_The Love Story of Bourchard d'Avesnes_
Before proceeding further with the story of Bruges, it will be necessary
to go back to the time when Baldwin first disappeared from men's view
(1205), blotted out by the thick mist of conjecture which clung round
the bastions of Adrianople, and to note the course of events in Flanders
from that date until the day of his unlooked-for home-coming twenty
years later (1225).
The mysterious exit of the Emperor had left his patrimony in hazardous
plight. Jeanne, his heiress and eldest daughter, was not yet fifteen
years old; her sister Marguerite was still in her cradle; Philip,
Marquis of Namur, whom Baldwin before setting out for the East had
appointed their guardian, was a man unworthy of trust, and the
redoubtable Philip Augustus was shaping the destiny of France.
Too shrewd to let slip so favourable a moment for strengthening his hold
on Flanders, the French King at once laid claim as suzerain to the
wardship of the infant princesses, and the Marquis of Namur,[20] bribed
by the promise of a royal alliance, fell in with his kinsman's designs,
and presently dispatched them to France.
In face of the storm of indignation aroused by so flagrant a breach of
trust, Philip was constrained to hand over the reins of government to
his co-trustee, Bourchard d'Avesnes, the son of the illustrious friend
of Richard Coeur de Lion, and the chief of the Nationalist or
anti-French party. But it was only after five years' negotiation, and a
threat to throw himself into the arms of England, that at length
Bourchard was enabled to obtain his wards' release, and before King
Philip would suffer their return to Flanders, he took care to bestow
Jeanne's hand on his kinsman Ferdinand of Portugal, a prince whom he
deemed would be wax in his hands.
Perhaps the French King was from the first mistaken in his man. Certain
it is that when immediately after the marriage he seized St. Omer and
Aire, and under pretext of hospitality forcibly detained the
newly-married couple, _en route_ for Flanders, at Péronne, until they
acquiesced in this act of spoliation, Ferdinand showed no disposition to
submit to the outrage tamely. He went forth from his prison at Péronne
filled with projects of vengeance, and having concluded a secret treaty
with John of England, he waited to see what would happen. For two years
he was fain to possess his soul in patience, but everything comes to the
man who knows how to wait, and at the expiration of this time
Ferdinand's opportunity came. Philip Augustus was now gathering up his
strength for a crusade against John, whom the Pope had declared to have
forfeited his crown, and he had summoned his vassals to meet him at
Soissons. Ferdinand alone refused help. St. Omer and Aire, he averred,
must first be restored to Flanders. Philip offered a money equivalent;
Ferdinand would not accept it. Nothing but the restitution of the ceded
cities would content him. By taking possession of them Philip had
violated his duty as lord, and henceforth he (Ferdinand) was in no way
bound by his oath of allegiance.
'One of two things must needs come to pass,' King Philip had swore when
he learned that Ferdinand had renounced his overlordship; 'France must
be Flemish, or Flanders French,' and presently he led into the
Netherlands the great army which he had assembled to fight King John,
who had now made his peace with the Pope. On May 24 Cassel fell, later
on Ghent was invested, by the close of the summer the French were at the
gates of Bruges. Soon tottering walls and smouldering embers were all
that remained of 'its famous seaport called Damme,' and the vast wealth
of merchandise stored there, and thousands of homes had been reduced to
ashes. The fertile country round was white to harvest, and Philip reaped
it with sickles of flame. From Bruges to the seashore all the
country-side was one great field of black stubble.
All through the autumn the French King harried Flanders; Lille, Cassel,
Courtrai, and a host of smaller towns had shared the fate of Damme
before the snows of winter drove him back again to his native land.
About this time too Ferdinand set out on a journey that he had long had
in contemplation--took shipping for Dover, and in due course reached
Canterbury and his friend John, nor is it unlikely that during this
interview the allies broached for the first time the famous project for
the partition of France between England, Flanders, Limburg, Holland,
Namur and the Empire, and which, if fate had been kind, would have
assured to Ferdinand the provinces of Artois, Picardie and the
Ile-de-France, including that Paris where, in days of yore, he had been
so diverted by '_les folles filles et les jongleurs_.' Be this as it
may, the Flemish Count was the moving spirit and instigator of the
whole plot. The outcome of it was the battle of Bouvines, and the
outcome of the battle of Bouvines was twelve years' captivity for
Ferdinand, the French yoke more firmly riveted to her neck than ever for
Flanders, and for England, as we all know, the Great Charter.
