THE PRELIMINARIES OF THE HUNDRED YEARS' WAR.
Edward III. had just entered upon his nineteenth year when he became
king in fact as well as in name. In person he was not unworthy of his
father and grandfather. Less strikingly tall than they, he was nobly
built and finely proportioned. In full manhood, long hair, a thick
moustache and a flowing beard adorned his regular and handsome
countenance. His graciousness and affability were universally praised.
His face shone, we are told, like the face of a god, so that to see him
or to dream of him was certain to conjure up joyous images.[1] He
delighted in the pomp of his office, wore magnificent garments, and
played his kingly part with the same majesty and dignity as his
grandfather. Despite the troubles of his youth, he was well educated.
Richard of Bury is said to have been his tutor, and the early lessons of
the author or instigator of the _Philobiblon_ were never entirely lost
by the prince who took Chaucer and Froissart into his service. More
conspicuous was his love of art, his taste for sumptuous buildings and
their magnificent embellishment, which left memorials in the stately
castle of Windsor and its rich chapel of St. George, in St. Stephen's
chapel at Westminster, and the Eastminster for Cistercian nuns hard by
Tower hill. A fluent and eloquent speaker in French and English, Edward
was also conversant with Latin, and perhaps Low-Dutch. Yet no king was
less given to study or seclusion. Possessed, perhaps, of no exceptional
measure of intellectual capacity, and not even endowed to any large
extent with firmness of character, he won a great place in history by
the extraordinary activity of his temperament and the vigour and energy
with which he threw himself into whatever work he set his hand to do. He
was a consummate master of knightly exercises, delighting in
tournaments, and especially in those which were marked by some touch of
quaintness or fancy. He had the hereditary passion of his house for the
chase. In his youthful campaigns in Scotland and in his maturer
expeditions in France, he was accompanied by a little army of falconers
and huntsmen, by packs of hounds, and many hawks trained with the utmost
care. He honoured with his special friendship an Abbot of Leicester,
famed throughout England as the most dexterous of hare-coursers.[2]
[1] _Continuation of Murimuth_ (Engl. Hist. Soc.), pp. 225-27,
which gives the best contemporary description of Edward's
character.
[2] Knighton, ii., 127.
Edward's abounding energy was even more gladly devoted to war than to
the chase. He was an admirable exponent of those chivalric ideals which
are glorified in the courtly pages of Froissart. Not content with the
easy victories which fall in the tiltyard to the crowned king, Edward
was anxious to show that his triumphs belonged to the knight and not to
the monarch, and more than once jousted victoriously in disguise. The
same spirit led him to challenge Philip of France to decide their
quarrel by single combat, and to win a personal triumph when masking as
a knight attached to the service of Sir Walter Manny. He was liberal to
the verge of prodigality, good-tempered, easy of access, and, save when
moved by deep gusts of fierce anger, kindly and compassionate. His easy
good nature endeared him both to foreigners and to every class of his
own subjects. Not only did he enter fully into the free-masonry which
regarded the knights of all Christian nations as equal members of a
sworn brotherhood of arms, but he extended his favours to the London
vintner's son who earned his bread in his service, and entertained the
wives of the leading London citizens, side by side with the noble
ladies in whose honour he gave the most quaint and magnificent of his
banquets. Pious after a somewhat formal fashion, he was unwearied in
going on pilgrimage and lavish in his religious foundations. Though no
prince was more careful to protect the state from the encroachments of
churchmen, his orthodoxy and devoutness kept him in good repute with
the austerest champions of the Church. He could choose fit agents to
carry out his policy, and his campaigns were a marvellous training
ground for gallant and capable warriors.
Edward seldom lost sight of the material and economic interests of his
subjects. He was the friend of merchants, the father of English
commerce, the patron of the infant woollen manufactures, and a zealous
champion of the maritime greatness of his island realm, which boasted
that he was "king of the sea". Though his financial exigencies often
led him to sell excessive privileges to alien traders, this policy did
little harm to his subjects, for few of them were ready as yet to
embark in foreign commerce. A true patriot, who declared that his land
of England was "nearer to his heart, more delightful, noble, and
profitable than all other lands," he succeeded in making Englishmen
conscious of their national life as they had never been before; and he
won for his fatherland a foremost place among the kingdoms of the
world. His network of diplomatic alliances was dexterously fashioned,
and enabled him to supplement the resources of his own subjects.
The breadth of Edward's ambitions hindered their complete
accomplishment. Like Edward I., he undertook more than he could carry
through, and, though his panegyrists praise his patience in adversity no
less than his moderation in prosperity, his merely animal courage and
vigour broke down under the weight of misfortune. Thus the glorious
king, who in his youth vied with his grandfather, seemed in his old age
to have nearly approached the fate of his wretched father. In early life
he won the love of his subjects. It was only in the first years of his
reign that the violence and greed of his disorderly household, which
inherited the evil traditions of the previous generation, bore so
heavily upon the people that Englishmen fled at his approach in dread of
the purveyors, who confiscated every man's goods for the royal use.[1]
The somewhat shallow opportunism which abandoned, with little attempt at
resistance, every royal right that stood in the way of his receiving the
full support of his parliament, at least had the merit of keeping Edward
in general touch with his estates. The wanton breaches of good faith, by
which he sometimes strove to win back what he had lightly conceded, were
regarded as efforts to save the sovereign's dignity, rather than as
insidious attempts to restore the prerogative. Unjust as was the very
basis of his French pretensions, they were backed up by a show of legal
claim that satisfied the conscience of king and subject, and to
contemporaries Edward seemed a king regardful of his honour and mindful
of his plighted word. If his generosity verged on extravagance, and his
affectation of popular manners and graciousness on unreality, Englishmen
of the fourteenth century were no severe critics of a crowned king. It
was only when in his later years Edward laid aside the soldier's life,
and abandoned himself to the frivolous distractions and degrading
amours[2] which provoked the censure even of his admirers, that the
self-indulgent traits inherited from his unhappy father stood revealed.
[1] The _Speculum regis Edwardi_ (ed. Moisant) was written
before 1333, and the attribution of its composition to
Archbishop Islip and the inferences drawn in Stubbs' _Const.
Hist._, ii., 394, are therefore unwarranted; see Professor
Tait's note in _Engl. Hist. Review_, xvi. (1901), 110-15.
[2] _Chron. Anglia_, 1328-1388, p. 401.
Edward was before all things a soldier. He was not only the consummate
knight, the mirror of chivalry, but a capable tactician with a
general's eye that took in the essential points of the situation at a
glance. His restless energy ensured the rapidity of movement and
alertness of action which won him many a triumph over less mobile and
less highly trained antagonists; while they inspired his followers with
faith in their cause and with the courage which succeeds against
desperate odds. Yet the victor of Crecy cannot be numbered among the
consummate generals of history. His campaigns were ill-planned; and he
lacked the self-restraint and sense of proportion which would have
prevented him from aiming at objects beyond his reach. The same want of
relation between ends and means, the same want of definite policy and
clear ideals, marred his statecraft. Yet contemporaries, conscious of
his faults, magnified Edward as the brilliant and successful king who
had won for himself an assured place among the greatest monarchs of
history, "Never," says Froissart, "had there been such a king since the
days of Arthur King of Great Britain."[1] Even to his own age his
senile degradation pointed the moral of the triumphs of his manhood.
