There was some difficulty at first as to sureties. Maximilian had named the Duke of Saxony and the Marquis of Baden, but these princes hesitated to guarantee his good faith; it were an undertaking, they averred, too risky. The knot was at length cut by Philip of Cleves, who, on learning of the difficulty, wrote to Maximilian offering to do anything in his power to help him. Philip was the son of the Lord of Ravestein, one of the four regents whom Maximilian had accepted at the commencement of his son's reign. He was a man deservedly popular amongst the burghers, his influence with them had contributed in great measure to the successful issue of the negotiations, and in due course his name appeared at the head of the list of guarantors. The communes, however, were not yet satisfied, and that, though Maximilian, in order to further reassure them, had renounced Philip's homage so that he might be free to take up arms against him in the event of his breaking his troth, and Philip, at his request, had bound himself by oath to do so. The treaty of peace, they said, must be ratified by the Pope, the Emperor and the imperial Electors, and before Maximilian was set free he must undertake to obtain such ratification. He seems to have had no hesitation in doing so, for the same day he left Jean Gros's palace and, preceded by priests with relics, and guildsmen with banners and torches, betook himself to the market-place, where, on the very spot on which the scaffold had lately stood, a magnificent throne had been erected, surmounted by a richly-embroidered canopy. Hard-by there stood an altar, and on it was set a Book of the Gospels and amid flaming torches the Host. Before these sacred objects Maximilian presently knelt down and 'with much seeming fear and reverence took the appointed oath. "Of our free will we promise," he said, in a voice so sweet'--we are quoting the words of one who heard him--'that it would have melted a heart of stone, "of our free will we promise and swear in good faith on the Sacred Host here present, on the cross, on the Book of the Gospels, on the precious body of St. Donatian and on the Canon of the Mass to carry out wholly and entirely the treaty of peace and alliance which we have concluded with our well-beloved Estates ... and on our princely and royal word, on our honour, and on our faith we hereby promise never to do anything to violate it."' Maximilian having thus pledged himself, the Bishop of Tournai solemnly blessed all those who should keep inviolate, and afterwards solemnly cursed all those who should presume to infringe, the treaty agreed to that day (May 16, 1488). Then followed a sumptuous banquet, then, at St. Donatian's a _Te Deum_, after which Philip of Cleves, who had only just reached Bruges, took oath 'to aid them of Flanders against all infractors of the said peace, union and alliance.' At length, after an imprisonment of eleven weeks, Maximilian was once more free.