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HISTORY OF HOLLAND
BY GEORGE EDMUNDSON D.
LITT., F.R.G.S., F.R.HIST.S.
SOMETIME FELLOW OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE, OXFORD
HON. MEMBER OF THE DUTCH HISTORICAL SOCIETY, UTRECHT
FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE NETHERLAND SOCIETY OF LITERATURE, LEYDEN
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1922
GENERAL PREFACE
_The aim of this series is to sketch the history of Modern Europe, with
that of its chief colonies and conquests, from about the end of the
fifteenth century down to the present time. In one or two cases the
story commences at an earlier date; in the case of the colonies it
generally begins later. The histories of the different countries are
described, as a rule, separately; for it is believed that, except in
epochs like that of the French Revolution and Napoleon I, the connection
of events will thus be better understood and the continuity of
historical development more clearly displayed.
The series is intended for the use of all persons anxious to understand
the nature of existing political conditions. 'The roots of the present
lie deep in the past'; and the real significance of contemporary events
cannot be grasped unless the historical causes which have led to them
are known. The plan adopted makes it possible to treat the history of
the last four centuries in considerable detail, and to embody the most
important results of modern research. It is hoped therefore that the
series will be useful not only to beginners but to students who have
already acquired some general knowledge of European History. For those
who wish to carry their studies further, the bibliography appended to
each volume will act as a guide to original sources of information and
works of a more special character.
Considerable attention is paid to political geography; and each volume
is furnished with such maps and plans as may be requisite for the
illustration of the text_.
G.W. PROTHERO.
* * * * *
PROLOGUE
The title, "History of Holland," given to this volume is fully justified
by the predominant part which the great maritime province of Holland
took in the War of Independence and throughout the whole of the
subsequent history of the Dutch state and people. In every language the
country, comprising the provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht,
Friesland, Gelderland, Overyssel and Groningen, has, from the close of
the sixteenth century to our own day, been currently spoken of as
Holland, and the people (with the solitary exception of ourselves) as
'Hollanders[1].' It is only rarely that the terms the Republic of the
United Provinces, or of the United Netherlands, and in later times the
Kingdom of the Netherlands, are found outside official documents. Just
as the title "History of England" gradually includes the histories of
Wales, of Scotland, of Ireland, and finally of the widespread British
Empire, so is it in a smaller way with the history that is told in the
following pages. That history, to be really complete, should begin with
an account of mediaeval Holland in the feudal times which preceded the
Burgundian period; and such an account was indeed actually written, but
the plan of this work, which forms one of the volumes of a series,
precluded its publication.
The character, however, of the people of the province of Holland, and of
its sister and closely allied province of Zeeland, its qualities of
toughness, of endurance, of seamanship and maritime enterprise, spring
from the peculiar amphibious nature of the country, which differs from
that of any other country in the world. The age-long struggle against
the ocean and the river floods, which has converted the marshes, that
lay around the mouths of the Rhine, the Meuse and the Scheldt, by
toilsome labour and skill into fertile and productive soil, has left its
impress on the whole history of this people. Nor must it be forgotten
how largely this building up of the elaborate system of dykes, dams and
canals by which this water-logged land was transformed into the Holland
of the closing decades of the sixteenth century, enabled her people to
offer such obstinate and successful resistance to the mighty power of
Philip II.
The earliest dynasty of the Counts of Holland--Dirks, Floris, and
Williams--was a very remarkable one. Not only did it rule for an
unusually long period, 922 to 1299, but in this long period without
exception all the Counts of Holland were strong and capable rulers. The
fiefs of the first two Dirks lay in what is now known as North Holland,
in the district called Kennemerland. It was Dirk III who seized from the
bishops of Utrecht some swampy land amidst the channels forming the
mouth of the Meuse, which, from the bush which covered it, was named
Holt-land (Holland or Wood-land). Here he erected, in 1015, a stronghold
to collect tolls from passing ships. This stronghold was the beginning
of the town of Dordrecht, and from here a little later the name Holland
was gradually applied to the whole county. Of his successors the most
illustrious was William II (1234 to 1256) who was crowned King of the
Romans at Aachen, and would have received from Pope Innocent IV the
imperial crown at Rome, had he not been unfortunately drowned while
attempting to cross on horseback an ice-bound marsh.
