In 1205 the recently elected Emperor of Constantinople, Baldwin,
Hereditary Count of Flanders and Hainault, was defeated and taken
prisoner by Joannice, King of Bulgaria. The release of the illustrious
captive was demanded by Pope Innocent the Third, but the barbarian
victor contented himself with replying that Baldwin had died in prison.
He did not condescend to furnish any particulars of his decease, but
rumour supplied the omission by inventing and retailing all kinds of
terrible tales of his murder, the most noteworthy of which the curious
reader may find upon referring to the pages of Gibbon. The real
circumstances of his death never came to light, but there does not
appear to be the slightest reason for doubting the fact itself; the
intelligence was credited by his allies and subjects, and nothing
plausible has been advanced to account for Joannice asserting it if
untrue. His brother Henry, however, who, upon the news of Baldwin's
defeat and capture, had been appointed Regent, would not consent to
receive the imperial crown until the lapse of a twelvemonth after the
fatal intelligence; and the mystery with which the barbarian victor's
prisons was enshrouded would appear to have inspired the Latins with a
belief in the prolonged existence of their monarch.
Be this as it may, twenty years passed away without any one appearing
to question the fact of Baldwin's death. At the expiration of that
period, when the sovereignty of Flanders and Hainault had devolved upon
the Emperor-Count's eldest daughter Jean, a claimant appeared to assert
his identity with the lost monarch. He maintained that after his
capture at Adrianople he had been kindly treated by his Bulgarian
captors, who, after a lapse of years, so far relaxed their watchfulness
that he was enabled to effect his escape from custody; taken prisoner,
however, by another barbarous tribe, unacquainted with his rank, he had
been treated by them as a slave, and finally taken into Syria and sold.
There for two years he had been compelled to toil as a common labourer.
Enabled, by accident, to make himself known to some German merchants,
who were permitted to trade in the vicinity, they had ransomed him for
a small amount; and as by the death of his brother the throne of
Constantinople had reverted to another, and probably hostile, branch of
the family, he had deemed the recovery of his hereditary dominions an
easier task than that of his Eastern empire.
The Countess Jean was at this time harassed by different feuds,
domestic and foreign, and a portion of her more martially disposed
subjects, wearied of female rule, received the impostor very
favourably. His pretensions, however, were rejected _in toto_ by the
Countess, who refused to see him. Advised to have him interrogated in
order to prove his imposture, she consented, and her chief counsellors
had a long and wearisome interview with the pseudo monarch, who assumed
a great gravity of mien and comported himself with much dignity; he
paid all due observance to the questions asked him, and replied to
everything with considerable plausibility. He spoke at great length,
and bitterly reproached the counsellors present for not at once
acknowledging him as their rightful sovereign. He was permitted
uninterruptedly to address the assembly, and his words would appear to
have made some impression upon the council, the president of which
broke up the meeting, alleging that it would not be lawful for them to
decide upon matters of such importance without learning the good will
and pleasure of the Countess.
His tale now gained eager credence with the Flemings, and his claims
were seconded by many noblemen, although, according to native
historians, Jean had received conclusive proofs of her father's death
from the hands of two envoys whom she had sent into Greece purposely to
obtain information. Mezeray, the French chronicler, declares that the
impostor was not only recognized by a large portion of the Flemish
aristocracy, with whose genealogies, ancestors' deeds, and family names
he displayed a perfect knowledge, but was also put in possession of the
whole of Flanders by an enthusiastic people. To impress the populace
he appeared in a scarlet garb, and carrying a white baton in his hand;
and his imposture was all the more successful because of his really
bearing no little resemblance to the veritable Baldwin.
Finding himself so well supported, he attempted to obtain possession of
the Countess Jean, but she fled into France, and besought the
protection of her cousin, Louis the Eighth, king of that country.
Louis came to Compiegne, whither also, under promise of a safe conduct,
came the pseudo Baldwin to meet him. The pretender was accompanied in
a manner suited to his assumed rank, and upon being introduced to the
king saluted him proudly. According to some annalists, Louis, after a
long discourse, in which he asked the claimant to produce some
document, or other authentic proof of his identity, was prompted by his
counsellor, the Bishop of Beauvais, to put three test questions, which
were: "Firstly, In what place he had rendered homage to Philip
Augustus, King of France, for his Countship of Flanders? Secondly, By
whom, and in what place, had he been invested with knighthood?
