Bousbecque and Its Seigneurs
It is from the seigneury of Bousbecque that Ogier11 Ghiselin takes the name by which he is best known, Busbecq (Latin, Busbequius).
Properly of course his name is identical with that of the seigneury, but, by common consent, the Ambassador is known as Busbecq, while the name of the place, after numerous variations—Bosbeke, Busbeke, Bousbeke, &c., has settled down into the form Bousbecque.12
It will be necessary therefore to speak of the man by one name and the place by another.
The geographical position of Bousbecque has an important bearing on the biography of the Ambassador; as the place is not marked in English maps, a plan of the district is given in this volume showing the relative positions of Bousbecque, Comines, Wervicq, Halluin, &c. It will be seen that Bousbecque lies on the river Lys, about two miles from Comines. In the times with which we shall have to deal, it formed part of the County of Flanders; it is now part of the French frontier, and is included in the Département du Nord.
The neighbourhood of Bousbecque has a history extending to early times, for close to it stands Wervicq, marking with its name the Roman station of Viroviacum; in Bousbecque itself Roman paving-stones have been dug out on the road now known as the ‘Chemin des Oblaers;’ whence it may be assumed that the road mentioned in the itinerary of Antoninus, as running from Tournay to Wervicq, passed through Bousbecque.
The depth of the river Lys, which is an affluent of the Scheldt, exposed the neighbouring country to the attacks of the Northmen; the hardy pirates sailed up the stream, and built their castles and forts on the banks of the river. Their descendants became the seigneurs, or lords, of the territories which their ancestors had won.
A distinction must here be drawn between the seigneury of Bousbecque and the parish (now commune) of Bousbecque. The parish of Bousbecque contained a great many other seigneuries besides that from which it takes its name; notably, for instance, the seigneuries of la Lys and Rhume. The first mention of Bousbecque occurs in a deed, without date, but necessarily between 1098 and 1113; in it Baudry, bishop of Tournay, conveys to the Collegiate Chapter of St. Peter, at Lille, the whole tithes of Roncq and half the tithes of Halluin and Bousbecque (Busbeka).13
In 1159, Wautier, Seigneur of Halluin, husband of Barbe daughter of the Count of Soissons, conveys to the Abbey of St. Aubert, with the consent of his wife and his children—Wautier, Roger, Guillaume, Alix, and Richilde—his share of the tithes of Iwuy. The Roger here mentioned, married Agnes de Bousbecque; hence we see the high position held at that early date by the family of Busbecq;14 a daughter of their house was considered a proper partner for a nobleman of royal family, the grandson of a Comte de Soissons.
Adjoining the seigneury of Bousbecque lay the seigneury of la Lys, and in 1298 both these seigneuries are found in the possession of the same person, mention being made in the archives of Lille of ‘William de la Lys, sire de Bousbeke, fius Monseigneur William de la Lys, ki fu sire de Bousbeke.’
Thus for a time the title by which the family was known was not Bousbecque, but la Lys.
In December 1348, was signed the Treaty of Dunkirk, by the Earl of Lancaster, the Earl of Suffolk, and Sir Walter Manny on the part of England, and on the part of Flanders, by ten delegates of rank; among their names is found that of Jehan de la Lys.
About this time the seigneuries of la Lys and Bousbecque passed to the house of Pontenerie; William of that name marrying Marie de la Lys, heiress of the seigneuries, and assuming—no doubt as one of the conditions of the contract—the name of la Lys. His children were severally known as, Guillaume, Jeanne, and Marie de la Pontenerie, dit de la Lys.
Again there was a failure in the male line, and Marie, the youngest daughter, brought the seigneuries to Bauduin de Hingettes.
Their son, Jehan de Hingettes, married a Halluin, and dying in 1466, his daughter Adrienne de Hingettes, dit de la Lys, became representative and heiress of the family. She married Gilles Ghiselin I., and thus the seigneuries of la Lys and Bousbecque passed into the possession of the noble house of Ghiselin.15
On the marriage of Adrienne to Gilles Ghiselin I. the title of la Lys was dropped, and that of Bousbecque resumed.
Gilles Ghiselin I., Seigneur of Bousbecque, knight of Jerusalem and Cyprus, was a man of considerable importance, and from the following notice it would appear that he was a man of high character. In 1474 there was a dispute between the dean and chapter of Messines16 on the one side, and the abbess, convent, and church on the other. It appears that the bailiffs of the abbess had arrested a man in a house belonging to the dean and chapter. The chapter resented this intrusion on their rights, and the case was submitted to two men for arbitration, Gilles Ghiselin I. and Guillaume Wyts.