He rode forth to battle, the hero of his court and of the chivalry of England; but no less, as it happened, the champion of her middle classes, who cheerfully put their hands in their pockets to pay for his first campaigns. The reason of their enthusiasm for this war was that Philip of Valois, in order to annoy his rival, had commanded his Flemish subjects to trade no longer with the English. Now English sheep were the best in Europe (so valuable that their export was forbidden lest another nation should obtain the breed), and English wool was the raw material of all others on which Flanders depended for the wealth and prosperity gained by her looms and factories. Before this time English kings had encouraged Flemish trade, establishing ‘Staple’ markets in certain towns under their protection, where merchants of both countries could meet and bargain over their wares. Wishing to retaliate on Philip VI, however, Edward III stopped the export of wool, though at the same time he offered good terms and advantages to any of the manufacturers of Bruges and Ghent who might care to settle in Norfolk or on the East Coast and set up factories there as English subjects. Such a suggestion could not satisfy the Flemish national spirit, and in the large towns discontent with the French king grew daily. At last one of the popular leaders, Jacob van Artevelde, ‘the Brewer of Ghent’, began to rouse his countrymen by inflammatory speeches. ‘He showed them’, says the chronicler, ‘that they could not live without the King of England’; and his many commercial arguments he strengthened with others intended to win those who might hesitate to break their oath of allegiance, assuring them that Edward III was in truth by right of birth King of France. Rebellion sprang up on all sides in response; and when, in 1338, Edward III actually embarked on the war, he had behind him not only the English wool-farmers, but also the majority of Flemish merchants and artisans, alike convinced that his victory would open Flemish markets to trade across the Channel. The Hundred Years’ War falls into two distinct periods: the first, the contest waged by the Angevin Edward III against the House of Valois, a struggle that lasted until 1375; the second, a similar effort begun by the Lancastrian Kings of England in 1415 after a time of almost suspended hostilities under Richard II. In each period there is the same switchback course to the campaigns, as they rise towards a high-water mark of English successes only to sink away to final French achievement.