The States-General dissolved in perfect accord with the monarch, and a definite order was left in the king’s hands, declaring that it was the judgment of the towns represented that concentration of power was necessary for the common welfare of France.  Public opinion declared that national weakness would be inevitable if the feudatories were unbridled in their centrifugal tendencies.  Above all, Normandy must be retained by the king.  On no consideration should Louis leave it to his brother.[2]

Before the dissolution of the assembly there was some discussion as to the probable attitude of the great nobles in regard to this platform of centralisation.  Very timid were the comments on Charles of Burgundy.  Would he not perhaps be an excellent mediator between the lesser dukes and the king?  Would it not be better to suspend action until his opinion was known, etc?  But at large there was less reserve.  The statements were emphatic.  Naught but mischief had ever come to France from Burgundy.  The present duke’s father and grandfather had wrought all the ill that lay in their power.  As for Charles, his illimitable greed was notorious.  Let him rest content with his paternal heritage.  Ghent and Bruges were his.  Did he want Paris too?  Let the king recover the towns on the Somme.  Rightfully they were French.  Louis made no scruple in pleading the invalidity of the treaty of Conflans, because it had been wrested from him by undue influence.  And this royal sentiment was repeated here and there with growing conviction of its justice.

While Charles was occupied with the preparation for his wedding, Louis was engaged in levying troops and mobilising his forces, and these preparations continued throughout the summer of 1468.  Naturally, news of this zeal directed against the dukes of Normandy and of Brittany followed the traveller in Holland.

Charles was in high dudgeon and wrote at once to the king, reminding him that these seigneurs were his allies, and demanding that nothing should be wrought to their detriment.  Conscious that his remonstrance might be futile, and urged on by appeals from the dukes, Charles hastened to cut short his stay in Holland so that he might move nearer to the scene of Louis’s activities.  His purpose in going to the north had been twofold—­to receive homage as Count of Holland and Zealand, and to use his new dignity to obtain large sums of money for which he saw immediate need if he were to hold Louis to the terms wrested from him.

In early July, Charles had crossed from Sluis in Flanders to Middelburg, and thence made his progress through the cities of Zealand, receiving homage as he went.  Next he passed to The Hague, where the nobles and civic deputies of Holland met him and gave him their oaths of fealty on July 21st.  Fifty-six towns[4] were represented and there were also deputies from eight bailiwicks and the islands of Texel and Wieringen.  “It is noteworthy,” comments a Dutch historian, “that the people’s oath was given first.  The older custom was that the count should give the first pledge while the people followed suit.”