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