FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD III. TO THE TREATY OF BRETIGNI.
1327--1360.
LEADING DATES
Reign of Edward III., 1327--1377
Accession of Edward III. 1327
Beginning of the War with France 1337
Battle of Crecy 1346
The Black Death 1348
Battle of Poitiers 1356
Treaty of Bretigni 1360
1. =Mortimer's Government. 1327--1330.=--Edward III. was only fifteen
at his accession. For three years power was in the hands of his
mother's paramour, Mortimer. Robert Bruce, though old and smitten with
leprosy, was still anxious to wring from England an acknowledgment of
Scottish independence, and, in spite of the existing truce, sent an
army to ravage the northern counties of England. Edward led in person
against it an English force far superior in numbers and equipment; but
the English soldier needed many things, whilst the Scot contented
himself with a little oatmeal carried on the back of his hardy pony.
If he grew tired of that he had but to seize an English sheep or cow
and to boil the flesh in the hide. Such an army was difficult to come
up with. Fighting there was none, except once when the Scots broke
into the English camp at night and almost succeeded in carrying off
the young king. Mortimer was at his wits' end, and in =1328= agreed to
a treaty acknowledging the complete independence of Scotland. It was a
wise thing to do, but no nation likes to acknowledge failure, and
Mortimer became widely unpopular. He succeeded indeed in breaking up a
conspiracy against himself, and in =1330= even executed Edmund, Earl
of Kent, a brother of Edward II. The discontented barons found another
leader in the king, who, young as he was, had been married at fifteen
to Philippa of Hainault. Though he was already a father, he was still
treated by Mortimer as a child, and was virtually kept a prisoner. At
Nottingham he introduced a body of Mortimer's enemies into the castle
through a secret passage in the rock on which it stood. His mother
pleaded in vain for her favourite: "Fair son, have pity on the gentle
Mortimer." Mortimer was hanged, and Queen Isabella was never again
allowed to take part in public affairs.
2. =The French Succession. 1328--1331.=--Isabella's three brothers,
Louis X., Philip V., and Charles IV., had successively reigned in
France. Louis X. died in =1316=, leaving behind him a daughter and a
posthumous son, who died a week after his birth. Then Philip V. seized
the crown, his lawyers asserting that, according to the Salic law, 'no
part of the heritage of Salic land can fall to a woman,' and that
therefore no woman could rule in France. As a matter of fact this was
a mere quibble of the lawyers. The Salic law had been the law of the
Salian Franks in the fifth century, and had to do with the inheritance
of estates, not with the inheritance of the throne of France, which
was not at that time in existence. The quibble, however, was used on
the right side. What Frenchmen wanted was that France should remain an
independent nation, which it was not likely to do under a queen who
might marry the king of another country. The rule thus laid down was
permanently adopted in France. When Philip V. died in =1322= the
throne passed, not to his daughter, but to his brother, Charles IV.,
and when Charles died in =1328=, to his cousin, Philip of Valois, who
reigned as Philip VI. At that time England was still under the control
of Mortimer and Isabella, and though Isabella, being the sister of
Charles IV., thought of claiming the crown, not for herself, but for
her son, Mortimer did not press the claim. In =1329= he sent Edward to
do homage to Philip VI. for his French possessions, but Edward only
did it with certain reservations, and in =1330= preparations for war
were made in England. In =1331=, after Mortimer's fall, when Edward
was his own master, he again visited France, and a treaty was
concluded between the two kings in which he abandoned the reservations
on his homage.
[Illustration: Effigies of Edward III. and Queen Philippa; from their
tombs in Westminster Abbey.]
