EDWARD III. (_concluded_).
Siege of Calais--Battle of Neville's Cross--Capture of
the Scottish King--Institution of the Garter--The Black
Death--Disturbances in France excited by the King of
Navarre--Battle of Poitiers--The King of France taken Prisoner
and brought to England--Disorders in France--Affairs in
Scotland--Fresh Invasion of France--The Peace of Bretigny--Return
of King John to France--Disorders of that Kingdom--The Free
Companies--Expedition of the Black Prince into Castile--Fresh
Campaign in France--Decline of the English Power there--Death of
the Black Prince--Death of Edward III.--Character of his Reign and
State of the Kingdom.
Within six days of the victory of Creçy, Edward had sat down before the
city of Calais. He had now fully adopted Sir Godfrey de Harcourt's plan
of conquering France through Normandy; and the only remarkable thing is,
that, having once entertained the idea of that conquest, he should have
overlooked for a moment its unparalleled advantages. Guienne was distant,
and only to be reached by a voyage which, at that time, must often be
formidable, across the stormy Bay of Biscay. Even in sending succours
to the much nearer parts of Brittany, we have just seen that they were
detained by contrary winds forty days. Once there, he was surrounded in
a great measure by hostile provinces; while, on the other hand, Calais
lay within twenty-four miles of his own coast, which gave him most easy
access to Normandy, Picardy, and Artois. Seeking the alliance of the
Flemings, this province lay near to their own, and no doubt he would
have found that people much more disposed for an invasion of a rich
and proximate country than for that of the remote Guienne. Rouen, the
capital of the province, could be approached direct by the Seine, and
placed the king on the very highway to Paris, and only eighty miles
distant from it.
[Illustration: VIEW IN CALAIS: RUE DE LA CITADELLE, SHOWING THE BELFRY.]
In investing Calais with his victorious army, Edward calculated on the
effect which his destructive overthrow of the French must produce on the
inhabitants. Moreover, to secure his capital and northern provinces,
Philip was compelled to recall his son, the Duke of Normandy, with his
army. No sooner did he retreat than the Earl of Lancaster, formerly Earl
of Derby--who had been much pressed by the French, and enabled to hold
his ground only by assistance which Sir Walter Manny brought up from
Brittany--leaving Bordeaux, crossed the Garonne and the Dordogne, took
Mirabel, Lusignan, Taillebourg, St. Jean d'Angély, and laid waste the
country as far as Poitiers, which he also took by storm, and plundered.
He thence extended his incursions to the Loire, and ranged through the
southern provinces of the kingdom, carrying terror and devastation
everywhere.
All this time the war was raging in Brittany, where the Countess de
Montfort was creating a powerful diversion in favour of her ally, the
King of England, and against her enemy, the King of France. Uniting
her forces with those of the English under Sir Thomas Dagworth, they
raised the siege of Roche Derrien, which her rival, Charles of Blois,
was investing with 15,000 men, and took Charles of Blois prisoner. The
countess sent him to London for safe keeping, where he was confined for
nine years in the Tower, as her husband had been in the Louvre. On the
captivity of Charles, his countess, Jane the Lame, took on herself the
conduct of affairs, and for some time maintained valiantly the cause of
her house; though neither she nor her husband, on his restoration to
liberty, could ever overcome the brave-hearted Countess of Montfort, who
transmitted her province to her descendants.
In this, truly called the age of great women, another of still higher
rank, Queen Philippa of England, was at the same time showing herself
equally courageous, and capable of transacting public affairs. Philip
of France, alarmed at the vast success and the military genius of
Edward III., exerted his influence with David II., King of the Scots,
to make a diversion on his behalf by invading England during Edward's
absence. David Bruce had passed many years with his young queen in
France, and was, therefore, under many obligations to the king. He was
recalled by the Scots to his throne in 1342, and had kept up a friendly
correspondence with his old host. Though David was a brave young prince,
he did not possess the sagacity, or his years did not give him the
experience, of his father. He was equally impelled by resentment to his
brother-in-law, the King of England, who had driven him from his throne,
and by the instigations of the French king, to make occasional raids into
England. In the four years since he had been reinstated he had made no
less than three successful expeditions of this kind, and now that his old
benefactor was so sorely worsted, he prepared for a still more decisive
invasion. He placed himself at the head of 3,000 cavalry and 30,000
other troops, mounted on galloways. Marching from Perth, he reached the
borders, his forces then numbering, it is said, 50,000 men. He took the
castle of Liddel, burnt Lanercost, sacked the priory of Hexham, advanced
into the diocese of Durham, and encamped at Beaurepaire, or Bearpark,
near the city of Durham. David calculated on an easy triumph over the
English, nearly the whole of the nobility being absent at the siege of
Calais. But Philippa, Edward's queen, assembled a body of 12,000 men,
and, advancing rapidly northward, came up with the Scots as they were
laying waste the country round Durham, and pitched her camp in Auckland
Park. She gave the command of her army to Lord Percy, but, according to
Froissart, she herself mounted her horse, and rode through the ranks,
exhorting the men to remember that their king was absent, that the
honour and safety of England were in their hands, and appealing to them
to defend the realm and punish the Scots for their barbarous ravages.
She could not be persuaded to quit the field for a place of safety till
the armies were on the point of engaging. It has been doubted how far
this proceeding of the queen is strictly true, not being mentioned by
the old English chroniclers; but, besides the testimony of Froissart, it
is unquestionable that Philippa's bold and able management did much to
ensure the victory which followed.
The Scots, who appear to have been thrown off their guard by
over-confidence, and who were thinking more of plunder than of the
enemy, were taken by surprise. Douglas, the famous knight of Liddesdale,
was intercepted at Sunderland Bridge on his return from a raid as far
as Ferry-on-the-Hill, and narrowly escaped being caught, 500 of his
followers being cut to pieces. David, also, taken by surprise, still
mustered his troops, and took his stand at Neville's Cross, near the city
of Durham. The English archers, securing themselves under the hedges,
shot down the horses of the Scots, threw them, crowded as they were
together, into confusion, and laid their riders prostrate in the dust.
David fought undauntedly; but Edward Balliol, who commanded the reserve,
made a skilful attack of cavalry on his flank, and his troops giving
way on all sides, he was forcibly taken prisoner by one John Copeland,
a Northumberland squire--a man of huge stature and strength--but not
before he had received two arrow wounds, and, refusing to listen to calls
to surrender, had knocked out two of the front teeth of his captor by a
blow of his gauntlet. Copeland conveyed his royal prize to his castle of
Ogle, and was careful not to give him up except to properly authorised
royal commissioners, when he received the title of banneret and an estate
of £500 a year--equal to as many thousands now--and was made sheriff of
Northumberland and governor of Berwick.
The joy of the people of Durham was unbounded, for their nobles and
dignitaries of the Church fought in the foremost ranks, having the
deepest hereditary hatred to the Scots, from their numerous spoilings by
them. The Bishop of Durham led off the first division with Lord Percy;
the Archbishop of York led the second with Lord Neville; and the Bishop
of Lincoln the third with Lord Mowbray. The Prior of Durham, it was
said, had been commanded the night before, in a dream by St. Cuthbert,
"to raise the _corporax cloth_ with which St. Cuthbert, during mass, did
cover the chalice," as a banner on a spear point; and accordingly he and
a body of monks, at a spot called the Red Hills, in sight of both armies,
knelt round it in prayer, while another body of the brethren on the top
of the great campanile, or bell-tower of the cathedral, sang hymns of
praise, which, says Knighton, were distinctly heard by both armies. A
third body of the clergy were engaged in the very hottest of the battle.
The third division of the Scots, under the Earl of Moray, was actually
cut to pieces on the field, only eighty of them being left at the time of
the king's surrender. With the king were taken the Earls of Sutherland,
Monteith, Fife, Carrick, Moray, and Strathearn; Sir William Douglas,
John, and Alan Stuart, and a long list of nobles and knights. Monteith
was beheaded as a traitor, having accepted office under Edward.
Never did the Scots receive a more fatal overthrow; some historians
say they had 15,000, others 20,000, slain, amongst whom were the Earl
Marshal Keith and Sir Thomas Charteris. Of the English leaders, only
Lord Hastings fell. King David was conveyed to London and lodged in the
Tower. This memorable battle of Neville's Cross took place on the 17th of
October, 1346.
Having secured her royal prisoner, Queen Philippa went over to Calais,
where she was received with all the triumph and honour which her
meritorious conduct deserved. She found Edward in the midst of the siege,
which continued obstinate. John of Vienne, the governor, supported by a
strong garrison, and well provisioned, maintained a spirited defence. The
place, lying in a flat, swampy situation, was trying to the health of the
English army, and was immensely strong, with its ditches, ramparts, and
impassable morasses. The king, therefore, quite aware that it was not to
be taken in a hurry, fixed his camp in the most eligible spot he could
find, drew entrenchments round the city, built huts for his soldiers,
which he thatched with straw or broom, and prepared by various means to
render their winter campaign tolerable. His huts presented the appearance
of a second town, called by the French chroniclers the Ville du Bois, or
town of wood, and the harbour was blockaded to prevent the entrance of
relief of any kind.
John of Vienne, perceiving the king's intention to starve them out,
collected all the inhabitants of both sexes who were not necessary to the
defence, and sent 1,700 of them out of the city. Edward not only allowed
the poor creatures to pass, but gave them a good refreshment, and each
a small piece of money. But as the siege continued, and John of Vienne
again put out 500 more of what he considered useless mouths, Edward lost
patience and is said to have refused them a passage; and the governor of
Calais declining to allow them to re-enter the city, they are reported to
have perished of starvation between the town walls and the English lines.
As the siege grew desperate, violent efforts were made to relieve the
city. The King of France sent ships to force a passage, but in vain. The
English fleet had gradually grown to upwards of 700 sail, carrying more
than 14,000 men, and of these, eighty of the largest ships, under the
Earl of Warwick, constantly swept the Channel. The King of France was
meantime making the most strenuous exertions to raise a force sufficient
to expel the invader. He succeeded in winning over the young Count of
Flanders, as he had done his father. This young nobleman appears to have
been capable of playing a very mean part. The Free Towns proposed to
him to marry Isabella of England, a princess of great beauty, and the
young man, pretending to fall in with their wishes, came to the English
camp, and paid his addresses to the princess as if with the most serious
intentions; but having carried on his dissimulation to a disgraceful
length, he seized the opportunity afforded by a hawking excursion to slip
away, and made off to the French camp.
Philip levied everywhere men and money, and compelled the clergy, as well
as the laity, to yield their treasure, and even their church plate; a
massive cross of gold belonging to the Abbey of St. Denis being carried
off. He at length appeared before Calais with an army which the writers
of the age assert to have amounted to 200,000 men. The governor of Calais
had, indeed, sent letters to him, announcing that the inhabitants had
eaten their horses, dogs, and rats, and, unless relieved, must soon eat
each other. These letters were intercepted. The King of England, however,
sent them on, tauntingly asking Philip why he did not come and relieve
his people. But Philip found Edward so entrenched amongst marshes and
fortifications that he could not force a passage anywhere. Two roads
only were left to the town--one along the sea-shore, and the other by
a causeway through the marshes; but the coastway was completely raked
by the English ships and boats, crowded with archers, drawn up on the
strand, and the causeway was defended by towers and drawbridges, occupied
by a great force of the most daring men in the army, under the command
of the Earl of Lancaster and Sir Walter Manny, who had come hither from
their victorious demonstration in Gascony, Guienne, and Poitou.
