CHAPTER XX.----THE HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR.--PHILIP VI. AND JOHN II.

We have just been spectators at the labor of formation of the French

kingship and the French nation. We have seen monarchical unity and

national unity rising, little by little, out of and above the feudal

system, which had been the first result of barbarians settling upon the

ruins of the Roman empire. In the fourteenth century, a new and a vital

question arose: Will the French dominion preserve its nationality? Will

the kingship remain French, or pass to the foreigner? This question

brought ravages upon France, and kept her fortunes in suspense for a

hundred years of war with England, from the reign of Philip of Valois to

that of Charles VII.; and a young girl of Lorraine, called Joan of Arc,

had the glory of communicating to France that decisive impulse which

brought to a triumphant issue the independence of the French nation and

kingship.

As we have seen in the preceding chapter, the elevation of Philip of

Valois to the throne, as representative of the male line amongst the

descendants of Hugh Capet, took place by virtue, not of any old written

law, but of a traditional right, recognized and confirmed by two recent

resolutions taken at the death of the two eldest sons of Philip the

Handsome. The right thus promulgated became at once a fact accepted by

the whole of France; Philip of Valois had for rival none but a foreign

prince, and “there was no mind in France,” say contemporary chroniclers,

“to be subjects of the King of England.” Some weeks after his accession,

on the 29th of May, 1328, Philip was crowned at Rheims, in presence of a

brilliant assemblage of princes and lords, French and foreign; and next

year, on the 6th of June, Edward III., King of England, being summoned to

fulfil a vassal’s duties by doing homage to the King of France for the

duchy of Aquitaine, which he held, appeared in the cathedral of Amiens,

with his crown on his head, his sword at his side, and his gilded spurs

on his heels. When he drew near to the throne, the Viscount de Melun,

king’s chamberlain, invited him to lay aside his crown, his sword, and

his spurs, and go down on his knees before Philip. Not without a murmur,

Edward obeyed; but when the chamberlain said to him, “Sir, you, as Duke

of Aquitaine, became liegeman of my lord the king who is here, and do

promise to keep towards him faith and loyalty,” Edward protested, saying

that he owed only simple homage, and not liege-homage--a closer bond,

imposing on the vassal more stringent obligations [to serve and defend

his suzerain against every enemy whatsoever]. “Cousin,” said Philip to

him, “we would not deceive you, and what you have now done contenteth us

well until you have returned to your own country, and seen from the acts

of your predecessors what you ought to do.”

[Illustration: Homage of Edward III. to Philip VI.----250]

“Gramercy, dear sir,” answered the King of England; and with the

reservation he had just made, and which was added to the formula of

homage, he placed his hands between the hands of the King of France, who

kissed him on the mouth, and accepted his homage, confiding in Edward’s

promise to certify himself by reference to the archives of England of the

extent to which his ancestors had been bound. The certification took

place, and on the 30th of March, 1331, about two years after his visit to

Amiens, Edward III. recognized, by letters express, “that the said homage

which we did at Amiens to the King of France in general terms, is and

must be understood as liege; and that we are bound, as Duke of Aquitaine

and peer of France, to show him faith and loyalty.”

The relations between the two kings were not destined to be for long

so courteous and so pacific. Even before the question of the succession

to the throne of France arose between them they had adopted contrary

policies. When Philip was crowned at Rheims, Louis de Nevers, Count of

Flanders, repaired thither with a following of eighty-six knights, and he

it was to whom the right belonged of carrying the sword of the kingdom.

The heralds-at-arms repeated three times, “Count of Flanders, if you are

here, come and do your duty.” He made no answer. The king was

astounded, and bade him explain himself. “My lord,” answered the count,

“may it please you not to be astounded; they called the Count of

Flanders, and not Louis de Nevers.” “What then!” replied the king; “are

you not the Count of Flanders?” “It is true, sir,” rejoined the other,

“that I bear the name, but I do not possess the authority; the burghers

of Bruges, Ypres, and Cassel have driven me from my land, and there

scarce remains but the town of Ghent where I dare show myself.” “Fair

cousin,” said Philip, we will swear to you by the holy oil which hath

this day trickled over our brow that we will not enter Paris again before

seeing you reinstated in peaceable possession of the countship of

Flanders.” Some of the French barons who happened to be present

represented to the king that the Flemish burghers were powerful; that

autumn was a bad season for a war in their country; and that Louis the

Quarreller, in 1315, had been obliged to come to a stand-still in a

similar expedition. Philip consulted his constable, Walter de Chatillon,

who had served the kings his predecessors in their wars against Flanders.

“Whoso hath good stomach for fight,” answered the constable, “findeth all

times seasonable.” “Well, then,” said the king, embracing him, “whoso

loveth me will follow me.” The war thus resolved upon was forthwith

begun. Philip, on arriving with his army before Cassel, found the place

defended by sixteen thousand Flemings under the command of Nicholas

Zannequin, the richest of the burghers of Furnes, and already renowned

for his zeal in the insurrection against the count. For several days the

French remained inactive around the mountain on which Cassel is built,

and which the knights, mounted on iron-clad horses, were unable to scale.

The Flemings had planted on a tower of Cassel a flag carrying a cock,

with this inscription:--

“When the cock that is hereon shall crow,

The foundling king herein shall go.”

They called Philip the foundling king because he had no business to

expect to be king. Philip in his wrath gave up to fire and pillage the

outskirts of the place. The Flemings marshalled at the top of the

mountain made no movement. On the 24th of August, 1328, about three in

the afternoon, the French knights had disarmed. Some were playing at

chess; others “strolled from tent to tent in their fine robes, in search

of amusement; “and the king was asleep in his tent after a long carouse,

when all on a sudden his confessor, a Dominican friar, shouted out that

the Flemings were attacking the camp. Zannequin, indeed, “came out full

softly and without a bit of noise,” says Froissart, with his troops in

three divisions, to surprise the French camp at three points. He was

quite close to the king’s tent, and some chroniclers say that he was

already lifting his mace over the head of Philip, who had armed in hot

haste, and was defended only by a few knights, of whom one was waving the

oriflamme round him, when others hurried up, and Zannequiii was forced to

stay his hand. At two other points of the camp the attack had failed.

The French gathered about the king and the Flemings about Zannequin; and

there took place so stubborn a fight, that “of sixteen thousand Flemings

who were there not one recoiled,” says Froissart, “and all were left

there dead and slain in three heaps one upon another, without budging

from the spot where the battle had begun.” The same evening Philip

entered Cassel, which he set on fire, and, in a few days afterwards, on

leaving for France, he said to Count Louis, before the French barons,

Count, I have worked for you at my own and my barons’ expense; I give you

back your land, recovered and in peace; so take care that justice be kept

up in it, and that I have not, through your fault, to return; for if I

do, it will be to my own profit and to your hurt.”

The Count of Flanders was far from following the advice of the King of

France, and the King of France was far from foreseeing whither he would

be led by the road upon which he had just set foot. It has already been

pointed out to what a position of wealth, population, and power,

industrial and commercial activity had in the thirteenth century raised

the towns of Flanders, Bruges, Ghent, Lille, Ypres, Fumes, Courtrai, and

Douai, and with what energy they had defended against their lords their

prosperity and their liberties. It was the struggle, sometimes sullen,

sometimes violent, of feudal lordship against municipal burgherdom. The

able and imperious Philip the Handsome had tested the strength of the

Flemish cities, and had not cared to push them to extremity. When, in

1322, Count Louis de Nevers, scarcely eighteen years of age, inherited

from his grandfather Robert III. the countship of Flanders, he gave

himself up, in respect of the majority of towns in the countship, to the

same course of oppression and injustice as had been familiar to his

predecessors; the burghers resisted him with the same, often ruffianly,

energy; and when, after a six years’ struggle amongst Flemings, the Count

of Flanders, who had been conquered by the burghers, owed his return as

master of his countship to the King of the French, he troubled himself

about nothing but avenging himself and enjoying his victory at the

expense of the vanquished. He chastised, despoiled, proscribed, and

inflicted atrocious punishments; and, not content with striking at

individuals, he attacked the cities themselves. Nearly all of them,

save Ghent, which had been favorable to the count, saw their privileges

annulled or curtailed of their most essential guarantees. The burghers

of Bruges were obliged to meet the count half way to his castle of Vale,

and on their knees implore his pity. At Ypres the bell in the tower was

broken up. Philip of Valois made himself a partner in these severities;

he ordered the fortifications of Bruges, Ypres, and Courtrai to be

destroyed, and he charged French agents to see to their demolition.

