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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Mary of Burgundy; or, The Revolt of Ghent," G. P. R. James intricately weaves a historical narrative set against the backdrop of the tumultuous 15th-century Low Countries. The novel combines vivid characterizations with a detailed exploration of the socio-political upheavals of the time, particularly the revolt of Ghent against the oppressive rule of Philip the Good. James employs a lyrical, yet accessible prose style, evoking the period's atmospheric tension while simultaneously engaging the reader's intellect. The work stands as a significant contribution to the genre of historical fiction, capturing the spirit of a pivotal moment in European history while reflecting the Romantic preoccupation with individual struggles against tyranny. James, a versatile novelist and historian, possessed a profound interest in the intricacies of European history, which deeply informed his writing. His background in both legal studies and authorship enabled him to infuse his narratives with authenticity and depth. These attributes, combined with his fascination for the transformative societal shifts of the era, culminated in "Mary of Burgundy," illuminating not only the historical figures but also the broader implications of their choices and conflicts. This compelling tale is recommended for readers who appreciate rich historical narratives grounded in authentic detail, along with those curious about the complexities of power, loyalty, and identity. James's work not only entertains but also provokes thought, encouraging meaningful reflection on the determination of individuals amidst the swirling tides of history. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - An Author Biography reveals milestones in the author's life, illuminating the personal insights behind the text. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Mary of Burgundy; or, The Revolt of Ghent
Table of Contents
Introduction
Power, loyalty, and civic freedom collide as a young duchess and a proud city contest the future of Burgundy amidst the turmoil of late medieval Flanders.
Mary of Burgundy; or, The Revolt of Ghent by G. P. R. James is a nineteenth-century historical romance set in the Burgundian Netherlands, chiefly around Ghent in the late fifteenth century. James, a British novelist celebrated for vivid period reconstruction, places readers where courtly pageantry meets urban unrest. Written within the era’s flourishing tradition of Scott-inspired historical fiction, the novel blends adventure with political drama. Its publication belongs to James’s prolific middle decades, when he produced numerous tales that reanimated European pasts for a broad readership, emphasizing atmospheric detail, chivalric ethos, and the interplay between personal fortunes and public power.
The premise draws on the real pressures facing Mary of Burgundy as civic factions in Ghent test ducal authority, a conflict fertile for narrative tension without requiring prior historical knowledge. James introduces figures from court and city—nobles, councillors, guild leaders, and household retainers—whose intersecting ambitions make the streets, halls, and ramparts feel charged with consequence. Early chapters establish a contested political climate and the risks of miscalculation, laying the groundwork for encounters that pivot between diplomacy and danger. The experience is one of immersive historical melodrama: conspiracies hinted, allegiances strained, and the looming question of whether compromise or confrontation will prevail.
Stylistically, the novel favors a measured, omniscient narration that guides readers through councils, ceremonies, and sudden eruptions of action. James attends to costume, heraldry, and ritual, yet he also pauses for reflective commentary on character and choice. The mood is dignified but not static, alternating vigorous movement with scene-setting that clarifies stakes and motives. Readers should expect carefully staged set pieces—processions, deliberations, and night-time forays—rendered with a chronicle-like confidence. The language aims for historical flavor without obscurity, and the pacing allows political intrigue to develop alongside moments of romance and peril, sustaining suspense while foregrounding the era’s social textures.
At its core, the book probes authority and legitimacy: the obligations of a ruler, the rights of a city, and the fragile covenant binding them. It contemplates female leadership under scrutiny, exploring how a young sovereign may balance prudence and resolve. Questions of honor, oath, and reputation recur, testing characters who must navigate duty to kin, cause, and conscience. James invites readers to consider communal identity—the pride of guilds and burghers—set against feudal hierarchies. Thematically, it is about negotiation as much as conflict, suggesting that stability depends not only on force but on recognition, compromise, and the careful reading of public sentiment.
Contemporary readers may find the novel resonant for its examination of civic agency and the ethics of power. The push and pull between centralized rule and local autonomy, and the rhetoric that converts grievance into action, echo debates that persist in modern political life. Mary’s position highlights enduring questions about leadership under pressure: how to command loyalty, when to conciliate, and what risks accompany firmness or concession. The book also illuminates a formative European moment when medieval structures met emerging civic self-consciousness, offering a window into how communities articulate their interests in times of uncertainty.
Approached as both a political drama and a chivalric romance, Mary of Burgundy; or, The Revolt of Ghent offers a rich, steady immersion in a pivotal landscape where personal commitments carry public consequences. Readers who enjoy historically grounded intrigue, city-versus-court dynamics, and character-driven stakes will find the novel rewarding. Its careful scene-building encourages unhurried reading, allowing the textures of Burgundian life to accumulate and the ethical contours to sharpen. Without demanding specialist knowledge, it sparks curiosity about the Low Countries’ past and provides a thoughtful narrative of power contested, responsibilities assumed, and the precarious art of governing well.
Synopsis
Set in the waning days of the Burgundian splendor, the novel opens amid the wealth and ceremony of Flanders, where thriving guild cities like Ghent balance pride and privilege against ducal power. Charles the Bold’s ambitious campaigns strain treasuries and tempers, while his only child, Mary, is introduced as a figure of poise and duty. The narrative sketches a realm poised between chivalric ideals and urban self-assertion. Courtiers, merchants, and craftsmen inhabit a landscape of fairs, embattled frontiers, and watchful bell towers, preparing the reader for mounting tensions that will draw palace and marketplace into the same unfolding crisis.
At court, counsels differ over how to sustain Burgundian greatness without crushing the civic liberties that underpin prosperity. Mary listens, learns, and measures competing voices—stern captains, prudent financiers, and clerics wary of unrest—while maintaining loyalty to her father’s policy. The viewpoint shifts to Ghent’s streets and halls, showing guild elders proud of ancient charters and younger artisans ready to test their strength. A loyal Burgundian gentleman, representative of James’s chivalric protagonists, moves between these worlds, tasked with missions that demand patience as much as valor. The equilibrium is fragile, and the fault lines between ducal authority and civic autonomy widen.