This, then, was the plight of Flanders at the close of the year 1214.
For sovereign she had a young and tearful wife, casting about her for
some means to obtain her husband's release, and ready, for the moment,
to make any sacrifice to deliver him. On this weak, helpless girl Philip
Augustus had imposed as chief counsellor a creature of his own, a
degenerate scion of the house of Erembald--one Rodolphe de Nesle,
Châtelain of Bruges. Added to this, fortresses had been dismantled,
strongholds had been razed, and two-thirds of the chivalry of Flanders
were languishing in French prisons. But there was a gleam of hope on the
horizon; there was still one man left in Flanders, mighty enough, as
every one believed, to save the fatherland from sinking into a mere
French province--that same man who, in the days of Philip's treachery,
had taken the reins of government into his own strong hands and forced
the French King to release his master's daughters. So thought all
Flanders, and all Flanders was doomed to disappointment. For, despite
his noble qualities and his great parts--a brilliant knight, a ripe
scholar, an accomplished diplomatist, and withal a shrewd, hard-headed
man of business--Bourchard d'Avesnes was not able to work out his own
salvation much less the salvation of Flanders. When in the year 1211 the
Flemish princesses returned to their native land, King Philip Augustus
had reluctantly confided the younger of them, Marguerite, then a child
of some eleven years, to his care until such time as she should have
attained marriageable age, and Bourchard had since prolonged the term of
his guardianship to one of life-long duration, as he fondly hoped, by
espousing her himself: a proceeding which in no little measure enhanced
his prestige and influence for the moment. Bourchard had announced his
marriage to his sister-in-law, who, at least, had shown no open
disapprobation, and after the battle of Bouvines, and the capture of
Ferdinand, his star was still in the ascendant. If aught should befall
the childless Jeanne, now cut off from all hope of offspring, his wife
would be Countess of Flanders, and, in accordance with the usage of the
day, he himself would share her throne. If this were matter of no little
rejoicing for the inhabitants of that country, it was no less a source
of consternation to the French King, who foresaw in Bourchard, Count of
Flanders, an emulator of Robert the Frisian, and from that moment he
determined to crush him. It was owing to his influence that the Countess
Jeanne first showed herself Bourchard's foe, and if Philip himself was
not the fabricator of the rumours which blasted his after career,
fortune had placed in his hands a deadly poison which he did not scruple
to employ.
It was in the gossiping ante-chambers of the Lateran palace that these
rumours first took shape, and whatever of truth or falsehood there may
have been in them, they were credited by Innocent III., who on 19th
January 1216 sent letters to the Archbishop of Rheims, bidding him
proclaim Bourchard d'Avesnes excommunicated 'until such time as he shall
set Marguerite of Flanders at liberty, and humbly return to the manner
of life becoming his ecclesiastical state. The testimony of several
prelates and other trustworthy persons had convinced him that Bourchard
was a sub-deacon and that he had been at one time a canon of Laon.'
Of the circumstances of the marriage, which had been celebrated after
the banns had been regularly published in the presence of all the great
nobles of Hainault, Innocent was probably ignorant. Indeed, he seems to
have been doubtful whether any marriage had taken place at all.
'Bourchard has not feared,' he says, 'to perfidiously conduct
Marguerite, the sister of the Countess of Flanders, to one of the
castles confided to his care, and there to retain her, averring that she
is united to him in wedlock.' Great then was the surprise of the Papal
legates when they presently approached the Château de Quesnoy, and
Marguerite herself came forth to meet them with her beautiful face
radiant with youth and happiness--she was only fifteen years old--nor
did her words of greeting in any way lessen their amazement. 'Learn from
mine own lips,' she said, 'that Bourchard is my lawful spouse, and know
too that I have for husband a better man and a better knight than hath
my sister Jeanne.'
The sentence of excommunication was not pronounced. Bourchard had lodged
an appeal to the Pope, but for all that, Jeanne, entirely under the
influence of her French counsellors, laid siege to the castle of
Quesnoy. The Lord of Avesnes, so far from being in a position to fight
for his fatherland, was hard pressed to defend his wife, and during two
years an intermittent warfare continued between his vassals and the
vassals of the Countess of Flanders. At the end of this period he seems
to have been taken captive, and there is a tradition that he was at one
time imprisoned at Ghent. What became of Marguerite during her husband's
captivity does not appear, but certain it is that when he had obtained
his release and had withdrawn to the Château de Houffalize, on the banks
of the Meuse, she found means to join him, and that here she later on
bore him two sons--Baldwin and Jean.
