On the 18th of August 1477, by his marriage at Ghent to Mary, who had just inherited Burgundy and the Netherlands from her father Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, he effected a union of great importance in the history of the house of Habsburg.
Having crushed a rebellion at Utrecht, he compelled the burghers of Ghent to restore Philip to him in 1485, and returning to Germany was chosen king of the Romans, or German king, at Frankfort on the 16th of February 1486, and crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 9th of the following April.
Woolwich (Wulewich) is mentioned in a grant of land by King Edward in 964 to the abbey of St Peter at Ghent.
Flourishing communities were likewise to be found in Hainault, Namur, Cambrai and the other southern districts of the Netherlands, but nowhere else the vigorous independence of Ghent, Bruges and Ypres, nor the splendour of their civic life.
Mary was forced to impose taxation which met with violent resistance, especially in 1539 from the stiff-necked town of Ghent.