The King of France looked on this densely armed position with despair,
and after vainly challenging King Edward to come out and fight in the
open field, he withdrew. The starving people of Calais, who, on seeing
the approach of the vast royal host, had hung out their banners on the
walls, lighted large bonfires, and sounded all their instruments of
martial music, now changed their joyous acclamations into shrieks and
groans of despair. They lowered all their banners but the great banner
of France, which floated on the loftiest tower of the city, in their
dejection, and the next day they pulled that down in desperation, and
displayed the banner of England in its place, in token of surrender.
To Sir Walter Manny, who was sent to speak with John of Vienne over the
wall, that brave commander declared that they were literally perishing
with hunger, and asked the lives and liberties of the citizens as the
sole condition of surrender. Sir Walter told the governor that he knew
well his royal master's mind, and that he could not promise them the
acceptance of that proposal, the king being incensed at their obstinate
resistance, and determined to punish them for it. It was in vain that the
governor represented that it was this very conduct that a gallant prince
like Edward ought to honour--that it was what he would have expected
from an English knight. Sir Walter Manny acknowledged the justice of the
sentiment, and returned to soften the king's resolution; but he could
obtain only this mitigation, that six of the principal citizens should be
sacrificed instead of the whole people; and they were required to come to
the camp in their shirts, bare-headed and bare-footed, carrying the keys
of the city and castle in their hands, and with halters about their necks.
When this ultimatum was made known to the people of Calais, they were
struck with horror. John of Vienne, despairing of fulfilling the demand
of the stern English king, caused the church bells to be rung, and,
collecting the people in the market-place, laid the matter before them.
There was much weeping and lamenting, but all shrank from the dreadful
sacrifice. At length, Eustace de St. Pierre, one of the most eminent men
of the place, arose and said, "Gentlemen, great and small, he who shall
save the people of this fair town at the price of his own blood shall
doubtless deserve well of God and man. I will be one who will offer my
head to the King of England as a ransom for the town of Calais." At this
noble resolve the assembly was moved to tears, and very soon other great
burgesses, Jehan d'Aire, Jacque Wisant, and Peter Wisant, his brother,
and two others, offered themselves.
They presently took off their ordinary dress, reduced themselves to the
condition dictated by the conqueror, and thus they were conducted by the
brave John of Vienne, very sorrowfully, and mounted on a small palfrey,
for he was too weak to walk from wounds and fasting. Thus they came,
followed by the sad people, men, women, and children, to the gates. The
six voluntary victims were admitted into the English camp, and thus
conducted before Edward, when they knelt before him, and presenting him
the keys, implored his mercy. But Edward, looking on them with much
displeasure, ordered them to instant execution. Then the noble barons and
knights entreated that he would not refuse to listen to their petitions
for their pardon, in which the Prince of Wales joined. Nothing, however,
seemed to move the grim monarch. The brave Sir Walter Manny ventured to
remind him of the greatness of his name, and of the stain this action
would be upon it. At this the king made a stern grimace, and ordered the
headsman to be summoned. Then the queen, falling on her knees, said, "Ah,
gentle sire! since I have crossed the seas in great danger I have asked
you nothing; but now I implore you, for the sake of the son of the Holy
Mary, and for your love of me, you will have mercy on these six men."
The queen had every right to ask such a boon. She had come to announce
to the king that she had been able to defend his kingdom in his absence
from the Scots, to win a great victory at Neville's Cross, and to take
the King of Scots captive. She was, moreover, far advanced in pregnancy,
and yet had run every hazard to bring him such tidings.
"Ah, dame," he said, "I could well wish that you had been elsewhere this
day; but how can I deny you anything? Take these men, and dispose of them
as you will."
[Illustration: QUEEN PHILIPPA INTERCEDING FOR THE BURGESSES OF CALAIS.
(_See p._ 424.)]
The delighted queen thanked the king heartily, had befitting attire
brought for these worthy citizens, gave them in her tent a good repast,
and presenting them each with six nobles, sent them away, giving orders
that they should be guarded safely through the host to the town gates.
This scene, which is related on the testimony of Froissart, who dedicated
his history to the queen herself, has been questioned by some historians
as doubtful, particularly as Avesbury, who is minute in his relation
of the surrender of Calais, is silent about it; and as it seems too
derogatory to the magnanimity of Edward III., after suffering so many of
the inhabitants to pass out of the city, and even relieving their wants.
But we must remember what was the king's conduct at Caen, and also what
is asserted of his immovable disregard to the perishing cries of the
second crowd sent out of the city; and that Froissart was a contemporary.
Under all these circumstances, the transaction appears highly probable,
and mankind will not readily give up a passage of human life, so full
of noble sacrifice and sympathy, and which has held its place firmly in
history and tradition for five hundred years.
The day following the surrender, August 4th, 1347, the king and queen
rode into the town amid the sound of martial music, and followed by
all their great lords and many men-at-arms. There they took up their
quarters, and remained till the queen was delivered of a daughter,
thence named Margaret of Calais. Immediately on taking possession, he
ordered every inhabitant to quit the city, dispossessing them of their
houses and property within the town, and substituting a thoroughly
English population. The new inhabitants of the town were substantial
citizens of London, and large numbers of agricultural people from the
adjoining county of Kent, to whom he gave the surrounding lands. From
that day to the reign of Queen Mary, Calais became altogether an English
colony. He made it the mart of wool, leather, lead, and tin, the four
principal articles which England furnished to the Continent, and where
the foreign merchants could come to procure them. Having strengthened the
defences of the town, Edward concluded a truce with Philip, which was by
degrees extended to six years. Neither of these monarchs, however, would
have listened to terms of peace but for the constant and meritorious
entreaties of the Pope.
At this period originated the celebrated Order of the Garter, which still
retains its value in the eyes of aspirants to royal rewards. This Order
was instituted to excite emulation amongst the aristocratic warriors of
the time, in imitation of orders of a similar nature, both religious and
military, which had been created by different monarchs of Europe. The
number was, and is still, confined to twenty-five persons, besides the
sovereign, except princes of the blood and illustrious foreigners, who
have been admitted since the reign of George III., and hence the high
value attached to this badge of distinction. The traditionary story of
its origin is, that at a State ball the king's mistress, a Countess of
Salisbury, dropped her garter, which the king picked up, and, observing
some of the courtiers smile at the action, as if they thought he had not
obtained that favour merely by accident, he exclaimed, "_Honi soit qui
mal y pense!_" ("Evil be to him who evil thinks"), which became the motto
of the Order. Historians have chosen to doubt on this subject as on many
others, and antiquarians have puzzled themselves to discover some other
origin; but still the story is a very probable one, and the tradition
retains its full hold on public belief. The Order was founded, according
to the statutes, in 1350, and, even to the time of Edward IV., ladies
were admitted, and wore the badge of the Order. The wives of the knights
companions and other great ladies had robes, the gift of the sovereign,
ornamented with small garters. Our queens generally wear the Garter, set
with diamonds, on the left arm.
But in the midst of the gaieties, giving of honours, and festivities
which succeeded the conquest of Calais and the glory of Creçy, there
came one of those terrible visitations which from time to time have
swept over Europe under the general name of plague or pestilence--awful
messengers of Providence to men, warning them to observe cleanly and
healthy habits of life. It was known as the "Black Death." These fatal
epidemics have always appeared to originate in the same quarter--eastern
Asia--and to sweep over the earth in every direction, as in radiation
from that centre, carrying wholesale destruction into every place where
the inhabitants were not careful to observe sanitary regulations. By
medical men the disease has been regarded as a virulent species of typhus
fever, which in modern times has assumed the character of cholera,
which issues periodically from the same regions, and travels the earth,
fixing on every spot where there is a crowded population living in dirty
dwellings, ill-drained streets, swampy hollows, and amid any vapours of
putridity. Like the cholera, the plague had its cold, succeeded by its
hot, fits, attended by vomiting, diarrhoea, and great depression of the
vital powers. The cholera now issues from India; the plague of the time
of Edward III. was traced to China, and visited on its way India, Egypt,
Greece, and most of the western nations of Europe. Stowe says that in one
churchyard in London, purchased by Sir Walter Manny for the poor 50,000
bodies were buried. In fact, it fell, like the cholera, most severely
on the poorer and worst lodged and fed people; it is said to have half
depopulated England; and so many of the inferior clergy perished, that
very many churches were left without any one to perform the service.
[Illustration: QUEEN PHILIPPA INTERCEDING FOR THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS.
FROM THE PAINTING BY J. D. PENROSE.]
The mass of wealth brought from France by the victorious army did not
prevent the finances of Edward from being in a very exhausted and
unsatisfactory state. Those of the King of France were worse; and these
causes tended to prolong the truce. Edward several times proposed to
Philip to make a permanent peace, on condition that the sovereignty of
Guienne, Calais, and other lands held in fief by the English in France
should be acknowledged on Edward's renouncing all claim to the crown of
that country. Philip steadfastly refused to listen to such terms. He died
during this truce, and Edward renewed his offer to his successor, John,
but with like effect.
About this time Edward and his son, the Black Prince, put to sea with a
good fleet to chastise the Spaniards of the ports on the Bay of Biscay,
who had repeatedly joined the French in intercepting and seizing his
merchant vessels. The battle was fought within view of the English
coast, and was watched by the queen's attendants from the hills behind
Winchelsea. The engagement was contested with much valour on both sides;
and in it both the king and prince had very nearly terminated their
lives, for their ship was sinking, and they were only just saved by the
Earl of Lancaster coming to their assistance. The result was a victory to
the English, and the capture of fourteen of the Spanish vessels, though
with great loss of life on our side.
But circumstances were ripening, destined to involve England and France
again in war. John, the son of Philip, whom we have often met under the
name of the Duke of Normandy, commanding the armies against the English
and Bretons, succeeded his father in 1350. He was then about thirty-one
years of age, courageous, of great integrity of mind, possessing much
experience for his age, and altogether a far more honourable prince
than his father, whom his subjects hated for his avarice and for his
reckless invasion of their rights. Philip had, in his youth, been termed
the Fortunate, but proved eventually more entitled to the name of the
Unlucky. John was now, by contrast, styled the Good; but John, however
well-meaning, was evidently destitute of real sagacity, and his very
sense of honour hurried him into the commission of deeds which early
shook his popularity. The Count de Brienne, Count of Eu and Guisnes, and
Constable of France, was accused of an intention to betray his county of
Guisnes, adjacent to the town of Calais, to the English monarch. John
caused him to be seized at a festival at Paris immediately after his
coronation, and threw him into a dungeon, whence, three days afterwards,
he brought him out before the lords of his council, and, without any
form of trial or permission of defence, had his head struck off. This
arbitrary act excited great fears of the future proceedings of the king
amongst his nobility.
