READING HALL

THE DOORS OF WISDOM

A HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE : A.D. 1453-1900

CHAPTER III.

AFFAIRS OF FRANCE AND BURGUNDY  CONTINUED TO DOWN TO THE YEAR 1493

THE mind of Charles the Bold at first floated among uncertain schemes; he thought of a Kingdom of Belgic Gaul, a Kingdom of Burgundy, a vicariate of the Empire with the title of King; and he even entered into negotiations with George Podiebrad, King of Bohemia, who undertook to help him to the Empire after the death of Frederick III. It was with these views that Charles had obtained from Sigismund the Weak the assignment of the Rhenish lands before referred to; and in 1472 he added to these acquisitions by the purchase of Gelderland.

It was through one of those revolting crimes not uncommon in those ages among sovereign Houses, that Charles obtained possession of this province. Arnold, duke of Gelderland, had in his old age married a young wife, who soon became weary of him, and to get rid of him, entered into a conspiracy with her stepson, Adolf. On a cold winter’s night, in 1470, the unnatural Adolf seized his old father, who was sick and in bed, dragged him five leagues barefoot over the snow, and confined him in the basement of a tower, lighted only by a small loophole. The Duke of Burgundy, perceiving the advantage that might be made of this event, contrived that both the Pope and the Emperor should require him to liberate Duke Arnold, who was his kinsman; and, in obedience to their commands, Charles summoned Adolf to appear at his Court, and to bring his aged father with him.

In this meeting before their judge, the aged father is said to have challenged his unnatural son to mortal combat. Charles’s perhaps not very sincere attempts to reconcile them were unavailing; Adolf proved refractory both to reason and coercion; and, having attempted an escape from the durance in which he was placed, was recaptured and kept in prison till Charles’s death. Arnold now sold the Duchy of Gelderland and the County of Zutphen to Charles for the almost nominal sum of 60,000 ducats and a yearly pension; when Charles took armed possession of these territories; and in order to obtain investiture of them from the Emperor, as well as to negotiate with him respecting other schemes of ambition, he invited Frederick to an interview at Tréves, in September, 1473. His plans seem now to have settled in the revival of the ancient Lotharingian or Middle Kingdom, into which, however, Charles’s French fiefs could not enter; and it was, therefore, to consist of his Netherland provinces held of the Empire, the Bishoprics of Utrecht and Liége, Franche-Comté, and the Austrian possessions in Alsace and Swabia, pledged to Charles by Duke Sigismund.

With these views, Charles represented to Frederick that he would make him more powerful and respected than any Emperor had been for three centuries; and he vividly described the irresistible force that must necessarily spring from the union of their rights and possessions. The chief inducement, however, held out to the Emperor to place the new crown upon the brow of Charles was a marriage between Frederick’s son Maximilian and Charles’s daughter Mary, the heiress of Burgundy. But this marriage of policy would never have been effected had not love lent its aid. Maximilian, then a youth of fourteen, with blooming countenance and flowing locks, dressed in black satin and mounted on a superb brown stallion, won all hearts at his entry into Tréves, and especially that of Mary. In all other respects, nothing could be more unsuccessful than this interview. The two Sovereigns were of the most opposite characters: Frederick, slow, pedantic, and cautious, was hurt and offended by the pride and insolence of the Duke; while Charles could not conceal his contempt for the poverty of the Germans and the impotence of their Emperor, who was quite thrown into the shade by his own magnificence.

Louis XI employed his arts to sow dissension between them, and secretly warned Frederick that the Duke cherished designs upon the Empire. But there was little need of the French King’s intrigues to defeat a negotiation in which neither party was sincere. Charles had been offering his daughter to Nicholas, Duke of Lorraine, grandson of old King René, at the very time when he proposed her to the Austrians; and Frederick was alarmed at the opening prospect of Charles’s ambition,—by his demand to be made Imperial Vicar. The interview, which had lasted two months, amid a constant alternation of fetes and negotiations, was unexpectedly brought to an abrupt close. Charles was so sure of success that he had made all the necessary preparations for his expected coronation in the minster; seats had been prepared, and a splendid throne erected; a crown and scepter, a superb mantle embroidered with jewels, in short, all the insignia of royalty had been provided, and his Duchess had been brought to Tréves to share in the august ceremony. But two days before the time appointed for it, Frederick, whoso suspicions had been roused by Charles’s refusal that Maximilian and Mary should be betrothed previously to the coronation, suddenly left Tréves, and stole by night down the Moselle in a boat, without so much as taking leave of the Duke, or oven acquainting him with his intended departure! Charles was deeply wounded by the Emperor’s flight, which cast upon him an air of ineffaceable ridicule; and we may imagine that Louis XI was not among those who laughed least.

Charles, however, had obtained investiture of Gelderland and Zutphen: and he soon after prosecuted his ambitious plans, and avenged himself for the Emperor's slight at the expense of the Electorate of Cologne. Robert of Wittelsbach, Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, had been involved in disputes with his Chapter; some of his towns, as Bonn, Cologne, and Neuss, had thrown off their allegiance; and the Chapter had elected Hermann, Landgrave of Hesse, as administrator of the bishopric, between whom and Robert a war arose. After his flight from Treves, Frederick proceeded to Cologne, where he took part with Hermann and the Chapter against Robert. The Archbishop sought the assistance of Charles the Bold, who, in July, 1474, appeared with a large army before Neuss, which was defended by Hermann.

Neuss was among the most strongly fortified places of that period, and the siege of it, which lasted nearly a year, is one of the most remarkable of the fifteenth century. It is unanimously agreed by contemporary writers that Charles’s efforts on this occasion were the cause of his ultimate ruin. Besides his own large army, and his immense artillery, he had hired some thousands of mercenaries, and especially several Italian condottieri; and for these preparations, though he was the richest Prince in Europe, he had been obliged to procure a loan from the Bank of Venice. At the opening of the siege, the Duke caused 6,000 cavaliers, clothed in the superb armor of that period, to parade round the town; a spectacle whose grandeur could not be equaled by any modern army. The Duke himself made the most active personal exertions; but though the little garrison of 1,500 Hessians was reduced to the extremity of eating horse-flesh, whilst Charles’s camp abounded with provisions, and he himself kept a splendid table, at which foreign ambassadors and other distinguished guests were daily entertained, he could not prevail over that little band.

Frederick had promised to take the command of an Imperial army which he intended to raise; but with the characteristic slowness of the Germanic body, it was not ready to march till the spring of 1475; and the Emperor then prudently resigned the command to the Elector Albert Achilles of Brandenburg, an able general, with whom was joined Albert of Saxony. The contingents of the different lands marched under their particular standards. At the head of the troops of the Imperial cities the little ensign of the Empire was alternately borne by the captains of the towns of Strasburg, Cologne, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Frankfort, and Ulm; while the immediate nobility of the Empire marched under the famous banner of St. George, the guard of which was confided by turns to the knights of Franconia and Swabia. The Chapter of Cologne and the Rhenish Princes had also entered into treaty with Louis XI, who promised to attack the Duke of Burgundy with 30,000 men; but he did not keep his word, and was perhaps retarded by a league which Charles had formed against him with Edward IV. Louis, however, lent some money to the Swiss Confederates, who invaded the Burgundian lands, committed considerable devastation, and took the town of Héricourt, November 13th, 1475; and they subsequently united in their confederacy some of the places belonging to the Duke of Burgundy.

Charles had already delivered many fruitless assaults on Neuss, when, in May, 1475, on the approach of the Imperial army, which numbered upwards of 50,000 men, he ordered another attack; but his troops were repulsed with great slaughter. Charles had now lost the pith of his army, and if an attack had been made upon it, according to the advice of the Elector of Brandenburg, it might no doubt have been annihilated. But Frederick listened to the proposals of the Duke for a renewal of the marriage treaty between Maximilian and Charles’s daughter, together with an immediate payment of 200,000 crowns; and Charles raised the siege of Neuss. A peace was concluded (July 17th) between the Emperor and Charles, by which both parties sacrificed those whom they had pretended to help; and the Duke of Burgundy was thus extricated from this immediate danger, but only to precipitate himself soon afterwards into another which proved his destruction.

