of Bavaria, but who had no children by either of her marriages. Thus in
1443 Philip had become by one means or another sovereign under various
titles of the largest and most important part of the Netherlands, and he
increased his influence by securing in 1456 the election of his
illegitimate son David, as Bishop of Utrecht. Thus a great step forward
had been taken for the restoration of the middle kingdom, which had been
the dream of Philip the Hardy, and which now seemed to be well-nigh on
the point of accomplishment.

The year 1433, the date of the incorporation of Holland and Zeeland in
the Burgundian dominion, is therefore a convenient starting-point for a
consideration of the character of the Burgundian rule in the
Netherlands, and of the changes which the concentration of sovereign
power in the hands of a single ruler brought into the relations of the
various provinces with one another and into their internal
administration. The Netherlands become now for the first time something
more than a geographical expression for a number of petty feudal
states, practically independent and almost always at strife.
Henceforward there was peace; and throughout the whole of this northern
part of his domains it was the constant policy of Philip gradually to
abolish provincialism and to establish a centralised government. He was
far too wise a statesman to attempt to abolish suddenly or arbitrarily
the various rights and privileges, which the Flemings, Brabanters and
Hollanders had wrung from their sovereigns, and to which they were
deeply attached; but, while respecting these, he endeavoured to restrict
them as far as possible to local usage, and to centralise the general
administration of the whole of the "pays de par deçà" (as the Burgundian
dukes were accustomed to name their Netherland dominions) by the
summoning of representatives of the Provincial States to an assembly
styled the States-General, and by the creation of a common Court of