On reaching, in our history, the period at which Philip the Handsome, by
giving admission amongst the states-general to the "burghers of the good
towns," substituted the third estate for the communes, and the united
action of the three great classes of Frenchmen for their local struggles,
we did well to halt a while, in order clearly to mark the position and
part of the new actor in the great drama of national life.  We will now
return to the real business of the drama, that is, to the history of
France, which became, in the fourteenth century, more complex, more
tragic, and more grand than it had ever yet been.




CHAPTER XX.----THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.--PHILIP VI. AND JOHN II.

We have just been spectators at the labor of formation of the French
kingship and the French nation.  We have seen monarchical unity and
national unity rising, little by little, out of and above the feudal
system, which had been the first result of barbarians settling upon the
ruins of the Roman empire.  In the fourteenth century, a new and a vital
question arose: Will the French dominion preserve its nationality?  Will
the kingship remain French, or pass to the foreigner?  This question
brought ravages upon France, and kept her fortunes in suspense for a
hundred years of war with England, from the reign of Philip of Valois to
that of Charles VII.; and a young girl of Lorraine, called Joan of Arc,
had the glory of communicating to France that decisive impulse which
brought to a triumphant issue the independence of the French nation and
kingship.

As we have seen in the preceding chapter, the elevation of Philip of
Valois to the throne, as representative of the male line amongst the
descendants of Hugh Capet, took place by virtue, not of any old written
law, but of a traditional right, recognized and confirmed by two recent
resolutions taken at the death of the two eldest sons of Philip the
Handsome.  The right thus promulgated became at once a fact accepted by
the whole of France; Philip of Valois had for rival none but a foreign
prince, and "there was no mind in France," say contemporary chroniclers,
"to be subjects of the King of England."  Some weeks after his accession,
on the 29th of May, 1328, Philip was crowned at Rheims, in presence of a
brilliant assemblage of princes and lords, French and foreign; and next
year, on the 6th of June, Edward III., King of England, being summoned to
fulfil a vassal's duties by doing homage to the King of France for the
duchy of Aquitaine, which he held, appeared in the cathedral of Amiens,
with his crown on his head, his sword at his side, and his gilded spurs
on his heels.  When he drew near to the throne, the Viscount de Melun,
king's chamberlain, invited him to lay aside his crown, his sword, and
his spurs, and go down on his knees before Philip.  Not without a murmur,
Edward obeyed; but when the chamberlain said to him, "Sir, you, as Duke
of Aquitaine, became liegeman of my lord the king who is here, and do
promise to keep towards him faith and loyalty," Edward protested, saying
that he owed only simple homage, and not liege-homage--a closer bond,
imposing on the vassal more stringent obligations [to serve and defend
his suzerain against every enemy whatsoever].  "Cousin," said Philip to
him, "we would not deceive you, and what you have now done contenteth us
well until you have returned to your own country, and seen from the acts
of your predecessors what you ought to do."


[Illustration: Homage of Edward III. to Philip VI.----250]

"Gramercy, dear sir," answered the King of England; and with the
reservation he had just made, and which was added to the formula of
homage, he placed his hands between the hands of the King of France, who
kissed him on the mouth, and accepted his homage, confiding in Edward's
promise to certify himself by reference to the archives of England of the
extent to which his ancestors had been bound.  The certification took
place, and on the 30th of March, 1331, about two years after his visit to
Amiens, Edward III. recognized, by letters express, "that the said homage
which we did at Amiens to the King of France in general terms, is and
must be understood as liege; and that we are bound, as Duke of Aquitaine
and peer of France, to show him faith and loyalty."

The relations between the two kings were not destined to be for long
so courteous and so pacific.  Even before the question of the succession
to the throne of France arose between them they had adopted contrary
policies.  When Philip was crowned at Rheims, Louis de Nevers, Count of
Flanders, repaired thither with a following of eighty-six knights, and he
it was to whom the right belonged of carrying the sword of the kingdom.
The heralds-at-arms repeated three times, "Count of Flanders, if you are
here, come and do your duty."  He made no answer.  The king was
astounded, and bade him explain himself.  "My lord," answered the count,
"may it please you not to be astounded; they called the Count of
Flanders, and not Louis de Nevers."  "What then!" replied the king; "are
you not the Count of Flanders?"  "It is true, sir," rejoined the other,
"that I bear the name, but I do not possess the authority; the burghers
of Bruges, Ypres, and Cassel have driven me from my land, and there
scarce remains but the town of Ghent where I dare show myself."  "Fair
cousin," said Philip, we will swear to you by the holy oil which hath
this day trickled over our brow that we will not enter Paris again before
seeing you reinstated in peaceable possession of the countship of
Flanders."  Some of the French barons who happened to be present
represented to the king that the Flemish burghers were powerful; that
autumn was a bad season for a war in their country; and that Louis the
Quarreller, in 1315, had been obliged to come to a stand-still in a
similar expedition.  Philip consulted his constable, Walter de Chatillon,
who had served the kings his predecessors in their wars against Flanders.
"Whoso hath good stomach for fight," answered the constable, "findeth all
times seasonable."  "Well, then," said the king, embracing him, "whoso
loveth me will follow me."  The war thus resolved upon was forthwith
begun.  Philip, on arriving with his army before Cassel, found the place
defended by sixteen thousand Flemings under the command of Nicholas
Zannequin, the richest of the burghers of Furnes, and already renowned
for his zeal in the insurrection against the count.  For several days the
French remained inactive around the mountain on which Cassel is built,
and which the knights, mounted on iron-clad horses, were unable to scale.
The Flemings had planted on a tower of Cassel a flag carrying a cock,
with this inscription:--

"When the cock that is hereon shall crow,
The foundling king herein shall go."

