Yet, lavish as the Burgundian poet is in his adjectives about his patron, there is considerable discrimination between his summaries of the two dukes.  It is very evident that from his accession Charles was less of a favourite than his father.  While endeavouring to be as complimentary as possible, distrust of his capacities creeps out between the lines.  Chastellain died in 1475, and thus never saw Charles’s final disaster.  But the violence of his character had inspired lack of confidence in his power of achievement, a violence that made people dislike him as Philip with all his faults was never disliked.

[Footnote 1:  Du Clercq, iv., 302 et seq.  Erasmus was born in this year, 1467.]

[Footnote 2:  II., 49.]

[Footnote 3:  “Non par armes attachees a espingles.”]

[Footnote 4:  Oeuvres, vii., 213.]

CHAPTER IX

THE UNJOYOUS ENTRY

1467

After the dauphin was crowned at Rheims, he was monarch over all his domains.  Charles of Burgundy, on the other hand, had a series of ceremonies to perform before he was properly invested with the various titles worn by his father.  Each duchy, countship, seigniory had to be taken in turn.  Ghent was the first capital visited.  Then he had to exchange pledges of fidelity with his Flemish subjects before receiving recognition as Count of Flanders.

According to the custom of his predecessors, Charles stayed at the little village of Swynaerde, near Ghent, the night before he made his “joyous entry” into that city.  It had chanced that the day selected by Charles for the event was St. Lievin’s Day and a favourite holiday of the workers of Ghent.  The saint’s bones, enclosed conveniently in a portable shrine, rested in the cathedral church, whence they were carried once a year by the fifty-two gilds in solemn procession to the little village of Houthem, where the blessed saint had suffered martyrdom in the seventh century.  All day and all night the saint’s devotees, the Fools of St. Lievin, as they were called, remained at this spot.  Merry did the festival become as the hours wore on, for good cheer was carried thither as well as the sacred shrine.

Now the magistrates were a little apprehensive about the rival claims of the new count of Flanders and the old saint of Ghent.  They knew that they could not cut short the time-honoured celebration for the sake of the sovereign’s inauguration, so they decided to prolong the former, and directed that the saint should leave town on Saturday and not return until Monday.  This left Sunday free for the young count’s entry.  It probably seemed a very convenient conjunction of events to the city fathers, because the more turbulent portion of the citizens was sure to follow the saint.