Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/157

 12 s. viii. FEB. 12, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 123 This was the year before the battle of Bouvines. 1347. Philip of Valois, intending to repair the defeat of Crecy and with the object of obliging Edward III. to raise the siege of Calais, put on foot a formidable army, which appeared before Arras in May, 1347. Hazebrouck was burnt and pillaged shortly after, and the development of the town was arrested a second time by the events of war. Calais surrendered on Aug. 4. 1436. In May of this year the English, in order to revictual Calais, raided the country round Hazebrouck and Cassel, from which they carried off large numbers of cattle, sheep, goats, grain and forage. To prevent a recurrence of these incursions the militia of the communes was called out and a battle fought at Looberghe in which the English were victorious. The Flemish loss is said to have been 300 killed and 120 taken prisoners. The total English loss is given as 70. The town of Hazebrouck, however, did not suffer 'any material damage. 1524-5. The winter was made memorable by the occurrence of famine and pestilence, and by the beginning of religious troubles. These latter culminated in the war of the Gueux in 1566, during the course of which the church at Hazebrouck was pillaged (Aug.- 15-16), the altars being broken and the sepulchral monuments carried away. Many other churches in the neighbourhood also suffered at this time. 1578. The church at Hazebrouck was again pillaged by the Gueux (Sept. 24), the bells on this occasion being carried off. 1582. Hazebrouck again suffered severely when the soldiers of Philip II., on their way to Ypres, passed through the town (July 27), setting it on fire at various points. The church was again pillaged. The de- struction at this time was very great, the old Town Hall in the Market Place being burnt down, and many years elapsed before the town was able to recover. 1587. Wandering bands of Gueux from Holland again set fire to Hazebrouck. The misery of the inhabitants at this time was great. The building of the new town hall was stopped for lack of funds, and the banks of the canal, the construction of which had only recently been begun, were falling in. Money was only about a quarter of its former value. 1644. In October, Hazebrouck, still Spanish, was invaded by a French army, which occupied the town for eight days, inflicting loss and ruin on the inhabitants, a number of whom took refuge in the church. 1677. The battle of Cassel was fought on the plain below Mont Cassel 12 kilometres o the north-west of Hazebrouck, on Apr. 11. As a result this part of Flanders was de- finitely restored to the French crown in the 'ollowing year. * Henceforward Hazebrouck- s a French town, and its history till the end of the eighteenth century and the coming of the Revolution, is one of peaceful develop- nent, if of little progress. The linen industry, mentioned by Blaeu,. dated back to the fourteenth century. The Lynwaet Halle, where the linen was ex- Dosed on Saturdays, stood on the north side of the Market Place on the site of the present }own hall, but was pulled down about 1793. The industry declined from the end of the seventeenth century, as already mentioned,., and about 1789 was confined to table linen. A little flannel appears also to have been manufactured in Hazebrouck at this time- The old town hall stood in the centre of the Market Place. After its destruction by the Spaniards in 1582, something like seven ears elapsed before its successor was com- oleted. This is the building shown on Blaeu 's plan. It had a belfry and carillon of eight bells, but was destroyed by fire in February, 1801, and was never rebuilt. The present town hall on the north side of the Square dates from 1806-20. The Market Place, or Grand' Place, which measures roughly 220 paces in length by 100 in breadth, was in existence in the fourteenth century, at which period, accord- ing to M. de Tersud, it was : " une grande place non pavee au milieu de laquelle existait une fosse entouree d'une haie : les maisons n'avaient presque toutes qu'un rez-de-chaussee, elles etaient couvertes en paille et enduites d'une couche de torches." The only buildings of antiquarian interest now remaining in Hazebrouck are the parish church of St. Eloi, and the Hospice- Hopital (formerly the convent of the Augustines). The rest of the town has been rebuilt at different times, mostly in the nineteenth century, such houses of earlier date as remain being of little or no archi- tectural interest. According to M. de Ter- sud the church is a rebuilding at the close of the fifteenth century of an older structure which suffered from fire in 1492, the in- terior being then wholly destroyed. The in N. & Q.' 12 S. vi. 225-6 : also 12 S. vii. 241.
 * For battle of Cassel see inscriptions recorded'