3. =Troubles in Scotland. 1329--1336.=--On his return, Edward looked
in another direction. In =1329= Robert Bruce died, leaving his crown
to his son, David II., a child five years old. Certain English
noblemen had in the late treaty (see p. 231) been promised restoration
of the estates of their ancestors in Scotland, and in =1332= some of
them, finding the promise unfulfilled, offered English forces to John
Balliol's son, Edward, to help him to the Scottish crown. Aided by
his English allies, Edward Balliol landed in Scotland, defeated the
Scottish army at Dupplin, and was crowned king. Before the end of the
year he was surprised at Annan, and fled to England to appeal to
Edward for help. Though Edward had all the love of enterprise of his
grandfather, Edward I., yet there was a marked contrast between the
deliberate calculation of Edward I. and the almost accidental way in
which Edward III. involved himself in an attempt to regain the
lordship of Scotland. In =1333= he laid siege to Berwick, then in the
hands of the Scots. The Scots advanced into England, and their
spearmen crossed a marsh to attack the English array of knights and
archers posted on the slope of Halidon Hill. The arrows poured like
rain on their struggling columns. The Scots were thrown into
confusion, and their whole army was almost destroyed. Berwick was
regained, and Bannockburn, it seemed, was avenged. Edward not only set
up Balliol as his vassal, but compelled him to yield all Scotland
south of the Forth to be annexed to England. Such a settlement could
not last. Balliol was as weak as his father had been, and the Scots,
recovering courage, drove him out in =1334=. Edward invaded Scotland
again and again. As long as he was in the country he was strong enough
to keep his puppet on the throne, but whenever he returned to England
David Bruce's supporters regained strength. The struggle promised to
be lengthy unless help came to the Scots.
4. =Dispute with France. 1336--1337.=--Philip VI., like Philip IV. in
the days of Edward I. (see p. 218), had his own reasons for not
allowing the Scots to be crushed. He pursued the settled policy of his
predecessors in attempting to bring the great fiefs into his power,
and especially that part of Aquitaine which was still held by the most
powerful of his vassals, the king of England. Whilst Edward was doing
his best to bring Scotland into subjection by open war, Philip was
doing his best to disturb Edward in his hold upon Aquitaine by secret
intrigues and legal chicanery. Ill-feeling increased on both sides.
Philip welcomed David Bruce and gave him protection in France, and in
=1336= French sailors attacked English shipping and landed plunderers
in the Isle of Wight. In =1337= Edward determined to resist, and the
long war roughly known as the Hundred Years' War began. It was in
reality waged to discover by an appeal to arms whether the whole of
Aquitaine was to be incorporated with France and whether Scotland was
to be incorporated with England. That which gave it its peculiar
bitterness was, however, not so much the claims of the kings, as the
passions of their subjects. The national antagonism aroused by the
plunderings of French sea-rovers would be invigorated by the
plunderings of Englishmen in the fields of France.
5. =Edward's Allies. 1337--1338.=--To Edward it was merely a question
of defending, first England, and then Aquitaine, against aggression.
He won over, with large offers of money, the alliance of the princes
of the Empire whose lands lay round the French frontier to the north
and east, and even gained the support of the Emperor Lewis the
Bavarian. His relations with Flanders were even more important. In
Flanders there had sprung up great manufacturing towns, such as Ghent,
Bruges, and Ypres, which worked up into cloth the wool which was the
produce of English sheep. These wealthy towns claimed political
independence, and thus came into collision with their feudal lord, the
Count of Flanders. Early in the reign of Philip VI., the Count, who
held the greater part of his lands from the king of France, had
appealed to Philip for support, and Philip, who, unlike his wiser
predecessors, despised the strength which he might gain from the
goodwill of citizens in a struggle against their lords, took the part
of the Count, and for a time crushed the citizens at the battle of
Cassel. After a while the cities recovered themselves, and formed an
alliance under the leadership of Jacob van Arteveldt, a Flemish
nobleman, who had ingratiated himself with them by enrolling himself
amongst the brewers of Ghent, and who was now successful in urging his
countrymen to enter into friendship with Edward.
