The count appealed for aid to his son-in-law duke Philip. The latter
gentleman was not well pleased to see his wife’s patrimony wasted
by brewers of beer, so he levied an army in France and marched into
Flanders. The king who was now fourteen and whose blood was on fire at
the sound of a trumpet, insisted on accompanying the expedition. They
met the insurgents at Rosebeke near Ypres. Van Artevelde and Dubois
flushed with their previous success, were confident of victory. Van
Artevelde himself issued the order that no quarter be given. Slay every
Frenchman, cried he, except the young king! Bring him to Ghent and we
will teach him to speak Flemish.
But they had left out of their reckoning one factor which perhaps
oftener than any other determines the fate of battle. Duke Philip
though himself a good captain, was prudent enough not to trust to his
own soldiership when better was at hand. He had put his army under the
command of Oliver de Clisson constable of France, the worthy successor
of Du Guesclin. The stubborn courage of the Netherlanders was of no
avail against the skill with which De Clisson directed his legions; and
at the close of a bloody day the men of Ghent were routed.
At night-fall as the king, the duke, the count and the constable were
walking over the field of battle, picking their way among the slain,
a dying soldier raised his arm and pointed to a heap of dead bodies
close by. They dragged aside alternate Frenchman and Fleming till they
came to all that remained of Philip Van Artevelde. He had died like
a soldier where the fight was the hottest. Dubois escaped wounded to
England.
Charles-the-wise when dying had counselled his brother of Burgundy
to marry the young king to a German princess in order to strengthen
alliance with the Empire. Stephen duke of Bavaria had a daughter
named Isabella; and the duchess Margaret together with her friend and
gossip the duchess of Brabant resolved to make the match. Isabella
was fourteen. She was handsome enough, but she was an uncouth tomboy
and dressed in a style that was anything but French. The duchess of
Brabant took her in hand, and by much discipline of her own seconded by
a French dancing-master and a French dressmaker, succeeded in breaking
this romping Rhinelander into some semblance of polite behavior. She
was presented to the king who was now seventeen. She knelt at his
feet with perfect grace: he raised her up and made a common-place
remark, and she said just the right thing in reply. She had been made
to rehearse the whole scene beforehand, in the king’s absence. He was
charmed with her beauty and her manners, and he fell in love with her
and married her. She turned out to be a veritable Messalina and did
what she could to add to the misfortunes of France.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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