“ Ferdinand, son of Sancho I., king of Portugal, owed his county to Philip, who, hoping to find him a docile protégé, had married him to Jeanne, heiress of Flanders, daughter of Count Baldwin IX., who became emperor of the East, using the weak Philip of Namur, her guardian, to accomplish that end. They were married in January 1212. On the morrow of the marriage Louis, afterwards Louis VIII., seized Aire and St Omer in right of his mother, Isabella, and on this account Ferdinand refused his feudal duty in the English expedition. ”

“ But John, joined by William des Roches and other lords of Maine and Poitou, jealous at the increase of Philip's power, defeated and took Arthur prisoner at Mirebeau. Philip abandoned the siege of Arques in a fit of fury, marched to the Loire, burning everywhere, and then returned to Paris. But John soon alienated the Poitevin barons, and William des Roches signed a treaty with Philip on the 22nd of March 1203. Then Philip continued his great task, the conquest of Normandy, capturing the towns around the fortress of Château-Gaillard which Richard had built to command the valley of the Seine. ”

“ He could not even trust his own son with any power, and was brutal in his relations with his queen, Ingeborg. He is described by Paiën Gatineau as “a well-knit, handsome man, bald (from his illness at Acre) , of agreeable face and ruddy complexion, loving good cheer, wine and women. ”

“ He secured an ally against them, and an addition to the royal domain, by marrying, on the 28th of April 1180, Isabella or Elizabeth, daughter of Baldwin V, count of Hainaut, and of Marguerite, sister of Philip of Alsace, the reigning count of Flanders, who ceded Arras, St Omer, Aire and Hesdin, and their districts, as Isabella’s dowry, a district afterwards called Artois On the 28th of June 1180 Philip made a treaty with Henry II. at Gisors, and his reign thus opened auspiciously. ”