The league just referred to between him and Edward IV had been contracted in July, 1474. Edward stipulated to pass the seas with an army, and to challenge the Crown of France; he was to obtain at least the Duchies of Normandy and Guienne, while Charles reserved for himself only Nevers, Champagne, and the towns on the Somme. He was probably never serious in the matter, and wished merely to divert the attention of Louis; but the English, after losing a great deal of time in preparation, at length, in July, 1475, landed at Calais an army of 15,000 men-at-arms and 15,000 archers, led by the King in person. Charles had now raised the siege of Neuss; and though he joined the English about the middle of July, he gave them no assistance, and would not permit them to enter his towns; St. Pol, also, the Constable of France, who was in league with the Duke, but alarmed with what he had undertaken, fired on the English army when it appeared before St. Quentin. Disgusted at this reception, Edward listened to the overtures of Louis XI, and on August 29th a peace was concluded at Pequigny. Louis agreed to pay down 75,000 crowns, and 50,000 more during the joint lives of himself and the English King, and it was stipulated that the Dauphin, when of age, should marry Edward’s eldest daughter. Louis is said to have obtained this peace by a liberal distribution of bribes to some of the chief English nobility. The most honorable part of it is the stipulation which he made for the release of his unfortunate kinswoman, Margaret of Anjou, for which he paid 50,000 crowns more. She was liberated from the Tower in the following January, and conducted into France.

The Duke of Burgundy had now leisure to turn his arms against the Duke of Lorraine, who, during the siege of Neuss, had joined the Swiss, had defied Charles in his camp, and had invaded and plundered Luxemburg. In order to explain this conduct of the Duke of Lorraine, we must trace his history a little further back. René of Anjou, titular King of the Sicilies, had succeeded to the duchy on the death of Charles of Lorraine, as his son-in-law; but his title was contested by Antony, Count of Vaudemont, nephew of Charles of Lorraine, who, with the help of the Duke of Burgundy, had defeated and captured René. René, to procure his release, was obliged to give his daughter Yolande in marriage to Antony’s son Frederick; and he afterwards vacated the duchy in favor of his son John, titular Duke of Calabria. John, on his death in 1470, was succeeded by his son Nicholas, the Prince to whom, as before mentioned, Charles the Bold offered his daughter; but Nicholas dying suddenly, in August, 1473, the duchy again reverted to René, who was still alive, but too old to reign, and it was conferred on his daughter Yolande. She vacated it in favor of René II, her youthful son by Frederick of Vaudemont, and thus it returned to the old House of Lorraine: but Charles the Bold, who hated and suspected that family, caused the young Duke to be seized, and carried into his own territories; nor would he release René till he had wrung from him a treaty which made Lorraine completely dependent on Burgundy. It was in revenge for this treatment that René II had joined Charles’s enemies, as before related.

After the peace with the Emperor, the Duke of Burgundy took the field against the Duke of Lorraine, having first concluded at Soleure a nine years’ truce with Louis XI. Each abandoned to the other his protégé—Louis, the Duke of Lorraine; Charles, the Constable of St. Pol, who had taken refuge at his Court. St. Pol had committed great treasons against the King; and he was brought to trial and beheaded on the Place de Grève, December 19th. The judicial execution of so great a noble­man, descended from the House of Luxemburg, and allied to most of the Sovereigns of Europe, showed that the times had much changed since the League of the Public Weal. Louis’s abandonment of René, though not so heartless as the conduct of Charles, who had trafficked with the life of the man who had trusted in him, was still a glaring example of his faithless policy; for he had sworn by the Pasque Dieu that if he thought René in danger, he would come to his assistance: yet he did not stir a finger. Lorraine fell an easy prey to Charles, who took Nancy before the end of November, 1475. Contrary to his usual custom, he spoke the inhabitants fair, declared his intention of making Nancy his residence, and of incorporating Lorraine in his dominions.

Charles next turned his arms against the Swiss, whom he hoped to overcome as easily as Lorraine. He had to deal, however, not only with the Swiss Confederates, but also with the German towns pledged to him by Sigismund of Tyrol. Charles had made himself personally unpopular with the Swiss and Alsatians by his proud and overbearing conduct; and the Alsatians were also further alienated by the insolence, cruelty, and extortion exercised by Charles’s bailiff, Peter von Hagenbach, and the knights whom he favored. This discontent was fomented by Duke Sigismund. Hagenbach was seized, brought to a solemn trial, and illegally sentenced to be executed at Breisach.

Louis had watched these political blunders of Charles, and he used all his endeavors to increase the animosity which they were naturally calculated to excite. He had contracted an alliance with Frederick III against the Duke of Burgundy; and though the enmity between the Swiss and the House of Habsburg seemed irreconcilable, yet, with the same view of injuring Charles, he had succeeded in bringing about a treaty between the Emperor and the Swiss League. Louis had himself formed, in January, 1474, a compact called the “Perpetual Alliance” with the eight Cantons of which the Swiss Confederacy then consisted; and this remarkable treaty served as the basis of all subsequent ones between France and Switzerland down to the French Revolution. It secured troops for the French Kings, subsidies for the Swiss proletarians, commissions and pensions for the higher classes. Louis promised yearly 20,000 francs in quarterly payments so long as he lived, and the Swiss undertook to provide soldiers whom he was to pay; the Cantons were to enter into no truce or alliance without the French King’s consent, and he on the other hand promised to make them parties to all his treaties. But though Louis had thus strengthened himself by alliances against the Duke of Burgundy, he did not openly break the truce which he had made with that Prince; and taking up his residence at Lyon, he remained on the watch for any opportunities which the rash expedition of Charles might throw in his way. The Burgundian army which marched against the Swiss in January, 1476, was chiefly composed, after feudal fashion, of men of various nations, called together only for a short time, and having different kinds of weapons and methods of fighting; so that they were no match for the Swiss and other German levies, composed of soldiers inured to arms, and exercised in military discipline. Charles was joined on his march by large bodies of Italians, whose leaders were men of the worst character; yet he gave them all his confidence. He had especially employed two Neapolitans to raise troops for him among the Italian bandits, James Galiotto and Count Campobasso; the latter of whom traitorously sold the Duke’s secrets to Louis XI, and hinted how the King might seize and murder him. A more respectable coadjutor was Frederick, son of the Neapolitan King Ferdinand, whom Charles had lured with the offer of his daughter. When the Swiss heard of the approach of the Duke of Burgundy, they were seized at first with fear. They represented to him that theirs was a poor country, and that the spurs and horses’ bits of the Burgundian knights were of more value than the whole Swiss League could pay, if captured, for their ransom; and they offered, but without effect, to restore the Pays de Vaud, which they had conquered from the Count of Romont, a Prince of the house of Savoy. The Pays de Vaud was occupied by the men of Berne, and they had garrisons also in Granson and Yverdon; but Charles’s army had already occupied the Jura district, when he himself appeared, early in the spring of 1476, before Granson, and took the town and castle. The Swiss army had concentrated itself at no great distance, and everybody advised Charles not to abandon his advantageous position, covered by the Lake of Neuchatel on one side, and by his artillery on the other. He was, however, too proud and rash to listen to any counsels, and on March 3rd he delivered battle. Nothing could be more unskillful than his array. He himself led the van, which, instead of consisting of bowmen and light troops for skirmishing, was composed of his choicest gens d'armes, and as the road was hemmed in by the lake and mountains, they had no room to deploy. To receive the charge, the Swiss had fixed the ends of their long lances in the earth; and in order to draw them from this position by a feint the Duke ordered his first line to retreat; but this maneuver alarmed the second line, which took to flight. At this crisis the troops of other Cantons arrived; the cry of Sauve qui peut! rose among the Burgundians; nothing could stop their flight, and the Duke himself was carried away by the stream of fugitives. But the loss was ridiculously small on both sides. The Swiss captured all the Duke’s artillery and camp, and rifled his vast and splendid tent. Among the spoils was the large diamond which had once sparkled in the diadem of the Great Mogul.