In 1299 the male line of this dynasty became extinct; and John of
Avennes, Count of Hainault, nephew of William II, succeeded. His son,
William III, after a long struggle with the Counts of Flanders,
conquered Zeeland and became Count henceforth of Holland, Zeeland and
Hainault. His son, William IV, died childless; and the succession then
passed to his sister Margaret, the wife of the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria.
It was contested by her second son William, who, after a long drawn-out
strife with his mother, became, in 1354, Count of Holland and Zeeland
with the title William V, Margaret retaining the county of Hainault.
Becoming insane, his brother Albert in 1358 took over the reins of
government. In his time the two factions, known by the nicknames of "the
Hooks" and "the Cods," kept the land in a continual state of disorder
and practically of civil war. They had already been active for many
years. The Hooks were supported by the nobles, by the peasantry and by
that large part of the poorer townsfolk that was excluded from all share
in the municipal government. The Cods represented the interests of the
powerful burgher corporations. In later times these same principles and
interests divided the Orangist and the States parties, and were
inherited from the Hooks and Cods of mediaeval Holland. The marriages
of Albert's son, William, with Margaret the sister of John the Fearless,
Duke of Burgundy, and of John the Fearless with Albert's daughter,
Margaret, were to have momentous consequences. Albert died in 1404 and
was succeeded by William VI, who before his death in 1417 caused the
nobles and towns to take the oath of allegiance to his daughter and only
child, Jacoba or Jacqueline.[2]
Jacoba, brave, beautiful and gifted, for eleven years maintained her
rights against many adversaries, chief among them her powerful and
ambitious cousin, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. Her courage and
many adventures transformed her into a veritable heroine of romance. By
her three marriages with John, Duke of Brabant, with Humphry, Duke of
Gloucester, and, finally, with Frans van Borselen, she had no children.
Her hopeless fight with Philip of Burgundy's superior resources ended at
last in the so-called "Reconciliation of Delft" in 1428, by which, while
retaining the title of countess, she handed over the government to
Philip and acknowledged his right of succession to the Countship upon
her death, which took place in 1436.
G.E.
_November_, 1921
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGES
GENERAL PREFACE v
PROLOGUE vii-ix
CHAP.
I. The Burgundian Netherlands 1-11
II. Habsburg Rule in the Netherlands 12-26
III. The Prelude to the Revolt 27-46
IV. The Revolt of the Netherlands 47-68
V. William the Silent 69-81
VI. The Beginnings of the Dutch Republic 82-109
VII. The System of Government 110-118
VIII. The Twelve Years' Truce 119-126
IX. Maurice and Oldenbarneveldt 127-138
X. From the end of the Twelve Years' Truce
to the Peace of Munster, 1621-1648.
The Stadholderate
of Frederick Henry of Orange 139-158
XI. The East and West India Companies.
Commercial and Economic Expansion 159-185
XII. Letters, Science and Art 186-201
XIII. The Stadholderate of William II.
The Great Assembly 202-211
XIV. Rise of John de Witt.
The First English War 212-224
XV. The Administration of John de Witt, 1654-1665,
from the Peace of Westminster to
the Out-break of the Second English War 225-235
XVI. The last years of De Witt's Administration,
1665-1672. The Second English War.
The Triple Alliance.
The French Invasion 236-250
XVII. War with France and England. William III,
Stadholder. Murder of the brothers De
Witt, 1672 251-257
XVIII. The Stadholderate of William III,
1672-1688 258-273
XIX. The King-Stadholder, 1688-1702 274-284
XX. The War of the Spanish Succession and the
Treaties of Utrecht, 1702-1715 285-297
XXI. The Stadholderless Republic, 1715-1740 298-305
XXII. The Austrian Succession War and William
IV, 1740-1751 306-315
XXIII. The Regency of Anne and of Brunswick,
1751-1766 316-320
XXIV. William V. First Period, 1766-1780 321-326
XXV. Stadholderate of William V (_continued_),
1780-1788. The English War.
