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. And all three were deceiving
themselves in their joy and their confidence.

Edward, leaving Queen Philippa at Ghent with Artevelde for her adviser,
had returned to England, and had just obtained from the Parliament, for
the purpose of vigorously pushing on the war, a subsidy almost without
precedent, when he heard that a large French fleet was assembling on the
coasts of Zealand, near the port of Ecluse (or Sluys), with a design of
surprising and attacking him when he should cross over again to the
Continent. For some time past this fleet had been cruising in the
Channel, making descents here and there upon English soil, at Plymouth,
Southampton, Sandwich, and Dover, and everywhere causing alarm and
pillage. Its strength, they said, was a hundred and forty large vessels,
"without counting the smaller," having on board thirty-five thousand men,
Normans, Picards, Italians, sailors and soldiers of all countries, under
the command of two French leaders, Hugh Quiret, titular admiral, and
Nicholas Bchuchet, King Philip's treasurer, and of a famous Genoese
buccaneer, named Barbavera. Edward, so soon as he received this
information, resolved to go and meet their attack; and he gave orders to
have his vessels and troops summoned