6. =Chivalry and War.=--In the long run Edward's cause would be found
a losing one, but there were circumstances which made it prevail for a
time. In France there was a broad distinction between gentlemen on the
one side and citizens and peasants on the other. The gentlemen
despised all who were not of their own class. In earlier days there
had sprung up a view of life known as chivalry, which taught that the
knight was bound to observe the laws of honour, to fight fairly, to
treat with courtesy a defeated enemy, and to protect women and all who
were unable to help themselves. Ennobling as the idea was, it had been
narrowed by the refusal of the gentlemen to extend the rules of
chivalry beyond their own order, and they were, therefore, ready to
exercise cruelty upon those who were not gentlemen, whilst proffering
the most high-flown compliments to those who were. In France, too,
this broad distinction of ranks told upon the military strength of the
crown. The fighting force of the French king was his feudal array of
armour-protected cavalry, composed entirely of gentlemen, and aiming
at deciding battles in the old fashion by the rush of horsemen. If
foot soldiers were brought at all into the field they were, for the
most part, ill armed and ill trained peasants, exposed to be
helplessly slaughtered by the horsemen.
[Illustration: A knight--Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, who died
1345--receiving his helm and pennon from his wife. Another lady holds
his shield.]
7. =Commerce and War.=--In England, on the other hand, the various
orders of society had been welded together into a united people. The
king and his vassals indeed still talked the language of chivalry, but
they were wise enough to seek strength elsewhere. War had become in
England the affair of the nation, and no longer the affair of a class.
It must be waged with efficient archers as well as with efficient
horsemen, the archers being drawn from the class of yeomen or free
landed proprietors of small plots of land, which was entirely wanting
in France. Such an army needed pay, and the large sums required for
the purpose could only be extracted from a nation which, like the
English, had grown comparatively rich because it was at peace within
its own borders. Edward was compelled, if he wanted to fight, to
encourage trade, though it is only fair to remember that he showed
himself ready to encourage trade without any such ulterior object. He
brought Flemish weavers into England, and did his best to improve the
feeble woollen manufacture of the Eastern counties. His great
resource, however, for purposes of taxation, was the export of wool to
the Flemish manufacturing towns. Sometimes he persuaded Parliament to
raise the duties upon exported wool; sometimes he raised them, by an
evasion of the law, after making a private compact with the merchants
without consulting Parliament at all; sometimes he turned merchant
himself and bought wool cheaply in England to sell it dear in
Flanders. It was said of a great minister of later times that he made
trade flourish by means of war.[17] It might be said with greater
truth of Edward III. that he made war flourish by means of trade.
[Footnote 17: See the inscription on the monument to the elder Pitt
in the Guildhall, in the City of London.]
[Illustration: William of Hatfield, second son of Edward III.; from
his tomb in York Minster: showing rich costume worn by the youth of
the upper classes about 1340. The embroidery on the tunic has been
partly worn off on the effigy.]
[Illustration: York Minster:--The nave, looking west, built during the
first half of the fourteenth century. The west window was completed
and glazed in 1338.]
8. =Attacks on the North of France. 1338--1340.=--Great as was
Edward's advantage in having a united nation at his back, it hardly
seemed in the first years of the war as though he knew how to use it.
Though he had declared war against Philip in =1337=, he did not begin
hostilities till the following year. In =1338=, after landing at
Antwerp, he obtained from the Emperor Lewis the title of Imperial
Vicar, which gave him a right to the military services of the vassals
of the Empire. Crowds of German and Low Country lords pressed into his
ranks, but they all wanted high pay, and his resources, great as
they were, were soon exhausted, and he had to pawn his crowns to
satisfy their needs. These lords proved as useless as they were
expensive. In =1339= Edward crossed the French frontier, but he could
not induce Philip to fight, and being deserted by his German allies,
he was obliged to return to England. He then attempted to fall back on
the support of the Flemings, but was told by them that unless he
formally took the title of king of France, which he had only
occasionally done before, they could not fight for him, as the king of
France, whoever he might be, was their superior lord, and as such had
a claim to their services. After some hesitation, in the beginning of
=1340=, Edward satisfied their scruples by reviving the claim which he
had formerly abandoned, declaring himself to be, in right of his
mother, the lawful king of France; and quartering the French arms with
his own. A third territorial question was thus added to the other two.
