Supported by Zealand, which formed a distinct country, but was strictly united to it by a common interest, Holland equipped a fleet against the pirates which infested their coasts and assailed their commerce, and soon forced them to submission.

Philip in the meantime contrived to manage the conflicting elements of his power with great subtlety.
Notwithstanding his ambitious and despotic character, he conducted himself so cautiously that his people by common consent confirmed his title of "the Good," which was somewhat inappropriately given to him at the very epoch when he appeared to deserve it least.

Age and exhaustion may be adduced among the causes of the toleration which signalized his latter years; and if he was the usurper of some parts of his dominions, he cannot be pronounced a tyrant over any.
Philip had an only son, born and reared in the midst of that ostentatious greatness which he looked on as his own by divine right; whereas his father remembered that it had chiefly become his by fortuitous acquirement, and much of it by means not likely to look well in the sight of Heaven.

This son was Charles, count of Charolois, afterward celebrated under the name of Charles the Rash.
He gave, even in the lifetime of his father, a striking specimen of despotism to the people of Holland.

Appointed stadtholder of that province in 1457, he appropriated to himself several important successions; forced the inhabitants to labor in the formation of dikes for the security of the property thus acquired; and, in a word, conducted himself as an absolute master.