Part 25 (1/2)
”We have to-day received from our much honoured seigneur and brother, the king of England, his Order of the Garter together with the mantle and other ornaments and things appertaining to the said Order and have ... taken the oath according to the statutes of the Order.
”Done in our city of Ghent under our Grand Seal, February 4, 1469 [O.S.].”[7]
Now it was in consideration of needs that might arise in the near future, following on the trail of these wide-reaching English convulsions, that Charles felt it necessary to make preparations for a strong military defence calculated to suit any emergency. Louis XI.
had a permanent force at his command. He had made the beginning of the French standing army, the nucleus of one of those bodies that have ever since urged each other on to expensive growth from opposite sides of European frontiers. What one monarch possessed that must his near neighbour have.
Feudal service, volunteer militia, paid mercenaries, were all alike unstable bulwarks for a nation. Nation as yet Charles had not, but he wanted to be betimes with his bulwarks. This was why he issued an ordinance for the levy of a thousand lances, amounting to five thousand combatants, to be paid with regular wages and kept ready at call under officers of his own appointment. The ducal treasury could not stand the whole expense. To meet the deficit, Charles asked from his Netherland Estates an annual subsidy of 120,000 crowns for three years. Power to impose taxes he had none. A request to each individual province was all the requisition that he could make.
In this case, most of the provinces approached had acceded to the demand, when the Estates of Flanders convened at Lille. Here the Chancellor of Burgundy expounded to them the grounds of the demand, and then the session was changed to Bruges, where they debated on the merits of the request, urged on further by explanatory letters from Charles. Finally, a deputation was appointed by the Estates to go over to Ghent and present a _Remonstrance_ to their impatient sovereign beggar.
Three points were set forth. The deputies objected to this grant being asked only from the lands _de par de ca_--the Netherlands and not from the Burgundies. Secondly, they wished a definite a.s.sessment imposed on each province. Thirdly, they desired a declaration that the fiefs and arriere-fiefs already bound to furnish troops should be exempt from share in this tax. The remonstrance was courtly in tone. Written in French, the concluding phrases were in Latin and suggested that nothing was more becoming a prince than clemency, especially towards his subjects.[8]
Vigorous and emphatic was the prince's response.[9] How could Burgundy furnish money? It is a poor land. It takes after France.[10] But its men make a third of the army. They are the Burgundian contribution. As to an a.s.sessment, what is the use unless the tax is surely to be paid?
Only out of malice is this idle point suggested.
”You act as you have always done--you Flemings. Neither to my father nor to me have you ever been liberal. What you have granted--sometimes more than our request--has always been given so tardily as to prove the lack of good will. Your Flemish skulls are hard and thick and you cling to your stubborn and perverse opinions.... I am half of France and half of Portugal and I know how to meet such heads as yours, ay and _will_ do it. You have always either hated or despised your prince--if powerful you hated, if weak you despised. I prefer your hatred to your contempt. Not for your privileges or anything else will I permit myself to be trampled on--and I have the power to prevent such trampling.”
Laying stress on the extreme modesty of his demand, whose purpose mainly was for defence of Flanders, the duke proceeded to berate his visitors soundly for their presumptuous haggling, declaring that as to the fiefs and arriere-fiefs he would see to it that no double burdens were borne.
”And when you shall have determined to accord my request,--which you will a.s.suredly do (and I do not mean to burden you further unless I am forced to it),--send some of your deputies after me to Lille or St. Omer, and there, with my chancellor and my council, I will determine the apportionment and we will speak also of other matters touching my province of Flanders.”
It was this vehement oratory--and this vehemence was repeated on many occasions--that did more to alienate Charles from his hereditary subjects than his actual demands. There is little doubt that his period of residence in their midst brought with it hatred rather than liking. No political error of his serves to explain the Flemish att.i.tude towards the duke as does his method of address, the gratuitous contempt displayed towards burghers whose purses were needed for his game. The _aide_ was granted, indeed, but it was levied with sullen reluctance.
What cause Charles had to make his preparations, what were the proceedings of the English exiles may be seen from the following letters to his mother and to the town of Ypres. The first is probably in answer to her questionings; the second is a specimen of the epistles showered upon the border towns.
”TO MY VERY REDOUBTABLE LADY AND MOTHER,
MADAME THE d.u.c.h.eSS, AT AIRE:
”May it please you to know that in regard to what the Sgr. de Crevecoeur has written you about the king's proclamations that he intends to maintain his treaties and promises to me, etc., and has no desire to sustain the Earl of Warwick, and wishes my subjects to be reimbursed for the damages inflicted by him and his, a.s.suredly, my Lady and Mother, the contrary has been and is well known before the said publications and after. The Earl of Warwick is my foe and could not, according to the treaty existing between the king and me, be received in Normandy or elsewhere in the realm ... [complaints about the procedure have been sent to king and parliament and councillors, without redress, etc.] What is more, the Admiral of France has sent thither a spy under pretext of carrying a letter to Sgr. de la Groothuse, which man was charged to spy upon my s.h.i.+ps and by means of a caravel named the _Brunette_, sent for this purpose by the admiral, to cut the cables to set them adrift and founder--or to capture certain s.h.i.+ps with such captains, knights, and gentlemen as he could find, and myself, too, if they were able.
”Furthermore, the said spy was charged to spy on my towns, etc., and those of the caravel called the _Brunette_ were charged, if they failed in taking my s.h.i.+ps, or in cutting their cables, to set fire to them--all in direct conflict with the terms of the treaties, and procedures that the king would never have tolerated had he had the slightest intention of maintaining his word ...
[Charles does not consider Groothuse to blame at all, etc.][11]
_Letter from Charles of Burgundy to the Magistrates of Ypres, June 10, 1470_
”DEAR FRIENDS:
”It has come to your knowledge how after the Duke of Clarence and the Earl of Warwick were expelled from England on account of their sedition and their ill deeds, they have declared themselves both by words and deeds of aggression our enemies, and on _Vendredi absolut_[12] went so far as to capture by fraud s.h.i.+ps and property belonging to our subjects, and have further done damage whenever opportunity presented itself.
”In order to repel them we have ordered them to be attacked on the sea. Moreover, at the same time we were advised that the same Clarence and Warwick and their people, after they were routed at sea by the troops of my honoured lord and brother, Edward, King of England, retreated to the marches of Normandy and were honourably received at Honfleur by the Admiral of France with all which they had saved from the raid on our subjects after the defeat.
”All this was direct infringement of the treaties lately made between Monseigneur the king and myself. Therefore, we wrote at once to Monsgr. the king begging him not to favour or aid the said Clarence and Warwick in his land of Normandy or elsewhere in his realm, nor to permit them to sell or distribute the property of our subjects, and to show his will by publis.h.i.+ng such prohibitions throughout Normandy and elsewhere where need is.
”Also we wrote to the court of parliament at Paris, and to the council of my said seigneur at Rouen. The answer was that the king meant to keep the treaty between him and us and had ordered his subjects in Normandy not to retain the property belonging to our subjects ... but we have since learned that, notwithstanding, this same property has been distributed and ransoms have been negotiated in the sight and knowledge of the Admiral of France and his officers.
”Moreover, it is perfectly evident that by means of the aid furnished by the king to the said Clarence and Warwick, the latter are enabled to continue the war on our subjects and not on the English, it being understood that they who were banished from England are not strong enough to return by the force of arms but must do so by friends.h.i.+p and favour.... On account of the above and other depredations, we shall attack the said Warwick and Clarence on the sea as pirates, and all who aid them as is needful for the protection of our lands and subjects.