Episode 47: Philip Croit-Conseil

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When Philip the Handsome came of age and took over direct rule of the previously Burgundian, now Habsburg, territories of the Low Countries in September, 1494, his accession marked the first time since the death of Charles the Bold in 1477 that a native and natural born male prince had filled that position. The last twenty odd years of crises had bled his lands and peoples dry physically, mentally and financially. Across the board of those societies people were desperate for a period of prolonged peace. Despite this, there were still a couple of major issues which were lingering and which, if dealt with improperly, could lead to another outbreak of war. These were the situation in Guelders, whereby Maximilian and Charles of Egmont were both walking around saying “I am the Duke of Guelders”, as well as a good old fashioned conspiracy in which Margaret of York and Maximilian both pointed to a random Flemish dude and said “He is the king of England”, resulting in a mutually detrimental trade conflict between England and the Habsburg Low Countries. Philip’s first great test as Duke of Burgundy would be discerning between the interests of his lands and subjects and those of his ever ambitious father.

Poederooyen Castle is plundered in Guelders

We are going to begin today by backing up slightly and returning to the story of Charles of Egmont in Guelders. In the last episode we saw how Charles of Egmont had returned to Guelders, quickly won the support of the majority of the territory, tried to go over Maximilian’s head and get Frederick to recognise him as Duke of Guelders and in April, 1493, was able to take a castle called Poederoyen. You may recall that we departed from Guelders at that point to go speak about the wider goings-on that led to the Treaty of Senlis being signed between Maximilian, Philip the Handsome and Charles VIII. Well, now we’re going to go back to Guelders to take a look at how that treaty affected (or perhaps didn’t) circumstances there and see how the chasm between Duke Charles and Maximilian/Philip the Handsome grew wider and deeper and their relationship became irretrievably broken.

The castle of Poederoyen is located nearby the town of Zaltbommel and lies on the Meuse river, roughly in between the towns of Gorinchem and Den Bosch. Poederoyen had been the possession of Lady Johanna van Herlaer, but had been controlled by her husband, Peter van Hemert, a Burgundian/Habsburg loyalist who had married Johanna in 1458. On April 14 1493, on the orders of Charles of Egmont, a Guelderian nobleman by the name of Gerard van Weerdenburg had managed to wrest control of the castle. Van Weerdenburg then proceeded to do exactly what people in those sort of situations tended to do, which was to rob and steal everything he could from the castle. He was joined in this effort by people from nearby villages, who apparently couldn’t resist the temptation to go and take whatever they could from Poederoyen. According to the book A van Tuyl Chronicle, villagers from nearby Herwijnen stole “eighty horses, fifty oxen, forty pigs and numerous sheep”. What exactly happened to Peter van Hemert is unclear - some sources say he was jailed, some say he was killed, others say that he fled from Guelders. Whatever the truth may be, it doesn’t really matter for us, because the only relevant fact for our story is that Peter van Hemert was gone, not to return! 

His wife Johanna van Herlaer survived, though she was stripped of control over her castle and lands by Charles of Egmont. We know this, because a few years later Johanna wrote a detailed letter of complaint to Emperor Maximilian and the Kammergericht, the Imperial Court, in an effort to get her stuff back. In this letter, she listed exactly what was taken from Poederoyen castle and what it was all worth. The list includes gold and silver jewellery, gems, pearls, velvet clothes embroidered with gold and silver which belonged to her, her husband and their children, 60 beds, 200 cushions, carpets, blankets, linen, cooking utensils, grain, meat, salt, butter, cheese and other foodstuffs, a bunch of weapons such as bows and arrows, gunpowder, sulphur, arquebuses, canons, animals, a bunch of loot from the chapel, as well as the paperwork for her incomes, rents and loans. In total, she estimated that the value of goods stolen from her was about 14500 Rhenish guilders, and her loss of income annually from her rents was about 3500 guilders. It’s a fascinating insight into the runnings of a relatively minor estate and shows that Johanna van Herlaer had definitely kept a close eye on the running of all that was going on under her watch. Despite Johanna’s best efforts to get Poederoyen back, Duke Charles instead gave it to her son-in-law, Johan van Rossum, who was married to her daughter, Johanna van Hemert. That’s right, Johanna had a daughter named Johanna, who was married to… Johan. Their first son was also called Johan. Incredibly confusing, just think of different names people! Their second son, Maarten van Rossum, who at this point was still an infant, is going to become one of the most feared military figures in the Low Countries in the early 16th century… foreshadowing.

