'BRUGES LA MORTE'
They call it 'Bruges la Morte,' and at every turn there is something to
remind us of the deadly blight which fell upon the city when its trade
was lost. The faded colours, the timeworn brickwork, the indescribable
look of decay which, even on the brightest morning, throws a shade of
melancholy over the whole place, lead one to think of some aged dame,
who has 'come down in the world,' wearing out the finery of better
days. It is all very sad and pathetic, but strangely beautiful, and the
painter never lived who could put on canvas the mellow tints with which
Time has clothed these old walls, and thus veiled with tender hand
the havoc it has made. To stand on the bridge which crosses the canal
at the corner of the Quai des Marbriers and the Quai Vert, where the
pinnacles of the Palais du Franc and the roof of the Hôtel de Ville,
with the Belfry just showing above them, and dull red walls rising from
the water, make up a unique picture of still-life, is to read a sermon
in stones, an impressive lesson in history.
The loss of trade brought Bruges face to face with the 'question of
the unemployed' in a very aggravated form. How to provide for the poor
became a most serious problem, and so many of the people were reduced
to living on charity that almshouses sprang up all over the town. God's
Houses ('Godshuisen') they called them, and call them still. They are
to be found in all directions--quaint little places, planted down
here and there, each with a small chapel of its own, with moss-grown
roofs and dingy walls, and doors that open on to the uneven cobbles.
Every stone of them spells pauperism. The Church does much towards
maintaining these shelters for the poor--perhaps too much, if it is
true that there are 10,000 paupers in Bruges out of a population of
about 55,000. There is a great deal of begging in the streets, and a
sad lack of sturdy self-respect amongst the lower class, which many
think is caused by the system of doles, for which the Church is chiefly
responsible. Bruges might not have been so picturesque to-day if her
commerce had survived; but the beauty of a town is dearly purchased at
the cost of such degradation and loss of personal independence.
[Illustration: BRUGES
View of the Palais du Franc.]
It was not only the working class which suffered. Many rich families
sank into poverty, and their homes, some of which were more like
palaces than private houses, had to be dismantled. The fate of one of
these lordly mansions is connected with an episode which carries us
back into the social life of Bruges in the middle of the seventeenth
century. On the right side of the Rue Haute, as one goes from the
Place du Bourg, there is a high block containing two large houses,
Nos. 6 and 8, of that street. It is now a big, plain building without
a trace of architectural distinction; but in the seventeenth century
it was a single mansion, built about the year 1320, and was one of the
many houses with towers which gave the Bruges of that time almost the
appearance of an Oriental city. It was called the House of the Seven
Towers, from the seven pinnacles which surmounted it; and at the back
there was a large garden, which extended to the canal and Quai des
Marbriers.
In April, 1656, the 'tall man above two yards high, with dark brown
hair, scarcely to be distinguished from black,' for whom the Roundheads
had searched all England after the Battle of Worcester, found his way
to Bruges, with his brother Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and the train
of Royalists who formed their Court. For nearly three years after
Worcester, Charles II. had lived in France; but in July, 1654, the
alliance between Cromwell and Mazarin drove him to Germany, where
he remained till Don John of Austria became Governor of the Spanish
Netherlands. Thereupon the prospect of recovering the English throne
by the assistance of Spain led him to remove his Court, which had been
established for some time at Cologne, to Flanders. He arrived at Bruges
on April 22, 1656. His brother James, Duke of York, and afterwards King
of England, held a commission in the French army, and Mazarin offered
him a command in Italy. Charles, however, requested him to leave the
French army, and enter the service of Spain. At first James refused;
but by the mediation of their sister, the Princess of Orange, he was
persuaded to do as his brother wished, and join the Court at Bruges.
The Irish Viscount Tarah received Charles, when he first arrived, in
his house in the Rue du Vieux Bourg, and there gave him, we read in
local history, 'une brillante hospitalité.' But in the beginning of
June the Court took up its quarters in the House of the Seven Towers.