Practically Edward's answer to Philip's effort to absorb all Aquitaine
in France was a counter-demand that all France should be absorbed in
England.
[Illustration: Royal arms of Edward III., adopted in 1340 and used
till about 1405. From the tomb of Edward III.]
9. =Battle of Sluys. 1340.=--Edward had not yet learnt to place
confidence in those English archers who had served him so well at
Halidon Hill. In =1340=, however, he found himself engaged in a
conflict which should have taught him where his true strength lay. The
French navy held the Channel, and had burnt Southampton. The fleet of
the Cinque Ports was no longer sufficient to cope with the enemy.
Edward proudly announced that he, like his progenitors, was the lord
of the English sea on every side, and called out every vessel upon
which he could lay hands. The result was a naval victory at Sluys, in
which well-nigh the whole French fleet was absolutely destroyed. It
was by the English archers that the day was won. So complete was the
victory that no one dared to tell the ill news to Philip, till his
jester called out to him, "What cowards those English are!" "Because,"
he explained, "they did not dare to leap into the sea as our brave
Frenchmen did."
10. =Attacks on the West of France. 1341--1345.=--If Edward was to
obtain still greater success, he had but to fight with a national
force behind him on land as he had fought at sea; but he was slow to
learn the lesson. Personally he was as chivalrous as Philip, and
thought that far more could be done by the charge of knights on
horseback than by the cloth-yard shafts of the English bowmen. For six
more years he frittered away his strength. There was a disputed
succession in Brittany, and one of the claimants, John of Montfort,
ranged himself on the side of the English. There was fighting in
Brittany and fighting on the borders of Edward's lands in Aquitaine,
but up to the end of =1345= there was no decisive result on either
side. In Scotland, too, things had been going so badly for Edward that
in =1341= David Bruce had been able to return, and was now again
ruling over his own people.
11. =The Campaign of Crecy. 1346.=--Surprising as Edward's neglect to
force on a battle in France appears to us, it must be remembered that
in those days it was far more difficult to bring on an engagement than
it is in the present day. Fortified towns and castles were then almost
impregnable, except when they were starved out; and it was therefore
seldom necessary for a commander--on other grounds unwilling to
fight--to risk a battle in order to save an important post from
capture. Edward, however, does not appear to have thought that there
was anything to be gained by fighting. In =1346= he led a large
English army into Normandy, taking with him his eldest son, afterwards
known as the Black Prince, at that time a lad of sixteen. It had been
from Normandy and Calais that the fleets had put out by which the
coasts of England had been ravaged, and Edward now deliberately
ravaged Normandy. He then marched on, apparently intending to take
refuge in Flanders. As the French had broken the bridges over the
Seine, he was driven to ascend the bank of the river almost to Paris
before he could cross. His burnings and his ravages continued till
Philip, stung to anger, pursued him with an army more than twice as
numerous as his own. Edward had the Somme to cross on his way, and the
bridges over that river had been broken by the French, as those over
the Seine had been broken; and but for the opportune discovery of a
ford at Blanche Tache Edward would have been obliged to fight with an
impassable river at his back. When he was once over the Somme he
refused--not from any considerations of generalship, but from a point
of honour--to continue his retreat further. He halted on a gentle
slope near the village of Crecy facing eastwards, as Philip's force
had swept round to avoid difficulties in the ground, and was
approaching from that direction.
[Illustration: Shooting at the butts with the long-bow.]