But John's authority was very soon invaded and disturbed by his near
kinsman, Charles, King of Navarre. This young prince was of the blood
royal of France, his mother being daughter of Louis X. Charles of Navarre
came to court, and sought to render himself highly popular with both king
and people. He succeeded so well, that he obtained the king's daughter,
Joan, who must have been a mere girl at that time. It was soon found,
however, that he was a mixture of the most shining talents and the most
diabolical qualities. He was handsome, bold, eloquent, affable in his
manners, and most insinuating in his address, but, at the same time,
intriguing, ambitious, unprincipled, and revengeful. He had always some
daring scheme on foot, and, if he failed, abandoned it without care,
and plunged into another. He demanded of the king the post of Constable
of Normandy, vacated by the execution of De Brienne; and when the king,
fearing his possession of that important command, bestowed it upon his
favourite, Charles de la Cerda, the King of Navarre assassinated him in
his castle of L'Aigle, in Normandy. He then boldly avowed the deed, put
himself at the head of an armed force, called around him all the hot
and disaffected young nobility of France, declared himself independent
of the French crown, and made offers of alliance with the English. John
called upon him to lay down his arms, and resume his place as a good
subject; but he refused, except on condition of an absolute pardon for
the murder of the Constable, large grants of money and lands, and, above
all, the delivery of the second son of John as a hostage for the faithful
maintenance of the contract.
The French king was weak enough to comply; and then Charles of Navarre,
in March, 1355, went to court, where John sat imposingly on his throne,
and Navarre went through a farce of submission. The King of England,
believing that it would not be long before the intrigues of the King of
Navarre would produce civil discord in France, and expose it to his own
plans of invasion, sent the Prince of Wales, now universally called the
Black Prince, from the colour of his armour, into Gascony and Aquitaine,
as his lieutenant, with an army which soon grew there to 60,000 men.
From thence he entered the country of Toulouse, and took Carcassonne,
Narbonne, and several other towns, committing great ravages.
Edward, at the same time, attacked France on the side of Normandy. He
advanced to St. Omer, where the King of France had posted himself in
expectation of this attack, but John took care not to come to open
battle. The state of the internal affairs of his kingdom probably
inspired John with caution, for his treacherous cousin of Navarre had
resumed his seditious courses. He had united himself with the factious
Sir Godfrey de Harcourt, and had succeeded in even winning over for
awhile Charles, the king's eldest son, only seventeen years of age, to
his party. But the young prince--the first Prince Royal of France who
ever bore the title of dauphin, from his father having purchased that
duchy for 100,000 florins, and conferred its feudal title on him--was
soon repentant of his unfilial conduct, and betrayed Charles of Navarre,
and a number of his noble associates, into his father's hands. The most
guilty of the nobles were at once executed, and the King of Navarre
thrown into prison. But this did not mend matters. The brother of
Charles, Philip of Navarre, assumed the management of affairs, put all
his towns and castles into a state of defence, and renewed the alliance
with the English. Thus situated, John avoided an engagement which might
be followed by an overthrow, and leave France exposed to the united
efforts of his internal and foreign enemies. He contented himself with
sending a challenge to fight a battle with Edward, for which he made no
disposition whatever, so that Edward treated the offer with contempt, and
retired to Calais.
From Calais he was speedily recalled to England by an incursion of the
Scots, the usual diversion now of the French kings. Edward appeared
before Berwick in the middle of winter, January, 1356, and, as usual,
at his appearance the Scots withdrew. Edward, determined this time,
if possible, to finish the subjugation of Scotland, made a contract
at Roxburgh, on the 20th of January, with Edward Balliol, by which he
purchased all the rights of Balliol to the Scottish throne for 5,000
marks and an annuity of £2,000. These rights were about as real as
the rights of Edward to the crown of France. The Scots had expelled
Balliol in 1341, and renounced him and his claims for ever. But with
this pretension Edward once more marched through the Lothians with
fire and sword, burnt Edinburgh and Haddington, and then retreated for
want of provisions, pursued by the Scots, who now advanced from their
hiding-places, and dreadfully harassed the rear of his army. After this
Edward Balliol, freed from any pretence on the crown of Scotland, lived
in retirement, and died without heirs in 1367.
Affairs in France were now approaching a crisis which well nigh proved
fatal to the independence of that country. Edward III., learning that the
internal disorders of France increased in consequence of the imprisonment
of Charles of Navarre, sent out a small army under the Earl of Lancaster,
to co-operate with the party of that prince in Normandy. At the same
time the Black Prince, who had returned from his Toulouse expedition
to Bordeaux, set out once more with an army not exceeding 12,000 men,
and few of them English except a body of archers. He now directed his
marauding expedition northwards, and went on laying waste the country,
and burning and plundering towns, in a style which this young prince,
celebrated by the historians for every virtue, appeared especially to
delight in. He ravaged the Agenois and Limousin, Auvergne, Marche, and
Berri. He attacked Bourges, but without success; and it then appeared
that his intention was to advance to Normandy, and join his forces to
those under Lancaster. But he found all the bridges on the Loire broken
down, and the news which reached him of the motions of the King of France
inclined him to retreat. John, exasperated at the devastations of the
prince, and thinking that he had every chance of defeating him in his
rash advance into the heart of the kingdom with so small a force, set out
to intercept his return with an army of upwards of 60,000 men.
John marched for Blois, and, crossing the Loire, advanced for Poitiers;
and the country people, naturally enraged at the prince's wanton
destruction of every place he approached, kept him in ignorance of the
king's approach. Edward, therefore, unconsciously advanced on Poitiers,
and on the 17th of September came, all unawares, on the rear of the
French army at the village of Maupertuis, only two leagues from Poitiers.
His scouts came galloping in, announcing that the whole country was
filled by the great army. And, in fact, never did a King of France
command a more promising force. Consisting of 60,000 men, there were in
it 20,000 men-at-arms, including 2,000 men-at-arms, or cavalry, sent by
the Scots. Most of the princes of the blood were with him and the greater
part of the nobility. On the other hand, the Prince of Wales's troops
had decreased to about 10,000, of whom the bulk were Gascons; but he had
4,000 archers, and on them was the grand dependence.
[Illustration: EDWARD RECEIVING KING JOHN OF FRANCE. (_See p._ 432.)]
The circumstances were such as to confound the bravest and most
experienced commander; but the prince, though sensible of the seriousness
of his situation, did not for a moment lose heart. With consummate
ability he took up his position on the summit of a gentle declivity,
planted with vineyards, approachable only by one narrow road, flanked
with hedges and thickets. This ground, so strong by nature, he employed
the whole army to make stronger by trenches and embankments. Sir Eustace
de Ribeaumont, a stalwart knight, who had fought with his father at
Calais, went out with three other knights to reconnoitre the English
army, and brought this word to the King of France:--"Sire, we have
seen the enemy. By our guess they amount to 2,000 men-at-arms, 4,000
archers, and 1,500 or 2,000 other men; and appear to form one division.
They are strongly posted, wisely ordered, and their position is well
nigh inaccessible. In order to attack them, there is but one passage,
where four horsemen may ride abreast, which leads to the centre of their
line. The hedges that flank this passage are lined with archers, and the
English main body itself consists of dismounted men-at-arms, arranged in
the form of a _herse_ or harrow. By this difficult passage alone can you
approach the English position; consider, therefore, what is best to be
done."
King John hearing this, determined to charge the English on foot,
ordering all his men-at-arms to dismount, take off their spurs, and cut
their spears to the length of five feet. Three hundred horsemen only were
to remain mounted, in order to break the line of archers by a violent
charge, and make way for the infantry.
Edward, on his part, drew up his forces, not in one division, as when
seen by De Ribeaumont, but in three, with a detachment of cavalry apart,
under the celebrated Captal de Buch, who was to take a compass round the
hill during the fight, and fall on the rear of the French.
When about to engage, however, two legates from the Pope, Cardinals
Talleyrand de Périgord and Capoccio, came into both the French and
English camps, and used every endeavour to incline the two princes to
peace. The Prince of Wales was so sensible of his critical situation that
he made the most liberal offers. "Save my honour," he said, "and that of
my army, and I will listen to anything." He proposed, indeed, to give up
all the towns and castles which he had taken both in this and the former
campaign, give up all his prisoners without ransom, and swear never again
for seven years to bear arms against the King of France.
Never was a finer opportunity for securing a splendid triumph, in the
surrender of so renowned an enemy; but John the Good again showed that
he was not John the Wise. He was elated with the persuasion that he had
the prince wholly in his power; and the very liberality of his offer
only confirmed the fatal idea. He therefore insisted on the surrender of
the prince and a hundred of his best knights, flattering himself that in
holding them he held the restitution of Calais. The prince at once and
indignantly rejected the proposal. The Christian efforts of the humane
cardinals were abortive; the greater part of the day, which was Sunday,
had been wasted in these negotiations. The prince's army was badly off
for provisions for either man or horse; but they cheerfully spent the
remainder of the day in strengthening their defences, and arranging their
baggage behind them, as at Creçy.
The next morning, Monday, the 19th of September, the French army was
again drawn out; and again Cardinal Talleyrand endeavoured to move the
mind of the French king; but he repulsed him rudely. John had arranged
his army in three divisions: the first commanded by his brother, the Duke
of Orleans; the second by the dauphin, and two of his younger brothers;
the third by the king himself, who had at his side his fourth and
favourite son Philip, then about fourteen years of age. Edward, on the
other hand, commanded the main body of his army, and placed the van under
the Earl of Warwick. Just before the battle, Sir James Audley came before
the prince and begged that he might begin the battle, in accordance with
a vow he had made to do so in every battle of the prince's or of his
father. The prince consented, and Sir James took his place with four
stout esquires in the van; and thus the battle began.
The Marshals of France were ordered to advance and take possession of
the lane leading to the English position, and scatter the archers who
lined the hedges; but as fast as they entered the lane they were shot
down. The horsemen, rapidly thinned, reached the end of the lane only
to encounter the main body of the Black Prince's army. There Sir James
Audley led on the charge, beating down all who approached. At the same
instant the detachment of Captal de Buch, attended by 600 bowmen, made
their attack on the flank of the dauphin's division. This movement threw
the whole division into confusion. The archers shot so well and thickly
that the dauphin's second division dispersed in haste. The knights,
alarmed for their horses left in the rear, were the first to run from
their banners, and all was instantly one scene of flight. The dauphin and
his brother were escorted from the spot by 800 lances, and the army of
the Black Prince seeing this, and that the Duke of Orleans was in full
retreat with his vanguard, sprang to their saddles, shouting, "St. George
for Guienne!" and Sir John Chandos exclaimed to the Prince, "Sire, ride
forward; the day is won! Let us charge on the King of France, for well I
know that he is too bold to flee, and there only will the battle be; and
we shall take him, please God and St. George!" "Advance banners, in the
name of God and St. George!" cried the prince, and they dashed down the
lane, bearing all before them, riding over dead and wounded, till they
came out on the plain where the king yet stood with his division, and
they burst upon them with a fearful shock. But the king stood his ground,
fighting manfully, leading up his division on foot, and hewing his way
with his battle-axe; so that, says Froissart, had the knights of King
John fought as well, the issue of the day might have been different. The
Constable of France stood firmly by his sovereign with his squadron of
horse, shouting "Mountjoy, St. Denis!" but before the impetuous onset of
the English men-at-arms, his troops were cut down and himself was slain.