During his sojourn in Flanders, Charles was carefully watched by the
secret service officers of the Commonwealth Government, who sent home
reports of all he did. These reports, many of which are in the Thurloe
State Papers and other collections, contain some curious details about
the exiled Court.
There never was a more interesting 'English colony' at Bruges than at
that time. Hyde, who received the Great Seal at Bruges, was there with
Ormonde and the Earls of Bristol, Norwich, and Rochester. Sir Edward
Nicholas was Secretary of State; and we read of Colonel Sydenham, Sir
Robert Murray, and 'Mr. Cairless', who sat on the tree with Charles
Stewart after Worcester fight. Another of the exiles at Bruges was
Sir James Turner, the soldier of fortune, who served under Gustavus
Adolphus, persecuted the Covenanters in Scotland, and is usually
supposed to have been the original of Dugald Dalgetty in Sir Walter
Scott's _Legend of Montrose_. A list of the royal household is still
preserved at Bruges. It was prepared in order that the town council
might fix the daily allowance of wine and beer which was to be given to
the Court, and contains the names of about sixty persons, with a note
of the supply granted to each family.
A 'Letter of Intelligence' (the report of a spy), dated from Bruges
on September 29, 1656, mentions that Lilly, the astrologer of London,
had written to say that the King would be restored to the throne next
year, and that all the English at Bruges were delighted. But in the
meantime they were very hard up for ready money. Ever since leaving
England Charles and his followers had suffered from the most direful
impecuniosity. We find Hyde declaring that he has 'neither shoes nor
shirt.' The King himself was constantly running into debt for his
meals, and his friends spent many a hungry day at Bruges. If by good
luck they chanced to be in funds, one meal a day sufficed for a party
of half a dozen courtiers. If it was cold they could not afford to
purchase firewood. The Earl of Norwich writes, saying that he has to
move about so as to get lodgings on credit, and avoid people to whom
he owes money. Colonel Borthwick, who claims to have served the King
most faithfully, complains that he is in prison at Bruges on suspicion
of disloyalty, has not changed his clothes for three years, and is
compelled by lack of cash to go without a fire in winter. Sir James
Hamilton, a gentleman-in-waiting, gets drunk one day, and threatens to
kill the Lord Chancellor. He is starving, and declares it is Hyde's
fault that the King gives him no money. He will put on a clean
shirt to be hanged in, and not run away, being without so much as a
penny. Then we have the petition of a poor fencing-master. 'Heaven,'
he writes piteously, 'hears the groans of the lowest creatures, and
therefore I trust that you, being a terrestrial deity, will not disdain
my supplication.' He had come from Cologne to Bruges to teach the royal
household, and wanted his wages, for he and his family were starving.
[Illustration: BRUGES
Maison du Pélican (Almshouse).]
Don John of Austria visited Charles at Bruges, and an allowance from
the King of Spain was promised, so that men might be levied for the
operations against Cromwell; but the payments were few and irregular.
'The English Court,' says a letter of February, 1657, 'remains still at
Bridges [Bruges], never in greater want, nor greater expectations of
money, without which all their levies are like to be at a stand; for
Englishmen cannot live on bread alone.'
A 'Letter of Intelligence' sent from Sluis says that Charles is 'much
loocked upon, but littell respeckted.' And this is not wonderful if
the reports sent home by the Commonwealth agents are to be trusted.
One of the spies who haunted the neighbourhood of Bruges was a Mr.
Butler, who writes in the winter of 1656-1657: 'This last week one of
the richest churches in Bruges was plundered in the night. The people
of Bruges are fully persuaded that Charles Stewart's followers have
done it. They spare no pains to find out the guilty, and if it happen
to light upon any of Charles Stewart's train, it will mightily incense
that people against them.... There is now a company of French comedians
at Bruges, who are very punctually attended by Charles Stewart and his
Court, and all the ladies there. Their most solemn day of acting is
the Lord's Day. I think I may truly say that greater abominations were
never practised among people than at this day at Charles Stewart's
Court. Fornication, drunkenness, and adultery are esteemed no sins
amongst them; so I persuade myself God will never prosper any of their
attempts.'[10] In another letter we read that once, after a hunting
expedition, Charles and a gentleman of the bedchamber were the only two
who came back sober. Sir James Turner was mad when drunk, 'and that was
pretty often,' says Bishop Burnet.
