When they arrived at Gravelines the bishop refused their request for a safe-conduct, but told them to tell the earl that he was not warring against Flanders, nor was his army an army of England, but of Pope Urban, and that, although the greater portion of Flanders was Urbanist, the Lord of Bar--in whose dominion Gravelines stood--was for Clement, and so were his people. If he and they would acknowledge Pope Urban, he would march away without doing damage and paying for all he took, but unless they did so he would force them to submit. The people of Artois, however, who were French rather than Flemings, took the matter in their own hands, and twelve thousand men, under some knights from Nieuport and other towns, marched to Dunkirk and then to Mardyck, a large village not far from Gravelines.