Absolute power is often led into mistakes by its insolence; but when it

is in the hands of rash and reckless mediocrity, there is no knowing how

clumsy and blind it can be. Neither the King of France nor the Count of

Flanders seemed to remember that the Flemish communes had at their door a

natural and powerful ally who could not do without them any more than

they could do without him. Woollen stuffs, cloths, carpets, warm

coverings of every sort were the chief articles of the manufactures and

commerce of Flanders; there chiefly was to be found all that the active

and enterprising merchants of the time exported to Sweden, Norway,

Hungary, Russia, and even Asia; and it was from England that they chiefly

imported their wool, the primary staple of their handiwork. “All

Flanders,” says Froissart, “was based upon cloth and no wool, no cloth.”

On the other hand it was to Flanders that England, her land-owners and

farmers, sold the fleeces of their flocks; and the two countries were

thus united by the bond of their mutual prosperity. The Count of

Flanders forgot or defied this fact so far as in 1336, at the

instigation, it is said, of the King of France, to have all the English

in Flanders arrested and kept in prison. Reprisals were not long

deferred. On the 5th of October in the same year the King of England

ordered the arrest of all Flemish merchants in his kingdom and the

seizure of their goods; and he at the same time prohibited the

exportation of wool. “Flanders was given over,” says her principal

historian, “to desolation; nearly all her looms ceased rattling on one

and the same day, and the streets of her cities, but lately filled with

rich and busy workmen, were overrun with beggars who asked in vain for

work to escape from misery and hunger.” The English land-owners and

farmers did not suffer so much, but were scarcely less angered; only it

was to the King of France and the Count of Flanders rather than their own

king that they held themselves indebted for the stagnation of their

affairs, and their discontent sought vent only in execration of the

foreigner.

When great national interests are to such a point misconceived and

injured, there crop up, before long, clear-sighted and bold men who

undertake the championship of them, and foment the quarrel to

explosion-heat, either from personal views or patriotic feeling.

The question of succession to the throne of France seemed settled by the

inaction of the King of England, and the formal homage he had come and

paid to the King of France at Amiens; but it was merely in abeyance.

Many people both in England and in France still thought of it and spoke

of it; and many intrigues bred of hope or fear were kept up with

reference to it at the courts of the two kings. When the rumblings of

anger were loud on both sides in consequence of affairs in Flanders, two

men of note, a Frenchman and a Fleming, considering that the hour had

come, determined to revive the question, and turn the great struggle

which could not fail to be excited thereby to the profit of their own and

their countries’ cause, for it is singular how ambition and devotion,

selfishness and patriotism, combine and mingle in the human soul, and

even in great souls.

Philip VI. had embroiled himself with a prince of his line, Robert of

Artois, great-grandson of Robert the first Count of Artois, who was a

brother of St. Louis, and was killed during the crusade in Egypt, at the

battle of Mansourah. As early as the reign of Philip the Handsome Robert

claimed the count-ship of Artois as his heritage; but having had his

pretensions rejected by a decision of the peers of the kingdom, he had

hoped for more success under Philip of Valois, whose sister he had

married. Philip tried to satisfy him with another domain raised to a

peerage; but Robert, more and more discontented, got involved in a series

of intrigues, plots, falsehoods, forgeries, and even, according to public

report, imprisonments and crimes, which, in 1332, led to his being

condemned by the court of peers to banishment and the confiscation of

his property. He fled for refuge first to Brabant, and then to England,

to the court of Edward III., who received him graciously, and whom he

forthwith commenced inciting to claim the crown of France, “his

inheritance,” as he said, “which King Philip holds most wrongfully.”

Edward III., who was naturally prudent, and had been involved, almost

ever since his accession, in a stubborn war with Scotland, cared but

little for rushing into a fresh and far more serious enterprise. But of

all human passions hatred is perhaps the most determined in the

prosecution of its designs. Robert accompanied the King of England in

his campaigns northward; and “Sir,” said he, whilst they were marching

together over the heaths of Scotland, “leave this poor country, and give

your thoughts to the noble crown of France.” When Edward, on returning

to London, was self-complacently rejoicing at his successes over his

neighbors, Robert took pains to pique his self-respect, by expressing

astonishment that he did not seek more practical and more brilliant

successes. Poetry sometimes reveals sentiments and processes about which

history is silent. We read in a poem of the fourteenth century, entitled

The vow on the heron, “In the season when summer is verging upon its

decline, and the gay birds are forgetting their sweet converse on the

trees, now despoiled of their verdure, Robert seeks for consolation in

the pleasures of fowling, for he cannot forget the gentle land of France,

the glorious country whence he is an exile. He carries a falcon, which

goes flying over the waters till a heron falls its prey; then he calls

two young damsels to take the bird to the king’s palace, singing the

while in sweet discourse: ‘Fly, fly, ye honorless knights; give place to

gallants on whom love smiles; here is the dish for gallants who are

faithful to their mistresses. The heron is the most timid of birds, for

it fears its own shadow; it is for the heron to receive the vows of King

Edward, who, though lawful King of France, dares not claim that noble

heritage.’ At these words the king flushed, his heart was wroth, and he

cried aloud, ‘Since coward is thrown in my teeth, I make vow [on this

heron] to the God of Paradise that ere a single year rolls by I will defy

the King of Paris.’ Count Robert hears and smiles; and low to his own

heart he says, ‘Now have I won: and my heron will cause a great war.’”

Robert’s confidence in this tempter’s work of his was well founded, but a

little premature. Edward III. did not repel him; complained loudly of

the assistance rendered by the King of France to the Scots; gave an

absolute refusal to Philip’s demands for the extradition of the rebel

Robert, and retorted by protesting, in his turn, against the reception

accorded in France to David Bruce, the rival of his own favorite Baliol

for the throne of Scotland. In Aquitaine he claimed as of his own domain

some places still occupied by Philip. Philip, on his side, neglected no

chance of causing Edward embarrassment, and more or less overtly

assisting his foes. The two kings were profoundly distrustful one of the

other, foresaw, both of them, that they would one day come to blows, and

prepared for it by mutually working to entangle and enfeeble one another.

But neither durst as yet proclaim his wishes or his fears, and take the

initiative in those unknown events which war must bring about to the

great peril of their people and perhaps of themselves. From 1334 to

1337, as they continued to advance towards the issue, foreseen and at the

same time deferred, of this situation, they were both of them seeking

allies in Europe for their approaching struggle. Philip had a notable

one under his thumb, the pope at that time settled at Avignon; and he

made use of him for the purpose of proposing a new crusade, in which

Edward III. should be called upon to join with him. If Edward complied,

any enterprise on his part against France would become impossible; and if

he declined, Christendom would cry fie upon him. Two successive popes,

John XXII. and Benedict XII., preached the crusade, and offered their

mediation to settle the differences between the two kings; but they were

unsuccessful in both their attempts. The two kings strained every nerve

to form laic alliances. Philip did all he could to secure to himself the

fidelity of Count Louis of Flanders, whom the King of England several

times attempted, but in vain, to win over. Philip drew into close

relations with himself the Kings of Bohemia and Navarre, the Dukes of

Lorraine and Burgundy, the Count of Foix, the Genoese, the Grand Prior of

the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and many other lords. The two

principal neighbors of Flanders, the Count of Hainault and the Duke of

Brabant, received the solicitations of both kings at one and the same

time. The former had to wife Joan of Valois, sister of the King of

France, but he had married his daughter Philippa to the King of England;

and when Edward’s envoys came and asked for his support in “the great

business “which their master had in view.” “If the king can succeed in

it,” said the count, “I shall be right glad. It may well be supposed

that my heart is with him, him who hath my daughter, rather than with

King Philip, though I have married his sister; for he hath filched from

me the hand of the young Duke of Brabant, who should have wedded my

daughter Isabel, and hath kept him for a daughter of his own. So help

will I my dear and beloved son the King of England to the best of my

power. But he must get far stronger aid than mine, for Hainault is but a

little place in comparison with the kingdom of France, and England is too

far off to succor us.” “Dear sir,” said the envoys, “advise us of what

lords our master might best seek aid, and in what he might best put his

trust.” “By my soul,” said the count, “I could not point to lord so

powerful to aid him in this business as would be the Duke of Brabant, who

is his cousin-german, the Duke of Gueldres, who hath his sister to wife,

and Sire de Fauquemont. They are those who would have most men-at-arms

in the least time, and they are right good soldiers; provided that money

be given them in proportion, for they are lords and men who are glad of

pay.” Edward III. went for powerful allies even beyond the Rhine; he

treated with Louis V. of Bavaria, Emperor of Germany; he even had a

solemn interview with him at a diet assembled at Coblenz, and Louis named

Edward vicar imperial throughout all the empire situated on the left bank

of the Rhine, with orders to all the princes of the Low Countries to

follow and obey him, for a space of seven years, in the field. But Louis

of Bavaria was a tottering emperor, excommunicated by the pope, and with

a formidable competitor in Frederick of Austria. When the time for

action arrived, King John of Bohemia, a zealous ally of the French king,

persuaded the Emperor of Germany that his dignity would be compromised if

he were to go and join the army of the English king, in whose pay he

would appear to have enlisted; and Louis of Bavaria withdrew from his

alliance with Edward III., sending back the subsidies he had received

from him.

