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THE STORY OF HOLLAND.
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III.
THE HOUSE OF BURGUNDY.
 IN
early days, the dukedoms, countships, and other titles of nobility, coupled
as they always were with the lordship over estates, and the inhabitants
thereof, were merely official, and were not intended to descend from father
to son. But they soon became hereditary, and those who held this rank
strove with great success to make themselves independent. In France and
Germany, at the beginning of the eleventh century, the king and emperor
had less power than many of their nominal subjects. After centuries of
labour in this direction, the king of France contrived to bring his nobles
into subjection. But at the beginning of the present century, there were
nigh upon four hundred independent princes and kinglets in Germany.
At a crisis in French
history, the Court lawyers of France declared that women could neither
sit on the throne nor transmit a title to it through their descendants.
The result of the English claim to the throne of France was a war which
lasted for a hundred years, off and on, and a claim to sovereignty over
France which was only relinquished in the present century. From the accession
of Hugh Capet (978) to the present time this family has never lacked male
descendants. No other such regal house has existed in Europe. In England
the royal house has died out on the male side no less than five times,
and the inheritance has passed to or through females.
But the great peerages,
duchies, and other titles in the French kingdom were not under the so-called
Salic law. It was by female descent that the English King Henry II. (1154-1189)
possessed or claimed the whole seaboard of France, from the mouth of the
Seine to the mouth of the Rhone. A woman, therefore, could transmit the
rights of her ancestor over his subjects to a stranger, and thus the marriages
of princes have changed from time to time the political geography of Europe.
The domains of the house of Austria were built up by fortunate marriages.
It was by such marriages that the Netherlands came first into the power
of the Dukes of Burgundy, and thence to the Spanish branch of the Austrian
line.
The origin of the
house of Burgundy, so powerful during the fifteenth century and so tragically
concluded, was a grant of that Duchy, the principal town of which was
Dijon, made by John of France (1351-1364), called the Good, most undeservedly,
to his youngest son. Towards the conclusion of the fourteenth century,
this family had become powerful, and exercised a disastrous influence
over the fortunes of France. When Charles the Sixth of France became insane
(1392), this Duke of Burgundy became regent. He died in 1404. His son
murdered the Duke of Orleans in 1407, and was himself murdered by the
Dauphin in 1419 at Montereau. His son, who goes by the historical name
of Philip the Good, most undeservedly, ruled his duchy down to 1467.
This Philip the Good,
besides his own duchy, had inherited in the Netherlands the counties of
Flanders and Artois. He purchased the county of Namur. He usurped the
Duchy of Brabant. He dispossessed his cousin Jacqueline of Holland, Zealand,
Hainault, and Friesland, these several counties or provinces ,having descended
to her by the same kind of succession. His dominions extended from the
foot of the Alps to the German Ocean, and comprised what was then the
wealthiest part of Northern Europe. The original provinces of the Netherlands
were seventeen, and he was now overlord of all.
In these times, it
became a current doctrine among princes and their counsellors that subjects,
especially those engaged in industry, and on whose industry not only the
wealth, but the very existence of the country depended, had no rights
against their lords. This was the view entertained by the English James,
and constantly asserted by him. In pursuance of this doctrine it was held
that no plighted word, no promise, no oath was binding on a sovereign,
and that a temporary limitation of his powers, declared by him to be perpetual,
was no more valid than a pledge given under threats. James vapoured about
his divine rights. His son Charles tried to put the thing into practice,
with the most disastrous consequences to himself.
In earlier times,
the word or the oath of the king was binding. But the Popes, always for
a consideration, assumed the power of freeing the king from his oaths,
and of holding him harmless if he committed perjury. The English people
did not relish the doctrine, and they took short and sharp measures with
the two kings, John and Henry the Third, who availed themselves of these
pontifical assurances. John would have been deposed, but for his opportune
death. Henry would have been deposed, but he was old, and his son, whose
word could be trusted, broke with the custom.
As the political
authority of the Pope was lessened, the European princes took the option
of keeping the pledges which they had made or inherited with their dominions
into their own hands. They did not do it in England, for there were some
awkward precedents of resistance and deposition which the most masterful
and haughty of the English kings remembered and dreaded. A cynical Frenchman
of the eighteenth century was wont to say, that on January 30th every
European king woke up in the morning with a crick in his neck. There were
other days which the English kings thought of before 1649, when they were
tempted to tamper with popular liberties.