In her letter of complaint, Johanna mentions by name three men who Charles of Egmont had made captains of Poederooyen. The most important was Hendrick van Enze, AKA ‘Snelwint’ (‘Fast wind’) or ‘Snydewint’ (‘Cuts the wind’). From Poederoyen, Snijdewint would remain a thorn in the side of Burgundian/Habsburg interests in the region for more than a decade. The capture of Poederoyen was so important for Charles of Egmont because its strategic location meant that troops loyal to him would be able to make raids into neighbouring Holland and Brabant. Its location along the Meuse river also meant they could blockade or harass shipping along the waterways. That’s what a lot of the conflict is going to look like in the following few decades, small raids and blockades, rather than huge set piece battles. With the loss of Poederoyen, the remaining bastions of Habsburg power in Guelders were the castles of Baar and Buren, which were controlled by Charles of Egmont’s second cousins Frederik, Lord of IJsselstein and Jan III, Count of Egmont, as well as one of the castles in Beesd, held by a man named Cornelis Pieck.

The Pieck brothers in Beesd

The story of the Pieck brothers at the Hooge Huis castle of Beesd is a great example of how families could be torn apart when they chose opposing sides in these dynastic power struggles. There were three Pieck brothers; Walraven, Cornelis and Gijsbert. Walraven supported Charles of Egmont, whilst Cornelis and Gijsbert remained loyal to the Habsburgs. Walraven Pieck had held the Hooge Huis castle at Beesd until, in 1492, with support from Habsburg-allied Hollandic troops, Cornelis Pieck was able to capture both Walraven and the Hooge Huis. From there, their Habsburg-allied soldiers caused havoc around the countryside. In 1493, Gijsbert Pieck plundered the nearby Marienweerd Abbey, stealing everything they could carry away from the monks and burning the rest. The chronicles of that abbey put it this way: “afterwards the monastery was completely desolate, the religious having fled, etc. so that in six years we obtained little of the rents, our cattle were carried off, our yards were burnt, and many damages were inflicted, all of which to list would grow into a great volume.” In an attempt to restore order, Charles of Egmont ordered that Beesd be put to siege, under which it remained for 17 weeks. During a raid from Beesd, Gijsbert Pieck was captured by Charles of Egmont, who used him as a bargaining chip. When Cornelis Pieck refused to surrender the Hooge Huis at Beesd, Charles of Egmont had Gijsbert beheaded. Shortly thereafter, Walraven Pieck, the one who supported Charles and who was still imprisoned by his remaining brother, was found mysteriously dead in his cell at the Hooge Huis. The conflict in Guelders was growing more and more violent, bringing to mind that old civil war epithet about families being divided - in this case, divided families were dividing family members. Evidently, proponents on both sides had hardened in their resolve to keep fighting.

A month after the capture of Poederoyen, the treaty of Senlis was signed between Emperor Maximilian, Duke Philip and King Charles VIII of France, which, as you will recall, explicitly mentioned Charles of Egmont as an ally of Charles VIII. Although this might have looked comforting on paper, it also meant that Maximilian/Philip could stop worrying about the immediate threat which France had long represented, sort out their internal affairs and, perhaps, pay closer attention to Guelders.

Guelders’ vulnerable position

One thing which is probably important to reiterate here is that Guelders wasn’t one contiguous territory, but was actually divided by the major rivers into four “quarters”. Three of these (the Zutphen Quarter, the Veluwe Quarter and the Nijmegen Quarter) were pretty much next to each other. The fourth one, the Upper Quarter, meaning upstream along the Meuse river, lay to their south and was separated from the others by a little bit of the Duchy of Cleves-Berg. In 1492, Maximilian had managed to make alliances with the Duke of Cleves-Berg as well as the Duke of Julich. This meant that Guelders wasn’t just surrounded by hostile powers loyal to the Habsburgs, it was literally intersected by one too. 

