When the deputies was returned to Bruges with this treaty, the magistrates assembled the commonalty before the sheriff's court, and demanded if they were willing to ratify this treaty. There were present upwards of twenty thousand persons, who, after a moment's silence, unanimously replied, 'Yes.' Then stepped forth one called Coppin de Mesinacre, who had been lately banished Ghent for his misdeeds, and said, 'All goes wrong: how are ye such cowards as to fear the ghent men? You certainly ought to suffer for your folly and want of firmness.' In consequence of this speech the deacon of the artisans, a tailor, and some others, began to murmur, and to oppose the confirmation of the treaty, more especially to putting their assent on paper; and at last, by their tumultuous behaviour, the treaty was destroyed. Some time afterward by a legal sentence, the said Coppin, the deacon of the artisans, the tailor, and one other, were beheaded for this conduct: seventeen of their accomplices were also banished. The negotiations for peace between Bruges and Ghent were put an end to, although seventeen hostages had been left with the army by the deputies from Bruges. The ghent men afterward set them at liberty without ransom, because they had assured them that they had done all in their power to get it ratified. In this treaty it had been agreed, that the inhabitants of the Franc might take up their rights of burghership at Ghent or Bruges at their pleasure. The towns of Ghent and Ypres were to send ambassadors to the duke of Burgundy, to request that he would withdraw all foreign soldiers from Sluys, and order the stakes to be removed from the bed of the river Lieve, that vessels might freely pass and repass with merchandise, or permit them to take away these obstructions. The army of Ghent now marched to fix its quarters at Ardembourg; and because Bruges persisted in refusing to ratify the treaty to which their deputies had agreed, and would not yield up their claims on the Franc, the duke's ordinance of last year, forbidding all kinds of provision to be carried to Bruges, was again proclaimed in Ghent, and throughout its jurisdictions; and also, that all debts and effects belonging to those of Bruges should be delivered up to the magistrates. It was afterward proclaimed that, should the men of Bruges attempt to make any inroads on the territories of Ghent, all the church and other alarm bells should be instantly rung to collect a force sufficient to oppose them. After this, Clarus Boye, a native of the town of Axel, William le Boquelaire, a patten maker, and from the country of Waast, and a man of Courtray, were beheaded, for having gone to Courtray at the instigation of the artisans and petty traders of Ghent,--and for having said that the ghent men were very desirous that those of Bruges would join them in arms for the common good and union of the country of Flanders, and to punish the inhabitants of Sluys.