Edward’s military fame was established over all Europe, and, says the Flemish writer, John van Klerk, “all who spoke the German tongue rejoiced at the defeat of the French”.  Yet the victory at Sluys was the prelude to a land campaign as ineffective as the raid into the Thierache.  Eager to restore their lost lands to the Flemings, Edward made the mistake of dividing his army.  He sent Robert of Artois to effect the reconquest of Artois, while he himself besieged Tournai, which was then in French hands.  Robert’s attempt to win back the lands of his ancestors was a sorry failure.  Defeated outside Saint Omer, he was unable even to invest that town.  Almost equally unsuccessful was Edward’s siege of Tournai, which resisted with such energy that he was soon at the end of his resources.  At last, in despair, Edward challenged Philip VI. to decide their claim to France by single combat.  The Valois answered that he would gladly do so if, in the event of his winning, he might obtain Edward’s kingdom.  In the same spirit of caution, Philip tarried half-way between Saint Omer and Tournai, watching both armies and afraid to strike at either.  The armies wore themselves out in this game of waiting until the widowed Countess of Hainault, then abbess of the Cistercian nuns of Fontenelles, was moved by the desolation of the country to intervene between the two kings.  The mother of the Queen of England and the sister of the King of France, she succeeded not only by reason of her prayers, but through the refusal of the Duke of Brabant, the Count of Hainault, and the other imperial vassals to remain longer at the war.  On September 25, 1340, a truce was signed at the solitary chapel of Esplechin, situated in the open country a little south of Tournai.  By it hostilities between both kings and their respective allies were suspended, until midsummer day, 1341.  Each king was to enjoy the lands actually in his possession, and commerce was to be carried on as if peace had been made.  The most significant clause of the truce was that by which both kings pledged themselves that they “procure not that any innovation be done by the Church of Rome, or by others of Holy Church on either of the said kings.  And if our most holy father the pope will do that, the two kings shall prevent it, so far as in them lies.”

The truce of Esplechin, renewed until 1345, put an end to the first, or Netherlandish, period of the Hundred Years’ War.  The imperial alliance, which had failed Edward, was soon to be solemnly dissolved.  Early in 1341, Louis of Bavaria revoked Edward’s vicariate, and announced his intention of becoming henceforth the friend of his uncle, the King of France.  This alliance between Philip and Louis completed the discomfiture of Benedict XII.  In 1342 he died, and his successor was Peter Roger, the sometime Archbishop of Rouen, who assumed the title of Clement VI.  By persuading Brabant and Hainault to be neutral between France and England, the new pontiff broke up the last