But, of course, it was the business of the spies to blacken the
character of Charles; and there can be little doubt that, in spite of
his poverty and loose morals, he was well liked by the citizens of
Bruges, who, notwithstanding a great deal of outward decorum, have
at no time been very strait-laced. 'Charles,' we learn from a local
history, 'sut se rendre populaire en prenant part aux amusements de la
population et en se pliant, sans effort comme sans affectation, aux
usages du pays.' During his whole period of exile he contrived to amuse
himself. Affairs of gallantry, dancing, tennis, billiards, and other
frivolous pursuits, occupied as much of his attention as the grave
affairs of State over which Hyde and Ormonde spent so many anxious
hours. When on a visit to Brussels in the spring of 1657, he employed,
we are told, most of his time with Don John dancing, or at 'long paume,
a Spanish play with balls filled with wire.' And, again: 'He passes his
time with shooting at Bruges, and such other obscure pastimes.'
This 'shooting' was the favourite Flemish sport of shooting with bow
and arrows at an artificial bird fixed on a high pole, the prize being,
on great occasions, a golden bird, which was hung by a chain of gold
round the winner's neck. In the records of the Guilds of St. George
and St. Sebastian at Bruges there are notices relating to Charles.
The former was a society of cross-bowmen, the latter of archers. On
June 11, 1656, Charles and the Duke of Gloucester were at the festival
of the Society of St. George. Charles was the first to try his skill,
and managed to hit the mark. After the Duke and many others had shot,
Peter Pruyssenaere, a wine merchant in the Rue du Vieux Bourg, brought
down the bird, and Charles hung the golden 'Bird of Honour' round his
neck. On June 25 Charles visited the Society of St. Sebastian, when
Michael Noé, a gardener, was the winner. The King and Gloucester both
became members of the St. Sebastian, which is still a flourishing
society. Going along the Rue des Carmes, the traveller passes the
English convent on the left, and on the right, at the end of the
street, comes to the Guildhouse of St. Sebastian, with its slender
tower and quiet garden, one of the pleasantest spots in Bruges. There
the names of Charles and his brother are to be seen inscribed in a
small volume bound in red morocco, the 'Bird of Honour' with its chain
of gold, a silver arrow presented by the Duke of Gloucester, and some
other interesting relics. On September 15, 1843, Queen Victoria, Prince
Albert, King Leopold I., and the Queen of the Belgians, went to the
Rue des Carmes and signed their names as members of this society, which
now possesses two silver cups, presented by the Queen of England in
1845 and 1893. The Duke of York seems to have been successful as an
archer, for in the Hôtel de Ville at Bruges there is a picture by John
van Meuninxhove, in which Charles is seen hanging the 'Bird of Honour'
round his brother's neck.
In April, 1657, the English Government was informed that the Court of
Charles was preparing to leave Bruges. 'Yesterday' (April 7) 'some of
his servants went before to Brussels to make ready lodgings for Charles
Stewart, the Duke of York, and the Duke of Gloucester. All that have
or can compass so much money go along with Charles Stewart on Monday
morning. I do admire how people live here for want of money. Our number
is not increased since my last. The most of them are begging again for
want of money; and when any straggling persons come, we have not so
much money as will take a single man to the quarters; yet we promise
ourselves great matters.' They were hampered in all their movements
by this want of hard cash, for Charles was in debt at Bruges, and
could not remove his goods until he paid his creditors. It was sadly
humiliating. 'The King,' we read, 'will hardly live at Bruges any
more, but he cannot remove his family and goods till we get money.'
The dilemma seems to have been settled by Charles, his brothers, and
most of the Court going off to Brussels, leaving their possessions
behind them. The final move did not take place till February, 1658,
and Clarendon says that Charles never lived at Bruges after that date.
