The duke was forced to wink at these insolences, lest he should have been engaged in a war with his own subjects and the Liegeois at the same time; but he resolved, if he succeeded in the enterprise he had undertaken, to call them afterwards to a severe account[203]; and so it happened, for (as is said before) they brought all their banners on foot as far as Brussels to meet him, and all their privileges and charters which they had forced him to sign at his departure from Ghent; when, in a grand assembly[204] at the great hall at Brussels, and in the presence of several ambassadors, they presented him with the said banners and privileges, to dispose of as he pleased, he commanded his heralds to strip the banners from the staves to which they were fastened, and to send them to Boulogne (a town about ten leagues from Calais) upon the sea, where the rest were then kept, which his father Duke Philip had taken from them in his wars, in which he had vanquished and subdued them. The duke’s chancellor[205] also took their charter and all their privileges, and cancelled one of them, relating to the magistracy of their city, before their faces: for in all the other towns of Flanders the duke renews the magistrates every year, and receives their accounts; but at Ghent, by virtue of this privilege, he could elect but four, though the whole number was six and twenty, the remaining two and twenty being left to the nomination of the city. When these magistrates are well affected to the Earl of Flanders, that year they are at peace, and they grant him whatever he desires; but when, on the contrary, they are disaffected, seditions arise, and all goes to wreck. Besides this, they were fined, and paid 30,000 florins to the duke, and 6000 to his courtiers, and some of their townsmen were banished, and then all the rest of their privileges were restored. The rest of the towns, following their example, ransomed their crimes, and made their peace with money[206]; for they had attempted nothing against his person. By all which it evidently appears what advantages follow the conqueror, and what losses the conquered; for which reason we ought to be very cautious of coming to a battle before there be a necessity for it, and if any such necessity happens, all things are to be seriously weighed and considered before we engage; and commonly those who are wary, and go to it with fear, are most circumspect, and by consequence more frequently successful than those who are arrogant and presumptuous. But when God interposes, man’s wisdom signifies nothing.