the dauphin, his son, the hand of this hitherto unfortunate but
interesting princess; but he thought himself sufficiently strong
and cunning to gain possession of her states without such an
alliance. Mary, however, thus in some measure disdained, if not
actually rejected, by Louis, soon after married her first-intended
husband, Maximilian of Austria, son of the emperor Frederick
III.; a prince so absolutely destitute, in consequence of his
father's parsimony, that she was obliged to borrow money from
the towns of Flanders to defray the expenses of his suite.
Nevertheless he seemed equally acceptable to his bride and to his
new subjects. They not only supplied all his wants, but enabled
him to maintain the war against Louis XI., whom they defeated at
the battle of Guinegate in Picardy, and forced to make peace on
more favorable terms than they had hoped for. But these wealthy
provinces were not more zealous for the national defence than bent
on the maintenance of their local privileges, which Maximilian
little understood, and sympathized with less. He was bred in the
school of absolute despotism; and his duchess having met with
a too early death by a fall from her horse in the year 1484, he
could not even succeed in obtaining the nomination of guardian to
his own children without passing through a year of civil war. His
power being almost nominal in the northern provinces, he vainly
attempted to suppress the violence of the factions of Hoeks and
Kaabeljauws. In Flanders his authority was openly resisted. The
turbulent towns of that country, and particularly Bruges, taking
umbrage at a government half German, half Burgundian, and altogether
hateful to the people, rose up against Maximilian, seized on
his person, imprisoned him in a house which still exists, and
put to death his most faithful followers. But the fury of Ghent
and other places becoming still more outrageous, Maximilian asked