ays the
Flemish writer, John van Klerk, "all who spoke the German tongue
rejoiced at the defeat of the French". Yet the victory at Sluys was the
prelude to a land campaign as ineffective as the raid into the
Thierache. Eager to restore their lost lands to the Flemings, Edward
made the mistake of dividing his army. He sent Robert of Artois to
effect the reconquest of Artois, while he himself besieged Tournai,
which was then in French hands. Robert's attempt to win back the lands
of his ancestors was a sorry failure. Defeated outside Saint Omer, he
was unable even to invest that town. Almost equally unsuccessful was
Edward's siege of Tournai, which resisted with such energy that he was
soon at the end of his resources. At last, in despair, Edward
challenged Philip VI. to decide their claim to France by single combat.
The Valois answered that he would gladly do so if, in the event of his
winning, he might obtain Edward's kingdom. In the same spirit of
caution, Philip tarried half-way between Saint Omer and Tournai,
watching both armies and afraid to strike at either. The armies wore
themselves out in this game of waiting until the widowed Countess of
Hainault, then abbess of the Cistercian nuns of Fontenelles, was moved
by the desolation of the country to intervene between the two kings.
The mother of the Queen of England and the sister of the King of
France, she succeeded not only by reason of her prayers, but through
the refusal of the Duke of Brabant, the Count of Hainault, and the
other imperial vassals to remain longer at the war. On September 25,
1340, a truce was signed at the solitary chapel of Esplechin, situated
in the open country a little south of Tournai. By it hostilities
between both kings and their respective allies were suspended, until
midsummer day, 1341. Each king was to enjoy the lands actually in his
possession, and commerce was to be carried on as if peace had been
made. The most significant clause of the truce was that by which both
kings pledged themselves that they "procure not that any innovation be
done by the Church of Rome, or by others of Holy Church on either of
the said kings. And if our most holy father the pope will do that, the
two kings shall prevent it, so far as in them lies."

The truce of Esplechin, renewed until 1345, put an end to the first, or
Netherlandish, period of the Hundred Years' War. The imperial alliance,
which had failed Edward, was soon to be solemnly dissolved. Early