Then the Prince of Wales attacked a body of German cavalry, and there
was a desperate conflict; but the German generals were all killed, and
then the cavalry gave way and left the king almost alone. Still the king
fought on, and refused to surrender, though his few remaining followers
were fast falling, and his nobles one after another sank around him. His
son, the boy of fourteen, fighting bravely in defence of his father, was
wounded, and the king might easily have been slain, but every one was
anxious to take him alive. Several who attempted to seize him he felled
to the ground. When called upon to yield, he still cried out, "Where is
my cousin, the Prince of Wales?" unwilling to surrender to any one of
less rank. A knight from St. Omer, who had been banished for homicide,
said, "Sire, the prince is not here; but I will conduct you to him." "But
who are you?" demanded the king; and the answer came, "I am Denis de
Morbecque, a knight of Artois, but serving the King of England because
I cannot belong to France, having been banished thence." "I surrender
to you," said the king, giving his glove to Sir Denis. But there was
violent struggling for possession of the king, every one saying, "I took
him," and some of the rude soldiers declaring that they would kill him
if not surrendered to them. At this moment arrived the Earl of Warwick,
sent by the Black Prince to discover what was become of the king, and he
conducted John and his son with great respect to the prince's tent.
Thus terminated the battle of Poitiers, one of the most wonderful
victories ever achieved, being won by an army numerically only one-sixth
of that which it defeated, and fighting under the disadvantage of being
surrounded in the enemy's country, and against the King of France in
person, with all his chivalry. Thus stood King John, a captive, at the
end of the fight, where, without striking a single blow, he might have
expelled the English army from his soil, and bound the Prince of Wales to
a peace of seven years.
The true glory, therefore, of the Black Prince was that, so far from
taunting John with this, he received him with the utmost courtesy. He
advanced from his tent to meet the captive king with every mark of
respect and regard. He bade him not think too much of the fortune of
war, but to bear in mind that he had won the admiration of both armies,
and the fame of the bravest man who had fought on that side. He caused a
banquet to be spread in his tent for the king and his son. Edward refused
to sit down at the table, as being only a vassal of the King of France.
He said, "You shall find my father ready to show you all honour and
friendship, and you shall, if you will, become such friends as you have
never yet been." The king was so much touched by the respect and kindness
of Edward, that he declared, though defeated, it was no loss of honour to
yield to a prince of such consummate valour and generosity.
The attendants of the king are said to have been affected to tears by the
noble conduct and consoling words of the prince to their royal master,
and the spirit spread through the army towards all the prisoners. Edward
also showed the same spirit of justice and liberality towards others.
He presented to Sir James Audley 500 marks of yearly revenue for his
services in the action; and when he found that he had transferred the
whole of it to his four squires, he again settled £400 yearly upon him.
He also heard all the eager and conflicting claims respecting the capture
of the king, the distinction and the ransom being alluring objects; and
finally adjudged it impartially, not to any of his own great barons, but
to the poor French exile Sir Denis de Morbecque.
The prince conducted his royal prisoner to Bordeaux, whence, in the
following April, he set sail with him and his son for London. They made
their entrance into the English capital on the 24th of that month, 1357,
landing at Southwark, whence they rode in procession through the city
of Westminster, vast crowds attending them all the way to satiate their
wonder at the novel spectacle of the monarch of France riding there as a
captive. He was clad in his royal robes, and mounted on a white steed of
remarkable size and beauty; while the Prince of Wales rode by his side,
clad in a much plainer dress, and on a black palfrey. This might, to our
present ideas, have appeared an aping of humility; but it was doubtless
dictated to the prince by a chivalrous courtesy, and presented a fine
contrast to the savage pomp of a Roman triumph, in which great kings and
queens, amid all the spoils of their ravaged realms, were made to walk in
chains, while the proud conqueror rode in his chariot blazing with gold.
[Illustration: _Gold Florin of Edward III._
_Penny of Edward III._
_Groat of Edward III._
_Gold Noble of Edward III._
COINS OF THE REIGN OF EDWARD III.]
It was, indeed, a time of singular triumph to the English people, for
there were now two captive kings, those of France and Scotland, in their
metropolis. Edward III. advanced to meet King John at the gates of his
palace with the greatest courtesy, and received him, not as a prisoner,
but as a neighbouring potentate arrived on a social visit.
The King of Scots had now been a captive in England eleven years. There
had been no want of endeavours on the part of the Scots or of the King
of England to effect his liberation. During the early portion of David's
captivity this was not so much the case, because there was a strong
leaning in him towards the French alliance--a natural result of his nine
years' kind entertainment in that kingdom in his early youth. But his
sojourn in England produced as decided an attachment to the English; and
Edward, perceiving this, was willing to have on the throne of Scotland a
friend who might counteract the hostile tendency of the nobles. During
the last six years various negotiations had been entered into with the
Scots for the release of David, but the ransom was considered by them
too high. In 1351 this cause broke off the treaty: in 1354 the Scots
agreed to give a ransom of 90,000 marks, payable in nine years. But their
French allies, dreading an amicable state of things between Scotland and
England, having lately lost Calais, and being then threatened with a
fresh invasion by the English, induced the Scots to break the agreement.
The effect of this measure was speedily seen in an invasion of England
by the Scots, which compelled Edward to return from Normandy, and was
followed by his celebrated raid, called the "Burnt Candlemas," into
Scotland. Now, however, a treaty was concluded, in which the Scots
consented to pay 100,000 marks in ten years, giving hostages for the due
fulfilment of this compact. In November of this year, 1357, David was
restored to liberty, and returned to his kingdom; and, before reverting
to the prosecution of the war with France, we may briefly state what were
the consequences of this transaction.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH OF NOTRE DAME, CALAIS.]
It soon became evident that the abode of David at the English court had
produced the same effect as that formerly made upon him by his residence
in the court of France. His facile and amiable but weak mind had been
completely won over by Edward, who now saw, as he imagined, a quieter
and more effectual mode of securing the crown of Scotland than by war.
David had lost his wife, the sister of Edward, but had no children. He
had grown fonder of the more polished and luxurious court of England than
of his own ruder country and turbulent nobles. He did not, therefore,
hesitate, after the death of his wife, to propose to the Scottish
Parliament that, in case of his dying without issue, Edward's third son,
the Duke of Clarence, should succeed him. The Scots, of course, rejected
the proposal without ceremony. Still it was well known that a secret
treaty existed between David and Edward III. for this object. In 1371
David died, and Robert Stewart, the grandson of Robert Bruce, by David's
eldest sister, Marjory, succeeded to the throne, by the full consent of
the Scottish Parliament, under the title of Robert II. Though Edward
menaced, he never asserted his new claim to the crown, for his hands were
full with the French war, and soon after, the death of his son, the Black
Prince, put an end to all such ideas. From that time to the reign of
James VI., a period of 232 years, the Stewarts continued to reign, when
they also succeeded to the crown of England, and thus prepared the way
for the ultimate and entire union of the kingdoms.
The battle of Poitiers filled up the measure of the calamities of France.
Creçy was a decisive blow; the loss of Calais was another. But these
were still only a minor portion of the losses and miseries which had
been crowding upon her through ten years of invasion. Normandy, Artois,
Picardy, and the southern provinces of France had been repeatedly
traversed by hostile armies, their fields laid waste, their cattle
driven off or destroyed, their crops trodden under foot, their cities,
towns, and villages burnt or pillaged. By sea and by land France had
suffered defeat and heavy loss of men, ships, and property. At Sluys, in
mid-Channel, and on various parts of the coast, the English had destroyed
her fleets. In defending her ally of Brittany, Charles of Blois, her
treasures had been largely drawn upon; and now came this desolating
overthrow, in which the flower of her nobility was crushed or made
captive with their king.
That captivity let loose all the elements of disorder which had been
accumulating through these terrible years. The people were impoverished,
and numbers of them utterly ruined; all were wretched and discontented.
The nobles were grown arrogant with the weakness of the state, and the
country was overrun with bands of armed marauders, calling themselves
"Free Companies," who preyed at will on the already sorely fleeced
people, committing every species of outrage, and thus aggravating awfully
the miseries of the nation.
The dauphin was only a youth of eighteen, and, though possessed of
superior talents, and unusual prudence and spirit for his age, was
necessarily destitute of that authority and that experience which such
a crisis required, and his two younger brothers could afford him no
assistance in so difficult a position. Besides the want of support from
members of his own family, he had a most dangerous and indefatigable
enemy in his relative, the King of Navarre, who possessed that determined
disposition to mischief which most truly entitled him to the name given
him by the people, Charles the Bad.
The latter was still in prison, but he found means through stone walls to
exercise his talents for intrigue, treachery, and malicious machinations.
Pretending even to the crown, he had all the seditious arts and fiery
recklessness of the demagogue; and he stooped to ally himself with any
malcontent class, or to work with any dirty tool. Accordingly, when the
dauphin called together the States-General of the kingdom, to enable
him to obtain supplies, and reasonably imagining that he should find
all classes, under the calamitous condition of the country, ready to
unite with him for the restoration of the king and the re-establishment
of order, he was met by demands for the limitation of the royal
prerogative, the punishment of past offenders, and, especially, for the
release of the King of Navarre.
Undoubtedly there were many evils to redress, and abuses of the royal
power to complain of; but this was not the time when honourable men would
have sought to enforce these objects. It was taking a cowardly advantage
of the unfortunate position of a mere youth, to wrest from him what he
had no legal authority to yield. Brave and upright men would have brought
back the monarch, and from him demanded those measures which justice and
the circumstances of the kingdom required. But what should have been
reform was dastardly and lawless faction, and the very naming of the
King of Navarre, the evil genius of France, betrayed its real origin.
Marcel, the provost of the merchants, was the determined tool of Charles
of Navarre; he put himself at the head of the mob, and endeavoured to
terrify the dauphin into submission to his demands. The States-General,
influenced by the same spirit, demanded the entire change of the king's
ministers, and the punishment of several of them; and, dividing itself
into separate committees, attempted to usurp the different departments
of the executive. The dauphin was only to act under the control of a
council of thirty-six members of the States-General, in which were to
reside the powers of the whole body, and the King of Navarre was at once
to be liberated. The dauphin temporised with the art of a much older man,
till he had obtained some supplies, with which he proposed to put down
disorders in the provinces, and then he dissolved the States, in spite of
the citizens of Paris, headed by Marcel.
Freed from this millstone about his neck, Charles despatched Robert de
Clermont, a brave commander, into Normandy against Godfrey de Harcourt,
who was again gone over to the English, in resentment for the execution
of his brother, Count Harcourt, as one of the adherents of the factious
King of Navarre.
Robert de Clermont came up with Godfrey near Coutances, in November,
1356, and not only routed his forces, but slew him. Soon after this a
truce was made with the English in Normandy; but still the captains
of Edward pursued their predatory career in Brittany and Gascony. To
complete the mischief, the King of Navarre was released from his prison,
and received with rapture by the disaffected people of Amiens and Paris.
