[Sidenote: Edward’s alliances on the North-east. 1338.]
There was at present in England a Frenchman whose influence is said to have had much to do with determining Edward to this step. This was Robert of Artois. On the death of his grandfather a dispute had arisen as to the succession of the country. The fief did not follow the ordinary feudal custom, but fell to the nearest of blood. Matilda, the daughter of the late Count, therefore succeeded in preference to her nephew Robert. Philip V. had married her daughter, and during his lifetime and that of his two brothers, Robert had been compelled to be content, but on the accession of Philip of Valois he demanded restitution. During the trial which ensued he produced as evidence charters which were proved to be forgeries, and in 1337 took refuge in England, where Edward adopted his cause, and used him as a sort of set-off to David Bruce, whose cause the French King had taken up. The great war with France was a distinct breach in the policy of Edward I. But the present King was not the great statesman his grandfather had been. A false chivalry had gradually been taking the place of the old feudal sentiment, and Edward was open to be moved both by the impulses of a spurious knight-errantry and by personal motives of ambition and passion. When once engaged in the war, however, he acted both energetically and prudently. His marriage with Philippa of Hainault, and the close commercial interdependence of England and the countries on the North-east of France, gave him an opening which he eagerly employed. He entered into alliances with the Princes of that neighbourhood, with Brabant, Gueldres, Juliers and Cologne. In Flanders, where the great mercantile cities were at enmity with their count, who was on his side supported by the French influence, he allied himself heartily with James Van Artevelt, the Brewer of Ghent, the acknowledged chief of the burgher party. He took advantage also of the fierce dispute at that time raging between the Emperor Louis of Bavaria and the Pope, who was a mere creature of the French crown, to secure not only the Emperor’s friendship but the title of Imperial Vicar. This title gave something of a national character to that alliance of German Princes which he had arranged. But all these alliances, though they promised so fair, were both expensive and hollow. In every case they assumed the form of subsidies, the foreigners promising to supply troops in exchange for English money. On the other hand, Philip, although unable to take actual possession, took seisin of Guienne, that is, he sent an officer to each of the great towns, and declared that he had taken possession of it. He had also, as was natural in the disturbed state of Germany, found some friends in that country.