He may, however, have returned on a short visit, for Jesse, in his
_Memoirs of the Court of England under the Stuarts_, states that the
King was playing tennis at Bruges when Sir Stephen Fox came to him with
the great news, 'The devil is dead!' This would be in September, 1658,
Cromwell having died on the third of that month. After the Restoration
Charles sent to the citizens of Bruges a letter of thanks for the way
in which they had received him. Nor did he forget, amidst the pleasures
of the Court at Whitehall, the simple pastimes of the honest burghers,
but presented to the archers of the Society of St. Sebastian the sum of
3,600 florins, which were expended on their hall of meeting.
More than a hundred years later, when the Stuart dynasty was a thing
of the past and George III. was seated on the throne of England, the
Rue Haute saw the arrival of some travellers who were very different
from the roystering Cavaliers and frail beauties who had made it gay
in the days of the Merry Monarch. The English Jesuits of St. Omer,
when expelled from their college, came to Bruges in August, 1762, and
took up their abode in the House of the Seven Towers, where they found
'nothing but naked walls and empty chambers.' A miserable place it must
have been. 'In one room a rough table of planks had been set up, and
the famished travellers were rejoiced at the sight of three roast legs
of mutton set on the primitive table. Knives, forks, and plates there
were none. A Flemish servant divided the food with his pocket-knife.
A farthing candle gave a Rembrandt-like effect to the scene. The boys
slept that night on mattresses laid on the floor of one of the big
empty rooms of the house. The first days at Bruges were cheerless
enough.'[11] The religious houses, however, came to the rescue. Flemish
monks and the nuns of the English convent helped the pilgrims, and the
Jesuits soon established themselves at Bruges, where they remained in
peace for a few years, till the Austrian Government drove them out.
The same fate overtook the inmates of many monasteries and convents
at Bruges in the reign of Joseph II., whose reforming zeal led to
that revolt of the Austrian Netherlands which was the prelude to the
invasion of Flanders by the army of the French Revolution.
After the conquest of Belgium by the French it looked as if all the
churches in Bruges were doomed. The Chapel of St. Basil was laid in
ruins. The Church of St. Donatian, which had stood since the days of
Baldwin Bras-de-Fer, was pulled down and disappeared entirely. Notre
Dame, St. Sauveur, and other places of worship, narrowly escaped
destruction; and it was not till the middle of the nineteenth century
that the town recovered, in some measure, from these disasters.
Bruges has doubtless shared in the general prosperity which has spread
over the country since Belgium became an independent kingdom after the
revolution of 1830, but its progress has been slow. It has never lost
its old-world associations; and the names of the streets and squares,
and the traditions connected with numberless houses which a stranger
might pass without notice, are all so many links with the past. There
is the Rue Espagnole, for example, where a vegetable market is held
every Wednesday. This was the quarter where the Spanish merchants
lived and did their business. There used to be a tall, dark, and, in
fact, very dirty-looking old house in this street known by the Spanish
name of the 'Casa Negra.' It was pulled down a few years ago; but
lower down, at the foot of the street, the great cellars in which the
Spaniards stored their goods remain; and on the Quai Espagnol was the
Spanish Consulate, now a large dwelling-house. A few steps from the
Quai Espagnol is the Place des Orientaux (Oosterlingen Plaats), where
a minaret of tawny brick rises above the gables of what was once the
Consulate of Smyrna, and on the north side of which, in the brave days
of old, stood the splendid Maison des Orientaux, the headquarters of
the Hanseatic League in Bruges, the finest house in Flanders, with
turrets and soaring spire, and marvellous façade, and rooms inside all
ablaze with gilding. The glory has departed; two modern dwelling-houses
have taken the place of this commercial palace; but it must surely be a
very dull imagination on which the sight of this spot, now so tranquil
and commonplace, but once the centre of such important transactions,
makes no impression. From the Place des Orientaux it is only a few
minutes stroll to the Rue Cour de Gand and the dark brown wooden front
of the small house, now a lace shop, which tradition says was one of
Memlinc's homes in Bruges, where we can fancy him, laboriously and with
loving care, putting the last minute touches to some immortal painting.