Which side were the Flemings themselves to take in a conflict of such

importance, and already so hot even before it had reached bursting point?

It was clearly in Flanders that each king was likely to find his most

efficient allies; and so it was there that they made the most strenuous

applications. Edward III. hastened to restore between England and the

Flemish communes the commercial relations which had been for a while

disturbed by the arrest of the traders in both countries. He sent into

Flanders, even to Ghent, ambassadors charged to enter into negotiations

with the burghers; and one of the most considerable amongst these

burghers, Solver of Courtrai, who had but lately supported Count Louis in

his quarrels with the people of Bruges, loudly declared that the alliance

of the King of England was the first requirement of Flanders, and gave

apartments in his own house to one of the English envoys. Edward

proposed the establishment in Flanders of a magazine for English wools;

and he gave assurance to such Flemish weavers as would settle in England

of all the securities they could desire. He even offered to give his

daughter Joan in marriage to the son of the Count of Flanders. Philip,

on his side, tried hard to reconcile the communes of Flanders to their

count, and so make them faithful to himself; he let them off two years’

payment of a rent due to him of forty thousand livres of Paris per annum;

he promised them the monopoly of exporting wools from France; he

authorized the Brugesmen to widen the moats of their city, and even to

repair its ramparts. The King of England’s envoys met in most of the

Flemish cities with a favor which was real, but intermingled with prudent

reservations, and Count Louis of Flanders remained ever closely allied

with the King of France, “for he was right French and loyal,” says

Froissart, “and with good reason, for he had the King of France almost

alone to thank for restoring him to his country by force.”

Whilst, by both sides, preparations were thus being made on the Continent

for war, the question which was to make it burst forth was being decided

in England. In the soul of Edward temptation overcame indecision. As

early as the month of June, 1336, in a Parliament assembled at

Northampton, he had complained of the assistance given by the King of

France to the Scots, and he had expressed a hope that if the French and

the Scots were to join, they would at last offer him battle, which the

latter had always carefully avoided.” In September of the same year he

employed similar language in a Parliament held at Nottingham, and he

obtained therefrom subsidies for the war going on not only in Scotland,

but also in Aquitaine, against the French king’s lieutenants. In April

and May of the following year, 1337, he granted to Robert of Artois, his

tempter for three years past, court favors which proved his resolution to

have been already taken. On the 21st of August following he formally

declared war against the King of France, and addressed to all the

sheriffs, archbishops, and bishops of his kingdom a circular in which he

attributed the initiative to Philip; on the 26th of August he gave his

ally, the Emperor of Germany, notice of what he had just done, whilst,

for the first time, insultingly describing Philip as “setting himself up

for King of France.” At last, on the 7th of October, 1337, he proclaimed

himself King of France, as his lawful inheritance, designating as

representatives and supporters of his right the Duke of Brabant, the

Marquis of Juliers, the Count of Haiiiault, and William de Bohun, Earl of

Northampton.

The enterprise had no foundation in right, and seemed to have few chances

of success. If the succession to the crown of France had not been

regulated beforehand by a special and positive law, Philip of Valois had

on his side the traditional right of nearly three centuries past and

actual possession without any disputes having arisen in France upon the

subject. His title had been expressly declared by the peers of the

kingdom, sanctioned by the Church, and recognized by Edward himself, who

had come to pay him homage. He had the general and free assent of his

people: to repeat the words of the chroniclers of the time, “There was no

mind in France to be subjects of the King of England.” Philip VI. was

regarded in Europe as a greater and more powerful sovereign than Edward

III. He had the pope settled in the midst of his kingdom; and he often

traversed it with an array of valiant nobility whom he knew how to

support and serve on occasion as faithfully as he was served by them.

“He was highly prized and honored,” says Froissart, “for the victory he

had won (at Cassel) over the Flemings, and also for the handsome service

he had done his cousin Count Louis. He did thereby abide in great

prosperity and honor, and he greatly increased the royal state; never had

there been king in France, it was said, who had kept state like King

Philip, and he provided tourneys and jousts and diversions in great

abundance.” No national interest, no public ground, was provocative of

war between the two peoples; it was a war of personal ambition, like that

which in the eleventh century William the Conqueror had carried into

England. The memory of that great event was still, in the fourteenth

century, so fresh in France, that when the pretensions of Edward were

declared, and the struggle was begun, an assemblage of Normans, barons

and knights, or, according to others, the Estates of Normandy themselves,

came and proposed to Philip to undertake once more, and at their own

expense, the conquest of England, if he would put at their head his

eldest son, John, their own duke. The king received their deputation at

Vincennes, on the 23d of March, 1339, and accepted their offer. They

bound themselves to supply for the expedition four thousand men-at-arms

and twenty thousand foot, whom they promised to maintain for ten weeks,

and even a fortnight beyond, if, when the Duke of Normandy had crossed to

England, his council should consider the prolongation necessary. The

conditions in detail and the subsequent course of the enterprise thus

projected were minutely regulated and settled in a treaty published by

Dutillet in 1588, from a copy found at Caen when Edward III. became

master of that city in 1346. The events of the war, the long fits of

hesitation on the part of both kings, and the repeated alternations from

hostilities to truces and truces to hostilities, prevented anything from

coming of this proposal, the authenticity of which has been questioned by

M. Michelet amongst others, but the genuineness of which has been

demonstrated by M. Adolph Despont, member of the appeal-court of Caen, in

his learned Histoire du Cotentin.

Edward III., though he had proclaimed himself King of France, did not at

the outset of his claim adopt the policy of a man firmly resolved and

burning to succeed. From 1337 to 1340 he behaved as if he were at strife

with the Count of Flanders rather than with the King of France. He was

incessantly to and fro, either by embassy or in person, between England,

Flanders, Hainault, Brabant, and even Germany, for the purpose of

bringing the princes and people to actively co-operate with him against

his rival; and during this diplomatic movement such was the hostility

between the King of England and the Count of Flanders that Edward’s

ambassadors thought it impossible for them to pass through Flanders in

safety, and went to Holland for a ship in which to return to England.

Nor were their fears groundless; for the Count of Flanders had caused to

be arrested, and was still detaining in prison at the castle of

Rupelmonde, the Fleming Sohier of Courtrai, who had received into his

house at Ghent one of the English envoys, and had shown himself favorable

to their cause. Edward keenly resented these outrages, demanded, but did

not obtain, the release of Sohier of Courtrai, and by way of revenge gave

orders in November, 1337, to two of his bravest captains, the Earl of

Derby and Walter de Manny, to go and attack the fort of Cadsand, situated

between the Island of Walcheren and the town of Ecluse (or Sluys), a post

of consequence to the Count of Flanders, who had confided the keeping of

it to his bastard brother Guy, with five thousand of his most faithful

subjects. It was a sanguinary affair. The besieged were surprised, but

defended themselves bravely; the landing cost the English dear; the Earl

of Derby was wounded and hurled to the ground, but his comrade, Walter de

Manny, raised him up with a shout to his men of “Lancaster, for the Earl

of Derby; “and at last the English prevailed. The Bastard of Flanders

was made prisoner; the town was pillaged and burned; and the English

returned to England, and “told their adventure,” says Froissart, “to the

king, who was right joyous when he saw them and learned how they had

sped.”

