Artevelde and the men of Ghent were the real masters of Flanders. They kept their count in scarcely veiled captivity, forcing him to wear the Flemish colours and to profess acceptance of the policy that he disliked. In such circumstances the neutrality of Flanders could not last long. Both Edward and Artevelde regarded it simply as a step towards a declared alliance. Before long Philip became uneasy, and lavished concession on concession to keep the dominant party true to its promises. He gave up the degrading conditions which since the treaty of Athis had secured the subjection of Flanders. But Edward could offer more than his rival. He proposed to the count and the "good towns" of Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres that, in return for their alliance, he would aid them to win back the towns of Lille, Douai, Béthune, and Tournai, which the French king had usurped from the Flemings, as well as the county of Artois, which had been separated from Flanders since the days of Philip Augustus. He also offered ample commercial privileges, the establishment of the staple of wool at Bruges as well as at Antwerp, free trade for Flemish cloth with the English markets, and a good and fixed money which was to be legal tender in Flanders, Brabant, France, and England. The Flemings demanded in return that Edward, by formally assuming the title of King of France, should stand to them as their liege lord, and thus free themselves and their count from the ecclesiastical penalties and dishonour involved in their waging war against a king of France. Late in 1339, these terms were mutually accepted, and Count Louis avoided further humiliations by flight into France.
In January, 1340, Edward entered Flemish territory and was magnificently entertained in the abbey of Saint Bavon at Ghent. "The three towns of Flanders," declared Artevelde to his guest, "are ready to recognise you as their sovereign lord, provided that you engage yourself to defend them." The deputies of the three towns took oaths to Edward as their suzerain, and thereupon Edward was proclaimed King of France with much ceremony in the Friday market of Ghent. A new great seal was fashioned and new royal arms assumed, in which the lilies of France were quartered with the leopards of England. The new regnal year of Edward, which began on January 25, was styled the fourteenth of his reign in England, and the first of his reign in France. Urgent affairs called Edward back to his kingdom, but his debts to the Flemings were already so heavy that they only consented to his departure on his pledging himself to return before Michaelmas day, and on his leaving as hostages his queen, his two sons, and two earls. At last, on February 20, he crossed over from Sluys to Orwell. He had been absent from home for nearly a year and a half.
From February 21 to June 22, 1340, Edward remained in England. During that period, formal treaties with the Flemings confirmed the hasty negotiations of Ghent. Benedict XII, still pursued Edward with remonstrances. He warned the English king to have no trust in allies like the Flemings, who had shamefully driven away their natural lords and whose faithlessness and inconstancy were by-words. He told him that his strength was not enough to conquer France, and reproached him with calling himself king of a land of which he possessed nothing. Somewhat inconsistently, he offered his mediation between Edward and Philip. But Philip was only less weary than Edward of the self-seeking pontiff. Benedict was forced to drink the cup of humiliation, for after the rejection of his mediation, he was confronted with a proposal that the schismatic Bavarian should arbitrate between the two crowns. Meanwhile, after many delays, Edward embarked a gallant army on a fleet of 200 ships, and on June 22 a favourable west wind bore them from the Orwell towards Flanders. On arriving next day off Blankenberghe, he learned that a formidable French squadron was anchored in the mouth of the Zwyn, and that he could only land in Flanders as the reward of victory.
From the outbreak of hostilities in 1337, there had been a good deal of fighting by sea, and in the first stages of warfare the advantage lay with the French. Since the days of Edward I., and Philip the Fair, the maritime energies of the two countries had developed at an almost equal rate, and the parallel growth had been marked by bitter rivalry between the seamen of the two nations. The Normans had taken the leading share in this expansion of the French navy.[1] They welcomed the outbreak of war with enthusiasm, as giving them a chance of measuring their forces with their hated foes. Alone among the provinces of France, Normandy seems already to have experienced that intense national bitterness against the English which was soon to spread to all the rest of the country. Not content with the vigorous war of corsairs which had inflicted so much mischief on our southern coast and on English shipping, the Normans formed bold designs of a new Norman Conquest of England, and in return for the permanent establishment of the local estates of Normandy, agreed with Philip and his son John, who bore the title of Duke of Normandy, to equip a large fleet and army, with which England was to be invaded in the summer of 1339. Normandy, which monopolised the glory, was to monopolise the spoil. If England were conquered, Duke John, like Duke William before him, was to be King of England as well as Duke of Normandy. Thus the aggressions of Edward in France were to be answered by Norman aggressions in England.[2]
[1] C. de la Roncière, Hist, de la Marine Française; of. Nicolas, Hist, of the Royal Navy.
[2] See on this subject A. Coville, Les États de Normandie, pp. 41-52 (1894).
Nothing came of this grandiose project, though the burning ruins of Southampton, the capture of the great Christopher, which had borne Edward in 1338 to Antwerp, and the occupation of the Channel Islands—the last remnants of the old duchy still under English rule—showed that the Normans were in earnest. The chief result of their energy was the equipment of the strongest French fleet that had ever been seen in the Channel. Though a few Genoese galleys under Barbavera and a few great Spanish ships swelled the number of the armada, 160 of the 200 ships that formed the fleet were Norman.[1] Of the two Frenchmen in command, one, Hugh Quièret, was a Picard knight, but the other, the more popular, was Nicholas Béhuchet, a Norman of humble birth, then a knight and the chief confidant of Philip VI. Quièret and Béhuchet had long challenged the command of the narrow seas. But for their error of dividing their forces and preferring a piratical war of reprisals, they might have cut off communications between England and the Netherlands. They had learnt wisdom by experience, and their ships were massed in Zwyn harbour to prevent the passage of Edward to his new allies.
[1] S. Luce, La Marine normande à l'Écluse, in La France pendant la Guerre de Cent Ans, 3-31.
The coast-line between Blankenberghe and the mouth of the Scheldt was strangely different in the fourteenth century from what it is at present.[1] The sandy flats, through which the Zwyn now trickles to the sea, formed a large open harbour, accessible to the biggest ships then known. It was protected on the north by the island of Cadzand, the scene of Manny's exploit in 1337, while at its head stood the town of Sluys, so called from the locks, or sluices, that regulated the waters of the ship canal, which bore to the great mart of Bruges the merchantmen of every land. It was in this harbour that Edward, on arriving off Blankenberghe, first spied the fleet of Quièret and Béhuchet. He anchored at sea for the night, and on the afternoon of June 24, the anniversary of Bannockburn, he bore down on the French, having the sun, the tide, and the wind in his favour. On his approach Barbavera urged that the French should take to the open sea; but Quièret and Béhuchet preferred to fight in the harbour. As an unsatisfactory compromise, however, the French moved a mile or so towards the enemy. Then they lashed their ships together and awaited attack.
[1] For this see Professor Tait's inset map of the district in Oxford Historical Atlas, plate lvi.