with the French, and kept Edward’s son-in-law and ally, John, Duke of Brabant, from sending effective help to the Flemings.  Moreover, the Flemish townsmen, in their dislike of their count, were largely on the side of the French.  Edward’s little army could do nothing to redress a balance that already inclined so heavily on the other side.  The Flemings were disappointed at the scanty numbers of the English men-at-arms, and stared with wonder and contempt at the bare-legged Welsh archers and lancemen, with their uncouth garb, strange habits of eating and fighting, and propensity to pillage and disorder, though they recognised their hardihood and the effectiveness of their missiles.[1] The same disorderly spirit that had marred the Rioms campaign still prevailed among the English engaged on foreign service.  No sooner were the troops landed at Sluys on August 28, than the mariners of the Cinque Ports renewed their old feud with the men of Yarmouth, and many ships were destroyed and lives lost in this untimely conflict.  Edward advanced to Bruges, where he was joined by the Count of Flanders, but the disloyalty of the townsmen and the approach of King Philip forced the king and the earl to take shelter behind the stronger walls of Ghent.  Immediately on their retreat, Philip occupied Bruges and Damme, thus cutting off the English from the direct road to the sea.  The Anglo-Flemish army was afraid to attack the powerful force of the French king.  But the French had learnt by experience a wholesome fear of the English and Welsh archers, and did not venture to approach Ghent too closely.  The ridiculous result followed that the Kings of France and England avoided every opportunity of fighting out their quarrel, and lay, wasting time and money, idly watching each other’s movements.

[1] See for Flemish criticisms of the Welsh, L. van Velthem, Spiegel Historiaal, pp. 215-16, ed.  Le Long, partly translated by Funck Brentano in his edition of Annales Qandenses, p. 7, a work giving full details of these struggles.

The only dignified way of putting an end to this impossible situation lay in negotiation.  Edward’s faithful servant, William of Hotham, the Dominican friar whom the pope had appointed Archbishop of Dublin, was in the English camp.  Hotham, who had enjoyed Philip’s personal friendship while teaching theology in the Paris schools, was an acceptable mediator between the two kings.  A short truce was signed at Vyve-Saint-Bavon on the Lys on October 7.  This allowed time for more elaborate negotiations to be carried on at Courtrai and Tournai, and on January 31, 1298, a truce, in which the allies of both kings were included, was signed at Tournai, to last until January 6, 1300.  It was agreed to refer all questions in dispute to the arbitration of Boniface VIII, “not as pope but as a private person, as Benedict Gaetano”.  Both kings despatched their envoys to Rome, where with marvellous celerity Boniface issued, on June