About this time too Ferdinand set out on a journey that he had long had in contemplation--took shipping for Dover, and in due course reached Canterbury and his friend John, nor is it unlikely that during this interview the allies broached for the first time the famous project for the partition of France between England, Flanders, Limburg, Holland, Namur and the Empire, and which, if fate had been kind, would have assured to Ferdinand the provinces of Artois, Picardie and the Ile-de-France, including that Paris where, in days of yore, he had been so diverted by '_les folles filles et les jongleurs_.' Be this as it may, the Flemish Count was the moving spirit and instigator of the whole plot. The outcome of it was the battle of Bouvines, and the outcome of the battle of Bouvines was twelve years' captivity for Ferdinand, the French yoke more firmly riveted to her neck than ever for Flanders, and for England, as we all know, the Great Charter. This, then, was the plight of Flanders at the close of the year 1214. For sovereign she had a young and tearful wife, casting about her for some means to obtain her husband's release, and ready, for the moment, to make any sacrifice to deliver him. On this weak, helpless girl Philip Augustus had imposed as chief counsellor a creature of his own, a degenerate scion of the house of Erembald--one Rodolphe de Nesle, Châtelain of Bruges. Added to this, fortresses had been dismantled, strongholds had been razed, and two-thirds of the chivalry of Flanders were languishing in French prisons. But there was a gleam of hope on the horizon; there was still one man left in Flanders, mighty enough, as every one believed, to save the fatherland from sinking into a mere French province--that same man who, in the days of Philip's treachery, had taken the reins of government into his own strong hands and forced the French King to release his master's daughters. So thought all Flanders, and all Flanders was doomed to disappointment. For, despite his noble qualities and his great parts--a brilliant knight, a ripe scholar, an accomplished diplomatist, and withal a shrewd, hard-headed man of business--Bourchard d'Avesnes was not able to work out his own salvation much less the salvation of Flanders. When in the year 1211 the Flemish princesses returned to their native land, King Philip Augustus had reluctantly confided the younger of them, Marguerite, then a child of some eleven years, to his care until such time as she should have attained marriageable age, and Bourchard had since prolonged the term of his guardianship to one of life-long duration, as he fondly hoped, by espousing her himself: a proceeding which in no little measure enhanced his prestige and influence for the moment. Bourchard had announced his marriage to his sister-in-law, who, at least, had shown no open disapprobation, and after the battle of Bouvines, and the capture of Ferdinand, his star was still in the ascendant. If aught should befall