# Cassell's Illustrated History of England/Volume 1/Chapter 65

CHAPTER LXV.
Within six days of the victory of Crecy, 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 within a short distance of their own, and no doubt he would have found that people much more disposed for an invasion of a rich and proximate country, than the remoter one of 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.
These facts were now fully perceived by Edward, and he invested Calais with his victorious army, determined to make himself master of it. He calculated on the effect which his destructive overthrow of the French must produce on the inhabitants, and on the certainty that Philip was for a long time rendered impotent of much annoyance. In fact, 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 only enabled to hold his ground by assistance which Sir Walter Manny brought up from Brittany, leaving Bordeaux, crossed the Garonne and the Dordogne, took Mirabeau, Lusignan, Tallebourg, St. Jean d'Angeli, and laid waste the country as far as Poictiers, 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. His soldiers were so laden with spoil that they came to despise the richest merchandise, and cared only for gold, silver, and jewels, which they could readily transport, and for the feathers which were then worn by the soldiers in their helmets. With this treasure they returned loaded to Bordeaux.
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 Roch d'Arion, 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, the 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, 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 great 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 his 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, numbering, it is said, then 30,000 men. He took the castle of Liddel, burnt Lanercost, sacked the priory of Hexham, advanced into the diocese of Durham, and encamped at Beauropaire, 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, according to this author, 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.
Queen Philippa interceding for the Burgesses of Calais. (See page 387)
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 taken, 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 Baliol, 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 authorized 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 corporus 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, sung hymns of praise, which, says Knyghton, wore 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 Strathern, 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 his patience, and is said to have refused them a passage; and the governor of Calais refusing them re-entrance to the city, they are reported to have perished of starvation between the town walls and the English lines. Such are, or were, a few of the tender mercies of war!
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 Earl 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 Poictou.
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 great bonfires, and sounded all their instruments of martial music for joy, 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 only obtain this mitigation, that six of the principal citizens should be sacrificed to his resentment 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 shrunk 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 greater part of 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 great 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 great tidings. The king must have been more insensible than a stone to refuse her.
"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."
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. 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 500 years. The very next act of Edward tends to confirm the narrative, for it was one of unforgiving sternness as well as policy.
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 great 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 staple 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.
He then returned to England, but was very soon startled by a foul act of treachery on the part of the seneschal of the castle of Calais. Lord John Montgomery was left governor of the town—a brave and trustworthy man; but the governor of the castle, which commanded the place, was one Emeric, or Aimery, of Pavia, a favourite officer of the king, who had lived in his court from childhood, and had shown much bravery in the war, but who was not proof to the temptation of money. This failing Sir Geoffrey de Charni, the commander of the French at St. Omer, who was there posted to watch the English garrison, soon discovered. He offered Sir Emeric 20,000 crowns to put him in possession of Calais, which was accepted. This fact was at once communicated to Edward by Sir Emeric's secretary, and the king sent for the governor to London, when he showed him that he was cognisant of his plot, but offered him his life on condition that he turned his treachery against the enemy. The supple traitor readily consented, and Edward, taking with him Sir Walter Manny and the Prince of Wales, with about 1,000 men, secretly departed for Calais in mid-winter. Charni, who had failed to hear of this, appeared at the appointed time to be admitted to the city. Sir Emeric opened a postern, and admitted a small detachment of the French, bearing the money. This Sir Emeric cast into a chest, saying, "We have other work to do than to count money at present."
The postern was suddenly closed; the French were cut down or overpowered by numbers, and thrust into a dungeon. Meantime Charni had advanced along the narrow causeway from the bridge at Neuilly, where he left a rear-guard, to the Boulogne gate of the city; and while expecting to be admitted they saw the gate open, and a body of men-at-arms, but most of them on foot, and attended by 300 archers, issue forth, with the cry of "Manny to the rescue." Perceiving that they were betrayed, they cut their spears to the length of five feet, dismounted, and stood to their arms. But they were in a perilous position; for the king had dispatched six banners and 300 archers on horseback by a circuitous route to the bridge of Neuilly, where they quickly dislodged the rear-guard of the French. Thus the troops on the narrow causeway were completely enclosed, and the battle became desperate. Edward fought at the head of his soldiers, without any mark of distinction upon him except his cries of "Ha! St. George! Ha! St. Edward!" accompanying every shout with a stroke of his two-handed sword. At length ho encountered a knight named Eustaco de Ribeaumont, who quailed all who approached him. Twice he beat the king to the ground; and it was only when Ribeaumont saw that he was left almost alone on the causeway by his countrymen, and surrounded by the English, that he surrendered his sword to the king, but without knowing who he was.
