In consequence of this defection Philippe was compelled to raise the siege of Calais, and soon the English were overrunning the greater part of West Flanders. Henry VI., as soon as he had learned what had happened, sent letters to all the towns which acknowledged his authority, bitterly complaining of 'the disloyal conduct of that most faithless Philippe, commonly called Duke of Burgundy,' who, having acknowledged his suzerainty from his (Henry's) youth upwards, had at length ventured to renounce it. In doing so, the letter continued, Philippe had rendered himself guilty of _lèse-majesté_ and had thereby forfeited all claim to the county of Flanders, which, as its suzerain, Henry now awarded to his own uncle, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. This letter was dated August 30, 1436. Soon all the towns in the neighbourhood of Calais were in Gloucester's hands; at Poperinghe he was solemnly recognized as Count, and presently the English fleet was seen slowly coasting along towards the waters of the Zwyn where De Horne was anchored off Sluys, but dared not go out to engage it. Indeed the news of its approach filled him with such consternation that he fled to shore. His fate is not without significance. Wandering about amongst the sandhills, he presently fell in with a band of Karls, who recognizing in the woe-begone stranger the admiral of their Count's fleet, used him so ill that he died from the effects, at Ostend, a fortnight later. About this time the burghers of Bruges sent an armed force to Sluys, demanding that the fleet and the town should be handed over to them, on the ground that from time immemorial Sluys had been subject to their jurisdiction. But Sluys was a hot-bed of Leliaerts, or Burgundians as they were now called, as it had been since the days of Louis of Maele, and though the Bruges men brought with them an order, signed by the Duchess of Burgundy, and had come ostensibly to defend the port against the English, the governor, Roland van Uutkerk, refused to permit more than forty of them on board ship, and the rest were forced to spend the night in the open, in torrents of rain, save some half-dozen, who perhaps had friends in the city, and somehow or other managed to find a lodging there. These men, however, next morning incurred an inconvenience greater than a wetting. When their comrades remonstrated on the treatment which they had received, the men who had lodged in the city were forthwith thrown out of window. Every other citizen of Bruges, who happened to be in Sluys, was ordered to at once quit the town under penalty of losing his head, and Van Uutkerk, declaring that the whole gang of them were traitors and mutineers, bade them go back to the place from whence they came.