From the commencement of his reign the French King had persistently worried the Count of Flanders with a policy of exasperation which culminated, in 1296, in the decoying and detention of his favourite daughter Phillippine. This it was which at length drove Guy to openly break with his suzerain, and on the 7th of January 1297, after signing on the previous day at Winendael an offensive and defensive alliance with Edward of England, he despatched the abbots of Gembloux and of Florceffe to Paris to inform the French King that on account of his evil deeds and his perfidy, Count Guy of Flanders henceforth held himself to be quit, delivered and absolved from all bonds, alliances, conventions, obediences, and services by which he might hitherto have been bound to him. Philippe replied by invading Flanders at the head of 60,000 men. The greater communes, of whose rights and liberties he posed as the champion, received him with open arms, and so hard pressed were Count Guy and his allies that early in October (1297) they were glad to consent to an armistice which was afterwards prolonged to a truce of three years. Having thus for the moment discarded the trade of war, Philippe busied himself with diplomacy; purchased the defection of Albert of Nassau; concluded a secret treaty with the English King, affiancing his daughter Isabelle to the Prince of Wales, and his sister Marguerite to Edward himself. Thus on the very day when the truce expired he was enabled to pour his troops into Flanders with every anticipation of a successful and speedy issue. Nor was he doomed to disappointment. What could Guy do? Betrayed by his burghers, without friends and without cash, by the end of April he had lost all heart, and presently he was on his knees at Ardenburg before Charles of Valois, the French commander, humbly suing for peace. Absolute submission to the King's mercy, total abandonment of the remnant of territory which he still held, and a journey to Paris along with two of his sons and fifty of his barons, there to treat face to face with the King--these were the only terms upon which Valois would consent to relinquish hostilities, but he guaranteed to Guy, in the King's name, that if he failed to obtain peace in the course of the year, he should be free to return to Flanders. Stern as the conditions were, Guy and his little following forthwith set out for Paris, but only on their arrival there to be thrown into prison. Philippe was not bound, he said, by a treaty to which he had never assented, and presently, having obtained judgment from his lawyers that Guy had forfeited his dominions by reason of felony, he took possession of the entire county, and declared it annexed to the French crown. This was early in the year 1300. 'The burghers of the Flemish cities,' says a German historian, 'had been all corrupted by the gold or the promises of the French King, who would never have dared to cross their frontiers if they had been