Marie, in imitation of all new-made sovereigns whose crowns are none too secure, began by granting most liberal charters and privileges to her loyal subjects in Flanders. For the most part, the liberties thus granted had been ancient liberties, temporarily denied under the Burgundians, and now resumed by the people with or without the official consent of their duchess. The Ghenters at once exercised their right of being their own judges, and arrested the magistrates who had dared to surrender the city's liberties to Charles and had governed in his name. But neither the granting of privileges to Flanders nor the grateful affection of the Ghenters could defend from Louis Picardy and the coveted towns on the Somme; money must be had, and the generous commons of Flanders were appealed to. This congress of the estates of Flanders, Artois, Hainault, Brabant, and Namur met at Ghent on February 3, 1477, less than a month after the death of Charles. Marie repeated to the delegates her assurances, her oaths, her promises, and granted the "Great Privilege," a sort of Magna Charta and Bill of Rights in the history of Holland. The special privileges enumerated in this grant are not novel; the grant was intended merely as a formal restatement--to be formally ratified by the sovereign--of those inalienable and indefeasible rights of the subject which were not recognized in most countries for many a decade to come. "It was a recapitulation and recognition of ancient rights, not an acquisition of new privileges. It was a restoration, not a revolution." The nature of the rights asserted by the subject and admitted by the sovereign may be easily gathered from a glance at one or two. "Offices shall be conferred by the duchess upon natives alone; and no man shall fill two offices. No office shall be farmed out. The great Council and Supreme Court of the provinces shall be re-established.... No new taxes may be imposed but by consent of the estates. No war, whether offensive or defensive, shall be begun by the duchess or any of her successors without the consent of the estates.... No money shall be coined, nor shall its value be raised or lowered, except by consent of the estates." If the principles here enunciated could have been made good in practice, the liberties of Marie's subjects would indeed have been secure; but much of this Great Privilege, as well as of the similar charters granted to other provinces, was pure theory, and Marie no more meant to abide by her oath of ratification than King John had meant to observe the provisions of Magna Charta. For the present, however, she must feign to be right well pleased, though her cautious and devoted subjects had not granted her the aid she wanted, to be used as she saw fit. All negotiations would be conducted in her name, of course, but in dealing with Louis she must be guided by the counsel of the estates; and the estates would levy an army of a hundred thousand men for her--when it suited them to do so. That was the sum and substance of all that Marie could cajole them into granting.
Meanwhile, Louis was making ready to seize Burgundy and Picardy, advancing now one pretext, now another, for his acts, seeking to give every seizure the appearance of legality, but bent on seizing, right or wrong. Marie despatched two of her father's oldest advisers, the chancellor Hugonet and the lord of Humbercourt, as ambassadors to Louis, to delay his proceedings. Though faithful to the interests of their duchess, Hugonet and Humbercourt were no match for the crafty king. He had already tampered with other servants of Burgundy, and had found few who could not be made to see that French gold or French titles were better worth considering than any favors received from a master who could no longer reward. Of this class was the Lord of Crèvecoeur, whose mother had been the guardian of the young duchess when she had no mother, and to whom one of the most important charges in Burgundy had been deputed, the governorship of Picardy and of the towns on the Somme. Crèvecoeur was a knight of the Toison d'Or, and had received countless other favors from Charles, whose daughter he was now willing to betray. What Louis most desired was Arras; this my Lord of Crèvecoeur held for Burgundy; might there not be found some legal subterfuge or quibble authorizing him to hold it for the king? Louis cajoled, entreated, almost menaced, the Burgundian envoys, till they, thinking he would have Arras anyway, yielded so far as to issue an order to Crèvecoeur, signed by the chancellor, Hugonet, authorizing him to open the gates of the town to the king. Louis entered Arras on March 4th, and Marie soon found that her troubles had but just begun.
When the news of the surrender of Arras reached Ghent the citizens were furious, and demanded satisfaction from those who had betrayed the public trust. A fresh embassy went, from the States this time, to meet Louis, who was advancing through Picardy. Marie had to consent to this embassy, and doubtless thought that little harm would come of it; but the unscrupulous Louis knew how to deal with the burghers, and no considerations of honor hindered him from using any means in his power to sow the seeds of suspicion between the burghers and their duchess. When the embassy remonstrated with him for the desire to despoil the young heiress and told him that "there was no harm in her, that they could answer for her prudence and good faith, since she had publicly sworn to be guided by the Council of the States in all things," Louis assumed an injured air. "You are deceived," he said, "your mistress means to be guided by the advice of persons who do not desire peace." The envoys, thinking that Marie had been perfectly sincere and frank, refused to credit ill of her. Then Louis showed them a private note, in Marie's own hand, telling him that she would be guided solely by the advice of the court party and of Hugonet and Humbercourt in particular, and begging him to keep this secret from the envoys of the States.
Enraged and mortified by this scandalous duplicity the burgher envoys returned hastily to Ghent. The duchess received them in solemn audience, seated upon her throne and surrounded by her courtiers. With great show of indignation she denied the allegations of the king. "Here is your own letter," said the chief of the envoys, drawing it forth from his bosom. Marie was overwhelmed with confusion, and knew not what to say. She trembled even for her own safety, now that this royal personage, in defiance of the comity of princes, had betrayed her to her own subjects. The duplicity of which she had been guilty was not so reprehensible as it seems to us; the blame of it rests more upon her advisers than upon her, and she was but a weak girl, encompassed by selfish intriguers and plotters who sought to rob her of that which she had been taught to regard as her unquestioned right.