Then there is the Rue Anglaise, off the Quai Spinola, where the English
Merchant Adventurers met to discuss their affairs in houses with such
names as 'Old England' or 'The Tower of London.' The head of the
colony, 'Governor of the English Nation beyond the Seas' they called
him, was a very busy man 400 years ago.[12] The Scottish merchants were
settled in the same district, close to the Church of Ste. Walburge.
They called their house 'Scotland,' and doubtless made as good bargains
as the 'auld enemy' in the next street. There is a building called the
Parijssche Halle, or Halle de Paris, hidden away among the houses to
the west of the Market-Place, with a cafe and a theatre where Flemish
plays are acted now, which was formerly the Consulate of France; and
subscription balls and amateur theatricals are given by the English
residents of to-day in the fourteenth-century house of the Genoese
merchants in the Rue Flamande. The list of streets and houses with
old-time associations like these might be extended indefinitely, for in
Bruges the past is ever present.
[Illustration: BRUGES
Vegetable Market.]
Even the flat-fronted, plain houses with which poverty or the bad taste
of the last century replaced many of the older buildings do not spoil
the picturesque appearance of the town as a whole, because it is no
larger now than it was 600 years ago, and these modern structures are
quite lost amongst their venerable neighbours. Thus Bruges retains
its mediæval character. In the midst, however, of all this wealth of
architectural beauty and historical interest, the atmosphere of common
everyday life seems to be so very dull and depressing that people
living there are apt to be driven, by sheer boredom, into spending
their lives in a round of small excitements and incessant, wearisome
gossip, and into taking far more interest in the paltry squabbles of
their neighbours over some storm in a teacup than in the more important
topics which invigorate the minds of men and women in healthier and
broader societies. Long before Rodenbach's romance was written this
peculiarity of Bruges was proverbial throughout Belgium.
But it is possible that a change is at hand, and that Bruges may once
again become, not the Venice of the North--the time for that is
past--but an important town, for the spirit of commercial enterprise
which has done so much for other parts of Belgium during the last
seventy-five years is now invading even this quiet place, whose
citizens have begun to dream of recovering some portion of their former
prosperity. In 1895 the Belgian Parliament passed a law providing
for the construction, between Blankenberghe and Heyst, of a harbour
connected with Bruges by a canal of large dimensions, and of an inner
port at the town. The works at See-Brugge, as the outer port is called,
are nearly completed, and will allow vessels drawing 26-1/2 feet of
water to float at any state of the tide. The jetty describes a large
curve, and the bend is such that its extremity is parallel to the
coast, and 930 yards distant from the low-water mark. The sheltered
roadstead is about 272 acres in extent, and communication is made
with the canal by a lock 66 feet wide and 282 yards in length. From
this point the canal, which has a depth of 26-1/2 feet and is fed by
seawater, runs in a straight line to Bruges, and ends at the inner
port, which is within a few hundred yards of where the Roya used to
meet the Zwijn. It is capable of affording a minimum capacity of
1,000,000 tons per annum, and the whole equipment has been fitted up
necessary for dealing with this amount of traffic.
The first ship, an English steamer, entered the new port at Bruges on
the morning of May 29 in the present year (1905). The carillon rung
from the Belfry, guns were fired, and a ceremony in honour of the event
took place in the Hôtel de Ville. It now remains to be seen whether any
part of the trade which was lost 400 years ago can be recovered by the
skill of modern engineers and the resources of modern capital.
FOOTNOTES.
[Footnote 10: Letter from Mr. J. Butler, Flushing, December 2, 1656,
Thurloe State Papers, V., 645.]
[Footnote 11: Robinson, _Bruges, an Historical Sketch_, p. 291.]
[Footnote 12: In the _Flandria Illustrata_ of Sanderus, vol. i., p.
275, there is a picture of the 'Domus Anglorum.']