Perhaps wary of the vulnerable position he was in, Charles of Egmont went on an extended trip to France around the time the Treaty of Senlis was signed. Apparently he had hoped to meet Maximilian and Charles VIII in person to try to sort out the whole mess. But after the signing of the treaty, both Maximilian and Charles VIII turned their attention towards Italy and didn’t meet him, leaving Charles of Egmont to look for whatever help he could find in France. He travelled to Bourbon and Liege, as well as to Nancy, where he met with his twin sister, Philippa and her husband René II, Duke of Lorraine. Unfortunately, despite his efforts, nobody was really prepared to do much for him, wary about getting on the wrong side of either Maximilian or Charles VIII regarding the impending French invasion of Italy. Charles of Egmont left France disappointed, but returned home to discover that the man he most hoped to meet, Maximilian, was actually in Guelders - with his army. What a nice coincidence!

In July, 1494, Maximilian had returned to the Low Countries to visit his son Philip for the first time since becoming Emperor. Maximilian had, in March of that year, gotten married for the third time since we have met him, this time to Bianca Maria Sforza, daughter of a deceased Duke of Milan. Presumably Maximilian had wanted to show his wife the lands he had ruled (until recently) and where he had so many happy memories (his children… his dead wife… those revolts… the whole being kidnapped thing…). He also had to formally hand over the government to his son and successor Philip, and probably also wanted to palm off responsibility for the whole mess in Guelders to him as well. We’ll discuss this more later on in the episode, but Philip wasn’t exactly keen on doing anything which might upset his irritable French neighbour at this point, so getting involved in Guelders was very low on his priority list. Instead, Maximilian turned to his trusty lieutenant, Albert of Saxony, and together they attacked Guelders from either side. Albert of Saxony took the town of Nijkerk in the Veluwe Quarter on the 18th of July, whilst Maximilian attacked the town of Roermond in the Upper Quarter. On brand for Maximilian, his mercenaries at Roermond weren’t prepared to take the town until they were paid for their services. As such, they entered negotiations with the town, demanding 10000 guilders to not attack them. Roermond, however, smartly didn’t want to pay the army outside its walls when their own lord couldn’t pay them either and the siege fizzled out. Maximilian’s armies made an attempt to cross the Rhine at the town of Elten but were pushed away twice by armies from Zutphen.

A ceasefire is arranged at Ravenstein

So this was the situation in Guelders when Charles of Egmont returned from France. He wasn’t quite faced with an existential threat (Maximilian’s armies had been pretty ineffectual), but still it wouldn’t have been pleasant to have hostile soldiers harassing his lands. With help from his uncle John of Chalon, Prince of Orange, negotiations were arranged between Charles of Egmont and Maximilian. This meeting was held at Ravenstein and was attended by Maximilian and Charles, John of Chalon, as well as envoys from the Duke of Lorraine and the archbishop of Cologne. It presumably also included the person who was hosting it, the Lord of Ravenstein, Philip of Cleves, who had been a friend of Charles of Egmont. Not even two years after his own war with Maximilian had wrapped up, Philip of Cleves was now hosting negotiations to reach peace in this one. The result was a treaty signed on the 18th of August, 1494. By the terms of this treaty, Charles would not have to return the castle of Poederoyen, towns which had been lost, such as Nijkerk, would be given back to Charles, though he would need to hand over control of four cities (Tiel, Erkelents, Doesburg and Wageningen), each in a strategic location in one of the four quarters of Guelders, to the archbishop of Cologne. Hostilities between both sides would be put on hold and the issue of “who is actually the Duke of Guelders” would be decided upon by a meeting of the prince-electors of the Empire, which would take place within a year.

Just as a brief tangent, in the months before and after this treaty (July and September, 1494), another Treaty was being signed, this one between Spain and Portugal, called the Treaty of Tordesillas. That treaty divided the “not Europe” part of the world by a line on a map drawn by the pope, which ran a bit west of the Cape Verde Islands; Spain got everything west of that line, Portugal everything to the East of it. This won’t be immediately relevant for us, but it’s going to become relevant… really soon. Anyways, back to Guelders.

