Mary of Burgundy; or, The Revolt of Ghent. G. P. R. James

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СКАЧАТЬ beg the reader to leap boldly over nearly twenty years. In regard to the events which intervened, of some we shall here give a slight sketch before proceeding; some we shall leave to unravel themselves in the course of the after history.

      Take any body of men, as many in number as the characters which we have introduced already, and it will be seldom found that, at the end of so great a lapse of time, the whole are still upon the busy stage of life; nevertheless, such was the case in the present instance. Time, the great enemy of man, and of all man's works, had not leagued himself with death against any of those whom I have particularly noticed. In other respects, however, he had not failed to do his accustomed work. The youth had grown up into the man; the man of middle age was bowed beneath the load of years; and the infant in the cradle had reached the blossoming days of womanhood.

      Of her, then, whose birth and baptism we have just commemorated, we shall speak in the first place, before proceeding to notice the change which had occurred in the other characters which we have brought upon the scene. Her infancy passed in the midst of prosperity and happiness, while the territories which she was destined to inherit flourished under the dominion of her grandfather--that wise and virtuous prince, who redeemed the errors of his early years by the generous patriotism of his latter days, and both merited and obtained, from neighbouring princes and his native subjects, the noble appellation of Philip the Good; and while under the eye of her own gentle mother, her education proceeded in calm tranquillity, and her home reposed in peace.

      Scarcely had she attained the age of ten years, however, ere, left alone under the guidance of a severe and imperious father, she found that, according to the common fate of those in the highest stations, her lot was to be anything but happy. Gentle, kind, obedient, she endeavoured, by making her inclinations the slaves of her father's will, to obtain, at least, peace, by yielding to duty. Her hopes and expectations were, nevertheless, in vain. The continual perils to which Charles the Bold exposed himself, of course, kept his family in constant alarm and agitation; and the frequent and capricious changes of his policy, without obtaining for himself or his country any real advantage, only served to wring his daughter's heart.

      After the death of his second wife, Isabel de Bourbon, the desire of a male heir induced him speedily to marry again; and the hatred which he had, by that time, conceived for Louis XI. made him choose for his bride, Margaret of York, the sister of the King of England. His hopes of a son were disappointed; but upon his daughter, Mary of Burgundy, his marriage conferred an inestimable benefit. Margaret of York fully replaced in kindness and affection the mother she had lost; and habituated early herself to cares, to sorrows, and to dangers, she instilled into the mind of her step-daughter that patient fortitude which she had acquired in so bitter a school; and taught her, in all circumstances, both to bear up against despair, and to endure without complaint.

      As years rolled on, the hand of the undoubted heiress of all Burgundy and Flanders became, of course, an object of ambition to many of the princes of Europe; and from the time that Mary reached the age of fifteen, to obtain possession of her person, was a matter of open negotiation and subtle intrigue to all the neighbouring sovereigns. The brother of the King of France, the Duke of Calabria, the Prince of Tarentum, and the Duke of Savoy, became successively the suitors for her hand; and her father, to each and all, held out hopes and expectations, which he either never intended to fulfil, or found cause to disappoint. The most selfish of sovereigns, and, perhaps, of men, the feelings of his child were never consulted throughout the whole transactions which followed. He looked upon her simply as an object of policy, a human seal, which, at his will, was to be affixed to the charter of conveyance, destined to give to some neighbouring prince the succession to his vast dominions.

      Luckily, however, it so happened, that Mary had made up her mind to her fate, and so guarded her own heart and feelings, that in her eyes all men seemed indifferent till the sanction of her father warranted the gift of her affections. Thus she beheld treaties commenced and broken, her hand promised and refused, without either pain or pleasure, till, at length, a suitor appeared, who, with all those advantages which could satisfy the political ambition of her father, possessed all those qualities of mind and person calculated to gain her heart. Brave, chivalrous, and accomplished, graceful and well-formed in person, and handsome in features, Maximilian, son of the Emperor Frederick, displayed, at the same time, all that native kindness of heart, which, giving a gentle courtesy to the whole demeanour, is far more winning than the most splendid acquirements; and such qualities might have been quite sufficient to gain the heart of the heiress of Burgundy. Other things, indeed, were required by her father; but besides these personal qualities, he was the son of the richest monarch in Europe, the heir of the duchy of Austria, and would be, undoubtedly, successor to the imperial throne itself. Every object seemed attained by such an alliance; and when, after appearing two years successively at the court of Burgundy, Maximilian demanded the hand of the beautiful heiress of the land, Mary, for the first time, heard with joy that it was promised to the new aspirant.

      Long negotiations succeeded; and it was agreed that the duchy of Burgundy, freed from its homage to the crown of France, should be erected into an independent kingdom.

      A grand meeting of the Imperial and Burgundian courts was appointed at Treves, for the conclusion of the marriage; and Charles the Bold, with his daughter, accompanied by a train of unrivalled splendour, set out for the place of rendezvous. Mary's heart beat high as she entered the ancient city; and now, taught to look upon Maximilian as her future husband, she yielded her whole heart to the influence of her first affection. But the greedy ambition of her father was destined to overthrow, for a time, all those airy fabrics of happiness, of which her hopes, and her imagination, had been the architects. Charles insisted that the title of king should be granted to him previous to his daughter's marriage; while the Emperor, who had watched his capricious changes on other occasions, with a jealous and somewhat indignant eye, refused to confer the title he sought, till the hand of the heiress of Burgundy was irrevocably bestowed upon his son. Charles argued, and railed, and threatened in vain; and at length the Emperor, wearied with his pertinacity, and offended by his intemperate violence, suddenly broke up his court, and left him, mad with rage and disappointment, to carry back his daughter to Brussels, with her heart bleeding in secret from the cruel wounds it had received.

      Other negotiations succeeded with other princes; and though Mary heard, with apprehension and terror, of each new proposal, the capricious uncertainty of her father's disposition saved her from the still bitterer pangs of yielding her hand to another, while her heart was really given to Maximilian.

      In the meantime, disputes and wars took place; the projects of her marriage languished, or were abandoned; and while her father hastened to the last fatal field, where his military renown was extinguished in his blood, she remained with her gentle stepmother in Ghent, to weep the perils to which her parent's mad ambition exposed him, and to tremble at the sight of every packet that reached her from the Burgundian camp.

      Such were the changes and events which had affected the fate of Mary of Burgundy, since we depicted her as an infant, born shortly after the arrival of the Dauphin at the court of Brussels. Over the Dauphin himself, greater alterations still had come in the course of passing years. From an exiled prince, he had become the king of a mighty nation; and time had stolen away all the graces of youth, and all those better feelings, and nobler emotions, which, in the freshness of early life, are more or less imparted to every human being, whatever may be the portion of selfish cunning added to neutralize them. However beneficial might be his policy to the country over which he ruled, however much his acts might advance the progress of society in Europe, and lead forward the world to a state of more general freedom and civilization, his objects were mean and personal, and individual ambition of the lowest kind was the motive for all his cunning schemes and artful policy. An immortal pen has, in our own day, portrayed his character with unequalled skill; and of Louis XI., at this period of his life, nothing farther can be said, than that he was the Louis XI. of Sir Walter Scott.

      Of those who accompanied him on his journey, Thibalt of Neufchatel, Marshal of Burgundy, still remained; a weather-beaten СКАЧАТЬ