Isabella did what she could on her son's behalf. She excited the noblesse of Aquitaine to support Edward's claim; but the lords of the south paid no heed to her exhortations. She was more successful with the Flemings, then in revolt against their Count, Louis of Nevers. Twelve notables of Bruges, headed by the burgomaster, William de Deken, visited England and offered to recognise Edward as King of France if he would support the Flemish democracy against their feudal lord.[1] But Philip VI.'s first act was to unite with the Count of Flanders, and the fatal day of Cassel laid low the fortunes of Bruges and restored the fugitive Louis to power. Isabella was forced to resign herself to simple protests.
[1] See Pirenne, La première Tentative pour reconnaitre Édouard I. comme Roi de France in Ann. de la Soc. d'Hist. de Gand, 1902.
The inevitable demand from Philip VI. for Edward's homage for Guienne and Ponthieu soon brought the English government face to face with realities. The request for his vassal's submission, conveyed to England by Peter Roger, Abbot of Fecamp, the future Clement VI., was even more unwelcome than such demands commonly were. At first Isabella used brave words: "My son, who is the son of a king, will never do homage to the son of a count".[1] But a threat of a third seizure of Gascony soon brought the queen to her senses. Further insistence on the part of Philip was met with polite apologies for delay. At last, in May, 1329, the young king crossed the Channel, and on June 6 performed homage to Philip in the choir of the cathedral of Amiens. But even at the last moment there were explanations and reservations on both sides. Philip made it clear that he acknowledged no claim of his vassal to any territories, beyond those which he actually possessed. Edward's advisers protested that they abandoned no pretension to the whole by performing homage for a part. Moreover, the act of homage was couched in such ambiguous phrases that it remained doubtful whether Edward had performed "liege homage," as the King of France demanded, or only "simple homage," such as seemed to him less offensive to the dignity of a crowned king. Thus, though the cousins parted amicably and discussed proposals of a marriage treaty between the English and French houses, the homage at Amiens settled nothing.
[1] Grandes Chroniques de France, v., 323 (ed. P. Paris).
The diplomatists still had plenty of work before them. The French statesmen insisted on the necessity of the ceremony at Amiens being interpreted as liege homage, involving the obligation of defending the overlord "against all those who can live or die". The English politicians complained of the "injustice and unreason of the King of France, who seeks the disinheritance of their master in Aquitaine". It was only by limiting the demands of both parties to points of detail, that a compromise was arrived at in the convention of the Wood of Vincennes on May 8, 1330. Further negotiations were still necessary; and at the moment when everything was trembling in the balance, the sudden occupation of Saintes by the Count of Alencon, brother of Philip VI., brought matters within a measurable distance of war. But Edward, then at the beginning of his real reign, had no mind for fighting. A more satisfactory convention, drawn up on March 9, 1331, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, was ratified by Edward at Eltham on March 30, when he recognised that he owed liege homage, and not merely simple homage, to the King of France. Next month, he crossed over to France so secretly that his subjects believed that he went disguised as a merchant or a pilgrim. At Pont-Sainte-Maxence, a little town on the Oise, a few miles below Compiègne, Edward held an interview with Philip VI., who came thither with equal privacy. The French king does not seem to have insisted upon a renewal of homage, being content with the assurance already given as to the character of the previous ceremony. The informal interview, which the modern historian can only ascertain by painful scrutiny of the royal itineraries, proved more fertile in friendship than all the pomp of Amiens. Before Edward went home, Philip gave him complete satisfaction for the outrage at Saintes, and arrived at a financial settlement. Thus Edward and Philip at last became friends "so far as outside appearances went," as a chronicler of the time phrased it. The fundamental difference of interests and standpoint could be glossed over by no facile compromise, and the calm of the next six years was only the prelude to a storm destined to end the policy that had regulated the relations of the two courts from the days of the peace of 1259 to those of the meeting at Pont-Sainte-Maxence.
At first there was talk of further cementing the newly established friendship. There were suggestions of a marriage of Edward's infant son with Philip's daughter, a fresh interview between the monarchs, a treaty of perpetual alliance and a common crusade against the Turks. The last, and the most fantastic, of these projects was the one which was most seriously discussed. The chivalrous spirit of Philip of Valois rose eagerly to the idea of a great European expedition against the infidel, of which he was to be the chief commander. Inspired by John XXII., he took the cross, made preparations for an early start, and invoked Edward's co-operation. Edward cleverly utilised his kinsman's zeal as another lever for enforcing the settlement of outstanding differences. "Tell your master," he said to the French ambassador, Peter Roger, now Archbishop of Rouen, "that when he has fulfilled his promises, I will be more eager to go on the holy voyage than he is himself." But the chronic troubles, arising from the unceasing extension of the suzerain's claims in Aquitaine, and from the shelter given by Philip to David Bruce, had continued all through the years of professed friendship, and in 1334 an embassy to Paris, presided over by Archbishop Stratford, failed to establish a modus vivendi. In the same year John XXII. died without having either procured the crusade or crushed Louis of Bavaria. His successor, James Founder of Foix, who took the name of Benedict XII., pursued his general policy, though in a more diplomatic and self-seeking spirit. Benedict's great wish was to, unite France and England against his enemy, the Emperor Louis of Bavaria, and he dexterously played upon Philip's eagerness for the crusade to persuade him to abandon to the papacy the position, which he had assumed, of arbiter of the differences between Edward and the Scots. It was a signal, though transitory, triumph of this policy that a truce between England and Scotland was brought about by the mediation of the pope and not of the French king. But Benedict found that a crusade was impossible so long as the chief powers of the west were hopelessly estranged from each other. In 1336, he vetoed the crusading scheme until happier times had dawned. Philip, bitterly disappointed, sought out Benedict at Avignon, but utterly failed to change his purpose. He was in his own despite released from the crusader's vow, though exhorted still to continue his preparations. The galleys, purchased from the crusading tenths of the Church, were transferred from the Mediterranean to the Channel. The French king might well find consolation for the abandonment of the holy war in a sudden descent on England.
