_Baldwin of Constantinople_
Upon Philip's death in 1191, without children, the country finally
devolved on his sister Marguerite, who, as we have seen, had married
Baldwin of Mons, the representative of the dynasty of Baldwin the Good.
She only reigned three years, and was succeeded by her son Baldwin of
Constantinople, who thus united the rival dynasties in his person.
The old Flemish chroniclers linger lovingly over the story of Baldwin of
Constantinople, the last representative in the direct male line of the
house of Baldwin of the Iron Hand, and the last Fleming who ruled over
Flanders. They like to represent him as a prince of unblemished
character, devout, austere, and adorned with all the virtues befitting
his state. His figure is undoubtedly a picturesque and an interesting
one. He was a man of brilliant parts--shrewd, quick-witted, eager,
possessed of no ordinary mental activity and of a wonderful aptitude for
business. During the short period of his reign he found time to reform
the criminal procedure of his own patrimony--Hainault; to readjust the
tolls and custom tariffs of Ghent and of Bruges; to abrogate in the
latter city the iniquitous law '_de vino Comitis_,' which ordained that
the town should furnish wine for the Count's household at a fixed price,
often below the market value; to concede to Bruges, on August 14, 1200,
the right to annually hold, during the month of May, a fair--a greater
boon in those days than it is now; to busy himself with compiling
sundry histories--really the chronicles of his native land--which
afterwards went by the name of _Histoires de Baudouin_; to abolish many
abuses; to cut the claws of usurers, and to purge, alas! by fire, his
domain of heresy. He was not only a lover of learning and of learned
men, but a ready writer himself, as witness the letters he addressed
from Constantinople to the King of France and to the Pope--letters
replete with valuable information concerning the Latin Conquest of that
city.
His career as a soldier, too, was not inglorious. He made successful war
on the French King and wrested from him the greater part of the province
of Artois, and his brilliant action in the East led to the fall of
Constantinople and to his own election to the throne of the Greek
Empire; but the glory of his purple robe, and the glory of his sword,
and the glory of his achievements as a citizen and a prince, pale before
the weird legend of love and crime and Nemesis which chronicles his
latter days. It reads like a fairy tale and comes to us on the authority
of the last and greatest of our monastic historians: Matthew Paris, the
famous scribe of St. Alban's.
On the morrow of Ash Wednesday, 1199, a great multitude thronged the
Church of St. Donatian's at Bruges. Count Baldwin was to take the cross.
The scene in the old church, old even in those days, was a solemn and a
striking one. Within those walls which had witnessed so many tragedies
and stirring deeds was gathered the _élite_ of Flanders--the flower of
Flemish chivalry was there, the household of the sovereign and of his
consort, Marie of Champagne, and a host of wealthy citizens in holiday
attire. Ranged on each side of the altar stood the famous canons of
Bruges, in their long white linen rochets and purple veils, in front of
them two choirs of singing boys from St. Donatian's school. The great
bell tolled as if for a funeral, perhaps that same great bell which five
centuries later fell from its lofty tower, and for fifty years lay
buried beneath the débris of the cathedral, and now sends forth its
melodious voice from the steeple of Notre Dame.
'O God, the heathen are come into Thine heritage, Thy Holy Temple
have they defiled. Jerusalem is an heap of stones.... Help us, O
God of our Salvation and for the glory of Thy Name deliver us, lest
haply they should say among the Gentiles, where is now their God.'
Thus plaintively the first choir, and then with a shout of triumph the
men and boys on the opposite side of the chancel made response:--
'Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered, and let them that
hate Him flee before His face. Like as smoke vanisheth, so let them
vanish away, and as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked
perish at the presence of God.'
'Receive this symbol,' murmured the Archbishop of Tournai as he fastened
to Baldwin's breast a white linen cross embroidered with threads of
gold, 'receive this symbol in memory of the Passion of Jesus Christ, and
of the cross on which He died.' When Marie of Champagne besought the
aged prelate to place also on her breast the Crusaders' sign, a shout of
admiration, and perhaps too of dismay, burst from the crowd. Marie was
so tender and so beautiful, and the way of the Cross was so hard--pray
God that her end be not like that of the ill-fated Countess Sybil.
