While Edward I. returned to defeat Wallace at the battle of Falkirk, Flanders was left at Philip’s mercy. The Flemish citizens had no love for their count, and would render him no assistance. In this hopeless position, Guy [Sidenote: War in Flanders.] was induced by the treacherous promises of Charles of Valois to trust to the clemency of his suzerain. He was at once thrown into prison, and his fief was declared forfeited to the crown (1300). On his first visit to his new province, Philip’s cupidity was excited by the wealth which he found there. His wife, Jeanne of Navarre, exclaimed, when she saw the jewellery of the ladies of Bruges: ‘I thought I was the only queen in France, but I find that here there are six hundred.’ The attempt to gratify the greed thus aroused was certain to lead to discontent. The Flemings were as fond of their wealth as they were jealous of their independence. They soon discovered that it was better to be oppressed by their count than to be both oppressed and pillaged by their French governor, Jacques de Chatillon. The signal for a general rebellion was given in Bruges, as twenty years before in Palermo, by a massacre of the French. Philip despatched a large feudal army under Robert of Artois to crush the insurgents. The French nobles reckoned on an easy victory over unwarlike and ill-armed citizens, but they were undone by their own confidence and recklessness, and were utterly routed in the famous battle of Courtrai (July 11, 1302). This was the first of a great series of battles which taught Europe that an infantry force, if properly led and handled, could more than hold their own against mounted and heavily accoutred men-at-arms. It was some time before the lesson was thoroughly learned; but when it was mastered, the military system of the Middle Ages collapsed, and with it perished the social organisation which rested on the invincibility of the knightly force. Philip IV. advanced in person to recover the lost honour and power of France, but the approach of winter compelled him to retire without having done anything towards the suppression of the rebellion. The great disaster of 1302, the first which Philip had yet experienced, came at the crisis of his quarrel with the Papacy, and forced him to moderate his ambition. In 1303 he concluded a final peace with Edward I. and resigned his acquisitions in Aquitaine. In 1304, Boniface VIII. being dead, a great effort was made for the reduction of Flanders. At Mons-en-Puelle (August 18), by carefully avoiding the ruinous mistakes at Courtrai, Philip succeeded in defeating the Flemings; but his victory was hardly won, and was by no means so decisive as that of his opponents had been. Within three weeks the rebels had re-formed their army and were as formidable and undaunted as ever. Philip found himself compelled to recognise that he had undertaken a task beyond his strength, and he hastened to escape from it by concluding a treaty (June, 1305). Robert of Béthune, the