The birth of these children but increased the fury of their father's
enemies. Jeanne's French counsellors were well aware that unless
Bourchard's marriage could be shown to be null and void, one or other of
his sons would in all probability succeed to the throne, and they feared
that in that case vengeance would be meted out to the men who had
persecuted him. Philip Augustus too was more than ever convinced of the
necessity of annulling the marriage, which guaranteed the legitimacy of
his offspring, and by making Jeanne believe that she could obtain the
release of her own husband at the cost of her sister's shame, prevailed
on her to re-open the case at Rome, and the outcome was a fresh sentence
of excommunication which set under the Church's ban not only the Lord of
Avesnes himself, but his brother Guy and the friend who had given him
hospitality, Thierri of Houffalize.
In vain Bourchard journeyed to Rome, there to plead his cause in person.
The Pope, instead of granting the dispensation he asked, imposed on him,
by way of penance, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
It was about this time that Baldwin of Constantinople again returned to
Flanders. Chief amongst those who rallied to his standard were the
friends and supporters of Bourchard d'Avesnes (no small number), and so
long as Baldwin prospered, Bourchard's hope rose high. By what means the
Emperor of Constantinople fell a victim to his daughter and to Louis of
France (Philip Augustus had died two years before) we have already seen,
and when Louis crushed Baldwin, he at the same time crushed Bourchard.
The last hopes of the Lord of Avesnes were buried in the grave of
Baldwin of Constantinople. But Bourchard had not yet drained the cup of
his humiliation. During the year 1226 he was destined to taste all its
bitterness. Enraged at the support which he had given to the hermit of
Glançon, Louis forced the Princess Marguerite to come forth from the
retreat where she had remained since her separation from her husband,
break her plighted troth, and take a new spouse in the person of William
of Dampierre. In vain Pope Honorius charged the Bishop of Soissons 'to
make diligent inquiry, lest haply there should be some impediment by
reason of kinship.' In vain rumour said that William, like Bourchard,
was a sub-deacon; the marriage was celebrated without delay, and it was
not until four years later that a Papal dispensation was obtained from
the impediment of consanguinity.
How Louis induced Marguerite to take the step in question we are
ignorant, but about this time Ferdinand obtained his liberty, and it may
well be that the French King made his release conditional on Jeanne's
bringing her influence to bear on her sister, and we know by the
testimony of Marguerite's own sons that it was 'chiefly through the evil
counsel of her sister Jeanne that she at last consented to the marriage.
The same witnesses inform us that Marguerite handed them over to the
tender mercies of her new husband, who imprisoned them 'for ten years or
thereabouts _et multa mala eis fecit cum non haberent custodem sen
defensorem_.'
For the rest--when William died, the sons of the Lord of Avesnes at
length obtained their liberty and returned to Flanders, and the last
days of their much-tried father, now an old man tottering to the grave,
were in all probability cheered and consoled by the presence of those
sons for whose sake he had sacrificed so much.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF NOTRE DAME]
As for Marguerite herself, she never again saw the man who had served
her so devotedly, and whom she had so deeply wronged. The child love of
earlier and happier days had given place to hatred so unrelenting, so
cruel, that when Bourchard himself had passed away she did not hesitate
to visit it on his children. Indeed, after Marguerite had become
Countess of Flanders, the one object in her life seems to have been to
exclude them from all part in their inheritance. If she could have had
her way, the issue of William of Dampierre would have been declared the
only legal heirs, alike of Hainault and of Flanders. Again and again at
Marguerite's instance the facts of this antiquated matrimonial suit,
every one of which had happened fifty years before, were discussed by
grave divines. Again and again the Countess of Flanders dragged her
honour in the dust, and besmirched the memory of her dead husband, in
the hope of proving the illegitimacy of the children she had borne him.
The case was heard in the ecclesiastical courts of France; it was food
for the delectation of imperial judges, and its merits were considered
by the lawyers of the Roman Curia over and over again, but in spite of
the pains which Marguerite had taken to blacken her own character, in
each case she was declared innocent--the children of Bourchard d'Avesnes
had been certainly born in wedlock. Marguerite, however, refused to
acquiesce, and it was not until the land had been drenched with blood by
the supporters of the rival claimants, and Guy and William of Dampierre
had both fallen into the hands of their opponents, that at length this
implacable old woman and all other parties concerned agreed to refer the
matters in dispute to the arbitration of that marvellous peacemaker, St.