Neither side particularly held firm to the pledges which they had made in the agreement at Ravestein and the fighting between armies of Guelders and Habsburg loyalists never really ended. After the treaty was signed, apparently Maximilian brought Charles of Egmont to the walls of Nijmegen (which is just next to Ravenstein, and was loyal to Charles) and completely pointlessly opened fire upon the city. Disgusted by this, Charles left without word, any remaining loyalty he had to the Habsburgs broken. Maximilian complained almost immediately that followers of Charles of Egmont weren’t keeping the peace in Guelders. Meanwhile, Maximilian never gave Nijkerk back to Charles of Egmont. In March 1495, Charles was able to win it back by force of arms. He then lay siege to the castle of Baar, pummeling it with cannons for six weeks, reducing the walls to rubble before capturing it on Ascension Day, 1495. Charles of Egmont ordered that the masons of Zutphen and Doesburg dismantle the entire castle of Baar piece by piece until it was reduced to its foundations. So much for a ceasefire, hey? About the only part of the treaty which was taken seriously was that the issue of succession in Guelders would be discussed by the prince-electors.

The Diet of Worms, July 1495

In July, 1495, the electors met at the Diet of Worms, which to me definitely sounds more like what a bird would eat than a meeting of the most pompous lords in the German empire. During this meeting, representatives of Maximilian and Charles of Egmont argued back and forth, nitpicking their way through every single detail of the back story of what had happened in Guelders over the last couple of decades, going back to the beef between Arnold and Adolph, through to Charles the Bold buying the rights to it and invading, Mary of Burgundy instructing Maximilian on her death bed to give Charles of Egmont back what had been taken from him… Maximilian and Charles’ representatives were both able to show why their man was the rightful duke of Guelders. It was clear that neither side was going to budge from their position, and also that that neither side actually wanted the issue to be decided upon by the prince-electors. Charles had most likely only agreed to it to get a break in the hostilities in Guelders and to have an open forum in which to air his grievances and win over sympathy within the empire. He must have known, though, that the chances of this process going in his favour were slim-to-none. Maximilian, on the other hand, wanted to have the issue be decided in the Reichskammer Gericht, the imperial court, in which he was, essentially, the judge. Yes, that definitely sounds like a great place for an impartial decision to be made. When this impasse couldn’t be worked through, Charles’ representatives departed from Worms. It seemed pretty much inevitable from this point that full-scale war between Charles of Egmont and Maximilian could not be avoided. Luckily for Charles, though, as Emperor, Maximilian had a lot more to focus on than just Guelders and for now turned his attention had been drawn towards the conflicts in Italy.

So instead of war, in September 1495, Maximilian charged Charles with breaking the peace in the empire and summoned him to appear before him at the Imperial Court in Frankfurt. Understandably unwilling to travel into the lion’s den, Charles refused to do so. In September 1496, a second summons was sent for Charles to appear at the Imperial Court, this time to do with the case which Johanna van Herlaer had brought up with her complaints about everything which had been stolen from Poederooyen Castle. Once again, Charles of Egmont refused to appear, instead sending a very long and elaborate letter which once again laid out all of the atrocities which had been committed by Maximilian and his lieutenants in Guelders over the last two years and claiming that it was unsafe for him or his representatives to travel so deep into hostile territories. Charles pleaded for the Pope, Alexander VI, to send a legate to arbitrate in the case and ended the letter saying that he and the rest of Guelders would defend their land from Maximilian as strongly as possible.

And so, poised in that defensive crouch, claws out, is where we are going to leave Guelders for today. As we have seen, despite signing the Treaty of Senlis, Maximilian had been unable to subdue Charles of Egmont in Guelders by force of arms. He had then tried to use the legal power of the German empire, which remember carried a lot of weight and prestige in Guelders. But after two years of Maximilian and Albert of Saxony’s troops plundering and looting villages, abbeys, farms and whatever else they could get their hands on throughout Guelders, the attitude within Guelders had inexorably hardened against them. But also, the tides of politics across the continent had changed over the last couple of years. Maximilian’s son, Philip, was now of-age and ruling in his own right and the son did not necessarily share priorities with the father. As such, a kind of stalemate would settle over Guelders for a couple of years, with the odd raid here and there. But we will leave Guelders for today, and on the other side of this ad-break we will take a look at how Philip had Handsomely plopped himself upon the world stage.

