them to stay before the Town-Hall, and wait till he returned; however, the mob forced them by degrees into the market-place. The duke being got thither, commanded the image to be taken away, and carried back again into the church: some in obedience endeavoured to take it up, but others threw it down again where it was. The next insolence was, to demand justice against certain persons in the city, who had embezzled part of the public stock; to which the duke answered, that he would take care and see them satisfied as to that particular: but finding they would not disperse, he returned to his palace, and they continued in the market-place for eight days together.[200] The next morning they brought him certain articles, by which they demanded restitution of whatever Duke Philip had taken from them by the peace of Gavre; and among the rest this was one, that every company might have its banner according to former custom, which guilds are in all seventy-two. To avoid the danger he was in, he granted their demands[201], gave them whatever privileges they asked, and the word was no sooner spoken but the banners were set up and displayed in the market-place, having been made ready for that purpose; from whence one may probably conjecture they would have done the same thing if the duke had denied their requests.[202] His opinion was right, that, if he made his first entry into Ghent, all the rest of the towns would follow its example, for several of them mutinied as it had done, killed their officers, and committed many other excesses. If he had believed his father’s character of that people (which was, “That the inhabitants of Ghent loved the son of their prince very well, but for their prince himself they never had any kindness”), he would not have been so much mistaken; for, to speak impartially, next to the city of Liege, Ghent is the most fickle and inconstant town in the whole world. But among so many ill qualities, they have one good, and that is, that they never offer violence to the person of their prince; and, indeed, the chief citizens and better sort of the town are generally honest men, and much dissatisfied with the folly and inconstancy of the common people.