As if this was not enough, just two months later, Count William, the kind and loving father of Jacqueline, died also. The poor girl, without father or husband to protect her or her possessions, turned to her Fatherland to pronounce her sovereign of Zealand and Hainault.
But there were others who had their eyes and minds fixed on the sturdy little kingdom, and, truth to tell, they were the last persons one would suspect of such ideas, since they were Jacqueline’s own kinsfolk. But so it was; and in order to strengthen her position, and to allow her subjects to know and love her and to pay her their vows of fealty, Jacqueline, as was the custom in those times, started on a “progress,” or tour through her various cities.
These royal progresses were very splendid affairs, we can hardly imagine them now, and on this occasion Jacqueline’s mother bore her company, and there were many of her most powerful nobles as well.
On June 12, 1417, when the cavalcade rode into Mons, the whole city was gay to welcome the young girl who came thither to take her vows of sovereignty. How prettily the city, old even then, must have looked! From the windows fluttered banners of bright-coloured cloth, many of them worked with patterns of gold and silver! So large were some of these banners that they stretched from window to window across the street. Many were the arches wreathed with flowers and branches under which Jacqueline passed, and streamers waved everywhere.
Leaning from the casements were ladies richly dressed and holding chains of flowers; and children were here, there, and everywhere, come to see their little Princess, who was scarce more than a child herself.
Many great lords there were as well, having come forth from their castles on the wooded hills of Hainault, followed by their retainers and serfs, the former clad in suits of bright armour and riding on horseback, while the latter ran on foot beside the men-at-arms, and bore on their collars the names of their masters, and their doublets were of leather, and many times their feet were bare.
Jacqueline on a milk-white palfrey, with her mother at her left hand, rode at the head of them all. There are a few quaint old pictures which show her to have been slender and tall, brown-haired, and without the high cheek bones which are so usual in her countrywomen. On this occasion her appearance was royal indeed. She wore a gown of cloth of gold, which glittered in the warm June sunshine. Her coif, or headdress, was bound by many a chain of gold and jewels, suitable to her rank as Dauphine of France and Daughter of Holland.
She had not advanced far within the city before a deputation of young girls, all dressed in white, stood forth to meet her.
“Hail, Daughter of Holland, welcome to Mons,” the leader of them said, and stepping forward, hung her chaplet of flowers on Jacqueline’s arm. One by one each young girl followed in turn, and Jacqueline, turning with smiling face to her mother, said,—
“Our good city of Mons shows its loyalty in pleasing fashion, Madame. If all our other cities bear themselves like this, we care not for our uncle of Burgundy, who seeks to take our inheritance from us, nor for the Egmonts nor Arkels, nor any who are enemies of our house.”