is recorded in history, the beautiful and hitherto unfortunate Jacqueline found repose and happiness in the tranquillity of private life, and her death in 1436, at the age of thirty-six, removed all restraint from Philip’s thirst for aggrandizement, in the indulgence of which he drowned his remorse.  As if fortune had conspired for the rapid consolidation of his greatness, the death of Philip, count of St. Pol, who had succeeded his brother John in the dukedom of Brabant, gave him the sovereignty of that extensive province; and his dominions soon extended to the very limits of Picardy, by the Peace of Arras, concluded with the dauphin, now become Charles VII., and by his finally contracting a strict alliance with France.

[Footnote 1:  We must not omit to notice the existence of two factions, which, for near two centuries, divided and agitated the whole population of Holland and Zealand.  One bore the title of Hoeks (fishing-hooks); the other was called Kaabel-jauws (cod-fish).  The origin of these burlesque denominations was a dispute between two parties at a feast, as to whether the cod-fish took the hook or the hook the cod-fish?  This apparently frivolous dispute was made the pretext for a serious quarrel; and the partisans of the nobles and those of the towns ranged themselves at either side, and assumed different badges of distinction.  The Hoeks, partisans of the towns, wore red caps; the Kaabeljauws wore gray ones.  In Jacqueline’s quarrel with Philip of Burgundy, she was supported by the former; and it was not till the year 1492 that the extinction of that popular and turbulent faction struck a final blow to the dissensions of both.]

Philip of Burgundy, thus become sovereign of dominions at once so extensive and compact, had the precaution and address to obtain from the emperor a formal renunciation of his existing, though almost nominal, rights as lord paramount.  He next purchased the title of the duchess of Luxemburg to that duchy; and thus the states of the House of Burgundy gained an extent about equal to that of the existing kingdom of the Netherlands.  For although on the north and east they did not include Friesland, the bishopric of Utrecht, Guelders, or the province of Liege, still on the south and west they comprised French Flanders, the Boulonnais, Artois, and a part of Picardy, besides Burgundy.  But it has been already seen how limited an authority was possessed by the rulers of the maritime provinces.  Flanders in particular, the most populous and wealthy, strictly preserved its republican institutions.  Ghent and Bruges were the two great towns of the province, and each maintained its individual authority over its respective territory, with great indifference to the will or the wishes of the sovereign duke.  Philip, however, had the policy to divide most effectually these rival towns.  After having fallen into the hands of the people of Bruges, whom he made a vain attempt to surprise, and who massacred numbers of