The gates of Ghent were now no longer guarded, except against the common enemy. The Duke of Cleves quitted the city in haste; and joy and satisfaction spread through all ranks when the cavalcade which escorted the Archduke wound on towards the palace. It was remarked, however, that nearly five-hundred of the horsemen who accompanied him--and those, surpassing all the rest in military array and demeanour--were all adorned with a green scarf, while the banner that floated over them bore the arms of Hannut--Argent a green tree proper; and that the knight who led this band of élite, though his beaver was now up, and his face exposed, was clothed from head to foot in the green armour of the Vert Gallant of Hannut.
Little more requires to be said. It is well known to every one, how gladly Mary of Burgundy herself saw the arrival of Maximilian.
Nor did the heart of Hugh de Hannut beat less highly, when, standing beside his princely friend, he, too, claimed his fair bride, Alice of Imbercourt. Still, the dead were to be mourned, and many sorrows were to be forgotten; but they were sorrows which drew the hearts of the living closer together. A gleam of sunshine shone out at last upon the days of the good old Lord of Hannut; and casting from him the studies which--fanciful or real--had soothed his griefs by occupying his mind, he passed his latter years in rejoicing over the recovery of so noble and so dear a son.
On the nineteenth of August, 1477, Mary of Burgundy gave her hand to Maximilian of Austria; and the rich territories, which so many princes had coveted, and for which France had played so base and subtle a game, passed away into another house. The years of that fair princess herself were few; but when she gazed smiling upon her husband and her children, she was wont to thank God that she had not looked into that fatal book, which might have given her an insight into her future destiny; and that in the happiness of the present she could see no ill to be anticipated for the future. Alice of Imbercourt, soon after her marriage, retired from the city to the dwelling of her husband's father; and though her deep affection for Mary of Burgundy still continued unabated, she never more made the court her abode. When, at length, the fatal accident happened, which caused the death of her fair foster-sister, she flew eagerly to soothe her couch of sickness; but she never entertained, for a moment, those hopes of recovery which all the others around indulged for several days. She it was who prepared the mind of the archduke for the death of her he loved. She closed her eyes, and then returned to her own dwelling, and resumed the duties of her station.
The people of the country declared that Alice was not surprised by the event which had occurred, being forewarned by the previous knowledge of the future which she had obtained; and the old writers assert, most seriously, that the horoscope of Mary of Burgundy, as it was drawn at her birth, was fulfilled to the most minute particular. As no one, however, saw this horoscope but Alice of Imbercourt--at least, before the latter events of Mary's life took place--and as Alice carefully abstained from ever mentioning the subject, it is more than probable that the love of the marvellous, so prevalent in those days, adapted the prediction to the facts long after they occurred.
FOOTNOTES
[Footnote 1]: Philip de Comines, who relates this anecdote much in the same terms as those used by good Martin Fruse in the text, places it, however, several years later; though, from the period of time during which Adolphus Duke of Gueldres, here called Count Adolphus, was kept in prison by the Duke of Burgundy, it would seem that the time of his capture is here correctly stated.