Patriot Movement. Civil War. Prussian
Intervention 327-336
XXVI. The Orange Restoration. Downfall of the
Republic, 1788-1795 337-343
XXVII. The Batavian Republic, 1795-1806 344-356
XXVIII. The Kingdom of Holland and the French
Annexation, 1806-1814 357-366
XXIX. The Formation of the Kingdom of the
Netherlands, 1814-1815 367-375
XXX. The Kingdom of the Netherlands--Union
of Holland and Belgium, 1815-1830 376-388
XXXI. The Belgian Revolution. The Separation of
Holland and Belgium, 1830-1842 389-404
XXXII. William I abdicates. Reign of William II.
Revision of the Constitution, 1842-1849 405-410
XXXIII. Reign of William III to the death of
Thorbecke, 1849-1872 411-418
XXXIV. The later reign of William III, and the
Regency of Queen Emma, 1872-1898 419-425
XXXV. The Reign of Queen Wilhelmina, 1898-1917 426-428
EPILOGUE 429-432
BIBLIOGRAPHY 433-444
INDEX 445-464
MAPS
THE NETHERLANDS, _about_ 1550
THE NETHERLANDS, _after_ 1648 AFTER p. 444
CHAPTER I
THE BURGUNDIAN NETHERLANDS
The last duke of the ancient Capetian house of Burgundy dying in 1361
without heirs male, the duchy fell into the possession of the French
crown, and was by King John II bestowed upon his youngest son, Philip
the Hardy, Duke of Touraine, as a reward, it is said, for the valour he
displayed in the battle of Poictiers. The county of Burgundy, generally
known as Franche-Comté, was not included in this donation, for it was an
imperial fief; and it fell by inheritance in the female line to
Margaret, dowager Countess of Flanders, widow of Count Louis II, who was
killed at Crécy. The duchy and the county were soon, however, to be
re-united, for Philip married Margaret, daughter and heiress of Louis de
Male, Count of Flanders, and granddaughter of the above-named Margaret.
In right of his wife he became, on the death of Louis de Male in 1384,
the ruler of Flanders, Mechlin, Artois, Nevers and Franche-Comté. Thus
the foundation was laid of a great territorial domain between France and
Germany, and Philip the Hardy seems from the first to have been
possessed by the ambitious design of working for the restoration of a
powerful middle kingdom, which should embrace the territories assigned
to Lothaire in the tripartite division of the Carolingian empire by the
treaty of Verdun (843). For this he worked ceaselessly during his long
reign of forty years, and with singular ability and courage. Before his
death he had by the splendour of his court, his wealth and his successes
in arms and diplomacy, come to be recognised as a sovereign of great
weight and influence, in all but name a king. The Burgundian policy and
tradition, which he established, found in his successors John the
Fearless (murdered in 1419) and John's son, Philip the Good, men of like
character and filled with the same ambitions as himself. The double
marriage of John with Margaret, the sister of William VI of Holland, and
of William VI with Margaret of Burgundy, largely helped forward their
projects of aggrandisement. Philip the Good was, however, a much abler
ruler than his father, a far-seeing statesman, who pursued his plans
with a patient and unscrupulous pertinacity, of which a conspicuous
example is to be found in his long protracted struggle with his cousin
Jacoba, the only child and heiress of William of Holland, whose
misfortunes and courage have made her one of the most romantic figures
of history. By a mixture of force and intrigue Philip, in 1433, at last
compelled Jacoba to abdicate, and he became Count of Holland, Zeeland
and Hainault. Nor was this by any means the end of his acquisitions.
Joanna, Duchess of Brabant (1355-1404) in her own right, was aunt on the
mother's side to Margaret of Flanders, wife of Philip the Hardy. Dying
without heirs, she bequeathed Brabant, Limburg and Antwerp to her
great-nephew, Anthony of Burgundy, younger brother of John the Fearless.
Anthony was killed at Agincourt and was succeeded first by his son John
IV, the husband of Jacoba of Holland, and on his death without an heir
in 1427, by his second son, Philip of St Pol, who also died childless in
1430. From him his cousin Philip the Good inherited the duchies of
Brabant and Limburg and the marquisate of Antwerp. Already he had
purchased in 1421 the territory of Namur from the last Count John III,
who had fallen into heavy debt; and in 1443 he likewise purchased the
duchy of Luxemburg from the Duchess Elizabeth of Görlitz, who had
married in second wedlock Anthony, Duke of Brabant, and afterwards John
of Bavaria, but who had no children by either of her marriages. Thus in
1443 Philip had become by one means or another sovereign under various
titles of the largest and most important part of the Netherlands, and he
increased his influence by securing in 1456 the election of his
illegitimate son David, as Bishop of Utrecht. Thus a great step forward
had been taken for the restoration of the middle kingdom, which had been
the dream of Philip the Hardy, and which now seemed to be well-nigh on
the point of accomplishment.