The modern historian, who sees, beneath the superficial splendour of
the days of Edward III., the misery and degradation that underlay the
wreck of the dying Middle Ages, is in no danger of appraising too
highly the merits of this showy and ambitious monarch. Perhaps in our
own days the reaction has gone too far, and we have been taught to
undervalue the splendid energy and robustness of temperament which
commanded the admiration of all Europe, and personified the strenuous
ideals of the young English nation.
[1] Froissart (ed. Luce), viii., 231; _cf_. Canon of
Bridlington, p. 95.
The internal history of the first few years of Edward's reign was
uneventful. John Stratford became chancellor after Mortimer's fall, and
remained for ten years the guiding spirit of the administration.
Translated on Meopham's death in 1333 to Canterbury, he continued, as
primate, to take a leading part in politics. His chief helper was his
brother Robert, rewarded in 1337 by the see of Chichester. The brothers
were capable but not brilliant politicians. The worst disorders of the
times of anarchy were put down, and parliaments readily granted
sufficient money to meet the king's necessities. After a few years, the
strife of parties was so far hushed that Burghersh was suffered to
return to office, and it looks as if the balance between the
Lancastrian party, upheld by the Stratfords, and the old middle party
of Pembroke and Badlesmere, with which Burghersh had hereditary
connexions, was maintained, as it had been during the least unhappy
period of the preceding reign. The country was growing rich and
prosperous. The annalists tell us of little save tournaments and
mummings, and the setting up of seven new earldoms to remedy the gaps
which death and forfeiture had made in the higher circle of the
baronage. The earldom of Devon was revived for the house of Courtenay;
that of Salisbury in favour of the trusty William Montague, and an
Audley, son of Despenser's rival, was raised to the earldom of
Gloucester. William Bohun, a younger son of the Humphrey slain at
Boroughbridge, became Earl of Northampton, an Ufford, Earl of Suffolk,
a Clinton Earl of Huntingdon, a Hastings Earl of Pembroke, and Henry of
Grosmont, the Earl of Lancaster's first born, Earl of Derby. A new rank
was added to the English peerage when the king's little son, Earl of
Chester in 1333, was made Duke of Cornwall in 1337. The old feuds
seemed dead and with them the old disorder. But Edward was ambitious of
military glory, and it was natural that he should seek to reverse the
degrading part which he had been forced to play in relation to Scotland
and France. His hands being tied by treaties, it was not easy for him
to make the first move. Before long, however, circumstances arose which
gave him a chance of taking up a line of his own with regard to
Scotland. From that time Scottish affairs mainly absorbed his attention
until the outbreak of troubles with France.
The establishment of Robert Bruce on the Scottish throne had been
attended by a considerable disturbance of the territorial balance in
the northern kingdom. Many Scottish magnates, deprived of their lands
and driven into exile, had abodes in England, and all might well look
for the favour of the king in whose service they had been ruined. The
treaty of Northampton made no provision for their restoration, and
Edward showed himself disposed to uphold it. Their estates were in the
hands of their supplanters, the nobles who had gathered round the
throne of the Bruces. Thus it was that the exiles were cut off from all
hope of return, and saw their only possibility of restitution in the
break-up of the friendship of Edward and David. In like case were the
English magnates who still entertained hopes of making effective the
grants of Scottish estates which they had received from Edward I. and
Edward II. For both classes alike every fresh year of peace between the
realms decreased their chances of obtaining their desires. They failed
to persuade Edward to go to war with his brother-in-law and repudiate
formally the obligations imposed upon him by his mother and her
paramour. But the minority of King David had unloosed the spirits of
disorder in Scotland. Though the vigorous and capable regent, Sir
Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, showed himself competent to stem the
tide of aristocratic reaction which swelled round the throne of his
infant cousin, he was one of the old generation of heroes that had
aided King Robert to gain his throne. Were he to die, or become
incapable of acting, there was no one who could supply his place. The
Disinherited--thus they styled themselves--were encouraged both by the
apathy of Edward III. and the weakness of Scotland to make a bold
stroke on their own behalf.
At the head of the disinherited was Edward Balliol, the son of the
deposed King John. Brought up in England, first under the care of his
cousin, Earl Warenne, and afterwards in the household of the
half-brothers of Edward II., Edward Balliol, who succeeded in 1315 to
the French estates on which his father spent his latter years, divided
his time between England and France. The forfeiture of his father still
kept him out of Barnard Castle and the other Balliol lands in England.
Young and warlike, poor and ambitious, with few lands and great
pretensions, he never formally abandoned either the lordship of
Galloway or the throne of Scotland. In 1330 he received permission to
take up his quarters in England during pleasure. He soon associated
himself with his fellow-exiles in a bold attempt to win back their
patrimony. Chief among his followers were three titular Scottish earls,
closely related by intermarriage, each of whom was also a baron of high
rank in England. Of these the French-born Henry of Beaumont, kinsman of
Eleanor of Castile, and brother of Bishop Louis of Durham, was the
oldest and most experienced. As the husband of a sister of the last of
the Comyn Earls of Buchan, he posed as the heir of the greatest of the
Scottish houses which had paid the penalty of its opposition to King
Robert, and was summoned to the English parliament as Earl of Buchan.
Beaumont's great-nephew, the young Gilbert of Umfraville, lord of
Redesdale, was a grandson of another Comyn heiress, and his ancestors
had inherited in the middle of the thirteenth century the ancient
Scottish earldom of Angus, though they also had incurred forfeiture for
their adhesion to the English policy. David of Strathbolgie, Earl of
Athol, had a better right to be called a Scot than Umfraville or
Beaumont. But his father abandoned Bruce, and was driven into England,
where he held the Kentish barony of Chilham, and sat in the English
parliament under his Scottish title. The younger Athol was son-in-law
to the titular Earl of Moray, and all three kinsmen were bound by
common interests to embrace the policy of Edward Balliol. Many lesser
men associated themselves with the three earls and the claimant to a
throne. Nearly every nobleman of the Scottish border made himself a
party to a scheme of adventure which had its best parallels in the
Norman invasions of Wales and Ireland.
The object of the disinherited was to raise an army and prosecute their
Scottish claims by force. Edward III. gave them no open countenance,
and took up an ostentatiously correct attitude. He solemnly forbade all
breach of the peace, and prevented the adventurers from adopting the
easy course of marching from England to an open attack on Scotland. No
obstacles, however, were imposed to hinder their raising a small but
efficient army of 500 men-at-arms and 1,000 archers. Mercenaries, both
English and foreign, were hired to supplement their scanty numbers, and
among those who took service with them was a young gentleman of
Hainault, Walter Manny, whose father had a few years before perished in
the service of Edward II. in Gascony, and who had first come to England
in the service of his countrywoman, Queen Philippa. Ships were
collected in the Humber, and on the last day of July, 1332, the
disinherited and their followers sailed from Ravenspur on a destination
which was officially supposed to be unknown. A week later, on August 6,
they landed at Kinghorn in Fife.
