Philip IV summoned the ‘States-General’ several times to approve his suggestions; but, unlike the ‘Model Parliament’ called by his English contemporary Edward I for similar reasons, it never developed into a legislative assembly that could act as a competent check upon royal tyranny, but existed merely as it seemed to accept responsibility for its ruler’s laws and financial demands, whether good or bad. Its weakness arose partly from the fact that it often sat only for a day at a time and so had no leisure to discuss the measures laid before it, but still more owing to the class selfishness that prevented the three classes from combining to insist on reforms before they would vote any taxes.
This was very unfortunate for France, since on the one occasion that the nobles and burghers actually did combine in refusing to submit to an especially obnoxious gabelle that hit both their pockets, Philip IV was forced to yield, reluctantly enough because the loss of the money led to his failure in a war in Flanders.
Flanders was a fief of the French crown, and because its count, his tenant-in-chief, had dared to rebel against him, Philip had flung him into prison and declared his lands confiscated. Then with his queen he had ridden north to visit this territory now owning direct allegiance to himself, in the belief that he had nothing to do but to give orders to its inhabitants and await their immediate fulfilment. The chroniclers tell us that the royal pair were overcome with astonishment at the display of fine clothes and jewels made by the burghers of Bruges to do them honour.
‘I thought that there was only one Queen in France,’ exclaimed Philip’s consort discontentedly. ‘Here I see at least six hundred.’ The King, always with an eye to the main chance, regarded the brilliant throng more philosophically. They seemed to him very suitable subjects for taxation; but the Flemings had won their wealth by a sturdy independence of spirit both in the market-place and on the high seas: they had been indifferent to the fate of their count, but at any time preferred the risks of rebellion to being plucked like geese by the King of France.
On the field of Courtrai, where Philip brought his army to punish their insolence, the Flemish burghers taught Europe, as their Milanese fellows had at Legnano in the twelfth century, that citizen levies could hold their own against heavily-armed feudal troops; and though the King’s careful generalship redeemed this defeat two years later, he found the victory he obtained barren of fruit. Within a few weeks of the burghers’ apparent collapse yet another citizen army had rallied to attack the royal camp, and Philip, declaring angrily that ‘it rained Flemings’, was driven to conclude a peace.
Philip IV
Besides hating the independence of the Flemings, Philip IV grudged the English supremacy over the Duchy of Guienne that his grandfather had so willingly acknowledged. To his jealous eyes it ran its wedge like an alien dagger into the heart of his kingdom; and watching his opportunity until Edward I was involved in wars with Wales and Scotland, Philip crossed the borders of the Duchy, and by force or craft obtained control of the greater number of its fortresses. There is little doubt that had he lived he would gradually have absorbed the whole of the southern provinces; but when only forty-six he died, mourned by few of his subjects, and yet one of the kings who had set his stamp with the most lasting results upon the government of France.
Supplementary Dates. For Chronological Summary, see pp. [368–73].
| The Children’s Crusade | 1212 |
| Philip III of France | 1270–85 |
| Edward I of England | 1272–1307 |
| Clement V | 1305–14 |
| Battle of Courtrai | 1302 |