This strange reconciliation, which took place in 1492, was soon confirmed by the marriage of the Bishop's niece to Everard de la Marck's son, and thereafter there were no more feuds between the families of de Horne and Arenberg.
Three years later, in 1495, the Diet of Worms established the Imperial Chamber, and put an end to the system of private wars.
Footnotes
[58] Bishop Louis de Bourbon was only forty-five at the date of the murder.
[59] The Duchess Marie of Burgundy, who married the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, afterwards Emperor, had died at Bruges in March, 1482; and Maximilian then became Regent of the Austrian Netherlands during the minority of his children.
CHAPTER XXIII
ÉRARD DE LA MARCK—THE PRINCIPALITY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
Jean de Horne was Bishop of Liége for twenty-three years, during which the diocese was seldom free from party warfare. At the time of his death, in 1506, the family of Arenberg was so strong and popular that the Chapter of St. Lambert chose Érard de la Marck, the Wild Boar's nephew, as Bishop.[60] He came to the episcopal throne resolved to end the strife of factions and the family feuds which had been the sources of such misery. He forbade his subjects, under pain of banishment, to rake up the old causes of dispute. He declined to hear those who came to him bearing tales against their neighbours. He chose the officers of his Court without enquiring into their political opinions, and let it be seen that, so long as the law was obeyed and public order maintained, no one was to be called in question for anything which might have happened in the past.
His foreign policy was equally wise. The Principality of Liége lay between two mighty neighbours, and at first the Bishop's aim was to remain neutral in any disputes which might arise between the Emperor and the King of France. But when, on the death of Maximilian, Charles V. and Francis I. were rivals for the imperial crown, he went to the Diet at Frankfort, and supported the claims of Charles. From that time the Principality, though independent of the rest of Belgium, which formed part of the dominions of Charles V., was in as close relations with the German Empire as the electorate of Cologne and other ecclesiastical fiefs.[61] The bishops, chosen by the Chapter of Liége, and confirmed by the Pope, were invested by the Emperor with the secular power, and belonged to the Westphalian circle of the German confederation.