Scotland was singularly unready to meet invasion. The regent Moray had
died a few weeks earlier, and his successor, Donald, Earl of Mar,
incompetent to carry on his vigorous policy, had perhaps already been
intriguing with the adventurers. The only resistance to Balliol's
landing, made by the Earl of Fife, was altogether unsuccessful. The
little army established itself easily in the enemies' territory, and,
after two days' rest at Dunfermline, advanced over the Ochils towards
Perth. The regent had by that time gathered together an imposing army.
As the invaders approached Strathearn on their way northwards, they
found Mar encamped on Dupplin Moor, on the left bank of the Earn, and
holding in force the only bridge available for crossing the river.
There was some parleying between the two hosts. "We are sons of
magnates of this land," declared the disinherited to Mar. "We are come
hither with the lord Edward of Balliol, the right heir of the realm, to
demand the lands which belong to us by hereditary right." Mar returned
a warlike answer to their words, and both armies made preparation for
battle.
The disinherited, though few in number, were well trained in warfare,
and from the beginning showed capacity to out-general the unwieldy host
and feeble leader opposed to them. At sunset, some of their forces
crossed the Earn by a ford which the Scots had neglected to guard, and
falling upon an outlying portion of the enemies' camp, where the
infantry were quartered, slaughtered the surprised Scots at their
leisure. Luckily for Mar, the whole of his knights and men-at-arms were
far away, uselessly watching the bridge, over which they had expected
the disinherited to force a passage. Thus saved from the night
ambuscade, the kernel of the Scottish army prepared next morning,
August 12, to attack the disinherited. Puffed up by the memory of
Bannockburn and the consciousness of superior numbers, they marched to
battle as if certain of victory. All fought on foot, and the
men-at-arms were drawn up in a dense central mass, supported at each
side by wings. The disinherited were sufficiently schooled in northern
warfare to adopt the same tactics. Save for a few score of horsemen in
reserve, their heavily armed troops, leaving their horses in the rear,
formed a compact column after the Scottish fashion. But archers were
distributed in open order on the right and left flanks, with both
extremities pushed forward, so that they formed the horns of a
half-moon. Then the Scots advanced to the charge, and both sides joined
in battle. The irresistible weight of the Scottish main phalanx forced
back the little column of the disinherited, and for a moment it looked
as if the battle were won. Meanwhile the archers on the flanks poured a
galling shower on the collateral Scottish columns. The unvisored
helmets of the Scots made them an easy prey to the storm of missiles,
and they were driven back on to the main body. By this time the
disinherited had rallied from the first shock; and still the deadly
hail of arrows descended from right and left, until the whole of the
Scottish army was thrown into panic-stricken disorder. Escape was
impossible for the foremost ranks by reason of the closeness of their
formation. At last, the rear files sought safely in flight, and were
closely pursued by the victors, mounted on their fresh horses. A huge
mass of slain, piled up upon each other, marked the place of combat. As
at Bannockburn, the small disciplined host prevailed, but discipline
was now with the English and numbers only with the Scots.[1]
[1] The significance of the battle of Dupplin was first pointed
out by Mr. J.E. Morris in _Engl. Hist. Review_, xii. (1897),
430-31.
The victory of Dupplin Moor was for the moment decisive. Balliol
occupied Perth, and received the submission of many of the Scottish
magnates, among them being that Earl of Fife who first opposed his
landing. A few weeks later, on September 24, Balliol was crowned King
of Scots at Scone by the Bishop of Dunkeld. It was a soldier's
coronation, and the magnates sat at the coronation feast in full
armour, save their helmets. The disinherited then received the lands
for which they had striven; and thereupon quitted the new king, either
to secure their estates or to revisit their property in England. But
the Scots, of no mind to receive a king from the foreigner, chose a new
regent in Sir Andrew Moray, son of the companion of Wallace; and
prepared to maintain King David. On December 16, Balliol was surprised
at Annan by a hostile force under the young Earl of Moray, son of the
late regent, and by Sir Archibald Douglas. His followers were cut off,
his brother was slain, and he himself had the utmost difficulty in
effecting his escape to England. He had only reigned four months.
During Balliol's brief triumph, Edward III. had declared himself in his
favour. Debarred by the treaty of Northampton from questioning the
independence of King David, he was able to make what terms he liked
with David's supplanter. In November a treaty was drawn up at Roxburgh,
by which Balliol recognised the overlordship of Edward, and promised
him the town, castle, and shire of Berwick. In return for these
concessions, Edward III. acknowledged his namesake as lawful King of
Scots. When, a few weeks later, his new vassal appeared as a fugitive
on English soil, Edward had no longer any scruples in openly supporting
him in an attempt to win back his throne. In the spring of 1333,
Balliol and the disinherited once more crossed the frontier in
sufficient force to undertake the siege of Berwick. The border
stronghold held out manfully, but the Scots failed in an attempt to
divert the attention of the English by an invasion of Cumberland. After
Easter, Edward III. went in person to Berwick, and devoted the whole
resources of England to ensuring its reduction. The siege lasted on
until July, when the garrison, at the last gasp, offered to surrender,
unless the town were relieved within fifteen days. The Scots made a
great effort to save Berwick from capture, and the English king was
forced to fight a pitched battle, before he could secure its
possession.
On July 19 Edward, leaving a sufficient portion of his army to maintain
the blockade of Berwick, took up a position with the remainder on
Halidon Hill, a short distance to the west of the town. The lessons of
Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, and Dupplin were not forgotten, and the
English host was arranged much after the fashion which had procured the
first victory of the disinherited. Knights and men-at-arms sent their
horses to the rear and, from the king downwards, all, save a small
reserve of horse, prepared to fight on foot. Edward divided his forces
into three lines or "battles," each of which consisted of a central
column of dismounted heavily armed troops, flanked by a right and a
left wing of archers in open order, John of Eltham and the titular Earl
of Buchan commanded the right battle, the king the centre, and Edward
Balliol the left. The Scots still employed the traditional tactics
which had failed so signally at Dupplin. Sir Archibald Douglas led his
followers up the slopes of the hill in three dense columns. But a
pitiless rain of arrows spread havoc among their ranks, and there were
no answering volleys to disturb their foes. The battle was won for the
English almost before the two lines had joined in close combat. It was
only on Edward's right that the Scots were strong enough to push home
their attack. On the centre and left, the English easily drove the
enemy in panic flight down the slopes which they had ascended so
confidently. The pursuit was long and bloody; few were taken prisoners,
but many were slain or driven into the sea. Seven Scottish earls were
believed by the English to have fallen, while the victors lost one
knight, one squire, and a few infantry soldiers. Thus, for a second
time the tactics, which had served the Scots so well in the defensive
fight of Bannockburn, failed in offence to secure victory for them. The
experience of this day completed the evolution of the new English
battle array of men-at-arms fighting on foot and supported by wings of
archers, which was soon to excite the wonder of Europe, when its
possibilities were demonstrated on continental fields.
Next day Berwick opened its gates, and was handed over to the English,
according to the treaty of Roxburgh, to be for the rest of its history
an English frontier town. Edward Balliol again conquered Scotland as
easily as he had done on the former occasion, and far more effectually.
