For some years past, what with extravagant expenditure upon tournaments, vvhat with internal wars and distant crusades, the Flemish nobility had very generally fallen into pecuniary embarrassment, and had thus been compelled to raise money, by granting extensive privileges and immunities to the inhabitants of their lordships, and especially to those of the towns, for which they received very considerable sums. Dearly as the citizens had to pay for their enfranchisement, the sacrifice was soon made good with ample interest.
The commonalty, which had formerly belonged with life and goods to the nobles, felt that the sweat of their brows no longer flowed in vain; they elected burgomasters and councilors, and constituted municipal governments, with which their former lords had no power of interference whatever. The different guilds cooperated for the common interest, each under the direction of its dean, who was its principal officer.
Freedom and security bore their usual fruits; from all the winds of heaven strangers made their way to Flanders, and commerce flourished widi a vitality that would have been impossible under the government of the feudal lords. Industry prospered, the people grew rich, and in the pride of independence and power rose up more than once in arms against their former masters. The nobles, seeing their revenues diminished and their supremacy in danger, strove by all means, fair and foul, to check the rising importance of the commons, but with very indifferent success; for the wealth of the towns enabled them to take the field on at least an equal footing, in order to maintain the liberties they had won, and to hand them down unimpaired. In France things were far otherwise; Philip the Fair, indeed, had once, in his distress for money, summoned the deputies of the third estate, that is to say, of the towns, to the States General; but any gain to the people from this step was but temporary, and the feudal lords speedily recovered whatever ground they had lost.
What remained of the Flemish nobility had thus entirely lost their supremacy, and had nothing left but the ordinary rights of proprietorship over their estates. Lamenting their bygone power, they saw no other way of recovering it but by the overthrow of the privileges and prosperity of the commons. As no ray of freedom had yet beamed upon France, where a despotic feudalism still exclusively prevailed, they hoped that Philip the Fair would totally change the state of things in Flanders, and that they should be reinstated in all their former power. To this end they favored the cause of France against Flanders, and thus obtained the name of Lilyards, as a term of reproach. These were especially numerous at Bruges, which then divided with Venice the palm of wealth and commerce, and where even the burgomasters and other magistrates, through corrupt influence brought to bear upon the elections, all belonged to that faction.
The arrest of the old Count, and those nobles who had remained true to him, was joyful news for this party. Flanders was now delivered up into the hands of Philip the Fair; and they hoped that by this means they should succeed in canceling all the rights and privileges of the commons.
But the people at large heard of what had taken place with the deepest dismay; the affection which they had always borne to their native princes was now enhanced by compassion, and there was a universal outcry against the treachery that had been committed. But the numerous French garrisons, which occupied the length and breadth of the land, with the want of unanimity among the citizens themselves, paralyzed the Clawards (such was the name given to the patriotic party, from the threatening claws of the Flemish lion) ; so that, for the present, with all their excitement of feeling, they had no spirit for action, and Philip remained in quiet possession of the inheritance of the Count of Flanders.
On the first receipt of the evil tidings, Adolf of Nieuwland's sister, Maria, had proceeded with a numerous retinue of servants and a litter to Wynandael, and brought back her wounded brother to their paternal house at Bruges. The young Matilda, so painfully severed from all of her own blood, was glad to accept the invitation and escort of this new-found friend, and to escape from Wynandael, now occupied by a French garrison.
The house of the Nieuwlands lay in the Spanish street at Bruges. At either angle of its gable front rose a round tower, crowned with a weathercock, and commanding all the neighboring buildings: the arch of the doorway rested on two pillars of hewn stone of Grecian architecture, and over it stood the shield of the Nieuwlands, with their motto: "Pulchrum pro patria mori," having for supporters two angels with palm branches in their hands.
In a chamber away from the street, and quite out of reach of the sound of its unceasing bustle, lay the wounded Adolf on a magnificent bed. Ghastly pale, and worn to a skeleton by the pain and fever of his wounds, he was hardly to be recognized. At the head of his bed stood a small table, and on it a flask and drinking-cup of silver; against the wall hung the breastplate that had failed before St. Pol's lance, and so been the cause of his wound; beside it was a harp, with its strings loose. All about him was still as death. The window-curtains were half drawn, so that the light in the room was but a doubtful gloaming, and no sound was heard except the painful breathing of the wounded man, and the occasional rustle of a silk dress.
In one corner of the room sat Matilda silent, and with
