To trace the rise of the Netherlands as a European Power from a more remote period than the beginning of the fourteenth century would be beyond the range of this sketch; but for the purpose of showing the general advance of the country's interests a brief summary of the events culminating in the wellnigh despotic power of the House of Burgundy may refresh the reader's mind, as they affect the constitution of the nation, and may serve to point cause {3} and effect in the increasing prosperity of the country and in the resulting advance of art; for just as the political influence of the Burgundian Princes spread from their hereditary provinces first over Flanders and Brabant--over that part of the Netherlands which is now known as Belgium--and finally over the Dutch provinces, so the current of art swept from Burgundy to Flanders and thence to Holland. At the beginning of the fourteenth century Holland was ruled by the House of Avennes, Counts of Hainault. Holland having previous to the accession of the Avennes annexed Zeeland, the three provinces may almost be regarded as the nucleus of the Dutch power. William IV., last of the Hainault line, died childless in 1355. His death was the signal for the outbreak of a long and spasmodic series of civil disturbances between the nobles and the cities and municipalities. These parties, known by the titles of the Hooks and the Kabblejaus (codfish), continued their intermittent strife throughout the succeeding 150 years. In the meantime William IV. was succeeded by William of Bavaria. Then followed his brother Albert, who was in turn succeeded by his son William VI. At the death of the latter {4} the reins of government were left in the uncertain hands of his young daughter, Jacqueline, a girl of seventeen. Jacqueline, it appears, led anything but a happy life. Her cousin, Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, for thirteen years plundered and robbed her, and at her death in 1437 he had already dispossessed her of her lands and reduced her from the position of Sovereign to that of Lady Forester in her own provinces, whilst for himself he had laid the foundation of that Greater Netherlands which by conquest and annexation he proceeded to extend. Having acquired the principal Netherlands and inherited the two Burgundies and the counties of Flanders and Artois, he had purchased the county of Namur, usurped the duchy of Brabant, and annexed the barony of Mechlin. A few years later he acquired also the duchy of Luxembourg.