The ink, however, was hardly dry upon the so-called Treaty of Flanders when, during Albert’s temporary absence in Germany, the communal insurrection broke out afresh. At Bruges George Picquanet, elected hooftman, held out for a time against famine and Engelbert of Nassau, by whose soldiery he was ultimately killed. At Ghent, in May, 1491, a cordwainer named Remieulx, after admitting some of Philip of Cleves’ adherents, slew the Grand Dean, and Coppenole was put in his place. A strange conflict ensued between this demagogue and one Arnoul Leclercq, a labourer who had been named hooftman by a body of 5000 peasants previously organised under arms by Coppenole and his brother, both of whom were in the end put to death. Then a deputation of notables waited upon Duke Philip at Malines; the usual penalties were once more inflicted, the wearing of white hoods was prohibited for ever, and a Peace of Ghent was once more proclaimed (June, 1492). Meanwhile, Albert had on his return been occupied with a rising in Kennemerland, Friesland, and the Texel, stirred up by emissaries from Alkmaar, where followers of Brederode had seized the power. The insurgent peasants bore banners of our Lady and certain saints of local repute, together with a strange ensign consisting of a loaf of rye-bread and a large lump of green cheese. (Arnoul Leclercq at Ghent had borne a plough in his banner, and we remember the Bundschuh.) After much debate they were admitted into Haarlem, which had itself been disaffected; but on the approach of Albert the peasant host, left to itself, was massacred at Hemskerke. Haarlem, Alkmaar, and the smaller towns all humbled themselves before him; and the Landsknechte, with the art-treasures of Haarlem stuck in their hats, prefigured their comrades of the sacco di Roma (May). It remained for Albert to finish his task by the reduction of Sluys, where Philip of Cleves, whom the death of his father during the siege made Lord zum Ravenstein, still held out. The slow progress of the siege, even after in ‘July English vessels, sent by Henry VII, had arrived to take part in it, finds its explanation in the tenderness invariably shown by the House of Burgundy, and by Maximilian, to his wife’s kinsman. In October Ravenstein very leisurely surrendered Sluys, and three years later he was formally acquitted of any imputation against his honour.
Meanwhile, Maximilian had (towards the end of 1490) made the great cast, and married by proxy Anne, the heiress of Britanny. Shortly before this he had concluded a close alliance with Henry VII, mediated by Ferdinand of Aragon. (For Flanders this was all the more important, since in 1486 Bruges had sought to gain English support by granting free importation of English cloths and in 1488 had entreated the new King to aid her against the Emperor and concluded a new commercial treaty with this object.) Although this had been a fortunate year for Maximilian, he could not expect that his successes would be crowned by the tame submission of France to such a provocation. In November, 1491, Anne of Britanny surrendered Rennes, and in the following month she gave her hand to Charles VIII. But Margaret of Burgundy was still detained in France, and nothing had been said as to the restitution of her dowry. Yet in the Netherlands there was little sympathy with the insulted Regent; and early in 1492 the French Court provided him with a new difficulty in the shape of a pretender in Gelderland. Charles of Egmond had in 1487 been taken prisoner at Bethune and carried off to France. The Geldrian towns eagerly came forward to pay the ransom demanded by the French government; but without its support they had not sufficient resources to place Charles in the seat of his ancestors. His struggle against the Burgundian authority accordingly proved long and arduous. At first Maximilian showed himself willing to take the unusual course of referring the question of the government of Gelderland to the arbitration of the Empire; then a truce was concluded in 1497, with a view to a partition of the duchy; but soon afterwards war broke out again, Maximilian taking the field in person. In 1503 Philip, now King of Castile, consented to a compromise at Rosendal, which left Charles in possession of the Nymwegen and Roer-monde districts. But he played fast and loose with the treaty, and as the ally of France by 1514 at last succeeded in possessing himself of the entire duchy. His later struggles which only terminated with his death in 1538, and in the course of which he actually sought to make over his duchy to France, must be left unnoticed here.