The year 1433, the date of the incorporation of Holland and Zeeland in
the Burgundian dominion, is therefore a convenient starting-point for a
consideration of the character of the Burgundian rule in the
Netherlands, and of the changes which the concentration of sovereign
power in the hands of a single ruler brought into the relations of the
various provinces with one another and into their internal
administration. The Netherlands become now for the first time something
more than a geographical expression for a number of petty feudal
states, practically independent and almost always at strife.
Henceforward there was peace; and throughout the whole of this northern
part of his domains it was the constant policy of Philip gradually to
abolish provincialism and to establish a centralised government. He was
far too wise a statesman to attempt to abolish suddenly or arbitrarily
the various rights and privileges, which the Flemings, Brabanters and
Hollanders had wrung from their sovereigns, and to which they were
deeply attached; but, while respecting these, he endeavoured to restrict
them as far as possible to local usage, and to centralise the general
administration of the whole of the "pays de par deçà" (as the Burgundian
dukes were accustomed to name their Netherland dominions) by the
summoning of representatives of the Provincial States to an assembly
styled the States-General, and by the creation of a common Court of
Appeal.
The first time the States-General were called together by Philip was in
1465 for the purpose of obtaining a loan for the war with France and the
recognition of his son Charles as his successor; and from this time
forward at irregular intervals, but with increasing frequency, the
practice of summoning this body went on. The States-General (in a sense)
represented the Netherlands as a whole; and it was a matter of great
convenience for the sovereign, especially when large levies of money had
to be raised, to be enabled thus to bring his proposals before a single
assembly, instead of before a number of separate and independent
provincial states. Nevertheless, it must be borne in mind that the
States-General had, as such, no authority to act on behalf of these
several provincial states. Each of these sent their deputies to the
General Assembly, but these deputies had to refer all matters to their
principals before they could give their assent, and each body of
deputies gave this assent separately, and without regard to the others.
It was thus but a first provisional step towards unity of
administration, but it did tend to promote a feeling of community of
interests between the provinces and to lead to the deputies having
intercourse with one another and interchanging their views upon the
various important subjects that were brought before their consideration.
The period of disturbance and the weakening of the authority of the
sovereign, which followed the death of Charles the Bold, led to the
States-General obtaining a position of increased importance; and they
may from that time be regarded as forming a regular and necessary part
of the machinery of government in the Burgundian Netherlands. The
States-General however, like the Provincial States, could only meet when
summoned by the sovereign or his stadholder; and the causes for which
they were summoned were such special occasions as the accession of a new
sovereign or the appointment of a new stadholder, or more usually for
sanctioning the requests for levies of money, which were required for
the maintenance of splendid courts and the cost of frequent wars. For
not only the Burgundian princes properly so-called, but even Charles V,
had mainly to depend upon the wealth of the Netherlands for their
financial needs. And here a distinction must be drawn. For solemn
occasions, such as the accession of a new sovereign, or the acceptance
of a newly appointed governor, representatives of all the provinces
(eventually seventeen) were summoned, but for ordinary meetings for the
purpose of money levies only those of the so-called patrimonial or old
Burgundian provinces came together. The demands for tribute on the
provinces acquired later, such as Gelderland, Groningen, Friesland and
Overyssel, were made to each of these provinces separately, and they
jealously claimed their right to be thus separately dealt with. In the
case of the other provinces the States-General, as has been already
stated, could only grant the money after obtaining from each province
represented, severally, its assent; and this was often not gained until
after considerable delay and much bargaining. Once granted, however, the
assessment regulating the quota, which the different provinces had to
contribute, was determined on the basis of the so-called _quotisatie_ or
_settinge_ drawn up in 1462 on the occasion of a tribute for 10 years,
which Charles the Bold, as his father's stadholder in the "pays de par
deçà," then demanded. The relative wealth of the provinces may be judged
from the fact that at this date Flanders and Brabant each paid a quarter
of the whole levy, Holland one sixth, Zeeland one quarter of Holland's
share.
