Philip’s first efforts were to wean Flanders from its friendship with England in order that he might use the country for the invasion he had planned to bring about. He died in 1404 before he could carry out his schemes and was succeeded by his son, John the Fearless, whose aim was the French crown, in opposition to the Duke of Orleans who had become supreme in Paris. He marched on the capital, which opened its gates to him, while Orleans took refuge in the south but returned and too confidingly patched up some kind of a peace with Burgundy, who had him assassinated in the streets of Paris in the following year. Out of his murder grew the league of the partisans of Orleans, the “Armagnacs,” who took their name from Count d’Armagnac, father-in-law of one of the daughters of the murdered duke, and the warfare between them and the house of Burgundy. In the meantime Henry V had laid claim to the French throne, had invaded France, and fought the battle of Agincourt. Thus far John the Fearless had kept out of the fight, but now he allied himself with the Dauphin and went to meet him at Montereau to seal his allegiance. Here he was in turn slain by the Armagnacs in revenge for his own murder of the Duke of Orleans, and his son, Philip the Good, at once threw himself into the arms of England, against France, and it was he who handed over the B. Jeanne d’Arc to the Bishop of Beauvais, after her capture at Compiègne in 1430, as a witch and sorceress. Philip was more devoted to his new possessions than to his native Burgundy, and under him Bruges and Ghent took precedence of his old capital of Dijon. Philip also was the founder of the Order of the Golden Fleece on the occasion of one of his numerous marriages, this time in Bruges and to the Countess of Nevers. The marriage was a great event in many ways, for to it came the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, he being then Regent of France for the English king and realising that the triumphant career of Jeanne d’Arc was having results that urged him to make the most of the Duke of Burgundy, the only friend left to his royal master. The Golden Fleece, the oldest order on the Continent, was instituted in particular honour of Flanders, and especially the city of Bruges, the world centre of the wool trade. There were to be but twenty-four knights, under the leadership of the duke, and they were granted extraordinary privileges, amongst them immunity from all other states, princes and laws, being subject only to their sovereign master, though they remained citizens of their respective states, whatever those may have been. Philip II of Spain did away with this intolerable anomaly, and in 1725 the order was divided between Spain and Austria, so losing wholly its original and most distinctive quality as a signal honour especially pertaining to Flanders.