| | | _d._ 1102 | of Brabant | _d._ 1102 | | | | | | | | | | +----+ | | | | | | | | | | *Baldwin II. *=William Cliton= *Stephen | | | _d._ 1133 _d._ 1128 of England | | | | _d._ 1154 | | | | | | | Baldwin III.-------------------------------------+ | | | _d._ 1171 | | | +------------------------------+ | | | | | | +------------------+ +---+----------------+ | | | | | | *Arnulph Lauretta = Ivan, =Philip= = Elizabeth =Marguerite= = =Baldwin IV.= of Count _d._ of of =Hainault= Denmark of 1191 Vermandois and =VII.= of Alost =Flanders= [*] Claimants to the County of Flanders on the death of Charles the Good. Louis had already determined who should be the new count, but he was wise enough to gild the bitter pill, and when the barons reached Arras he adroitly persuaded them to elect William Cliton, and to secure also the acquiescence of the burghers. William was only fourth in the order of succession, but he and Louis had married two sisters, and the French Queen naturally enough desired to befriend a kinsman on whom fortune had never yet smiled. Besides, the arrangement fitted in exactly with Louis's own views. The friendship of Flanders was to him a matter of far greater moment than the law of primogeniture, he had known William all his life, and he felt that he could trust him. His young favourite would doubtless, too, prove a dangerous rival to Henry Beauclerc, the one man whom Louis feared; with the aid of his Flemish vassals he would be able to wrest his Norman inheritance from the English King, and perhaps also the crown of England itself. When the burghers of Bruges learned what had happened, they were cut to the quick. That Louis should have offered the communes of Flanders a voice in the election of their Count, and then presumed to foist on them the man of his own choice, was something more than injury--it was an insult. But the French King was backed by a great army; the burghers were shrewd enough to see that it was more politic to obey, and thus preserve the outward form of liberty, than to refuse to do so at a time when opposition was certain to be barren of profitable results, and on the evening of Tuesday (Easter Tuesday), the 6th of April, Louis and his nominee were permitted to enter Bruges.