As regards the provincial government the Burgundian princes left
undisturbed the local and historical customs and usages, and each
province had its individual characteristics. At the head of each
provincial government (with the exception of Brabant, at whose capital,
Brussels, the sovereign himself or his regent resided) was placed a
governor, with the title of Stadholder, who was the representative of
the sovereign and had large patronage. It was his duty to enforce
edicts, preserve order, and keep a watchful eye over the administration
of justice. He nominated to many municipal offices, but had little or no
control over finance. The raising of troops and their command in the
field was entrusted to a captain-general, who might not be the same
person as the stadholder, though the offices were sometimes united. In
the northern Netherlands there was but one stadholder for the three
provinces of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht, and one (at a somewhat later
date) for Friesland, Groningen, Drente and Overyssel.
The desire of the Burgundian princes to consolidate their dominions into
a unified sovereignty found itself thwarted by many obstacles and
especially by the lack of any supreme tribunal of appeal. It was galling
to them that the _Parlement_ of Paris should still exercise appellate
jurisdiction in Crown-Flanders and Artois, and the Imperial Diet in some
of the other provinces. Already in 1428 Philip had erected the Court of
Holland at the Hague to exercise large powers of jurisdiction and
financial control in the provinces of Holland and Zeeland; and in 1473
Charles the Bold set up at Mechlin the body known as the Great Council,
to act as a court of appeal from the provincial courts. It was to be, in
the Netherlands, what the _Parlement_ of Paris was in France. The Great
Council, which had grown out of the Privy Council attached to the person
of the prince, and which under the direction of the Chancellor of
Burgundy administered the affairs of the government, more particularly
justice and finance, was in 1473, as stated above, re-constituted as a
Court of Appeal in legal matters, a new Chamber of Accounts being at the
same time created to deal with finance. These efforts at centralisation
of authority were undoubtedly for the good of the country as a whole,
but such was the intensity of provincial jealousy and particularism that
they were bitterly resented and opposed.
In order to strengthen the sovereign's influence in the towns, and to
lessen the power of the Gilds, Philip established in Holland, and so far
as he could elsewhere, what were called "vaste Colleges" or fixed
committees of notables, to which were entrusted the election of the town
officials and the municipal administration. These bodies were composed
of a number of the richest and most influential burghers, who were
styled the Twenty-four, the Forty, the Sixty or the Eighty, according
to the number fixed for any particular town. These men were appointed
for life and their successors were chosen by co-option, so that the town
corporations gradually became closed hereditary aristocracies, and the
mass of the citizens were deprived of all voice in their own affairs.
The _Schout_ or chief judge was chosen directly by the sovereign or his
stadholder, who also nominated the _Schepens_ or sheriffs from a list
containing a double number, which was submitted to him.
The reign of Philip the Good was marked by a great advance in the
material prosperity of the land. Bruges, Ghent, Ypres and Antwerp were
among the most flourishing commercial and industrial cities in the
world, and when, through the silting up of the waterway, Bruges ceased
to be a seaport, Antwerp rapidly rose to pre-eminence in her place, so
that a few decades later her wharves were crowded with shipping, and her
warehouses with goods from every part of Europe. In fact during the
whole of the Burgundian period the southern Netherlands were the richest
domain in Christendom, and continued to be so until the disastrous times
of Philip II of Spain. Meanwhile Holland and Zeeland, though unable to
compete with Brabant and Flanders in the populousness of their towns and
the extent of their trade, were provinces of growing importance. Their
strength lay in their sturdy and enterprising sea-faring population. The
Hollanders had for many years been the rivals of the Hanse Towns for the
Baltic trade. War broke out in 1438 and hostilities continued for three
years with the result that the Hanse League was beaten, and henceforth
the Hollanders were able without further let or hindrance more and more
to become the chief carriers of the "Eastland" traffic. Amsterdam was
already a flourishing port, though as yet it could make no pretension of
competing with Antwerp. The herring fisheries were, however, the staple
industry of Holland and Zeeland. The discovery of the art of curing
herrings by William Beukelsz of Biervliet (died 1447) had converted a
perishable article of food into a marketable commodity; and not only did
the fisheries give lucrative employment to many thousands of the
inhabitants of these maritime provinces, but they also became the
foundation on which was to be built their future commercial
supremacy.
