Burgundian troops supported the English pretender. But
a dispute between him and the English concerning the succession in Hainaut,
their refusal to permit the town of Orleans to place itself under his rule,
and the defeats sustained by them, all combined to embroil him with his
allies, and in 1435 he concluded the treaty of Arras with Charles VII. The
king relieved the duke of all homage for his estates during his lifetime,
[v.04 p.0822] and gave up to him the countships of Macon, Auxerre,
Bar-sur-Seine and Ponthieu; and, reserving the right of redemption, the
towns of the Somme (Roye, Montdidier, Peronne, &c.). Besides this Philip
had acquired Brabant and Holland in 1433 as the inheritance of his mother.
He gave an asylum to the dauphin Louis when exiled from Charles VII.'s
court, but refused to assist him against his father, and henceforth rarely
intervened in French affairs. He busied himself particularly with the
administration of his state, founding the university of Dole, having
records made of Burgundian customs, and seeking to develop the commerce and
industries of Flanders. A friend to letters and the arts, he was the
protector of writers like Olivier de la Marche, and of sculptors of the
school of Dijon. He also desired to revive ancient chivalry as he conceived
it, and in 1429 founded the order of the Golden Fleece; while during the
last years of his life he devoted himself to the preparation of a crusade
against the Turks. Neither these plans, however, nor his liberality,
prevented his leaving a well-filled treasury and enlarged dominions when he
died in 1467.

Philip's successor was his son by his third wife, Isabel of Portugal,
Charles, surnamed the Bold, count of Charolois, born in 1433. To him his
father had practically abandoned his authority during his last years.
Charles had taken an active part in the so-called wars "for the public
weal," and in the coalitions of nobles against the king which were so
frequent during the first years of Louis XI.'s reign. His struggle against
the king is especially marked by the interview at Peronne in 1468, when the
king had to confirm the duke in his possession of the towns of the Somme,
and by a fruitless attempt which Charles the Bold made on Beauvais in 1472.
Charles sought above all to realize a scheme already planned by his father.
This was to annex territory which would reunite Burgundy with the northern
group of her possessions (Flanders, Brabant, &c.), and to