THE COURT OF GUELDRES.
Here he saw the king approaching,
And he ended gallantly;
Left the crowd of knights about him,
Bending to the king his knee.
POETRY OF SPAIN.
As we have much to narrate, we must hasten over the mere diplomacy in
which the captain of the guard was concerned.
Next day the duke's party traversed the marshes of Peeland, and reached
the city of Gueldres. A fleet horseman having been sent on before, Gray
was received with considerable state at the ducal castle, in honour of
the king, his master.
The capital city of Gueldres was then surrounded by marshes which added
materially to its security, by making all approaches to it difficult
and dangerous to invaders or strangers. It was girt by ramparts and
deep trenches, through which flowed the river Niers, and thus it was
deemed the strongest place in Flanders.
It was a curious little town of narrow streets, overshadowed by
galleried houses of quaint aspect, with projecting eaves and steep
roofs; old churches, grim and mysterious in architecture; and convents
with high and sombre walls. The mass of the population seemed to
be industrious Flemish artisans, mingled with the usual number of
peasants, who brought their wares to market; cowled monks, dozing at
the gates in the sunshine; and helmeted men-at-arms dicing and drinking
in the hostelries.
Twenty great bombards were fired from the ramparts of the ducal
castle, as a salute in honour of Sir Patrick's arrival, and the great
banner of the duchy, _azure_ a lion _or_ crowned, for Gueldres; with a
lion _gules_ for Zutphen, was displayed on the keep, while a body of
knights, archers, and well-mounted men-at-arms stood in military array
within the gates. Gueldres was then famous for its cavalry, and for
the spirit of its people, who were deemed so warlike, that to lessen
their military genius and secure the possession of that province in
his family, Charles V., in after times, excluded its natives from his
armies.
The great ducal fortress, a portion of which was built in 878 by
Wichardus a Ponte, the first lord of Gueldres, on his marriage with a
daughter of the count of Zutphen, was deemed the strongest castle in
the Netherlands, till its demolition by the Prussians in 1764.
There, in that old castle, situated amid the thick woods and rushlands,
through which the Niers flows towards the Maese, Gray was presented to
the duchess, Katherine of Cleves; to her daughter, the future queen of
Scotland; the little princess Mary, then in her ninth year; and to her
brother, prince Adolphus, by whose wickedness in after years the house
of Gueldres was ruined, and its possessions merged into the line of
Burgundy.
For when Adolphus rebelled against his father, old Arnold d'Egmont,
and shut him up in a close prison, he was disinherited, and his title
and patrimony sold in 1473 to Charles the Terrible, Duke of Burgundy,
for a yearly pension of fourscore and ten thousand golden crowns of
the Rhine; but no thought or anticipation had they then of those dark
days that were coming, when civil war and misrule would rend the land
asunder; and so old Duke Arnold feasted royally the knight who had
come from the Scottish court, in presence of all his peers, the knights
of the duchy, the governors of the country districts, and the deputies
of Nimeguen, Arnheim, Ruremond, and Zutphen, his four great counties or
provinces.
He presented him with a cassock, embroidered with gold and precious
stones, worth a thousand ducats. The Duchess Katherine in the name of
the princess, her daughter, entrusted him with a valuable ring for the
young king, her future son-in-law, to whose ministers letters were
prepared, expressive of the pleasure with which the coming ambassadors
would be received.
Four days Sir Patrick remained at the castle of Gueldres, and then,
leaving with impatience to overtake the Douglases about Breda, he bade
adieu to the ducal court, and was convoyed, as the abbot of Tongland
relates, twelve miles on his way, as far as Wees, by Prince Adolphus,
the counts of Bommel and Nassau, with forty gentlemen on horseback "in
cassocks of brocade, each with a gold chain at his neck."
Sir Patrick rejoiced when all this ceremony and state were over; when
he was once more alone, and at liberty to pursue his own way towards
Breda, which, however, he was fated never to reach.