In 1279, John I of Hainaut (or John II of Avesnes), son of another John and Margaret of Holland, son and grandson of Margaret II of Flanders, acceded to the County of Hainaut following the death of his grandmother. He preferred to live in Mons rather than in Le Quesnoy. In perpetual struggle against the Dampierres, he could not so much as collect additional taxes on his middle classes, that they, in desperation, seeing their industries decline, appealed to the Count of Flanders, Dampierre. A truce was concluded on 14 October 1292 through the intervention of the Duke John I of Brabant who was given custody of Le Quesnoy castle, until the conclusion of a peace treaty: the treaty became effective in 1297. But John made the people who had previously dared to make an appeal against him to the Count of Flanders regret their behaviour: many citizens of Hainaut were imprisoned and died in the castle vaults of Le Quesnoy. Drapers and weavers of (with their jobs and know-how) started to flee Le Quesnoy even before 1292, we find some settled in the city of Reims in Champagne. John who did not like Le Quenoy, offered it in 1301 by will to his son Raoul de Clermont, Constable of France. He, however, was killed in 1302 in battle of Courtrai. He then left the town in appanage to Gauthier, lord of Enghien and to Jacques de Verchain Seneschal of Hainaut, provided that if his wife Philippa of Luxembourg survived him, the town and its revenues should revert to him, she was widowed in 1304 and it actually reverted to John that year.