Philip and his council take control

On the 9th of September, 1494, Philip the Handsome made his first Joyous Entry into the town of Leuven, to be officially recognised in his capacity as the no-longer-under-the-regency-of-his-father-nor-anybody-else Duke of Brabant. In the first years of his rule, we see that the decade-plus struggle over his regency had actually been lost fairly early on by Maximilian. The real game, it seemed in those early years, had not been about who was to rule in his stead while he was young, but who was to determine, mould and direct his education and outlook. The victors in this, in the first six years of his reign, had evidently been the upper nobility of the Low Countries, as they had managed to take control of his life and set his course thusly. In the words of 19th century Wallonian historian Henri Pirenne, in his History of Belgium, “Maximilian, who was himself too busy with his many designs, journeys and wars, had left the education of his son, who lived in Mechelen, to Belgian gentlemen, who bred their pupil according to their own ideas and as if he would never have to rule other regions than the Netherlands. His tutors had only seen in him the head of the Burgundian house, knowingly forgetting that he was also heir to Austria. He had been carefully removed from the influence of Albrecht of Saxony, and he had not even been taught German. They had deliberately ignored all issues that were immaterial to the Netherlandish domains. At his coronation, he is alien to his father and to the House of Habsburg: he is still just a duke of Burgundy or, as such, the national prince of the Netherlands.”

The cabal of court-advisors was led by the princes-of-the-blood to the Archduke; high-nobility Golden Fleecers who, even though some of their clans had absconded from Burgundy following the death of Charles the Bold, had nonetheless managed to resume an influence and a level of control over the new prince. We should recognise some of their names: the Croys and Lalaings being amongst them. It was not just the upper nobility who formed important components of the government that Philip had been raised to head. All across Europe the generational effects of universities were being seen. A career in the civil service was a viable track for lower or even non-aristocrats with nimble minds, instincts for opportunity and a willingness to do the dirty work of bureaucracy… as long as their families or a benefactor could pay for it to start with, of course. At this time in the Low Countries, this was men like father-son combo the two Jean Carondolets; Thomas de Plaine, who became the chancellor of the Grand Council under Philip, and Jeroen van Busleyden. All of these are names worth remembering.    

Philip’s decisions and behaviour reflected his adherence to the advice of his council. Although his tendency to rely heavily on his councillors has been called ‘sensible’, at the time it also earned him a reputation for being too easily led and he was given the nickname ‘croit-conseil’ meaning, literally, ‘believes council’. A Spanish ambassador, Fuensalida, put it that he was “of a good heart, but the plaything of his environment… led drunk from banquet to banquet, and from lady to lady”. Perhaps it was the Venetian ambassador who summed it up best. He looked at Philip’s position, being accountable to the high-lords of the southern low countries, while also sharing tendencies with his ever ambitious father, and described it as ‘labyrinthine.’

Philip’s Joyous Entries throughout Brabant and Holland in 1494-95 also reflected his attempts to strip back the expanded privileges which the States and towns had managed to win from his mother, Mary of Burgundy, with the Great Privilege of 1477. In the chaos of the last seventeen years, since the death of Charles the Bold, the States, cities and craft guilds had grown in power to the detriment of the ducal government. He recognised that, as a native son ruling in a new era of peace after protracted war, the complaints which had been levelled at his father as being an outsider with interests opposed to theirs, could not be applied to him.  As such, Philip immediately began coalescing and centralising power within the ducal court again. When he made his Joyous Entry in Geertruidenberg in Holland, Philip explicitly only agreed to the same terms that Philip the Good and Charles the Bold had done and ignored all the extra rights, powers and privileges which had made up the Great Privilege. Goodbye, Great Privilege. It’s been great. 

Showing that he had perhaps learned some of the lessons dealt out to his predecessors, he did, however, leave the option for these rights to be restored. To quote A.G. Jongkees in his essay “Het groot privilegie van Holland en Zeeland”, “For the rest, duke Philip, mindful of the merits the Dutch had acquired towards his father, declared himself ready to comply with their wishes by his own privilege, insofar as these were reasonable and did not conflict with his highness”. This neatly fits in with the image of Philip which we just spoke about, his willingness to take counsel from others. But it was also clear who was in charge. In a letter to the Chamber of Audit of Brussels in 1496, Philip wrote the following of their dealings with the States of Brabant “you are not under them, but under us; they have nothing to command you”. In the words of Koenigsberger, Philip’s policy was “what it had been since the days of the duke's great grandfather, Philip the Good: peace with France, accommodation with Guelders and cooperation with the Estates.” Cooperation, sure, but under ducal terms, which due to his tendency to “croit-conseil”, also meant, under the terms of the high nobility.

