Artevelde, after consulting his colleagues, returned to Edward, and, 'Dear sir,' said he, 'you have already made such requests to us, and verily if we could do so whilst keeping our honor and faith, we would do as you demand; but we be bound, by faith and oath, and on a bond of two millions of florins entered into with the pope, not to go to war with the King of France without incurring a debt to the amount of that sum, and a sentence of ex-communication; but if you do that which we are about to say to you, if you will be pleased to adopt the arms of France, and quarter them with those of England, and openly call yourself King of France, we will uphold you for true King of France; you, as King of France, shall give us quittance of our faith; and then we will obey you as King of France, and will go whithersoever you shall ordain.'" This prospect pleased Edward mightily: but "it irked him to take the name and arms of that of which he had as yet won no tittle." He consulted his allies.

Some of them hesitated; but "his most privy and especial friend," Robert d'Artois, strongly urged him to consent to the proposal.
So a French prince and a Flemish burgher prevailed upon the King of England to pursue, as in assertion of his avowed rights, the conquest of the kingdom of France.

King, prince, and burgher fixed Ghent as their place of meeting for the official conclusion of the alliance; and there, in January, 1340, the mutual engagement was signed and sealed.

The King of England "assumed the arms of France quartered with those of England," and thenceforth took the title of King of France.
Then burst forth in reality that war which was to last a hundred years; which was to bring upon the two nations the most violent struggles, as well as the most cruel sufferings, and which, at the end of a hundred years, was to end in the salvation of France from her tremendous peril, and the defeat of England in her unrighteous attempt.

In January, 1340, Edward thought he had won the most useful of allies; Artevelde thought the independence of the Flemish communes and his own supremacy in his own country secured; and Robert d'Artois thought with complacency how he had gratified his hatred for Philip of Valois.