From that moment the horizon darkened. Philip VI., once more took up the cause of the Scots, and once more the Aquitanian troubles became acute. His irritation at Benedict led him to open up negotiations with Louis of Bavaria, whereat Benedict was greatly offended. Edward III. then sought to find friends who would help him against Philip. He was as much disgusted with the pope as was his French rival. The crusading fleet, equipped with the money of the Roman Church, threatened the English coast, and the curia was even more French in its sympathies than the temporising pontiff. It is no wonder then that both kings looked coldly on Benedict's offer of mediation between them. Yet, notwithstanding the indifference manifested by both courts, two cardinals, Peter Gomez, a Spaniard, and Bertrand of Montfavence, a Frenchman, were sent in the summer of 1337 as papal legates to France and England to settle the points in dispute. For the next three years these prelates pursued their mission with energy and persistence, though with little result.
A fresh dispute further embittered the personal relations of Philip and Edward. In 1336, Edward offered a refuge in England to Robert of Artois, Philip's brother-in-law and mortal enemy. The grandson of the Count Robert of Artois who was slain in 1302 at Courtrai, Robert of Artois was indignant that the rich county of Artois should, according to local custom, have devolved upon his aunt Maud, the wife of Otto, Count of Burgundy, or Franche Comté, and the mother-in-law of the last two kings of the direct Capetian line. Though he had failed in several suits to obtain it, Robert renewed his claim after his brother-in-law became King of France. It was soon proved that the charters upon which he relied to prove his title had been forged. The sudden death of the Countess of Artois, followed quickly by that of her daughter and heiress, added the suspicion of poisoning to the certainly of forgery. Robert was deprived of all his possessions and was exiled from France. Driven from his first refuge in Brabant by Philip's indignant hostility, he found shelter in England, where he was received with a favour which Philip bitterly resented. Condemned in his absence as a traitor, and devoured by a ferocious hatred of Philip and his Burgundian wife, Robert did all that he could to inflame the mind of Edward against the French king. French romance of the next generation, in the poem of the Vow of the Heron,[1] tells how Robert, returning to Edward's court from the chase, brought as his only victim a heron, which he offered to the king as the most timid of birds to the most cowardly of kings; "for, sire," he declared, "you have not dared to claim the realm of France which belongs to you by hereditary right". Stirred up by this challenge, Edward swore to God and the heron that within a year he would place the crown of France on Queen Philippa's brow. This famous legend is, however, a fiction. It was not until later that Edward seriously renewed the claim which he had advanced in 1328. But when once war became certain, the challenge of the French throne was bound to be made, and the dissolution of the friendly personal relations of the two kings, which had so long prevented either from proceeding to extremities, was certainly in large part the work of Robert of Artois. For the moment, Edward probably thought that his welcome of Robert was only a fair return for Philip's reception of David Bruce.
[1] Les voeus du héron in Wright, Political Poems and Songs, i., 1-25 (Rolls Ser.)
War being imminent, Edward looked beyond sea for foreign allies. Commercial and traditional ties closely bound England to the county of Flanders, but our friendship had latterly been with its people rather than with its princes. Louis of Nevers, the Count of Flanders, had been expelled in 1328 by a rising of the maritime districts of the county, and had been restored by force of arms through the agency of Philip of Valois. Gratitude and interest accordingly combined to make Count Louis a strong partisan of Philip of Valois. Though far from absolute, he was still possessed of sufficient authority over his unruly townsmen to make it impossible for Edward to negotiate successfully with them. In 1336 the count answered Edward's advances by prohibiting all commercial relations between his subjects and England. Bitterly disgusted at the hostility of Flanders, Edward in 1337 passed a law through parliament which prohibited the export of wool to the Flemish weaving centres. This measure provoked an economic crisis at Ghent and Ypres; but for the moment such a catastrophe could only accentuate the differences between England and the count. It was otherwise, however, with the neighbouring princes of the imperial obedience. Count William I. of Hainault, Holland, and Zealand was Edward III.'s father-in-law, and, during the last months of his strenuous career, he welcomed Bishop Burghersh, Edward's chief diplomatist, to his favourite residence of Valenciennes, where from April, 1337, the English ambassadors kept great state, "sparing as little as if the king were present there in his own person," and striving with all their might to build up an alliance with the princes of the Low Countries. When the count died, his son and successor, William II., persisted, though with less energy, in his father's policy, and the Hainault connexion became the nucleus of a general Low German alliance. Burghersh was lavish in promises, and soon a large number of imperial vassals took Edward's pay and promised to fight his battles. Among these were Count Reginald of Gelderland, who since 1332 had been the husband of Edward III.'s sister Eleanor, and with him came the Counts of Berg, Jülich, Cleves, and Mark, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, and a swarm of minor potentates.