This victory, though so easily won, acquired great military reputation for the Swiss. But they did not use their advantage skillfully. Although they occupied the passes leading into Burgundy, they neglected those towards the Pays de Vaud, and Charles penetrated through thorn to Lausanne, in the neighborhood of which he long lay encamped, till his army was sufficiently recruited to venture another attack. He then marched against the town of Morat; but it was so valiantly defended during a fortnight by Hadrian of Bubenberg that the Swiss army had time to come to its relief. The united force of the Cantons had been joined by the nobility of Swabia and Tyrol, by the vassals of Duke Sigismund, and by the contingents of Basle and of the towns of Alsace; the young Duke René of Lorraine also fought with them. The Burgundian army is said to have been thrice as strong as the Swiss; yet the latter began the attack, June 22nd, and Charles again rashly abandoned an advantageous position to meet them. This time his defeat was bloody, as well as decisive. His loss is variously estimated at from 8,000 to 18,000 men, including many distinguished nobles and knights; among them the Duke of Somerset, who led a band of English archers in the service of Charles. Duke Charles, with only eleven attendants, after a flight of twelve leagues, arrived at Morges on the Lake of Geneva, and proceeded thence into Gex. He had sunk into the deepest despondency; he suffered his beard and nails to grow; and his countenance resembled that of a madman, so that his courtiers and servants feared to approach him.

René II took advantage of Charles’s distress to attempt the recovery of his Duchy of Lorraine; with which view he hired some Swiss and German mercenaries and opened a secret correspondence with Campobasso. With this force and the help of his own subjects, René drove the Burgundians from the open country into the town of Nancy, to which he laid siege. Rubempré the commandant relied for the defense of the place chiefly on a body of English archers, who not choosing to endure the famine which ensued in a cause in which they were engaged merely as mercenaries, compelled him to surrender the town (October, 1470). The rage of Charles at this news was uncontrollable; though winter was approaching, he resolved immediately to attempt the recovery of Nancy, which he instructed Campobasso to invest: and he himself joined the besieging army in December, though he had been able to procure but little aid from his subjects.

Meanwhile René was approaching to raise the siege with a well-disciplined army, which it was evident Charles’s force would be unable to withstand. Charles made an assault on the town, which was repulsed, and René then offered him battle, January 5th, 1477. Before it began, Campobasso went over to René with his Italian troops. Charles displayed both valor and conduct in the fight, and was well supported by his nobles; but it was from the first a hopeless struggle, and he was obliged to retreat towards Luxemburg. Campobasso, however, had taken up a position to intercept him; Charles’s army broke and fled in all directions, and he himself, urging his horse over a half-frozen brook, was immersed and killed unrecognized. Thus perished miserably, in the midst of his ambitious dreams, Charles of Burgundy, the great Duke of the West. The peasants now rose on all sides, and for many days Lorraine presented a scene of murder and pillage. On January 10th a messenger of René appeared before Louis XI to relate the finding of the Duke of Burgundy's body, and bearing with him Charles’s battered casque in proof of his tale. By this victory young René II recovered Lorraine.

LOUIS XI SEIZES BURGUNDY AND INVADE FLANDERS

Louis betrayed an indecent joy at the death of an enemy whom he had not ventured openly to oppose. He had begun to profit by the Duke’s misfortunes immediately after his defeat at Granson. He instituted a process for high treason in the Parliament of Provence against the aged René, who had assisted Charles: and to frighten the old man, a dreadful sentence was pronounced against him. But Louis then entered into negotiations with him; and he was compelled to make his daughter Margaret, just set free from her captivity in London, renounce the inheritance of Provence in favor of Charles du Maine, the childless son of her father's brother, at whose death in 1481 the County of Provence devolved to the French Crown. René was compensated with the Duchy of Bar, and the payment by Louis of Margaret’s ransom.

The death of Charles offered the opportunity of seizing Burgundy, the most important of all the French fiefs. Immediately on receiving intelligence of that event the King ordered La Trémouille, who commanded a corps of observation in the territory of Bar, and Chaumont d'Amboise, Governor of Champagne, to take military possession of both Burgundies, and to announce to the inhabitants his intention of affiancing Mary of Burgundy, his god-daughter, to the Dauphin. At the same time royal letters were addressed to the “good towns” of the Duchy to recall to their recollection that the said Duchy belonged to the Crown and Kingdom of France, though the King protested that he would protect the right of Mademoiselle de Bourgogne as if it were his own. Louis also revived his claim to Flanders, Ponthieu, Boulogne, Artois, and other lands and lordships previously held by the Duke of Burgundy. To conciliate John, Prince of Orange, whom he had formerly despoiled of his principality, and who had been confidentially employed by the Duke of Burgundy, the King named him his Governor in the Burgundian Duchy and County, and promised to restore his lands. Commissaries were appointed to take possession of Burgundy, who required the Burgundian States, assembled at Dijon, to do homage to the King of France: but the States raised a difficulty by asserting that they did not believe in Charles’s death; a very common opinion, though his body had been exhibited six days at Nancy. A report ran that he was a prisoner in Germany; another that he was hidden in the Forest of Ardennes. In their dilemma, the States appealed to Charles's daughter, Mary, and the faithful counselors by whom she was surrounded; who answered, that Louis’s claim to Burgundy was unfounded, that Duchy being in a different situation from other fiefs vested as appanages in French Princes; and at all events, if the King insisted on uniting Burgundy to the French Crown, that it contained several lordships to which he could make no pretensions; especially the Counties of Charolais, Macon, and Auxerre. The Burgundians, however, did not think it wise to incur Louis’s anger, and did him homage, January 10th, 1477; though a few towns, as Chalon, Beaune, Semur, made some show of resistance. Franche-Comté also submitted, though this province was feudally dependent, not on the Crown of France, but on the Empire.

Mary herself was in still greater embarrassment than the Burgundians. The different provinces of the Netherlands had their own separate rights and privileges, and all of them had more or less felt themselves aggrieved by the despotic and military authority exercised by Charles’s ministers. The wealthy and industrious citizens of Bruges, Antwerp, Brussels, and other towns had been oppressed and disgusted by the insolence and extortion of Charles’s nobles; and they rose in opposition to the collectors of the taxes. The States of Flanders assembled at Ghent, before they would support the government with their money, obtained a promise from Mary that their privileges should be confirmed, and the abuses of the previous government abolished. It was now that she granted to the Hollanders and Zealanders the charter called the Grand Privilege, by which all the effectual rights of sovereignty were transferred to the local States. Mary agreed by this instrument that she would neither raise taxes nor conclude a marriage without their consent; that they might assemble without her authority; that she would undertake no war, not even a defensive one, without their approval; that the right of coining money should be vested in them; lastly, that they should choose their own magistrates, she only enjoying the privilege of selecting from the names presented to her.

Meanwhile Louis was engaged in reducing the towns in Picardy. At Péronne he was waited on by Mary’s Chancellor, Hugonet, and the Sire d'Humbercourt, with a letter, in which she signified that the government was in her hands, naming the members of it, and that Hugonet and Humbercourt had full powers to treat. In reality, however, Mary was now entirely under the control of the Flemish States, who contemplated erecting a sort of Republic, and had appointed a regency quite independently of her. Louis listened not to her envoys, who had scarcely departed when a deputation came to him from the States of Flanders and Brabant to negotiate a peace; and they remarked that Mary was entirely guided by the advice of her three Estates.

“You are mistaken”, answered Louis; “Mademoiselle de Bourgogne conducts her affairs through people who do not wish for peace; you will be disavowed”, and he handed to the deputies the letter presented to him by Mary's envoys. The deputies returned in fury to Ghent, where they presented themselves at the levee of the Duchess to give a public account of their mission. When they mentioned the letter, Mary exclaimed that it was an imposture, and that she had never written anything of the kind. At these words the Pensionary of Ghent, the head of the deputation, drew the fatal dispatch from his bosom, and handed it to her before the assembly. Mary was struck dumb with astonishment and shame.

