CHAP. XXXVI.
THE DUCHESS JACQUILINE OF BAVARIA ESCAPES IN DISGUISE FROM GHENT, AND GOES TO HOLLAND.
THE duchess Jacquiline, finding her confinement in Ghent very irksome, began about the beginning of September to look for means of escape. One evening, when her guards were at supper, she dressed herself in man's clothes, as did one of her women, and, quitting her apartments unobserved, they mounted horses which were waiting for them, and, escorted by two men, rode off full gallop from Ghent to Antwerp, where she reassumed her female dress, and thence proceeded on a car to Breda, and to la Garide[6], where she was honourably received, and obeyed as their princess.
She there ordered the lord de Montfort, her principal adviser, to meet her, and many of the noble barons of Holland, to take council with them on the state of her affairs. Knowledge of this event was soon carried to the duke of Burgundy, who was much troubled thereat, and sent in haste for men at arms from all quarters: he collected numerous vessels to pursue the duchess into Holland, whither he also went in person.
On his arrival in Holland, many of the principal towns opened their gates to him, such has Harlem, Dordrecht, Rotterdam, and some others. Then began a serious war between the duke of Burgundy and the duchess Jacquiline of Bavaria, his cousin-german.