Military reverses on distant fields darken the mood, and rumors from France complicate diplomacy. Louis XI’s envoys glide along trade roads and riverways, their courtesy concealing designs upon border lands and municipal loyalties. In Ghent, clandestine councils debate whether to press for redress or to seize leverage while the court is distracted. The heroine’s position becomes delicate: filial devotion urges steadfastness, but prudence counsels conciliation. Public feasts struggle to mask private anxieties. James traces the growth of suspicion into action, showing how grievances, once voiced, harden into platforms, and how practical demands for good governance become symbols of civic independence.
A disastrous campaign ends the great duke’s dominance, and with that fall the balance of power shifts abruptly. Mary inherits a magnificent but imperiled state, hemmed by rivals and dependent on the fidelity of its cities. The estates assemble, argument thick in the air, as urban deputies assert grievances and noble captains warn of encroaching enemies. Ghent presses foremost, demanding confirmation of rights and reforms that limit princely officials. The young duchess must decide quickly, weighing loyalty, necessity, and the threat of foreign intervention. The novel captures the urgency of these negotiations, where each concession buys time yet invites further claims.
The acceptance of wide-ranging privileges relieves immediate pressure and wins acclaim across market squares and guildhalls. Yet the same act divides factions within Ghent: moderates satisfied with safeguards confront zealots who distrust all princely power. James threads personal stories through this politics—guarded affections at court and steadfast friendships in the city—giving human faces to public decisions. A celebrated festival, meant to heal divisions, exposes lingering resentments. Warned by prudent advisers, Mary seeks to bind city and crown with confidence rather than fear. But whispers of plots and heavy-handed reprisals in other towns keep suspicion alive and readiness for tumult high.
Securing Burgundian independence requires alliance, and marriage becomes statecraft. Suitors are weighed, with Habsburg prospects promising aid against French designs. Messengers ride, treaties are drafted, and solemn embassies parade through Bruges and Ghent. The prospect of a consort alarms some citizens who fear a distant power will undo hard-won liberties. Agents of France, alert to every apprehension, offer counsel calculated to delay or divert plans. The narrative follows diplomatic moves and city debates in parallel, matching ceremonial splendor with whispered warnings. Mary endures the burden of choice, measuring her personal fate against the security of realms and towns.
In Ghent, the rhetoric of freedom and old custom crescendos. Guild bells summon armed companies; banners emerge from chests; barricades rise at strategic streets. Civic leaders, righteous and wary, demand guarantees, while firebrands push for decisive action. Couriers from the court try to bridge demands with promises, and the chivalric intermediary returns to negotiate safe passage and terms. James paints the debate with balance: the citizen’s fear of arbitrary rule faces the ruler’s duty to preserve peace and territory. A plan for coordinated demonstrations sharpens into a confrontation, and the city’s magnificent squares turn into stages for history-making choices.
Confrontations follow, both in council chambers and, at moments of sharp crisis, in the streets. Arrests, sudden alarms, and tense stand-offs test loyalties. Mary steers between concession and resolve, mindful that any misstep may invite foreign partition or civil strife. A new princely partner steps forward, promising defense and continuity, yet the measure of trust remains contested. Individuals reveal their mettle under pressure: some stand by their oaths, others shift with the crowd. The novel maintains pace without rushing judgment, tracing how calculated gestures, symbolic acts, and limited force together determine the immediate course while leaving deeper disputes unsettled.
The closing movement emphasizes transition rather than finality. James depicts a polity moving from feudal magnificence toward a negotiated order shaped by towns, trade, and law. Mary’s burden is central: she must embody authority while recognizing its limits, reconcile pride with prudence, and protect subjects who challenge her. The Revolt of Ghent becomes a lens on the wider Burgundian destiny, in which grandeur depends on consent as much as arms. Without overstatement, the novel’s message is clear: enduring power requires accommodation. Romance, courage, and intrigue support that claim, while history furnishes the stakes that make every choice consequential.
Historical Context
The narrative is set in the Burgundian Netherlands during the late 1470s and early 1480s, a densely urbanized region encompassing Flanders, Brabant, Holland, Zeeland, Hainaut, and adjacent lands. Ghent and Bruges, major cloth and trading centers linked to English wool and Hanseatic routes, dominate civic life, while princely court splendor radiates from Bruges and Brussels. Politically, these provinces lay between the expanding monarchy of Louis XI of France and the Holy Roman Empire under Frederick III, with local estates jealous of ancient privileges. The time is one of abrupt transition: feudal magnificence meets fiscal-military centralization, and municipal militias and guilds contest ducal officers for authority.
Under Philip the Good (r. 1419–1467) and Charles the Bold (r. 1467–1477), Burgundy forged a composite state from disparate counties and duchies. Institutions of centralization—such as the States-General first convoked at Bruges in 1464 and the Great Council of Mechelen created in 1473—sought to regularize justice, taxation, and warfare. Charles’s campaigns against Liège (1468) and his grand designs toward Lotharingia heightened fiscal pressure on towns. Military catastrophes at Grandson (2 March 1476) and Morat/Murten (22 June 1476) against the Swiss shattered Burgundian power. The novel mirrors this tension-filled backdrop, contrasting glittering court ritual with the guarded autonomy of Flemish cities and their guild-led political culture.
The hinge of events is the death of Charles the Bold at the Battle of Nancy on 5 January 1477, leaving his only child, Mary of Burgundy (1457–1482), to inherit the Burgundian Netherlands. Louis XI immediately invaded, annexing the Duchy of Burgundy proper and occupying towns in Artois and Picardy, while pressuring Flemish estates. Rival suitors and diplomatic maneuvers converged on Mary’s court in Ghent, where civic leaders sought to bind ducal power to traditional liberties. James’s book draws its dramatic impetus from this succession crisis, using Mary’s precarious sovereignty to stage conflicts among royal envoys, Burgundian nobles, and the resolute councils of the great towns.
At Ghent on 11 February 1477, Mary issued the Great Privilege, a landmark charter restoring provincial and urban rights. It abolished the Mechelen high court, required the consent of the States-General for war and new taxes, mandated native-born officeholders, and revived instruments like the Joyous Entry of Brabant. In April 1477, amid civic fury, two of Mary’s counselors—Guillaume Hugonet and Guy de Humbercourt—were tried and executed in Ghent (3 April), emblematic of urban justice asserting itself over court favorites. The novel’s very subtitle invokes this civic surge: it represents Ghent’s revolt by dramatizing negotiations, guild musters, and Mary’s attempts to temper vengeance with clemency.
