According to some historians, Edward invited them aboard of his galley, and represented to them that the time had come for renouncing imperfect resolves and half-measures; told them that their count, Louis of Flanders, and his ancestors, had always ignored and attacked their liberties, and that the best thing they could do would be to sever their connection with a house they could not trust; and offered them for their chieftain his own son, the young Prince of Wales, to whom he would give the title of Duke of Flanders.

According to other historians, it was not King Edward, but Artevelde himself, who took the initiative in this proposition.

The latter had for some time past felt his own dominion in Flanders attacked and shaken; and he had been confronted, in his own native city, by declared enemies, who had all but come to blows with his own partisans.

The different industrial corporations of Ghent were no longer at one amongst themselves; the weavers had quarrelled with the fullers.

Division was likewise reaching a great height amongst the Flemish towns.