He harangued the people in those cities, and seemed, by the drift of his
speeches, to aim at a republic. His brother, Philip of Navarre, remained
in the English camp, and denounced the idea of a republic as pregnant
with disorder, mutability, and bloodshed.
Charles, the dauphin, was compelled to call the States-General together
again, to demand fresh taxes for the prosecution of the war; but Marcel,
the democratic provost, uniting with the King of Navarre, opposed all his
measures, and excited the people to violence. He caused them to assume
red caps, as a badge of their adherence to his party, which, from its
co-operation with Charles of Navarre, was also called the Navarrese party.
Matters now ripened apace from anarchy into civil war. In February, 1358,
a man of the name of Macé, having murdered the treasurer of France, took
refuge in a church. The dauphin ordered him to be fetched thence, and put
to death. But when Robert de Clermont and John de Conflans, the marshals
of Champagne and Normandy went to execute this command, the Bishop of
Paris protested against it as a violation of the sanctuary of the church;
and Marcel, seizing so admirable an opportunity for bearding the dauphin,
marched with the whole mob of Paris to his palace, then called the Palais
de Justice. Entering without any regard to the person of the dauphin, he
seized the two marshals and put them to death so close to the prince that
his dress was sprinkled with their blood. "How now," cried the dauphin;
"will you shed the blood royal of France?" Marcel replied, "No;" and, to
show his pacific intentions, he clapped his own red cap on the head of
the dauphin. The bodies of the murdered marshals were dragged through the
streets.
Thus the capital of France was reduced to the utmost anarchy. The dauphin
returned into Picardy and Champagne, where he assembled the estates of
those provinces, and was aided by them to the best of their ability.
But all France was one scene of discord, insurrection, violence, and
crime. The mercenary and predatory bands of the Companies, many of whom,
or, at least, their leaders, were English, were engaged by the King of
Navarre to carry out his projected revolution. The dauphin, on the other
side, assembled forces to oppose him; and now broke out one of the most
frightful calamities which can afflict a nation--that of a peasants' war.
In the reign of Richard II. in England, some few years after this time,
our own country was on the verge of such a horrible state of things,
under Wat Tyler and Jack Straw. At the time of the Reformation, Germany
experienced its unspeakable atrocities, under the name of the Bauern
Krieg, or War of the Peasantry, and France now was doomed to drink deeply
of its demon horrors, under the name of the _Jacquerie_, from the gentry
being used to call the peasant Jacques Bonhomme, or Goodman James.
The country people, ground by a long course of exaction, oppression, and
insult, treated more as beasts than men by their feudal lords, now seized
the moment when the Government were beset with difficulties and enemies
to take a blind, sweeping, and tremendous vengeance. The nobility and the
petty gentry holding fiefs under them had all been accustomed to plunder,
tread on, and abuse the peasantry as a race of inferior creatures. The
feudal system had run to seed in unbridled licence, and in every species
of infuriating wrong. Ignorant and outraged, the people, once broken
loose, placed no limits to their cruelties and revenge. They despised
the nobles who, while they had oppressed them, had, in base cowardice,
deserted their sovereign at Poitiers. Formerly crushed down into slaves,
they were now terrible masters. They burnt and laid waste the country
everywhere, plundered the villages, and cut off the supplies of the
terrified towns.
They attacked the castles of the nobles, burnt them to the ground, chased
the once proud owners, like wild beasts, into the woods, committed
horrors, which cannot be named, on the helpless women, murdered them
and the children without mercy, and, as in Germany afterwards, actually
roasted some of their former harsh lords before slow fires.
Of the frightful situation to which the highest ladies of the country
were reduced, Froissart gives a striking example. The Duchess of
Normandy, the Duchess of Orleans, and nearly 300 ladies, young girls,
and children, had fled for refuge to the strong town of Meaux, and were
besieged by 9,000 or 10,000 of the furious Jacquerie, when they were
threatened with every horror that human nature could endure. Fortunately,
two famous knights of the directly opposite parties, the Count of Foix
and the brave Captal de Buch, who made the successful rear assault at
the battle of Poitiers, hearing of the alarming situation of these high
ladies, forgot their hostility, united their forces, and, falling on the
Jacquerie, put them to the sword, killing 7,000 of them, and rescuing the
terrified women.
The dauphin, on his part, did not spare the insurgents. He cut them down
like sheep wherever he could meet with them. In one case he is said to
have killed more than 20,000 of them. The nobles, in Picardy and Artois,
mowed them down like grass, and soon cleared that part of the country of
them. Everywhere the knights and gentry, roused by the ferocious deeds of
the Jacquerie towards their families, collected and, easily overcoming
the undisciplined mobs, slaughtered them in heaps, like beasts. At the
same time, Marcel, endeavouring to complete his crime by betraying Paris
to the King of Navarre and the English, was killed by the exasperated
people, and thus the land was eventually reduced to quiet. But it was
a quiet like that described by the Roman historian:--"_Solitudinem
faciunt, pacem appellant._" ("They make a solitude, and call it peace.")
No country was ever reduced to a more awful condition of ruin and
wide-spread desolation; this frightful Jacquerie pest lasted nearly two
years.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL, COUTANCES.]
Meantime Edward had worked on his captive, King John of France, to make
a peace, restoring to England all the provinces which had belonged to
Henry II. and his two sons, for ever; but the dauphin and the States
rejected the treaty, which would have totally ruined the kingdom. On
this Edward once more invaded that devoted country, assembled an army
of 100,000 men, with which he overran Picardy and Champagne, besieged
Rheims, but without success, advanced into Burgundy, marched into
Nivernais, and laid waste Brie and Gatinais, and sat down before Paris,
where, not being able to draw the dauphin into a battle, he proceeded to
devastate the province of Maine. It is said that his desolating career
was at length closed by a terrible thunderstorm by which he was overtaken
near Chartres, in which the terrors of heaven seemed to his awestruck
imagination to be arrayed against him. "Looking towards the church of
Notre Dame at Chartres," says Froissart, "he made a vow to grant peace,
which he afterwards humbly repeated in confession in the cathedral of
Chartres, and thus took up his lodging in the village of Bretigny, near
that city."
[Illustration: MARCEL AND THE DAUPHIN OF FRANCE. (_See p._ 435.)]
Here the peace was concluded on these conditions: the King of France was
to pay three millions of gold crowns for his ransom--about a million
and a half of our money; he was also to yield up to Edward in full
sovereignty the province of Gascony, Guienne, the whole of Poitou, and
other dependencies in Aquitaine, and in the north of France, Calais,
Guisnes, Montreuil, and the country of Ponthieu. Edward, on the other
hand, was to renounce all other French territory, and all claim to the
crown and kingdom of France. The King of Navarre was to be restored to
all his honours and possessions, and the alliances of Edward with the
Flemings and of John with the Scots were to close. In consequence of the
peace of Bretigny, signed the 24th of October, 1360, John returned to
France; but finding that his government was unwilling to keep faith with
England, and that his son, the Duke of Anjou, had broken his parole as
a hostage, John, with a noble sense of honour, refused to be a party to
such dishonesty and, returning voluntarily to his captivity in London,
died there on the 8th of April, 1364.
Charles V., the fifty-first monarch of France, succeeded his father
John to a kingdom, desolate but not dismembered. John had, indeed, added
to the realm the provinces of Dauphiné and Burgundy; but the latter he
again dissevered from the crown and settled on his favourite son, Philip,
his companion at the battle of Poitiers and in his captivity. This
unwise act, the result, not of prudence--in which John was singularly
deficient--but of affection, became the source of much contention and
many miseries.
Charles had been early taught in the school of adversity, and he soon
displayed proofs that he had profited by its lessons. He was cautious,
thoughtful how to retrieve the condition of France, and eventually won
the name of the Wise. Had his designation been the Worldly Wise it would
have been still more correct, for he was not too strict in interpreting
the code of honour where it interfered with his plans. He was the first
of his race and his times who renounced the practice of leading his
armies, deeming it more befitting a monarch to head his kingdom, and
place over his armies the ablest commanders whom he could obtain, as he
would place the ablest ministers over the different departments of his
Government. This very circumstance marks Charles as a sagacious prince.
The practice was a step onward in governmental science.
Charles deemed it necessary to reduce the disorders of his own kingdom
before he commenced his intended operations against the English. It was
necessary to put down Charles of Navarre, and to settle the affairs of
Brittany. To do this, he first sent the young Breton knight, Bertrand
du Guesclin, destined to acquire a great renown in this reign, into
Normandy, where the brave Captal de Buch, the hero of Poitiers, commanded
the King of Navarre's forces. These two commanders met near Cocherel,
where Du Guesclin turned the tide of war in favour of France, gaining
the first complete victory for it since the days of Creçy, and not only
routed De Buch, but took him prisoner.
Du Guesclin then marched into Brittany, where Lord Chandos and Sir Hugh
Calverley were in command of the English forces. Here Du Guesclin's
good fortune deserted him; he was defeated and taken prisoner. Here,
also, Charles of Blois was slain, and the young De Montfort secured in
his possessions. The prudence of Charles V. was now seen conspicuously;
instead of resuming the war, he acknowledged De Montfort as rightful lord
of the duchy, though a strong partisan of England, admitted him to do
homage for the fief, and thus bound him in a certain degree to him by
kindness--a display of political philosophy too much neglected by Edward
III. of England and his son, the Black Prince.
Finding the estates of the crown greatly reduced by weak grants made by
his father and former monarchs to the princes and nobles about them, he
set himself to reclaim them, and thus restore the national finances--an
undertaking which would have ruined a weak or imprudent king. But he
prosecuted this design with such consummate address and persuasive
mildness--showing its absolute necessity if France were to enable herself
to shake off the incubus of the English, and beginning with his own
uncle, the Duke of Orleans--that he carried it through triumphantly. This
done, he proceeded to rid the nation of the bands of Free Companies which
preyed on the very vitals of the kingdom. At the peace of Bretigny the
disbanded soldiery of Edward, men from almost every European country,
being scattered over the land, and being in possession of many of the
strongholds, refused to lay down their arms. They were accustomed to a
life of the utmost licence under the English king and prince, and they
determined to continue it. Both English and Gascon officers now took the
command of these freebooters, who became the scourge of the provinces.
Sir Hugh Calverley, Sir Matthew Gournay, and the Chevalier Verte, were
their most distinguished leaders. These troops amounted to 40,000, and
did not fear to encounter the armies of France. They fought with them
and beat them, and killed Jacques de Bourbon, a prince of the blood. The
more they spoiled and ravaged, the more their numbers grew, for they
were increased by those who sought for booty, and by those who were left
without any other resource. People flocked to them precisely as they
did in ancient times to David, in the cave of Adullam: "Every one that
was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was
discontented, gathered themselves unto him." The Pope excommunicated
them; but though that ban, so awful in that age, alarmed, it did not
disperse them.