Thus began that war which was to be so cruel and so long. The Flemings

bore the first brunt of it. It was a lamentable position for them; their

industrial and commercial prosperity was being ruined; their security at

home was going from them; their communal liberties were compromised;

divisions set in amongst them; by interest and habitual intercourse they

were drawn towards England, but the count, their lord, did all he could

to turn them away from her, and many amongst them were loath to separate

themselves entirely from France. “Burghers of Ghent, as they chatted in

the thoroughfares and at the cross-roads, said one to another, that they

had heard much wisdom, to their mind, from a burgher who was called James

Van Artevelde, and who was a brewer of beer. They had heard him say

that, if he could obtain a hearing and credit, he would in a little while

restore Flanders to good estate, and they would recover all their gains

without standing ill with the King of France or the King of England.

These sayings began to get spread abroad, insomuch that a quarter or half

the city was informed thereof, especially the small folks of the

commonalty, whom the evil touched most nearly. They began to assemble in

the streets, and it came to pass that one day, after dinner, several went

from house to house calling for their comrades, and saying, ‘Come and

hear the wise man’s counsel.’ On the 26th of December, 1337, they came

to the house of the said James Van Artevelde, and found him leaning

against his door.

[Illustration: Van Artevelde at his Door----264]

Far off as they were when they first perceived him, they made him a deep

obeisance, and ‘Dear sir,’ they said, ‘we are come to you for counsel;

for we are told that by your great and good sense you will restore the

country of Flanders to good case. So tell us how.’ Then James Van

Artevelde came forward, and said, ‘Sirs comrades, I am a native and

burgher of this city, and here I have my means. Know that I would gladly

aid you with all my power, you and all the country; if there were here a

man who would be willing to take the lead, I would be willing to risk

body and means at his side; and if the rest of ye be willing to be

brethren, friends and comrades to me, to abide in all matters at my side,

notwithstanding that I am not worthy of it, I will undertake it

willingly.’ Then said all with one voice, ‘We promise you faithfully to

abide at your side in all matters and to therewith adventure body and

means, for we know well that in the whole countship of Flanders there is

not a man but you worthy so to do.’” Then Van Artevelde bound them to

assemble on the next day but one in the grounds of the monastery of

Biloke, which had received numerous benefits from the ancestors of Sohier

of Courtrai, whose son-in-law Van Artevelde was.

This bold burgher of Ghent, who was born about 1285, was sprung from a

family the name of which had been for a long while inscribed in their

city upon the register of industrial corporations. His father, John Van

Artevelde, a cloth-worker, had been several times over sheriff of Ghent,

and his mother, Mary Van Groete, was great aunt to the grandfather of the

illustrious publicist called in history Grotius. James Van Artevelde in

his youth accompanied Count Charles of Valois, brother of Philip the

Handsome, upon his adventurous expeditions in Italy, Sicily, and Greece,

and to the Island of Rhodes; and it had been close by the spots where the

soldiers of Marathon and Salamis had beaten the armies of Darius and

Xerxes that he had heard of the victory of the Flemish burghers and

workmen attacked in 1302, at Courtrai, by the splendid army of Philip the

Handsome. James Van Artevelde, on returning to his country, had been

busy with his manufactures, his fields, the education of his children,

and Flemish affairs up to the day when, at his invitation, the burghers

of Ghent thronged to the meeting on the 28th of December, 1337, in the

grounds of the monastery of Biloke. There he delivered an eloquent

speech, pointing out, unhesitatingly but temperately, the policy which he

considered good for the country. “Forget not,” he said, “the might and

the glory of Flanders. Who, pray, shall forbid that we defend our

interests by using our rights? Can the King of France prevent us from

treating with the King of England? And may we not be certain that if we

were to treat with the King of England, the King of France would not be

the less urgent in seeking our alliance? Besides, have we not with us

all the communes of Brabant, of Hainault, of Holland, and of Zealand?”

The audience cheered these words; the commune of Ghent forthwith

assembled, and on the 3d of January, 1337 [according to the old style,

which made the year begin at the 25th of March], re-established the

offices of captains of parishes according to olden usage, when the city

was exposed to any pressing danger. It was carried that one of these

captains should have the chief government of the city; and James Van

Artevelde was at once invested with it. From that moment the conduct of

Van Artevelde was ruled by one predominant idea: to secure free and fair

commercial intercourse for Flanders with England, whilst observing a

general neutrality in the war between the Kings of England and France,

and to combine so far all the communes of Flanders in one and the same

policy. And he succeeded in this twofold purpose. “On the 29th of

April, 1338, the representatives of all the communes of Flanders (the

city of Bruges numbering amongst them a hundred and eight deputies)

repaired to the castle of Male, a residence of Count Louis, and then

James Van Artevelde set before the count what had been resolved upon

amongst them. The count submitted, and swore that he would thenceforth

maintain the liberties of Flanders in the state in which they had existed

since the treaty of Athies. In the month of May following a deputation,

consisting of James Van Artevelde and other burghers appointed by the

cities of Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres scoured the whole of Flanders, from

Bailleul to Termonde, and from Ninove to Dunkerque, “to reconcile the

good folks of the communes to the Count of Flanders, as well for the

count’s honor as for the peace of the country.” Lastly, on the 10th of

June, 1338, a treaty was signed at Anvers between the deputies of the

Flemish communes and the English ambassadors, the latter declaring: “We

do all to wit that we have negotiated way and substance of friendship

with the good folks of the communes of Flanders, in form and manner

herein-after following:--

“First, they shall be able to go and buy the wools and other merchandise

which have been exported from England to Holland, Zealand, or any other

place whatsoever; and all traders of Flanders who shall repair to the

ports of England shall there be safe and free in their persons and their

goods, just as in any other place where their ventures might bring them

together.

“Item, we have agreed with the good folks and with all the common country

of Flanders that they must not mix nor inter-meddle in any way, by

assistance of men or arms, in the wars of our lord the king and the noble

Sir Philip of Valois (who holdeth himself for King of France).”

Three articles following regulated in detail the principles laid down in

the first two, and, by another charter, Edward III. ordained that “all

stuffs marked with the seal of the city of Ghent might travel freely in

England without being subject according to ellage and quality to the

control to which all foreign merchandise was subject.” (_Histoire de

Flandre,_ by M, le Baron Kerwyn de Lettenhove, t. iii. pp. 199-203.)

Van Artevelde was right in telling the Flemings that, if they treated

with the King of England, the King of France would be only the more

anxious for their alliance. Philip of Valois, and even Count Louis of

Flanders, when they got to know of the negotiations entered into between

the Flemish communes and King Edward, redoubled their offers and promises

to them. But when the passions of men have taken full possession of

their souls, words of concession and attempts at accommodation are

nothing more than postponements or lies. Philip, when he heard about the

conclusion of a treaty between the Flemish communes and the King of

England, sent word to Count Louis “that this James Van Artevelde must

not, on any account, be allowed to rule, or even live, for, if it were so

for long, the count would lose his land.” The count, very much disposed

to accept such advice, repaired to Ghent and sent for Van Artevelde to

come and see him at his hotel. He went, but with so large a following

that the count was not at the time at all in a position to resist him.

He tried to persuade the Flemish burgher that “if he would keep a hand on

the people so as to keep them to their love for the King of France, he

having more authority than any one else for such a purpose, much good

would result to him: mingling, besides, with this address, some words of

threatening import.” Van Artevelde, who was not the least afraid of the

threat, and who at heart was fond of the English, told the count that he

would do as he had promised the communes. “Hereupon he left the count,

who consulted his confidants as to what he was to do in this business,

and they counselled him to let them go and assemble their people, saying

that they would kill Van Artevelde secretly or otherwise. And indeed,

they did lay many traps and made many attempts against the captain; but

it was of no avail, since all the commonalty was for him.” When the

rumor of these projects and these attempts was spread abroad in the city,

the excitement was extreme, and all the burghers assumed white hoods,

which was the mark peculiar to the members of the commune when they

assembled under their flags; so that the count found himself reduced to

assuming one, for he was afraid of being kept captive at Ghent, and, on

the pretext of a hunting party, he lost no time in gaining his castle of

Male.

