ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD
Roger Mortimer, the Queen’s lover (who escaped to France in the last
chapter), was far from profiting by the examples he had had of the fate
of favourites. Having, through the Queen’s influence, come into
possession of the estates of the two Despensers, he became extremely
proud and ambitious, and sought to be the real ruler of England. The
young King, who was crowned at fourteen years of age with all the usual
solemnities, resolved not to bear this, and soon pursued Mortimer to
his ruin.
The people themselves were not fond of Mortimer—first, because he was a
Royal favourite; secondly, because he was supposed to have helped to
make a peace with Scotland which now took place, and in virtue of which
the young King’s sister Joan, only seven years old, was promised in
marriage to David, the son and heir of Robert Bruce, who was only five
years old. The nobles hated Mortimer because of his pride, riches, and
power. They went so far as to take up arms against him; but were
obliged to submit. The Earl of Kent, one of those who did so, but who
afterwards went over to Mortimer and the Queen, was made an example of
in the following cruel manner:
He seems to have been anything but a wise old earl; and he was
persuaded by the agents of the favourite and the Queen, that poor King
Edward the Second was not really dead; and thus was betrayed into
writing letters favouring his rightful claim to the throne. This was
made out to be high treason, and he was tried, found guilty, and
sentenced to be executed. They took the poor old lord outside the town
of Winchester, and there kept him waiting some three or four hours
until they could find somebody to cut off his head. At last, a convict
said he would do it, if the government would pardon him in return; and
they gave him the pardon; and at one blow he put the Earl of Kent out
of his last suspense.
While the Queen was in France, she had found a lovely and good young
lady, named Philippa, who she thought would make an excellent wife for
her son. The young King married this lady, soon after he came to the
throne; and her first child, Edward, Prince of Wales, afterwards became
celebrated, as we shall presently see, under the famous title of Edward
the Black Prince.
The young King, thinking the time ripe for the downfall of Mortimer,
took counsel with Lord Montacute how he should proceed. A Parliament
was going to be held at Nottingham, and that lord recommended that the
favourite should be seized by night in Nottingham Castle, where he was
sure to be. Now, this, like many other things, was more easily said
than done; because, to guard against treachery, the great gates of the
Castle were locked every night, and the great keys were carried
up-stairs to the Queen, who laid them under her own pillow. But the
Castle had a governor, and the governor being Lord Montacute’s friend,
confided to him how he knew of a secret passage underground, hidden
from observation by the weeds and brambles with which it was overgrown;
and how, through that passage, the conspirators might enter in the dead
of the night, and go straight to Mortimer’s room. Accordingly, upon a
certain dark night, at midnight, they made their way through this
dismal place: startling the rats, and frightening the owls and bats:
and came safely to the bottom of the main tower of the Castle, where
the King met them, and took them up a profoundly-dark staircase in a
deep silence. They soon heard the voice of Mortimer in council with
some friends; and bursting into the room with a sudden noise, took him
prisoner. The Queen cried out from her bed-chamber, ‘Oh, my sweet son,
my dear son, spare my gentle Mortimer!’ They carried him off, however;
and, before the next Parliament, accused him of having made differences
between the young King and his mother, and of having brought about the
death of the Earl of Kent, and even of the late King; for, as you know
by this time, when they wanted to get rid of a man in those old days,
they were not very particular of what they accused him. Mortimer was
found guilty of all this, and was sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn. The
King shut his mother up in genteel confinement, where she passed the
rest of her life; and now he became King in earnest.
The first effort he made was to conquer Scotland. The English lords who
had lands in Scotland, finding that their rights were not respected
under the late peace, made war on their own account: choosing for their
general, Edward, the son of John Baliol, who made such a vigorous
fight, that in less than two months he won the whole Scottish Kingdom.
He was joined, when thus triumphant, by the King and Parliament; and he
and the King in person besieged the Scottish forces in Berwick. The
whole Scottish army coming to the assistance of their countrymen, such
a furious battle ensued, that thirty thousand men are said to have been
killed in it. Baliol was then crowned King of Scotland, doing homage to
the King of England; but little came of his successes after all, for
the Scottish men rose against him, within no very long time, and David
Bruce came back within ten years and took his kingdom.
