Chronicles and Characters By Robert Lytton (Owen Meredith): In Two Volumes |
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ADOLPHUS, DUKE OF GUELDERS.
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 | Chronicles and Characters |  |
151
ADOLPHUS, DUKE OF GUELDERS.
(FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES.)
Adolphus, Duke of Guelders, having died,
Was laid in pomp for men to see. Priests vied
With soldiers, which the most should honour him.
Borne on broad shoulders through the streets, with hymn
And martial music, the dead Duke in state
Reach'd Tournay. There they laid him in the great
Cathedral, where perpetual twilight dwells,
Misty with scents from silver thuribles;
Since it seems fitting that, where dead kings sleep,
The sacred air, by pious aids, should keep
A certain indistinctness faint and fine,
To awe the vulgar mind, and with divine
Solemnities of silence, and soft glooms,
Inspire due reverence around royal tombs.
So, in the great Cathedral, grand, he lay.
Was laid in pomp for men to see. Priests vied
With soldiers, which the most should honour him.
Borne on broad shoulders through the streets, with hymn
And martial music, the dead Duke in state
Reach'd Tournay. There they laid him in the great
Cathedral, where perpetual twilight dwells,
Misty with scents from silver thuribles;
Since it seems fitting that, where dead kings sleep,
The sacred air, by pious aids, should keep
A certain indistinctness faint and fine,
To awe the vulgar mind, and with divine
Solemnities of silence, and soft glooms,
Inspire due reverence around royal tombs.
So, in the great Cathedral, grand, he lay.
The Duke had gain'd his Dukedom in this way:
Once, on a winter night, . . . these things were written
Four centuries ago, when men, frost-bitten,
Blew on their nails, and curst, to warm their blood,
The times, the taxes, and what else they could, . . .
A hungry, bleak night sky, with frosty fires
Hung hard, and clipt with cold the chilly spires,
Bent, for some hateful purpose of its own,
To keep sharp watch upon the little town,
Which huddled in its shadow, as if there
'Twas safest, trying to look unaware;
Earth gave it no assistance, and small cheer,
'Neath that sharp sky, resolved to interfere
For its affliction, but lockt up her hand,
Stared fiercely on man's need, and his command
Rejected, cold as kindness when it cools,
Or charity in some men's souls. The pools
And water-courses had become dead streaks
Of steely ice. The rushes in the creeks
Stood stiff as iron spikes. The sleety breeze,
Itself, had died for lack of aught to tease
On the gaunt oaks, or pine-trees numb'd and stark.
All fires were out, and every casement dark
Along the flinty streets. A famisht mouse,
Going his rounds in some old dismal house,
Disconsolate (for since the last new tax
The mice began to gnaw each other's backs),
Seem'd the sole creature stirring; save, perchance,
With steel glove slowly freezing to his lance,
A sullen watchman, half asleep, who stept
About the turret where the old Duke slept.
Once, on a winter night, . . . these things were written
Four centuries ago, when men, frost-bitten,
Blew on their nails, and curst, to warm their blood,
The times, the taxes, and what else they could, . . .
152
Hung hard, and clipt with cold the chilly spires,
Bent, for some hateful purpose of its own,
To keep sharp watch upon the little town,
Which huddled in its shadow, as if there
'Twas safest, trying to look unaware;
Earth gave it no assistance, and small cheer,
'Neath that sharp sky, resolved to interfere
For its affliction, but lockt up her hand,
Stared fiercely on man's need, and his command
Rejected, cold as kindness when it cools,
Or charity in some men's souls. The pools
And water-courses had become dead streaks
Of steely ice. The rushes in the creeks
Stood stiff as iron spikes. The sleety breeze,
Itself, had died for lack of aught to tease
On the gaunt oaks, or pine-trees numb'd and stark.
All fires were out, and every casement dark
Along the flinty streets. A famisht mouse,
Going his rounds in some old dismal house,
Disconsolate (for since the last new tax
The mice began to gnaw each other's backs),
Seem'd the sole creature stirring; save, perchance,
With steel glove slowly freezing to his lance,
A sullen watchman, half asleep, who stept
About the turret where the old Duke slept.
The young Duke, whom a waking thought, not new,
Had held from sleeping, the last night or two,
Consider'd he should sleep the better there,
Provided that the old Duke slept elsewhere.
Therefore, (about four hundred years ago,
This point was settled by the young Duke so,)
Adolphus—the last Duke of Egmont's race
Who reign'd in Guelders, after whom the place
Lapsed into Burgundian line—put on
His surcoat, buckled fast his habergeon,
Went clinking up that turret stairway, came
To the turret chamber, whose dim taper flame
The gust that enter'd with him soon smote dead,
And found his father, sleeping in his bed
As sound as, just four hundred years ago,
Good Dukes and Kings were wont to sleep, you know.
153
Consider'd he should sleep the better there,
Provided that the old Duke slept elsewhere.
Therefore, (about four hundred years ago,
This point was settled by the young Duke so,)
Adolphus—the last Duke of Egmont's race
Who reign'd in Guelders, after whom the place
Lapsed into Burgundian line—put on
His surcoat, buckled fast his habergeon,
Went clinking up that turret stairway, came
To the turret chamber, whose dim taper flame
The gust that enter'd with him soon smote dead,
And found his father, sleeping in his bed
As sound as, just four hundred years ago,
Good Dukes and Kings were wont to sleep, you know.
A meagre moon, malignant as could be,
Meanwhile made stealthy light enough to see
The way by to the bedside, and put out
A hand, too eager long to grope about
For what it sought. A moment after that,
The old Duke, wide awake and shuddering, sat
Stark upright in the moon; his thin grey hair
Pluckt out by handfuls; and that stony stare,
The seal which terror fixes on surprise,
Widening within the white and filmy eyes
With which the ghastly father gazed upon
Strange meanings in the grim face of the son.
The young Duke haled the old Duke by the hair
Thus, in his nightgear, down the turret stair;
And made him trot, barefooted, on before
Himself, who rode a horseback, thro' the frore
And aching midnight, over frozen wold,
And icy meer. (That winter, you might hold
A hundred fairs, and roast a hundred sheep,
If you could find them, on the ice, so deep
The frost had fixt his floors on driven piles.)
From Grave to Buren, five and twenty miles,
The young Duke hunted thro' the hollow night
The old Duke, like a phantom, flitting white
Thro' darkness into darkness, and the den
Where great men falling are forgot by men.
There in a dungeon, where newts dwell, beneath
The tower of Buren Castle, until death
Took him, he linger'd very miserably;
Some say for months; some, years. Tho' Burgundy
Summon'd both son and father to appear
Before him, ere the end of that same year,
And sought to settle, after mild rebuke,
Some sort of compromise between the Duke
And the Duke's father. But it fail'd.
This way
The Duke had gain'd his Dukedom.
At Tournay,
Afterwards, in the foray on that town,
He fell; and, being a man of much renown,
And very noble, with befitting state,
Was royally interr'd within the great
Cathedral. There, with work of costly stones
And curious craft, above his ducal bones
They builded a fair tomb. And over him
A hundred priests chanted the holy hymn.
Which being ended, . . . “Our archbishop” (says
A chronicler, writing about those days)
“Held a most sweet discourse.” . . . . And so, the psalm
And silver organ ceasing, in his calm
And costly tomb they left him; with his face,
Turn'd ever upward to the altar-place,
Smiling in marble from the shrine below.
Meanwhile made stealthy light enough to see
The way by to the bedside, and put out
A hand, too eager long to grope about
For what it sought. A moment after that,
The old Duke, wide awake and shuddering, sat
Stark upright in the moon; his thin grey hair
Pluckt out by handfuls; and that stony stare,
The seal which terror fixes on surprise,
Widening within the white and filmy eyes
With which the ghastly father gazed upon
Strange meanings in the grim face of the son.
154
Thus, in his nightgear, down the turret stair;
And made him trot, barefooted, on before
Himself, who rode a horseback, thro' the frore
And aching midnight, over frozen wold,
And icy meer. (That winter, you might hold
A hundred fairs, and roast a hundred sheep,
If you could find them, on the ice, so deep
The frost had fixt his floors on driven piles.)
From Grave to Buren, five and twenty miles,
The young Duke hunted thro' the hollow night
The old Duke, like a phantom, flitting white
Thro' darkness into darkness, and the den
Where great men falling are forgot by men.
There in a dungeon, where newts dwell, beneath
The tower of Buren Castle, until death
Took him, he linger'd very miserably;
Some say for months; some, years. Tho' Burgundy
Summon'd both son and father to appear
Before him, ere the end of that same year,
And sought to settle, after mild rebuke,
Some sort of compromise between the Duke
And the Duke's father. But it fail'd.
This way
The Duke had gain'd his Dukedom.
At Tournay,
Afterwards, in the foray on that town,
He fell; and, being a man of much renown,
155
Was royally interr'd within the great
Cathedral. There, with work of costly stones
And curious craft, above his ducal bones
They builded a fair tomb. And over him
A hundred priests chanted the holy hymn.
Which being ended, . . . “Our archbishop” (says
A chronicler, writing about those days)
“Held a most sweet discourse.” . . . . And so, the psalm
And silver organ ceasing, in his calm
And costly tomb they left him; with his face,
Turn'd ever upward to the altar-place,
Smiling in marble from the shrine below.
These things were done four hundred years ago,
Adolphus, Duke of Guelders, in this way
First having gain'd his Dukedom, as I say.
After which time, the great Duke Charles the Bold
Laid hold on Guelders, and kept fast his hold.
Times change: and with the times too change the men.
A hundred years have roll'd away since then.
I mean, since “Our archbishop” sweetly preach'd
His sermon on the dead Duke, unimpeach'd
Of flattery in the fluent phrase that just
Tinkled the tender moral o'er the dust
Of greatness, and with flowers of Latin strew'd,
To edify a reverent multitude,
The musty surface of the faded theme
“All flesh is grass: man's days are but a dream.”
A bad dream, surely, sometimes: waking yet
Too late deferr'd! Such honours to upset,
Such wrongs to right, such far truths to attain,
Time, tho' he toils along the road amain,
Is still behindhand; never quite gets thro'
The long arrears of work he finds to do.
You call Time swift? it costs him centuries
To move the least of human miseries
Out of the path he treads. You call Time strong?
He does not dare to smite an obvious wrong
Aside, until 'tis worn too weak to stand
The faint dull pressure of his feeble hand.
The crazy wrong, and yet how safe it thrives!
The little lie, and yet how long it lives!
Meanwhile, I say, a hundred years have roll'd
O'er the Duke's memory.
Adolphus, Duke of Guelders, in this way
First having gain'd his Dukedom, as I say.
After which time, the great Duke Charles the Bold
Laid hold on Guelders, and kept fast his hold.
Times change: and with the times too change the men.
A hundred years have roll'd away since then.
I mean, since “Our archbishop” sweetly preach'd
His sermon on the dead Duke, unimpeach'd
Of flattery in the fluent phrase that just
Tinkled the tender moral o'er the dust
Of greatness, and with flowers of Latin strew'd,
To edify a reverent multitude,
The musty surface of the faded theme
156
A bad dream, surely, sometimes: waking yet
Too late deferr'd! Such honours to upset,
Such wrongs to right, such far truths to attain,
Time, tho' he toils along the road amain,
Is still behindhand; never quite gets thro'
The long arrears of work he finds to do.
You call Time swift? it costs him centuries
To move the least of human miseries
Out of the path he treads. You call Time strong?
He does not dare to smite an obvious wrong
Aside, until 'tis worn too weak to stand
The faint dull pressure of his feeble hand.
The crazy wrong, and yet how safe it thrives!
The little lie, and yet how long it lives!
Meanwhile, I say, a hundred years have roll'd
O'er the Duke's memory.
Now, again behold!
Late gleams of dwindled daylight, glad to go:
A sullen autumn evening, scowling low
On Tournay: a fierce sunset, dying down
In clots of crimson fire, reminds a town
Of starving, stormy people, how the glare
Sunk into eyes of agonised despair,
When placid pastors of the flock of Christ
Had finish'd roasting their last Calvinist.
A hot and lurid night is steaming up,
Like a foul film out of some witch's cup,
That swarms with devils spawn'd from her damn'd charms.
For the red light of burning burgs and farms
Oozes all round, beneath the lock'd black lids
Of heaven. Something on the air forbids
A creature to feel happy, or at rest.
The night is cursed, and carries in her breast
A guilty conscience. Strange, too! since of late
The Church is busy, putting all things straight,
And taking comfortable care to keep
The fold snug, and all prowlers from the sheep.
To which good end, upon this self-same night,
A much dismay'd Town Council has thought right
To set a Guard of Terror round about
The great Cathedral; fearing lest a rout
Of these misguided creatures, prone to sin,
As lately proven, should break rudely in
There, where Adolphus, Duke of Guelders, and
Other dead dukes, by whom this happy land
Was once kept quiet in good times gone by,
With saints and bishops sleeping quietly,
Enjoy at last the slumber of the just;
In marble; mixing not their noble dust
With common clay of the inferior dead.
Therefore you hear, with moody measured tread,
This Guard of Terror going its grim watch,
Thro' ominous silence. Scarce sufficient match,
However, even for a hundred lean
Starved wretches, lasht to madness, having seen
Somewhat too long, or too unworthily look'd
Upon, their vile belongings being cook'd
To suit each priestly palate. . . . If to-night
Those mad dogs slip the muzzle, 'ware their bite!
A sullen autumn evening, scowling low
On Tournay: a fierce sunset, dying down
In clots of crimson fire, reminds a town
Of starving, stormy people, how the glare
Sunk into eyes of agonised despair,
When placid pastors of the flock of Christ
Had finish'd roasting their last Calvinist.
A hot and lurid night is steaming up,
157
That swarms with devils spawn'd from her damn'd charms.
For the red light of burning burgs and farms
Oozes all round, beneath the lock'd black lids
Of heaven. Something on the air forbids
A creature to feel happy, or at rest.
The night is cursed, and carries in her breast
A guilty conscience. Strange, too! since of late
The Church is busy, putting all things straight,
And taking comfortable care to keep
The fold snug, and all prowlers from the sheep.
To which good end, upon this self-same night,
A much dismay'd Town Council has thought right
To set a Guard of Terror round about
The great Cathedral; fearing lest a rout
Of these misguided creatures, prone to sin,
As lately proven, should break rudely in
There, where Adolphus, Duke of Guelders, and
Other dead dukes, by whom this happy land
Was once kept quiet in good times gone by,
With saints and bishops sleeping quietly,
Enjoy at last the slumber of the just;
In marble; mixing not their noble dust
With common clay of the inferior dead.
Therefore you hear, with moody measured tread,
This Guard of Terror going its grim watch,
Thro' ominous silence. Scarce sufficient match,
However, even for a hundred lean
158
Somewhat too long, or too unworthily look'd
Upon, their vile belongings being cook'd
To suit each priestly palate. . . . If to-night
Those mad dogs slip the muzzle, 'ware their bite!
And so, perchance, the thankless people thought:
For, as the night wore off, a much-distraught
And murmurous crowd came thronging wild to where,
I' the market-place, each stifled thoroughfare
Disgorges its pent populace about
The great Cathedral.
Suddenly, a shout,
As tho' Hell's brood had broken loose, rock'd all
Heaven's black roof dismal and funereal.
As when a spark is dropt into a train
Of nitre, swiftly ran from brain to brain
A single fiery purpose, and at last
Exploded, roaring down the vague and vast
Heart of the shaken city. Then a swell
Of wrathful faces, irresistible,
Sweeps to the great Cathedral doors; disarms
The Guard; roars up the hollow nave; and swarms
Thro' aisle and chancel, fast as locusts sent
Thro' Egypt's chambers thick and pestilent.
For, as the night wore off, a much-distraught
And murmurous crowd came thronging wild to where,
I' the market-place, each stifled thoroughfare
Disgorges its pent populace about
The great Cathedral.
Suddenly, a shout,
As tho' Hell's brood had broken loose, rock'd all
Heaven's black roof dismal and funereal.
As when a spark is dropt into a train
Of nitre, swiftly ran from brain to brain
A single fiery purpose, and at last
Exploded, roaring down the vague and vast
Heart of the shaken city. Then a swell
Of wrathful faces, irresistible,
Sweeps to the great Cathedral doors; disarms
The Guard; roars up the hollow nave; and swarms
Thro' aisle and chancel, fast as locusts sent
Thro' Egypt's chambers thick and pestilent.
There, such a sight was seen, as, now and then,
When half a world goes mad, makes sober men
In after years, who comfortably sit
In easy chairs to weigh and ponder it,
Revise the various theories of mankind,
Puzzling both others and themselves, to find
New reasons for unreasonable old wrongs.
When half a world goes mad, makes sober men
159
In easy chairs to weigh and ponder it,
Revise the various theories of mankind,
Puzzling both others and themselves, to find
New reasons for unreasonable old wrongs.
Yells, howlings, cursings; grim tumultuous throngs;
The metamorphoses of mad despair:
Men with wolves' faces, women with fierce hair
And frenzied eyes, turn'd furies: over all
The torchlight tossing in perpetual
Pulsation of tremendous glare or gloom.
They climb, they cling from altar-piece and tomb;
Whilst pickaxe, crowbar, pitchfork, billet, each
Chance weapon caught within the reckless reach
Of those whose single will a thousand means
Subserve to (terrible, wild kings and queens
Whose sole dominions are despairs), thro' all
The marble monuments majestical
Go crashing. Basalt, lapis, syenite,
Porphyry, and pediment, in splinters bright,
Tumbled with claps of thunder, clattering
Roll down the dark. The surly sinners sing
A horrible black santis, so to cheer
The work in hand. And evermore you hear
A shout of awful joy, as down goes some
Three-hundred-years-old treasure. Crowded, come
To glut the greatening bonfire, chalices
Of gold and silver, copes and cibories,
Stain'd altar-cloths, spoil'd pictures, ornaments,
Statues, and broken organ tubes and vents,
The spoils of generations all destroy'd
In one wild moment! Possibly grown cloy'd
And languid, then a lean iconoclast,
Drooping a sullen eyelid, fell at last
To reading lazily the letters graven
Around the royal tomb, red porphyry-paven,
Black-pillar'd, snowy-slabb'd, and sculptured fair,
He sat on, listless, with spiked elbows bare.
When (suddenly inspired with some new hate
To yells, the hollow roofs reverberate
As tho' the Judgment-Angel pass'd among
Their rafters, and the great beams clang'd and rung
Against his griding wing) he shrieks: “Come forth,
Adolphus, Duke of Guelders! for thy worth
Should not be hidden.” Forthwith, all men shout,
“Strike, split, crash, dig, and drag the tyrant out!
Let him be judged!” And from the drowsy, dark,
Enormous aisles, a hundred echoes bark
And bellow—“Judged!”
Then those dread lictors all,
Marching before the magisterial
Curule of tardy Time, with rod and axe,
Fall to their work. The cream-white marble cracks,
The lucid alabaster flies in flakes,
The iron bindings burst, the brickwork quakes
Beneath their strokes, and the great stone lid shivers
With thunder on the pavement. A torch quivers
Over the yawning vault. The vast crowd draws
Its breath back hissing. In that sultry pause
A man o'erstrides the tomb, and drops beneath;
Another; then another. Still its breath
The crowd holds, hushful. At the last appears,
Unravaged by a hundred wicked years,
Borne on broad shoulders from the tomb to which
Broad shoulders bore him; coming, in his rich
Robes of magnificence (by sweating thumbs
Of savage artisans,—as each one comes
To stare into his dead face,—smeared and smudged),
Adolphus, Duke of Guelders, . . . to be Judged!
The metamorphoses of mad despair:
Men with wolves' faces, women with fierce hair
And frenzied eyes, turn'd furies: over all
The torchlight tossing in perpetual
Pulsation of tremendous glare or gloom.
They climb, they cling from altar-piece and tomb;
Whilst pickaxe, crowbar, pitchfork, billet, each
Chance weapon caught within the reckless reach
Of those whose single will a thousand means
Subserve to (terrible, wild kings and queens
Whose sole dominions are despairs), thro' all
The marble monuments majestical
Go crashing. Basalt, lapis, syenite,
Porphyry, and pediment, in splinters bright,
Tumbled with claps of thunder, clattering
Roll down the dark. The surly sinners sing
A horrible black santis, so to cheer
The work in hand. And evermore you hear
A shout of awful joy, as down goes some
Three-hundred-years-old treasure. Crowded, come
To glut the greatening bonfire, chalices
160
Stain'd altar-cloths, spoil'd pictures, ornaments,
Statues, and broken organ tubes and vents,
The spoils of generations all destroy'd
In one wild moment! Possibly grown cloy'd
And languid, then a lean iconoclast,
Drooping a sullen eyelid, fell at last
To reading lazily the letters graven
Around the royal tomb, red porphyry-paven,
Black-pillar'd, snowy-slabb'd, and sculptured fair,
He sat on, listless, with spiked elbows bare.
When (suddenly inspired with some new hate
To yells, the hollow roofs reverberate
As tho' the Judgment-Angel pass'd among
Their rafters, and the great beams clang'd and rung
Against his griding wing) he shrieks: “Come forth,
Adolphus, Duke of Guelders! for thy worth
Should not be hidden.” Forthwith, all men shout,
“Strike, split, crash, dig, and drag the tyrant out!
