war roughly known as the Hundred Years' War began. It was in
reality waged to discover by an appeal to arms whether the whole of
Aquitaine was to be incorporated with France and whether Scotland was
to be incorporated with England. That which gave it its peculiar
bitterness was, however, not so much the claims of the kings, as the
passions of their subjects. The national antagonism aroused by the
plunderings of French sea-rovers would be invigorated by the
plunderings of Englishmen in the fields of France.

5. =Edward's Allies. 1337--1338.=--To Edward it was merely a question
of defending, first England, and then Aquitaine, against aggression.
He won over, with large offers of money, the alliance of the princes
of the Empire whose lands lay round the French frontier to the north
and east, and even gained the support of the Emperor Lewis the
Bavarian. His relations with Flanders were even more important. In
Flanders there had sprung up great manufacturing towns, such as Ghent,
Bruges, and Ypres, which worked up into cloth the wool which was the
produce of English sheep. These wealthy towns claimed political
independence, and thus came into collision with their feudal lord, the
Count of Flanders. Early in the reign of Philip VI., the Count, who
held the greater part of his lands from the king of France, had
appealed to Philip for support, and Philip, who, unlike his wiser
predecessors, despised the strength which he might gain from the
goodwill of citizens in a struggle against their lords, took the part
of the Count, and for a time crushed the citizens at the battle of
Cassel. After a while the cities recovered themselves, and formed an
alliance under the leadership of Jacob van Arteveldt, a Flemish
nobleman, who had ingratiated himself with them by enrolling himself
amongst the brewers of Ghent, and who was now successful in urging his
countrymen to enter into friendship with Edward.

6. =Chivalry and War.=--In the long run Edward's cause would be found
a losing one, but there were circumstances which made it prevail for a
time. In France there was a broad distinction between gentlemen on the
one side and citizens and peasants on the other. The gentlemen
despised all who were not of their own class. In earlier days there
had sprung up a view of life known as chivalry, which taught that the
knight was bound to observe the laws of honour, to fight fairly, to
treat with courtesy a defeated enemy, and to protect women and