They called Philip the foundling king because he had no business to
expect to be king.  Philip in his wrath gave up to fire and pillage the
outskirts of the place.  The Flemings marshalled at the top of the
mountain made no movement.  On the 24th of August, 1328, about three in
the afternoon, the French knights had disarmed.  Some were playing at
chess; others "strolled from tent to tent in their fine robes, in search
of amusement; "and the king was asleep in his tent after a long carouse,
when all on a sudden his confessor, a Dominican friar, shouted out that
the Flemings were attacking the camp.  Zannequin, indeed, "came out full
softly and without a bit of noise," says Froissart, with his troops in
three divisions, to surprise the French camp at three points.  He was
quite close to the king's tent, and some chroniclers say that he was
already lifting his mace over the head of Philip, who had armed in hot
haste, and was defended only by a few knights, of whom one was waving the
oriflamme round him, when others hurried up, and Zannequiii was forced to
stay his hand.  At two other points of the camp the attack had failed.
The French gathered about the king and the Flemings about Zannequin; and
there took place so stubborn a fight, that "of sixteen thousand Flemings
who were there not one recoiled," says Froissart, "and all were left
there dead and slain in three heaps one upon another, without budging
from the spot where the battle had begun."  The same evening Philip
entered Cassel, which he set on fire, and, in a few days afterwards, on
leaving for France, he said to Count Louis, before the French barons,
Count, I have worked for you at my own and my barons' expense; I give you
back your land, recovered and in peace; so take care that justice be kept
up in it, and that I have not, through your fault, to return; for if I
do, it will be to my own profit and to your hurt."

The Count of Flanders was far from following the advice of the King of
France, and the King of France was far from foreseeing whither he would
be led by the road upon which he had just set foot.  It has already been
pointed out to what a position of wealth, population, and power,
industrial and commercial activity had in the thirteenth century raised
the towns of Flanders, Bruges, Ghent, Lille, Ypres, Fumes, Courtrai, and
Douai, and with what energy they had defended against their lords their
prosperity and their liberties.  It was the struggle, sometimes sullen,
sometimes violent, of feudal lordship against municipal burgherdom.  The
able and imperious Philip the Handsome had tested the strength of the
Flemish cities, and had not cared to push them to extremity.  When, in
1322, Count Louis de Nevers, scarcely eighteen years of age, inherited
from his grandfather Robert III.  the countship of Flanders, he gave
himself up, in respect of the majority of towns in the countship, to the
same course of oppression and injustice as had been familiar to his
predecessors; the burghers resisted him with the same, often ruffianly,
energy; and when, after a six years' struggle amongst Flemings, the Count
of Flanders, who had been conquered by the burghers, owed his return as
master of his countship to the King of the French, he troubled himself
about nothing but avenging himself and enjoying his victory at the
expense of the vanquished.  He chastised, despoiled, proscribed, and
inflicted atrocious punishments; and, not content with striking at
individuals, he attacked the cities themselves.  Nearly all of them,
save Ghent, which had been favorable to the count, saw their privileges
annulled or curtailed of their most essential guarantees.  The burghers
of Bruges were obliged to meet the count half way to his castle of Vale,
and on their knees implore his pity.  At Ypres the bell in the tower was
broken up.  Philip of Valois made himself a partner in these severities;
he ordered the fortifications of Bruges, Ypres, and Courtrai to be
destroyed, and he charged French agents to see to their demolition.
Absolute power is often led into mistakes by its insolence; but when it
is in the hands of rash and reckless mediocrity, there is no knowing how
clumsy and blind it can be.  Neither the King of France nor the Count of
Flanders seemed to remember that the Flemish communes had at their door a
natural and powerful ally who could not do without them any more than
they could do without him.  Woollen stuffs, cloths, carpets, warm
coverings of every sort were the chief articles of the manufactures and
commerce of Flanders; there chiefly was to be found all that the active
and enterprising merchants of the time exported to Sweden, Norway,
Hungary, Russia, and even Asia; and it was from England that they chiefly
imported their wool, the primary staple of their handiwork.  "All
Flanders," says Froissart, "was based upon cloth and no wool, no cloth."
On the other hand it was to Flanders that England, her land-owners and
farmers, sold the fleeces of their flocks; and the two countries were
thus united by the bond of their mutual prosperity.  The Count of
Flanders forgot or defied this fact so far as in 1336, at the
instigation, it is said, of the King of France, to have all the English
in Flanders arrested and kept in prison.  Reprisals were not long
deferred.  On the 5th of October in the same year the King of England
ordered the arrest of all Flemish merchants in his kingdom and the
seizure of their goods; and he at the same time prohibited the
exportation of wool.  "Flanders was given over," says her principal
historian, "to desolation; nearly all her looms ceased rattling on one
and the same day, and the streets of her cities, but lately filled with
rich and busy workmen, were overrun with beggars who asked in vain for
work to escape from misery and hunger."  The English land-owners and
farmers did not suffer so much, but were scarcely less angered; only it
was to the King of France and the Count of Flanders rather than their own
king that they held themselves indebted for the stagnation of their
affairs, and their discontent sought vent only in execration of the
foreigner.