To counter French aggression, Mary married Archduke Maximilian of Austria, son of Emperor Frederick III, at Ghent on 19 August 1477. The War of the Burgundian Succession (1477–1482) followed, pitting Habsburg-Burgundian forces against Louis XI. Maximilian secured a notable victory at the Battle of Guinegate (Enguinegatte) on 7 August 1479, preserving Flemish allegiance despite heavy losses. Yet the struggle drained finances, inflamed towns, and saw frontier strongholds change hands. Mary’s accidental death near Bruges on 27 March 1482 precipitated the Treaty of Arras (23 December 1482), by which her daughter Margaret was betrothed to the Dauphin and Artois and Franche-Comté passed to France. The book threads these events into personal stakes and public fate.
Urban unrest persisted after 1482 as Flemish estates resisted Habsburg regency measures. In Bruges, citizens seized Maximilian in February 1488, detaining him for months and compelling sworn promises to respect privileges; foreign mercenaries and fiscal levies had become intolerable burdens. Ghent, long a bastion of communal power, also defied ducal officers, fielding militias and negotiating from strength. Although these risings postdate Mary’s life, their roots lie in the 1477 settlement and in habits of corporate self-government. James’s narrative anticipates such dynamics by portraying guild leaders, town councils, and captains of the watch as decisive actors whose consent—or wrath—could overturn princely designs.
The settlement of the Burgundian question reshaped European power. Philip the Fair, Mary’s son (born Bruges, 1478), inherited the Netherlands; the Treaty of Senlis (1493) later returned Artois and Franche-Comté to Habsburg hands, laying groundwork for a transcontinental Habsburg bloc and for the Habsburg–Valois rivalry. Within the Low Countries, repeated convocations of provincial estates and the States-General entrenched a constitutional political culture opposed to unchecked centralization. Urban corporatism—guild representation, chartered freedoms, legal pluralism—remained a defining social movement. The novel situates Mary at this hinge, depicting how her choices and ordeals channeled Burgundian traditions into an emergent Habsburg polity.
As social and political critique, the book exposes the fault line between princely centralization and communal liberty. It presents the costs of fiscal exaction and foreign soldiery, the perils of partisan justice, and the volatility of popular mobilization. By foregrounding Mary’s constrained agency, it interrogates gendered limits on rulership within feudal and civic orders. Scenes of guild councils, executions, and treaty bargaining critique oligarchic self-interest as well as courtier corruption. The work thereby indicts the violence bred by absolutist impulses and urban factionalism alike, suggesting that only constitutional negotiation among estates, towns, and crown can avert cycles of repression and revolt.
Mary of Burgundy; or, The Revolt of Ghent
INTRODUCTION.
George Payne Rainsford James, Historiographer Royal to King William IV., was born in London in the first year of the nineteenth century, and died at Venice in 1860. His comparatively short life was exceptionally full and active. He was historian, politician and traveller, the reputed author of upwards of a hundred novels, the compiler and editor of nearly half as many volumes of letters, memoirs, and biographies, a poet and a pamphleteer, and, during the last ten years of his life, British Consul successively in Massachusetts, Norfolk (Virginia), and Venice. He was on terms of friendship with most of the eminent men of his day. Scott, on whose style he founded his own, encouraged him to persevere in his career as a novelist; Washington Irving admired him, and Walter Savage Landor composed an epitaph to his memory. He achieved the distinction of being twice burlesqued[4], by Thackeray, and two columns are devoted to an account of him in the new "Dictionary of National Biography." Each generation follows its own gods, and G. P. R. James[1] was, perhaps, too prolific an author to maintain the popularity which made him "in some ways the most successful novelist of his time." But his work bears selection and revival. It possesses the qualities of seriousness and interest; his best historical novels are faithful in setting and free in movement. His narrative is clear, his history conscientious, and his plots are well-conceived. English learning and literature are enriched by the work of this writer, who made vivid every epoch in the world's history by the charm of his romance.
The great passage in this book is so magnificently dramatic that James feels it due to his conscience as an historian to apologise for its excellence in a footnote. "It may be necessary," he writes at the foot of page 234, "to inform those who are not deeply read in the chronicles of France that this fact is minutely accurate." We are glad of the reminder, for without it the reader might have thought that here was something fictitious, or at least exaggerated and 'worked-up,' so intense and true is the tragic setting of the scene. But if Mary of Burgundy[2]'s bearing at the execution of the Lord of Imbercourt[3], and her grand historical utterance, recorded on page 305, "You have banished my best friends, and slain my wisest counsellors, and now what can I do to deliver you?[1q]" if these public appearances of the heiress of Charles the Bold, and the love which she cherished for the husband who was chosen for her on political grounds, justify James in raising her to the title-role in this romance, it must be conceded that the real hero is Albert Maurice, citizen of Ghent, a noble mediæval prototype of the citoyens[5] of the French Revolution, Whatever defects in character-study have been ascribed to James, no one can deny that in Albert Maurice his skill was equal to its material. The figure of the young President is firmly and consistently drawn, and the conception touches considerable heights of human daring and aspiration. Albert Maurice at the time of his fall was many years younger than Wolsey, but he could say as genuinely as the Cardinal, "I charge thee, fling away ambition!" In his story we realize to the full the tragic import of that warning. His splendid dream of patriotism was fulfilled by blunders and crimes, committed per se or per alios, for which he felt the responsibility, and at the end the people of Ghent discovered the ancient truth, that worse than the tyranny of tyrants is the tyranny of tyrannicides. But by that time Maurice was dead; the victim of self-delusion would not survive his disappointment; in the sudden knowledge that his goal was unattainable, he became aware that his steps to it had been unjust. This romance of the fifteenth century--Mary of Burgundy was married in 1477--is in what Matthew Arnold called the "grand style," and it is therefore singularly free from faults of diction and false notes of any kind. It has a certain attractive naturalness from beginning to end, and it is one of the best, as it is one of the earliest, of the series of novels in which James went for his plots to the French Chroniclers of the Middle Ages.
