On the right side of the Rue Haute, as
one goes from the Place du Bourg, there is a high block containing
two large houses, Nos. 6 and 8, of that street. It is now a big,
plain building without a trace of architectural distinction; but
in the seventeenth century it was a single mansion, built about
the year 1320, and was one of the many houses with towers which
gave the Bruges of that time almost the appearance of an Oriental
city. It was called the House of the Seven Towers, from the seven
pinnacles which surmounted it; and at the back there was a large
garden, which extended to the canal and Quai des Marbriers.
In April, 1656, the 'tall man above two yards high, with dark brown
hair, scarcely to be distinguished from black,' for whom the Roundheads
had searched all England after the Battle of Worcester, found his
way to Bruges, with his brother Henry, Duke of Gloucester, and
the train of Royalists who formed their Court. For nearly three
years after Worcester, Charles II. had lived in France; but in
July, 1654, the alliance between Cromwell and Mazarin drove him to
Germany, where he remained till Don John of Austria became Governor
of the Spanish Netherlands. Thereupon the prospect of recovering
the English throne by the assistance of Spain led him to remove
his Court, which had been established for some time at Cologne,
to Flanders.
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