When great national interests are to such a point misconceived and
injured, there crop up, before long, clear-sighted and bold men who
undertake the championship of them, and foment the quarrel to
explosion-heat, either from personal views or patriotic feeling.
The question of succession to the throne of France seemed settled by the
inaction of the King of England, and the formal homage he had come and
paid to the King of France at Amiens; but it was merely in abeyance.
Many people both in England and in France still thought of it and spoke
of it; and many intrigues bred of hope or fear were kept up with
reference to it at the courts of the two kings.  When the rumblings of
anger were loud on both sides in consequence of affairs in Flanders, two
men of note, a Frenchman and a Fleming, considering that the hour had
come, determined to revive the question, and turn the great struggle
which could not fail to be excited thereby to the profit of their own and
their countries' cause, for it is singular how ambition and devotion,
selfishness and patriotism, combine and mingle in the human soul, and
even in great souls.

Philip VI. had embroiled himself with a prince of his line, Robert of
Artois, great-grandson of Robert the first Count of Artois, who was a
brother of St. Louis, and was killed during the crusade in Egypt, at the
battle of Mansourah.  As early as the reign of Philip the Handsome Robert
claimed the count-ship of Artois as his heritage; but having had his
pretensions rejected by a decision of the peers of the kingdom, he had
hoped for more success under Philip of Valois, whose sister he had
married.  Philip tried to satisfy him with another domain raised to a
peerage; but Robert, more and more discontented, got involved in a series
of intrigues, plots, falsehoods, forgeries, and even, according to public
report, imprisonments and crimes, which, in 1332, led to his being
condemned by the court of peers to banishment and the confiscation of
his property.  He fled for refuge first to Brabant, and then to England,
to the court of Edward III., who received him graciously, and whom he
forthwith commenced inciting to claim the crown of France, "his
inheritance," as he said, "which King Philip holds most wrongfully."
Edward III., who was naturally prudent, and had been involved, almost
ever since his accession, in a stubborn war with Scotland, cared but
little for rushing into a fresh and far more serious enterprise.  But of
all human passions hatred is perhaps the most determined in the
prosecution of its designs.  Robert accompanied the King of England in
his campaigns northward; and "Sir," said he, whilst they were marching
together over the heaths of Scotland, "leave this poor country, and give
your thoughts to the noble crown of France."  When Edward, on returning
to London, was self-complacently rejoicing at his successes over his
neighbors, Robert took pains to pique his self-respect, by expressing
astonishment that he did not seek more practical and more brilliant
successes.  Poetry sometimes reveals sentiments and processes about which
history is silent.  We read in a poem of the fourteenth century, entitled
The vow on the heron, "In the season when summer is verging upon its
decline, and the gay birds are forgetting their sweet converse on the
trees, now despoiled of their verdure, Robert seeks for consolation in
the pleasures of fowling, for he cannot forget the gentle land of France,
the glorious country whence he is an exile.  He carries a falcon, which
goes flying over the waters till a heron falls its prey; then he calls
two young damsels to take the bird to the king's palace, singing the
while in sweet discourse: 'Fly, fly, ye honorless knights; give place to
gallants on whom love smiles; here is the dish for gallants who are
faithful to their mistresses.  The heron is the most timid of birds, for
it fears its own shadow; it is for the heron to receive the vows of King
Edward, who, though lawful King of France, dares not claim that noble
heritage.'  At these words the king flushed, his heart was wroth, and he
cried aloud, 'Since coward is thrown in my teeth, I make vow [on this
heron] to the God of Paradise that ere a single year rolls by I will defy
the King of Paris.'  Count Robert hears and smiles; and low to his own
heart he says, 'Now have I won: and my heron will cause a great war.'"