The Burgundian dukes were among the most powerful rulers of their
time--the equals of kings in all but name--and they far surpassed all
contemporary sovereigns in their lavish display and the splendour of
their court. The festival at Bruges in 1430 in celebration of the
marriage of Philip the Good and Isabel of Portugal, at which the Order
of the Golden Fleece was instituted, excited universal wonder; while his
successor, Charles the Bold, contrived to surpass even his father in the
splendour of his espousals with Margaret of York in 1468, and at his
conference with the Emperor Frederick III at Trier in 1473. On this last
occasion he wore a mantle encrusted all over with diamonds.
The foundation of the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1430 was an event of
great importance, as marking a step forward on the part of Philip in its
assumption of quasi-regal attributes. The title was very appropriate,
for it pointed to the wool and cloth trade as being the source of the
wealth of Flanders. The Order comprised thirty-one knights, chosen from
the flower of the Burgundian nobles and the chief councillors of the
sovereign. The statutes of the Order set forth in detail the privileges
of the members, and their duties and obligations to their prince. They
had a prescriptive claim to be consulted on all matters of importance,
to be selected for the chief government posts, and to serve on military
councils. The knights were exempt from the jurisdiction of all courts,
save that of their own chapter.
Philip died in 1467 and was succeeded by his son, Charles, who had
already exercised for some years authority in the Netherlands as his
father's deputy. Charles, as his surname _le Téméraire_ witnesses, was
a man of impulsive and autocratic temperament, but at the same time a
hard worker, a great organiser, and a brilliant soldier. Consumed with
ambition to realise that restoration of a great middle Lotharingian
kingdom stretching from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, for which
his father had been working during his long and successful reign, he
threw himself with almost passionate energy into the accomplishment of
his task. With this object he was the first sovereign to depart from
feudal usages and to maintain a standing army. He appeared at one time
to be on the point of accomplishing his aim. Lorraine, which divided his
southern from his northern possessions, was for a short time in his
possession. Intervening in Gelderland between the Duke Arnold of
Egmont and his son Adolf, he took the latter prisoner and obtained the
duchy in pledge from the former. Uprisings in the Flemish towns against
heavy taxation and arbitrary rule were put down with a strong hand. In
September, 1474, the duke, accompanied by a splendid suite, met the
emperor Frederick III at Trier to receive the coveted crown from the
imperial hands. It was arranged that Charles' only daughter and heiress
should be betrothed to Maximilian of Austria, the emperor's eldest son,
and the very day and hour for the coronation were fixed. But the
Burgundian had an enemy in Louis XI of France, who was as prudent and
far-seeing as his rival was rash and impetuous, and who was far more
than his match in political craft and cunning. French secret agents
stirred up Frederick's suspicions against Charles' designs, and the
emperor suddenly left Trier, where he had felt humiliated by the
splendour of his powerful vassal.
The duke was furious at his disappointment, but was only the more
obstinately bent on carrying out his plans. But Louis had been meanwhile
forming a strong league (League of Constance, March 1474) of various
states threatened by Charles' ambitious projects. Duke Sigismund of
Austria, Baden, Basel, Elsass, and the Swiss Cantons united under the
leadership of France to resist them. Charles led an army of 60,000 men
to aid the Archbishop of Cologne against his subjects, but spent eleven
months in a fruitless attempt to take a small fortified town, Neuss, in
which a considerable portion of his army perished. He was compelled to
raise large sums of money from his unwilling subjects in the Netherlands
to repair his losses, and in 1475 he attacked Duke Réné of Lorraine,
captured Nancy and conquered the duchy, which had hitherto separated his
Netherland from his French possessions. It was the first step in the
accomplishment of his scheme for the restoration of the Lotharingian
kingdom. In Elsass, however, the populace had risen in insurrection
against the tyranny of the Burgundian governor, Peter van Hagenbach, and
had tried and executed him. Finding that the Swiss had aided the rebels,
Charles now, without waiting to consolidate his conquest of Lorraine,
determined to lead his army into Switzerland. At the head of a
splendidly equipped force he encountered the Confederates near Granson
(March 2, 1476) and was utterly routed, his own seal and order of the
Golden Fleece, with vast booty, falling into the hands of the victors.
