ho 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. The burghers of Poperinghe had refused to continue
recognizing the privileges of those of Ypres; and the Ypres men, enraged,
had taken up arms, and, after a sanguinary melley, had forced the folks
of Poperinghe to give in. Then the Ypres men, proud of their triumph,
had gone and broken the weavers' machinery at Bailleul, and in some other
towns. Artevelde, constrained to take part in these petty civil wars,
had been led on to greater and greater abuse, in his own city itself,
of his municipal despotism, already grown hateful to many of his fellow-
citizens. Whether he himself proposed to shake off the yoke of Count
Louis of Flanders, and take for duke the Prince of Wales, or merely
accepted King Edward's proposal, he set resolutely to work to get it
carried. The most able men, swayed by their own passions and the growing
necessities of the struggle in which they may be engaged, soon forget
their first intentions, and ignore their new perils. The consuls of
Bruges and Ypres, present with Artevelde at his interview with King
Edward in the port of Ecluse (Sluys), answered that "they could not
decide so great a matter unless the whole community of Flanders should
agree thereto," and so returned to their cities. Artevelde followed them
thither, and succeeded in getting the proposed resolution adopted by the
people of Ypres and Bruges. But when he returned to Ghent, on the 24th
of July, 1345, "those in the city who knew of his coming," says
Froissart, "had assembled in the street whereby he must ride to his
hostel. So soon as they saw him they began to mutter, saying, 'There
goes he who is too much master, and would fain do with the countship of
Flanders according to his own will; which cannot be borne.' It had,
besides this, been spread about the city that James Van Artevelde had
secretly sent to England the great treasure of Flanders, which he had
been collecting for the space of the nine years and more during which he
had held the government. This was a matter which did greatly vex and
incense them of Ghent. As James Van Artevelde rode along the street, he
soon perceived that there was something fresh against him, for those who
were wont to bow down and ta