The same evening Hugonet and Humbercourt were arrested. They had previously been very unpopular; the people were lashed into fury against them by the addresses of certain intriguers; they were arraigned, and after being dreadfully tortured, were condemned to death. Having vainly entreated in their favor the judges at the Town Hall, Mary hastened to the Yrijdags Markt, where the people were assembled in arms; and ascending the balcony of the Hoog-Huys, with tearful eyes and disheveled hair, implored the people to spare her servants. Those in the neighborhood of the Hoog-Huys cried out that the prisoners should be spared; but the remoter crowd, who beheld not the spectacle of Mary’s touching grief, persisted in the sentence. After a short contention, the merciful party were forced to yield; and Mary returned to her palace, her heart swelling with unspeakable anguish at the treachery of Louis. Three days after Hugonet and Humbercourt were beheaded (April 3rd, 1477).

After this bloody catastrophe Louis altered his tone. He complained loudly of what had been done; stepped forward as the protector of Mary, who had been kept a kind of prisoner, and declared the democrats of Ghent and Bruges guilty of high treason. Nothing seemed to resist the progress of the French; they occupied Hainault, threatened Luxemburg, and penetrated into Flanders. At length Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres awoke, and put on foot an army of 20,000 men, though scarcely to be called soldiers. The command of them was given to the unnatural Adolf of Gelderland, who after the death of Charles had been liberated from imprisonment by the citizens of Ghent, and had set up pretensions to Mary’s hand. He led the Flemings to Tournay; but here the men of Bruges began to quarrel with the men of Ghent; the French seizing the opportunity, routed both, and Adolf of Gelderland, after a brave defense, was slain (June 27th, 1477).

MARRIAGE OF MAXIMILIAN AND MARY. 

Such was the end of one of Mary’s suitors. She had had several more: as the Dauphin; the son of the Duke of Cleves; the Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV; Lord Rivers, Edward’s brother-in-law, and others. Various circumstances had prevented the Emperor from pursuing the Burgundian match for his son during the lifetime of Charles, and indeed, as we have seen, he had been leagued with the Swiss against that Prince; but in April a formal embassy arrived at Bruges, whither Mary had withdrawn after the bloody scene at Ghent, to demand her hand for Maximilian. That prize was an object of so much contention and intrigue that it required all the address of Mary’s confidants, Madame Hallewyn, Olivier de la Marche, and Charles’s widow, Margaret of York, to procure the ambassadors an audience. It had been arranged by Mary’s council that she should postpone her reply; but when the ambassadors recalled to her recollection a written promise which she had made to marry Maximilian, and a ring which accompanied the letter, and inquired if she was willing to keep her promise, policy gave way to love, and she at once acknowledged her engagement. She was betrothed April 21st; but four months elapsed before the Austrian Prince came to seek his bride in Flanders. This was owing partly to the want of money, partly to the dilatoriness of Frederick. The bridegroom was so poor that Mary is said to have advanced him 100,000 florins in order that hoe might make a befitting appearance at Ghent. The marriage, which took place August 18th, 1477, laid the foundation of the increased greatness of the House of Austria.

The lands and towns of the Netherlands had employed the interval between the death of Charles and the betrothal of his daughter, not only to obtain from Mary the confirmation of their ancient privileges, but also to extort new ones. Maximilian, brought up in the tenets of the Habsburg family respecting the divine rights of Princes, looked with no favorable eye on these citizens; and his own character in turn was not much calculated to please a somewhat coarse commercial people. He was a polished knight and even a poet, after the fashion of those times; and worse still, a poring, tasteless devotee of the old school learning. Instead of marching against the French, who were burning several Belgian towns, he repeated at Bruges the celebration of his wedding, and then retired to Antwerp, where he lived in ease and luxury.

The attention of Louis, however, was diverted from Belgium by the affairs of Franche-Comté and Burgundy. Louis had got Franche-Comté, chiefly through the influence of John, Prince of Orange, whom, as we have said, he had made Governor of the Burgundies; but being jealous of Orange’s influence there, he soon began to raise up rivals against him, and he refused to restore John’s lands. This drove the Prince into open rebellion. He renewed his allegiance to Mary, whose father-in-law, the Emperor, in a proclamation, reminded the inhabitants of Franche-Comté of their duty to the Empire. The Prince of Orange at the head of a considerable force defeated Louis's lieutenant Craon, at Vesoul (March 19th, 1477), and took possession of that town, as well as of Rochefort and Auxerre, in the name of Mary. In this state of things Louis proposed a truce to Maximilian and Mary, to which they foolishly assented (September). The French King likewise secured himself on the side of England by renewing the truce of Pequigny for the term of his own life and that of Edward IV. The House of York was indeed hampered by its own home quarrels, in which, early in 1478, Clarence fell a victim to the unappeased resentment of the King and to the machinations of his brother the Duke of Gloucester. Louis is said to have been consulted respecting that unfortunate Prince, and not obscurely to have advised his death by quoting a line from Lucan.

In January, 1478, Maximilian and Mary purchased a peace with the Swiss League by the payment of 150,000 florins; but Louis was still able, by means of bribery, to secure the services of those venal mountaineers. Little, however, was done in that year, and in July the truce between the French King and the Netherland Sovereigns was renewed for a twelvemonth: only to be broken, however, in the spring of next year, when the Netherlanders resumed the offensive, seized Cambray, and invaded the Vermandois. Louis contented himself with holding them in check, and directed all his efforts towards Franche-Comté, where Chaumont d'Amboise, helped by large bodies of Swiss, soon overran the whole province. Dole, the capital town, though valiantly defended by the students of the University, who were cut to pieces in a sally, was taken, sacked, and burnt, when most of the other towns quietly submitted. Yet they were plundered by the Swiss, for pillage, as well as pay, was the motive of their service.

The French were not so successful in the Netherlands, where they had to contend with the terrible leaders of the Walloons; men whose character may be inferred from their names, as “the Boar of the Ardennes” and “the Bull-calf of Bouvignes”. These leaders, with the Prince of Chimai and others, invaded Luxemburg with 10,000 men. Maximilian himself entered Artois and Hainault, and completely defeated the French at Guinegate, a hill near Térouenne in Artois; but he neglected to make any good use of his victory, which, in fact, had cost him so dear that he had been obliged to abandon the siege of Térouenne. War was still conducted in a most barbarous manner. Maximilian caused the French commandant of the little town of Malaunoy to be hanged, because his stubborn resistance had delayed the Netherland army three days; and Louis, in retaliation, hanged near fifty of his prisoners of the highest rank: seven on the spot where his commandant had been executed, and ten before the gates of each of the four towns of Donay, St. Omer, Lille, and Arras. The letters of Louis at this period abound with a sinister gaiety; he talks of nothing but hanging and making heads fly.

The war after this period offers nothing worth recording. On August 27th, 1480, a truce was concluded for seven months, which was afterwards prolonged for a year. During this truce the King reviewed, near Pont-de-l'Arche, in Normandy, an army of 30,000 combatants, including 6,000 Swiss—the first instance on record of a camp of maneuver in time of peace. In 1481 died Charles du Maine, the last heir of the second Angevin House of Provence. The agreement by which Provence was to fall to the French Crown on this event has been already mentioned, and as Charles made Louis his universal heir, Anjou and Maine also fell to him, as well as the claims of the Angevin House on Naples: a fatal legacy, which Louis XI’s practical and prosaic mind neglected to pursue, but which was destined to be the source of many misfortunes to his successors. René had died in the previous year. The annexation of Provence with its ports made France a great Mediterranean Power.