The recovery of Artois, whose capital Arras was surprised by the Landsknechte after the fall of Sluys, would, together with his reconquest of Franche Comte, have encouraged Maximilian to attempt to secure the whole of his daughter’s dowry, notwithstanding the pacifications concluded by Charles VIH’s government with the Kings of England and Aragon (November, 1492-January, 1493). But the unwillingness of the Netherlands to continue the War, added to his other cares, induced him to accept Swiss mediation for the conclusion of a truce with France, followed in May, 1493, by the Peace of Senlis. The territorial question was settled as nearly as possible on the uti possidetis basis; so that Artois (and the Franche Comte) remained with the House of Burgundy, though Arras was ultimately to revert to France in exchange for certain towns now occupied by her. Margaret, all obligations between her and King Charles having been cancelled by the treaty, returned home joyously, calling out Vive Bowrgogne to the people who flocked round her at St Quentin, and receiving at Valenciennes a popular welcome. After narrowly escaping a design of the Landsknechte to seize her in pledge for outstanding pay, she took up her residence at Namur.
In 1494, the year after that of his father’s death, Maximilian returned to the Netherlands. His immediate purpose was to superintend the transfer of their government to Philip, now fifteen years of age, and also to settle affairs in Gelderland; but the Eastern Question was now uppermost in his mind, as was shown by his solemn assumption at Antwerp of the insignia of the crusading Order of St George, and by his appeal to all Christian potentates to follow his example (October- November). Flanders was tranquil; Crevecreur lay dead; Ravenstein was among those who paid their respects to the young Duke on his solemn entry into the great mercantile city. The presence there of another visitor- the pretended Richard Duke of York-which gave rise to an unseemly Jracas, reflected little credit on the discretion of the House of Burgundy. He was the protege of the Duchess Dowager, and Maximilian was quite ready to risk a quarrel with England on the chance of the dethronement of the faithless Tudor. Henry VII replied by removing the staple for English wool, tin, and other products to Calais, stopping all intercourse between his subjects and the Netherlands, and expelling all Flemings from England. The Burgundian government retorted (April, 1494, and January, 1495) by prohibiting the importation of English cloth; and for two years there was a complete cessation of commercial dealings between the two countries. Finally, Duke Philip was prevailed upon to promise not to admit any enemy of England into his dominions; and in February, 1496, the Magnus Intercursus proclaimed on both , sides freedom of trade, i.e. the right of trading without special license or pass, and that of fishery. Though there was nothing novel in this famous treaty, it offered a solid foundation for the establishment of satisfactory mercantile relations; but time could hardly fail to be on the side of the English, to the sale of whose cloth the Netherlands were now open-with the important exception however of Flanders, where restrictions were still maintained. Even here it soon became difficult to confine this sale to the staples of Antwerp and Bruges-or from 1501 to Bruges alone- to limit it to large pieces, and to prevent the wearing of it by natives. And Philip’s well-meant endeavours to revive the sunken prosperity of Bruges were seen to be hopelessly out of date. After in 1502 the Magnus Intercursus had been solemnly renewed, Henry VII, angered by the refusal of the Netherlands government to assist him in laying hands on the fugitive Earl of Suffolk (Edmund de la Pole), brought about a fresh stoppage of trade between the two countries, which lasted till 1506.
It was not only in commercial matters that Duke Philip and his advisers showed a disposition to emancipate themselves from his father’s control. Maximilian had placed at the head of the Privy Council, composed of fourteen members, Count Engelbert of Nassau, the faithful servant of three generations of the House of Burgundy, but the leading voice in it was that of William de Croy, Seigneur de Chievres. He and those who thought with him resented as strongly as the Flemish and Brabancon towns the continuance in the land of the German soldiery, to whose chief commander Albert of Saxony the ducal treasury had pledged Haarlem and several other important places