In 1338 the people rose against their count, and Jacques Van Artevelde of Ghent became the acknowledged leader of the movement. These risings differed from the "Matines brugeoises" in that the aristocracy took part in them as well as the craftsmen. Van Artevelde was not a workman like De Coninck. He was a rich landowner and had great interests in the cloth trade. His aim was not only to preserve the country's independence, but to safeguard its prosperity. Approached by Edward III's delegates, he tried at first to maintain a purely neutral attitude, but, when the English king landed in Antwerp with supplies of wool, he was obliged to side with England. The "Wise Man of Ghent" suggested, however, that in order to relieve the Communes of their oath of allegiance to Philip of Valois, who had succeeded the Capetians, Edward should declare himself the true king of France. The struggle which followed the destruction of the French fleet at Sluis (1340) was protracted, no decision being reached at the siege of Tournai. Edward was called back to England by the restlessness of his own subjects, while the Flemish artisans were unwilling indefinitely to hold the field against the French armies. The departure of the English forces caused great bitterness among the people, who accused Van Artevelde of having betrayed them, and in the course of a riot the once popular tribune was killed by the mob (1345). Froissart, his enemy, pays him a generous tribute: "The poor exalted him, the wicked killed him." His son Philip, Queen Philippa's godson, vainly endeavoured to succeed where his father had failed. After leading a revolt against the pro-French Count Louis de Male, he was defeated by the French in 1382 and died on the battlefield. All these struggles had weakened Flanders considerably. By chasing German merchants from Bruges (1380), Louis de Male had brought about the decadence of this port in favour of Antwerp, where the English were soon to transfer the wool market. Political persecutions had driven a great many of the artisans to England, to the great advantage of English industry. Hundreds of houses in Bruges remained empty, Ypres was half destroyed, and Ghent had lost a considerable part of its population. Civil war had exhausted the country's resources during the last years of the fourteenth century. In the country-side the dykes were neglected, great stretches of "polders" were again flooded by the sea, and wolves and bears infested the woods. The restoration of Flanders to its previous prosperity did not take place before the middle of the fifteenth century, as a result of the wise rule of the dukes of Burgundy. CHAPTER VIII THE CATHEDRAL OF TOURNAI