And when, after sweeping like a tempest over Europe, he died before the walls of Nancy in 1477, and the male line of the House of Burgundy came to an end, it was seen that the wide domain over which his family had reigned so proudly, and which he left to his daughter Marie, was torn by internal dissensions, and that the people of Brabant and Flanders were smarting under the inroads which had been made upon their ancient privileges.
BRUSSELS
Entrance to the old church of the Carmelites.
The Duchess Marie succeeded to a splendid inheritance, but her position was full of difficulty. Her treasury was empty. She had no army at her command. Popular discontent was growing. Her father had made the haughty burghers of Ghent bow before him, but as soon as he was dead they rose again. Ghent, Bruges, Brussels, all Brabant, were seething with disaffection. Payment of the taxes was refused and the officers of the Government were ill-treated. And, moreover, Hannibal was at the gates, in the person of Louis XI., who had rejoiced on hearing of the fate of Charles the Bold. The inauguration of Marie took place at the end of May, 1477, five months after her father's death; and her Joyeuse Entrée not only renewed the public rights which Philip and Charles had infringed, but placed fresh restrictions on the power of the future rulers of Brabant.
The marriage of the young Duchess to some husband who could defend her rights was seen to be the only means of preserving the peace of the country. Her distrust of Louis XI. led her to refuse an alliance with a French Prince. She chose the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, and thus the fortunes of Brabant and Flanders were united with the fortunes of the House of Hapsburg, and the opportunity of peacefully absorbing Belgium was lost to France.
The marriage was celebrated in August, 1477. Five years later Marie died, leaving a son—the boy, then four years of age, who was afterwards known as Philip the Fair. He in turn married Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain; and the offspring of this marriage was the Great Emperor Charles V., during whose reign the capital of Brabant was more brilliant than ever.
No story is better known than the story of how in the evil days, when Philip II. ruled the 'Spanish Netherlands' in the interests of the Church, Bréderode and his friends, hearing of Berlaimont's scornful words, assumed the name of 'Beggars,' by which their party was afterwards known. But how typical it is! How full their doings are of the gay spirit of Brabant! It is springtime, fresh and bright, when the confederate nobles leave the mansion of Count Kuilemburg,[35] a brilliant company of handsome, hot-blooded men of fashion and high birth, bearded all, and dressed in the elaborate finery of that time, and walk to the palace, where Margaret of Parma awaits them. They pass along the roadway which crowns the ridge, overlooking the multitude of pointed roofs below them to the left, with the spire of the Hôtel de Ville rising from where an opening among the housetops marks the situation of the Grande Place, where so many of them are afterwards to lay down their lives. The majestic towers of Ste. Gudule stand out above the houses which cluster round them on the plateau of St. Michael. In front of them is the palace, and beyond it the green glades and pleasure-grounds of the park. A crowd of people, who have climbed up from the lower town by the long steep way known as La Chausée and the Montagne de la Cour, greet them with cheers at the entrance of the palace. The doors of that magnificent dwelling receive the glittering band, who go with gay insouciance to their momentous interview, and come out from it in the same spirit. They walk about the streets, and pass Berlaimont, who is talking to Arenberg. 'Look at our fine beggars!' says Berlaimont. 'How they ruffle it before us!' They sup at Kuilemburg's. Bréderode repeats Berlaimont's jest against them. They take it up. They toast 'The Beggars.' They dress themselves up as beggars, with leathern wallets and wooden bowls. They laugh, and spill their wine about, drain more bumpers to the Beggars' health, dance on the tables, and shout 'Vivent les Gueux!'[36] Not even the grave face of Orange, who comes in, can stop the revel. And next day they lay aside their fine clothes, dress themselves, their families, and their servants as beggars, shave off their beards, and go about with wallets and bowls.
This was the spirit of the masquerade, of the carnival, the Kermesse; and thirty years later, when for a whole generation the country had suffered unexampled miseries, and most of the beggars of 1566 had perished by a violent death, the arrival of the Archduke Ernest as Governor of Brabant was made the occasion for a grotesque display—'a stately procession of knights and burghers in historical and mythological costumes, followed by ships, dromedaries, elephants, whales, giants, dragons.' A strange people. The Dutch had fought with all the courage of the Nervii, and gained their freedom. The Belgians, descendants of the Nervii, had been slaughtered, defeated, tortured, and made slaves, had seen their country laid waste, and their cherished liberties taken from them wholesale; and yet, when all was lost and the heel of the oppressor was planted firmly on their necks, they were made happy by a circus procession.
Footnotes
[30]Born at Brussels, June 24, 1322.
[31] The text of the Joyeuse Entrée of Jeanne and Wencelas is given by Abbé Nameche, vol. iv., pp. 671-679, and the latest form which it took will be found in Poullet's Histoire de la Joyeuse Entrée de Brabant, pp. 339-350.
[32] Poullet, p. 3.
[33] 'Mais bientôt les intérêts communs formèrent des Associations particulières dans le seins même de l'assemblée. Les nobles étaient unis par le droit de la féodalité; au treizième et au quatorzième siècle, les villes Brabançonnes conclurent entre elles des traités d'alliance, et de là l'origine des ordres. On sentit alors l'inconvénient du vote individuel, et l'on admit que les individualités particulières seraient liées par la majorité des suffrages dans le même ordre': (Poullet, p. 45).
[34] Wencelas and Jeanne had no children. Jeanne made a will leaving the Duchy of Brabant to her niece Marguerite (daughter of Louis of Maele and her sister), who had married Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Philip the Bold and Marguerite of Maele had two sons—Jean, who became Duke of Burgundy and Count of Flanders on the death of his father; and Antoine, who became Duke of Brabant on the death of his mother.
[35] In what is now the Rue des Petits Carmes.
[36] 'Then for the first time, from the lips of those reckless nobles, rose the famous cry, which was so often to ring over land and sea, amid blazing cities, on blood-stained decks, through the smoke and carnage of many a stricken field.'—Motley: Rise of the Dutch Republic.