The burghers of Ghent had their minds still filled with their late alarm

when they heard that, by order, it was said, of the King of France, Count

Louis had sent and beheaded at the castle of Rupehuonde, in the very bed

in which he was confined by his infirmities, their fellow-citizen Solver

of Courtrai, Van Artevelde’s father-in-law, who had been kept for many

months in prison for his intimacy with the English. On the same day the

Bishop of Senlis and the Abbot of St. Denis had arrived at Tournay, and

had superintended the reading out in the market-place of a sentence of

excommunication against the Ghentese.

It was probably at this date that Van Artevelde, in his vexation and

disquietude, assumed in Ghent an attitude threatening and despotic even

to tyranny. “He had continually after him,” says Froissart, “sixty or

eighty armed varlets, amongst whom were two or three who knew some of his

secrets. When he met a man whom he had hated or had in suspicion, this

man was at once killed, for Van Artevelde had given this order to his

varlets: ‘The moment I meet a man, and make such and such a sign to you,

slay him without delay, however great he may be, without waiting for more

speech.’ In this way he had many great masters slain. And as soon as

these sixty varlets had taken him home to his hotel, each went to dinner

at his own house; and the moment dinner was over they returned and stood

before his hotel, and waited in the street until that he was minded to go

and play and take his pastime in the city, and so they attended him till

supper-time. And know that each of these hirelings had per diem four

groschen of Flanders for their expenses and wages, and he had them

regularly paid from week to week. . . . And even in the case of all

that were most powerful in Flanders, knights, esquires, and burghers of

the good cities, whom he believed to be favorable to the Count of

Flanders, them he banished from Flanders, and levied half their revenues.

He had levies made of rents, of dues on merchandise, and all the revenues

belonging to the count, wherever it might be in Flanders, and he

disbursed them at his will, and gave them away without rendering any

account. . . . And when he would borrow of any burghers on his word

for payment, there was none that durst say him nay. In short, there was

never in Flanders, or in any other country, duke, count, prince, or

other, who can have had a country at his will as James Van Artevelde had

for a long time.”

It is possible that, as some historians have thought, Froissart, being

less favorable to burghers than to princes, did not deny himself a little

exaggeration in this portrait of a great burgher-patriot transformed by

the force of events and passions into a demagogic tyrant. But some of us

may have too vivid a personal recollection of similar scenes to doubt the

general truth of the picture; and we shall meet before long in the

history of France during the fourteenth century with an example still

more striking and more famous than that of Van Artevelde.

Whilst the Count of Flanders, after having vainly attempted to excite an

uprising against Van Artevelde, was being forced, in order to escape from

the people of Bruges, to mount his horse in hot haste, at night and

barely armed, and to flee away to St. Omer, Philip of Valois and Edward

III. were preparing, on either side, for the war which they could see

drawing near. Philip was vigorously at work on the pope, the Emperor of

Germany, and the princes neighbors of Flanders, in order to raise

obstacles against his rival or rob him of his allies. He ordered that

short-lived meeting of the states-general about which we have no

information left us, save that it voted the principle that “no talliage

could be imposed on the people if urgent necessity or evident utility

should not require it, and unless by concession of the Estates.” Philip,

as chief of feudal society, rather than of the nation which was forming

itself little by little around the lords, convoked at Amiens all his

vassals, great and small, laic or cleric, placing all his strength in

their co-operation, and not caring at all to associate the country itself

in the affairs of his government. Edward, on the contrary, whilst

equipping his fleet and amassing treasure at the expense of the Jews and

Lombard usurers, was assembling his Parliament, talking to it “of this

important and costly war,” for which he obtained large subsidies, and

accepting without making any difficulty the vote of the Commons’ House,

which expressed a desire “to consult their constituents upon this

subject, and begged him to summon an early Parliament, to which there

should be elected, in each county, two knights taken from among the best

land-owners of their counties.” The king set out for the Continent; the

Parliament met and considered the exigencies of the war by land and sea,

in Scotland and in France; traders, ship-owners, and mariners were called

and examined; and the forces determined to be necessary were voted.

Edward took the field, pillaging, burning, and ravaging, “destroying all

the country for twelve or fourteen leagues to extent,” as he himself said

in a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. When he set foot on French

territory, Count William of Hainault, his brother-in-law, and up to that

time his ally, came to him and said that “he would ride with him no

farther, for that his presence was prayed and required by his uncle, the

King of France to whom he bore no hate, and whom he would go and serve in

his own kingdom, as he had served King Edward on the territory of the

emperor, whose vicar he was; “and Edward wished him ‘God speed!’” Such

was the binding nature of feudal ties that the same lord held himself

bound to pass from one camp to another, according as he found himself

upon the domains of one or the other of his suzerains in a war one

against the other. Edward continued his march towards St. Quentin, where

Philip had at last arrived with his allies, the Kings of Bohemia,

Navarre, and Scotland, “after delays which had given rise to great

scandal and murmurs throughout the whole kingdom.” The two armies, with

a strength, according to Froissart, of a hundred thousand men on the

French side, and forty-four thousand on the English, were soon facing one

another, near Buironfosse, a large burgh of Picardy. A herald came from

the English camp to tell the King of France that the King of England

“demanded of him battle. To which demand,” says Froissart, “the King of

France gave willing assent, and accepted the day, which was fixed at

first for Thursday the 21st, and afterwards for Saturday the 25th of

October, 1339.” To judge from the somewhat tangled accounts of the

chroniclers and of Froissart himself, neither of the two kings was very

anxious to come to blows. The forces of Edward were much inferior to

those of Philip; and the former had accordingly taken up, as it appears,

a position which rendered attack difficult for Philip. There was much

division of opinion in the French camp. Independently of military

grounds, a great deal was said about certain letters from Robert, King of

Naples, “a mighty necromancer and full of mighty wisdom, it was reported,

who, after having several times cast their horoscopes, had discovered by

astrology and from experience, that, if his cousin, the King of France,

were to fight the King of England, the former would be worsted.” “In

thus disputing and debating,” says Froissart, “the time passed till full

midday. A little afterwards a hare came leaping across the fields, and

rushed amongst the French. Those who saw it began shouting and making a

great halloo. Those who were behind thought that those who were in front

were engaging in battle; and several put on their helmets and gripped

their swords. Thereupon several knights were made; and the Count of

Hainault himself made fourteen, who were thenceforth nicknamed Knights of

the Hare.” Whatever his motive may have been, Philip did not attack; and

Edward promptly began a retreat. They both dismissed their allies; and

during the early days of. November, Philip fell back upon St. Quentin,

and Edward went and took up his winter quarters at Brussels.

For Edward it was a serious check not to have dared to attack the king

whose kingdom he made a pretence of conquering; and he took it grievously

to heart. At Brussels he had an interview with his allies, and asked

their counsel. Most of the princes of the Low Countries remained

faithful to him, and the Count of Hainault seemed inclined to go back to

him; but all hesitated as to what he was to do to recover from the check.

Van Artevelde showed more invention and more boldness. The Flemish

communes had concentrated their forces not far from the spot where the

two kings had kept their armies looking at one another; but they had

maintained a strict neutrality, and at the invitation of the Count of

Flanders, who promised them that the King of France would entertain all

their claims, Artevelde and Breydel, the deputies from Ghent and Bruges,

even repaired to Courtrai to make terms with him. But as they got there

nothing but ambiguous engagements and evasive promises, they let the

negotiation drop, and, whilst Count Louis was on his way to rejoin Philip

at St. Quentin, Artevelde, with the deputies from the Flemish communes,

started for Brussels. Edward, who was already living on very

confidential terms with him, told him that “if the Flemings were minded

to help him to keep up the war, and go with him whithersoever he would

take them, they should aid him to recover Lille, Douai, and B4thune, then

occupied by the King of France. Artevelde, after consulting his

colleagues, returned to Edward, and, ‘Dear sir,’ said he, ‘you have

already made such requests to us, and verily if we could do so whilst

keeping our honor and faith, we would do as you demand; but we be bound,

by faith and oath, and on a bond of two millions of florins entered into

with the pope, not to go to war with the King of France without incurring

a debt to the amount of that sum, and a sentence of ex-communication; but

if you do that which we are about to say to you, if you will be pleased

to adopt the arms of France, and quarter them with those of England, and

openly call yourself King of France, we will uphold you for true King of

France; you, as King of France, shall give us quittance of our faith; and

then we will obey you as King of France, and will go whithersoever you

shall ordain.’”