The Perkin Warbeck conspiracy

Now, we’ve been tracking the political history of the Low Countries for long enough that we should all be able to check off the major bones of contention and issues that he was now also inheriting. Domestically, these were the economy and currency crises, as well as dissent in Guelders. Internationally, if he was to maintain the continued satisfaction and support of the towns, his priority was the keeping of commercial peace with England and military peace with France.

On top of this, though, he was in a particular position as being the son of the emperor, which brought a bunch of other obligations and expectation. Also, his father was Maximilian so… good luck dealing with that loose unit as a father. In line with his advisors general approach of keeping everything rosy, (i.e not just waging war all the time) one of the first big issues was getting the English monarch back on side. We haven’t gone into why the English monarch was somewhat irked with Philip’s family, because the full story needed to be told and the time simply was not right. Until now, that is. Now, it is time for the story of Perkin Warbeck. 

We need to go back a few years however. You may recall from episode 41, ‘In Bruges’, that in 1487 a young English lad called Lambert Simnel had been held aloft by Yorkists and proclaimed to be King Edward V, one of the two princes in the tower, who had most likely been assassinated by his uncle while still imprisoned but whose bodies had never been seen publicly. The Lambert Simnel endeavour failed with the Battle of Stoke Field in 1487, which also marked the beginning of the Tudor period in English history. As we’d told you in that episode, Margaret of York’s entire family had pretty much…just…lost everything and everyone over the previous two decades. As the sole survivor she was obliged to keep the struggle going whenever there was hope, and so had been eagerly involved in trying to put the Simnel pretender on the throne. Not four years after it had failed, another pretender emerged. This time, it was a young bloke by the name of Perkin Warbeck. 

In 1490, Warbeck had emerged at the court in Burgundy, now under French administration, and claimed to actually be Richard of Shrewsbury, the Duke of York and the second of the two doomed tower princes. The many and diverse details of this story are muddied and conflated across the sources. The fact that much of the info was later garnered from Warbeck via torture doesn’t help, nor does the later account of Francis Bacon who almost goes as far as putting the whole affair on Margaret of York. Essentially, following his …er…coming out as Richard Shrewsbury, Yorkists around Europe began to spread word that the Duke of York was alive and, as such, the rightful king of England. Both Margaret of York in Mechelen and Charles VIII gave tacit support for this. At one stage, in 1491, Warbeck turned up in Cork, Ireland, where he was recognised and hailed as Richard by a bunch of people, including the mayor of Cork himself, before he returned to France. The English Tudor king Henry VII began to take this as a serious threat. He sent an invasion force of 12,000 men to Calais. This invasion was prevented by the signing of the Treaty of Etaples, which we mentioned in the previous episode. This was one of the three big treaties Charles VIII made with the monarchs of England, Spain and Burgundy. Among other things, in the Treaty of Etapes he agreed to cease supporting York supporters and insurgents., Warbeck was kicked out of France and the Yorkists who had been behind his rise and were ​​pulling the strings had to find somewhere else he could find sanctuary until the time was right. Thankfully, in Margaret of York there was one remaining member of the main York family left. That detail pretty much meant she was obliged to do whatever she could to try and recover her family’s lost fortunes, even if she knew that Perkin Warbeck was just some Flemish kid wearing fancy clothes. When Warbeck rocked up in the Low Countries then, Margaret welcomed him as her long lost nephew. Whilst in Brabant, he went about gathering support from exiles who had fled to the continent from England and was even able to win the support of King James IV of Scotland for an invasion of England. Within a year Maximilian had become the Emperor and so, by this move, even though Warbeck had lost the formidable support of the French monarch, he had effectively swapped it for that of the Emperor.

The Treaty of Etapes between France and England had been a dagger in the heart of Maximilian’s political designs and ambitions in Brittany. Even though Maximilian would later agree to the Treaty of Senlis, which brought peace between Burgundy and France, he remained agitated by Anglo-French amity. As such, he backed Margaret in her support of the Perkin Warbeck conspiracy. Henry VII in England did not take this placidly. On the 18th of September, 1493, Henry VII slapped a trade embargo on the Low Countries. He banned all English merchants from conducting any trade in Antwerp, which by now was the biggest and most important port in the region, or anywhere else in the Netherlands, instead requiring that all trade be done with Calais. This was a drastic move which was intensified in May 1494 when the exact same measures were put in place in the other direction. Trade between England and the Low Countries ground to a halt, much to the displeasure of merchants, town citizens and pretty much everyone who wasn’t playing the power game. Remember that pretty much all of the wool which was necessary for the manufacturing of cloth across Flanders and Brabant had come from England.