Louis of France, who awarded Hainault to the heirs of Bourchard
d'Avesnes, and to the Dampierres, Flanders. A decision to which each
party was constrained to submit, and when Marguerite died, Guy de
Dampierre became Count of Flanders, and Jean d'Avesnes Count of
Hainault.
[Illustration: HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN AND SOUTH AISLE OF NOTRE DAME]
But how, it will be asked, does all this concern the city on the Roya?
What has the love story of Bourchard d' Avesnes to do with the story of
Bruges? This much. Bruges, as the chief place of residence of the
sovereigns of Flanders, was intimately associated with the Court of
Flanders and all that appertained thereto. Moreover, it was during this
period that Bruges began to assume its present aspect. If old Provost
Bertulph, or Dierick of Alsace, or even his son Philip, could again
re-visit the scene of their sorrows and their triumphs, they would
hardly recognize in the city of Bruges aught save the chapel of St.
Basil; but if Marguerite, or Jeanne, or poor Bourchard, were to come
back again, they would find there much that was familiar to them--the
great nave and choir and transepts of Notre Dame, in spite of whitewash
and Rococo ornament, and the scars of their conflict with time, would be
easily recognizable. So too the Cathedral of St. Sauveur, part of it,
the nave and choir of the Church of St. Gilles, and the northern aisle
and the tower of the Church of St. Jacques.
If the ghost of Jeanne could come forth into the _Rue Ste. Cathérine_,
there too she would recognize in the old brown hospital tottering into
the water, in spite of mutilated statues, blind windows, bricked-up
doorways and an abundant crop of golden wallflowers which have found a
congenial home in the chinks and crevices of its crumbling façade, the
stately building which she herself had founded six hundred years ago,
the withered fruit of that grand design over which, along with the
Master Mason who conceived it, she had no doubt often pored, and which,
perhaps even, she had herself modified. Whilst if the Beguinage hard-by
with its Renaissance church, its Renaissance porch, and its white-washed
cottages of the seventeen hundreds; if the hospital of Our Lady of the
Pottery at the other end of the town, with its flamboyant windows, its
recently-restored out-buildings, and its modern gateway; if the
Romanesque hospital of St. John at Damme, pitilessly scraped as to its
stones, and with its time-honoured brickwork degraded by red paint,
appeared at first sight unfamiliar to her, an arch here, a gateway
there, a piece of rude carving a little further on, would soon convince
her that she was in the presence of old friends whom she and her sister
Marguerite had known six centuries before. And so too of others of the
bricks and stones, and perhaps also even of the trees of Bruges or its
neighbourhood, though, alas! it is too seldom the manner of the Fleming
to cherish his timber after it has attained marketable value. He is
indeed an indefatigable planter, but he plants for profit, and he is a
no less indefatigable wielder of the pruning-hook and the axe.
[Illustration: THE BEGUINAGE, WITH TOWER OF NOTRE DAME]
Nevertheless, here and there some stalwart stripling has escaped notice
long enough to have attained such huge dimensions as to evoke even the
respect of this hard-headed, matter-of-fact Saxon--such a one is still
standing in a wood not far from Maele Castle, the former country
residence of the Counts of Flanders. Maybe it was already a great tree
when Marguerite and Jeanne were still children living under the
guardianship of Philip of Namur and Bourchard d'Avesnes, and that when
they went out from the sultry town in summer-time to the cool of Maele
woods they played beneath its branches.
There is a still more famous tree a little further off, but within
measurable distance of Bruges. The time-honoured yew tree of Löo is said
to be more than two thousand years old. It stands beside an ancient
gateway in the main street of this picturesque little town--once the
home of Bertulph's murderer, the perfidious William of Löo, and is
associated with the name of no less remote a personage than Julius
Cæsar. The country folk will tell you he once tied his horse to it.
A fragment too of the primeval forest in which Robert the Frisian built
Winendael is still standing, and here also there is some old timber.
Let the visitor to Bruges, when he has fatigued his eyes with the glory
of man's handiwork in the city, consider awhile the handiwork of God in
the flat country surrounding it. Let him go forth into the forest of
Winendael, or the woods of Tilleghem or Maele, and he will see what he
will see.