of a prince of France and sovereign of Burgundy. This is probably
the earliest well-established instance of such a distinction
between the prince and the people.

Anthony, duke of Brabant, the brother of Philip, was not so closely
restricted in his authority and wishes. He led all the nobles
of the province to take part in the quarrels of France; and he
suffered the penalty of his rashness in meeting his death in
the battle of Agincourt. But the duchy suffered nothing by this
event, for the militia of the country had not followed their
duke and his nobles to the war; and a national council was now
established, consisting of eleven persons, two of whom were
ecclesiastics, three barons, two knights, and four commoners.
This council, formed on principles so fairly popular, conducted
the public affairs with great wisdom during the minority of the
young duke. Each province seems thus to have governed itself
upon principles of republican independence. The sovereigns could
not at discretion, or by the want of it, play the bloody game
of war for their mere amusement; and the emperor putting in his
claim at this epoch to his ancient rights of sovereignty over
Brabant, as an imperial fief, the council and the people treated
the demand with derision.

The spirit of constitutional liberty and legal equality which
now animated the various provinces is strongly marked in the
history of the time by two striking and characteristic incidents.
At the death of Philip the Bold, his widow deposited on his tomb
her purse, and the keys which she carried at her girdle in token
of marriage; and by this humiliating ceremony she renounced her
rights to a succession overloaded with her husband's debts. In