Robert's confidence in this tempter's work of his was well founded, but a
little premature.  Edward III. did not repel him; complained loudly of
the assistance rendered by the King of France to the Scots; gave an
absolute refusal to Philip's demands for the extradition of the rebel
Robert, and retorted by protesting, in his turn, against the reception
accorded in France to David Bruce, the rival of his own favorite Baliol
for the throne of Scotland.  In Aquitaine he claimed as of his own domain
some places still occupied by Philip.  Philip, on his side, neglected no
chance of causing Edward embarrassment, and more or less overtly
assisting his foes.  The two kings were profoundly distrustful one of the
other, foresaw, both of them, that they would one day come to blows, and
prepared for it by mutually working to entangle and enfeeble one another.
But neither durst as yet proclaim his wishes or his fears, and take the
initiative in those unknown events which war must bring about to the
great peril of their people and perhaps of themselves.  From 1334 to
1337, as they continued to advance towards the issue, foreseen and at the
same time deferred, of this situation, they were both of them seeking
allies in Europe for their approaching struggle.  Philip had a notable
one under his thumb, the pope at that time settled at Avignon; and he
made use of him for the purpose of proposing a new crusade, in which
Edward III. should be called upon to join with him.  If Edward complied,
any enterprise on his part against France would become impossible; and if
he declined, Christendom would cry fie upon him.  Two successive popes,
John XXII. and Benedict XII., preached the crusade, and offered their
mediation to settle the differences between the two kings; but they were
unsuccessful in both their attempts.  The two kings strained every nerve
to form laic alliances.  Philip did all he could to secure to himself the
fidelity of Count Louis of Flanders, whom the King of England several
times attempted, but in vain, to win over.  Philip drew into close
relations with himself the Kings of Bohemia and Navarre, the Dukes of
Lorraine and Burgundy, the Count of Foix, the Genoese, the Grand Prior of
the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and many other lords.  The two
principal neighbors of Flanders, the Count of Hainault and the Duke of
Brabant, received the solicitations of both kings at one and the same
time.  The former had to wife Joan of Valois, sister of the King of
France, but he had married his daughter Philippa to the King of England;
and when Edward's envoys came and asked for his support in "the great
business "which their master had in view."  "If the king can succeed in
it," said the count, "I shall be right glad.  It may well be supposed
that my heart is with him, him who hath my daughter, rather than with
King Philip, though I have married his sister; for he hath filched from
me the hand of the young Duke of Brabant, who should have wedded my
daughter Isabel, and hath kept him for a daughter of his own.  So help
will I my dear and beloved son the King of England to the best of my
power.  But he must get far stronger aid than mine, for Hainault is but a
little place in comparison with the kingdom of France, and England is too
far off to succor us."  "Dear sir," said the envoys, "advise us of what
lords our master might best seek aid, and in what he might best put his
trust."  "By my soul," said the count, "I could not point to lord so
powerful to aid him in this business as would be the Duke of Brabant, who
is his cousin-german, the Duke of Gueldres, who hath his sister to wife,
and Sire de Fauquemont.  They are those who would have most men-at-arms
in the least time, and they are right good soldiers; provided that money
be given them in proportion, for they are lords and men who are glad of
pay."  Edward III. went for powerful allies even beyond the Rhine; he
treated with Louis V. of Bavaria, Emperor of Germany; he even had a
solemn interview with him at a diet assembled at Coblenz, and Louis named
Edward vicar imperial throughout all the empire situated on the left bank
of the Rhine, with orders to all the princes of the Low Countries to
follow and obey him, for a space of seven years, in the field.  But Louis
of Bavaria was a tottering emperor, excommunicated by the pope, and with
a formidable competitor in Frederick of Austria.  When the time for
action arrived, King John of Bohemia, a zealous ally of the French king,
persuaded the Emperor of Germany that his dignity would be compromised if
he were to go and join the army of the English king, in whose pay he
would appear to have enlisted; and Louis of Bavaria withdrew from his
alliance with Edward III., sending back the subsidies he had received
from him.

Which side were the Flemings themselves to take in a conflict of such
importance, and already so hot even before it had reached bursting point?
It was clearly in Flanders that each king was likely to find his most
efficient allies; and so it was there that they made the most strenuous
applications.  Edward III. hastened to restore between England and the
Flemish communes the commercial relations which had been for a while
disturbed by the arrest of the traders in both countries.  He sent into
Flanders, even to Ghent, ambassadors charged to enter into negotiations
with the burghers; and one of the most considerable amongst these
burghers, Solver of Courtrai, who had but lately supported Count Louis in
his quarrels with the people of Bruges, loudly declared that the alliance
of the King of England was the first requirement of Flanders, and gave
apartments in his own house to one of the English envoys.  Edward
proposed the establishment in Flanders of a magazine for English wools;
and he gave assurance to such Flemish weavers as would settle in England
of all the securities they could desire.  He even offered to give his
daughter Joan in marriage to the son of the Count of Flanders.  Philip,
on his side, tried hard to reconcile the communes of Flanders to their
count, and so make them faithful to himself; he let them off two years'
payment of a rent due to him of forty thousand livres of Paris per annum;
he promised them the monopoly of exporting wools from France; he
authorized the Brugesmen to widen the moats of their city, and even to
repair its ramparts.  The King of England's envoys met in most of the
Flemish cities with a favor which was real, but intermingled with prudent
reservations, and Count Louis of Flanders remained ever closely allied
with the King of France, "for he was right French and loyal," says
Froissart, "and with good reason, for he had the King of France almost
alone to thank for restoring him to his country by force."

Whilst, by both sides, preparations were thus being made on the Continent
for war, the question which was to make it burst forth was being decided
in England.  In the soul of Edward temptation overcame indecision.  As
early as the month of June, 1336, in a Parliament assembled at
Northampton, he had complained of the assistance given by the King of
France to the Scots, and he had expressed a hope that if the French and
the Scots were to join, they would at last offer him battle, which the
latter had always carefully avoided."  In September of the same year he
employed similar language in a Parliament held at Nottingham, and he
obtained therefrom subsidies for the war going on not only in Scotland,
but also in Aquitaine, against the French king's lieutenants.  In April
and May of the following year, 1337, he granted to Robert of Artois, his
tempter for three years past, court favors which proved his resolution to
have been already taken.  On the 21st of August following he formally
declared war against the King of France, and addressed to all the
sheriffs, archbishops, and bishops of his kingdom a circular in which he
attributed the initiative to Philip; on the 26th of August he gave his
ally, the Emperor of Germany, notice of what he had just done, whilst,
for the first time, insultingly describing Philip as "setting himself up
for King of France."  At last, on the 7th of October, 1337, he proclaimed
himself King of France, as his lawful inheritance, designating as
representatives and supporters of his right the Duke of Brabant, the
Marquis of Juliers, the Count of Haiiiault, and William de Bohun, Earl of
Northampton.