MARY OF BURGUNDY:
OR,
THE REVOLT OF GHENT.
CHAPTER I.
It was on the evening of a beautiful day in the beginning of September, 1456--one of those fair autumn days that wean us, as it were, from the passing summer, with the light as bright, and the sky as full of rays, as in the richest hours of June; and with nothing but a scarce perceptible shade of yellow in the woods to tell that it is not the proudest time of the year's prime. It was in the evening, as I have said; but nothing yet betokened darkness. The sun had glided a considerable way on his descent down the bright arch of the western sky, yet without one ray being shadowed, or any lustre lost. He had reached that degree of declination alone, at which his beams, pouring from a spot a little above the horizon, produced, as they streamed over forest and hill, grand masses of light and shade, with every here and there a point of dazzling brightness, where the clear evening rays were reflected from stream or lake.
It was in the heart of a deep forest, too, whose immemorial trees, worn away by time, or felled by the axe, left in various places wide open spaces of broken ground and turf, brushwood and dingle,--and amidst whose deep recesses a thousand spots rich in woodland beauty lay hidden from the eye of man. Those were not, indeed, times when taste and cultivation had taught the human race to appreciate fully all the charms and magnificence wherewith nature's hand has robed the globe which we inhabit; and the only beings that then trod the deeper glades of the forest were the woodman, the hunter, or those less fortunate persons who--as we see them represented by the wild pencil of Salvator Rosa--might greatly increase the picturesque effect of the scenes they frequented; but, probably, did not particularly feel it themselves. But there is, nevertheless, in the heart of man, a native sense of beauty, a latent sympathy, a harmony with all that is lovely on the earth, which makes him unconsciously seek out spots of peculiar sweetness, not only for his daily dwelling, but also for both his temporary resting place, and for the mansion of his long repose, whether the age or the country be rude or not.
Look at the common cemetery of a village, and you will generally find that it is pitched in the most picturesque spot to be found in the neighbourhood. If left to his free will, the peasant will almost always--without well knowing why--build his cottage where he may have something fair or bright before his eyes; and the very herd, while watching his cattle or his sheep, climbs up the face of the crag, to sit and gaze over the fair expanse of Nature's face.
It was in the heart of a deep forest, then, at the distance of nearly twenty miles from Louvain, that a boy, of about twelve years of age, was seen sleeping by the side of a small stream; which, dashing over a high rock hard by, gathered its bright waters in a deep basin at the foot, and then rushed, clear and rapidly, through the green turf beyond. The old trees of the wood were scattered abroad from the stream, as if to let the little waterfall sparkle at its will in the sunshine. One young ash tree, alone, self-sown by the side of the river, waved over the boy's head, and cast a dancing veil of chequered light and shade upon features as fair as eye ever looked upon.
At about a hundred yards from the spot where he was lying, a sandy road wound through the savannah, and plunged into the deeper parts of the wood. On the other side, however, the ground being of a more open nature, the path might be seen winding up the steep ascent of a high hill, with the banks, which occasionally flanked it to the east, surmounted by long lines of tall overhanging trees.
A rude bridge of stone, whose ruinous condition spoke plainly how rarely the traveller's foot trod the path through the forest, spanned over the stream at a little distance. And the evening light, as it poured in from the west, caught bright upon the countenance of the sleeping boy, upon the dancing cascade above his head, upon many a flashing turn in the river, and, after gilding the ivy that mantled the old bridge, passed on to lose itself gradually in the gloom of the deep masses of forest-ground beyond.
The dress of the sleeper accorded well with the scene in which he was found; it consisted of a full coat, of forest-green, gathered round his waist by a broad belt, together with the long tight hose common at the period. In his belt was a dagger and knife; and on his head he had no covering, except the glossy curls of his dark brown hair. Though the material of his garments was of the finest cloth which the looms of Ypres could produce, yet marks of toil, and even of strife, were apparent in the dusty and torn state of his habiliments.
He lay, however, in that calm, deep, placid sleep, only known to youth, toil, and innocence. His breath was so light, and his slumber was so calm, that he might have seemed dead, but for the rosy hue of health that overspread his cheeks. No sound appeared at first to have any effect upon his ear, though, while he lay beside the stream, a wild, timid stag came rustling through the brushwood to drink of its waters, and suddenly seeing a human thing amidst the solitude of the forest, bounded quick away through the long glades of the wood. After that, the leaves waved over him, and the wind played with the curls of his hair for nearly half an hour, without any living creature approaching to disturb his repose. At the end of that time, some moving objects made their appearance at the most distant point of the road that was visible, where it sunk over the hill. At first, all that could be seen was a dark body moving forward down the descent, enveloped in a cloud of dust; but, gradually, it separated into distinct parts, and assumed the form of a party of armed horsemen. Their number might be ten or twelve; and, by the slowness of their motions, it seemed that they had already travelled far. More than once, as they descended the slope, they paused, and appeared to gaze over the country, as if either contemplating its beauty, or doubtful of the road they ought to take. These pauses, however, always ended in their resuming their way towards the spot which we have described. When they at length reached it, they again drew the rein; and it became evident, that uncertainty, with regard to their onward course, had been the cause of their several halts upon the hill.
"By my faith, Sir Thibalt of Neufchatel," said one of the horsemen, who rode a little in advance of the others, "for Marshal of Burgundy, you know but little of your lord's dominions. By the Holy Virgin! methinks that you are much better acquainted with every high-road and by-path of my poor appanage of Dauphiny. At least, so the worthy burghers of Vienne were wont to assert, when we would fain have squeezed the double crowns out of their purses. It was then their invariable reply, that the Marshal of Burgundy had been upon them with his lances[6], and drained them as dry as hay: coming no one knew how, and going no one knew where."
The man who spoke was yet not only in his prime, but in the early part of that period of life which is called middle age. There was no peculiar beauty in his countenance, nor in his person; there was nothing, apparently, either to strike or to please. Yet it was impossible to stand before him, and not to feel one's self--without very well knowing why--in the presence of an extraordinary man. There was in his deportment to be traced the evident habit of command. He spoke, as if knowing his words were to be obeyed. But that was not all; from underneath the overhanging penthouse of his thick eyebrows shone forth two keen grey eyes, which had in them a prying, inquisitive cunning, which seemed anxiously exerted to discover at once the thoughts of those they gazed upon, before any veil, of the many which man uses, could be drawn over motives or feelings, to conceal them from that searching glance.
