ount
of Flanders, who had been conquered by the burghers, owed his return as
master of his countship to the King of the French, he troubled himself
about nothing but avenging himself and enjoying his victory at the
expense of the vanquished. He chastised, despoiled, proscribed, and
inflicted atrocious punishments; and, not content with striking at
individuals, he attacked the cities themselves. Nearly all of them,
save Ghent, which had been favorable to the count, saw their privileges
annulled or curtailed of their most essential guarantees. The burghers
of Bruges were obliged to meet the count half way to his castle of Vale,
and on their knees implore his pity. At Ypres the bell in the tower was
broken up. Philip of Valois made himself a partner in these severities;
he ordered the fortifications of Bruges, Ypres, and Courtrai to be
destroyed, and he charged French agents to see to their demolition.
Absolute power is often led into mistakes by its insolence; but when it
is in the hands of rash and reckless mediocrity, there is no knowing how
clumsy and blind it can be. Neither the King of France nor the Count of
Flanders seemed to remember that the Flemish communes had at their door a
natural and powerful ally who could not do without them any more than
they could do without him. Woollen stuffs, cloths, carpets, warm
coverings of every sort were the chief articles of the manufactures and
commerce of Flanders; there chiefly was to be found all that the active
and enterprising merchants of the time exported to Sweden, Norway,
Hungary, Russia, and even Asia; and it was from England that they chiefly
imported their wool, the primary staple of their handiwork. "All
Flanders," says Froissart, "was based upon cloth and no wool, no cloth."
On the other hand it was to Flanders that England, her land-owners and
farmers, sold the fleeces of their flocks; and the two countries were
thus united by the bond of their mutual prosperity. The Count of
Flanders forgot or defied this fact so far as in 1336, at the
instigation, it is said, of the King of France, to have all the English
in Flanders arrested and kept in prison. Reprisals were not long
deferred. On the 5th of October in the same year the King of England
ordered the arrest of all Flemish merchants in his kingdom and the
seizure of their goods; and he at the same time prohibited the
exportation of wool. "Flanders was given over," says her principal
historian, "to deso