The enterprise had no foundation in right, and seemed to have few chances
of success.  If the succession to the crown of France had not been
regulated beforehand by a special and positive law, Philip of Valois had
on his side the traditional right of nearly three centuries past and
actual possession without any disputes having arisen in France upon the
subject.  His title had been expressly declared by the peers of the
kingdom, sanctioned by the Church, and recognized by Edward himself, who
had come to pay him homage.  He had the general and free assent of his
people: to repeat the words of the chroniclers of the time, "There was no
mind in France to be subjects of the King of England."  Philip VI. was
regarded in Europe as a greater and more powerful sovereign than Edward
III.  He had the pope settled in the midst of his kingdom; and he often
traversed it with an array of valiant nobility whom he knew how to
support and serve on occasion as faithfully as he was served by them.
"He was highly prized and honored," says Froissart, "for the victory he
had won (at Cassel) over the Flemings, and also for the handsome service
he had done his cousin Count Louis.  He did thereby abide in great
prosperity and honor, and he greatly increased the royal state; never had
there been king in France, it was said, who had kept state like King
Philip, and he provided tourneys and jousts and diversions in great
abundance."  No national interest, no public ground, was provocative of
war between the two peoples; it was a war of personal ambition, like that
which in the eleventh century William the Conqueror had carried into
England.  The memory of that great event was still, in the fourteenth
century, so fresh in France, that when the pretensions of Edward were
declared, and the struggle was begun, an assemblage of Normans, barons
and knights, or, according to others, the Estates of Normandy themselves,
came and proposed to Philip to undertake once more, and at their own
expense, the conquest of England, if he would put at their head his
eldest son, John, their own duke.  The king received their deputation at
Vincennes, on the 23d of March, 1339, and accepted their offer.  They
bound themselves to supply for the expedition four thousand men-at-arms
and twenty thousand foot, whom they promised to maintain for ten weeks,
and even a fortnight beyond, if, when the Duke of Normandy had crossed to
England, his council should consider the prolongation necessary.  The
conditions in detail and the subsequent course of the enterprise thus
projected were minutely regulated and settled in a treaty published by
Dutillet in 1588, from a copy found at Caen when Edward III. became
master of that city in 1346.  The events of the war, the long fits of
hesitation on the part of both kings, and the repeated alternations from
hostilities to truces and truces to hostilities, prevented anything from
coming of this proposal, the authenticity of which has been questioned by
M. Michelet amongst others, but the genuineness of which has been
demonstrated by M. Adolph Despont, member of the appeal-court of Caen, in
his learned Histoire du Cotentin.

Edward III., though he had proclaimed himself King of France, did not at
the outset of his claim adopt the policy of a man firmly resolved and
burning to succeed.  From 1337 to 1340 he behaved as if he were at strife
with the Count of Flanders rather than with the King of France.  He was
incessantly to and fro, either by embassy or in person, between England,
Flanders, Hainault, Brabant, and even Germany, for the purpose of
bringing the princes and people to actively co-operate with him against
his rival; and during this diplomatic movement such was the hostility
between the King of England and the Count of Flanders that Edward's
ambassadors thought it impossible for them to pass through Flanders in
safety, and went to Holland for a ship in which to return to England.
Nor were their fears groundless; for the Count of Flanders had caused to
be arrested, and was still detaining in prison at the castle of
Rupelmonde, the Fleming Sohier of Courtrai, who had received into his
house at Ghent one of the English envoys, and had shown himself favorable
to their cause.  Edward keenly resented these outrages, demanded, but did
not obtain, the release of Sohier of Courtrai, and by way of revenge gave
orders in November, 1337, to two of his bravest captains, the Earl of
Derby and Walter de Manny, to go and attack the fort of Cadsand, situated
between the Island of Walcheren and the town of Ecluse (or Sluys), a post
of consequence to the Count of Flanders, who had confided the keeping of
it to his bastard brother Guy, with five thousand of his most faithful
subjects.  It was a sanguinary affair.  The besieged were surprised, but
defended themselves bravely; the landing cost the English dear; the Earl
of Derby was wounded and hurled to the ground, but his comrade, Walter de
Manny, raised him up with a shout to his men of "Lancaster, for the Earl
of Derby; "and at last the English prevailed.  The Bastard of Flanders
was made prisoner; the town was pillaged and burned; and the English
returned to England, and "told their adventure," says Froissart, "to the
king, who was right joyous when he saw them and learned how they had
sped."