Baldwin set out for the East in the spring of 1203, Marie, who was then
laid by in childbed, followed towards the close of the month, but she
never saw her husband again. It happened thus. That shrewd old fox,
Dandolo of Venice, taking advantage of the poverty of the Crusaders,
compelled them to undertake for him a campaign against Zara, by way of
payment for their transport to Palestine. Then came the conquest of
Constantinople and the founding of the Latin Empire, and the elevation
of Baldwin himself to the imperial throne (April 9, 1204). Meanwhile
Marie had gone on to Syria and was there awaiting her lord. Presently,
with the summer heat, plague swept the land, and Marie herself fell
sick. When she was lying at death's door, the news of Baldwin's good
fortune reached the town, and it was perhaps in reply to some inquiry of
hers as to the cause of his long tarrying, that her attendants informed
her that the erst Count of Flanders was now Emperor of Rome, and then
the end came.
Baldwin was now at the zenith of his glory. From a petty tributary chief
of a tribe of semi-barbarians, he had been raised to the throne of a
great and civilized empire; but the tide of fortune was soon to turn,
and Marie's death was the first drop in the bitter chalice that fate was
mingling for him. In less than a year the discontent of the Greeks broke
out in open rebellion. Joannice of Bulgaria had promised them help, and
with a huge army, reinforced by a horde of Tartars, he laid siege to
Adrianople. Baldwin marched to relieve the town, and fell wounded,
perhaps slain, before its walls. Of what had actually befallen the
Emperor nothing was certainly known. Some of his comrades were sure they
had seen his dead body, others were equally sure that he had been taken
alive. The Bishop of Soissons set out for France to gather funds for
ransom. Henry of Flanders had recourse to the good offices of the Pope,
who at once sent an embassy to Joannice to treat for Baldwin's release.
Vain request. 'The Emperor,' averred the King of the Bulgarians, 'had
paid Nature's debt--_debitum carnis exsoluerat_.'
Twenty years later some wood-cutters of Plancques, a village in the
heart of the great forest which in those days stretched from Tournai to
Valenciennes, discovered in an unfrequented glade, by the banks of a
stream, a rude hut of osiers, thatched with turf, which they were sure
they had not seen there before. It was the home of a long-bearded,
white-haired old man, with a face covered with scars. Of his antecedents
they could learn nothing. 'I am but a poor Christian,' he said, 'doing
penance for my sins,' but there was something in his voice and bearing
which belied his words. Not a few of the Crusaders, on their return from
the East, had put on the black robe of St. Benedict or the brown frock
of the poor man of Assisi--some of them were known to have chosen a
solitary life, and to have hidden themselves in forests or caves, and
the village gossips, over their ale, whispered to one another that of
these the mysterious hermit was surely one. The peasant folk from the
neighbouring villages flocked out to visit him; some of them had in
their youth set eyes on the hero of Constantinople, and these men were
convinced that, in the garb of a poor recluse, they now beheld him
again, and presently it was noised abroad that Baldwin had come back to
Flanders. At length the rumour reached the ears of a former
comrade-in-arms, a friend who had known him well, Everard de Montagne,
the powerful Lord of Glançon. He at once set out for the hermit's cell,
saw the old man, and was convinced of his identity--so too Sohier of
Enghien, Arnulph of Gavre, Bourchard d'Avesnes (the ill-fated husband of
Baldwin's daughter, the future Countess Marguerite), and a hundred
others who had been intimate with him. But the hermit would vouchsafe no
answer, and when they pressed him, returned only evasive replies. 'Are
ye, then, like the Breton folk,' he said, 'who still look for the coming
of Arthur?' Presently a deputation of citizens went out to the
hermitage from Valenciennes; they greeted him with shouts of
acclamation. 'Thou art our Count, thou art our Count!' they cried, and,
in spite of the old man's protest, they carried him back with them to
the city. Then at last Baldwin declared himself. They had rightly
divined his secret; he was indeed the Count of Flanders.
