BURGUNDY
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BURGUNDY
having been half devoured by wolves (5 January,
1477).
Mary and the "Great Privilege". — This catastro- phe left the Burgundian estates in a most critical condition. The sole heir to all these provinces, Mary of Burgundy, who was then barely twenty years old, beheld storms gathering both within and without. The King of France seized the Duchy of Burgundy as a male fief of the Crown and also the cities of the Somme and held up the other provinces to tempt the cupidity of neighbouring princes. The large cities of Flanders roused by Louis' confederates, grew restless and the States-General, convened in Febru- ary, 1477, obliged the young duchess to grant the "Great Privilege". This famous act was a violent reaction not only against the despotic tendencies of preceding governments, but also against all their work of unification; it destroyed central institutions and re- duced the Burgundian States to nothing but a sort of a federation of provinces combined under the regime of personal union. Not content with this, the people of Ghent brought to the scaffold Hugonet and d'Hum- bercourt, Mary's two faithful counsellors, whom they looked upon as representatives of the deceased duke's absolutist regime. Satisfied that the country was sufficiently weakened and disorganized, Louis XI threw off the mask and ordered his army into Artois and Hainault. The imminence of danger seemed to revive a spirit of loyalty in the Burgundian provinces and the marriage of Mary and Maximilian of Haps- burg, son of Frederick III, was hastened. This marriage saved the inheritance of the young princess but, as we shall see, it resulted in thereafter making the Netherlands dependent upon foreign dynasties. Meanwhile Maximilian vigorously repulsed the French in the battle of Guinegate (1479). Unfortunately Mary of Burgundy died in 1482 from injuries sus- tained in a fall from her horse, and Maximilian's claim to the right of governing the provinces in the capacity of regent during the minority of his son Philip, roused the indignation of the States-General, which were led by the three large Flemish cities of Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres. Duped by Louis XI they concluded with him the second Peace of Arras (1482) which gave the hand of their Princess Margaret to the Dauphin, with Artois and Burgundy for her dower, and Maximilian was deprived of his children who were provided with a regency council. This was the origin of a desperate struggle between himself and the States-General during which he was made prisoner by the people of Bruges, and it was with the greatest difficulty that he obtained his freedom. Immediately upon his release he began again to con- tend with the States, which eventually were obliged to submit to his power (1492), and the treaty of Senlis with France restored Artois to Maximilian with his daughter Margaret (1493). In this same year Maximilian became emperor and liberated his son Philip who assumed the government of the Netherlands.
Phili/i the Handsome. — The reign of Philip the Handsome, which lasted thirteen years, promised Belgium an era of self-government and independence, but his marriage with Joanna of Castile only paved the way for its dependence on a foreign sovereign as, on the death of the son of Ferdinand the Catholic ami Isabella, it was Philip who. in the name of his wife, became King of Castile. However, he died in 1.506 and as his father-in-law, Ferdinand, soon fol- lowed him to the tomb, it was Charles, son of Philip
the Handsome, who inherited all the great Spanish monarchy "on which the sun never set", the Nether- lands being thenceforth only a dependency of his chief kingdom. But at first this was not noticeable. Charles, who was also the emperor (with the title of Charles "V), travelled much and paid frequent visits to the Netherlands, showing a special predilection
for his Flemish fellow-cotmtrymen and knowing how
to make himself popular among them. He confided
their country to the care of his aunt, Margaret of
Austria, and later to that of his sister, Mary of Hun-
gary (1531-5.5), both talented women and of great
service to him. Charles' reign represents the maxi-
mum of political and commercial prosperity in the
Netherlands to which he annexed the city of Tournai
(1521), the provinces of Friesland (1.523), Utrecht
and Overyssel (1.528), Groningen and Drenthe (1536),
and the Duchy of Guelderland (1543). Thus the
patrimony was definitively settled and known there-
after as the Seventeen Provinces. By his Pragmatic
Sanction of 1549 Charles Y declared this domain an
indivisible whole and nothing contributed more to
the formation of national unity. He sundered the
ties of vassalage that bound Flanders to the Kingdom
of France, and although emperor, permitted the
authority of the empire to come to naught in the prov-
inces west of the Scheldt. Beginning with 1548 they
in truth formed the "Circle of Burgundy", a title
which implied little or no duty toward the empire.
In the interior Charles V organized a central govern-
ment by creating three councils, called collateral,
and established with a view to simplifying matters
for the female ruler; they were the council of state for
general affairs, the privy council for administrative
purposes, and the council of finance. He introduced
the Inquisition, issued extremely severe "placards"
prohibiting heresy, and harshly suppressed Ghent,
his native city, which had refused to vote certain
subsidies and had given itself up to acts of violence
(1540). It was deprived of all its freedom and at this
time communal government may be said to have
received its death-blow in the Netherlands.
Philip II. — However, Charles V was sincerely regretted when, during a solemn session held at Brussels before representatives of the States, 25 October, 1.55.5, he renounced the government of the Netherlands in favour of his son, Philip II. Strictly speaking, with Charles V ended the Burgundian era in this country which was subsequently known as the Spanish Netherlands. But as yet these states had no national name, the dukes generally alluding to them as their provinces de par deca in contradis- tinction to the Duchy and Countship of Burgundy which were territorially separated from them. Never- theless, although this duchy and countship had been conquered by France, from the fifteenth century it had been customary to call them Burgundy and their inhabitants Burgundians. Even the French spoken at the ducal court was called Burgundian. In spite of the efforts made at bringing about unification, the spirit of particularism prevailed in the various provinces in matters of legislation, each according political rights to its own inhabitants exclusively and opposing central institutions as much as possible. From the time of Philip the Good the Netherlands had been the centre of a luxurious and brilliant civilization, and Antwerp, which had replaced Bruges, whose harbour had become sand-filled, was recog- nized as the chief commercial city of Europe. Noth- ing could equal the sumptuousness of the court which wis the rendezvous of many literary men and artists, and it was during the reign of Philip the Good that the Bruges school of painting sprang up and pros- pered, boasting of such famous members as the broth- ers John and Hubert Van Eyck, Hans Mending, and Gerard David, whilst Brussels. Ghent, l.ouvain. and Antwerp gloried in artists like Roger Van den
Weyden, Hugo Van der Goes, Thierry Bouts, Quen- t in Metsys, and in the great sculptor Clans Sinter. Although literature did not flourish to the same- ex- tent as the arts, the historians Philippe de Comines, Molinet, Chastelain, and Olivier de la Slarche are cer- tainly deserving of mention and were far superior to the French historians of the same epoch.
