Henry III took the hansa of London under his special protection and promised the Flemish traders that they should not be molested even if war broke out between England and France, unless Flanders took an active part in the conflict. The Flemish trade constituted a large source of revenue for the English kings, and it was still as essential, at the time, to the prosperity of England as to that of Flanders. Since the increased power of the French crown had rendered direct opposition impossible, the British kings did their best to favour Flemish neutrality and to enter into close friendship with the only Belgian princes who had preserved their full independence, the dukes of Brabant. The latter belonged to the last national dynasty ruling in the country and were therefore particularly popular. The Battle of Woeringen (1288), in which Duke John I succeeded in defeating the powerful Archbishop of Cologne and his allies, established his supremacy between the Meuse and the Rhine and gave him the full control of the road from Cologne to Ghent, through Louvain and Brussels, which brought Brabant into line with Flanders's trade and industry. Brabant became thus the national bulwark against foreign influence and the political stronghold of Belgium, a position which it never completely relinquished, even through the cruel vicissitudes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. [_BRABANT_] If the prosperity of Brabant did not yet equal that of Flanders, the dukes possessed greater authority over their subjects and enjoyed far more independence. Edward I, when preparing for war against France, fully appreciated these advantages, and gave his daughter Margaret in marriage to the son of John I. Antwerp benefited largely from the Anglo-Brabanconne alliance, since, when the English kings forbade the importation of wool into Flanders, following some conflict with France, the English merchants found a suitable market in the Scheldt port in close communication with the centres of Brabant's cloth industry, Louvain, Brussels and Malines.