Thirdly, In what place, and on what day, was he married to his wife
Marguerite, daughter of the Count of Champagne?"
Taken by surprise, the impostor requested three days in order to
prepare replies to these questions; and, as it was pointed out, as the
lapse of twenty years might have impaired his memory, this demand was
not, after all, so unreasonable. King Louis, however, found his
answers so contradictory, and so generally unsatisfactory, that he
commanded him to leave France within three days, not being enabled, in
consequence of the safe conduct granted to him, to have him punished
for his deception.
The pseudo Baldwin, being thus deprived of all hopes of the French
king's aid or countenance, hastened to Valenciennes, where fresh
disappointments awaited him. His allies, who from various reasons had
espoused his cause, now began rapidly to desert him, and in far less
time than it had taken him to attain his transient grandeur, he beheld
himself divested of his borrowed plumes, and forced to fly in disguise.
He attempted to get into Burgundy, where he had expectations of
support, but his disguise was penetrated, his path discovered, and he
himself captured by a Burgundian named Erard Castenac, who sold him to
the Countess Jean for four hundred silver marks. The Countess at once
adopted the prevalent method of obtaining information by putting him to
the torture, and under it he is alleged to have confessed that he was
Bertrand de Rans, a native of Champagne, and had been led to attempt
his imposition whilst living as a hermit in a forest near Valenciennes.
An old Belgian chronicle, recording his confession at full length,
alleges that he had frequently heard the citizens bewailing the sad
fate of Flanders in having to submit to the rule of a woman, the
Countess Jean's husband being in perpetual imprisonment in France, and
how they praised their late ruler Baldwin, often exclaiming, "Ah! if
our dear prince could only return once more to Flanders, what a change
there would be!"
Thus incited, the idea gradually formed in the Champagner's mind to
personate the absent monarch, so that one day when some of these
citizens were bemoaning their loss in the usual style, he startled them
by exclaiming, "How do you know that your prince, after escaping from
captivity, did not at once return to his country?" These words seemed
to coincide with some suspicions his visitors had formed, probably from
hints he had already dropped; and when they retired, although they did
not dare say anything to him personally, they took good care to let
everybody know what they had seen, heard, and suspected. The
intelligence was rapidly disseminated all over Flanders, and was heard
in all ranks, both high and low. Multitudes, including many of the
higher classes, visited the hermit, and were received with an
assumption of majesty that fully confirmed them in their belief. In
the meanwhile Bertrand played his game so skilfully that it really
appeared as if he were desirous of not being recognized as the
long-lost Baldwin. At last, one day, one of his visitors had the
courage or the impudence to say, "It is believed that you are Baldwin
disguised in this hermit's garb;" whereupon he, thinking that the
favourable opportunity for airing his pretensions had now arrived,
responded sharply, "Those who imagine this do not deceive themselves,
for besides me there never has been any Baldwin, Emperor of the Greeks,
Count of Flanders and Hainault."
Upon hearing this declaration, all present, both high and low, saluted
him as their sovereign, and furnished him with such money as they could
raise; in a little while he attained to the height of his short-lived
prosperity, whence, as has been seen, he as quickly fell.
After this confession had been obtained from the pretender he was
condemned to death, but previously to the carrying out of the capital
sentence was bound to a horse, and in that ignominious manner publicly
exhibited in all the chief cities of the Netherlands. Finally he was
hanged at Lille.
His execution did not dissipate the belief in the justness of his
claim; the populace, says Mezeray, the French historian, preferring to
believe that rather than resign her sovereignty, the Countess had had
her father hanged. Matthew Paris, in his brief account of this
imposture, declares that he was Baldwin, and that all his misfortunes
arose from him having murdered an Eastern maiden, whom he had promised
to marry and baptize; punishment overtaking him not because of the
murder, but for "the uncanonical omission of baptism before its
perpetration."
The Lilleois were fully confirmed in their belief of the hanged man's
identity with Baldwin from the somewhat singular circumstance that
after the execution the Countess Jean founded a great hospital in their
city, and had placed upon everything in and about the building the
bizarre design of a gibbet.