It was no longer possible for the few remaining champions of the house
of Bruce to safeguard the person of the little king and queen. David
and Joan were accordingly sent off to France, where they were to grow
up as good friends of King Philip. But Balliol had so clearly regained
his throne through English help that he was no longer an independent
agent. No sooner was his conquest assured than he was forced not only
to confirm the surrender of Berwick, but to yield up the whole of
south-eastern Scotland as the price of the English assistance. The
depth of his humiliation was sounded when, in the treaty of Newcastle,
June 12, 1334, Edward, King of Scots, granted Edward, King of England,
lands worth two thousand pounds a year in the marches of Scotland, and
in part payment thereof yielded up to him, besides Berwick and its
shire, the castle, town, and county of Roxburgh, the forests of
Jedburgh Selkirk, and Ettrick, the town and county of Selkirk, and the
towns, castles, and counties of Peebles, Dumfries, and Edinburgh. Of
these Dumfries then included the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, while the
shire of Edinburgh took in the constabularies, the modern shires, of
Haddington and Linlithgow. Thus the whole of Lothian, the whole of the
central upland region, and Balliol's own inheritance of Galloway east
of the Cree were directly transferred to the English crown, and were
divided into sheriffdoms, and officered after the English fashion. On
June 18 Balliol personally performed homage for so much of Scotland as
Edward chose to leave him. The wrongs of the disinherited had been the
means of re-opening the whole Scottish question, and Edward III. seemed
assured of a position as supreme as that which had once been held by
Edward I.
It was always easier in the Middle Ages to conquer a country than to
keep it. And the experience of forty years might well have convinced
Englishmen that no land was more difficult to hold than the stubborn
and impenetrable northern kingdom, with its strenuous population, ever
willing to cry a truce between local feuds when there was an
opportunity of uniting against the southerners. Edward overshot his
mark in grasping too eagerly the fairest portions of Balliol's realm.
He needed for his policy a Scottish king, strong enough to maintain
himself against his subjects, and loyal enough to remain true to the
English connexion. Any faint chance of Balliol occupying such a
position was completely destroyed by his studied humiliation.
Henceforward the King of Scots, who had fought so well at Dupplin and
Halidon, was but a pawn in Edward's game. Hated by the Scots as the
betrayer of his country, distrusted by the English who henceforth spied
his actions and commanded his armies in his name, the gallant victor of
Dupplin lost faith in himself and in his cause. After all, he was his
father's son, and in no wise capable of bearing adversity and indignity
with equanimity. His helplessness soon proved the worst obstacle in the
way of the success of Edward's plans. Even with the aid of a large
Scottish party, Edward I. had failed to bring about the subjection of
Scotland. It was clearly impossible for his grandson to succeed in the
same task when all Scotland was united against him, and braced to
action by a series of glorious memories.
Difficulties arose almost from the first. Not only had Balliol to
contend against the implacable hostility of the Scottish patriots; the
disinherited split up into rival factions after their triumph, and
their divisions played the game of the partisans of the Bruces. The
Earls of Athol and Buchan quarrelled with Balliol. Buchan, besieged by
the partisans of David Bruce in a remote castle, was forced to
surrender and quit Scotland for good. Athol was distinguished by the
violence and suddenness of his tergiversations. After deserting Balliol
for the patriots, he once more declared for the two Edwards, and
persuaded many of the Scottish magnates to submit themselves to them.
So long as the English king remained in Scotland, Athol was safe. On
Edward's retirement to his kingdom in November, 1335, the nationalist
leaders took the earl prisoner and put him to death. The war dragged on
from year to year, with startling vicissitudes of fortune, but at no
time was Balliol really established on the Scottish throne, and at no
time did Edward III. really govern all the ceded districts.
Scottish business detained the English king and court mainly in the
north. Edward was in Scotland for most of the winter of 1334-5, keeping
his Christmas court at Roxburgh. In the summer of 1335 he led an army
into Scotland and penetrated as far as Perth. Again in 1336, he marched
from Perth along the east coast, as far as Elgin and Inverness. The
Scots refused to give him battle, and their tactics of evasion and
guerilla warfare soon exhausted his resources and demoralised his
armies. This was Edward's last personal intervention in the business.
He had long been irritated by the persistent interference of the French
king in Scottish affairs, and his anger was not lessened by his hard
plight forcing him, on more than one occasion, to grant short truces to
the Scottish insurgents at Philip's intervention. His relations with
France were becoming so strained that he preferred to spend 1337 in the
south and entrust Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, with the conduct
of the fruitless campaign of that year. Early in 1338, Edward made his
way once more to Berwick, but his intention of invading Scotland was
suddenly abandoned on the news of a threatened French expedition to
England recalling him to the south. This was the decisive moment of the
long struggle. Henceforth the English king could only devote a small
share of his resources to an undertaking which he had not been able to
compass when his whole energies were absorbed in it. The patriots, who
had always dominated the open country, now attacked the castles and
fortified towns, which were the bulwarks of the Edwardian power. Within
three years all the more important of these fell into their hands. In
1339 Edward Balliol's capital of Perth was beset by Robert, the Steward
of Scotland, who had recently undertaken the regency for his uncle
David. On the approach of danger, Balliol was ordered to England, and
Sir Thomas Ughtred, an English knight and one of the disinherited of
1332, was entrusted with the command. By August he had been forced to
surrender, and Stirling soon afterwards opened its gates to the gallant
and energetic steward. In 1341 Edinburgh castle was captured by a
clever stratagem, and a few weeks later David and Joan returned from
France. The king, then seventeen years old, henceforth undertook the
personal administration of his kingdom. Once more there was a King of
Scots whom the Scottish people themselves desired. The first military
enterprise of Edward's reign ended in complete failure.
During the years of Edward Balliol's attempt on Scotland, it was the
obvious interest of the English king to maintain such relations with
France as to prevent the tightening of the traditional bond between the
French and the Scottish courts. There were plenty of outstanding points
of difference between England and France, but neither country was
anxious for war, and the result of this mutual forbearance enabled
Edward III. to deal with the Scots at his leisure. A survey of the
relations of the two realms during the first ten years of Edward III.'s
reign will show how, despite the reluctance of either party to force
matters to a crisis, the Kings of France and England gradually drifted
into the hostility which, from 1337 onwards, paralysed the progress of
the English cause in Scotland.
At the moment of the fall of Edward II., England and France were still
nominally engaged in the war which had followed the second seizure of
Guienne by Charles IV. The difficulties experienced by Isabella and
Mortimer in establishing their power made them as willing to give way
to the French as to the Scots. Accordingly, on March 31, 1327, a treaty
of peace was signed at Paris. By this treaty Edward only gained the
restoration of certain of his Gascon vassals to the estates of which
they had been deprived through their loyalty to the English connexion.
He pledged himself to pay a large war indemnity, and accepted a partial
restitution of his Gascon lands. Like so many of the treaties since
1259, it was a truce rather than a peace. Many details still remained
for settlement, and it was pretty clear that the French, having the
whip hand, would drive Gascony towards the goal of gradual absorption
which had been so clearly marked out by Philip the Fair.