This prospect pleased Edward mightily: but “it irked him to take the name

and arms of that of which he had as yet won no tittle.” He consulted his

allies. Some of them hesitated; but “his most privy and especial

friend,” Robert d’Artois, strongly urged him to consent to the proposal.

So a French prince and a Flemish burgher prevailed upon the King of

England to pursue, as in assertion of his avowed rights, the conquest of

the kingdom of France. King, prince, and burgher fixed Ghent as their

place of meeting for the official conclusion of the alliance; and there,

in January, 1340, the mutual engagement was signed and sealed. The King

of England “assumed the arms of France quartered with those of England,”

and thenceforth took the title of King of France.

Then burst forth in reality that war which was to last a hundred years;

which was to bring upon the two nations the most violent struggles, as

well as the most cruel sufferings, and which, at the end of a hundred

years, was to end in the salvation of France from her tremendous peril,

and the defeat of England in her unrighteous attempt. In January, 1340,

Edward thought he had won the most useful of allies; Artevelde thought

the independence of the Flemish communes and his own supremacy in his own

country secured; and Robert d’Artois thought with complacency how he had

gratified his hatred for Philip of Valois. And all three were deceiving

themselves in their joy and their confidence.

Edward, leaving Queen Philippa at Ghent with Artevelde for her adviser,

had returned to England, and had just obtained from the Parliament, for

the purpose of vigorously pushing on the war, a subsidy almost without

precedent, when he heard that a large French fleet was assembling on the

coasts of Zealand, near the port of Ecluse (or Sluys), with a design of

surprising and attacking him when he should cross over again to the

Continent. For some time past this fleet had been cruising in the

Channel, making descents here and there upon English soil, at Plymouth,

Southampton, Sandwich, and Dover, and everywhere causing alarm and

pillage. Its strength, they said, was a hundred and forty large vessels,

“without counting the smaller,” having on board thirty-five thousand men,

Normans, Picards, Italians, sailors and soldiers of all countries, under

the command of two French leaders, Hugh Quiret, titular admiral, and

Nicholas Bchuchet, King Philip’s treasurer, and of a famous Genoese

buccaneer, named Barbavera. Edward, so soon as he received this

information, resolved to go and meet their attack; and he gave orders to

have his vessels and troops summoned from all parts of England to

Orewell, his point of departure. His advisers, with the Archbishop of

Canterbury at their head, strove, but in vain, to restrain him. “Ye are

all in conspiracy against me,” said he; “I shall go; and those who are

afraid can abide at home.” And go he did on the 22d of June, 1340, and

aboard of his fleet “went with him many an English dame,” says Froissart,

“wives of earls, and barons, and knights, and burghers, of London, who

were off to Ghent to see the Queen of England, whom for a long time past

they had not seen; and King Edward guarded them carefully.” “For many a

long day,” said he, “have I desired to fight those fellows, and now we

will fight them, please God and St. George; for, verily, they have caused

me so many displeasures, that I would fain take vengeance for them, if I

can but get it.” On arriving off the coast of Flanders, opposite Ecluse

(or Sluys), he saw “so great a number of vessels that of masts there

seemed to he verily a forest.” He made his arrangements forthwith,

“placing his strongest ships in front, and manoeuvring so as to have the

wind on the starboard quarter, and the sun astern. The Normans marvelled

to see the English thus twisting about, and said, ‘They are turning tail;

they are not men enough to fight us.’” But the Genoese buccaneer was not

misled. “When he saw the English fleet approaching in such fashion, he

said to the French admiral and his colleague, Behuchet, ‘Sirs, here is

the King of England, with all his ships, bearing down upon us: if ye will

follow my advice, instead of remaining shut up in port, ye will draw out

into the open sea; for, if ye abide here, they, whilst they have in their

favor sun, and wind, and tide, will keep you so short of room, that ye

will be helpless and unable to manoeuvre.’ Whereupon answered the

treasurer, B6huchet, who knew more about arithmetic than sea fights,

‘Let him go hang, whoever shall go out: here will we wait, and take our

chance.’ ‘Sir,’ replied Barbavera, ‘if ye will not be pleased to believe

me, I have no mind to work my own ruin, and I will get me gone with my

galleys out of this hole.’ “And out he went, with all his squadron,

engaged the English on the high seas, and took the first ship which

attempted to board him. But Edward, though he was wounded in the thigh,

quickly restored the battle. After a gallant resistance, Barbavera

sailed off with his galleys, and the French fleet found itself alone at

grips with the English. The struggle was obstinate on both sides; it

began at six in the morning of June 24, 1340, and lasted to midday. It

was put an end to by the arrival of the re-enforcements promised by the

Flemings to the King of England. “The deputies of Bruges,” says their

historian, “had employed the whole night in getting under way an armament

of two hundred vessels, and, before long, the French heard echoing about

them the horns of the Flemish mariners sounding to quarters.” These

latter decided the victory, Behuchet, Philip of Valois’ treasurer, fell

into their hands; and they, heeding only their desire of avenging

themselves for the devastation of Cadsand (in 1337), hanged him from the

mast of his vessel “out of spite to the King of France.” The admiral,

Hugh Quieret, though he surrendered, was put to death; “and with him

perished so great a number of men-at-arms that the sea was dyed with

blood on this coast, and the dead were put down at quite thirty thousand

men.”

The very day after the battle, the Queen of England came from Ghent to

join the king her husband, whom his wound confined to his ship; and at

Valenciennes, whither the news of the victory speedily arrived,

Artevelde, mounting a platform set up in the market-place, maintained, in

the presence of a large crowd, the right which the King of England had to

claim the kingdom of France. He vaunted “the puissance of the three

countries, Flanders, Hainault, and Brabant, when at one accord amongst

themselves, and what with his words and his great sense,” says Froissart,

“he did so well that all who heard him said that he had spoken mighty

well, and with mighty experience, and that he was right worthy to govern

the countship of Flanders.” From Valenciennes he repaired to King Edward

at Bruges, where all the allied princes were assembled; and there, in

concert with the other deputies from the Flemish communes, Artevelde

offered Edward a hundred thousand men for the vigorous prosecution of the

war. “All these burghers,” says the modern historian of the Flemings,

“had declared that, in order to promote their country’s cause, they would

serve without pay, so heartily had they entered into the war.” The siege

of Tournay was the first operation Edward resolved to undertake. He had

promised to give this place to the Flemings; the burghers were getting a

taste for conquest, in company with kings.

They found Philip of Valois better informed, and also more hot for war,

than perhaps they had expected. It is said that he learned the defeat of

his navy at Ecluse from his court fool, who was the first to announce it,

and in the following fashion. “The English are cowards,” said he. “Why

so?” asked the king. “Because they lacked courage to leap into the sea

at Ecluse, as the French and Normans did.” Philip lost no time about

putting the places on his northern frontier in a state of defence, he

took up his quarters first at Arras, and then three leagues from Tournay,

into which his constable, Raoul d’Eu, immediately threw himself, with a

considerable force, and whither his allies, the Duke of Lorraine, the

Count of Savoy, the Bishops of Liege, Metz, and Verdun, and nearly all

the barons of Burgundy came and joined him. On the 27th of July, 1340,

he received there from his rival a challenge of portentous length, the

principal terms of which are set forth as follows:

“Philip of Valois, for a long time past we have taken proceedings, by

means of messages and other reasonable ways, to the end that you might

restore to us our rightful heritage of France, which you have this long

while withheld from us and do most wrongfully occupy. And as we do

clearly see that you do intend to persevere in your wrongful withholding,

we do give you notice that we are marching against you to bring our

rightful claims to an issue. And, whereas so great a number of folks

assembled on our side and on yours, cannot keep themselves together for

long without causing great destruction to the people and the country, we

desire, as the quarrel is between you and us, that the decision of our

claim should be between our two bodies. And if you have no mind to this

way, we propose that our quarrel should end by a battle, body to body,

between a hundred persons, the most capable on your side and on ours.

And, if you have no mind either to one way or to the other, that you do

appoint us a fixed day for fighting before the city of Tournay, power to

power. Given under our privy seal, on the field near Tournay, the 26th

day of July, in the first year of our reign in France and in England the

fourteenth.”

Philip replied, “Philip, by the grace of God King of France to Edward,

King of England. We have seen your letters brought to our court, as from

you to Philip of Valois, and containing certain demands which you make

upon the said Philip of Valois. And, as the said letters did not come to

ourself, we make you no answer. Our intention is, when it shall seem

good to us, to hurl you out of our kingdom for the benefit of our people.

