The courtship falls to the house of Avennes, Counts of Hainault.
Holland, together with Zeland, which it had annexed, is thus joined to the province of Hainault.

At the end of another half century the Hainault line expires.

William the Fourth died childless in 1355.

His death is the signal for the outbreak of an almost interminable series of civil commotions.

Those two great, parties, known by the uncouth names of Hook and Kabbeljaw, come into existence, dividing noble against noble, city against city, father against son, for some hundred and fifty years, without foundation upon any abstract or intelligible principle.