He even offered to give his daughter Joan in marriage to the son of the Count of Flanders.

Philip, on his side, tried hard to reconcile the communes of Flanders to their count, and so make them faithful to himself; he let them off two years' payment of a rent due to him of forty thousand livres of Paris per annum; he promised them the monopoly of exporting wools from France; he authorized the Brugesmen to widen the moats of their city, and even to repair its ramparts.

The King of England's envoys met in most of the Flemish cities with a favor which was real, but intermingled with prudent reservations, and Count Louis of Flanders remained ever closely allied with the King of France, "for he was right French and loyal," says Froissart, "and with good reason, for he had the King of France almost alone to thank for restoring him to his country by force." Whilst, by both sides, preparations were thus being made on the Continent for war, the question which was to make it burst forth was being decided in England.

In the soul of Edward temptation overcame indecision.

As early as the month of June, 1336, in a Parliament assembled at Northampton, he had complained of the assistance given by the King of France to the Scots, and he had expressed a hope that if the French and the Scots were to join, they would at last offer him battle, which the latter had always carefully avoided." In September of the same year he employed similar language in a Parliament held at Nottingham, and he obtained therefrom subsidies for the war going on not only in Scotland, but also in Aquitaine, against the French king's lieutenants.