A few months later, having recruited and reorganised his beaten army, he
again led them against the Swiss. The encounter took place (June 21,
1476) at Morat and once more the chivalry of Burgundy suffered complete
defeat. Charles fled from the field, half insane with rage and
disappointment, when the news that Duke Réné had reconquered Lorraine
roused him from his torpor. He hastily gathered together a fresh army
and laid siege to Nancy. But in siege operations he had no skill, and in
the depth of winter (January 5, 1477) he was attacked by the Swiss and
Lorrainers outside the walls of the town. A panic seized the
Burgundians; Charles in person in vain strove to stem their flight, and
he perished by an unknown hand. His body was found later, stripped
naked, lying frozen in a pool.
Charles left an only child, Mary, not yet twenty years of age. Mary
found herself in a most difficult and trying situation. Louis XI, the
hereditary enemy of her house, at once took possession of the duchy of
Burgundy, which by failure of heirs-male had reverted to its liege-lord.
The sovereignty of the county of Burgundy (Franche-Comté), being an
imperial fief descending in the female line, she retained; but, before
her authority had been established, Louis had succeeded in persuading
the states of the county to place themselves under a French
protectorate. French armies overran Artois, Hainault and Picardy, and
were threatening Flanders, where there was in every city a party of
French sympathisers. Gelderland welcomed the exiled duke, Adolf, as
their sovereign. Everywhere throughout the provinces the despotic rule
of Duke Charles and his heavy exactions had aroused seething discontent.
Mary was virtually a prisoner in the hands of her Flemish subjects; and,
before they consented to support her cause, there was a universal demand
for a redress of grievances. But Mary showed herself possessed of
courage and statesmanship beyond her years, and she had at this critical
moment in her step-mother, Margaret of York, an experienced and capable
adviser at her side. A meeting of the States-General was at once
summoned to Ghent. It met on February 3, 1477, Mary's 20th birthday.
Representatives came from Flanders, Brabant, Artois and Namur, in the
southern, and from Holland and Zeeland in the northern Netherlands. Mary
saw there was no course open to her but to accede to their demands. Only
eight days after the Assembly met, the charter of Netherland
liberties, called The Great Privilege, was agreed to and signed. By this
Act all previous ordinances conflicting with ancient privileges were
abolished. The newly-established Court of Appeal at Mechlin was replaced
by a Great Council of twenty-four members chosen by the sovereign from
the various states, which should advise and assist in the administration
of government. Mary undertook not to marry or to declare war without the
assent of the States-General. The States-General and the Provincial
States were to meet as often as they wished, without the summons of the
sovereign. All officials were to be native-born; no Netherlander was to
be tried by foreign judges; there were to be no forced loans, no
alterations in the coinage. All edicts or ordinances infringing
provincial rights were to be _ipso facto_ null and void. By placing her
seal to this document Mary virtually abdicated the absolute sovereign
power which had been exercised by her predecessors, and undid at a
stroke the results of their really statesmanlike efforts to create out
of a number of semi-autonomous provinces a unified State. Many of their
acts and methods had been harsh and autocratic, especially those of
Charles the Bold, but who can doubt that on the whole their policy was
wise and salutary? In Holland and Zeeland a Council was erected
consisting of a Stadholder and eight councillors (six Hollanders and two
Zeelanders) of whom two were to be nobles, the others jurists. Wolferd
van Borselen, lord of Veere, was appointed Stadholder.
The Great Privilege granted, the States willingly raised a force of
34,000 men to resist the French invasion, and adequate means for
carrying on the war. But the troubles of the youthful Mary were not yet
over. The hand of the heiress of so many rich domains was eagerly sought
for (1) by Louis of France for the dauphin, a youth of 17 years; (2) by
Maximilian of Austria to whom she had been promised in marriage; (3) by
Adolf, Duke of Gelderland, who was favoured by the States-General.
Adolf, however, was killed in battle. In Flanders there was a party who
favoured the French and actually engaged in intrigues with Louis, but
the mass of the people were intensely averse to French domination. To
such an extent was this the case that two influential officials, the
lords Hugonet and Humbercourt, on whom suspicion fell of treacherous
correspondence with the French king, were seized, tried by a special
tribunal, and, despite the tears and entreaties of the duchess, were
condemned and beheaded in the market-place of Ghent. Maximilian became
therefore the accepted suitor; and on August 19, 1477, his marriage with
Mary took place at Bruges. This marriage was to have momentous
consequences, not only for the Netherlands, but for Europe. The union
was a happy one, but, unfortunately, of brief duration. On March 29,
1482, Mary died from the effects of a fall from her horse, leaving two
children, Philip and Margaret.
* * * * *