The Revolt
Of the four Dutch provinces, Ghent was the only one to reject the new taxes. The tax was rejected by Ghent's Broad Council, the representative forum for the city's nobles and major guilds. They tore up the calfskin upon which the unpopular 1515 treaty was signed. They also invited 50 day laborers (known as creesers) to sit on the council. The council cited a 1477 treaty (the Great Privilege), no new tax could be imposed on the provinces if they did not unanimously accept it. The other provinces, however, did not join Ghent in rebellion.
Mary tried haggling with the rebels, but to no avail. Mary ordered the arrest of any Ghent citizen found in Brussels or Antwerp.
Charles, in Spain at the time, decided to intervene personally. The French king Francis I, hoping to better his relations with Charles, allowed his army free passage through French territory. Charles moved through France during the winter of 1539. He met with Francis at Loches on December 12, who escorted him to Paris. Moving on, he reached Valenciennes in January, where he met with his sister Mary as well a delegation from Ghent. Charles warned them that he would make an example of Ghent.
Charles reached Ghent on February 14, 1540 with an army of nearly 5,000 soldiers. The city had not expected him to come personally with an army, and offered him no resistance whatsoever as he entered. The leaders of the revolt were arrested, of whom 25 were executed. The rest were to be humiliated: on May 3, they were marched through the streets from the town hall towards Charles' palace, the Prinsenhof. The procession consisted of all the city's sheriffs, clerks, officials, and 30 noblemen dressed in black robes and barefoot; 318 guild members and 50 weavers, they too dressed in black robes; and the 50 day laborers dressed in white shirts with hangman's nooses around their necks. The hangman's noose symbolized that they deserved the gallows. At the Prinsenhof, they were made to beg Charles and Mary for mercy.
A fine of 8,000 guilders was imposed on the city. Charles decreed a new constitution, the Caroline Concession, that stripped Ghent of all its medieval legal and political freedoms, as well as all its weapons. The weavers and 53 other crafts guilds were merged into 21 corporations, and the privileges of all guilds save the shippers and butchers were stripped. The old abbey of Saint Bavo's and its church of the Holy Savior were demolished to make way for a new fortress. Eight of the city's gates were permanently closed, and parts of its walls were demolished. The city's aldermen would henceforth be selected by magistrates of the House of Habsburg (Charles' family). Charles also ordered the scaling back of festivals that fostered the city's civic pride.
Read more about this topic: Revolt Of Ghent (1539)
Famous quotes containing the word revolt:
“Distorting hackneyed words in hackneyed songs
He turns revolt into a style, prolongs
The impulse to a habit of the time.”
—Thom Gunn (b. 1929)
“As nature requires whirlwinds and cyclones to release its excessive force in a violent revolt against its own existence, so the spirit requires a demonic human being from time to time whose excessive strength rebels against the community of thought and the monotony of morality ... only by looking at those beyond its limits does humanity come to know its own utmost limits.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)