Charles at first complained to Edward warmly that his forces were not
disbanded according to the treaty, and called upon him to see them
dispersed; but when Edward, finding proclamations for the purpose
unheeded, declared that he would himself march against them, Charles took
alarm at the prospect of seeing an English army again on the soil of
France, and hastened to request him to spare himself that trouble--he
would deal with them in his own way. His mode of ridding himself of them
was worthy of his enlightened mind. He used all his persuasion to engage
them in foreign wars. He represented to them what a rich field the wars
of Italy presented to them; and a large body, under one Hawkwood, an
Englishman, proceeded thither, and won great wealth and distinction.
Fortune favoured the plans of the king, and opened a still wider field
of action to the troublesome Free Companies. Pedro, the king of Castile
at that time, was one of the most bloody monsters who ever disgraced a
throne. He indulged his savage disposition by the murder of his own near
relations and the nobles about the court. He had put to death several of
his natural brothers for fear of their conspiring against him. The murder
of one noble led him to that of others, who he dreaded might attempt
retaliation. His court was become a perfect hell of blood and terror, and
that terror alone prevented his dethronement. But, instigated by Mary de
Padilla, his mistress, he poisoned his wife, the sister of the queen of
Charles of France.
At this Enrique, Count of Trastamare, and Tello, Count of Biscay, his
natural brothers, who had taken arms against him in vain, fled to the
court of France, and implored Charles to avenge the sister of his queen,
and rid the country of this modern Nero.
Charles embraced the proposal as the evident beckoning hand of a good
Providence. He procured the liberty of Du Guesclin, who was still a
prisoner to Lord Chandos, and set him to bring over the chiefs of the
Companies to take command under him for a feigned expedition against the
Moors in Spain, which was regarded as a crusade against the infidels.
The Pope, who had his cause of quarrel with the monster Pedro, gave
his blessing to the scheme, and Du Guesclin speedily found himself at
the head of 30,000 of these desperadoes. The King of France gave them
200,000 francs; and, assembling at Châlons, on the river Marne, they
marched towards Avignon. The Pope, who then resided there, alarmed at the
approach of such a force, sent a cardinal to learn their object in coming
that way. Du Guesclin answered that as they were bound on a crusade
against the enemies of the Church, they sought the Pope's blessing, and
the small sum of 200,000 florins to help them on their way. His holiness
readily promised the blessing and absolution of all their sins--an
awful score! But Du Guesclin replied that his followers were of that
description that they would, if necessary, dispense with the absolution,
but not with the money. The Pope then proposed to levy the sum of 100,000
florins on the inhabitants, but Du Guesclin said they were not come to
oppress the innocent people, but would expect the money out of the Pope's
own coffers. His holiness thought it well to comply with a request backed
by such arguments as 30,000 notorious banditti, and the bold beggars
marched on. They very soon drove the tyrant from his throne and kingdom,
who fled, with his two daughters, into Guienne, and put himself under the
protection of the Black Prince.
In all the wars of Edward III. against Scotland and France he had shown
an utter disregard of right; and in this respect he was fully seconded
by the Black Prince; but of all their undertakings none so flagrantly
outraged every principle of justice, humanity, and chivalry as their
abetting this demon in human shape, Don Pedro of Castile. Here was a
man steeped in the blood of his own family and of his own wife; a man
who had oppressed and plundered his subjects till they hated him with
a mortal hatred, and had joined in chasing him from the country; yet
Edward--though a professed champion of chivalry, and as such bound to
defend and redress the grievances of women--at once undertook to restore
the murderer of his wife to his ensanguined throne, and to force him
again on a people whom he had driven to desperation by his ferocious
tyrannies. It has been attempted to vindicate this action by representing
Don Pedro as the _legitimate_ sovereign, whom, therefore, the prince,
as an upholder of legitimate authority, was bound to support. But the
fact is that Edward and his father had all their lives been engaged
in endeavouring, by all the force of their talents and the resources
of their kingdom, to destroy legitimacy in the person of the King of
France. It has been again urged that the King of France sanctioning
the expedition to dethrone Don Pedro naturally aroused the rivalry of
the Black Prince, who would probably, say these authors, never have
succoured the infamous Pedro had not the King of France taken the other
side. But the worst of it is, that the King of France was on the right
side, the just and honourable one--that of punishing a murderer of his
own relative, and of assisting an oppressed people. The Prince of Wales
was on the wrong side--the odious one of abetting as foul a monster as
ever disgraced humanity; and his proceeding was as impolitic as it was
unjust, for it raised a new enemy, the reigning King of Castile, Don
Enrique, and threw him into the alliance of France. The conduct of the
Black Prince in this affair proved that, with all his personal virtues,
he was destitute of that high moral sense--that perception of what is
intrinsically great and noble--which stamps the true hero; and the hand
of Providence appears speedily and unequivocally to have displayed itself
against him and his father, who sanctioned his fatal enterprise. All his
wisest and most faithful counsellors urged him to reflect on the crimes
and bloodstained character of Don Pedro; to remember that such men were
as ungrateful as they were base; and also that the expedition must be
attended by severe charges on the province of Gascony, already loudly
complaining of its burthens.
These just admonitions were all lost on the prince. He assembled a force,
recalling his officers from the bands of the Companies, 12,000 of whom,
on learning that he was about to take the field, left Du Guesclin, headed
by Sir Hugh Calverley, and Sir Robert Knowles, and followed his banners,
believing in the ascendency of his fortune, and careless of every other
motive. The Prince of Wales came into action with the troops of Don
Enrique and Du Guesclin at Navarrete, routed them with a loss of 20,000
men, and easily reinstated the tyrant upon the throne. But there the
success of the Black Prince ceased. He could not make the monster Pedro
anything but a monster; and Pedro immediately displayed his diabolical
disposition by proposing to the prince to murder all their prisoners in
cold blood, which the prince indignantly refused.
And now the punishment of the Prince of Wales for this unhappy deed--a
foul blot for ever on his brilliant escutcheon--came fast and heavily
upon him; so fast, so heavily, so palpably, that the writers of the time
plainly ascribed it to the displeasure of Providence. The tyrant, once
restored, gave Prince Edward immediate proof of the miserable work he
had done, by refusing to fulfil a single stipulation that he had made.
He left the prince's army without the pay so liberally promised, and
without provisions. The prince was exposed to the murmurs of his deluded
soldiers. The heat of the climate and strange and unwholesome food began
to sweep them off in great numbers, whilst his own health gave way, never
to be restored. He made his way back to Bordeaux as well as he could,
where he arrived in July, 1367, with a ruined constitution, and covered
with debts, incurred on behalf of the ungrateful tyrant. To discharge
the debt due to his troops, he laid a tax on hearths, not unknown
in England, but new to the Gascons, which was calculated to produce
1,200,000 francs a year. But the inhabitants resented this tax on their
chimneys, or _feuage_, as they called it, excessively. It was the climax
to a host of grievances of which they began vehemently to clamour--as,
for example, that all offices and honours were conferred on foreigners;
and that their treatment was harsh, like that of a conquered people. As
the Black Prince paid no attention to their complaints, the nobles of
the district carried them to the King of France, as their ancient lord
paramount.
While the Prince of Wales was thus about to be embroiled with France,
on account of his ill-fated restoration of Don Pedro, he had the
mortification to learn that that savage had only regained his throne
to wreak the most diabolical cruelties on his subjects, whom he now
regarded as rebels. Du Guesclin, having obtained his ransom, once more
joined Enrique de Trastamare to expel the despot. He defended himself
with desperate valour, but he was eventually defeated. As he had only
about a dozen men with him, Don Pedro attempted to steal away at night,
but he was seized by a French officer; and such was the implacable fury
of the two brothers against each other, that, as soon as Don Enrique
heard of his capture, he flew to the tent where he was in custody. There,
after insulting and irritating each other, the two proceeded to a deadly
struggle, in which Don Enrique stabbed Pedro to the heart with his dagger.
Such were the fruits for which the Prince of Wales had sacrificed his
honour--his life, as it proved--and the peace of his provinces. The
wary Charles V. had long been eagerly watching the proceedings of the
English. He had on various pretences deferred the fulfilment of the
conditions of the treaty of Bretigny, and now, on the plea that it was
void, he summoned the Black Prince to Paris, as his vassal, to answer the
complaints of his subjects. The treaty of Bretigny liberated the English
provinces from all feudal subjection, and made them independent. When
the heralds conveyed the summons to the Black Prince, his eyes flamed
with indignation at this breach of faith; he looked furiously on the
messengers, and exclaimed, "Is it even so? Does our fair cousin desire
to see us at Paris? Gladly will we go thither; but I assure you, sirs,
that it shall be with our basnets on our heads, and at the head of 60,000
men."
The messengers dropped on their knees in terror, begging him to remember
that they only did the message of him who sent them. But the prince,
deigning them no word, left them in wrath, and the courtiers ordered
them to get away as fast as they could; but the prince, hearing of their
departure, sent after them and brought them back, but did them no injury.
[Illustration: THE BLACK PRINCE AND THE FRENCH KING'S HERALDS. (_See p._
440.)]
Thus were England and France once more plunged into war through the
ill-timed restoration of a base tyrant; with general discontent in the
English provinces in the south of France, and the health of the prince
fast failing. The French king had carefully calculated the declining
vigour of Edward III., as well as the health of his son; and now he
advanced to regain the territories he had lost, and to avenge the mortal
injuries which his country had suffered from the English. Circumstances
were highly favourable to Charles. Discontent prevailed in the English
provinces, and there was disunion amongst the commanders of the forces.
On his own side he had with him the wishes of the whole country. Many of
the great commanders who had assisted to win the proud laurels of Edward
and the Black Prince were dead, or sunk into old age. The Free Companies
who had served under the Black Prince were dismissed from the want of
that very pay which the tyrant Pedro had refused, and were now eagerly
engaged by the French king. The feudal troops and the archery of England,
the very soul of the army, had returned home at the end of the war, and
it would now require much time and expenditure of money to collect them
again.
On the other hand, a new generation had sprung up in France, who had not
known the terrors of Creçy or Poitiers, but only had heard of the defeat
of France and the death of their fathers, and burned to avenge them. The
terrible King of England was old; his lion-hearted son was known to be
sinking into the grave. It seemed as if the doom of heaven was pronounced
on the power of the English. They had overrun and destroyed, but taken
no pains to conciliate, and the hatred which flamed in the hearts of the
people was fanned and made holy by the universal voice of the clergy,
producing everywhere revolt from the English, and adhesion to the French
monarch. Charles had prepared for this crisis for years, husbanding his
income till he was called not only the Wise, but the Wealthy; and the
people, now kindled with the spirit of patriotism, submitted cheerfully
to new taxes for reconquering the independence of their country, even
to that same _feuage_ which, imposed in Gascony, had cost the Prince of
Wales his popularity; so much does the payment of a tax depend on the
person who imposes it, and the purpose for which it is demanded.
Still the Black Prince, though ill, was not cast down. Some of the Free
Companies, in spite of the defection of their fellows, joined him to the
number of 6,000 lances, under the brave Sir Hugh Calverley; and Edward
III. sent from England a considerable army, under the command of the Earl
of Cambridge, the prince's fourth brother, and Sir John Hastings, the
Earl of Pembroke, his brother-in-law.