Charles IV. restored to Edward such parts of Gascony as he chose to
surrender. He retained in his hands Agen and the Agenais, and Bazas and
the Bazadais, on the ground that Charles of Valois had won them by
right of conquest in 1324. This policy reduced Edward's duchy to two
portions of territory, very unequal in size and separated from each
other by the lands conquered by the French king's uncle. The larger
section of the English king's lands extended along the coast from the
mouth of the Charente to the mouth of the Bidassoa. It included Saintes
with Saintonge south of the Charente, Bordeaux and the Bordelais, Dax
and the diocese of Dax, and Bayonne and its territory. But in no place
did the boundaries go very far inland. Along the Dordogne, Libourne and
Saint-Émilion were the easternmost English towns. Up the Garonne, the
French were in possession of Langon, while, in the valley of the Adour,
Saint-Sever, perched on its upland rock, was the landward outpost of
the diminished Gascon duchy. In the east of the Agenais the two
_châtellenies_ of Penne and Puymirol formed a little _enclave_ of ducal
territory which extended from the Lot to the Garonne. But this second
fragment of the ancient duchy was of no military and little commercial
value, being commanded on all sides by the possessions of the French
king. Moreover, the fiefs dependent on the Gascon duchy had fallen away
with the attenuation of the duke's domain. In particular the viscounty
of Béarn, now held by the Count of Foix, repudiated all allegiance to
its English overlord. Even a thoroughly Gascon seigneur, such as the
lord of Albret, was wavering in his fidelity to his duke. It was no
longer safe for Gascons to risk the hostility of the king of the
French.
Within a year of the treaty of Paris, the death of Charles IV. further
complicated Anglo-French relations. Like his brothers, Louis X. and
Philip V., Charles the Fair left no male issue; but the pregnancy of
his queen prevented the settlement of the succession being completed
immediately after his decease. The barons of France, however, had no
serious doubts as to their policy. The inadmissibility of a female
ruler had already been determined at the accession of both Philip V.
and Charles IV., and it was clear that the nearest male heir was
Philip, Count of Valois, who had recently succeeded to the great
appanage left vacant by the death in 1325 of his father, Charles of
Valois, the inveterate enemy of the English. As the next representative
of the male line, the French at once recognised Philip of Valois as
regent. When his cousin's widow gave birth to a daughter, the regent
was proclaimed as King Philip VI. without either delay or hesitation.
Thus the house of Valois occupied the throne of France in the place of
the direct Capetian line in which son had succeeded father since the
days of Hugh Capet.
Even Isabella and Mortimer protested against the succession of Philip
of Valois. Admitted that the exclusion of women from the monarchy was
already established by two precedents, could it not be plausibly argued
that a woman, incapable herself of reigning, might form "the bridge and
plank"[1] (as a contemporary put it) by which her sons might step into
the rights of their ancestors? Strange as such a conception seems to
our ideas, it was not unfamiliar to the jurists of that day. It was in
this fashion that the Capetian house claimed its boasted descent and
continuity from the race of Charlemagne. Such a principle was actually
the law in some parts of France, and it was a matter of every-day
occurrence in the Parisis to transmit male fiefs to the sons of
heiresses, themselves incapable of succession. Edward, as the son of
Charles IV.'s sister, was nearer of kin to his uncle than Philip, the
son of Charles's uncle. Surely a man's nephew had a better right to his
succession than his first cousin could ever claim? From the purely
juridical point of view, the claim put forward by Isabella on her son's
behalf was not only plausible but strong.
[1] Viollet, _Hist. des Institutions politiques et
administratives de la France_, ii., 74, from a MS. source. See
also Viollet, _Comment les Femmes ont été exclues en France de
la Succession à la Couronne_, in _Mém. de l'Acad. des
Inscriptions_, xxxiv., pt. ii. (1893).
Happily for France, the magnates of the realm dealt with the succession
question as statesmen and not as lawyers. A later age imagined that the
French barons brought forward a text of the law of the Salian Pranks, as
a complete answer to Edward's claim from the juridical point of view.
But the famous Salic law was a figment, forged by the next generation of
lawyers who were eager to give a complete refutation of the elaborate
legal pleadings of the partisans of the English claim. No authentic
Salic law dealt with the question of the succession to the throne,[1]
and the bold step of transferring a doctrine of private inheritance to
the domain of public law was one of the characteristic feats of the
medieval jurist, anxious to heap up at any risk a mass of arguments that
might overwhelm his antagonists' case. The barons of 1328 rose superior
to legal subtleties. To them the question at issue was the preservation
of the national identity of their country. The vital thing for them was
to secure the throne of France, both at the moment and at future times,
for a Frenchman. Any admission, however guarded, of the right of women
to transmit claims to their sons opened out a vista of the foreign
offspring of French princesses, married abroad, ruling France as
strangers, and it might be as enemies. They chose Philip of Valois
because he was a Frenchman born and bred, and because he had no
interests or possessions outside the French realm. They could not endure
the idea of being ruled by the English king. He was not only a stranger,
but the hereditary enemy. The Capetian monarchy must at all costs be
kept French.
[1] Viollet, _op. cit._, pp. 55-57; _cf_. Désprez, _Les
Préliminaires de la Giurre de Cent Am_, p. 32.
Isabella did what she could on her son's behalf. She excited the
_noblesse_ of Aquitaine to support Edward's claim; but the lords of the
south paid no heed to her exhortations. She was more successful with the
Flemings, then in revolt against their Count, Louis of Nevers. Twelve
notables of Bruges, headed by the burgomaster, William de Deken, visited
England and offered to recognise Edward as King of France if he would
support the Flemish democracy against their feudal lord.[1] But Philip
VI.'s first act was to unite with the Count of Flanders, and the fatal
day of Cassel laid low the fortunes of Bruges and restored the fugitive
Louis to power. Isabella was forced to resign herself to simple
protests.
[1] See Pirenne, _La première Tentative pour reconnaitre
Édouard I. comme Roi de France in Ann. de la Soc. d'Hist. de
Gand_, 1902.
The inevitable demand from Philip VI. for Edward's homage for Guienne
and Ponthieu soon brought the English government face to face with
realities. The request for his vassal's submission, conveyed to England
by Peter Roger, Abbot of Fecamp, the future Clement VI., was even more
unwelcome than such demands commonly were. At first Isabella used brave
words: "My son, who is the son of a king, will never do homage to the
son of a count".[1] But a threat of a third seizure of Gascony soon
brought the queen to her senses. Further insistence on the part of
Philip was met with polite apologies for delay. At last, in May, 1329,
the young king crossed the Channel, and on June 6 performed homage to
Philip in the choir of the cathedral of Amiens. But even at the last
moment there were explanations and reservations on both sides. Philip
made it clear that he acknowledged no claim of his vassal to any
territories, beyond those which he actually possessed. Edward's
advisers protested that they abandoned no pretension to the whole by
performing homage for a part. Moreover, the act of homage was couched
in such ambiguous phrases that it remained doubtful whether Edward had
performed "liege homage," as the King of France demanded, or only
"simple homage," such as seemed to him less offensive to the dignity of
a crowned king. Thus, though the cousins parted amicably and discussed
proposals of a marriage treaty between the English and French houses,
the homage at Amiens settled nothing.
