But John of Brabant revenged himself for his wife's contempt by a series of domestic persecutions so odious that the states of Brabant interfered for her protection.
Finding it, however, impossible to remain in a perpetual contest with a husband whom she hated and despised, she fled from Brussels, where he held his ducal court, and took refuge in England, under the protection of Henry V., at that time in the plenitude of his fame and power.
England at this epoch enjoyed the proudest station in European affairs.

John the Fearless, after having caused the murder of his rival, the duke of Orleans, was himself assassinated on the bridge of Montereau by the followers of the dauphin of France, and in his presence.

Philip, duke of Burgundy, the son and successor of John, had formed a close alliance with Henry V., to revenge his father's murder; and soon after the death of the king he married his sister, and thus united himself still more nearly to the celebrated John, duke of Bedford, brother of Henry, and regent of France, in the name of his infant nephew, Henry VI.

But besides the share on which he reckoned in the spoils of France, Philip also looked with a covetous eye on the inheritance of Jacqueline, his cousin.

As soon as he had learned that this princess, so well received in England, was taking measures for having her marriage annulled, to enable her to espouse the duke of Gloucester, also the brother of Henry V., and subsequently known by the appellation of "the good duke Humphrey," he was tormented by a double anxiety.