12. =The Tactics of Crecy. 1346.=--Great as was Edward's advantage in
possessing an army so diverse in its composition as that which he
commanded, it would have availed him little if he had not known how to
order that army for battle. At once it appeared that his skill as a
tactician was as great as his weakness as a strategist. His experience
at Halidon Hill (see p. 234) had taught him that the archers could
turn the tide of battle against any direct attack, however violent. He
knew, too, from the tradition of Bannockburn (see p. 226), that
archers could readily be crushed by a cavalry charge on the flank; and
he was well aware that his own horsemen were in too small numbers to
hold out against the vast host of the French cavalry. He therefore
drew up his line of archers between the two villages of Crecy and
Vadicourt, though his force was not large enough to extend from one to
the other. He then ordered the bulk of his horsemen to dismount and to
place themselves with levelled spears in bodies at intervals in the
line of archers. The innovation was thoroughly reasonable, as spearmen
on foot would be able to check the fiercest charge of horse, if only
the horse could be exposed to a shower of arrows. The English army was
drawn up in three corps, two of them in the front line. The Black
Prince was in command of one of the two bodies in front, whilst the
king himself took charge of the third corps, which acted as a reserve
in the rear.
13. =The Battle of Crecy. August 26, 1346.=--When Philip drew nigh in
the evening his host was weary and hungry. He ordered his knights to
halt, but each one was thinking, not of obeying orders, but of
securing a place in the front, where he might personally distinguish
himself. Those in the rear pushed on, and in a few minutes the whole
of the French cavalry became a disorganised mob. Then Philip ordered
15,000 Genoese crossbowmen to advance against the enemy. At the best a
crossbow was inferior to the English long-bow, as it was weaker in its
action and consumed more time between each shot. To make matters
worse, a heavy shower of rain had wetted the strings of the unlucky
Genoese, rendering their weapons useless. The English had covers for
their bows, and had kept them dry. The thick shower of their arrows
drove the Genoese back. Philip took their retreat for cowardice. "Kill
me those scoundrels!" he cried, and the French knights rode in amongst
them, slaughtering them at every stride. Then the French horsemen
charged the English lines. Some one amongst the Black Prince's retinue
took alarm, and hurried to the king to conjure him to advance to the
son's assistance. Edward knew better. "Is he dead?" he asked, "or so
wounded that he cannot help himself?" "No, sire, please God," was the
reply, "but he is in a hard passage of arms, and he much needs your
help." "Return," answered the king, "to those that sent you, and tell
them not to send to me again so long as my son lives; I command them
to let the boy win his spurs." The French were driven off with
terrible slaughter, and the victory was won. It was a victory of foot
soldiers over horse soldiers--of a nation in which all ranks joined
heartily together over one in which all ranks except that of the
gentry were despised. Edward III. had contributed a high spirit and a
keen sense of honour, but it was to the influence of Edward I.--to his
wide and far-reaching statesmanship, and his innovating military
genius--that the victory of Crecy was really due.
14. =Battle of Nevill's Cross, and the Siege of Calais.
1346--1347.=--Whilst Edward was fighting in France, the Scots invaded
England, but they were defeated at Nevill's Cross, and their king,
David Bruce (David II.), taken prisoner. Edward, when the news reached
him, had laid siege to Calais. In this siege cannon,[18] which had
been used in earlier sieges of the war, were employed, but they were
too badly made and loaded with too little gunpowder to do much damage.
In =1347= Calais was starved into surrender, and Edward, who regarded
the town as a nest of pirates, ordered six of the principal burgesses
to come out with ropes round their necks, as a sign that they were to
be put to death. It was only at Queen Philippa's intercession that he
spared their lives, but he drove every Frenchman out of Calais, and
peopled it with his own subjects. A truce with Philip was agreed on,
and Edward returned to England.
[Footnote 18: It has been said that they were used at Crecy, but
this is uncertain.]
[Illustration: Contemporary view of a fourteenth-century walled town.]
