to transmit male fiefs to the sons of heiresses, themselves incapable of succession.  Edward, as the son of Charles IV.’s sister, was nearer of kin to his uncle than Philip, the son of Charles’s uncle.  Surely a man’s nephew had a better right to his succession than his first cousin could ever claim?  From the purely juridical point of view, the claim put forward by Isabella on her son’s behalf was not only plausible but strong.

[1] Viollet, Hist. des Institutions politiques et administratives de la France, ii., 74, from a MS. source.  See also Viollet, Comment les Femmes ont ete exclues en France de la Succession a la Couronne, in Mem. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, xxxiv., pt. ii. (1893).

Happily for France, the magnates of the realm dealt with the succession question as statesmen and not as lawyers.  A later age imagined that the French barons brought forward a text of the law of the Salian Pranks, as a complete answer to Edward’s claim from the juridical point of view.  But the famous Salic law was a figment, forged by the next generation of lawyers who were eager to give a complete refutation of the elaborate legal pleadings of the partisans of the English claim.  No authentic Salic law dealt with the question of the succession to the throne,[1] and the bold step of transferring a doctrine of private inheritance to the domain of public law was one of the characteristic feats of the medieval jurist, anxious to heap up at any risk a mass of arguments that might overwhelm his antagonists’ case.  The barons of 1328 rose superior to legal subtleties.  To them the question at issue was the preservation of the national identity of their country.  The vital thing for them was to secure the throne of France, both at the moment and at future times, for a Frenchman.  Any admission, however guarded, of the right of women to transmit claims to their sons opened out a vista of the foreign offspring of French princesses, married abroad, ruling France as strangers, and it might be as enemies.  They chose Philip of Valois because he was a Frenchman born and bred, and because he had no interests or possessions outside the French realm.  They could not endure the idea of being ruled by the English king.  He was not only a stranger, but the hereditary enemy.  The Capetian monarchy must at all costs be kept French.

    [1] Viollet, op. cit., pp. 55-57; cf.  Desprez, Les
    Preliminaires de la Giurre de Cent Am, p. 32.

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.