to decide, once for all, that question of the French kingship which had been for five years in suspense between himself and his rival, were the true causes of his warlike resolve.  However that may be, he determined to push the war vigorously forward at the three points at which he could easily wage it.  In Brittany he had a party already engaged in the struggle; in Aquitaine, possessions of importance to defend or recover; in Flanders, allies with power to back him, and as angry as he himself.  To Brittany he forwarded fresh supplies for the Count of Montfort; to Aquitaine he sent Henry of Lancaster, Earl of Derby, his own cousin, and the ablest of his lieutenants; and he himself prepared to cross over with a large army to Flanders.

The Earl of Derby met with solid and brilliant success in Aquitaine.  He attacked and took in rapid succession Bergerac, La Reole, Aiguillon, Montpezat, Villefranche, and Angouleme.  None of those places was relieved in time; the strict discipline of Derby’s troops and the skill of the English archers were too much for the bravery of the men-at-arms, and the raw levies, ill organized and ill paid, of the King of France; and, in a word, the English were soon masters of almost the whole country between the Garonne and the Charente.  Under such happy auspices Edward III. arrived on the 7th of July, 1345, at the port of Ecluse (Sluys), anxious to put himself in concert with the Flemings touching the campaign he proposed to commence before long in the north of France.  Artevelde, with the consuls of Bruges and Ypres, was awaiting him there.  According to some historians, Edward invited them aboard of his galley, and represented to them that the time had come for renouncing imperfect resolves and half-measures; told them that their count, Louis of Flanders, and his ancestors, had always ignored and attacked their liberties, and that the best thing they could do would be to sever their connection with a house they could not trust; and offered them for their chieftain his own son, the young Prince of Wales, to whom he would give the title of Duke of Flanders.  According to other historians, it was not King Edward, but Artevelde himself, who took the initiative in this proposition.  The latter had for some time past felt his own dominion in Flanders attacked and shaken; and he had been confronted, in his own native city, by declared enemies, who had all but come to blows with his own partisans.  The different industrial corporations of Ghent were no longer at one amongst themselves; the weavers had quarrelled with the fullers.  Division was likewise reaching a great height amongst the Flemish towns.  The burghers of Poperinghe had refused to continue recognizing the privileges of those of Ypres; and the Ypres men, enraged, had taken up arms, and, after a sanguinary melley, had forced the folks of Poperinghe to give in.  Then the Ypres men, proud of their triumph, had gone and broken the weavers’ machinery at Bailleul, and