France was a far richer country than Scotland, and the King had a much
greater mind to conquer it. So, he let Scotland alone, and pretended
that he had a claim to the French throne in right of his mother. He
had, in reality, no claim at all; but that mattered little in those
times. He brought over to his cause many little princes and sovereigns,
and even courted the alliance of the people of Flanders—a busy, working
community, who had very small respect for kings, and whose head man was
a brewer. With such forces as he raised by these means, Edward invaded
France; but he did little by that, except run into debt in carrying on
the war to the extent of three hundred thousand pounds. The next year
he did better; gaining a great sea-fight in the harbour of Sluys. This
success, however, was very shortlived, for the Flemings took fright at
the siege of Saint Omer and ran away, leaving their weapons and baggage
behind them. Philip, the French King, coming up with his army, and
Edward being very anxious to decide the war, proposed to settle the
difference by single combat with him, or by a fight of one hundred
knights on each side. The French King said, he thanked him; but being
very well as he was, he would rather not. So, after some skirmishing
and talking, a short peace was made.
It was soon broken by King Edward’s favouring the cause of John, Earl
of Montford; a French nobleman, who asserted a claim of his own against
the French King, and offered to do homage to England for the Crown of
France, if he could obtain it through England’s help. This French lord,
himself, was soon defeated by the French King’s son, and shut up in a
tower in Paris; but his wife, a courageous and beautiful woman, who is
said to have had the courage of a man, and the heart of a lion,
assembled the people of Brittany, where she then was; and, showing them
her infant son, made many pathetic entreaties to them not to desert her
and their young Lord. They took fire at this appeal, and rallied round
her in the strong castle of Hennebon. Here she was not only besieged
without by the French under Charles de Blois, but was endangered within
by a dreary old bishop, who was always representing to the people what
horrors they must undergo if they were faithful—first from famine, and
afterwards from fire and sword. But this noble lady, whose heart never
failed her, encouraged her soldiers by her own example; went from post
to post like a great general; even mounted on horseback fully armed,
and, issuing from the castle by a by-path, fell upon the French camp,
set fire to the tents, and threw the whole force into disorder. This
done, she got safely back to Hennebon again, and was received with loud
shouts of joy by the defenders of the castle, who had given her up for
lost. As they were now very short of provisions, however, and as they
could not dine off enthusiasm, and as the old bishop was always saying,
‘I told you what it would come to!’ they began to lose heart, and to
talk of yielding the castle up. The brave Countess retiring to an upper
room and looking with great grief out to sea, where she expected relief
from England, saw, at this very time, the English ships in the
distance, and was relieved and rescued! Sir Walter Manning, the English
commander, so admired her courage, that, being come into the castle
with the English knights, and having made a feast there, he assaulted
the French by way of dessert, and beat them off triumphantly. Then he
and the knights came back to the castle with great joy; and the
Countess who had watched them from a high tower, thanked them with all
her heart, and kissed them every one.
This noble lady distinguished herself afterwards in a sea-fight with
the French off Guernsey, when she was on her way to England to ask for
more troops. Her great spirit roused another lady, the wife of another
French lord (whom the French King very barbarously murdered), to
distinguish herself scarcely less. The time was fast coming, however,
when Edward, Prince of Wales, was to be the great star of this French
and English war.
It was in the month of July, in the year one thousand three hundred and
forty-six, when the King embarked at Southampton for France, with an
army of about thirty thousand men in all, attended by the Prince of
Wales and by several of the chief nobles. He landed at La Hogue in
Normandy; and, burning and destroying as he went, according to custom,
advanced up the left bank of the River Seine, and fired the small towns
even close to Paris; but, being watched from the right bank of the
river by the French King and all his army, it came to this at last,
that Edward found himself, on Saturday the twenty-sixth of August, one
thousand three hundred and forty-six, on a rising ground behind the
little French village of Crecy, face to face with the French King’s
force. And, although the French King had an enormous army—in number
more than eight times his—he there resolved to beat him or be beaten.
The young Prince, assisted by the Earl of Oxford and the Earl of
Warwick, led the first division of the English army; two other great
Earls led the second; and the King, the third. When the morning dawned,
the King received the sacrament, and heard prayers, and then, mounted
on horseback with a white wand in his hand, rode from company to
company, and rank to rank, cheering and encouraging both officers and
men. Then the whole army breakfasted, each man sitting on the ground
where he had stood; and then they remained quietly on the ground with
their weapons ready.
Up came the French King with all his great force. It was dark and angry
weather; there was an eclipse of the sun; there was a thunder-storm,
accompanied with tremendous rain; the frightened birds flew screaming
above the soldiers’ heads. A certain captain in the French army advised
the French King, who was by no means cheerful, not to begin the battle
until the morrow. The King, taking this advice, gave the word to halt.
But, those behind not understanding it, or desiring to be foremost with
the rest, came pressing on. The roads for a great distance were covered
with this immense army, and with the common people from the villages,
who were flourishing their rude weapons, and making a great noise.