Thus began that war which was to be so cruel and so long.  The Flemings
bore the first brunt of it.  It was a lamentable position for them; their
industrial and commercial prosperity was being ruined; their security at
home was going from them; their communal liberties were compromised;
divisions set in amongst them; by interest and habitual intercourse they
were drawn towards England, but the count, their lord, did all he could
to turn them away from her, and many amongst them were loath to separate
themselves entirely from France.  "Burghers of Ghent, as they chatted in
the thoroughfares and at the cross-roads, said one to another, that they
had heard much wisdom, to their mind, from a burgher who was called James
Van Artevelde, and who was a brewer of beer.  They had heard him say
that, if he could obtain a hearing and credit, he would in a little while
restore Flanders to good estate, and they would recover all their gains
without standing ill with the King of France or the King of England.
These sayings began to get spread abroad, insomuch that a quarter or half
the city was informed thereof, especially the small folks of the
commonalty, whom the evil touched most nearly.  They began to assemble in
the streets, and it came to pass that one day, after dinner, several went
from house to house calling for their comrades, and saying, 'Come and
hear the wise man's counsel.'  On the 26th of December, 1337, they came
to the house of the said James Van Artevelde, and found him leaning
against his door.


[Illustration: Van Artevelde at his Door----264]

Far off as they were when they first perceived him, they made him a deep
obeisance, and 'Dear sir,' they said, 'we are come to you for counsel;
for we are told that by your great and good sense you will restore the
country of Flanders to good case.  So tell us how.'  Then James Van
Artevelde came forward, and said, 'Sirs comrades, I am a native and
burgher of this city, and here I have my means.  Know that I would gladly
aid you with all my power, you and all the country; if there were here a
man who would be willing to take the lead, I would be willing to risk
body and means at his side; and if the rest of ye be willing to be
brethren, friends and comrades to me, to abide in all matters at my side,
notwithstanding that I am not worthy of it, I will undertake it
willingly.'  Then said all with one voice, 'We promise you faithfully to
abide at your side in all matters and to therewith adventure body and
means, for we know well that in the whole countship of Flanders there is
not a man but you worthy so to do.'"  Then Van Artevelde bound them to
assemble on the next day but one in the grounds of the monastery of
Biloke, which had received numerous benefits from the ancestors of Sohier
of Courtrai, whose son-in-law Van Artevelde was.

This bold burgher of Ghent, who was born about 1285, was sprung from a
family the name of which had been for a long while inscribed in their
city upon the register of industrial corporations.  His father, John Van
Artevelde, a cloth-worker, had been several times over sheriff of Ghent,
and his mother, Mary Van Groete, was great aunt to the grandfather of the
illustrious publicist called in history Grotius.  James Van Artevelde in
his youth accompanied Count Charles of Valois, brother of Philip the
Handsome, upon his adventurous expeditions in Italy, Sicily, and Greece,
and to the Island of Rhodes; and it had been close by the spots where the
soldiers of Marathon and Salamis had beaten the armies of Darius and
Xerxes that he had heard of the victory of the Flemish burghers and
workmen attacked in 1302, at Courtrai, by the splendid army of Philip the
Handsome.  James Van Artevelde, on returning to his country, had been
busy with his manufactures, his fields, the education of his children,
and Flemish affairs up to the day when, at his invitation, the burghers
of Ghent thronged to the meeting on the 28th of December, 1337, in the
grounds of the monastery of Biloke.  There he delivered an eloquent
speech, pointing out, unhesitatingly but temperately, the policy which he
considered good for the country.  "Forget not," he said, "the might and
the glory of Flanders.  Who, pray, shall forbid that we defend our
interests by using our rights?  Can the King of France prevent us from
treating with the King of England?  And may we not be certain that if we
were to treat with the King of England, the King of France would not be
the less urgent in seeking our alliance?  Besides, have we not with us
all the communes of Brabant, of Hainault, of Holland, and of Zealand?"
The audience cheered these words; the commune of Ghent forthwith
assembled, and on the 3d of January, 1337 [according to the old style,
which made the year begin at the 25th of March], re-established the
offices of captains of parishes according to olden usage, when the city
was exposed to any pressing danger.  It was carried that one of these
captains should have the chief government of the city; and James Van
Artevelde was at once invested with it.  From that moment the conduct of
Van Artevelde was ruled by one predominant idea: to secure free and fair
commercial intercourse for Flanders with England, whilst observing a
general neutrality in the war between the Kings of England and France,
and to combine so far all the communes of Flanders in one and the same
policy.  And he succeeded in this twofold purpose.  "On the 29th of
April, 1338, the representatives of all the communes of Flanders (the
city of Bruges numbering amongst them a hundred and eight deputies)
repaired to the castle of Male, a residence of Count Louis, and then
James Van Artevelde set before the count what had been resolved upon
amongst them.  The count submitted, and swore that he would thenceforth
maintain the liberties of Flanders in the state in which they had existed
since the treaty of Athies.  In the month of May following a deputation,
consisting of James Van Artevelde and other burghers appointed by the
cities of Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres scoured the whole of Flanders, from
Bailleul to Termonde, and from Ninove to Dunkerque, "to reconcile the
good folks of the communes to the Count of Flanders, as well for the
count's honor as for the peace of the country."  Lastly, on the 10th of
June, 1338, a treaty was signed at Anvers between the deputies of the
Flemish communes and the English ambassadors, the latter declaring: "We
do all to wit that we have negotiated way and substance of friendship
with the good folks of the communes of Flanders, in form and manner
herein-after following:--

"First, they shall be able to go and buy the wools and other merchandise
which have been exported from England to Holland, Zealand, or any other
place whatsoever; and all traders of Flanders who shall repair to the
ports of England shall there be safe and free in their persons and their
goods, just as in any other place where their ventures might bring them
together.