[1] _Grandes Chroniques de France_, v., 323 (ed. P. Paris).
The diplomatists still had plenty of work before them. The French
statesmen insisted on the necessity of the ceremony at Amiens being
interpreted as liege homage, involving the obligation of defending the
overlord "against all those who can live or die". The English
politicians complained of the "injustice and unreason of the King of
France, who seeks the disinheritance of their master in Aquitaine". It
was only by limiting the demands of both parties to points of detail,
that a compromise was arrived at in the convention of the Wood of
Vincennes on May 8, 1330. Further negotiations were still necessary;
and at the moment when everything was trembling in the balance, the
sudden occupation of Saintes by the Count of Alencon, brother of Philip
VI., brought matters within a measurable distance of war. But Edward,
then at the beginning of his real reign, had no mind for fighting. A
more satisfactory convention, drawn up on March 9, 1331, at
Saint-Germain-en-Laye, was ratified by Edward at Eltham on March 30,
when he recognised that he owed liege homage, and not merely simple
homage, to the King of France. Next month, he crossed over to France so
secretly that his subjects believed that he went disguised as a
merchant or a pilgrim. At Pont-Sainte-Maxence, a little town on the
Oise, a few miles below Compiègne, Edward held an interview with Philip
VI., who came thither with equal privacy. The French king does not seem
to have insisted upon a renewal of homage, being content with the
assurance already given as to the character of the previous ceremony.
The informal interview, which the modern historian can only ascertain
by painful scrutiny of the royal itineraries, proved more fertile in
friendship than all the pomp of Amiens. Before Edward went home, Philip
gave him complete satisfaction for the outrage at Saintes, and arrived
at a financial settlement. Thus Edward and Philip at last became
friends "so far as outside appearances went," as a chronicler of the
time phrased it. The fundamental difference of interests and standpoint
could be glossed over by no facile compromise, and the calm of the next
six years was only the prelude to a storm destined to end the policy
that had regulated the relations of the two courts from the days of the
peace of 1259 to those of the meeting at Pont-Sainte-Maxence.
At first there was talk of further cementing the newly established
friendship. There were suggestions of a marriage of Edward's infant son
with Philip's daughter, a fresh interview between the monarchs, a
treaty of perpetual alliance and a common crusade against the Turks.
The last, and the most fantastic, of these projects was the one which
was most seriously discussed. The chivalrous spirit of Philip of Valois
rose eagerly to the idea of a great European expedition against the
infidel, of which he was to be the chief commander. Inspired by John
XXII., he took the cross, made preparations for an early start, and
invoked Edward's co-operation. Edward cleverly utilised his kinsman's
zeal as another lever for enforcing the settlement of outstanding
differences. "Tell your master," he said to the French ambassador,
Peter Roger, now Archbishop of Rouen, "that when he has fulfilled his
promises, I will be more eager to go on the holy voyage than he is
himself." But the chronic troubles, arising from the unceasing
extension of the suzerain's claims in Aquitaine, and from the shelter
given by Philip to David Bruce, had continued all through the years of
professed friendship, and in 1334 an embassy to Paris, presided over by
Archbishop Stratford, failed to establish a _modus vivendi_. In the
same year John XXII. died without having either procured the crusade or
crushed Louis of Bavaria. His successor, James Founder of Foix, who
took the name of Benedict XII., pursued his general policy, though in a
more diplomatic and self-seeking spirit. Benedict's great wish was to,
unite France and England against his enemy, the Emperor Louis of
Bavaria, and he dexterously played upon Philip's eagerness for the
crusade to persuade him to abandon to the papacy the position, which he
had assumed, of arbiter of the differences between Edward and the
Scots. It was a signal, though transitory, triumph of this policy that
a truce between England and Scotland was brought about by the mediation
of the pope and not of the French king. But Benedict found that a
crusade was impossible so long as the chief powers of the west were
hopelessly estranged from each other. In 1336, he vetoed the crusading
scheme until happier times had dawned. Philip, bitterly disappointed,
sought out Benedict at Avignon, but utterly failed to change his
purpose. He was in his own despite released from the crusader's vow,
though exhorted still to continue his preparations. The galleys,
purchased from the crusading tenths of the Church, were transferred
from the Mediterranean to the Channel. The French king might well find
consolation for the abandonment of the holy war in a sudden descent on
England.
From that moment the horizon darkened. Philip VI., once more took up
the cause of the Scots, and once more the Aquitanian troubles became
acute. His irritation at Benedict led him to open up negotiations with
Louis of Bavaria, whereat Benedict was greatly offended. Edward III.
then sought to find friends who would help him against Philip. He was
as much disgusted with the pope as was his French rival. The crusading
fleet, equipped with the money of the Roman Church, threatened the
English coast, and the _curia_ was even more French in its sympathies
than the temporising pontiff. It is no wonder then that both kings
looked coldly on Benedict's offer of mediation between them. Yet,
notwithstanding the indifference manifested by both courts, two
cardinals, Peter Gomez, a Spaniard, and Bertrand of Montfavence, a
Frenchman, were sent in the summer of 1337 as papal legates to France
and England to settle the points in dispute. For the next three years
these prelates pursued their mission with energy and persistence,
though with little result.
A fresh dispute further embittered the personal relations of Philip and
Edward. In 1336, Edward offered a refuge in England to Robert of Artois,
Philip's brother-in-law and mortal enemy. The grandson of the Count
Robert of Artois who was slain in 1302 at Courtrai, Robert of Artois was
indignant that the rich county of Artois should, according to local
custom, have devolved upon his aunt Maud, the wife of Otto, Count of
Burgundy, or Franche Comté, and the mother-in-law of the last two kings
of the direct Capetian line. Though he had failed in several suits to
obtain it, Robert renewed his claim after his brother-in-law became King
of France. It was soon proved that the charters upon which he relied to
prove his title had been forged. The sudden death of the Countess of
Artois, followed quickly by that of her daughter and heiress, added the
suspicion of poisoning to the certainly of forgery. Robert was deprived
of all his possessions and was exiled from France. Driven from his first
refuge in Brabant by Philip's indignant hostility, he found shelter in
England, where he was received with a favour which Philip bitterly
resented. Condemned in his absence as a traitor, and devoured by a
ferocious hatred of Philip and his Burgundian wife, Robert did all that
he could to inflame the mind of Edward against the French king. French
romance of the next generation, in the poem of the _Vow of the
Heron_,[1] tells how Robert, returning to Edward's court from the chase,
brought as his only victim a heron, which he offered to the king as the
most timid of birds to the most cowardly of kings; "for, sire," he
declared, "you have not dared to claim the realm of France which belongs
to you by hereditary right". Stirred up by this challenge, Edward swore
to God and the heron that within a year he would place the crown of
France on Queen Philippa's brow. This famous legend is, however, a
fiction. It was not until later that Edward seriously renewed the claim
which he had advanced in 1328. But when once war became certain, the
challenge of the French throne was bound to be made, and the dissolution
of the friendly personal relations of the two kings, which had so long
prevented either from proceeding to extremities, was certainly in large
part the work of Robert of Artois. For the moment, Edward probably
thought that his welcome of Robert was only a fair return for Philip's
reception of David Bruce.
