While the great cities of Flanders furnished by far the larger part of the Duke's soldiery--it is said that Ghent, Bruges and Ypres could together have armed 100,000 men, had it been necessary, without arresting the course of their industries--they were often a most uncertain support, as the history of the same siege illustrates. After weary weeks of waiting, the Dutch fleet at last appeared, but was soon dispersed by English ships. At this juncture the Ghenters declared they were going home. In vain the Duke threatened and then entreated. Neither tears nor menaces could move them. "The trumpets sounded, the troops, with waving banners, marched away." Scarcely had the Ghenters disappeared when the other Flemings followed their example, and the helpless Duke was forced to bring up the rear with his nobles. The Order of the Golden Fleece was established at Bruges by Philip the Good at the time of his marriage to Princess Isabella of Portugal. The Golden Fleece suggested the importance of Bruges as the center of the trade in wool, while the story of Jason embodied the principles of chivalry. The first motto of the order was changed later to that of the house of Burgundy--"Je l'ai emprins," (I have undertaken it). The organization was to consist of twenty-four knights besides the prince at its head, who were privileged to be tried only by the members of the order, thus being protected against despotic sovereigns as well as against the laws of their country. Philip II of Spain was the first to violate this privilege, in the execution of Counts Egmont and Hoorn. In the eighteenth century, the order of the Golden Fleece was divided into two branches, those of Austria and Spain. Philip the Good, although a vassal of both France and the Empire, was from the central position of his provinces and the number of rich trading cities that they contained, more powerful than either the French king or the Emperor. His son and successor, Charles the Rash, called "the proudest, most daring and most unmanageable prince that ever made the sword the type and the guarantee of greatness," seems to have coveted a domain that should include the whole of ancient Lotharingia, or the region watered by the Rhine, the Rhone and the Po, and even to have dreamed of invading Italy. He spent his reign in a series of unsuccessful campaigns, in the last of which he lost his life, and left to his daughter Mary the heritage of a large state, composed of many principalities--little states surrounded by enemies and with no bond of union among themselves.