Those given to physiognomy might have gathered, from his high and projecting, but narrow forehead, the indications of a keen and observing mind, with but little imagination, superstition without fancy, and talent without wit. The thin, compressed lips, the naturally firm-set posture of the teeth, the curling line from the nostril to the corner of the mouth, might have been construed to imply a heart naturally cruel, which derived not less pleasure from inflicting wounds by bitter words than from producing mere corporeal pain. His dress, at this time of his life, was splendid to excess; and the horse on which he rode showed the high blood that poured through its veins, by a degree of fire and energy far superior to that exhibited by the chargers of his companions, though the journey it had performed was the same which had so wearied them.
As he spoke the words before detailed, he looked back to a gentleman, who rode a step or two behind him on his right hand; and on his countenance appeared, what he intended to be, a smile of frank, good-humoured raillery. The natural expression of his features mingled with it nevertheless, and gave it an air of sarcasm, which made the bitter, perhaps, preponderate over the sweet.
The person to whom he addressed himself, however, listened with respectful good humour. "In truth, my lord," he replied, "so little have I dwelt in this part of the duke's dominions that I know my way less than many a footboy. I once was acquainted with every rood of ground between Brussels and Tirlemont; but, God be thanked, my memory is short, and I have forgotten it all, as readily as I hope you, sir, may forget certain marches in Dauphiny, made when Louis the Dauphin was an enemy to Burgundy, instead of an honoured guest."
"They are forgotten, Lord Marshal, they are forgotten," replied the Dauphin, afterwards famous as Louis XI.--"and can never more be remembered but to show me how much more pleasant it is to have the lord of Neufchatel for a friend rather than an enemy. But, in Heaven's name," he added, changing the subject quickly, "before we go farther, let us seek some one to show us the way, or let us halt our horses here, and wait for the fat citizens of Ghent, whom we left on the other side of the river."
His companion shook his head with a doubtful smile, as he replied, "It would be difficult, I trow, to find any guide here, unless Saint Hubert, or some other of the good saints, were to send us a white stag with a collar of gold round his neck, to lead us safely home, as the old legends tell us they used to do of yore."
"The saints have heard your prayer, my lord," cried one of the party who had strayed a little to the left, but not so far as to be out of hearing of the conversation which was passing between the other two; "the saints have heard your prayer; and here is the white stag, in the form of a fair boy in a green jerkin."
As he spoke, he pointed forward with his hand towards the little cascade, where the boy, who had been sleeping by its side, had now started up, awakened by the sound of voices, and of horses' feet, and was gazing on the travellers, with anxious eyes, and with his hand resting on his dagger.
"Why, how now, boy!" cried the Dauphin, spurring up towards the stream. "Thinkest thou that we are Jews, or cut-throats, or wild men of the woods, that thou clutchest thy knife so fearfully? Say, canst thou tell how far we are from Tirlemont?"
The boy eyed the party for several moments ere he replied. "How should I know whether you be cut-throats or not?" he said, at length; "I have seen cut-throats in as fine clothes. How far is it from Tirlemont? As far as it is from Liege or Namur."
"Then, by my troth, Sir Marshal," said the Dauphin, turning to his companion, "our horses will never carry us thither this night. What is to be done?"
"What is the nearest town or village, boy?" demanded the Marshal of Burgundy. "If we be at equal distances from Namur and Liege and Tirlemont, we cannot be far from Hannut."
"Hannut is the nearest place," answered the boy; "but it is two hours' ride for a tired horse."
"We will try it, however," said the Marshal; and then added, turning to the Dauphin, "the lord of the castle of Hannut, sir, though first cousin of the bad Duke of Gueldres, is a noble gentleman as ever lived; and I can promise you a fair reception. Though once a famous soldier, he has long cast by the lance and casque; and, buried deep in studies--which churchmen say are hardly over holy--he passes his whole time in solitude, except when some ancient friend breaks in upon his reveries. Such a liberty I may well take. Now, boy, tell us our road, and there is a silver piece for thy pains."
The boy stooped not to raise the money which the Marshal threw towards him, but replied eagerly, "If any one will take me on the croup behind him, I will show you easily the way. Nay, I beseech you, noble lords, take me with you; for I am wearied and alone, and I must lie in the forest all night if you refuse me."
"But dost thou know the way well, my fair boy?" demanded the Dauphin, approaching nearer, and stooping over his saddle-bow to speak to the boy with an air of increasing kindness. "Thou art so young, methinks thou scarce canst know all the turnings of a wood like this. Come, let us hear if thy knowledge is equal to the task of guiding us?"
"That it is," answered the boy at once. "The road is as easy to find as a heron's nest in a bare tree. One has nothing to do but to follow on that road over the bridge, take the two first turnings to the right, and then the next to the left, and at the end of a league more the castle is in sight."
"Ay," said the Dauphin, "is it so easy as that? Then, by my faith, I think we can find it ourselves. Come, Sir Marshall, come!" And, so saying, he struck his spurs into his horse's sides, and cantered over the bridge.
The Marshal of Burgundy looked back with a lingering glance of compassion at the poor boy thus unfeelingly treated by his companion. But, as the Prince dashed forward and waved his hand for him to follow, he rode on also, though not without a muttered comment on the conduct of the other, which might not have given great pleasure had it been vented aloud. The whole train followed; and, left alone, the boy stood silent, gazing on them as they departed, with a flushed cheek and a curling lip. "Out upon the traitors!" he exclaimed, at length. "All men are knaves; yet it is but little honour to their knavery, to cheat a boy like me."
The train wound onward into the wood, and the last horseman was soon hidden from his eyes; but the merry sound of laughing voices, borne by the wind to his ear for some moments after they were out of sight, spoke painfully how little interest they took in his feelings or situation.
