When great national interests are to such a point misconceived and injured, there crop up, before long, clear-sighted and bold men who undertake the championship of them, and foment the quarrel to explosion-heat, either from personal views or patriotic feeling. The question of succession to the throne of France seemed settled by the inaction of the King of England, and the formal homage he had come and paid to the King of France at Amiens; but it was merely in abeyance. Many people both in England and in France still thought of it and spoke of it; and many intrigues bred of hope or fear were kept up with reference to it at the courts of the two kings. When the rumblings of anger were loud on both sides in consequence of affairs in Flanders, two men of note, a Frenchman and a Fleming, considering that the hour had come, determined to revive the question, and turn the great struggle which could not fail to be excited thereby to the profit of their own and their countries’ cause, for it is singular how ambition and devotion, selfishness and patriotism, combine and mingle in the human soul, and even in great souls.
Philip VI. had embroiled himself with a prince of his line, Robert of Artois, great-grandson of Robert the first Count of Artois, who was a brother of St. Louis, and was killed during the crusade in Egypt, at the battle of Mansourah. As early as the reign of Philip the Handsome Robert claimed the count-ship of Artois as his heritage; but having had his pretensions rejected by a decision of the peers of the kingdom, he had hoped for more success under Philip of Valois, whose sister he had married. Philip tried to satisfy him with another domain raised to a peerage; but Robert, more and more discontented, got involved in a series of intrigues, plots, falsehoods, forgeries, and even, according to public report, imprisonments and crimes, which, in 1332, led to his being condemned by the court of peers to banishment and the confiscation of his property. He fled for refuge first to Brabant, and then to England, to the court of Edward III., who received him graciously, and whom he forthwith commenced inciting to claim the crown of France, “his inheritance,” as he said, “which King Philip holds most wrongfully.” Edward III., who was naturally prudent, and had been involved, almost ever since his accession, in a stubborn war with Scotland, cared but little for rushing into a fresh and far more serious enterprise. But of all human passions hatred is perhaps the most determined in the prosecution of its designs. Robert accompanied the King of England in his campaigns northward; and “Sir,” said he, whilst they were marching together over the heaths of Scotland, “leave this poor country, and give your thoughts to the noble crown of France.” When Edward, on returning to London, was self-complacently rejoicing at his successes over his neighbors, Robert took pains to pique his self-respect, by expressing astonishment that he did not seek more practical and more brilliant successes. Poetry sometimes reveals sentiments and processes about which history is silent. We read in a poem of the fourteenth century, entitled The vow on the heron, “In the season when summer is verging upon its decline, and the gay birds are forgetting their sweet converse on the trees, now despoiled of their verdure, Robert seeks for consolation in the pleasures of fowling, for he cannot forget the gentle land of France, the glorious country whence he is an exile. He carries a falcon, which goes flying over the waters till a heron falls its prey; then he calls two young damsels to take the bird to the king’s palace, singing the while in sweet discourse: ‘Fly, fly, ye honorless knights; give place to gallants on whom love smiles; here is the dish for gallants who are faithful to their mistresses. The heron is the most timid of birds, for it fears its own shadow; it is for the heron to receive the vows of King Edward, who, though lawful King of France, dares not claim that noble heritage.’ At these words the king flushed, his heart was wroth, and he cried aloud, ‘Since coward is thrown in my teeth, I make vow [on this heron] to the God of Paradise that ere a single year rolls by I will defy the King of Paris.’ Count Robert hears and smiles; and low to his own heart he says, ‘Now have I won: and my heron will cause a great war.’”