ancy and nine-tenths of the English
wool went to the looms of Bruges or of Ghent. We may see the rapid growth
of this export trade in the fact that the king received in a single year
more than L30,000 from duties levied on wool alone. The woolsack which
forms the Chancellor's seat in the House of Lords is said to witness to the
importance which the government attached to this new source of wealth. A
stoppage of this export threw half the population of the great Flemish
towns out of work, and the irritation caused in Flanders by the
interruption which this trade sustained through the piracies that Philip's
ships were carrying on in the Channel showed how effective the threat of
such a stoppage would be in securing their alliance. Nor was this the only
ground for hoping for aid from the Flemish towns. Their democratic spirit
jostled roughly with the feudalism of France. If their counts clung to the
French monarchy, the towns themselves, proud of their immense population,
their thriving industry, their vast wealth, drew more and more to
independence. Jacques van Arteveldt, a great brewer of Ghent, wielded the
chief influence in their councils, and his aim was to build up a
confederacy which might hold France in check along her northern border.

[Sidenote: The Flemish Alliance]

His plans had as yet brought no help from the Flemish towns, but at the
close of 1339 they set aside their neutrality for open aid. The great plan
of Federation which Van Arteveldt had been devising as a check on the
aggression of France was carried out in a treaty concluded between Edward,
the Duke of Brabant, the cities of Brussels, Antwerp, Louvain, Ghent,
Bruges, Ypres, and seven others. By this remarkable treaty it was provided
that war should be begun and ended only by mutual consent, free commerce be
encouraged between Flanders and Brabant, and no change made in their
commercial arrangements save with the consent of the whole league. By a
subsequent treaty the Flemish towns owned Edward as King of France, and
declared war against Philip of Valois. But their voice was decisive on the
course of the campaign which opened in 1340. As Philip held the Upper
Scheldt by the occupation of Cambray, so he held the Lower Scheldt by that
of Tournay, a fortress which broke the line of commerce between Flanders
and Brabant. It was a condition of the Flemish alliance therefore that the
war should open with the capture of Tournay. It was only at the cost of