"Item, we have agreed with the good folks and with all the common country
of Flanders that they must not mix nor inter-meddle in any way, by
assistance of men or arms, in the wars of our lord the king and the noble
Sir Philip of Valois (who holdeth himself for King of France)."

Three articles following regulated in detail the principles laid down in
the first two, and, by another charter, Edward III. ordained that "all
stuffs marked with the seal of the city of Ghent might travel freely in
England without being subject according to ellage and quality to the
control to which all foreign merchandise was subject."  (_Histoire de
Flandre,_ by M, le Baron Kerwyn de Lettenhove, t. iii.  pp. 199-203.)

Van Artevelde was right in telling the Flemings that, if they treated
with the King of England, the King of France would be only the more
anxious for their alliance.  Philip of Valois, and even Count Louis of
Flanders, when they got to know of the negotiations entered into between
the Flemish communes and King Edward, redoubled their offers and promises
to them.  But when the passions of men have taken full possession of
their souls, words of concession and attempts at accommodation are
nothing more than postponements or lies.  Philip, when he heard about the
conclusion of a treaty between the Flemish communes and the King of
England, sent word to Count Louis "that this James Van Artevelde must
not, on any account, be allowed to rule, or even live, for, if it were so
for long, the count would lose his land."  The count, very much disposed
to accept such advice, repaired to Ghent and sent for Van Artevelde to
come and see him at his hotel.  He went, but with so large a following
that the count was not at the time at all in a position to resist him.
He tried to persuade the Flemish burgher that "if he would keep a hand on
the people so as to keep them to their love for the King of France, he
having more authority than any one else for such a purpose, much good
would result to him: mingling, besides, with this address, some words of
threatening import."  Van Artevelde, who was not the least afraid of the
threat, and who at heart was fond of the English, told the count that he
would do as he had promised the communes.  "Hereupon he left the count,
who consulted his confidants as to what he was to do in this business,
and they counselled him to let them go and assemble their people, saying
that they would kill Van Artevelde secretly or otherwise.  And indeed,
they did lay many traps and made many attempts against the captain; but
it was of no avail, since all the commonalty was for him."  When the
rumor of these projects and these attempts was spread abroad in the city,
the excitement was extreme, and all the burghers assumed white hoods,
which was the mark peculiar to the members of the commune when they
assembled under their flags; so that the count found himself reduced to
assuming one, for he was afraid of being kept captive at Ghent, and, on
the pretext of a hunting party, he lost no time in gaining his castle of
Male.

The burghers of Ghent had their minds still filled with their late alarm
when they heard that, by order, it was said, of the King of France, Count
Louis had sent and beheaded at the castle of Rupehuonde, in the very bed
in which he was confined by his infirmities, their fellow-citizen Solver
of Courtrai, Van Artevelde's father-in-law, who had been kept for many
months in prison for his intimacy with the English.  On the same day the
Bishop of Senlis and the Abbot of St. Denis had arrived at Tournay, and
had superintended the reading out in the market-place of a sentence of
excommunication against the Ghentese.

It was probably at this date that Van Artevelde, in his vexation and
disquietude, assumed in Ghent an attitude threatening and despotic even
to tyranny.  "He had continually after him," says Froissart, "sixty or
eighty armed varlets, amongst whom were two or three who knew some of his
secrets.  When he met a man whom he had hated or had in suspicion, this
man was at once killed, for Van Artevelde had given this order to his
varlets: 'The moment I meet a man, and make such and such a sign to you,
slay him without delay, however great he may be, without waiting for more
speech.'  In this way he had many great masters slain.  And as soon as
these sixty varlets had taken him home to his hotel, each went to dinner
at his own house; and the moment dinner was over they returned and stood
before his hotel, and waited in the street until that he was minded to go
and play and take his pastime in the city, and so they attended him till
supper-time.  And know that each of these hirelings had per diem four
groschen of Flanders for their expenses and wages, and he had them
regularly paid from week to week.  .  .  .  And even in the case of all
that were most powerful in Flanders, knights, esquires, and burghers of
the good cities, whom he believed to be favorable to the Count of
Flanders, them he banished from Flanders, and levied half their revenues.
He had levies made of rents, of dues on merchandise, and all the revenues
belonging to the count, wherever it might be in Flanders, and he
disbursed them at his will, and gave them away without rendering any
account.  .  .  .  And when he would borrow of any burghers on his word
for payment, there was none that durst say him nay.  In short, there was
never in Flanders, or in any other country, duke, count, prince, or
other, who can have had a country at his will as James Van Artevelde had
for a long time."

It is possible that, as some historians have thought, Froissart, being
less favorable to burghers than to princes, did not deny himself a little
exaggeration in this portrait of a great burgher-patriot transformed by
the force of events and passions into a demagogic tyrant.  But some of us
may have too vivid a personal recollection of similar scenes to doubt the
general truth of the picture; and we shall meet before long in the
history of France during the fourteenth century with an example still
more striking and more famous than that of Van Artevelde.

