At this time Peter De Coninck was Dean of the Guild of Weavers,
a man of substance, popular and eloquent. There was a tumultuous
gathering in the Market-Place, when, standing in front of the Belfry,
with the leaders of five-and-twenty guilds around him, he declaimed on
liberty, and attacked the magistrates, calling on his fellow-townsmen
to resist the taxes. The city officers, on the order of the magistrates,
arrested De Coninck and his chief supporters, and hurried them to the
prison in the Bourg. But in a few hours the mob forced an entrance
and released them. The signal for revolt had been given, and for
some months Bruges, like the rest of Flanders, was in disorder. De
Coninck, who had been joined by John Breidel, Dean of the Guild of
Butchers, was busy rousing the people in all parts of the country.
He visited Ghent, amongst other places, and tried to persuade the
magistrates that if Ghent and Bruges united their forces the whole
Flemish people would rise, crush the Leliarts, and expel the French.
But the men of Ghent would not listen to him, and he returned to
Bruges. Here, too, he met with a rebuff, for the magistrates, having
heard that Jacques de Chatillon, whom Philip had made Governor of
Flanders, was marching on the town, would not allow him to remain
amongst them.
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