And of that we have firm hope in Jesus Christ, from whom all power cometh

to us.”

Events were not satisfactory either to the haughty pretensions of Edward

or to the patriotic hopes of Philip. The war continued in the north and

south-west of France without any result. In the neighborhood of Tournay

some encounters in the open country were unfavorable to the English and

their allies; the siege of the place was prolonged for seventy-four days

without the attainment of any success by assault or investment; and the

inhabitants defended themselves with so obstinate a courage, that, when

at length the King of England found himself obliged to raise the siege,

Philip, to testify his gratitude towards them, restored them their law,

that is, their communal charter, for some time past withdrawn, and “they

were greatly rejoiced,” says Froissart, “at having no more royal

governors, and at appointing provosts and jurymen according to their

fancy.” The Flemish burghers, in spite of their display of warlike zeal,

soon grew tired of being so far from their business and of living under

canvas. In Aquitaine the lieutenants of the King of France had the

advantage over those of the King of England; they retook or delivered

several places in dispute between the two crowns, and they closely

pressed Bordeaux itself both by land and sea. Edward, the aggressor, was

exhausting his pecuniary resources, and his Parliament was displaying but

little inclination to replenish them. For Philip, who had merely to

defend himself in his own dominions, any cessation of hostilities was

almost a victory. A pious princess, Joan of Valois, sister of Philip and

mother-in-law of Edward, issued from her convent at Fontenelle, for the

purpose of urging the two kings to make peace, or at least to suspend

hostilities. “The good dame,” says Froissart, “saw there, on the two

sides, all the flower and honor of the chivalry of the world; and many a

time she had fallen at the feet of her brother, the King of France,

praying him for some respite or treaty of agreement between himself and

the English king. And when she had labored with them of France, she went

her way to them of the Empire, to the Duke of Brabant, to the Marquis of

Juliers, and to my Lord John of Hainault, and prayed them, for God’s and

pity’s sake, that they would be pleased to hearken to some terms of

accord, and would win over the King of England to be pleased to

condescend thereto.” In concert with the envoys of Pope Benedict XII.,

Joan of Valois at last succeeded in bringing the two sovereigns and their

allies to a truce, which was concluded on the 25th of September, 1340, at

first for nine months, and was afterwards renewed on several occasions up

to the month of June, 1342. Neither sovereign, and none of their allies,

gave up anything, or bound themselves to anything more than not to fight

during that interval; but they were, on both sides, without the power of

carrying on without pause a struggle which they would not entirely

abandon.

An unexpected incident led to its recommencement in spite of the truce:

not, however, throughout France or directly between the two kings, but

with fiery fierceness, though it was limited to a single province, and

arose not in the name of the kingship of France, but out of a purely

provincial question. John III., Duke of Brittany and a faithful vassal

of Philip of Valois, whom he had gone to support at Tournay “more stoutly

and substantially than any of the other princes,” says Froissart, died

suddenly at Caen, on the 30th of April, 1341, on returning to his domain.

Though he had been thrice married, he left no child. The duchy of

Brittany then reverted to his brothers or their posterity , but his very

next brother, Guy, Count of Penthievre, had been dead six years, and had

left only a daughter, Joan, called the Cripple, married to Charles of

Blois, nephew of the King of France. The third brother was still alive;

he too was named John, had from his mother the title of Count of

Montfort, and claimed to be heir to the duchy of Brittany in preference

to his niece Joan. The niece, on the contrary, believed in her own right

to the exclusion of her uncle. The question was exactly the same as that

which had arisen touching the crown of France when Philip the Long had

successfully disputed it with the only daughter of his brother Louis the

Quarreller; but the Salic law, which had for more than three centuries

prevailed in France, and just lately to the benefit of Philip of Valois,

had no existence in the written code, or the traditions of Brittany.

There, as in several other great fiefs, women had often been recognized

as capable of holding and transmitting sovereignty. At the death of John

III., his brother, the Count of Montfort, immediately put himself in

possession of the inheritance, seized the principal Breton towns, Nantes,

Brest, Rennes, and Vannes, and crossed over to England to secure the

support of Edward III. His rival, Charles of Blois, appealed to the

decision of the King of France, his uncle and natural protector. Philip

of Valois thus found himself the champion of succession in the female

line in Brittany, whilst he was himself reigning in France by virtue of

the Salic law, and Edward III. took up in Brittany the defence of

succession in the male line which he was disputing and fighting against

in France. Philip and his court of peers declared on the 7th of

September, 1341, that Brittany belonged to Charles of Blois, who at once

did homage for it to the King of France, whilst John of Montfort demanded

and obtained the support of the King of England. War broke out between

the two claimants, effectually supported by the two kings, who

nevertheless were not supposed to make war upon one another and in their

own dominions. The feudal system sometimes entailed these strange and

dangerous complications.

If the two parties had been reduced for leaders to the two claimants

only, the war would not, perhaps, have lasted long.

In the first campaign the Count of Montfort was made prisoner at the

siege of Nantes, carried off to Paris, and shut up in the tower of the

Louvre, whence he did not escape until three years were over. Charles of

Blois, with all his personal valor, was so scrupulously devout that he

often added to the embarrassments and at the same time the delays of war.

He never marched without being followed by his almoner, who took with him

everywhere bread, and wine, and water, and fire in a pot, for the purpose

of saying mass by the way. One day when Charles was accordingly hearing

it and was very near the enemy, one of his officers, Auffroy de

Montboucher, said to him, “Sir, you see right well that your enemies are

yonder, and you halt a longer time than they need to take you.”

“Auffroy,” answered the prince, “we shall always have towns and castles,

and, if they are taken, we shall, with God’s help, recover them; but if

we miss hearing of mass we shall never recover it.” Neither side,

however, had much detriment from either the captivity or pious delays of

its chief. Joan of Flanders, Countess of Montfort, was at Rennes when

she heard that her husband had been taken prisoner at Nantes. “Although

she made great mourning in her heart,” says Froissart, “she made it not

like a disconsolate woman, but like a proud and gallant man. She showed

to her friends and soldiers a little boy she had, and whose name was

John, even as his father’s, and she said to them, ‘Ah! sirs, be not

discomforted and cast down because of my lord whom we have lost; he was

but one man; see, here is my little boy, who, please God, shall be his

avenger. I have wealth in abundance, and of it I will give you enow, and

I will provide you with such a leader as shall give you all fresh heart.’

She went through all her good towns and fortresses, taking her young son

with her, re-enforcing the garrisons with men and all they wanted, and

giving away abundantly wherever she thought it would be well laid out.

Then she went her way to Hennebon-sur-Mer, which was a strong town and

strong castle, and there she abode, and her son with her, all the

winter.” In May, 1242, Charles of Blois came to besiege her; but the

attempts at assault were not successful. “The Countess of Montfort, who

was cased in armor and rode on a fine steed, galloped from street to

street through the town, summoned the people to defend themselves

stoutly, and called on the women, dames, damoisels, and others, to pull

up the roads, and carry the stones to the ramparts to throw down on the

assailants.” She attempted a bolder enterprise. “She sometimes mounted

a tower, right up to the top, that she might see the better how her

people bore themselves. She one day saw that all they of the hostile

army, lords and others, had left their quarters and gone to watch the

assault. She mounted her steed, all armed as she was, and summoned to

horse with her about three hundred men-at-arms who were on guard at a

gate which was not being assailed. She went out thereat with all her

company and threw herself valiantly upon the tents and quarters of the

lords of France, which were all burned, being guarded only by boys and

varlets, who fled as soon as they saw the countess and her folks entering

and setting fire. When the lords saw their quarters burning and heard

the noise which came therefrom, they ran up all dazed and crying,

‘Betrayed! betrayed!’ so that none remained for the assault. When the

countess saw the enemy’s host running up from all parts, she re-assembled

all her folks, and seeing right well that she could not enter the town

again without too great loss, she went off by another road to the castle

of Brest [or, more probably, d’Auray, as Brest is much more than three

leagues from Hennebon], which lies as near as three leagues from thence.”

