ho do
not know what to do with the honour.[13] That plaint was written not
later than the first years of the fifteenth century, and the poet's
prediction that ruin of the institution was imminent when affected by
such disorders seemed justified if, in 1433, even the years of the
eligible age had shrunk to days. Philip himself had not received the
accolade until he was twenty-five.

How his predecessor in Holland, Count William VI., had acquitted
himself valiantly the moment that he was dubbed knight is told by
Froissart, and the tales of other accolades of the period are too well
known to need reference.

It is said that the baby cavalier was nourished by his own mother.
Having lost her first two infants, Isabella was solicitous for the
welfare of this third child, who also proved her last. He was,
moreover, Philip's sole legal heir, as Michelle of France and Bonne of
Artois, his first wives, had left no offspring. The care and devotion
expended on the boy were repaid. Charles became a sturdy child who
developed into youthful vigour. In person, he strangely resembled
his mother and her Portuguese ancestors, rather than the English
Lancastrians, from whom she was equally descended.

His dark hair and his features were very different from the fair type
of his paternal ancestors, the vigorous branch of the Valois family.
Possibly other characteristics suggesting his Portuguese origin were
intensified by close association with his mother, who supervised the
education directed by the Seigneur d' Auxy. They often lived at The
Hague, where Isabella acted as chief and official adviser to the
duke's stadtholder in the administration. [14]

Charles was a diligent pupil, if we may believe his contemporaries,
surprisingly so, considering his early taste for all martial pursuits
and his intense interest in military operations.

At two years of age he received his first lesson in horsemanship, on
a wooden steed constructed for his especial use by Jean Rampart, a
saddler of Brussels.

His biographers repeat from each other statements of his proficiency
in Latin. This must be balanced by noting that the only texts which
he could have read were probably not classic. In the inventory of the
various Burgundian libraries of the period, there are not six Greek
and Latin classical texts all told, and excepting Sallust, not a
single Roman historian in the original.[15] There was a translation
of Livy by the Prior of St. Eloi and late