The King of France fell on the province of Ponthieu, which gave the
English admittance into the heart of France. The people everywhere
received him with open arms, showing how completely all the efforts of
England to conquer France had been thrown away. The citizens of Abbeville
opened their gates to him. Those of the neighbouring towns followed their
example, and in a very little time the whole country was regained by the
French.
In Poitou the brothers of Charles, the Dukes of Berri and Anjou, assisted
by the gallant Du Guesclin, were equally successful. Lord Audley, the
son of that Sir James Audley who distinguished himself so greatly at
the battle of Poitiers, who was seneschal of the province, fell sick
and died in the very commencement of the war, to the extreme grief of
the prince, who made the celebrated Sir John Chandos his successor. But
jealousies amongst the commanders, now the Prince of Wales was unable to
be at the head of his armies, produced disastrous consequences, and worse
very soon followed in the death of the brave Chandos. That enterprising
leader proposed to the Earl of Pembroke to join him in an expedition
against Louis de Sancerre, the Marshal of France. But Pembroke, jealous
of the fame of Sir John, and instigated by his flatterers, who insinuated
that with such a renowned general the earl would come off with very
little of the glory of the undertaking, declined the proposal. Sir John
Chandos, disgusted by the refusal, retired into the city of Poitiers, and
dismissed such troops as were not necessary for its defence.
No sooner had he done this, than the Earl of Pembroke issued forth with
200 spears to win distinction for himself, and waste the lands of the
nobles who were opposed to the Black Prince's taxation. This was good
news for the Marshal Sancerre, who had little fear when he learned that
Chandos had retired in displeasure. He came suddenly with an overwhelming
force on Pembroke, killed a considerable number of his knights, and
compelled him to take refuge in an old church of the abolished Knights
Templars. Pembroke, now awake to his folly, dispatched a messenger to Sir
John Chandos for help. The messenger did not reach Poitiers till the next
morning, when Sir John was at breakfast. On hearing Pembroke's appeal,
he coolly went to mass, glad, no doubt, to let the envious nobleman feel
the effects of his foolish conduct. Meantime the battle at the church
was going on vigorously, the English stoutly defending their retreat,
but feeling, from the thinness of the walls and want of provisions, that
they could not hold out long. Another messenger was dispatched to Sir
John, accompanied by a most earnest entreaty, and a valuable ring from
the finger of the earl himself. Sir John was at dinner when the messenger
arrived, describing in earnest words the imminent danger of the earl and
his followers. Sir John had not yet forgiven the young nobleman. He went
on with his dinner, saying, "If it be as you say, nothing can save him."
But anon, lifting up his head, he said to his knights and esquires around
him, "Hear me, sirs! the Earl of Pembroke is a noble person, and of high
lineage, son-in-law to our natural lord, the King of England. Foul shame
were it to see him lost, if we can save him. I will go, by the grace of
God."
Two hundred men-at-arms mounted in haste, and, Sir John at their head,
galloped off to surprise the Marshal of Sancerre while besieging Pembroke
in the Temple-house. But the wary French, apprised of the approach of Sir
John, speedily drew off and escaped.
In December of the same year, 1370, Sir John Chandos lost his life in a
confused skirmish, owing to want of proper co-operation among the English
commanders; and his loss was soon obvious in a greater lack of spirit and
success in the English army in the south of France; the gallant Captal
de Buch, who preceded Sir John as seneschal of Guienne, being taken
prisoner, and lost to the English service.
Meantime Edward III. had sent fresh forces to Calais, under his son, the
Duke of Lancaster, commonly called John of Ghent, or Gaunt, in alliance
with the Count of Namur. The King of France sent a still larger army to
oppose the inroads of these forces under his brother Philip, the Duke of
Burgundy, but commanded him on no account to come to a general engagement
with the English, lest the fate of Creçy and Poitiers should once more
overtake him. The duke posted himself between St. Omer and Tournay,
where the Duke of Lancaster came out against him, but could not induce
the French to fight. The Duke of Burgundy, impatient of this inglorious
position, desired to be recalled, and the king ordered him to fall back
on Paris. Then John of Gaunt advanced, pillaging and laying waste the
country in the old English manner from Calais to Bordeaux, while Sir
Robert Knowles, the Free Companies' leader, with an army of 30,000 men,
took his way by Terouenne and through Artois, burning and destroying all
before him. He next advanced to the very gates of Paris, up to which one
of his knights rode, and struck a blow with his spear, having made a vow
that he would strike his lance on the gate of Paris. The daring warrior,
however, lost his life returning through the suburbs, being cut down by
a gigantic butcher with his cleaver. After that Knowles marched into
Brittany for winter quarters. On their march that fatal disunion which
now infected the English army, once more showed itself. Lord Grandison,
Lord Fitzwalter, and other English nobles, refused to follow Knowles into
Brittany. They declared that it did not become noblemen like themselves
to serve under a man of mean birth, as Sir Robert Knowles was, and they
drew off their forces to Anjou and Touraine.
Bertrand du Guesclin, now made Constable of France, hearing of this
disunion from an English traitor, pursued Knowles to cut him off. Knowles
sent information of this pursuit to Lord Grandison, and his disdainful
aristocratic companions; but too late, for Du Guesclin overtook them at
Pont Volant, defeated them, and slew the greater part of these proud
exclusives. Knowles made good his retreat into Brittany.
About this time the Black Prince performed his last military exploit;
and it was one calculated to become an additional brand on his name in
France. Limoges, the capital of Limousin, had been betrayed to the Dukes
of Anjou and Berri by the bishop and the chief inhabitants. The prince
was greatly enraged, both because the bishop had been his personal
friend, and because he had conferred many privileges on the citizens.
He was now too weak to mount a horse, but he ordered out 1,200 lancers
and 2,000 archers and, being borne in an open litter at the head of his
troops, advanced to take vengeance on Limoges. The garrison treated with
scorn his summons to surrender. But his sappers soon undermined the
wall, though Du Guesclin did all he could by a flying force to draw off
his attention. Some authors say that he there used gunpowder, lately
introduced, to blow up the mine, as they contend that his father used
cannon in the battle of Creçy. Others say that he threw down the wall
by burning the props which supported the excavation while in progress.
Whatever was now the mode, he made a breach, and his troops, rushing
in, perpetrated the most ruthless and indiscriminate slaughter. The
poor people, men, women, and children, knelt in the streets, and threw
themselves down before the prince, crying, "Mercy! mercy, for God's
sake!" But the inexorable prince turned a deaf ear to these moving
prayers from the innocent people who had nothing whatever to do with the
surrender of the city, and 4,000 were put to death. The only pity which
he showed was to the bishop who gave up the place, and to a knot of brave
knights whom he found standing with their backs to a wall, engaged in
mortal combat with his brothers the Dukes of Lancaster and Cambridge,
and Pembroke, his brother-in-law. After watching their gallant defence
some time in high admiration, he consented to accept their submission,
and dismissed them with praises. This extraordinary man could still feel
delight in the spectacle of a brave feat of arms, though his soul was
become utterly callous to every sentiment of pity for his fellow men in
general. He gave up the city to be sacked, and it was burnt to the ground.
In the early part of the following year he lost his eldest son, and his
own health being now completely broken, he returned to England, quitting
for ever the country where he had gained so much glory, and on which he
had inflicted such extensive calamities. He left the Duke of Lancaster,
his lieutenant, who maintained a court at Bordeaux as brilliant as that
of the prince himself. At this court were residing the two daughters of
the late Don Pedro the Cruel; and John of Gaunt, now a widower, but in
the prime of his life, married Donna Constance, the eldest, and in her
right assumed the title of King of Castile and Leon; and his brother,
the Earl of Cambridge, married, at the same time, the second sister.
This, as we have said of the Black Prince's expedition into Castile to
reinstate the tyrant Don Pedro, was a most false and calamitous policy,
for it made a firm ally of Enrique, now reigning king of Castile, to
Charles of France; and of this the effect was speedily felt.
John of Gaunt went over to England to introduce his royal bride at court
there; and the Earl of Pembroke going out to supply his place in June,
1372, with a fleet of forty ships, was encountered off the port of La
Rochelle by a powerful navy belonging to King Enrique. The battle was
fiercely contested; but the Spanish ships were not only much larger than
those of the English, but provided with cannon, now for the first time
employed at sea. The English were completely defeated; the greater part
of their ships were taken, burnt, or sunk, including one carrying the
military chest, with £20,000. The Earl of Pembroke, with many other men
of rank, remained prisoners.
Such was the immediate effect of the English alliance with the family
of such a monster as Don Pedro; and nothing showed more completely the
degree to which the English had made themselves detested in France than
the eagerness with which the people of La Rochelle and its neighbourhood,
though still English subjects, aided the Spaniards by every means in
their power.
This defeat and loss laid open the country to the attacks of the King
of France, through his valiant and wise constable, Du Guesclin, who
took town after town. The Duke of Lancaster set sail from England with
a fresh army, accompanied by the Earls of Suffolk, Warwick, Stafford,
and Lord Edward Spencer, to repel the French forces. But these forces,
divided into three hosts, under the Dukes of Burgundy and Bourbon, and
Du Guesclin, still avoided any engagement, but watched the English
army, harassed its rear, and cut off its foraging parties everywhere.
In vain the Duke of Lancaster marched from Bordeaux to Calais and back;
everywhere the enemy fled before him, and yet everywhere he suffered
loss; so that the king, his father, declared, with irrepressible vexation
"that there never was a monarch at once so little of a soldier and who
contrived to give so much trouble." The last town possessed by the
English in Gascony was Thouars, then a considerable place. The constable
invested it, and the English lords shut up in it--the best of those whom
the long series of skirmishes and sieges had left--agreed to surrender
it at the next Michaelmas, if the King of England or one of his sons
did not relieve them within that period. Edward, on hearing this, put to
sea with a considerable army; but winds and waves were steadily opposed
to him, and he was compelled to put back and leave Thouars to its fate.
The last ally of Edward, the Count de Montfort, was driven from his duchy
by Du Guesclin and Oliver de Clisson, and compelled to take refuge in
England. The Duke of Lancaster marched to and fro, but gained no signal
advantage; and Charles V., thinking that Edward's fortunes were too low
again to reinstate the Count of Brittany, proposed to the estates of
France to confiscate his territory, and annex it to the French crown; but
this the nobles of Brittany opposed, and recalled John de Montfort from
his exile in England.
In 1374, but two years previous to the death of the Black Prince, and
three to the death of Edward himself, a truce was signed at Bruges
between France and England for one year. The Pope, by his legates, who
followed both armies, and attended both courts, had never remitted his
Christian endeavours to put a stop to the barbarities of the war; but it
was not till France had won almost all that it had lost that he could
succeed. The truce was concluded, and was maintained till the death
of the King of England; at which time all that was left of his French
possessions were Bordeaux, Bayonne, a few towns on the Dordogne, and
Calais in the north. Such were the miserable fruits of all the human
blood and lives expended, and all the miseries inflicted in these unjust
and impolitic wars of more than forty years' duration.