[1] _Les voeus du héron_ in Wright, _Political Poems and
Songs_, i., 1-25 (Rolls Ser.)
War being imminent, Edward looked beyond sea for foreign allies.
Commercial and traditional ties closely bound England to the county of
Flanders, but our friendship had latterly been with its people rather
than with its princes. Louis of Nevers, the Count of Flanders, had been
expelled in 1328 by a rising of the maritime districts of the county,
and had been restored by force of arms through the agency of Philip of
Valois. Gratitude and interest accordingly combined to make Count Louis
a strong partisan of Philip of Valois. Though far from absolute, he was
still possessed of sufficient authority over his unruly townsmen to
make it impossible for Edward to negotiate successfully with them. In
1336 the count answered Edward's advances by prohibiting all commercial
relations between his subjects and England. Bitterly disgusted at the
hostility of Flanders, Edward in 1337 passed a law through parliament
which prohibited the export of wool to the Flemish weaving centres.
This measure provoked an economic crisis at Ghent and Ypres; but for
the moment such a catastrophe could only accentuate the differences
between England and the count. It was otherwise, however, with the
neighbouring princes of the imperial obedience. Count William I. of
Hainault, Holland, and Zealand was Edward III.'s father-in-law, and,
during the last months of his strenuous career, he welcomed Bishop
Burghersh, Edward's chief diplomatist, to his favourite residence of
Valenciennes, where from April, 1337, the English ambassadors kept
great state, "sparing as little as if the king were present there in
his own person," and striving with all their might to build up an
alliance with the princes of the Low Countries. When the count died,
his son and successor, William II., persisted, though with less energy,
in his father's policy, and the Hainault connexion became the nucleus
of a general Low German alliance. Burghersh was lavish in promises, and
soon a large number of imperial vassals took Edward's pay and promised
to fight his battles. Among these were Count Reginald of Gelderland,
who since 1332 had been the husband of Edward III.'s sister Eleanor,
and with him came the Counts of Berg, Jülich, Cleves, and Mark, the
Count Palatine of the Rhine, and a swarm of minor potentates.
Hardest to win over of the Netherlandish princes was Duke John III. of
Brabant, a crafty statesman and a successful warrior, who had recently
conquered limburg, and won a signal victory over a formidable coalition
of his neighbours. Among his former foes had been the house of Avesnes,
but he had reconciled himself with Hainault, by reason of his greater
hatred for Louis of Flanders. The Flemish cities were the rivals in
trade of his own land, and their count's friendship for his French
suzerain ensured the establishment of Philip of Valois as temporary
lord of Mechlin, the possession of which had long been indirectly
disputed between Brabant and Flanders. The hesitating duke was at last
won over by a favourable commercial treaty, which made Antwerp the
staple of English wools, and ensured for the looms of Louvain and
Brussels the advantages denied by Edward's hostility to the
clothworkers of Ghent and Ypres. Convinced that war with Philip was the
surest way of adding Mechlin to his dominions, he then joined the
circle of Edward's stipendiaries. The excommunicated and schismatic
emperor, Louis of Bavaria, welcomed the advances of Burghersh. More
than one tie already bound the Bavarian to England. The English
Franciscan, William of Ockham, proved himself the most active and
daring of the literary champions of the imperial claims against John
XXII. Moreover, the emperor and Edward had married sisters, and their
brother-in-law, the new Count of Hainault, Holland, and Zealand, was
childless, so that they had common interests in keeping on good terms
with him. Louis' bitter enemy, Benedict XII., forbade all hope of
French support, and blocked the way to all prospect of reconciliation
with the Church. It was natural that Louis should take his revenge by
an alliance with the prince who ignored the advice of the pontiff, and
hated the Valois king. As the result of all this, an offensive and
defensive alliance between Edward on the one hand and Louis and his Low
German vassals on the other was signed at Valenciennes in the summer of
1337.
The die seemed cast. Philip VI. pronounced the forfeiture of Gascony
and Ponthieu. The French at once invaded Edward's duchy and county,
while the French sailors in the Channel plundered the Anglo-Norman
islands and the towns on the Sussex and Hampshire coasts. Edward
redoubled his preparations for war, and issued a long manifesto to his
subjects in which he set forth in violent language his grievances
against Philip. It was at this unlucky moment that the two cardinal
legates came upon the scene, reaching Paris in August, intent on
arranging a pacification. The irritation, which Benedict showed against
Edward for concluding an alliance with the schismatic emperor, did not
make him more disposed to the work of conciliation. But the pope saw in
the outbreak of a great war the destruction of his last hopes of
humiliating the Bavarian, and once more played upon the weakness and
impolicy of Philip. Though France was more ready than England, and
Philip had everything to lose by delay, the French king allowed himself
to be persuaded by the two legates to enter once more upon the paths of
conciliation. As a preliminary measure, he revoked the order for the
confiscation of Gascony, and accepted a temporary armistice. As before
in the Scottish business, Philip again played the game of the papacy.
Unlike his adversary, Edward continued steadily in the line which he
had determined upon, while welcoming any delay that gave him
opportunity to get ready. He employed the interval in making peace more
impossible than ever. On October 7, he renewed his claim to the French
crown, repudiated the homage into which he had been tricked during his
infancy, and sent Bishop Burghersh straight from Valenciennes to Paris
as bearer of his defiance. Thus the autumn of 1337 saw a virtual
declaration of war. In November the first serious hostilities took
place. Sir Walter Manny devastated the Flemish island of Cadzand,
taking away with him as prisoner the bastard brother of the Count of
Flanders.
Papal diplomacy had not yet exhausted its resources. Benedict XII. was
deeply concerned at the conclusion of the Anglo-imperial alliance. He
was convinced that the only possible way of avoiding its perils was to
persuade Edward and Philip to bury their differences and unite with him
against the emperor. He succeeded in obtaining short prolongations of
the existing armistice and, in December, 1337, the two cardinal legates
landed in England, and were gladly received by Edward, who was
delighted to gain time by negotiations. For the next six months they
tarried in England, hoping against hope that something definite would
result from their efforts. Meanwhile the English hurried on their
preparations for war, and Edward made ready to cross over to the
continent. As months slipped away, the tension became more severe, and
in May Edward denounced the truces, though he still kept up the
pretence of negotiations, and so late as June appointed ambassadors to
treat with Philip of Valois. The real interest centred in the hard
fighting which at once broke out at sea between the rival seamen of
England and Normandy. At first the advantage was with the Normans. Not
only were many English ships captured, but repeated destructive forays
were made on the coasts of the south-eastern counties. Portsmouth was
burnt; the Channel Islands were ravaged; and so alarming were the
French corsairs that, in July, 1338, the dwellers on the south coast
were ordered to take refuge in fortresses, or withdraw their goods to a
distance of four leagues from the sea.
