Chief among the giants who at this time were cleansing the Augean stables of Brussels, building up her shattered bulwarks, promoting harmony among their fellow-citizens, strangling discontent with good government, and putting off revolution by reform, towers the figure of Everard T'Serclaes, a head and shoulders above the rest of them. Everard T'Serclaes, or in plain English Everard Nicholson--politician, patriot, aristocrat, possessor of much gold and many acres, high in authority, high in his Sovereign's favour, one whom the whole town spoke well of, and, in spite of it all, an honest man. Born in the year 1315 or thereabout of an old magisterial house famous in civic annals, descended, probably in the female line, from the unknown founder of the great clan in which his family had for generations been enrolled, the clan called _S'Leeuws Geslachte_--that is, of the lion--so named from the magnanimous beast displayed on the S'Leeuws escutcheon, from the time when he reached man's estate Everard T'Serclaes had in all probability busied himself, after the manner of his fellows, with civic affairs; and yet for at least twenty years after this period his life is a blank to us: of his childhood, his youth, his upbringing, we know nothing; and even the date of his birth is matter of conjecture. This is all the more remarkable from the fact that T'Serclaes did more for his native town and his native land than any other man of his day, and was deservedly the most popular Brussels hero of the Middle Age. He first appears on the stage of history in 1356, when he must have already reached middle life, and his coming was in this wise. It was the time of the Flemish invasion. On the 17th of August 1356 the Duke's forces had been utterly routed at Scheut, hard by Anderlecht; he himself had fled the country; Louis of Maele had entered Brussels almost without opposition, and his right to the duchy had been acknowledged by every town in Brabant. 'Truly it was an admirable thing to behold so sudden a metamorphosis: in two days the whole government had completely changed its face.' Thus the contemporary chronicler Butkins, but in reality the sympathies of the governing classes, had been from the first with the Count of Flanders. They knew very well that Winceslaus hated patricians, and they knew too that Louis in his own dominions was a staunch supporter of aristocratic rule. Hence they regarded his triumph as their own, and it was actually at their instigation that he had assumed the title of Duke of Brabant.