Divers items in the accounts show what Philip expended in having the titles of Holland, Zealand, and Hainaut added to his other designations.  Also there were various places where his predecessor’s name had to be effaced to make room for his. (Laborde, i., 345).]

Antwerp and Mechlin were included in Brabant.  Luxemburg was a later acquisition obtained through Elizabeth of Goerlitz.

There were very shady bits in the chapters about Philip’s entry into many of his possessions, but it is interesting to note how cleverly the best colour is given to his actions by Olivier de la Marche and other writers who enjoyed Burgundian patronage.  Very gentle are the adjectives employed, and a nice cloak of legality is thrown over the naked facts as they are ushered into history.  Contemporary criticism did occasionally make itself heard, especially from the emperor, who declared that the Netherland provinces must come to him as a lapsed imperial fief.  For a time Philip denied that any links existed between his domain and the empire, but in 1449 he finally found it convenient to discuss the question with Frederic III. at Besancon; still he never came to the point of paying homage.

All these territories made a goodly realm for a mere duke.  But they were individual entities centred around one head with little interconnection.

Philip thought that the one thing needed to bring his possessions into a national life, as coherent as that of France, was a unity of legal existence among the dissimilar parts, and the effort to attain this unity was the one thought dominating the career of his successor, whose pompous introduction to life naturally inspired him with a high idea of his own rank, and led him to dream of greater dignities for himself and his successor than a bundle of titles,—­a splendid, vain, fatal dream as it proved.

As a final cement to the new friendship between Burgundy and France, it was also agreed at Arras that the heir of the former should wed a daughter of Charles VII.  When the Count of Charolais was five years old, the Seigneur of Crevecoeur,[22] “a wise and prudent gentleman” was despatched to the French court on divers missions, among which was the business of negotiating the projected alliance.  A very joyous reception was accorded the envoy by the king and the queen, and his proposal was accepted in behalf of the second daughter, Catherine, easily substituted for an older sister, deceased between the first and second stages of negotiation.

A year later, a formal betrothal took place at St Omer, whither the young bride was conducted, most honourably accompanied by the archbishops of Rheims and of Narbonne, by the counts of Vendome, Tonnerre, and Dunois, the young son of the Duke of Bourbon, named the Lord of Beaujeu, and various other distinguished nobles, besides a train of noble dames and demoiselles in special attendance on the princess, and an escort of three hundred horse.