Another important death was that of Mary of Burgundy, March 27th, 1482, in consequence of a fall from her horse at a hawking party near Bruges. She left a son and a daughter, Philip and Margaret; a second son, born in September, 1481, had died immediately after baptism. Mary with her last breath recommended her husband to the Flemings as the guardian of her son Philip, now four years of age; but they erected a kind of Republic, and paid not the slightest heed to Maximilian. He was recognized, indeed, as Regent in Hainault, Namur, Brabant, and some other lands where the Kabbeljauwen, or democratic party prevailed; but the Hoeks, or aristocrats, were against him, and the Flemings would not hear of his guardianship. The citizens of Ghent seized the person of young Philip, and the Flemish Notables, supported by a cabal long since entered into with the French King, appointed a regency of five nobles, who immediately began negotiations for peace with France. They opposed Maximilian on all points, even the disposal of his daughter, whom they wished to betroth to the Dauphin, and to send into France for her education.

The health of Louis was now fast declining. He had been struck with an apoplexy, which had impaired his mental as well as his bodily faculties, and had reduced him to a living skeleton; yet he still persisted in directing everything. He was grown so suspicious that he avoided all the large towns, and at length almost entirely confined himself to his Castle at Montils-lez-Tours, in Touraine, which, from the triple fortification of ditch, rampart, and palisades with which he surrounded it, obtained the name of Plessis. Forty crossbow-men lurked constantly in the entrenchment, and during the night shot at everybody who approached; while a strong guard surrounded the Castle and occupied the rooms. All round Plessis were to be seen corpses hanging on the trees; for Tristan l'Ermite, Provost of the Maréchaux, whom Louis called his compère, or gossip, caused persons to be tortured and hanged without much troubling himself for proofs of their misdeeds.

Louis had sent his wife into Dauphiné; his son was educating, or rather growing up without education, at his birthplace, the Castle of Amboise. Louis was accustomed to say that he would always be wise enough if he knew these five Latin words: Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare. Even Louis’s daughter Anne, and her husband, the Sire de Beaujeu, were rarely permitted to see the King, though they had always been faithful and affectionate. He was attended only by astrologers and physicians, and some of those low people in whose society he delighted. In order to divert himself, he sent for rare animals from distant climes, and hired musicians and peasants, who danced before him the dances of their countries. From the King’s fear of death, Jacques Coithier, his physician, gained a great ascendency over him, and being a brutal and avaricious man, extorted 10,000 gold crowns a month, besides making the King give him several lord-ships and the presidency of the Chambre des Comptes. Pope Sixtus IV, aware of the King’s abject superstition, sent him so many relics from Rome that the people became riotous at the spoliation of the churches. Among them were the corporal, or linen cloth, on which “Monseigneur St. Pierre” had said Mass, the rods of Moses and Aaron, &c. Yet, which is a most singular trait in his character, Louis remained to the day of his death inaccessible to the influence of the clergy.

DEATH OF LOUIS AND THE REGENCY OF ANNE OF FRANCE

It was from such a retreat that Louis pushed his old policy of bribery, espionage, and cabal, with more vigor than ever. We have already alluded to his intrigues with the Flemings: he caballed not only with the Flemish aristocracy, but also with the demagogues of Ghent. Maximilian, who kept memoranda of all the insults and injuries he had ever received from the French, maintained the war as a sort of point of honor, though it had been unattended with any important operations; but his influence ceased with the death of his wife, and he concluded a peace at Arras, December 23rd, 1482. The principal article stipulated a marriage of Margaret, Maximilian’s daughter, then two years old, with the Dauphin Charles, and that she should be brought up in France. Artois and Franche-Compté, with Auxerre, Macon, Noyers, Bar-aur-Seine, and the Charolais, were to be her dowry; but the Duchy of Burgundy was left to Louis. On the other hand, the lands forming her dowry were to revert to her brother Philip if the marriage was not consummated, or if Margaret died without children. In pursuance of the treaty, the infant Margaret was carried to Paris.

Louis XI died August 30th, 1483, in his sixty-first year. He was a bad man but a politic King, and laid the foundation of that centralization and that absoluteness of the French monarchy which were at length brought to completion by Cardinal Richelieu. In these plans, however, Louis was much assisted by fortunate circumstances. The death of his brother gave him Guienne; that of Charles the Bold enabled him to take possession of Burgundy; while Anjou, Maine, and Provence fell to him by the extinction of the House of Anjou. Louis favored industry, and encouraged all ranks of men, even ecclesiastics and nobles, to devote themselves to commerce; he planted mulberry trees, and endeavored to introduce the culture of the silkworm into France; he brought skillful workmen from Italy to establish the manufacture of stuffs of gold, silver, and silk; and Tours became under his auspices what Lyon is now on a larger scale. Yet in spite of the favor he had always shown to the middling and trading classes, he was as unpopular among them as he was among the nobility. It was indeed impossible that such a character should inspire love; and even without any personal considerations, and merely in a political point of view, the popularity which his other measures were likely to win was forfeited by the heavy taxes which his system of policy compelled him to impose. Taxation had been almost tripled since the death of Charles VII, owing to the large army maintained by Louis, the number of his spies and secret agents, and the vast sums which he spent in bribery and corruption in most of the Courts of Europe. Louis XI was the first French King to assume officially and permanently the titles of “Most Christian King” and “Majesty”, though the former had been occasionally used before.

Charles VIII, the son and successor of Louis, was in his fourteenth year at the time of his father’s death, and therefore, according to the ordinance of Charles V, had attained his majority. But though there was no occasion for a regency, Charles’s tender years, coupled with his feebleness both of mind and body, rendered him unfit immediately to assume the reins of government; and Louis had foreseen and provided for this contingency by naming Charles’s sister, Anne, who was eight years his senior, to carry on the government till her brother should be in condition to undertake it. Anne had secured the favor and approbation of Louis by many qualities which resembled his own; and he was wont to say of her, in his usual cynical way, that “she was the least foolish of any woman in the world: for as to a wise woman there is none”. Her masculine understanding and courage would indeed have rendered her worthy of the throne of France, if it could have devolved to a female. Anne’s husband, Peter of Bourbon, Lord of Beaujeu—whence she was commonly called “la Dame de Beaujeu”—a man of good sense and some practical ability, was little consulted by her in the administration of affairs, though a useful instrument in carrying out her views.

Louis Duke of Orleans, who had married Jeanne, second surviving daughter of Louis XI, and who, as first Prince of the Blood, considered himself entitled to direct the King, felt himself aggrieved by this arrangement. The first days of emancipation from the iron rod of his father-in-law were, however, devoted not to ambition, but to pleasure. This young Prince of twenty-one was united to an ugly wife, for whom he felt no affection; and immediately after the King's death he began a round of dissipation, in which women, dice, tournaments, and the luxuries of the table succeeded one another. He soon, however, occupied himself with the more dangerous schemes of ambition, and entered into intrigues with Maximilian of Austria, Francis II, Duke of Brittany, and several of the French nobles; and thinking to obtain his ends through the people, he persuaded the Council to summon the Etats-Généraux to meet at Tours, January 5th, 1484.

To divert the storm which she foresaw, Anne sought by her measures to gain the love and confidence of the people. She threw aside the hated tools of her father, and among them Oliver Necker, who was condemned to death for various crimes, one of the blackest being his having caused a prisoner to be executed whose wife had sacrificed to him her honor as the price of her husband’s life. Even Philippe de Comines was compelled to retire. The taxes which weighed heaviest on the people were abolished, and a body of 6,000 Swiss, besides other mercenaries, was dismissed. With the princes and nobles Anne adopted the politic arts of her father, and gained many of them to her cause by a skillful distribution of money and honors; and by these means she contrived to render the proceedings of the Etats harmless.