Owing to these circumstances, the French army advanced in the greatest
confusion; every French lord doing what he liked with his own men, and
putting out the men of every other French lord.
Now, their King relied strongly upon a great body of cross-bowmen from
Genoa; and these he ordered to the front to begin the battle, on
finding that he could not stop it. They shouted once, they shouted
twice, they shouted three times, to alarm the English archers; but, the
English would have heard them shout three thousand times and would have
never moved. At last the cross-bowmen went forward a little, and began
to discharge their bolts; upon which, the English let fly such a hail
of arrows, that the Genoese speedily made off—for their cross-bows,
besides being heavy to carry, required to be wound up with a handle,
and consequently took time to re-load; the English, on the other hand,
could discharge their arrows almost as fast as the arrows could fly.
When the French King saw the Genoese turning, he cried out to his men
to kill those scoundrels, who were doing harm instead of service. This
increased the confusion. Meanwhile the English archers, continuing to
shoot as fast as ever, shot down great numbers of the French soldiers
and knights; whom certain sly Cornish-men and Welshmen, from the
English army, creeping along the ground, despatched with great knives.
The Prince and his division were at this time so hard-pressed, that the
Earl of Warwick sent a message to the King, who was overlooking the
battle from a windmill, beseeching him to send more aid.
‘Is my son killed?’ said the King.
‘No, sire, please God,’ returned the messenger.
‘Is he wounded?’ said the King.
‘No, sire.’
‘Is he thrown to the ground?’ said the King.
‘No, sire, not so; but, he is very hard-pressed.’
‘Then,’ said the King, ‘go back to those who sent you, and tell them I
shall send no aid; because I set my heart upon my son proving himself
this day a brave knight, and because I am resolved, please God, that
the honour of a great victory shall be his!’
These bold words, being reported to the Prince and his division, so
raised their spirits, that they fought better than ever. The King of
France charged gallantly with his men many times; but it was of no use.
Night closing in, his horse was killed under him by an English arrow,
and the knights and nobles who had clustered thick about him early in
the day, were now completely scattered. At last, some of his few
remaining followers led him off the field by force since he would not
retire of himself, and they journeyed away to Amiens. The victorious
English, lighting their watch-fires, made merry on the field, and the
King, riding to meet his gallant son, took him in his arms, kissed him,
and told him that he had acted nobly, and proved himself worthy of the
day and of the crown. While it was yet night, King Edward was hardly
aware of the great victory he had gained; but, next day, it was
discovered that eleven princes, twelve hundred knights, and thirty
thousand common men lay dead upon the French side. Among these was the
King of Bohemia, an old blind man; who, having been told that his son
was wounded in the battle, and that no force could stand against the
Black Prince, called to him two knights, put himself on horse-back
between them, fastened the three bridles together, and dashed in among
the English, where he was presently slain. He bore as his crest three
white ostrich feathers, with the motto _Ich dien_, signifying in
English ‘I serve.’ This crest and motto were taken by the Prince of
Wales in remembrance of that famous day, and have been borne by the
Prince of Wales ever since.
Five days after this great battle, the King laid siege to Calais. This
siege—ever afterwards memorable—lasted nearly a year. In order to
starve the inhabitants out, King Edward built so many wooden houses for
the lodgings of his troops, that it is said their quarters looked like
a second Calais suddenly sprung around the first. Early in the siege,
the governor of the town drove out what he called the useless mouths,
to the number of seventeen hundred persons, men and women, young and
old. King Edward allowed them to pass through his lines, and even fed
them, and dismissed them with money; but, later in the siege, he was
not so merciful—five hundred more, who were afterwards driven out,
dying of starvation and misery. The garrison were so hard-pressed at
last, that they sent a letter to King Philip, telling him that they had
eaten all the horses, all the dogs, and all the rats and mice that
could be found in the place; and, that if he did not relieve them, they
must either surrender to the English, or eat one another. Philip made
one effort to give them relief; but they were so hemmed in by the
English power, that he could not succeed, and was fain to leave the
place. Upon this they hoisted the English flag, and surrendered to King
Edward. ‘Tell your general,’ said he to the humble messengers who came
out of the town, ‘that I require to have sent here, six of the most
distinguished citizens, bare-legged, and in their shirts, with ropes
about their necks; and let those six men bring with them the keys of
the castle and the town.’
When the Governor of Calais related this to the people in the
Market-place, there was great weeping and distress; in the midst of
which, one worthy citizen, named Eustace de Saint Pierre, rose up and
said, that if the six men required were not sacrificed, the whole
population would be; therefore, he offered himself as the first.
