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498 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE ure. As the comparatively unimportant reign of Louis VIII had intervened between those of Philip Augustus and St. Louis, so that of Philip III comes between the more momen- tous reigns of St. Louis and Philip the Fair (1285-13 14). Philip IV was a good-looking blond, whence his epithet of "the Fair"; his manners and conversation were refined; he was outwardly religious; but we hardly know whether he or his legal advisers really controlled the government. At any rate, the royal power was now further developed; the records of foreign embassies and diplomacy greatly in- creased in bulk; and the amount of royal taxation and ex- tortion multiplied. Philip's reign is further notable for his relations with England and Flanders, for the first known session of the Estates General, the national assembly cor- responding to the English Parliament, and for his struggle with and triumph over the Papacy. Philip the Fair resumed the policy of Philip Augustus of trying to bring Flanders and the Continental possessions of Situation in the King of England under his control. Flanders, Flanders ^vith its large towns and flourishing industries and trade, was of great economic value and was naturally coveted by the French king. But the Flemish towns had close economic relations with England, whence they ob- tained much of the raw wool for their weaving industries, and whose import trade too they largely controlled. Flan- ders, however, was divided within itself. Besides its count there were rival parties in the communes themselves. As elsewhere in northern France, toward the close of the thir- teenth century there were uprisings of the artisans against the few rich burghers who had secured control of the ma- chinery of municipal government and distributed all the offices and favors among themselves, while they not only taxed the masses heavily, but kept wages down to starva- tion rates. This caused risings against the ruling class in 1280 and 1281 in Bruges, Ghent, Tournai, Ypres, and Douai in Flanders, as well as in some towns of northern France. In the reign of Philip the Fair the rich burghers and employ- ers of labor looked to France for aid and the workingmen to