The story of his adventures is a strange one. Wounded at the siege of
Adrianople and sick almost to death, he had been taken prisoner by the
Bulgarians. During the early days of his captivity a lady of the Court
chanced to see him, perhaps the King's daughter herself. She was
interested in his story, he was still young and handsome, and she gave
him her heart. The Emperor feigned to reciprocate her passion, and her
devotion knew no bounds; to save him, and, for his sake too, his
comrades, she was ready to risk her life. A plan of escape was devised.
By her aid it was successfully carried out and they all fled together.
Baldwin, however, did not marry the Bulgarian princess. The heroine who
had rescued him was a Pagan woman, he was a disciple of Christ; but
before they fled they had mutually plighted their troth--she to receive
baptism at the first opportune moment, he, when this had been
accomplished, to make her his wife.
When the time for fulfilling their pledges came, it found the infidel
true to her vow, the Christian eager to be quit of his.
Was there no loophole? He took counsel with his Flemish friends. The
Emperor was bound, they said, by his oath, but there was a gleam of
hope; haply this Gentile woman would go the way of all flesh before she
had accomplished hers.
Baldwin took the hint. On the eve of her intended baptism the hapless
princess died. Retribution quickly followed. The murderer was presently
entrapped by barbarians, who carried him off for a slave. Seven times he
was sold from hand to hand, kicks and blows were his portion and
indignities of every kind.
One day, when he was harnessed to a cart like some beast of burthen, he
fell in with a company of German merchants who, learning his tale, had
pity on him, and purchased his release. Filled with remorse at what he
had done, he at once set out for Rome and confessed his sins to the
Pope, who imposed on him a life-long penance. He then made his way back
to his native land, and went and hid himself in the forest of Glançon.
Strange as it may seem, the knights and burghers of Valenciennes
believed the old man's tale, and stranger still, in their pity for his
great misfortune, they forgot his great crime. They put on him a purple
robe and thrust a sceptre into his hand, and called him father and
chief. For them he was the hero of Constantinople, the sovereign who had
showered blessings on them all, the Christian who had suffered long
years of anguish at the hands of heathen men. In their eyes, the red
aureole of martyrdom already glowed about his head, and they begged
locks of his hair for relics, and treasured up the water in which he had
bathed.
It was the same throughout the realm. The men of Flanders everywhere
remembered that they had loved Baldwin and they all knew that they hated
Jeanne, and now Baldwin the beloved was in the midst of them again. The
evil days of his daughter had become as a tale that was told. Wherever
he went he was greeted with wild demonstrations of joy. The great towns
of Flanders received him with open arms. His journey from city to city
was one long triumphal progress. Presently he reached Bruges, and here
at Pentecost he held his Court, and, clad in imperial robes, with his
own hands armed ten knights.
But this was not all. The neighbouring sovereigns acknowledged his
claim. The ambassadors of the Duke of Limbourg and the Duke of Brabant
waited on him in the capital, and Henry III. of England (April 11, 1225)
sent to 'his very dear friend Baldwin' letters of greeting, of
congratulation, and of sage advice. 'Remember,' he said, 'that the King
of France hath despoiled both the one and the other of us; let us
therefore make a league together against him.'
If Baldwin had taken up the thread of his old policy, and allied himself
with England, his course of action would probably have been crowned with
the success of former days, but he was now a broken-down old man, cowed
with long years of servitude and the memory of a great crime, he had
neither the courage nor the energy to do so, but fatuously threw himself
into the arms of the very man against whom Henry had warned him.
In the midst of the unlooked-for good fortune which had up to now
attended the enterprise which the hermit of Plancques had been so loth
to undertake, one circumstance was a cause of no little grief and
disquietude; his daughter had refused to recognize him, and had fled to
France, and though the cloud on the horizon was no bigger than a man's
hand, it presaged, he foresaw, a deluge which would perhaps sweep him
away.