[Illustration: Gloucester Cathedral. The choir, looking east: built
between 1340 and 1350.]
15. =Constitutional Progress. 1337--1347.=--Edward III. had begun his
reign as a constitutional ruler, and on the whole he had no reason to
regret it. In his wars with France and Scotland he had the popular
feeling with him, and he showed his reliance on it when, in =1340=, he
consented to the abolition of his claim to impose tallage on his
demesne lands (see p. 221)--the sole fragment of unparliamentary
taxation legally retained by the king after the _Confirmatio
Cartarum_. In =1341= the two Houses of Parliament finally separated
from one another, and when Edward picked a quarrel with Archbishop
Stratford, the Lords successfully insisted that no member of their
House could be tried excepting by his peers. The Commons, on the other
hand, were striving--not always successfully--to maintain their hold
upon taxation. In =1341= they made Edward a large money grant on
condition of his yielding to their demands, and Edward (whose
constitutional intentions were seldom proof against his wish to retain
the power of the purse) shamelessly broke his engagement after
receiving the money. On other occasions the Commons were more
successful; yet, after all, the composition of their House was of more
importance than any special victory they might gain. In it the county
members--or knights of the shire--sat side by side with the burgesses
of the towns. In no other country in Europe would this have been
possible. The knights of the shire were gentlemen, who on the
Continent were reckoned amongst the nobility, and despised townsmen
far too much to sit in the same House with them. In England there was
the same amalgamation of classes in Parliament as on the
battle-field. When once gentlemen and burgesses formed part of the
same assembly, they would come to have common interests; and, in any
struggle in which the merchants were engaged, it would be a great gain
to them that a class of men trained to arms would be inclined to take
their part.
[Illustration: The upper chamber or solar at Sutton Courtenay
manor-house. Date, about 1350.]
[Illustration: Interior of the Hall at Penshurst, Kent: showing the
screen with minstrels' gallery over it, and the brazier for fire in
the middle: built about 1340.]
16. =Edward's Triumph. 1347.=--Edward's return after the surrender of
Calais was followed by an outburst of luxury. As the sea-rovers of
Normandy and Calais had formerly plundered Englishmen, English
landsmen now plundered Normandy and Calais. "There was no woman who
had not gotten garments, furs, feather-beds, and utensils from the
spoils." Edward surrounded himself with feasting and jollity. About
this time he instituted the Order of the Garter, and his tournaments
were thronged with gay knights and gayer ladies in gorgeous attires.
The very priests caught the example, and decked themselves in
unclerical garments. Even architecture lent itself to the prevailing
taste for magnificence. The beautiful Decorated style which had come
into use towards the end of the reign of Edward I.--and which may be
seen[19] in the central tower of Lincoln Cathedral (see p. 227), in
the west front of Howden Church (see p. 230), and in the nave of York
Minster (see p. 238)--was, in the reign of Edward III., superseded by
the Perpendicular style, in which beauty of form was abandoned for the
sake of breadth, as in the choir of Gloucester and the nave of
Winchester (see pp. 244, 276). Roofs become wide, as in the Hall of
Penshurst (see p. 246), and consequently halls were larger and better
adapted to crowded gatherings than those at Meare and Norborough (p.
247).
[Footnote 19: Lichfield Cathedral (p. 213) is transitional.]
[Illustration: A small house or cottage at Meare, Somerset. Built
about 1350.]
[Illustration: Norborough Hall, Northamptonshire. A manor-house built
about 1350. The dormer windows and addition to the left are of much
later date.]
17. =The Black Death. 1348.=--In the midst of this luxurious society
arrived, in =1348=, a terrible plague which had been sweeping over
Asia and Europe, and which in modern times has been styled the Black
Death. No plague known to history was so destructive of life. Half of
the population certainly perished, and some think that the number of
those who died must be reckoned at two-thirds.
[Illustration: Ploughing.]