The Duke of Orleans, however, was not appeased by the pensions and honors which she had bestowed on him, and some disturbances in Brittany afforded him an opportunity to display his discontent. Pierre Landais, a tailor by origin, the minister and favorite of Duke Francis, had driven the Breton barons to revolt by his cruelties, who, having failed in an attempt to seize him at Nantes, had assembled at Ancenis; and hereupon Landais, with consent of Francis, invited the Duke of Orleans into Brittany, holding out to him the prospect of marrying Francis’s eldest daughter and heiress, although negotiations were actually on foot for betrothing her to the Archduke Maximilian. Francis himself was the last male representative of the House of Montfort; but he had two daughters, Anne and Isabella, and as Brittany was not a male fief, it would of course descend to the elder. The Duke of Orleans listened to the proposal, and in April, 1484, proceeded into Brittany; but the story of his having been captivated by the personal charms of Anne can hardly be true, as that Princess was then only seven years of age.

The Breton nobles were now proceeded against with the greatest rigor. Their houses were razed, their woods cut down, and in their despair they resorted to the French Regent for protection, binding themselves by oath to acknowledge the French King as their natural lord after the death of Duke Francis, with reservation, however, of the ancient laws and customs of Brittany. On the other hand, the Duke of Orleans, proclaiming that he intended to deliver the King from those who held him prisoner, formed a league with Count Dunois, the Duke of Alençon, the old Constable of Bourbon, and other malcontent lords; and he persuaded the Parliament of Paris to annul the decree of the Etats-Généraux which invested Anne with the regency. But the machinations of this faction were disconcerted by the death of Landais, who was the soul of it. Duke Francis and his minister having dispatched an army to reduce the malcontent barons at Ancenis, the ducal forces, inspired by the universal hatred against Landais, joined the insurgents, and marched upon Nantes; the inhabitants of that city rose, Landais was seized in the very chamber of the Duke, and hanged after a summary process, July 18th, 1485.

ACCESSION OF HENRY VII IN ENGLAND

The Duke of Orleans and the confederate lords had also lost an ally by the revolution which placed Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, on the throne of England. The flight of that Prince to Brittany after the battle of Tewkesbury, in 1474, and his abortive expedition to England after the death of Edward IV, in which, with a view to effect a marriage between him and the heiress of Brittany, he had been assisted by Landais, are well known to the English reader. About Christmas, 1483, the English emigrants in Brittany, who were pretty numerous, held a meeting in Rennes Cathedral, and swore allegiance to Henry, on condition that he should marry the eldest daughter of Edward IV. The news of this proceeding caused Richard III to strain every nerve to get rid of Richmond; and Landais, who found his own designs frustrated by the projected marriage between Henry and Elizabeth of York, entered into negotiations with Richard. The English King promised military aid against the insurgent Breton barons, engaged to confer the estates and honors of Richmond on the Duke of Brittany, and to present Landais with the confiscated properties of the English emigrants, on his undertaking to seize and imprison Henry; but the latter having got intelligence of this design, escaped with great difficulty into Anjou a little before the day appointed for its execution; and Duke Francis, who does not appear to have known the whole extent of his minister's base plan, dismissed the other English emigrants, who were received and sheltered by the French Regent. In 1485, Richmond, with the help of the French Court, made preparations in Normandy for another invasion of England. The Regent was induced to take this step by Richmond’s promise to convert the truce between England and France into a peace, and to withdraw the pretensions of the English Crown to Normandy, Guienne, and the other lands which had formerly belonged to it. The result of Richmond’s second attempt we need not detail. He sailed from Harfleur August 1st, 1485, with less than 2,000 men, and landing at Milford Haven, was joined by large bodies of Welsh and English; Richard was defeated and slain in the battle of Bosworth, August 22nd; and Richmond mounted the throne of England with the title of Henry VII.

By the death of Landais and of his ally Richard III the French confederate lords found all the plans of their faction disconcerted; and although they had armed their vassals and hirelings, they were glad to submit to the terms dictated by the Regent Anne. Dunois was banished to Asti, in Piedmont, a town belonging, by maternal descent, to the Duke of Orleans; while the Duke himself was obliged to allow the King’s troops to take possession of all his fortresses. The Constable of Bourbon escaped with impunity, in consideration of his great age, and because the Regent's husband was his brother and heir. The Duke of Brittany, in a treaty concluded at Bourges (November), acknowledged himself the vassal of France, though the question whether he owed simple or liege homage was left in abeyance, and thus ended what has been called la guerre folle, or the foolish war. But a step of the Regent Anne, who in order to strengthen her brother’s claim to Brittany procured from the house of Penthièvre a confirmation of their transfer, in the preceding reign, of their pretensions to Brittany to the French Crown, occasioned another war. Francis was so incensed by the Regent’s act that he called the Breton States together in 1486, and extorted an oath from them on the consecrated Host, the Gospels, and the relics of the Holy Cross, that after his death they would recognize his two daughters as the only true heirs of the Duchy, and would oppose with all their might any other pretenders. He also formed, in 1486, a fresh coalition among the French Princes, which included, besides the Duke of Orleans, Dunois, who had now returned from Asti, the Count of Angouleme, the whole house of Foix, the Sire d'Albret, and his son John (who had become by marriage King of Navarre), the Prince of Orange, the Governor of Guienne, the Duke of Lorraine, and several other princes. The hope that the Archduke Maximilian, who had hitherto been prevented by troubles in his own dominions from accomplishing anything for his confederates, would now be able to assist them, in a great degree prompted this new coalition. But we must here take a brief view of these disturbances.

FLANDERS

In 1485 Maximilian seemed to have brought his disputes with his Netherland subjects and neighbors to a happy termination. Having quieted the disturbances in Liege, Utrecht, and Holland, he had leisure to proceed against the Flemings, who had forced him to entrust his son Philip to their guardianship, just as they had obliged him to send his daughter Margaret into France. Appearing before Ghent, the seat of the Flemish Regency, he compelled it to a capitulation, by which he recovered the guardianship of his son Philip. He now deprived Ghent of its fortifications and artillery; he imposed taxes, publicly tore the charter of the city, abolished the democratic government of the guilds, and established in its place an aristocratic council. In February, 1486, he had been elected King of the Romans, and in the following April he was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle by the Archbishop of Cologne.

Maximilian now determined on breaking the treaty of Arras, and entering Artois with a considerable army, he took Térouenne and Sens; but Crevecoeur, the French general, by keeping within the fortified places, exhausted Maximilian's resources, and obliged him to dismiss his mercenaries and retreat. In the following year, 1487, the French took St. Omer, and gained a victory near Béthune. The war, however, was carried on by neither side with vigor. Maximilian was now involved in contentions with Ghent and Bruges, which prevented his making any vigorous diversions in favor of the confederates; whilst the Regent wished to destroy their faction before putting forth her whole strength in Artois.

The disturbances in Flanders soon assumed a very serious aspect. Maximilian having caused Adrian de Vilain, one of the Ghent demagogues, to be seized and carried off to Brabant, the prisoner contrived to escape by the way, and returning to Ghent, succeeded in exciting an insurrection. Meanwhile Maximilian had been entrapped to Bruges by a stratagem. Against the advice of all his friends, he accepted the invitation of the inhabitants to attend the celebration of Candlemas; but he had not been long there when news arrived that Ghent was in full revolt (February 10th, 1488); and on Maximilian’s preparing to proceed thither, the citizens of Bruges shut their gates, and tumultuously demanded the dismissal of his obnoxious counselors. Maximilian, who had displayed considerable intrepidity in this conjuncture, was at last obliged to take refuge in the house of a grocer in the market-place, where he was made prisoner. His suite were pursued by the infuriated populace; several were seized and tortured, and sixteen put to death, among whom was Peter de Langhals, the schout or Mayor of Bruges. In vain did the States of the other provinces threaten and remonstrate. Maximilian was kept prisoner till May 16th, nor was he released till he had agreed to a burdensome and disgraceful capitulation, and given three of the leading nobles as hostages for its performance. By this capitulation he promised the Flemish malcontents to observe the treaty of Arras; to renounce the guardianship of his son Philip, so far as Flanders was concerned; to restore popular government in Ghent and Bruges; and to withdraw his German troops from Flanders within three days, and from the rest of the Netherlands within eight. He was obliged to read these conditions from a lofty scaffold erected in the market-place, and to swear in the most solemn manner to observe them.