The most conspicuous of her counsellors, though not by any means the ones solely responsible for this unfortunate letter, were Hugonet and Humbercourt, who, feeling that the Ghenters would take vengeance upon them, threw themselves into a monastery immediately after the fatal audience, but were dragged out of the sanctuary that very night. Marie, faithful to those who had been faithful to her, would gladly have saved them, but upon the mere rumor that the prisoners would be allowed to escape the Ghenters flew to arms, congregated in the Friday market place, and, asserting their ancient right of permanent assembly in time of danger, camped there day and night till the two envoys were tried and executed. Marie might have claimed that the unhappy victims, being ducal officers, should be delivered over to the Grand Council for trial; but in view of the excited state of popular feeling even that was not to be thought of. And when she nominated a commission in which thirty out of thirty-six were citizens of Ghent, that too was insufficient assurance that the accused would be convicted; the citizens would have the whole affair in their own hands; their privileges had been tampered with, and they alone should punish the offenders. Marie did not even yet relax her efforts on behalf of Hugonet and Humbercourt; her determined fidelity to what she considered a sacred duty the protection of those who had risked themselves in her service is the best trait in her character. The gratitude of princes is not usually a burdensome obligation to them; but the best principles of chivalry had been instilled into Marie, and, like her rash but generous father, she would risk all on a point of honor. She sent representatives of the nobles to sit with the burgher's court, though they could take no part in the proceedings, and must be mere spectators of a judgment already resolved upon. When the supreme moment approached, Marie herself went to implore mercy for her servants. Dressed as a simple Flemish maiden, with the citizen's cap upon her head, she went on foot and unattended by guard or courtier or even so much as a lady of her suite, through the angry crowd in the market place to the Town Hall, where the court sat.
But the judges themselves were more overawed by the relentless crowd whose angry murmurs penetrated to them than by the presence of their lady. Pity her they did; but as one of them said, pointing to the crowd: "We must satisfy the people." Not daunted by this failure, Marie went among the people themselves, those loving yet terrible subjects who had gathered to see that their will was carried out. In Friday market place she went from one to another, weeping, with clasped hands imploring them not to punish servants who had merely obeyed her commands. The sight of this defenceless girl, braving dangers in such a cause and venturing among a people whom she had offended, moved many to hearken to her plea. The men began to separate into two parties, those who could hear and see their lady inclining to her side, those farther off, removed from the direct influence of her presence, clamoring for justice upon the accused. Pikes were ranged against pikes, and there was imminent danger of a conflict; but the partisans of the duchess were in the minority, and their enthusiasm in her cause waned when they realized the danger of a civil broil. Marie's courageous appeal served only to hurry on the trial, since the judges were determined not to risk another scene fraught with such dangers.
Hugonet and Humbercourt were put to the torture, and confessed what was enough to convict them, though it was what everyone already knew: that they had surrendered Arras. Humbercourt, a knight of the Toison d'Or, appealed to that body, which alone had jurisdiction over its members; but legal forms could not be respected in this crisis. When the court presented the confessions and the sentence to the young duchess, a formality with which, in all their disregard of legal forms, they thought it necessary to comply, she protested again, wept, entreated. All was vain: "Madam," said they, "you have sworn to do justice not only upon the poor, but upon the rich."
The two nobles were placed in the condemned cart--where, on account of the injuries received in the torture, they could not stand--and led to execution. The people had succeeded in destroying those who had dared to disregard their wishes; the sovereign of Burgundy was completely in their power. They declared themselves her most fitting guardians and counsellors, deprived her of the comfort of having even members of her family about her, and proposed to find a husband for her more suitable than any suggested by the nobles.
To all of this Marie was forced to submit with what grace she could; but upon the matter of a husband she was resolved to have something to say for herself. No less than six suitors had some sort of claim to her, besides the one to whom her father had betrothed her in 1473. There was the dauphin, a mere boy of eight, for whom Louis was intriguing; there was, at the other extreme, the worthless and worn-out profligate, Clarence, whom Margaret of York hoped to establish in this new and rich nest; there was the fierce and cruel Adolphus of Guelders, who had ended a career of crime in prison, and whom the Ghenters meant to take out of prison that he might be their duke and leader: then there were the English Lord Rivers, brother of England's queen, and the son of the Lord of Ravenstein, and the son of the Duke of Cleves. In the whole list there was not one whom the poor girl could have considered with anything but aversion. The worst of all, both politically and personally, was the dauphin; the idea of contracting a marriage with a mere child, and that child the son of her most dangerous enemy, was revolting to Marie's feelings, so lately excited by the death of her two servants, betrayed by Louis. At her very court she was surrounded by spies, who, pretending to sympathize with her and console her, reported to Louis or to the emperor all the intimate confidences of the poor girl.
The interest of Austria finally seemed to be in the ascendant, for now Margaret, despairing of making Clarence acceptable either to the young lady or to her subjects or even to Edward IV., had thrown her influence on the side of Maximilian, and the influence of France in the Burgundian councils had been ruined by the manifest determination of the king to absorb all French Burgundy, all Flanders, if he could get it. There had not been sufficient time for the growth of real national feeling in the ill-assorted and scattered provinces of the duchy; but the non-French parts of Burgundy, at least, by no means relished the idea of losing their identity and becoming parts of France.