When the Black Prince returned to England, broken down in constitution,
he found things far from agreeable. The king was become feeble, and
ruled by favourites. Great abuses had sprung up and were carried on in
the king's name. The Duke of Lancaster had created a strong party for
himself, and exercised the principal power. The prince, still growing
weaker, yet roused himself to restrain the domination of Lancaster, and
remove his creatures from about the person of the king. The Commons, as
is supposed, by direct encouragement of the prince, impeached nearly
all the ministers. They removed the chamberlain, Lord Latimer, from the
king's council, and put him in prison. They deprived Lord Neville of the
offices which he held, and arrested several farmers of the customs. They
even censured Alice Perrers, the King's mistress. The excellent Philippa
had been dead several years, and this Alice Perrers, who had been a
lady of the bedchamber to the queen, had acquired the most complete
influence over the old king. She was now banished from court. This
Parliament was known as "The Good Parliament," but its efforts were, for
the most part, fruitless.
[Illustration: JOHN WYCLIFFE APPEARING IN ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL TO ANSWER
THE CHARGE OF HERESY. (_See p._ 446.)]
Such were the unhappy affairs which clouded the last days of the
celebrated Black Prince, and even tended to sow dissension between him
and his father. He died on Trinity Sunday, the 8th of June, 1376, in
the forty-sixth year of his age, to the immense regret of the people,
who regarded his military achievements, though of no solid advantage
to the nation, with a deep national pride, and, from his opposition to
corruptions at home, esteemed him as a most patriotic prince. It is clear
that he must have been of a naturally noble nature, and possessed of
personal qualities as engaging as his courage and military genius were
unrivalled; but his warlike education had blunted many of the finest
feelings of the heart, and led him to become the scourge of France, and
in a great measure useless to his own country. His body was drawn by
twelve horses from London to Canterbury, the whole court and Parliament
following through the city; and he was buried in the cathedral, near the
shrine of Thomas Becket.
After his death the Duke of Lancaster recovered his ascendency in the
state and over the king, who, grown indolent, and devoted only to the
society of his artful mistress, paid little attention to State affairs.
John of Gaunt hastened to undo all that the Black Prince had effected.
He caused his own Steward, Sir Thomas Hungerford, to be made Speaker of
the House of Commons. He restored his faction there, and soon had Sir
Peter de la Mare, the late Speaker, arrested, and the celebrated William
of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, deprived of his temporalities, on
charges of embezzlement which could not be proved, and dismissed from
court. The duke went so far as not only to implore that the Lord Latimer,
but Alice Perrers, should be freed from the censures passed upon them
by the late Parliament in the name of the king, and restored to their
former condition and privileges. The present Parliament, however, was
not so completely packed by John of Gaunt but that it possessed a spirit
of opposition, which insisted that the accused should be put upon their
trial; and the bishops demanded the same justice towards William of
Wykeham, one of the greatest men of the age, the architect of Windsor
Castle, the founder of St. Mary's College at Winchester and of New
College at Oxford.
It is said that we owe it to the resentment of John of Gaunt against
the bishops that he took up so earnestly the cause of Wycliffe, the
great English reformer, and thus became a most effectual champion and
guardian of the Reformation. Wycliffe, who was a parish priest at this
time, living at Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, and the prebendary of
Aust, in the collegiate church of Westbury, in the diocese of Worcester,
had been a member of a commission sent by Edward to Pope Gregory XI.,
which met at Bruges; and it is remarkable that this glimpse of the papal
court is said to have had the same effect on him as the visit of Luther
afterwards to Rome. He became a decided Church reformer, and being a
teacher at Oxford, had ample opportunity of making public his ideas. His
denunciation of Church abuses, and opposition to many of its doctrines,
had caused him to be cited by a convocation of the clergy to appear at
St. Paul's on the 3rd of February, 1377, to answer to the charges against
him. Here he was attended by John of Gaunt and the Earl Marshal, Lord
Percy. These noblemen and the bishops became mutually very hot on the
question, and the Duke of Lancaster is reported to have threatened to
drag Courtenay, the Bishop of London, who presided, by the hair of the
head out of the church. A riot was the consequence, the Duke of Lancaster
protecting Wycliffe; and the people, who were very jealous of Lancaster's
overgrown power, resenting his insult to the bishop, broke into his house
and that of Lord Percy, killing Lord Percy's chaplain, and doing immense
damage to the duke's palace. The two noblemen escaped across the water to
Kennington, where the widow of the Black Prince, the "Fair maid of Kent,"
and her son Richard, the heir apparent, resided. The riot ran so high
that the debates of Parliament were interrupted, and the mob reversed the
duke's arms as a traitor.
The king, completing the fiftieth year of his reign and the sixty-fourth
of his life, published a general amnesty for all minor offences; still
however, through the influence of Lancaster, excluding Wykeham of
Winchester. He was now fast failing, and passed his time between Eltham
Palace and his manor of Shene (or Sheen), near Richmond. The last days
of this great monarch were like those of many others who during their
lives ruled men with a high hand. They were desolate and deserted.
Nobles and courtiers were now looking out for the rising sun, and paying
it their assiduous adoration. By some this was held to be the Duke of
Lancaster, against whose designs on the throne the people had called on
the king, before the death of the Black Prince, to guard; and he had
named his grandson Richard, then not six years old, his successor. By
others Richard was deemed the true fountain of future favour, and all
deserted the dying king, except his deeply interested mistress, who,
after securing everything else of value that she could, drew the diamond
ring from the finger of the dying monarch, and departed. The servants had
gone before to plunder the house, and only a solitary, faithful priest,
preferring his duty to the things of this world, hastened to the bedside
of the departing monarch, held aloft his crucifix, and remained in that
position till the once mighty king had breathed his last.
Englishmen look with pride to the reign of Edward III., as one of those
which stamped the martial ascendency of their race; and unquestionably
it was an era of high military glory. But, beyond the glory, what was
the genuine advantage won by Edward III. and his heroic son? Neither in
France nor in Scotland, the scenes of his feats of arms, did he retain
a foot of the land which he conquered, except Calais and its little
circle of environs. In fact, in France, he lost much territory which he
inherited. Of all the time--a great and invaluable lifetime--spent, of
all the human lives destroyed, of all the taxes wrung from his people,
there remained no fruits but the small district of Calais, destined
to furnish fresh cause of feud, and a heritage of eternal hate on the
part of France towards England. But, so far as Edward III.'s foreign
expeditions led his great and factious nobles abroad, they ensured a
long and settled quiet at home. That quiet, it is true, was not free
from oppressions and from plunderings of the people by the practice of
purveyance. Edward ruled with a high hand, and kept both his nobles and
people in subjection; but the exactions of the Crown were, at their
worst, far more tolerable than those of a crowd of barons and their
vassals, and the horrors which civil dissensions inflicted on the people.
With all the drain of men and _barones minores_, or lesser nobility,
to the wars, there were constant complaints of robberies, murders, and
other outrages committed under protection of the great; but in no degree
so extensive as at the times when the restless and quarrelsome nobles
were all at home. The king, too, driven to straits by the constant want
of money for his wars, always made very free in levying taxes without
consent of Parliament, and in procuring provisions by what was styled
purveyance. When the king had no money his family must subsist, and
therefore he was obliged to send out his servants as purveyors, who
seized provisions wherever they could find them, and gave tallies, or
wooden memoranda, of what they took, at what rate they pleased; the price
to be obtained as best it might, or stopped out of the next taxes.
But for all these things the king was called to account on each fresh
application to Parliament for supplies. By this means the Parliament
during his reign acquired a great amount of influence, as it had done
under Edward I. from the same cause, and began to feel its power; so
that, as we have seen, the king was obliged to renew the Great Charter
fifteen times during his reign. So also we see, in the last years of
his reign, the Parliament impeached his ministers, and drove Lord
Neville and Lord Latimer from his service. The power of the barons
was thus considerably depressed; and, at the same time, that of the
Crown was restrained, and by nothing more than by a statute passed in
the twenty-fifth year of Edward's reign, limiting the charge of high
treason--before very loose and expandable, at the royal pleasure--to four
principal heads: namely, conspiring the death of the king, queen, or his
eldest son; levying war against him in his kingdom, or adhering to his
enemies; counterfeiting the Great Seal, or bringing false money into the
land; slaying the royal officers while in discharge of their duty; and
even on these grounds no penalty was to be inflicted without the sanction
of Parliament.
Trade in this reign was at a low ebb, the natural result of war: yet
Edward made efforts to introduce woollen manufactures, having observed
their value amongst the Flemings, at the same time that he injured
commerce by seizing so many of its ships to convey his troops and stores.
Altogether, it was a reign, during which, owing to the necessities of the
king and the nobles, the people were slowly advancing, and in which they
were considerably relieved from the encroachments and exactions of the
Church by the firm conduct of the king. He passed a statute of provisors,
making it penal for bishops or clergy to receive bulls from Rome, and
menacing with outlawry any who appealed to Rome against judgments passed
in England. Parliament, encouraged by this, went further, declaring
that the Pope levied five times more taxes in England than the king;
adding that they would no longer endure it, and even plainly talking of
throwing off all papal authority. In fact, in this reign really began
the Reformation. Altogether, therefore, the reign of Edward III. is as
remarkable for the growth of popular power as for that of military fame.
[Illustration: ALICE PERRERS AT THE DEATH-BED OF EDWARD III. (_See p._
447.)]
Edward had a large family by his queen Philippa--namely, five sons and
four daughters, who grew up. Besides the Black Prince and John of Gaunt,
so well known to history, there was Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third
son, who left one daughter, married to Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March,
the son of the notorious Mortimer of the last reign. He married, as
second wife, a daughter of the Duke of Milan, and died in Italy. He
is said to have greatly resembled his father and the Black Prince in
his character. The fifth son was Edmund, Earl of Cambridge, afterwards
created Duke of York by Richard II.; and the sixth was Thomas, Earl of
Buckingham, also created by Richard II. Duke of Gloucester. In this reign
the title of Duke was first adopted from France, and that of Marquis was
introduced into England about the same time.
The daughters of Edward were Isabella, Joan, Mary, and Margaret; of
whom Joan died unmarried, though affianced to Pedro the Cruel; Mary was
married to John de Montfort, Duke of Brittany; and Margaret to John
Hastings, Earl of Pembroke, so conspicuous in the wars of France.
[Illustration: _From the Froissart MS. in the British Museum._
INTERVIEW OF RICHARD II. WITH HIS UNCLE THE DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, AT THE
CASTLE OF PLESHY, ESSEX.
THIS PICTURE FORMS ONE OF THE CURIOUS AND BEAUTIFULLY COLOURED
ILLUMINATIONS THAT EMBELLISH THE FROISSART MS. IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM. A
PORTION OF THE WALL, IT WILL BE OBSERVED, IS CUT OUT SO AS TO PRESENT,
BESIDES A VIEW OF THE CASTLE YARD, WHERE GROOMS AND ATTENDANTS ARE
WAITING AN INTERIOR VIEW OF THE MEETING BETWEEN THE KING AND HIS UNCLE.
THE KING'S UNEXPECTED VISIT IS DESCRIBED ON P. 472 OF THE PRESENT
VOLUME.]