was the more important since his only child was a daughter named Margaret.  In 1356, this lady, to Edward’s great disgust, was promised in marriage to Philip de Rouvre, Duke and Count of Burgundy, and Count of Artois.  The death of Philip in 1361 saved Edward from the danger of a great state with one arm in the Burgundies and the other in Flanders and Artois; and the irritation of Louis de Male at Charles V.’s grant of the Burgundian duchy to his youngest son, Philip the Bold, gave the English king a new chance of winning his favour.  At last, in 1364, Edward concluded a treaty with Flanders according to his dearest wishes.  Edmund of Langley, Earl of Cambridge, his youngest son, was betrothed to the widowed Margaret, with Ponthieu, Guines, and Calais as their appanage.  Great as were Edward’s sacrifices, they were worth making if a permanent union could be established between England and Flanders, equally threatening to France and to the lords of the Netherlands.  Charles persuaded Urban V. to refuse the necessary dispensations for the marriage.  Edward and Louis, irritated at the success of this countermove, waited patiently and renewed their alliance.

No sooner was his understanding with Armagnac completed than Charles strove to secure the support of northern as well as of southern feudalism against Edward.  He offered his brother, Philip of Burgundy, to Margaret, along with the restoration of the districts of French Flanders, which he still held.  In June, 1369, the marriage took place.  Edmund of Cambridge lost his last chance of the great heiress, and Charles V. bought off the enmity of the Count of Flanders at the price of that union of Burgundy and Flanders which, in the next century, was to make the descendants of Philip and Margaret the most formidable opponents of the French monarchy.  For the moment, however, Charles gained little.  Flemish ships, indeed, fought against the English at sea, notably in Bourgneuf Bay in 1371, but next year Louis made peace with them.  Despite his daughter’s marriage, the Count of Flanders still showed that his sympathies were with England.  The other princes of the Netherlands were much more decidedly on the French side than the Count of Flanders.  Margaret of Hainault, Queen Philippa’s sister, had, after the death of her husband the Emperor Louis of Bavaria, in 1347 fought with her son William for the possession of her three counties of Hainault, Holland, and Zealand, to which Philippa also had pretensions, naturally upheld by her husband.  William obtained such advantages over his mother that Margaret was obliged to invoke the assistance of her brother-in-law.  Eager to regain his influence in the Netherlands, Edward willingly agreed to be arbiter between Margaret and her son, and at his suggestion the disputed lands were divided between them.  William was married to Maud of Lancaster, Duke Henry’s elder daughter, and thus secured to the English alliance.  On Margaret’s death William inherited all the three counties:  but Maud died, and William became insane, whereupon his brother and heir invoked the support of the Emperor Charles IV., and was duly established in his fiefs.  The claims of Philippa were ignored, and the Lancaster marriage with the lord of Holland, like the projected union of Edmund with the heiress of Flanders, failed to fulfil Edward’s hopes.