Some fifty years prior to the charter last mentioned Duke John II married one of the daughters of Edward I, King of England, and gave that monarch the city of Antwerp as a fief. Edward III used the city as a naval base, and in 1339 signed there with Jacques Van Artevelde a treaty of alliance with the communes of Brabant and Flanders. The Kings of England did not, however, retain their suzerainty over Antwerp very long, for it next passed--once more by marriage--to the daughter of Louis of Maele, Count of Flanders. The city sought to resist, and Count Louis was obliged to besiege it and punished the burghers severely for their disobedience. On his death it passed to Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, along with the entire County of Flanders of which it was then a part, and thereafter remained under the Burgundian Dukes and their successors. In 1446 Philip the Good--whose policy had proved so disastrous to Bruges and Ghent--laid the foundation for the commercial greatness of Antwerp by a liberal charter which he granted to the Merchant Adventurers of England. The English merchants had already left Bruges, where the River Zwyn was fast silting up, and now came to Antwerp and established there a most extensive trade. They were followed by the merchants of the other nations, and in less than seventy-five years after the granting of the charter the population of the city had doubled twice--from less than seventeen thousand to over forty--four thousand inhabitants. It was during this period that many of the most interesting structures of "old Antwerp"--the portion of the city between the Steen and the cathedral and north of the Hotel de Ville--were built. We spent several interesting mornings tramping these quaint old winding streets, some of which are still as mediæval in aspect as any to be seen in Europe. The _Vielle Boucherie_, recently restored, dates from the reign of Louis of Maele. In its time it contained stalls for fifty-three butchers. The streets surrounding this quaint structure of ragged brick are well nigh as ancient and interesting as the "monuments" which one encounters here and there while exploring them. The Steen itself dates, as we have seen, from the very earliest period of the city's history, but is only a remnant of what it was. In the days of the Spanish Inquisition this grim old structure became a place of dread, and its gloomy dungeons--which the cheerful and smiling guide showed us by candlelight, for two cents a head--were in constant use for the entertainment of guests of the Margraves and their successors, the Burgundian Dukes, for nigh on to eight centuries. [Illustration: THE _VIELLE BOUCHERIE_, ANTWERP.]