m 1244 to 1280, was extremely
rich," says a chronicler, "not only in lands, but in furniture, jewels,
and money; and, as is not customary with women, she was right liberal and
right sumptuous, not only in her largesses, but in her entertainments,
and whole manner of living; insomuch that she kept up the state of queen
rather than countess." Nearly all the Flemish towns were strongly
organized communes, in which prosperity had won liberty, and which became
before long small republics sufficiently powerful not only for the
defence of their municipal rights against the Counts of Flanders, their
lords, but for offering an armed resistance to such of the sovereigns
their neighbors as attempted to conquer them or to trammel them in their
commercial relations, or to draw upon their wealth by forced
contributions or by plunder. Philip Augustus had begun to have a taste
of their strength during his quarrels with Count Ferdinand of Portugal,
whom he had made Count of Flanders by marrying him to the Countess Joan,
heiress of the countship, and whom, after the battle of Bouvines, he had
confined for thirteen years in the tower of the Louvre. Philip the
Handsome laid himself open to and was subjected by the Flemings to still
rougher experiences.

At the time of the latter king's accession to the throne, Guy de
Dampierre, of noble Champagnese origin, had been for five years Count of
Flanders, as heir to his mother, Marguerite II. He was a prince who did
not lack courage, or, on a great emergency, high-mindedness and honor;
but he was ambitious, covetous, as parsimonious as his mother had been
munificent, and above all concerned to get his children married in a
manner conducive to his own political importance. He had by his two
wives, Matilda of Bethune and Isabel of Luxembourg, nine sons and eight
daughters, offering free scope for combinations and connections, in
respect of which Guy de Dampierre was not at all scrupulous about the
means of success. He had a quarrel with his son-in-law, Florent V.,
Count of Holland, to whom he had given his daughter Beatrice in marriage;
and another of his sons-in-law, John I., Duke of Brabant, married to
another of his daughters, the Princess Marguerite, offered himself as
mediator in the difference. The two brothers-in-law went together to see
their father-in-law; but, on their arrival, Guy de Dampierre seized the
person of the Count of Holland, and would not release him until the Duke
of B