52 HISTORY OF FRANCE. [chap. murdering her husband. This was but a year before Charles IV. found himself dying, and devised that, if the child shortly expected, proved to be a son, its guardian should be his cousin, Philip, Count of Valois ; if it were a daughter, the twelve peers and high barons of France should award the kingdom to whoever had the best right. He died in 1328, and the child was a daughter. CHAPTER V. THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR. 1. Accession of Philip VI., 1328. — On the birth of the posthumous daughter of Charles IV., Philip, Count oj Valois, son of the second son of Philip III., took the title of king, but there were two others to claim it. One was Lewis Rutin's daughter Joan, who had married Philip, Count of Evreux, whom Philip of Valois bought off by giving up the kingdom of Navarre, which had been kept in the hands of her uncles. The other was Kdxvard III. of England, whose claim was that, though a woman might not reign in France, she could transmit the right to her son, and that he was the male heir nearest in blood to the late king Charles IV. But Edward was at that time only sixteen years old, and in spite of his protest, he paid his homage at Philip's coronation, and only renewed his claim some years later at the persuasion of Robert of Artois. This man had been disappointed of the inheritance of Artois, which the parliament had adjudged to a female heir. After in vain trying to back up his cause by forgery, he lied to England in 1330, and practised magical arts to cause Philip's death. On Edward's refusal to surrender him, Piiilip all the more harassed the English lands in Gascony, and in fact his attempts dn Aquitaine were the real cause which drove the king of Engl.ind into war. 2. War with the English in Flanders, 1337. — Lewis, Count of Flivuliis, was a friend and ally of Philip, b^it he was harsli and grasping towards his burgher subjects, the great cloth-workers. In the fust year of Philip's reign, they rose, and the King and Count together had defeated them at CasscL and took such vengeance on
