Towards sundown he set out for his château at Maele, the deputies of the Estates of Flanders accompanied him part of the way, and before he bade them farewell he again confirmed his promises. 'Monseigneur,' Philip had said, 'you are now a free man, tell me frankly your intentions.' 'Fair cousin of Cleves,' replied Maximilian, 'believe me I shall keep my word,' and thus they parted. Great was the joy of the city of Bruges, and the people determined to make a night of it in the _Grande Place_, as is still their wont upon festive occasions, with malt liquor and music and dancing, without which accompaniments no Flemish festival ever has been, or probably ever will be, complete. Suddenly the band of musicians who had stationed themselves on the summit of the Belfry ceased playing. They had descried a hundred tongues of flame rising up from the woods of Maele. Maximilian's foreign _gens de guerre_ were celebrating their master's return by firing the peasants' homesteads, and though next day Maximilian sent word to Bruges that the incendiaries had not acted under his instructions, and perhaps he spoke the truth, what had happened was far from reassuring, and men began to doubt whether the peace which had just been signed would after all be one of long duration; nor were their fears ill founded. From the first the King of the Romans had been playing a double part. Even whilst the negotiations with his burghers were pending he was secretly pressing the imperial Electors to send their armies against them; four days after the peace of May 16 had been publicly proclaimed in the cities of Flanders he felt himself strong enough to drop the mask. Maximilian had now taken up his abode in the impregnable fortress of Hulse, and from thence he issued a proclamation to all the communes of Flanders informing them that he did not intend to observe the treaty he had sworn to. An oath, he said, taken under obligation had no binding force. It was enough. Maximilian had once more shown the cloven hoof, the Flemings had once more been deceived, and soon in every city and in every hamlet in Flanders the tocsin was shrieking war. In an age when treason and suspicion of treason were rampant throughout the realm, when on all sides men were plotting against their neighbours and at the same time were surely convinced that their neighbours were plotting against them, Philip of Cleves affords us a bright and shining example of loyalty and good faith. An honest, straightforward, generous man, conscious of the cleanness of his own heart and his own hands, he found it difficult to convince himself that even those whom he felt it his duty to oppose were inspired in any sort by motives less conscientious than his own. As soon as he had learned of Maximilian's treachery he thus wrote to him:--