He listened till all was still, and then, seating himself on the bank of the stream, gazed vacantly on the bubbling waters as they rushed hurriedly by him; while the current of his own thoughts held as rapid and disturbed a course. As memory after memory of many a painful scene and sorrow--such as infancy has seldom known--came up before his sight, his eyes filled, the tears rolled rapidly over his cheeks, and, casting himself prostrate on the ground, he hid his face amongst the long grass, and sobbed as if his heart would break.
He had not lain there long, however, when a heavy hand, laid firmly on his shoulder, caused him once more to start up; and, though the figure which stood by him when he did so, was not one whose aspect was very prepossessing, yet it would be difficult to describe the sudden lightning of joy that sparkled in his eyes through the tears with which they still overflowed.
The person who had roused him from the prostrate despair in which he had cast himself down, was a middle-sized, broad-made man, with long sinewy arms, and a chest like that of a mountain-bull. He might be nearly forty years of age; and his face, which had once been fair, a fact which was vouched alone by his light brown hair, and clear blue eye, had now reached a hue nearly approaching to the colour of mahogany, by constant exposure to the summer's sun and the winter's cold. There was in it, withal, an expression of daring hardihood, softened and, as it were, purified by a frank, free, good-humoured smile, which was not without a touch of droll humour. His garb at once bespoke him one of those vagrant sons of Mars, with whom war, in some shape, was a never-failing trade; a class of which we must speak more hereafter, and which the abuses of the feudal system, the constant feuds of chieftain with chieftain, and the long and desolating warfare between France and England, had at that time rendered but too common in every part of Europe. He was not, indeed, clothed from head to heel in cold iron, as was customary with the knight or man-at-arms when ready for the field; but there was quite a sufficient portion of old steel about his person, in the form of arms both offensive and defensive, to show that hard blows were the principal merchandise in which he traded.
He laid his large hairy hand, as I have said, firmly and familiarly on the boy's shoulder; and the expression of the young wanderer's countenance, when he started up, and beheld the person who stood near him, at once showed, not only that they were old acquaintances, but that their meeting was both unexpected and joyful.
"Matthew Gournay!" exclaimed the boy, "good Matthew Gournay, is it you, indeed? Oh, why did you not come before? With your fifty good lances, we might yet have held the castle out, till we were joined by the troops from Utrecht; but now all is lost, the castle taken, and my father----"
"I know it all, Master Hugh," interrupted the soldier; "I know it all better than the paternoster. Bad news flies faster than a swallow; so I know it all, and a good deal more than you yourself know. You ask, why I did not come too. By our Lady! for the simplest reason in the world--because I could not. I was lying like an old rat in a trap, with four stone walls all round about me, in the good city of Liege. Duke Philip heard of the haste I was making to give you help, and cogged with the old bishop--may his skull be broken!--to send out a couple of hundred reiters to intercept us on our march. What would you have? We fought like devils, but we were taken at a disadvantage, by a superior force. All my gallant fellows were killed or dispersed; and at last, finding my back against a rock, with six spears at my breast, and not loving the look of such a kind of toasting-fork, I agreed to take lodging in the town prison of Liege."
"But how got you out, then!" demanded the boy; "did they free you for good-will?"
"Not they," replied Matthew Gournay: "they gave me cold water and hard bread, and vowed every day to stick my head upon the gate of the town, as a terror to all marauders, as they said. But the fools showed themselves rank burghers, by leaving me my arms; and I soon found means to get the iron bars out of the windows, ventured a leap of thirty feet, swam the ditch, climbed the wall, and here I am in the forest of Hannut. But not alone, Master Hugh. I have got a part of my old comrades together already, and hope soon to have a better band than ever. The old seneschal, too, from the castle, is with us, and from him we heard all the bad news. But, though he talked of murder and putting to death, and flaying alive, and vowed that everybody in the castle had been killed but himself, I got an inkling from the old charcoal-burner's wife, at the hut in the wood, of how you had escaped, and whither you had gone. So, thinking, as you were on foot and alone, that you might want help and a horse, I tracked you like a deer to this place: for your father was always a good friend to me in the time of need; and I will stand by you, Master Hugh, while I have a hand for my sword, or a sword for my hand."
"Hark!" cried the boy, almost as the other spoke; "there's a bugle on the hill! It must be the duke's butchers following me."
"A bugle!" cried the soldier; "a cow's-horn blown by a sow-driver, you mean. None of the duke's bugles ever blew a blast like that, something between the groaning of a blacksmith's bellows and the grunting of a hog. But there they are," he continued, "sure enough, lances and all, as I live. We must to cover, Hugh, we must to cover! Quick--thy hand, boy--they are coming down, straggling like fallow deer!"
So saying, Matthew Gournay sprang up the high bank, in falling over which the little stream formed the cascade we have noticed; and, as he climbed the rock himself, he assisted, or rather dragged up after him, his young companion, whose hand he held locked in his own, with a grasp which no slight weight could have unbent.
For a moment, they paused on the top of the crag, to take another look at the approaching party, and then plunged into the long shrubs and tangled brushwood that clothed the sides of the winding glen, down which the stream wandered previous to its fall.
CHAPTER II.
The party, whose approach had interrupted the conversation of Matthew Gournay and his young companion, were not long before they reached the little open spot in the forest, from which they had scared the other two; and, as it was at that point that their road first fell in with the stream, they paused for a moment, to water their horses ere they proceeded. Their appearance and demeanour corresponded well with the peculiar sound of the horn which they had blown upon the hill; for though the instrument which announced their approach was martial in itself, yet the sounds which they produced from it were anything but military; and though swords and lances, casques and breastplates, were to be seen in profusion amongst them, there was scarcely one of the party who had not a certain burgher rotundity of figure, or negligence of gait, far more in harmony with furred gowns and caps à la mortier than with war-steeds and glittering arms.
The first, who paused beside the stream, had nearly been thrown over his horse's head, by the animal suddenly bending his neck to drink; and it was long before the rider could sufficiently compose himself again in the saddle, to proceed with some tale which he had been telling to one of his companions, who urged him to make an end of his story, with an eagerness which seemed to show that the matter was one of great interest to him at least.
"Well-a-day, Master Nicholas, well-a-day!" cried the discomposed horseman, "let me but settle myself on my stool--saddle, I mean. God forgive me! but this cursed beast has pulled the bridle out of my hands. So ho! Bernard, so ho!--there, there, surely thou couldst drink without bending thy head so low."
