The preparations on both sides were gigantic. The English people looked with favor upon the war against France, and, in spite of the Magna Charta, the king was allowed to seize the Cornish tin and all the wool grown during the year, although they had already granted him all the subsidies and loans which he had demanded. Edward embarked at Orwell on the 15th of July, 1338, and landed four days afterwards at Antwerp. The Count of Flanders was an ally of the King of France, but his towns scarcely obeyed him, as they were then under the influence of a brewer of Ghent, named Jacques van Arteveldt, who contracted a friendship with King Edward. {294} He had negotiated with even more illustrious allies; the Emperor of Germany, the Dukes of Brabant and Gueldres, the Counts of Hainault and Namur. All had received his money; but the troops did not arrive, and when, on the 1st of July, 1339, the King of England at length succeeded in crossing the French frontier, the Counts of Namur and Hainault immediately abandoned him, and his other confederates soon did likewise. The king was compelled to return, after having, by the advice of Arteveldt, assumed the title of King of France, and added to his coat of arms the lily side by side with the lions of England. The Parliament, as ardent in the cause of the war as the king himself, voted enormous subsidies, and, on the 22nd of June, 1340, Edward again left England, to attack the French vessels of war, huddled together in the port of Sluys. Queen Philippa had accompanied her husband, taking with her a great number of ladies in waiting. The French and Genoese vessels hired by King Philip were numerous and very large; when they sailed out of port, attached together by iron chains and formed in four divisions, and advanced to dispute his passage, Edward uttered a cry of joy. "Ah!" said he, "I have long desired to fight with the French. So shall I meet some of them to-day, by the grace of God and St. George." He began to gain the offing; his adversaries already imagined that he declined an engagement, but he was really desirous of avoiding the ardent rays of the sun and of attacking briskly the first division of the French fleet, of which he soon made himself master in spite of a vigorous resistance. [Image] The Battle Of Sluys. {295}