[Illustration: Harrowing. A boy slinging stones at the birds.]
[Illustration: Breaking the clods with mallets.]
[Illustration: Cutting weeds.]
[Illustration: Reaping.]
18. =The Statute of Labourers. 1351.=--This enormous destruction of
life could not fail to have important results on the economic
condition of the country. The process of substituting money rents for
labour service, which had begun some generations before (see p. 168),
had become very general at the accession of Edward III. so that the
demesne land which the lord kept in his own hands was on most estates
cultivated by hired labour. Now, when at least half of the labourers
had disappeared, those who remained, having less competition to fear,
demanded higher wages, whilst at the same time the price of the
produce of the soil was the same or less than it had been before. The
question affected not merely the great lords but the smaller gentry
as well. The House of Commons, which was filled with the smaller
gentry and the well-to-do townsmen--who were also employers of
labour--was therefore as eager as the House of Lords to keep down
wages. In =1351= the Statute of Labourers was passed, fixing a scale
of wages at the rates which had been paid before the Black Death, and
ordering punishments to be inflicted on those who demanded more. It is
not necessary to suppose that the legislators had any tyrannical
intentions. For ages all matters relating to agriculture had been
fixed by custom; and the labourers were outrageously violating custom.
Custom, however, here found itself in opposition to the forces of
nature, and though the statute was often renewed, with increasing
penalties, it was difficult to secure obedience to it in the teeth of
the opposition of the labourers. The chief result of the statute was
that it introduced an element of discord between two classes of
society.
[Illustration: Stacking corn.]
[Illustration: Threshing corn with the flail.]
19. =The Statute of Treasons. 1352.=--In =1352= was passed the Statute
of Treasons, by which the offences amounting to treason were defined,
the chief of them being levying war against the king. As no one but a
great nobleman was strong enough even to think of levying war against
the king, this statute may be regarded as a concession to the
wealthier landowners rather than to the people at large.
20. =The Black Prince in the South of France. 1355.=--In =1350= Philip
VI. of France died, and was succeeded by his son John. The truce (see
p. 243) was prolonged, and it was not till =1355= that war was
renewed. Edward himself was recalled to England by fresh troubles in
Scotland, but the Black Prince landed at Bordeaux and marched through
the south of France, plundering as he went. Neither father nor son
seems to have had any idea of gaining their ends except by driving the
French by ill-treatment into submission. "You must know," wrote a
contemporary in describing the condition of southern Languedoc, "that
this was, before, one of the fat countries of the world, the people
good and simple, who did not know what war was, and no war had ever
been waged against them before the Prince of Wales came. The English
and Gascons found the country full and gay, the rooms furnished with
carpets and draperies, the caskets and chests full of beautiful
jewels; but nothing was safe from these robbers." The Prince returned
to Bordeaux laden with spoils.
21. =The Battle of Poitiers. 1356.=--In =1356= the Black Prince swept
over central France in another similar plundering expedition. He was
on his way back with his plunder to Bordeaux with no more than 8,000
men to guard it when he learnt as he passed near Poitiers that King
John was close to him with 50,000. He drew up his little force on a
rising ground amidst thick vineyards, with a hedge in front of him
behind which he could shelter his archers. As at Crecy, the greater
part of the English horsemen were dismounted, and John, thinking that
therein lay their secret of success, ordered most of his horsemen to
dismount as well, not having discovered that though spearmen on foot
could present a formidable resistance to a cavalry charge, they were
entirely useless in attacking a strong position held by archers. Then
he sent forward 300 knights who retained their horses, bidding a
strong body of dismounted horsemen to support them. The horsemen,
followed by the footmen, charged at a gap in the hedge, but the hedge
on either side was lined with English bowmen, and men and horses were
struck down. Those who survived fled and scattered their countrymen
behind. Seeing the disorder, the Black Prince ordered the few knights
whom he had kept on horseback to sweep round and to fall upon the
confused crowd in the flank. The archers advanced to second them,
and, gallantly as the French fought, their unhorsed knights could
accomplish nothing against the combined efforts of horse and foot.
