Louis, on his side, was resolved to secure a party in Flanders. The agent whom he had first, in spite of Commines’ warning, sent to Ghent for the purpose-no other than the notorious Olivier le Dain-had indeed been obliged to depart discomfited, and had only partially redeemed his credit by cleverly bringing into his master’s power the city of Tournay, always well disposed towards France. Louis, however, when Mary’s embassy reached him at Peronne, was at particular pains to show courtesy towards the Flemish towns in the person of the distinguished hooftman of Bruges, a member of the great patrician family of Gruuthuse. Little importance attached to the ambassadors’ offers of the cession of all the possessions given up by Louis in the Treaty of Peronne, and the recognition of his suzerainty in Artois and Flanders; and as to the real nodus of the transaction, the question of a marriage engagement between Mary and the Dauphin, they declared themselves to be without instructions. While, therefore, the embassy returned to Flanders to report, Louis seems to have, by private communications with Hugonet and d’Himbercourt, secured their adherence to the marriage-scheme. At Arras, of which he took possession in March, 1477, he received a deputation from Ghent, and-playing the kind of double game which his soul loved-revealed to them the confidence reposed by Mary in the privy councillors detested by the city.
Thus, on the return of the civic deputies to Ghent, the storm broke out. The city was already in a condition of ferment; some of the partisans of the old regime had been put to death; and the agitation, which had spread to Ypres and as far as Mons, was increased by the claims put forward at Ghent on behalf of the restoration of Liegeois independence by the Bishop of Liege, urged on by William of Aremberg, Sire de la Marck, the “Boar of the Ardennes,” and the terror of all who respected the ordinances of either God or man. Distracted by her fears, Mary seems actually to have countenanced Hugonet’s final proposal that she should quit Flanders and place herself under the protection of the French King, when at the last moment Ravenstein induced her to reveal the design. He immediately informed the representatives of the vier landen, and the deans of the trades of Ghent, and on the same night (March 4) Hugonet, d’Himbercourt and de Clugny were placed under arrest. A rumour having been spread that their liberation was to be attempted, and news having arrived of the resolute advance of the French forces, new disturbances followed; and Mary issued an ordinance naming a mixed commission of nobles and civic officials to try the accused with all due expedition (March 28). She afterwards interceded in favour of one or both of the lay prisoners (for de Clugny was saved by his benefit of clergy), and at a later date expressed her sympathy with the widow and orphans of d’Himbercourt, the extent of whose share in the Chancellor’s schemes remains unknown. After being subjected to torture, both were executed on April 3. They met with short shrift at the hands of their judges; but they cannot be said to have been sacrificed to a mere gust of democratic passion; and Mary and her Council, and the other Estates of the Netherlands assembled at Ghent, were with the city itself and the sister Flemish towns one and all involved in the responsibility of the deed.
There was now no solution left but war, and at Eastertide Louis XI advanced from Artois into Hainault. At the same time no doubt could remain as to the way in which the question of Mary’s marriage must be settled. An English engagement such as the Duchess Dowager desired was hopelessly impeded by the disagreement between the factions at Edward’s Court, one of which favoured the claims of the Duke of Clarence, while the other supported Earl Rivers, the brother of Queen Elizabeth. At Ghent there was for a time a strong wish that Mary would bestow her hand upon Adolf of Gelders, the friend of the towns, who had been liberated from prison on Charles’ death, and proclaimed Duke notwithstanding Mary’s protest. He had entered himself as a member of one of the trades of Ghent, and had been named commander of the Flemish levies against France. But, instead of gaining Mary’s hand, he was destined to fall fighting in her service before Tournay (June), leaving his children Charles and Philippa as hostages in her hands, though the former had been proclaimed Duke in Gelderland. Of Mary’s kinsmen of the Cleves family two were still talked of for her hand-the Duke’s son and subsequent successor, John, and Philip, the son of his brother Adolf zum Ravenstein. Philip had been brought up with Mary, whose father was said to have at one time favoured the idea of their future union, agreeably it was rumoured to Mary’s own wishes. But after the English project had come to naught the Duchess Dowager transferred all her influence to the only remaining suitor, the selection of whom promised high political advantage; and the choice actually fell upon Archduke Maximilian of Austria.
The vigilance of the Emperor Frederick III had long prepared this match, and even the catastrophe of Nancy had been unable to baulk his purpose. Now, while at Bruges Mary was seeking to satisfy a clamorous demand for a suppression of the pretensions of le Franc, the imperial envoys arrived to urge upon her the acceptance of the Austrian suit (April 18); and Mary formally accorded it. On May 21 Maximilian, who had been delayed by the slackness of the response made by the Estates to the imperial appeal for support of his enterprise (the Wittelsbachs were jealous about Hainault and Holland, while the King of Bohemia remembered the Luxemburg connexion), at last started on his expedition; and after passing through Louvain and Brussels, where he was well received, at the head of a body of near 8000 horsemen, arrived at Ghent. At six o’clock on the following morning his marriage with Mary was solemnised by the Bishop of Tournay, in the presence of the Count of Chimay and the hooftman of Bruges, “min jonker” of Gelders and his sister bearing the tapers before the bride. He had not come a day too soon. Part of Hainault was already in Louis’ hands, and Brabant and Flanders were alike threatened; but, now that the political situation had so decisively altered to his disadvantage, he paused. Mary, in securing the protection of which she stood in need against the contending influences around, and the popular bodies confronting her, had at the same time gained for the Netherlands the alliance of a House not less resolved upon withstanding the encroachments of France in the West of the Empire, than it was upon resisting Hungarian ambition and the Turkish danger in the East. On no other conditions could the House of Austria command support from the princes of the Empire, or continue to hold authority there. With England also the Austrian marriage at once placed the Netherlands government on close terms of friendship.
At first things went smoothly with Archduke Maximilian in the Netherlands. Born in 1459, he was but a boy in years and little else than a boy in mind, notwithstanding the completeness of the education which he afterwards professed to have received through the care of the old Weisskunig”, and the solemn purposes which he ascribed to himself as the “dear hero” Tewrdanck. But at no time of his life was he wanting either in courage or in elasticity of disposition. On September 18 Louis was found ready to conclude a favourable truce at Lens, having enough on his hands in consequence of the reconciliation of the Swiss to the House of Austria, and the menace of an English as well as an Aragonese invasion. And though in 1478 the campaign recommenced with much show of ardour, it only ended in another truce (July). The Flemish army under Maximilian’s command, reinforced by Swiss mercenaries and English archers, had driven the French back upon Arras; Tournay had been retaken; and Louis promised to restore all towns taken by him in Hainault.
But already there were signs of impatience in Flanders. Maximilian had immediately on his marriage sworn to respect the privileges of Ghent and Bruges; and loud complaints were now heard of the misconduct of the German and other foreign soldiery, while Ghent was wroth at the imposition of a war-duty on small-beer. This led to an outbreak, in which three of the trades were