Encouraged by this bright example, five other worthy citizens rose up
one after another, and offered themselves to save the rest. The
Governor, who was too badly wounded to be able to walk, mounted a poor
old horse that had not been eaten, and conducted these good men to the
gate, while all the people cried and mourned.
Edward received them wrathfully, and ordered the heads of the whole six
to be struck off. However, the good Queen fell upon her knees, and
besought the King to give them up to her. The King replied, ‘I wish you
had been somewhere else; but I cannot refuse you.’ So she had them
properly dressed, made a feast for them, and sent them back with a
handsome present, to the great rejoicing of the whole camp. I hope the
people of Calais loved the daughter to whom she gave birth soon
afterwards, for her gentle mother’s sake.
Now came that terrible disease, the Plague, into Europe, hurrying from
the heart of China; and killed the wretched people—especially the
poor—in such enormous numbers, that one-half of the inhabitants of
England are related to have died of it. It killed the cattle, in great
numbers, too; and so few working men remained alive, that there were
not enough left to till the ground.
After eight years of differing and quarrelling, the Prince of Wales
again invaded France with an army of sixty thousand men. He went
through the south of the country, burning and plundering wheresoever he
went; while his father, who had still the Scottish war upon his hands,
did the like in Scotland, but was harassed and worried in his retreat
from that country by the Scottish men, who repaid his cruelties with
interest.
The French King, Philip, was now dead, and was succeeded by his son
John. The Black Prince, called by that name from the colour of the
armour he wore to set off his fair complexion, continuing to burn and
destroy in France, roused John into determined opposition; and so cruel
had the Black Prince been in his campaign, and so severely had the
French peasants suffered, that he could not find one who, for love, or
money, or the fear of death, would tell him what the French King was
doing, or where he was. Thus it happened that he came upon the French
King’s forces, all of a sudden, near the town of Poitiers, and found
that the whole neighbouring country was occupied by a vast French army.
‘God help us!’ said the Black Prince, ‘we must make the best of it.’
So, on a Sunday morning, the eighteenth of September, the Prince whose
army was now reduced to ten thousand men in all—prepared to give battle
to the French King, who had sixty thousand horse alone. While he was so
engaged, there came riding from the French camp, a Cardinal, who had
persuaded John to let him offer terms, and try to save the shedding of
Christian blood. ‘Save my honour,’ said the Prince to this good priest,
‘and save the honour of my army, and I will make any reasonable terms.’
He offered to give up all the towns, castles, and prisoners, he had
taken, and to swear to make no war in France for seven years; but, as
John would hear of nothing but his surrender, with a hundred of his
chief knights, the treaty was broken off, and the Prince said
quietly—‘God defend the right; we shall fight to-morrow.’
Therefore, on the Monday morning, at break of day, the two armies
prepared for battle. The English were posted in a strong place, which
could only be approached by one narrow lane, skirted by hedges on both
sides. The French attacked them by this lane; but were so galled and
slain by English arrows from behind the hedges, that they were forced
to retreat. Then went six hundred English bowmen round about, and,
coming upon the rear of the French army, rained arrows on them thick
and fast. The French knights, thrown into confusion, quitted their
banners and dispersed in all directions. Said Sir John Chandos to the
Prince, ‘Ride forward, noble Prince, and the day is yours. The King of
France is so valiant a gentleman, that I know he will never fly, and
may be taken prisoner.’ Said the Prince to this, ‘Advance, English
banners, in the name of God and St. George!’ and on they pressed until
they came up with the French King, fighting fiercely with his
battle-axe, and, when all his nobles had forsaken him, attended
faithfully to the last by his youngest son Philip, only sixteen years
of age. Father and son fought well, and the King had already two wounds
in his face, and had been beaten down, when he at last delivered
himself to a banished French knight, and gave him his right-hand glove
in token that he had done so.
The Black Prince was generous as well as brave, and he invited his
royal prisoner to supper in his tent, and waited upon him at table,
and, when they afterwards rode into London in a gorgeous procession,
mounted the French King on a fine cream-coloured horse, and rode at his
side on a little pony. This was all very kind, but I think it was,
perhaps, a little theatrical too, and has been made more meritorious
than it deserved to be; especially as I am inclined to think that the
greatest kindness to the King of France would have been not to have
shown him to the people at all. However, it must be said, for these
acts of politeness, that, in course of time, they did much to soften
the horrors of war and the passions of conquerors. It was a long, long
time before the common soldiers began to have the benefit of such
courtly deeds; but they did at last; and thus it is possible that a
poor soldier who asked for quarter at the battle of Waterloo, or any
other such great fight, may have owed his life indirectly to Edward the
Black Prince.