In his trouble and confusion he turned a willing ear to the false
counsel of his sister the Lady of Beaujeu,[19] who urged him to take the
wind out of Jeanne's sails by himself confiding in the French King, who,
thanks to her good offices, was disposed in his favour. Baldwin fell
into the trap. Louis sent him a safe conduct, and towards the close of
June he set out for Péronne, where Louis was at that time holding his
Court.
His entry into the city on the evening of July 4 was a vision of Eastern
splendour. All glorious in purple and gold, with his crown on his head,
and a white wand in his hand, they bore him aloft on men's shoulders in
a comely litter. Before him was carried the imperial cross, and a
retinue of over a hundred gorgeously-attired knights followed in his
train. At the palace gates Louis himself came out to greet him.
'Welcome, sire,' said the French King, 'if thou art indeed mine uncle
Baldwin, Count of Flanders.' 'Fair nephew,' quavered the old man, 'such
in sooth am I, but my daughter doth not know me, and would fain take
away mine heritage; prithee help me to keep it.' Louis had already
decided on the course he would pursue, and already agreed with Jeanne as
to the price of his championship, but he deemed it prudent for the
moment to disguise his intentions, and the Emperor was soon entertained
at a sumptuous banquet, during which he again recited the story of his
adventures, and with such good effect that many of those who heard him
were moved to tears.
Presently the royal Council was summoned, and Baldwin was invited to
plead his cause. He consented to do so, and it became clear that the
solemn reception accorded him had been from the first a solemn farce. In
inviting Baldwin to Péronne, the French King had but one object in
view--to separate him from his friends--and in now affecting the
appearance of a serious examination of his claim, his only desire was to
discredit it. At last, after having endured much brow-beating and
hectoring speech, the Emperor refused to answer any more questions; the
hour was late, he said, and he had that day been greatly fatigued; on
the morrow he would be ready to converse again. But the wary old man had
no intention of keeping his word; he now fully realized the danger of
his position. In coming to Péronne he had made a false move; his
liberty, perhaps his life, was in peril, and he cast about him for some
means of escape. Fortune was once more kind to him, and that very night
he took horse and fled the city.
When he reached his own dominions he was greeted with the same wild
demonstrations of joy which had at first hailed his coming. But if the
great heart of the people still throbbed for Baldwin, the classes were
no longer with him. He soon learnt that the sheriffs of Bruges and of
other great towns had accepted Jeanne's amnesty, and that even the
picked knights who had accompanied him to Péronne had played him false,
and he lost heart. There was no peace for him in this world save in a
life of penance. He had slain the woman who loved him, the woman who had
risked her life for his sake, and her shade would assuredly drive him
back to his hermitage or to the gallows.
The cause of this sudden _volte-face_ in favour of Jeanne is difficult
to surmise, but corruption had not unlikely something to do with it, for
we find in a treaty concluded, at Bapaume a few days later the Countess
of Flanders acknowledging that Louis, whose soldiers had not once drawn
their swords in her behalf, had expended ten thousand livres in
reinstating her in her dominions. Meanwhile Baldwin had disappeared.
Some of the few who still clung to him affirmed that he had fled to
Germany and had been received with hospitality by Archbishop Engelbert
of Cologne, who, they averred, had counselled him to go to Rome and lay
his case before the Common Father of the faithful. Be this as it may,
Baldwin was presently arrested by Baron Erard de Chastenay, at Rougemont
in Burgundy, who sold him to Jeanne for four hundred silver marks, and
she, filled with savage joy, hanged him in chains on a gibbet at Lille
between two hounds.
'Many of those who knew his story,' comments Matthew Paris, in his
delightful, gossiping way, 'were convinced that this lot befell the
Emperor in consequence of his sin.' 'And all those who had promoted it
by their advice,' he adds, 'in like manner came to a terrible end.' 'One
of these men, when he returned home to his wife, and had been recognized
by her, was cast headlong into a well. She privily procuring the same
because in her lord's absence she had wedded another man, and had borne
him children.' 'So too of the rest. By some mishap or other they all of
them perished miserably, for the wrath of God, who willeth not that evil
should be rendered for good, was fiercely enkindled against them.'