l legates to France
and England to settle the points in dispute. For the next three years
these prelates pursued their mission with energy and persistence,
though with little result.

A fresh dispute further embittered the personal relations of Philip and
Edward. In 1336, Edward offered a refuge in England to Robert of Artois,
Philip's brother-in-law and mortal enemy. The grandson of the Count
Robert of Artois who was slain in 1302 at Courtrai, Robert of Artois was
indignant that the rich county of Artois should, according to local
custom, have devolved upon his aunt Maud, the wife of Otto, Count of
Burgundy, or Franche Comte, and the mother-in-law of the last two kings
of the direct Capetian line. Though he had failed in several suits to
obtain it, Robert renewed his claim after his brother-in-law became King
of France. It was soon proved that the charters upon which he relied to
prove his title had been forged. The sudden death of the Countess of
Artois, followed quickly by that of her daughter and heiress, added the
suspicion of poisoning to the certainly of forgery. Robert was deprived
of all his possessions and was exiled from France. Driven from his first
refuge in Brabant by Philip's indignant hostility, he found shelter in
England, where he was received with a favour which Philip bitterly
resented. Condemned in his absence as a traitor, and devoured by a
ferocious hatred of Philip and his Burgundian wife, Robert did all that
he could to inflame the mind of Edward against the French king. French
romance of the next generation, in the poem of the _Vow of the
Heron_,[1] tells how Robert, returning to Edward's court from the chase,
brought as his only victim a heron, which he offered to the king as the
most timid of birds to the most cowardly of kings; "for, sire," he
declared, "you have not dared to claim the realm of France which belongs
to you by hereditary right". Stirred up by this challenge, Edward swore
to God and the heron that within a year he would place the crown of
France on Queen Philippa's brow. This famous legend is, however, a
fiction. It was not until later that Edward seriously renewed the claim
which he had advanced in 1328. But when once war became certain, the
challenge of the French throne was bound to be made, and the dissolution
of the friendly personal relations of the two kings, which had so long
prevented either from proceeding to extremities, was certainly in large
part the work of Robert