At this time there stood in the Strand, in London, a palace called the
Savoy, which was given up to the captive King of France and his son for
their residence. As the King of Scotland had now been King Edward’s
captive for eleven years too, his success was, at this time, tolerably
complete. The Scottish business was settled by the prisoner being
released under the title of Sir David, King of Scotland, and by his
engaging to pay a large ransom. The state of France encouraged England
to propose harder terms to that country, where the people rose against
the unspeakable cruelty and barbarity of its nobles; where the nobles
rose in turn against the people; where the most frightful outrages were
committed on all sides; and where the insurrection of the peasants,
called the insurrection of the Jacquerie, from Jacques, a common
Christian name among the country people of France, awakened terrors and
hatreds that have scarcely yet passed away. A treaty called the Great
Peace, was at last signed, under which King Edward agreed to give up
the greater part of his conquests, and King John to pay, within six
years, a ransom of three million crowns of gold. He was so beset by his
own nobles and courtiers for having yielded to these conditions—though
they could help him to no better—that he came back of his own will to
his old palace-prison of the Savoy, and there died.
There was a Sovereign of Castile at that time, called Pedro the Cruel,
who deserved the name remarkably well: having committed, among other
cruelties, a variety of murders. This amiable monarch being driven from
his throne for his crimes, went to the province of Bordeaux, where the
Black Prince—now married to his cousin Joan, a pretty widow—was
residing, and besought his help. The Prince, who took to him much more
kindly than a prince of such fame ought to have taken to such a
ruffian, readily listened to his fair promises, and agreeing to help
him, sent secret orders to some troublesome disbanded soldiers of his
and his father’s, who called themselves the Free Companions, and who
had been a pest to the French people, for some time, to aid this Pedro.
The Prince, himself, going into Spain to head the army of relief, soon
set Pedro on his throne again—where he no sooner found himself, than,
of course, he behaved like the villain he was, broke his word without
the least shame, and abandoned all the promises he had made to the
Black Prince.
Now, it had cost the Prince a good deal of money to pay soldiers to
support this murderous King; and finding himself, when he came back
disgusted to Bordeaux, not only in bad health, but deeply in debt, he
began to tax his French subjects to pay his creditors. They appealed to
the French King, Charles; war again broke out; and the French town of
Limoges, which the Prince had greatly benefited, went over to the
French King. Upon this he ravaged the province of which it was the
capital; burnt, and plundered, and killed in the old sickening way; and
refused mercy to the prisoners, men, women, and children taken in the
offending town, though he was so ill and so much in need of pity
himself from Heaven, that he was carried in a litter. He lived to come
home and make himself popular with the people and Parliament, and he
died on Trinity Sunday, the eighth of June, one thousand three hundred
and seventy-six, at forty-six years old.
The whole nation mourned for him as one of the most renowned and
beloved princes it had ever had; and he was buried with great
lamentations in Canterbury Cathedral. Near to the tomb of Edward the
Confessor, his monument, with his figure, carved in stone, and
represented in the old black armour, lying on its back, may be seen at
this day, with an ancient coat of mail, a helmet, and a pair of
gauntlets hanging from a beam above it, which most people like to
believe were once worn by the Black Prince.
King Edward did not outlive his renowned son, long. He was old, and one
Alice Perrers, a beautiful lady, had contrived to make him so fond of
her in his old age, that he could refuse her nothing, and made himself
ridiculous. She little deserved his love, or—what I dare say she valued
a great deal more—the jewels of the late Queen, which he gave her among
other rich presents. She took the very ring from his finger on the
morning of the day when he died, and left him to be pillaged by his
faithless servants. Only one good priest was true to him, and attended
him to the last.
Besides being famous for the great victories I have related, the reign
of King Edward the Third was rendered memorable in better ways, by the
growth of architecture and the erection of Windsor Castle. In better
ways still, by the rising up of Wickliffe, originally a poor parish
priest: who devoted himself to exposing, with wonderful power and
success, the ambition and corruption of the Pope, and of the whole
church of which he was the head.
Some of those Flemings were induced to come to England in this reign
too, and to settle in Norfolk, where they made better woollen cloths
than the English had ever had before. The Order of the Garter (a very
fine thing in its way, but hardly so important as good clothes for the
nation) also dates from this period. The King is said to have picked
‘up a lady’s garter at a ball, and to have said, _Honi soit qui mal y
pense_—in English, ‘Evil be to him who evil thinks of it.’ The
courtiers were usually glad to imitate what the King said or did, and
hence from a slight incident the Order of the Garter was instituted,
and became a great dignity. So the story goes.