Though hotly pursued by the assailants, “she rode so fast and so well

that she and the greater part of her folks arrived at the castle of

Brest, where she was received and feasted right joyously. Those of her

folks who were in Hennebon were all night in great disquietude because

neither she nor any of her company returned; and the assailant lords, who

had taken up quarters nearer to the town, cried, ‘Come out, come out, and

seek your countess; she is lost; you will not find a bit of her.’ In such

fear the folks in Hennebon remained five days. But the countess wrought

so well that she had now full five hundred comrades armed and well

mounted; then she set out from Brest about midnight and came away,

arriving at sunrise and riding straight upon one of the flanks of the

enemy’s host; there she had the gate of Hennebon castle opened, and

entered in with great joy and a great noise of trumpets and drums;

whereby the besiegers were roughly disturbed and awakened.”

The joy of the besieged was short. Charles of Blois pressed on the siege

more rigorously every day, threatening that, when he should have taken

the place, he would put all the inhabitants to the sword. Consternation

spread even to the brave; and a negotiation was opened with a view of

arriving at terms of capitulation. By dint of prayers Countess Joan

obtained a delay of three days. The first two had expired, and the

besiegers were preparing for a fresh assault, when Joan, from the top of

her tower, saw the sea covered with sails: “‘See, see,’ she cried, the

aid so much desired!’ Every one in the town, as best they could, rushed

up at once to the windows and battlements of the walls to see what it

might be,” says Froissart. In point of fact it was a fleet with six

thousand men brought from England to the relief of Hennebon by Amaury de

Clisson and Walter de Manny; and they had been a long while detained at

sea by contrary winds.”

[Illustration: ‘See! See!’ she cried----283]

When they had landed the countess herself went to them and feasted them

and thanked them greatly, which was no wonder, for she had sore need of

their coming.” It was far better still when, next day, the new arrivals

had attacked the besiegers and gained a brilliant victory over them.

When they re-entered the place, “whoever,” says Froissart, “saw the

countess descend from the castle, and kiss my lord Walter de Manny and

his comrades, one after another, two or three times, might well have said

that it was a gallant dame.”

All the while that the Count of Montfort was a prisoner in the tower of

the Louvre, the countess his wife strove for his cause with the same

indefatigable energy. He escaped in 1345, crossed over to England, swore

fealty and homage to Edward III. for the duchy of Brittany, and

immediately returned to take in hand, himself, his own cause. But in the

very year of his escape, on the 26th of September, 1345, he died at the

castle of Hennebon, leaving once more his wife, with a young child, alone

at the head of his party and having in charge the future of his house.

The Countess Joan maintained the rights and interests of her son as she

had maintained those of her husband. For nineteen years, she, with the

help of England, struggled against Charles of Blois, the head of a party

growing more and more powerful, and protected by France. Fortune shifted

her favors and her asperities from one camp to the other. Charles of

Blois had at first pretty considerable success; but on the 18th of June,

1347, in a battle in which he personally displayed a brilliant courage,

he was in his turn made prisoner, carried to England, and immured in the

Tower of London. There he remained nine years. But he too had a valiant

and indomitable wife, Joan of Penthievre, the Cripple. She did for her

husband all that Joan of Montfort was doing for hers. All the time that

he was a prisoner in the Tower of London, she was the soul and the head

of his party, in the open country as well as in the towns, turning to

profitable account the inclinations of the Breton population, whom the

presence and the ravages of the English had turned against John of

Montfort and his cause. She even convoked at Dinan, in 1352, a general

assembly of her partisans, which is counted by the Breton historians as

the second holding of the states of their country. During nine years,

from 1347 to 1356, the two Joans were the two heads of their parties in

politics and in war. Charles of Blois at last obtained his liberty from

Edward III. on hard conditions, and returned to Brittany to take up the

conduct of his own affairs. The struggle between the two claimants still

lasted eight years, with vicissitudes ending in nothing definite. In

1363 Charles of Blois and young John of Montfort, weary of their

fruitless efforts and the sufferings of their countries, determined both

of them to make peace and share Brittany between them. Rennes was to be

Charles’s capital, and Nantes that of his rival. The treaty had been

signed, an altar raised between the two armies, and an oath taken on both

sides; but when Joan of Penthivre was informed of it she refused

downright to ratify it. “I married you,” she said to her husband, “to

defend my inheritance, and not to yield the half of it; I am only a

woman, but I would lose my life, and two lives if I had them, rather than

consent to any cession of the kind.” Charles of Blois, as weak before

his wife as brave before the enemy, broke the treaty he had but just

sworn to, and set out for Nantes to resume the war. “My lord,” said

Countess Joan to him in presence of all his knights, “you are going to

defend my inheritance and yours, which my lord of Montfort--wrongfully,

God knows--doth withhold from us, and the barons of Brittany who are here

present know that I am rightful heiress of it. I pray you affectionately

not to make any ordinance, composition, or treaty whereby the duchy

corporate remain not ours.” Charles set out; and in the following year,

on the 29th of September, 1364, the battle of Auray cost him his life and

the countship of Brittany. When he was wounded to death he said, “I have

long been at war against my conscience.” At sight of his dead body on

the field of battle young John of Montfort, his conqueror, was touched,

and cried out, “Alas my cousin, by your obstinacy you have been the cause

of great evils in Brittany: may God forgive you! It grieves me much that

you are come to so sad an end.” After this outburst of generous

compassion came the joy of victory, which Montfort owed above all to his

English allies and to John Chandos their leader, to whom, “My Lord John,”

said he, “this great fortune path come to me through your great sense and

prowess: wherefore, I pray you, drink out of my cup.” “Sir,” answered

Chandos, “let us go hence, and render you your thanks to God for this

happy fortune you have gotten, for, without the death of yonder warrior,

you could not have come into the inheritance of Brittany.” From that day

forth John of Monfort remained in point of fact Duke of Brittany, and

Joan of Penthievre, the Cripple, the proud princess who had so

obstinately defended her rights against him, survived for full twenty

years the death of her husband and the loss of her duchy.

Whilst the two Joans were exhibiting in Brittany, for the preservation or

the recovery of their little dominion, so much energy and persistency,

another Joan, no princess, but not the less a heroine, was, in no other

interest than the satisfaction of her love and her vengeance, making war,

all by herself, on the same territory. Several Norman and Breton lords,

and amongst others Oliver de Clisson and Godfrey d’Harcourt, were

suspected, nominally attached as they were to the King of France, of

having made secret overtures to the King of England. Philip of Valois

had them arrested at a tournament, and had them beheaded without any form

of trial, in the middle of the market-place at Paris, to the number of

fourteen. The head of Clisson was sent to Nantes and exposed on one of

the gates of the city. At the news thereof, his widow, Joan of

Belleville, attended by several men of family, her neighbors and friends,

set out for a castle occupied by the troops of Philip’s candidate,

Charles of Blois. The fate of Clisson was not yet known there; it was

supposed that his wife was on a hunting excursion; and she was admitted

without distrust. As soon as she was inside, the blast of a horn gave

notice to her followers, whom she had left concealed in the neighboring

woods. They rushed up, and took possession of the castle, and Joan de

Clisson had all the inhabitants--but one--put to the sword. But this was

too little for her grief and her zeal. At the head of her troops,

augmented, she scoured the country and seized several places, everywhere

driving out or putting to death the servants of the King of France.

Philip confiscated the property of the house of Clisson. Joan moved from

land to sea. She manned several vessels, attacked the French ships she

fell in with, ravaged the coasts, and ended by going and placing at the

service of the Countess of Montfort her hatred and her son, a boy of

seven years of age, whom she had taken with her in all her expeditions,

and who was afterwards the great constable, Oliver de Clisson. We shall

find him under Charles V. and Charles VI. as devoted to France and her

kings as if he had not made his first essays in arms against the

candidate of their ancestor, Philip. His mother had sent him to England,

to be brought up at the court of Edward III., but, shortly after taking a

glorious part with the English in the battle of Auray, in which he lost

an eye, and which secured the duchy of Brittany to the Count of Montfort,

De Clisson got embroiled none the less with his suzerain, who had given

John Chandos the castle of Gavre, near Nantes. “Devil take me, my lord,”

said Oliver to him, “if ever Englishman shall be my neighbor;” and he

went forthwith and attacked the castle, which he completely demolished.

The hatreds of women whose passions have made them heroines of war are

more personal and more obstinate than those of the roughest warriors.

Accordingly the war for the duchy of Brittany, in the fourteenth century,

has been called, in history, the war of the three Joans.