These occurrences prevented Maximilian from assisting the French princes. A want of concert also prevailed among them. By prompt action the Regent succeeded in occupying Guienne, the seat of the greatest danger, and in compelling the submission of Angouleme and D'Albret. The rest of the malcontents fled to Brittany; but the principal nobles of that duchy, in number more than fifty, were jealous of the Duke of Orleans, and suspected some of the other confederates of treachery; and they entered into an agreement with the French Court to compel Duke Francis to dismiss them. Accordingly, when a royal army entered Brittany, Francis found himself deserted by a great part of his troops.

We shall not pursue the details of the war which followed. In May, 1488, the Dukes of Brittany and Orleans were declared guilty of high treason, and to enforce this decree against them, a fresh army of 12,000 men, under La Trémouille, was dispatched into Brittany. The malcontents were completely defeated in the battle of St. Aubin du Cormier, July 28th, 1488, when the Duke of Orleans and the Prince of Orange were made prisoners. Among the forces of the Duke of Brittany was a body of 400 English archers, commanded by Lord Woodville, brother of the Queen Dowager, who had obtained secret permission from Henry VII to lead them into Brittany. After the defeat, Woodville and all the English were mercilessly put to death by the French; as well as a body of Bretons accoutered in the garb of Englishmen, and wearing the red cross in order to strike greater terror into the enemy. The Prince of Orange had put on the red cross, and only saved himself by tearing it off, and hiding himself under some dead bodies. He was sent to the Castle of Angers. The Duke of Orleans, after being carried to several fortresses, was at length confined in the Tower of Bourges.

After this defeat the rest of Brittany speedily submitted, and Duke Francis was obliged to accept at Sablé the hard conditions imposed upon him in the name of Charles VIII; one of the principal of which was that neither of his daughters should be given in marriage without the French King’s consent. Scarce was the treaty signed when Francis died, September 9th, 1488; upon which the Council of France immediately claimed the guardianship of his daughters, and required that the eldest, Anne, should not assume the title of Duchess till commissioners had decided between her claims and those of Charles. Francis by his will had appointed the Marshal de Rieux to be Regent, or protector, of the Duchy, and guardian of his daughters. Rieux would have married Anne, who had not yet attained her twelfth year, to the Sire d'Albret, who was at least forty-five, though Anne showed the greatest repugnance to the match; and as Rieux pressed his plan, and as great part of Brittany was occupied by French troops, Anne fled to Redon, and afterwards took up her abode at Bonnes by invitation of the citizens, where she patiently awaited the aid promised by Henry VII of England.

The alliance of that cautious and niggardly monarch had been sought both by the Regent of France and the Duke of Brittany; the former had pressed, if not for help, at least for neutrality; while Francis had urged all his former services towards Henry as a claim for his support. The English King, with his usual temporizing policy and aversion to war, had left matters to take their course, trusting that Brittany would prove a match for the French arms; and had only rendered the small and indirect assistance of Woodville’s corps. But the warlike spirit and old animosity of the English towards the French revived at the prospect of Brittany being swallowed up by France, and Henry saw himself under the necessity of taking some decisive step. In the present temper of the English nation it was not difficult to procure a considerable subsidy; and by a treaty concluded with the Marshal de Rieux, Henry agreed to maintain at least 6,000 men in Brittany from February till November, 1489; the cost of which, however, he was to be repaid, and to receive two seaport towns as security. One of the conditions of the treaty was, that the hand of Anne should not be disposed of without Henry's consent. Alliances were at the same time made with Maximilian and with Ferdinand of Aragon.

In pursuance of this treaty, the English landed in Brittany early in 1489, under command of Lord Willoughby de Broke, and in May, 2,000 Spaniards made a descent in Morbihan. The French retired into their garrisons, and left the English and their allies masters of the open country, hoping to wear them out by the length and desultory nature of the warfare. And so indeed it proved; for the English, finding they could get no assistance from the feeble and divided Court of Brittany, departed when the term of their engagement had expired, without having achieved anything considerable.

Rieux had brought Henry to consent to Anne’s marriage with the Sire d'Albret; but the aversion of Anne, seconded by the Breton Chancellor Montauban, who represented that Albret’s power was not sufficient to be of any use to Anne in her present necessities, at length obtained a commutation of this marriage for one with Maximilian, which was celebrated by proxy in 1490. But neither was Maximilian in condition to lend any effectual assistance; and all that Anne obtained by this union was the title of Queen of the Romans.

MAXIMILIAN AND THE FLEMINGS. 

We shall here resume Maximilian’s history. The Emperor Frederick III would not acknowledge the capitulation which his son had made with the Flemings, and he endeavored to raise an army in order to take vengeance on them for the insult offered to the Empire by the imprisonment of the King of the Romans. The Diet assembled for that purpose produced, however, little but long speeches; and but for the zeal and patriotism of Duke Albert of Saxony, who furnished troops from his own resources, nothing could have been attempted in the Netherlands. Frederick accompanied the Imperial army of which Duke Albert was general; and in a Diet held at Mechlin he procured the treaty extorted from Maximilian to be annulled, and the warmest resolutions to be adopted against the Flemings. The war which followed, however, does not present any events of importance. The siege of Ghent was attempted, but abandoned (July, 1488); and the French, on their side, alarmed at the prospect of having to contend at once with Germany, England, and Aragon, did not venture to attack Duke Albert. In 1489 the Regent Anne made proposals for a peace to the German States assembled at Frankfurt; and though Maximilian was at first averse to it, a treaty was concluded by the advice of the German Princes, July 22nd, on the basis of that of Arras. Charles VIII promised his friendly intervention to restore the obedience of the provinces of Flanders, Brabant, and their adherents to Maximilian, and he engaged to re-establish in their lands, Albret, Dunois, and their allies, Maximilian making the same promise with regard to the adherents of France in the Netherlands; but the question respecting the liberation of the Duke of Orleans, as well as some other points, was referred to an interview to take place in three months between the Most Christian King and the King of the Romans. Charles agreed to evacuate his acquisitions in Brittany, but certain conditions were attached which afforded a loophole for opening up the whole treaty.

The assistance of the French being thus withdrawn from his domestic enemies, Maximilian soon got the better of them. Having assembled his Kabbeljauwen adherents at Leyden, under the name of the States of Holland, he pursued the war with the Hoeks, and took from them the town of Rotterdam. The Flemish towns and Philip of Cleves, their leader, now submitted, and a treaty was concluded, October 1st, 1489, by which they agreed to recognize Maximilian as Regent, to pay him a compensation of 300,000 gold pieces, and to compel the counselors who were in office at the time of his imprisonment to ask pardon on their knees, bare­headed, dressed in black, and without their girdles. Having brought the affairs of the Netherlands to this happy conclusion, Maximilian proceeded into Austria, leaving Albert of Saxony, the Count of Nassau, and the Prince of Chimai stadholders in the Low Countries. In the following year their fleet of thirty-eight ships, commanded by Jan van Egmont, obtained a complete victory over that of the Hoeks, July 21st, 1490, and captured the Hoek leader, Francis van Brederode, who died soon afterwards of his wounds. Duke Albert remained Imperial Stadholder in the Netherlands till his death in 1500.

We have mentioned Maximilian’s marriage with Anne of Brittany in 1490. The method of its celebration by proxy, conducted after a German fashion, afforded the French some merriment. The Duchess being put to bed, a naked sword was placed at her side, and Maximilian’s representative, the Count of Nassau, holding his credentials in his hand, placed his naked leg next to the sword. This laughable consummation was at first regarded as legal; but as Maximilian delayed to appear in Brittany, the French jurists found occasion to declare the wedding null; and their decision was confirmed by a decree of the Council, which pronounced the ceremony an unseemly trick. In fact the French Court had determined that the heiress of Brittany should marry Charles VIII; and the Sire d'Albret, then commandant of Nantes, who had given up all hope of Anne for himself, was bribed to forward their views by a large sum of money, a pension of 25,000 francs, the restitution of his lands, and other favors. Early in 1491 Albret betrayed Nantes to the French. The young Duchess, who was at Rennes, was now in a dangerous position, and Maximilian’s lieutenants were precluded from lending her any aid by insurrections in the Netherlands. The heavy taxes and the tampering with the currency had caused symptoms of rebellion in Ghent. In Friesland, Jan van Egmont having put two men to death for refusing to pay the tax called Knight-Money, the people rose and assembled under a banner in which was depicted a loaf and cheese; whence these insurgents were called the bread-and-cheese folk. Towards the end of 1491 they seized Alkmaar. A third insurrection was excited by the French, who persuaded the young Duke of Gelderland, then in their custody, to make an attempt for the recovery of his Duchy, and they supported him with 1000 horse. His cause was also espoused by Robert and Eberhard de la Mark, by the Bishop of Liege, and by René II, Duke of Lorraine.