While he thus spoke, by a slow and cautious movement--not unlike that with which a child approaches a sparrow, to perform the difficult task of throwing salt upon its tail--he regained a grasp of the bridle-rein which the horse had twitched out of his hand, and then went on with his story, interrupting it, however, every now and then, to address sundry admonitions to his horse, somewhat in the following style:--
"Well, where was I, worthy Master Nicholas? I was saying--so ho! beast! The devil's in thee, thou wilt have me into the river. I was saying that, after the castle was taken, and every soul put to the sword, even the poor boy, Hugh,--for which last, I hear, the duke is very much grieved,--be quiet, Bernard, hold up thy head!--Count Adolphus himself fled away by a postern-door, and is now a prisoner in--"
"Nay, but, Master Martin, you said they were all put to death," interrupted one of his companions.
"Remember what the doctors say," replied the other; "namely, that there is no general rule without its exception. They were all killed but those that ran away, which were only Count Adolphus and his horse, who got away together, the one upon the other. Fool that he was to trust himself upon a horse's back! It was his ruin, alack! it was his ruin."
"How so?" demanded Master Nicholas; "did the horse throw him and break his pate? Methought you said, but now, that he was alive and a prisoner."
"And I said truly, too," answered the other. "Nevertheless, his mounting that horse was the cause of his ruin; for though he got off quietly enough, yet, at the bridge below Namur--where, if he had had no horse, he would have passed free--he was obliged to stop to pay pontage[7][1] for his beast. A priest, who was talking with the toll-man, knew him; and he was taken on the spot, and cast into prison."
"Methinks it was more the priest's fault than the horse's, then," replied Master Nicholas; "but whoever it was that betrayed him, bad was the turn they did to the city of Ghent; for, what with his aid, and that of the good folks of Gueldres, and the worthy burghers of Utrecht, we might have held the proud duke at bay, and wrung our rights from him drop by drop, like water from a sponge."
"God knows, God knows!" replied Martin Fruse, the burgher of Ghent, to whom this was addressed; "God knows! it is a fine thing to have one's rights, surely; but, somehow, I thought we were very comfortable and happy in the good old city, before there was any quarrel about rights at all. Well I know, we have never been happy since; and I have been forced to ride on horseback by the week together; for which sin, my flesh and skin do daily penance, as the chirurgeons of Namur could vouch if they would. Nevertheless, one must be patriotic, and all that, so I would not grumble, if this beast would but give over drinking, which I think he will not do before he or I drop down dead. Here, horse-boy, come and pluck his nose out of the pool; for I cannot move him more than I could the town-house."
The worthy burgher was soon relieved from his embarrassments; and his horse being once more put upon the road, he led the way onward, followed by the rest of the party, with their servants and attendants. The place of leader was evidently conceded to good Martin Fruse; but this distinction was probably assigned to him, more on account of his wealth and integrity, than from the possession of fine wit, great sense, energetic activity, or any other requisite for a popular leader. He was, in truth, a worthy, honest man, somewhat easily persuaded, especially where his general vanity, and, more particularly, his own opinion of his powers as a politician, were brought into play: but his mind was neither very vigorous nor acute; though sometimes an innate sense of rectitude, and a hatred of injustice, would lend energy to his actions, and eloquence to his words.
Amongst those who followed him, however, were two or three spirits of a higher order; who, without his purity of motives, or kindly disposition, possessed far greater talents, activity, and vigour. Nevertheless, turbulent by disposition and by habit, few of the burghers of Ghent, at that time, possessed any very grand and general views, whether directed to the assertion of the liberties and rights of their country, or to the gratification of personal ambition. They contented themselves with occasional tumults, or with temporary alliances with the other states and cities in the low countries, few of which rested long without being in open rebellion against their governors.
One of the party, however, which accompanied good Martin Fruse must not pass unmentioned; for, at that time acting no prominent part, he exerted considerable influence, in after days, on the fortunes of his country. He was, at the period I speak of, a bold, brave, high-spirited boy; by no means unlike the one we have seen sleeping by the cascade, though perhaps two or three years older. He was strong and well proportioned for his age, and rode a wild young jennet, which though full of fire, he managed with perfect ease. There was something, indeed, in the manner in which he excited the horse into fury, gave it the rein, and let it dash free past all his companions, as if it had become perfectly ungovernable; and then, without difficulty, reined it up with a smile of triumph, which gave no bad picture of a mind conscious of powers of command, ambitious of their exercise, and fearless of the result. How this character of mind became afterwards modified by circumstances, will be shown more fully in the following pages.
In the meanwhile, we must proceed with the train of burghers as they rode on through the wood; concerting various plans amongst themselves, for concealing from the Duke of Burgundy the extent of their intrigues with Adolphus of Gueldres and the revolted citizens of Utrecht, for excusing themselves on those points which had reached his knowledge, and for assuaging his anger by presents and submission. The first thing to be done, before presenting themselves at his court, was, of course, to strip themselves of the warlike habiliments in which they had flaunted, while entertaining hopes of a successful revolt. For this purpose, they proposed to avoid the high road either to Brussels or Louvain; and as most of them were well acquainted with the country through which they had to pass, they turned to the left, after having proceeded about a mile farther on their way, and put spurs to their horses, in order to get out of the forest before nightfall, which was now fast approaching.
The way was difficult, however, and full of large ruts and stones, in some places overgrown with briers, in some places interrupted by deep ravines. Here, it would go down so steep a descent, that slowness of progression was absolutely necessary to the safety of their necks; there, it would climb so deep a hill, that whip and spur were applied to increase the speed of their beasts in vain.
As they thus journeyed on, making but little way, the bright rosy hue which tinged the clouds above their heads showed that the sun was sinking beneath the horizon's edge: the red, after growing deeper and deeper for some time, began to fade away into the grey; each moment the light became fainter and more faint; and, at length, while they had yet at least three miles of forest ground to traverse, night fell completely over the earth.
The darkness, however, was not so deep as in any degree to prevent them from finding their way onward, or from distinguishing the objects round about them, although it lent a mysterious sort of grandeur to the deep masses and long dim glades of the forest, made the rocks look like towers and castles, and converted many a tree, to the eyes of the more timid, into the form of an armed man.
