Netherlanders she is endued with the palpable form and perpetual
existence of the Iphigenias, Mary Stuarts, Joans of Arc, or other
consecrated individualities. Exhausted and broken-hearted, after
thirteen years of conflict with her own kinsmen, consoled for the
cowardice and brutality of three husbands by the gentle and knightly
spirit of the fourth, dispossessed of her father's broad domains,
degraded from the rank of sovereign to be lady forester of her own
provinces by her cousin, the bad Duke of Burgundy, Philip surnamed "the
Good," she dies at last, and the good cousin takes undisputed dominion of
the land. (1437.)

The five centuries of isolation are at end. The many obscure streams of
Netherland history are merged in one broad current. Burgundy has
absorbed all the provinces which, once more, are forced to recognize a
single master. A century and a few years more succeed, during which this
house and its heirs are undisputed sovereigns of the soil.

Philip the Good had already acquired the principal Netherlands, before
dispossessing Jacqueline. He had inherited, beside the two Burgundies,
the counties of Flanders and Artois. He had purchased the county of
Namur, and had usurped the duchy of Brabant, to which the duchy of
Limburg, the marquisate of Antwerp, and the barony of Mechlin, had
already been annexed. By his assumption of Jacqueline's dominions, he
was now lord of Holland, Zeland, and Hainault, and titular master of
Friesland. He acquired Luxemburg a few years later.

Lord of so many opulent cities and fruitful provinces, he felt himself
equal to the kings of Europe. Upon his marriage with Isabella of
Portugal, he founded, at Bruges, the celebrated order of the Golden
Fleece. What could be more practical or more devout than the conception?