CHARLES VIII BEGINS TO REIGN. 

Meanwhile Charles VIII, qualified by his advancing years, had begun to take a greater share in the government. The Sire de Beaujeu, husband of the Regent Anne, had become Duke of Bourbon by the death of his elder brother in April, 1488; he and his consort often retired to their estates, and Anne no longer appeared so frequently in the Council, though her influence continued paramount with the King. The first decisive step by which the King showed that he was no longer in tutelage, was the liberation of his brother-in-law, the Duke of Orleans. Notwithstanding the Duke’s neglect of Jeanne, and his project of obtaining a divorce, she was devotedly attached to him; she had insisted on sharing his captivity, and had frequently, but in vain, implored her sister, the Regent, for his liberation. She had more success with Charles. She threw herself at his feet, and by tears and entreaties obtained her prayer; though Charles could not help remarking, that he prayed Heaven she might never have cause to repent it. One evening, on pretense of hunting, Charles rode towards the Tower of Bourges, and stopping at a little distance, sent for the Duke of Orleans. It was nearly three years since Louis had crossed the threshold of his prison. As he approached the King, he threw himself on his knees and burst into tears, while the King fell on his neck, and gave him every token of esteem and affection. A solid proof of these sentiments was his bestowing the government of Normandy on Louis (May, 1491).

After his liberation, the Duke of Orleans abandoned all his designs upon Anne of Brittany, from gratitude both to his wife and to the King; and indeed any further prosecution of them would have been unavailing. Charles VIII having entered Brittany with large forces, and sat down before Rennes, where the Duchess was residing, her counselors and friends advised her to capitulate. On November 10th a treaty was made, by which Charles and Anne agreed to refer their respective claims to the decision of twenty-four commissaries; Rennes was to be placed in the hands of the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon; and a pension of 40,000 crowns was assured to Anne in case her pretensions were rejected. Anne also stipulated that she should have liberty to retire into Germany to her husband, the King of the Romans. But this was only meant for the public eye, and to deceive the representative of Maximilian. In secret another engagement had been entered into, which was to deprive that Prince at once of a wife and a son-in-law.

It has been already related that Charles VIII had been affianced to Maximilian’s daughter, Margaret of Austria, who had been sent into France for her education. Her tender years, for she was now only eleven, had prevented the consummation of the marriage, and Charles resolved to substitute Anne of Brittany in her place. The acquisition of that Duchy seemed to outweigh the probable loss of Artois and Franche-Comté, the dowry of Margaret. On the very day that the treaty was signed, the King entered Rennes, and had a long conversation with the Duchess; and three days afterwards they were secretly betrothed. The King then set off for Langeais in Touraine, where he was soon joined by Anne, and their marriage was publicly solemnized, December 6th, 1491. Anne was then close on fifteen; Charles twenty-one. By the marriage contract, they mutually assigned to each other their pretensions to the Duchy, and Anne, whose sister had died the year before, engaged, in case she should survive the King, not to contract a second marriage, except with a future King of France or his heir.

The couple thus singularly united formed the most striking contrast, both in mind and person. Anne was eminently handsome, of majestic presence, of bold and energetic character; while Charles was deformed in body, and in mind weak and fantastic. A celebrated Italian physiognomist of that age describes him as having a great head, a long nose, and large prominent eyes; though his body was robust, his legs were weak and slender. Brantôme, and some other French writers, have characterized him as a great King, apparently from admiration of his extravagant plans of ambition, though he was entirely deficient in the qualities necessary for their execution. He seems indeed to have possessed courage, and a certain goodness of heart; but he was so illiterate as scarcely to be able to read; he was without prudence or judgment, and averse to all labor and application.

The rage and astonishment of Maximilian at the news of the double injury inflicted on him may be imagined. Thoughts of vengeance immediately rose in his mind, but without any prospect of being able to gratify it; for he could expect assistance neither from the Empire nor from the Netherlander; his only hope rested on England, which he thought would not suffer Brittany to be incorporated with France. Henry VII, however, though he allied himself with Maximilian, was moved thereto rather by the hope of extracting supplies from his subjects than by any serious idea of making war upon France. Maximilian addressed long, but unheeded, manifestoes to the European Courts, in which he satisfactorily proved how much he had been wronged; and he sent the Count of Nassau to Paris to demand back his daughter Margaret and her dowry; but the French King, relying on the cabals and disturbances which he hoped to excite in Flanders, returned an evasive answer.

The greater part of the year 1492 elapsed without much being done. Henry VII had procured large sums from his Parliament on pretext of the war, which had excited considerable enthusiasm in England; nothing less was dreamt of than the conquest of France, and many pledged or sold their manors to appear in the field and partake the expected triumph. Yet, though Henry declared himself ready for action in May, the expedition was put off under various pretenses till October, when 1500 English men-at-arms and 25,000 foot sat down before Boulogne. Henry, however, had been long before negotiating with the French Government, and on September 3rd, a formal treaty was concluded at Etaples. By subsequent conventions (November 3rd and December 13th) Charles VIII engaged to pay Henry within fifteen years 620,000 gold crowns in the name of Anne of Brittany, as an indemnity for the cost of the English succors; also 125,000 gold crowns in his own name, as arrears of a pension formerly promised to the Kings of England for a hundred years by Louis XI through his plenipotentiary, the Bishop of Elne, though Louis himself had never ratified it, and had broken off all connection with England after the death of Edward IV. Henry VII excused himself to his subjects for this peace by alleging that he could expect no help either from Maximilian or Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. These Sovereigns indeed concluded a treaty with Charles at Barcelona January 19th, 1493, by which the latter, in his anxiety to remove all obstacles to the Neapolitan expedition that he was contemplating, restored to them Roussillon and Cerdagne, without exacting the repayment of the sums formerly advanced by Louis XI on these two counties. The recovery of these provinces was regarded by the Spaniards as only second in importance to their recent conquest of Granada, for they opened to the French the passes of the Pyrenees.

The war with Maximilian now alone prevented Charles from crossing the Alps. Maximilian had met with some successes. Arras had been delivered to him, while a general insurrection had broken out in Franche-Comté after the repudiation of Margaret. The French arms would no doubt have retrieved these checks; but negotiations were opened, and a peace concluded between Charles and Maximilian at Senlis, May 23rd, 1493. The Princess Margaret, Maximilian’s daughter, was given up as well as the provinces which formed her dowry, a few towns exempted, which were to be permanently retained, and a few others which were to be held till the majority of Maximilian’s son Philip. Margaret afterwards contracted two unfortunate marriages; first, with Don Juan heir of Castile, and after his premature death, with Philibert, Dulco of Savoy, who also died, leaving her a second time a widow, at the age of twenty-four. At a later period, under Charles V, she became renowned as the prudent and politic Governess of the Netherlands.

By these sacrifices in order to obtain a peace with his immediate neighbors did Charles prepare for his rash expedition into Italy; but before relating the events which it produced we must return to the affairs of that country and of the rest of Europe.

CHAPTER IV

AFFAIRS OF ITALY. SPANISH HISTORY DOWN TO THE CONQUEST OF GRANADA. AFFAIRS OF HUNGARY, THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA TILL 1492