Maximilian invited Perkin Warbeck to Frederick III’s funeral in December 1493 and there greeted him as the king of England. It is extremely unlikely that he, or anybody else, actually believed in the veracity of his claims. There is a good letter  - dated a bit later on August 10, 1494 - from the English king Henry VII to an ambassador to the French king, called Machado. It tells us that Charles VIII had gone so far as to offer naval support for England to defend its shores, as well as forbidding his subjects to participate in whatever Warbeck coup attempt was coming. Henry says that he is not so concerned about Warbeck at this stage, but is flourishing in his praise of the French King’s efforts. “…in regard to the said garçon the King makes no account of him, nor of all his….because he cannot be hurt or annoyed by him; for there is no noblemen, gentleman, or person of any condition in the realm of England, who does not well know that it is a manifest and evident imposture, similar to the other which the Duchess Dowager of Burgundy made, when she sent Martin Swart over to England.” (We spoke about that!) “And it is notorious, that the said garçon is of no… kin to the late king Edward, but is a native of the town of Tournay, and son of a boatman, who is named Werbec…”

As to Max’s catering to the charade, Henry’s thoughts are clear. “...therefore the subjects of the King necessarily hold him in great derision, and not without reason. And it should so be, that the king of the Romans should have the intention to give him assistance to invade England, (which the King can scarcely believe, being that it is derogatory to the honour of any price to encourage such an imposter) he will neither gain honour or profit by such an undertaking. And the King is very sure that the said king of the Romans, and the nobility about him, are well aware of the imposition, and that he only does it on account of the displeasure he feels at the treaty made by the King with his said brother and cousin, the king of France.”

So when Philip was ascending to the various thrones of the Habsburg Netherlands in late 1494, this was one of the major issues he inherited. The specific Warbeck and embargo situation was really one that was largely of his father’s making. Maximilian was a man who had proven himself time and time again to be unable to understand or pander to the interests, qualms and concerns of towns and cities in the Low Countries. But, as we looked at earlier, Philip had been educated and moulded by the high nobles of the Burgundian lands. Despite his obligations to his pater familias, Philip’s education and council guided him to put his domestic priorities ahead of the dynastic and imperial ambitions of his father. 

Intercursus Magnus

In February 1495, Philip’s council had already begun to advise him that this whole Perkin Warbeck thing really had to be dealt with, otherwise there was a real risk of yet another revolt in Flanders. Things were made a little bit easier when, on the 3rd of July, 1495, having been helped by Margaret of York, Perkin Warbeck disastrously landed in Kent, England, where his army suffered huge losses and he was forced to take refuge in Scotland. It took another year or so but, with Warbeck now somebody else’s problem, from the midst of the crippling and mutually disadvantageous trade-embargos, a new treaty was fashioned. It became known as the Intercursus Magnus, and was ratified in February, 1496. The terms of the treaty made it easier for English wool traders to get their stuff sold in the crucial Burgundian ports, while fisheries from the Low Countries were given more rights. A lot of it granted reciprocated benefits to merchants from the two regions and it brought more money into the coffers of everybody. Its ratification was, from a Low Countries point of view, a way more sensible decision than dressing some Flem up as a dead prince and sending him to invade England. 

And that is where we will leave it for this episode. Philip has been handed the reins and all the turmoil that goes with the job. Being guided by his native council more than by his obligations to his father, decisions made in the English trade war reflect the native inclinations which would become a hallmark of his rule’s early years. This same willingness to pursue local agendas rather than his father’s dynastic ambitions would also lead to the prolonged stalemate which was now falling in Guelders, where war between Maximilian and Charles seemed inevitable, but which Philip was unwilling to join into. However, as we shall see in future episodes of History of the Netherlands, by the end of his admittedly short life, Philip’s lens of focus will have most certainly shifted. Because although he had shown his willingness to croit-conseil and heed the advice of local council in local matters, when it came to the issue of marriage he was still father’s son and this one area where his father’s opinion was going to matter more than anybody else’s. But that’s all for future episodes of History of the Netherlands. For now, doei!

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