Flemish revolts against Maximilian of Austria
When Maximilian took over, he wanted to reinstate ordinance troops but he could only pay a small, but well-trained nucleus, that in the times of war, was extended by hiring mercenaries.
The Burgundians could not improve their military situation, not only because the opposing army was militarily resilient, but also because the Archduke had to pay the high costs of fighting on several different fronts".
[2]: 439 [3] Mary, seeking peace with her powerful neighbor, was involved in negotiations with Louis XI concerning a possible marriage to the Dauphin Charles (then only eight years old), but her embassy met harsh demands for territorial concessions to the French crown.
On the evening of 16 August 1477, Mary instead married Maximilian of Habsburg, son of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, at Ghent.
The following years, a war with France was fought by Flemish armies under Maximilian, culminating in the 1479 Battle of Guinegate, a Burgundian victory.
[2]: 443 When Mary died in a horse-riding accident in 1482, her four-year-old son Philip the Fair in turn inherited her realms in the Netherlands, creating a political crisis in the Burgundian lands.
By the terms of the Treaty of Arras (1482), Maximilian was forced to cede Artois and Picardy to France, but retained control over Flanders as Philip's guardian.
[1]: 491 According to Buylaert, the revolts were rooted in the cities' desire to maintain the autonomy that they had wrested from Philip's mother and predecessor, Mary of Burgundy,[7] which Maximilian threatened to curtail.
[5] Since Philip was in Bruges, in the hands of the rebels, Maximilian attempted to negotiate, offering to dismiss members of his court that displeased the Flemish.
[9] His relationship with Flanders deteriorated as the Knights of the Golden Fleece at Dendermonde deposed him as head of their Order, Bruges refused to admit the archduke into their city with a company of more than a dozen people, and the commander of the Flemish armies proclaimed himself lieutenant-general in the name of Philip the Fair.
[2]: 446 In November 1484, Maximilian convened the States General; Flanders did not attend, but the other provinces of the Burgundian Netherlands pledged their support to the archduke, enraged as they were by the Flemish cities' unwillingness to cooperate (in particular, Bruges and Ghent had attempted to block Antwerp's trade routes).
[8]: 61–62 Economic hardship and heavy taxation, combined with the failure of the military campaign against France,[9] sparked a second revolt in Ghent in November 1487, led, like the previous time, by the weaver's guild.
The guilds of Bruges joined the revolt, demanding publicity of the grievances of the rebels (a.o., plundering of the country by Habsburg troops[8]: 62 ) as well as the decision making process.
The pope excommunicated the rebels[d] and Maximilian's father Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor, raised an army of 20,000 men in Germany that reached Flanders through Brabant in April 1488.
He was to relinquish the title "count of Flanders", leaving control of the province in the hands of a government similar to the one that existed prior to 1482, in exchange for a yearly fee.
Since 1489 (after his departure), the government under Albert of Saxony had made more efforts in consulting representative institutions and showed more restraint in subjugating recalcitrant territories.
Antwerp (like Amsterdam) had lent support to Frederick III against the rebels[6] because of the many privileges it had received from Maximilian I,[9] and would see a "golden age" until the Dutch Revolt of the late 16th century.
[30] Helmut Koenigsberger criticizes the erratic leadership of Maximilian, who was brave but hardly understood the Netherlands and whose only consistent policy was the centralizing and expansionist one that had failed under the Charles the Bold.
Simpson state that Maximilian, as a gifted military champion and organizer, saved the Netherlands from France, although the conflict between the Estates and his personal ambitions caused a short-term catastrophic situation.
His rule was almost a time continuous struggle although the situation took a turn for the better at the end of the regency, when Artois and Franche Comté were also restored to Philip.
Many rebels were not barbarians but conscious citizens who believed that they had reasons to correct incompetent government, and Maximilian's side also showed some leniency but was forced to intervene more harsherly than it had anticipated.
