Nor were these _internal_ feuds upon a minor scale. Jacques van Artevelde, the Masaniello of Flanders, and more generally known as “_the Brewer of Ghent_,” from his having joined the guild of that trade, from which he was afterwards chosen by fifty other corporations of tradesmen, as the head of each, was enabled to organize such an army of the city companies, as to render his alliance an object of importance to Edward III of England, when making his preparations for invading France. Under this extraordinary “tribune of the people,” Ghent was enabled, virtually, to cast off its allegiance to the courts of Flanders, to elect Artevelde as their Ruwaert or Protector, and to bid defiance to their native sovereign, backed by all the power of France. Artevelde became the personal friend and counsellor of the English King, who sent ambassadors to his court, and entered into alliance with the city he commanded in conjunction with that of Bruges and Ypres. It was at the suggestion of Artevelde, that Edward quartered the arms of France and assumed the fleur de lis, which for so many centuries was borne upon the shield of England; and it was in the palace of the Flemish demagogue, that Queen Philippa gave birth to a son, whose name has made Ghent familiar in the annals of England:-- “Old John of _Gaunt_, time honoured Lancaster.” The Ruwaert in honour of Philippa gave her name to his son, who, at a subsequent period, became the demagogue of Ghent, and who, “Dire rebel though he was, Yet with a noble nature and great gifts Was he endowed: courage, discretion, wit, An equal temper and an ample soul, Rock bound and fortified against assaults Of transitory passion: but below Built on a surgeing subterranean fire That stirred and lifted him to high attempts, So prompt and capable, and yet so calm. He nothing lacked in sovereignty but the right; Nothing in soldiership except good fortune.” _Taylor’s Philip van Artevelde._ But the fate, like the fortune of Artevelde, was characteristic of the proverbial caprice and vacillations of republican popularity. After being for ten years or more, the idol of the people, he presumed to induce them to expel the Counts of Flanders from the succession, and to acknowledge the Black Prince, the son of his friend, as their sovereign in his stead; but his followers, startled at so bold a proposition, made a pretence for getting rid of their “protector,” and massacred Artevelde in his own house, which they burned to the ground, “Poor men raised him,” says Froissart, “and wicked men slew him.”