After having gone on in this state for about half an hour--just a sufficient time, indeed, to work up every sort of apprehension to the utmost, yet not long enough to familiarize the travellers with the darkness, and when every one was calling to mind all the thousand stories--which were, in those days, alas! too true ones--of robbers, and murderers, and free plunderers--the whole party plunged down into a deep dell, the aspect of which was not at all calculated to assuage their terrors, whether reasonable or foolish. Not, indeed, that it was more gloomy than the road through which they had been lately travelling; rather, on the contrary. Whatever degree of light yet remained in the heavens found its way more readily into that valley, where the trees were less high, and at greater intervals from each other, than into the narrow road which had led them thither, the high banks of which were lined all the way along with tall and overhanging beeches. The sort of dingle, however, which they now entered, was clothed with low but thick shrubs; and no means of egress whatever appeared, except by climbing some of the steep ascents which surrounded it on every side.
There was a small piece of level ground at the bottom, of about a hundred yards in diameter; and the moment they had reached the flat, the word "Halt!" pronounced in a loud and imperative voice, caused every one suddenly to draw his bridle rein with somewhat timid obedience, though no one distinguished who was the speaker.
The matter was not left long in doubt. A dark figure glided from the brushwood across their path; half a dozen more followed; and the glistening of the faint light upon various pieces of polished iron, showed that there was no lack of arms to compel obedience to the peremptory order they had received to halt.
As the persons who obstructed the way, however, seemed but few in number, one of the more bellicose of the burghers called upon his companions to resist. His magnanimity was suddenly diminished by a long arm stretched from the bushes beside him, which applied the stroke of a quarter-staff with full force to his shoulders; and though a cuirass, by which his person was defended, protected him from any serious injury, yet he was thrown forward upon his horse's neck, with a sound very much resembling that produced by the falling of an empty kettle from the hands of a slovenly cook. All were now of opinion, that, whatever might have been the result of resistance to the more open foes before them, it was useless to contend with such invisible enemies also, especially as those that were visible were gradually increasing in numbers; and worthy Martin Fruse led the way to a valorous surrender, by begging the gentlemen of the forest "to spare them for God's sake."
"Down from your horses, every one of you!" cried the rough voice which had commanded them to halt, "and we shall soon see what stuff you are made of."
The citizens hastened to obey; and, in the terror which now reigned completely amongst them, strange were the attitudes which they assumed, and strange was the tumbling off, on either side of their beasts, as they hurried to show prompt submission to the imperious command they had received. In the confusion and disarray thus produced, only one person of all their party seemed to retain full command of his senses; and he was no other than the boy we have before described, who, now taking advantage of a vacancy he saw in the ranks of their opponents, dashed forward for a gap in the wood, and had nearly effected his escape. He was too late, however, by a single moment: his bridle was caught by a strong arm, before he could force his way through; and his light jennet, thrown suddenly upon its haunches, slipped on the green turf, and rolled with her young master on the ground.
"By my faith," said the man who had thus circumvented him, "thou art a bold young springal; but thou must back with me, my boy;" and so saying, he raised him, not unkindly, from the earth, and led him to the place where his companions stood.
The burghers and their attendants--in all, about ten in number--were now divested of their arms, offensive and defensive, by the nameless kind of gentry into whose hands they had fallen. This unpleasant ceremony, however, was performed without harshness; and, though, no resistance of any kind was offered, their captors abstained, with very miraculous forbearance, from examining the contents of their pouches, and from searching for any other metal than cold iron. When all this was completed, and the good citizens of Ghent, reduced to their hose and jerkins, stood passive, in silent expectation of what was to come next--not at all unlike a flock of sheep that a shepherd's dog has driven into a corner of a field,--the same hoarse-voiced gentleman, who had hitherto acted as the leader of their assailants, addressed them in a bantering tone:--"Now, my masters, tell me truly," he cried, "whether do ye covet to go with your hands and feet at liberty, or to have your wrists tied with cords till the blood starts out from underneath your nails, and your ankles garnished in the same fashion?"
The answer of the citizens may well be conceived; and the other went on in the same jeering manner:--"Well, then, swear to me by all you hold holy and dear--but stay! First tell me who and what you are, that I may frame the oath discreetly; for each man in this world holds holy and dear that which his neighbour holds foolish and cheap."
"We are poor unhappy burghers of Ghent," replied Martin Fruse, who, though at first he had been terrified to a very undignified degree, now began to recover a certain portion of composure,--"we are poor unhappy burghers of Ghent, who have been induced by vain hopes of some small profit to ourselves and our good city, to get upon horseback. Alack! and a well-a-day! that ever honest, sober-minded men should be persuaded to trust their legs across such galloping, uncertain, treacherous beasts."
"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted the man who had addressed him; "as I live by sword and dagger, it is good Martin Fruse coming from Namur. Well, Martin, the oath I shall put to thee is this--that by all thy hopes of golden florins, by all thy reverence for silks and furs and cloths of extra fineness, by thy gratitude to the shuttle and the loom, and by thy respect and love for a fine fleece of English wool, thou wilt not attempt to escape from my hands, till I fix thy ransom and give thee leave to go."
Martin Fruse very readily took the oath prescribed, grateful in his heart for any mitigation of his fears, though trembling somewhat at the name of ransom, which augured ill for the glittering heaps which he had left at home. His comrades all followed his example, on an oath of the same kind being exacted from each; but when it was addressed to the youth who accompanied them, a different scene was acted. He replied boldly, "Of cloths and furs I know nothing, but that they cover me, and I will not take such a warehouse vow for the best man that ever drew a sword."
"How now, how now, Sir Princox!" cried Martin Fruse; "art thou not my nephew, Albert Maurice? Take the oath this gentleman offers thee, sirrah, and be well content that he does not strike off thy young foolish head."
"I will swear by my honour, uncle," replied the boy, "but I will never swear by cloth and florins, for such a vow would bind me but little."
"Well, well, thy honour will do," said the leader of their captors; "though, by my faith, I think we must keep thee with us, and make a soldier of thee; for doubtless thou art unworthy of the high honour of becoming a burgher of Ghent."
