The German Diet met to declare that the Imperial power came from God alone, and that the choice of an Emperor needed no Papal confirmation, while Benedict replied by a formal excommunication of Lewis.

England on the other hand entered on a religious revolution when she stood hand in hand with an excommunicated power.

It was significant that though worship ceased in Flanders on the Pope's interdict, the English priests who were brought over set the interdict at nought.
[Sidenote: Failure of the Alliance] The negotiation of this alliance occupied the whole of 1337; it ended in a promise of the Emperor on payment of 3000 gold florins to furnish two thousand men-at-arms.

In the opening of 1338 an attack of Philip on the Agenois forced Edward into open war.

His profuse expenditure however brought little fruit.