On May 3, 1473, an assembly of the Order was held at Valenciennes,[2] and the knights were asked to pass upon the conduct of their delinquent fellow, who was permitted to present his own brief through an attorney, but was detained in his own person at Namur.  The innocence or guilt of his prisoner was no longer the chief point of interest as far as the Duke of Burgundy was concerned.  The latter had made an excellent bargain on his own behalf with the moribund Duke of Guelders, who had signed (December, 1472) a document wherein he sold to Charles all his administrative rights in Guelders and Zutphen for ninety-two thousand florins,[3] in consideration of Arnold’s enjoying a life interest in half of the revenue of his ancient duchy.  That clause soon lost its significance.  The old man’s life ceased in March, 1473, and, by virtue of the contract, Charles proposed to enter into full possession of his estates, setting aside not only Adolf, whom he was ready to pronounce an outlawed criminal, quite beyond the pale of society, but that Adolf’s innocent eight-year-old heir, Charles, whose hereditary claims had also been ignored by his grandfather.

Before the knights of the Order as a final court, were rehearsed all the circumstances of the old family quarrel and of the late commercial transaction.  Their verdict was the one desired by their chief.  It was proven to their entire satisfaction that Arnold’s sale of the duchy of Guelders and Zutphen was a legitimate proceeding, and that the deed executed by him was a perfect and valid instrument, whereby Charles of Burgundy was duly empowered to enjoy all the revenues of, and to exert authority in, his new duchy at his pleasure.  As to Duke Adolf, he was condemned by this tribunal of his peers to life imprisonment as punishment for his unfilial and unjustifiable cruelty towards Arnold, late Duke of Guelders.

Adolf’s protests were stifled by his prison bars, but the people of Guelders were by no means disposed to accept unquestioned this deed of transfer, made when the two parties to the conveyance were in very unequal conditions of freedom.  In order to convince them of the justice of his pretensions, Charles levied a force almost as efficient as his army of the preceding summer, and fell upon Guelders.  A truce, a triple compact with France and England, had recently been renewed, so that for the moment his hands were free from complications, an event commented upon by Sir John Paston, as follows: 

    “April 16, 1473, CANTERBURY.

“As for tydings ther was a truce taken at Brusslys about the xxvi day off March last, betwyn the Duke of Burgoyn and the Frense Kings inbassators and Master William Atclyff ffor the king heer, whiche is a pese be londe and be water tyll the ffyrst daye off Apryll nowe next comyng betweyn Fraunce and Ingeland, and also the Dukys londes.  God holde it ffor ever.”

The writer had recently been in Charles’s court.  Writing from Calais in February, he says: