Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 1.djvu/460

 defied the power of France. His reign, which lasted till 1402, marked an important advance in the prosperity of the chief Geldrian towns, Nymwegen, Roermonde, Zutphen, and Arnhem, where the rise of a considerable cloth industry connects itself with his firm attachment to the English alliance. Under his brother and successor, who remained childless like himself, the diet of the duchy resolved that no Duke should henceforth be acknowledged in Gelderland unless approved by the majority of the knightly Order (many of whose members down to the close of the fifteenth century were virtually independent), and by the smaller towns, with the unanimous assent of the above-mentioned chief towns of the "four quarters"; while any partition of the duchy, or alienation of any section of it, was made conditional on the sanction of the diet. Thus in 1423, on the death of Duke Rainald IV, the towns raised to the ducal dignity his sister's grandson Arnold of Egmond, who was still a boy in years. Although the Emperor Sigismund had invested the Duke of Berg with the duchy of Gelders, Arnold retained the confidence of the Estates by enlarging their privileges, and enjoyed the support of Duke Philip of Burgundy, to whose niece, the daughter of Duke Adolf of Cleves, he was betrothed, and afterwards united in marriage. Subsequently, however, Duke Arnold fell out with his ally as to the succession to the see of Utrecht; whereupon Philip joined with the four chief towns of Gelderland in the successful attempt of Arnold's son Adolf to substitute his own for his father's authority. But when in 1467 Charles the Bold became Duke of Burgundy, who could not bring himself to befriend a friend of the towns, Adolf after rejecting a compromise was thrown into prison, and his incapable father, against the will of the towns and the law of the land, pledged his duchy to Charles for 300,000 Rhenish florins (1471). On Arnold's death two years later, Charles took possession of the duchy. Nymwegen, whose stout resistance he had overcome by force, was subjected to a heavy fine; and only such of the towns as had voluntarily submitted to the Burgundian regime were confirmed in certain of their privileges. During the rest of the reign of Charles the Bold Arnold's son Charles and his sister were kept at the Burgundian Court, and Gelderland was ruled with an iron hand; but the Burgundian system of administration was probably to the advantage of the Geldrian population at large, though it had to furnish troops for his wars. As will be seen, a long and troublous interval of rebellion and war was to ensue, before in 1543, William of Juliers, whom Charles of Egmond had named his successor, resigned his claims to Gelders and Zutphen, and the entire Netherlands were united in the hands of the Emperor Charles V.

The extension by the Dukes of Burgundy of their territorial dominion over the Netherlands necessitated the establishment by them of a strong monarchical authority. A number of States, of which each had a history and institutions of its own, while the most important of them abounded