restitution of Gascony. "We cannot give you an award," declared the pope
to the English envoys in 1300. "If we pronounced in your favour, the
French would not abide by it, and could not be compelled, for they would
make light of any penalty." "What the French once lay hold of," he said
again, "they never let go, and to have to do with the French is to have
to do with the devil."[1] A year later Boniface could do no more than
appeal to the crusading zeal of Edward not to allow his claim on a patch
of French soil to stand between him and his vow. With such commonplaces
the papal mediation died away.

[1] See the remarkable report of the Bishop of Winchester to
Edward printed in _Engl. Hist. Review_, xvii. (1902), pp.
518-27.

Two events in 1302 indirectly contributed towards the establishment of
a permanent peace. These were the successful revolt of Flanders from
French domination, and the renewed quarrel between Philip and Boniface.
On May 18, the Flemings, in the "matins of Bruges," cruelly avenged
themselves for the oppressions which they had endured from Philip's
officials, and on July 11 the revolted townsfolk won the battle of
Courtrai, in which their heavy armed infantry defeated the feudal
cavalry of France, a victory of the same kind as that Wallace had
vainly hoped to gain at Falkirk. Even before the Flemish rising, the
reassertion of high sacerdotal doctrine in the bull _Ausculta, fili_
had renewed the strife between Boniface and the French king. A few
months later the bull _Unam sanctam_ laid down with emphasis the
doctrine that those who denied that the temporal sword belongs to St.
Peter were heretics, unmindful of the teachings of Christ. Thus began
the famous difference that went on with ever-increasing fury until the
outrage at Anagni, on September 7, 1303, brought about the fall of