At the time when
Philip, surnamed the Good, acquired the complete and undivided sovereignty
of the Netherlands, that country had reached the height of its prosperity,
and the full enjoyment of its chartered liberties. The sovereign had his
authority. The nobles had their place in the Council. But the municipal
authorities, though checked by these two forces, had a solid and substantial
influence over both. The form of these institutions was oligarchical,
the fact was that they were popular, for the burghers were too strong
and too turbulent to be disregarded.
In the assemblies
of the estates, the authority of the prince was represented by the stadtholder,
in the absence of the prince. When the Netherlands were united under one
sovereign the stadtholder became a permanent institution, as well as a
convenient substitute. He checked the overbold demands of the towns, and
asked the estates to grant taxes, or more frequently lump sums to their
lords. The nobles voted on the request. The cities, if they had received
instructions to do so, bargained as to the grant. If they had not, they
claimed a day or an adjournment, in order to consult their principals.
Unfortunately the deputies came with limited powers, and the cities were
jealous of each other. The engrained habit of municipal isolation was
the cause why the general liberties of the Netherlands were imperilled,
why the larger part of the country was ultimately ruined, and why the
war of independence was conducted with so much risk and difficulty, even
in the face of the most serious perils.
It is important here,
however, in telling the story of Holland, to mention another fact in the
social condition of the country, which found no place in the previous
description of its resources and powers. At a comparatively early period,
the date of which is uncertain, the Flemish and Dutch fishermen devoted
themselves with great success to the herring fishery, and subsequently
to improvements in the art of curing them. The merit of these discoveries
was ascribed to Beukelszoon of Biervliet in Zealand, who died in 1447.
But, on the other hand, the most authentic account of the process makes
no mention of the man, but only of the place. It is probable that the
reputation of Beukelszoon is due to the fact that Charles V. and his sister
paid a visit to his tomb and offered up prayers for his soul.
We cannot in our
days imagine how important were the fisheries to our forefathers, and
how interested they were in any process which efficiently
cured fish. Owing to the absence of nearly all kinds of winter food for
animals, except hay, the diet of most persons during the winter was salted
provisions. But the discipline of the Church prescribed a fish diet during
divers periods of the year, and the consumption of salted fish was enormous.
The fisheries of the German Ocean, at first frequented by the Flemings
and subsequently almost occupied by the Hollanders, became a mine of wealth,
second only to the manufactures and commerce of the Flemish cities. They
were also the nursery of the Dutch navy, of those amphibious mariners
who struck the first blow for Dutch independence, and became the ancestors
of that succession of brave sea captains, who crushed the maritime supremacy
of Spain, founded the Batavian empire of Holland in the tropics, engaged
in an unequal struggle with England, and sustained for a century the reputation
of Holland, after its real commercial greatness had declined. Though Holland
was constantly in danger from the ocean, it was from the ocean that she
derived her wealth and her means for fighting in the struggle for independence.
She chose with reason the symbol which she adopted for her flag—a
lion struggling with the waves, and her motto, Luctor et emergo,
“I struggle, I rise.”
For a time Philip
had been the guardian of his cousin Jacqueline of Holland, and in this
capacity he had sworn to maintain the privileges and institutions of the
Netherlands. But after he had dispossessed his ward, he notified to the
cities and estates, through the Council of Holland, that all these oaths
were to be deemed null and void, unless he gave them his new and personal
confirmation. He held himself bound by no obligation, and acted to the
full on the doctrine that there was nothing binding on a prince—a
doctrine by no means extinct in the present generation, as European peoples
have found to their cost. It may be well to illustrate the action which
he took after he had declared this judgment of his own, as to his true
position and rights.
The alliance of the
English with the Dukes of Burgundy was essential towards their maintaining
the position which they won by the battle of Agincourt and the subsequent
successes of the Duke of Bedford, who had married Philip’s sister.
After her death Bedford instantly married a Flemish heiress, as his brother
Gloucester had sought the hand of another Flemish heiress, to Philip’s
great indignation eight years before (1424). But it was not till after
the death of Bedford in 1435, that Philip made his peace with the French
king and so virtually expelled the English from Eastern France. In the
next year he declared war against England, and appealed to the burghers
and nobles of Flanders, for means and men. It was granted or promised,
but we may be sure with a heavy heart, for a rupture with England was
a serious injury to Flemish industry. It will be seen that their hearts
were not in the struggle.
In the early summer
of 1436 Philip determined to lay siege to Calais, the port which gave
the English an entry at once into France and Flanders. He marched with
14,000 Flemish troops to invest the place, and bade the seneschal of Brabant
to close the port by the fleet of Holland. But the fleet was long in coming;
Calais was strengthened and provisioned, and the seneschal was forced
to retire. The English made a sally, the Flemings fled in disorder, the
siege was raised, and Philip was forced to disband his army. |
