CHAPTER I

THE BURGUNDIAN NETHERLANDS


The last duke of the ancient Capetian house of Burgundy dying in 1361
without heirs male, the duchy fell into the possession of the French
crown, and was by King John II bestowed upon his youngest son, Philip
the Hardy, Duke of Touraine, as a reward, it is said, for the valour he
displayed in the battle of Poictiers. The county of Burgundy, generally
known as Franche-Comté, was not included in this donation, for it was an
imperial fief; and it fell by inheritance in the female line to
Margaret, dowager Countess of Flanders, widow of Count Louis II, who was
killed at Crécy. The duchy and the county were soon, however, to be
re-united, for Philip married Margaret, daughter and heiress of Louis de
Male, Count of Flanders, and granddaughter of the above-named Margaret.
In right of his wife he became, on the death of Louis de Male in 1384,
the ruler of Flanders, Mechlin, Artois, Nevers and Franche-Comté. Thus
the foundation was laid of a great territorial domain between France and
Germany, and Philip the Hardy seems from the first to have been
possessed by the ambitious design of working for the restoration of a
powerful middle kingdom, which should embrace the territories assigned
to Lothaire in the tripartite division of the Carolingian empire by the
treaty of Verdun (843). For this he worked ceaselessly during his long
reign of forty years, and with singular ability and courage. Before his