Whilst the Count of Flanders, after having vainly attempted to excite an
uprising against Van Artevelde, was being forced, in order to escape from
the people of Bruges, to mount his horse in hot haste, at night and
barely armed, and to flee away to St. Omer, Philip of Valois and Edward
III. were preparing, on either side, for the war which they could see
drawing near.  Philip was vigorously at work on the pope, the Emperor of
Germany, and the princes neighbors of Flanders, in order to raise
obstacles against his rival or rob him of his allies.  He ordered that
short-lived meeting of the states-general about which we have no
information left us, save that it voted the principle that "no talliage
could be imposed on the people if urgent necessity or evident utility
should not require it, and unless by concession of the Estates."  Philip,
as chief of feudal society, rather than of the nation which was forming
itself little by little around the lords, convoked at Amiens all his
vassals, great and small, laic or cleric, placing all his strength in
their co-operation, and not caring at all to associate the country itself
in the affairs of his government.  Edward, on the contrary, whilst
equipping his fleet and amassing treasure at the expense of the Jews and
Lombard usurers, was assembling his Parliament, talking to it "of this
important and costly war," for which he obtained large subsidies, and
accepting without making any difficulty the vote of the Commons' House,
which expressed a desire "to consult their constituents upon this
subject, and begged him to summon an early Parliament, to which there
should be elected, in each county, two knights taken from among the best
land-owners of their counties."  The king set out for the Continent; the
Parliament met and considered the exigencies of the war by land and sea,
in Scotland and in France; traders, ship-owners, and mariners were called
and examined; and the forces determined to be necessary were voted.
Edward took the field, pillaging, burning, and ravaging, "destroying all
the country for twelve or fourteen leagues to extent," as he himself said
in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury.  When he set foot on French
territory, Count William of Hainault, his brother-in-law, and up to that
time his ally, came to him and said that "he would ride with him no
farther, for that his presence was prayed and required by his uncle, the
King of France to whom he bore no hate, and whom he would go and serve in
his own kingdom, as he had served King Edward on the territory of the
emperor, whose vicar he was; "and Edward wished him 'God speed!'"  Such
was the binding nature of feudal ties that the same lord held himself
bound to pass from one camp to another, according as he found himself
upon the domains of one or the other of his suzerains in a war one
against the other.  Edward continued his march towards St. Quentin, where
Philip had at last arrived with his allies, the Kings of Bohemia,
Navarre, and Scotland, "after delays which had given rise to great
scandal and murmurs throughout the whole kingdom."  The two armies, with
a strength, according to Froissart, of a hundred thousand men on the
French side, and forty-four thousand on the English, were soon facing one
another, near Buironfosse, a large burgh of Picardy.  A herald came from
the English camp to tell the King of France that the King of England
"demanded of him battle.  To which demand," says Froissart, "the King of
France gave willing assent, and accepted the day, which was fixed at
first for Thursday the 21st, and afterwards for Saturday the 25th of
October, 1339."  To judge from the somewhat tangled accounts of the
chroniclers and of Froissart himself, neither of the two kings was very
anxious to come to blows.  The forces of Edward were much inferior to
those of Philip; and the former had accordingly taken up, as it appears,
a position which rendered attack difficult for Philip.  There was much
division of opinion in the French camp.  Independently of military
grounds, a great deal was said about certain letters from Robert, King of
Naples, "a mighty necromancer and full of mighty wisdom, it was reported,
who, after having several times cast their horoscopes, had discovered by
astrology and from experience, that, if his cousin, the King of France,
were to fight the King of England, the former would be worsted."  "In
thus disputing and debating," says Froissart, "the time passed till full
midday.  A little afterwards a hare came leaping across the fields, and
rushed amongst the French.  Those who saw it began shouting and making a
great halloo.  Those who were behind thought that those who were in front
were engaging in battle; and several put on their helmets and gripped
their swords.  Thereupon several knights were made; and the Count of
Hainault himself made fourteen, who were thenceforth nicknamed Knights of
the Hare."  Whatever his motive may have been, Philip did not attack; and
Edward promptly began a retreat.  They both dismissed their allies; and
during the early days of.  November, Philip fell back upon St. Quentin,
and Edward went and took up his winter quarters at Brussels.

For Edward it was a serious check not to have dared to attack the king
whose kingdom he made a pretence of conquering; and he took it grievously
to heart.  At Brussels he had an interview with his allies, and asked
their counsel.  Most of the princes of the Low Countries remained
faithful to him, and the Count of Hainault seemed inclined to go back to
him; but all hesitated as to what he was to do to recover from the check.
Van Artevelde showed more invention and more boldness.  The Flemish
communes had concentrated their forces not far from the spot where the
two kings had kept their armies looking at one another; but they had
maintained a strict neutrality, and at the invitation of the Count of
Flanders, who promised them that the King of France would entertain all
their claims, Artevelde and Breydel, the deputies from Ghent and Bruges,
even repaired to Courtrai to make terms with him.  But as they got there
nothing but ambiguous engagements and evasive promises, they let the
negotiation drop, and, whilst Count Louis was on his way to rejoin Philip
at St. Quentin, Artevelde, with the deputies from the Flemish communes,
started for Brussels.  Edward, who was already living on very
confidential terms with him, told him that "if the Flemings were minded
to help him to keep up the war, and go with him whithersoever he would
take them, they should aid him to recover Lille, Douai, and B4thune, then
occupied by the King of France.  Artevelde, after consulting his
colleagues, returned to Edward, and, 'Dear sir,' said he, 'you have
already made such requests to us, and verily if we could do so whilst
keeping our honor and faith, we would do as you demand; but we be bound,