At last the army and fleet were ready. On July 12, 1338, Edward
appointed his son, the eight-year-old Duke of Cornwall, warden of
England, and a few days later sailed from Orwell on a great ship named
the _Christopher_. A favourable wind quickly bore the royal fleet to
the mouth of the Scheldt. Thence the king and his army sailed up the
river to Antwerp, the chief port of Brabant, where they landed on July
16. There, on July 22, Edward revoked all commissions addressed to the
King of France, and withheld from his agents all power to prejudice his
own pretensions to the throne of the Valois. He passed more than a
month at Antwerp, holding frequent conferences with his imperial
allies, and thence proceeded through Brabant and Jülich to Cologne.
From that city he went up the Rhine to Coblenz, where on September 5 he
held an interview with his queen's imperial brother-in-law. Their
meeting was celebrated with all the pomp and stateliness of the heyday
of chivalry. Edward was accompanied by the highest nobles of his land,
the emperor by all the electors, save King John of Bohemia, who, as a
Luxemburger, was a convinced partisan of the French. Louis received his
ally clothed in a purple dalmatic, with crown on head and with sceptre
and orb in hand, surrounded by the electors and the higher dignitaries
of the empire, and seated on a lofty throne erected in the Castorplatz,
hard by the Romanesque basilica that watches over the junction of the
Moselle with the Rhine. Another throne, somewhat lower in height, was
occupied by the King of England, clothed in a robe of scarlet
embroidered with gold, and surrounded by three hundred knights. Then,
before the assembled crowd, Louis declared that Philip of France had
forfeited the fiefs which he held of the empire. He put into Edward's
hands a rod of gold and a charter of investiture, by which symbols he
appointed him as "Vicar-general of the Empire in all the Germanies and
in all the Almaines". Next day the allies heard a mass celebrated by
the Archbishop of Cologne in the church of St. Castor. After the
service the emperor swore to aid Edward against the King of France for
seven years, while the barons of the empire took oaths to obey the
imperial vicar and to march against his enemies. Thereupon the English
king took farewell of the emperor, and returned to Brabant.
All was ready for war. The interview at Coblenz was the deathblow to
the papal diplomacy, and the sluggish Philip awaited in the Vermandois
the expected attack of the Anglo-imperial armies. Yet the best part of
a year was still to elapse before lances were crossed in earnest. The
lords of the empire had no real care for the cause of Edward. They were
delighted to take his presents, to pledge themselves to support him,
and to insist upon the regular payment of the subsidies he had
promised. But John of Brabant was more intent on winning Mechlin than
on invading France, and even William of Avesnes was embarrassed by the
ties which bound him to Philip, his uncle, even more than to Edward,
his brother-in-law. They contented themselves with taking Edward's
money and giving him little save promises in return. It became evident
that an imperial vicar would be obeyed even less than an emperor. Every
week of delay was dangerous to Edward, who had exhausted his resources
in the pompous pageantry of his Rhenish journey, and in magnificent
housekeeping in Brabant. It was then Edward's interest, as it had
previously been Philip's, to bring matters to a crisis. That he failed
to do this must be ascribed to the lukewarmness of his allies, the
poverty of his exchequer, and, above all, to the still active diplomacy
of Benedict XII.
The cardinal legates appeared in Brabant, but their tone was different
from that which they had taken in the previous spring in England.
Profoundly irritated by the alliance of Edward and Louis, Benedict
lectured the English king on the iniquity of his courses. The empire
was vacant; the Coblenz grant was therefore of no effect; if Edward
persisted in acting as vicar of the schismatic, he would be
excommunicated. Benedict stood revealed as the partisan of France. It
was in vain that Edward offered peace if France gave up the Scots and
made full restitution of Gascony. Benedict ordered his legates to
refuse to discuss the latter proposal, and, as the Gascon question lay
at the root of the whole matter, an amicable settlement became more
impossible than ever. Edward hotly defended his right to make what
alliances he chose with his wife's kinsmen, and bitterly denounced the
employment of the wealth of the Church in equipping the armies of his
enemies. Though the cardinals, Peter and Bertrand, remained in Edward's
camp, they might, for all practical purposes, as well have been at
Avignon. The papal diplomacy had failed.
Edward employed the leisure forced upon him by these events in
elaborating his claim to the French throne. His lawyers ransacked both
Roman jurisprudence and feudal custom that they might lay before the
pope and Christendom plausible reasons for their master's pretensions.
They advanced pleas of an even bolder character. Was not the right of
Edward to the French throne the same as that of Jesus Christ to the
succession of David? The Virgin Mary, incapable of the succession on her
own behalf, was yet able to transmit her rights to her Son. These
contentions, sacred and profane, did not touch the vital issue. It was
not the dynastic question that brought about the war, though, war being
inevitable, Edward might well, as he himself said, use his claim as a
buckler to protect himself from his enemies. The fundamental difference
between the two nations lay in the impossible position of Edward in
Gascony. He could not abandon his ancient patrimony, and Philip could
not give up that policy of gradually absorbing the great fiefs which the
French kings had carried on since the days of St. Louis. The support
given to the Scots, the Anglo-imperial alliance, the growing national
animosity of the two peoples, the rivalry of English and French
merchants and sailors, all these and many similar causes were but
secondary.[1] At this stage the claim to the French throne, though
immensely complicating the situation, and interposing formidable
technical obstacles to the conduct of negotiations, loomed larger in
talk than in acts. It was only in 1340, when Edward saw in his
pretensions the best way of commanding the allegiance of Philip's sworn
vassals, that the question of the French title became a serious matter.
[1] Déprez, _Les Préliminaires de la Guerre de Cent Am_, pp.
400-406, admirably elucidates the situation.
On which side did the responsibility for the war rest? National
prejudices have complicated the question. English historians have seen
in the aggression of Philip in Gascony, his intervention in Scottish
affairs, and the buccaneering exploits of the Norman mariners, reasons
adequate to provoke the patience even of a peace-loving monarch. French
writers, unable to deny these facts, have insisted upon the slowness of
Philip to requite provocation, his servile deference to papal
authority, his willingness to negotiate, and his dislike to take
offence even at the denial of his right to the crown which he wore.
Either king seems hesitating and reluctant when looked at from one
point of view, and pertinaciously aggressive when regarded from the
opposite standpoint. It is safer to conclude that the war was
inevitable than to endeavour to apportion the blame which is so equally
to be divided between the two monarchs. The modern eye singles out
Edward's baseless claim and makes him the aggressor, but there was
little, as the best French historians admit, in Edward's pretension
that shocked the idea of justice in those days. Moreover this view,
held too absolutely, is confuted by the secondary position taken by the
claim during the negotiations which preceded hostilities. If in the
conduct of the preliminaries we may assign to Edward the credit of
superior insight, more resolute policy, and a more clearly perceived
goal, the intellectual superiority, which he possessed over his rival,
was hardly balanced by any special moral obliquity on his part; though
to Philip, with all his weakness, must always be given the sympathy
provoked by the defence of his land against the foreign invader. It is
useless to refine the issue further. The situation had become
impossible, and fighting was the only way out of the difficulty. When
in the late summer of 1339 the curtain was rung down on the
long-drawn-out diplomatic comedy, Edward had not yet finally assumed
that title of King of France, which made an inevitable strife
irreconcilable, and so prolonged hostilities that the struggle became
the Hundred Years' War.