King John was taken prisoner and the battle was at an end.
22. =The Courtesy of the Black Prince.=--The Black Prince had been
cruel to townsmen and peasants, but he was a model of chivalry, and
knew how to deal with a captive king. At supper he stood behind John's
chair and waited on him, praising his bravery. "All on our side," he
said, "who have seen you and your knights, are agreed about this, and
give you the prize and the chaplet if you will wear it." After the
astounding victory of Poitiers, the Black Prince, instead of marching
upon Paris, went back to Bordeaux. In =1357= he made a truce for two
years and returned to England with his royal captive.
23. =Misery of France. 1356--1359.=--In =1356=, the year in which the
Black Prince fought at Poitiers, his father ravaged Scotland. Edward,
however, gained nothing by this fresh attempt at conquest. In his
retreat he suffered heavy loss, and in =1357=, changing his plan, he
replaced David Bruce (see p. 242) on the throne, and strove to win the
support of the Scots instead of exasperating them by violence. In the
meanwhile the two years' truce brought no good to France. The nobles
wrung from the peasants the sums needed to redeem their relatives, who
were prisoners in England, and the disbanded soldiers, French and
English, formed themselves into free companies and plundered as
mercilessly as the Black Prince had done in time of war. Worn down
with oppression, the French peasants broke into a rebellion known as
the Jacquerie, from the nickname of Jacques-Bonhomme, which the gentry
gave to them. After committing unheard-of cruelties the peasants were
repressed and slaughtered. An attempt of the States-General--a sort of
French Parliament which occasionally met--to improve the government
failed. Peace with England was talked of, but Edward's terms were too
hard to be accepted, and in =1359= war began again.
24. =Edward's Last Invasion. 1359--1360.=--So miserably devastated was
France that Edward, when he invaded the country in =1359=, had to take
with him not only men and munitions of war, but large stores of
provisions. He met no enemy in the field, but the land had been so
wasted that his men suffered much from want of food, in spite of the
supplies which they had taken with them. "I could not believe," wrote
an Italian who revisited France after an absence of some years, "that
this was the same kingdom which I had once seen so rich and
flourishing. Nothing presented itself to my eyes but a fearful
solitude, an extreme poverty, land uncultivated, houses in ruins. Even
the neighbourhood of Paris manifested everywhere marks of destruction
and conflagration. The streets were deserted; the roads overgrown with
weeds; the whole a vast solitude." In the spring of =1360= Edward
moved on towards the banks of the Loire, hoping to find sustenance
there. Near Chartres he was overtaken by a terrible storm of hail and
thunder, and in the roar of the thunder he thought that he heard the
voice of God reproving him for the misery which he had caused. He
abated his demands and signed the treaty of Bretigni.
[Illustration: West front of Edington Church, Wilts: built about 1360.
An example of the transition from the Decorated style to the
Perpendicular.]
25. =The Treaty of Bretigni. 1360.=--By the treaty of Bretigni John
was to be ransomed for an enormous sum; Edward was to surrender his
claim to the crown of France and to the provinces north of Aquitaine,
receiving in return the whole of the duchy of Aquitaine together with
the districts round Calais and Ponthieu, all of them to be held in
full sovereignty, without any feudal obligation to the king of
France. Probably it cost Edward little to abandon his claim to the
French crown, which had only been an after-thought; and it was a clear
gain to get rid of those feudal entanglements which had so frequently
been used as a pretext of aggression against the English kings. It was
hardly likely, however, that England would long be able to keep a
country like Aquitaine, which was geographically part of France and in
which French sympathies were constantly on the increase. "We will obey
the English with our lips," said the men of Rochelle, when their town
was surrendered, "but our hearts shall never be moved towards them."