Let him be judged!” And from the drowsy, dark,
Enormous aisles, a hundred echoes bark
And bellow—“Judged!”
Then those dread lictors all,
Marching before the magisterial
Curule of tardy Time, with rod and axe,
Fall to their work. The cream-white marble cracks,
The lucid alabaster flies in flakes,
The iron bindings burst, the brickwork quakes
161
With thunder on the pavement. A torch quivers
Over the yawning vault. The vast crowd draws
Its breath back hissing. In that sultry pause
A man o'erstrides the tomb, and drops beneath;
Another; then another. Still its breath
The crowd holds, hushful. At the last appears,
Unravaged by a hundred wicked years,
Borne on broad shoulders from the tomb to which
Broad shoulders bore him; coming, in his rich
Robes of magnificence (by sweating thumbs
Of savage artisans,—as each one comes
To stare into his dead face,—smeared and smudged),
Adolphus, Duke of Guelders, . . . to be Judged!
And then, and there, in that strange judgment-hall,
As, gathering round their royal criminal,
Troopt the wild jury, the dead Duke was found
To be as fresh in face, in flesh as sound,
As tho' he had been buried yesterday;
So well the embalmer's work from all decay
Had kept his royal person. With his great
Grim truncheon propt on hip, his robe of state
Heap'd in vast folds his large-built limbs around,
The Duke lay, looking as in life; and frown'd
A frown that seem'd as of a living man.
As, gathering round their royal criminal,
Troopt the wild jury, the dead Duke was found
To be as fresh in face, in flesh as sound,
As tho' he had been buried yesterday;
So well the embalmer's work from all decay
Had kept his royal person. With his great
Grim truncheon propt on hip, his robe of state
Heap'd in vast folds his large-built limbs around,
The Duke lay, looking as in life; and frown'd
A frown that seem'd as of a living man.
Meanwhile those judges their assize began.
And, having, in incredibly brief time,
Decided that in nothing save his crime
The Duke exceeded mere humanity,
Free, for the first time, its own cause to try,
So long ignored,—they peeled him, limb by limb,
Bare of the mingled pomps that mantled him;
Stript, singed him, stabb'd him, stampt upon him, smote
His cheek, and spat upon it, slit his throat,
Crusht his big brow, and clove his crown, and left
Adolphus, Guelders' last own Duke, bereft
Of sepulture, and naked, on the floor
Of the Cathedral. Where, six days, or more,
He rested, rotting. What remain'd, indeed,
After the rats had had their daily feed,
Of the great Duke, some unknown hand, 'tis said,
In the town cesspool, last, deposited.
162
Decided that in nothing save his crime
The Duke exceeded mere humanity,
Free, for the first time, its own cause to try,
So long ignored,—they peeled him, limb by limb,
Bare of the mingled pomps that mantled him;
Stript, singed him, stabb'd him, stampt upon him, smote
His cheek, and spat upon it, slit his throat,
Crusht his big brow, and clove his crown, and left
Adolphus, Guelders' last own Duke, bereft
Of sepulture, and naked, on the floor
Of the Cathedral. Where, six days, or more,
He rested, rotting. What remain'd, indeed,
After the rats had had their daily feed,
Of the great Duke, some unknown hand, 'tis said,
In the town cesspool, last, deposited.
“Et, comme ecrit Philippe de Comines (qui mêsmes a été employé en ce different par le Due Charles de Bourgongne) le dit Adolph alla de nuict en plein hyver prendre son vieux pere hors du lict, et lui fit faire pieds nus cincq lieues de chemin, et le detint six mois prisonier en une profonde et obscure prison — Le Due Charles de Bourgongne tacha par plusieurs fois de reconcilier le pere et le fils, mais en vain — sur quoy le fils repondit qu'il aymoit mieux jêter son pere en un puits, et s'y precipiter apres luy que de consentir à un tel accord, disant que son pere avoit gouverné 44 ans, et que partant il estoit maintenant temps qu'il gouvernait aussi quelque peu.”—D. Emanuel V. Meteren. Traduict de Flamend en Francoys par I. D. L. Haye 1618.
“Il alla vers Tournay, où il fut tué par les Francais en une escarmouche, non obstant qu'il ne fit que crier Gueldre! Gueldre! ce qui luy arriva selon le juste jugement de Dieu pour sa grande rebellion.”—Ibid, Fol. 9.
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