On the last day of November, 1530, the Regent Margaret passed away at her palace at Malines in the fiftieth year of her age and the twenty-third of her regency. For forty-five days the bells of the churches throughout the city tolled at morning, noon and night in expression of the profound grief of the people at their great loss. The dirges may well have been for the departure of the city's greatness as well, for the death of its great patroness proved the beginning of its decline. The new Regent, Marie of Hungary, removed her court to Brussels, and although Malines, by way of compensation, was made the seat of an arch-bishopric it never recovered its former splendour and sank rapidly into the quiet town that it was when the great war added a new and tragic chapter to its history. CHAPTER XVI GHENT UNDER CHARLES THE FIFTH--AND SINCE But for the great disaster at Nancy, it is altogether probable that Charles the Bold would, before very long, have sought to chastise the burghers of Ghent as he did those of Liége, but his unexpected death, and the ruin of his plans, gave the citizens at least a brief period of respite from the tyranny that had been pressing more and more heavily upon them since the "bloody sea of Gavre." His daughter, Marie, was only nineteen when her father's fall placed her at the mercy of the turbulent communes, and at Ghent as well as Bruges she was forced to grant a charter restoring the many privileges that Charles and Philip the Good had taken away. She was even helpless to save the lives of two of her most trusted counsellors, who were accused by the men of Ghent of treacherous correspondence with their wily enemy, Louis XI, and--in spite of her entreaties and tears in their behalf in the Marché de Vendredi--were publicly beheaded in the first year of her brief reign. Shortly after the untimely death of this princess whose popularity might have held the communes in check, her husband, Maximilian, began the long war that finally resulted in establishing his authority over all of Flanders. This accomplished, he established his daughter, Margaret of Austria, as Regent and during the twenty-three years of her wise and gentle reign the country remained for the most part at peace and its commerce and prosperity returned.