The whole of the French on the causeway were killed or made prisoners, except a few who escaped on horseback at an early period. At night, the French officers taken were invited to supper in a great hall, where the king sat at the head of the table, and the Prince of Wales and nobility served during the first course. There the king let them know whom they had had the honour of contending with; and approaching Charni, he told him that he was a better bargain-maker than himself, for he was near getting Calais for 20,000 crowns, whereas it had cost him hundreds of thousands. But to Ribeaumont he gave the highest compliments; and taking from his head a chaplet of pearls, he put it on that of the knight, and bade him wear it a year and a day in his honour. He then told him he was no longer a prisoner, but at liberty without ransom.
"Nothing," says David Hume, very justly, "proves more evidently the vast superiority assumed by the nobility and gentry above all other orders of men during those ages, than the extreme difference which Edward made in his treatment of the French knights and that of the six citizens of Calais, who had exerted more signal bravery in a cause more justifiable and more honourable."
The same historian might have added that, though on all the occasions which we have narrated, both in Scotland and France, the real business of the battle was done by the unrivalled archers of England, no particular mark of honour or note of fame was conferred on them; but for the knights and nobles new kinds of distinction were invented. Amongst these, at this precise 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 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: as that the garter was simply, adopted as a symbol of union, and in compliment to the ladies; 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 bad 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 Crecy, 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. 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, diarrhœa, 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; 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.
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 great 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 great victory to the English, and the capture of fourteen of the Spanish vessels, though with great loss of life on our side.
Amongst the minor mortifications of Edward about this time, we may mention that his knight, Sir Emeric de Pavia, who be nearly sold Calais, but who afterwards fought bravely, and took the fortress of Guisnes, was captured by his old acquaintance, Charni, whom he so bitterly deceived at the feigned surrender of Calais. Charni, therefore, took summary vengeance on him, causing his spurs to be hacked from his heels, as one unworthy of knighthood, and then having him torn to pieces by wild horses pulling in different directions.
His great friend and counsellor, Sir Godfrey de Harcourt, who had led him to seize Calais, also went back and made his humble submission to Philip before his death, throwing himself at the monarch's feet with a towel twisted round his neck like a halter, and expressing his remorse for having gone over to the English.
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. He had, in his youth, been termed the Fortunate, but proved eventually more entitled to the cognomen 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 was daughter of Louis X., called Louis Hutin, and 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 Corda, the King of Navarre assassinated him in his castle of De 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, largo 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. Thence he soon entered the county of Toulouse and took Carcassonne, Narbonne, and several other towns, and committed great ravages.
Edward the Black Prince presenting King John of France to his father. (See page 394)
The Battle of Poictiers (See page 393)
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 Baliol, by which he purchased all the rights of Baliol 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 Scotch had expelled Baliol in 1341, and renounced him and his claims forever. 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 Baliol, 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 the cities of Bourgos and Issodun, 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. The prince, on his way, took the town of Vierson by storm, and burnt Ramorantin, about ten leagues from Blois.
John marched for Blois, and, crossing the Loire, advanced for Poictiers; 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 Poictiers, 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 Poictiers. 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 in them was the grand dependence.
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, the 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:—"Sir, 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 Ribeaumout, but in three, with a detachment of cavalry apart under the celebrated Captal de Buche, 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 Perigord and Capoccio, came into both the French and English camps, and used every endeavoir 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 who 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 Crecy.
The next morning, Monday, the 19th of September, the French army was again drawn out; and again Cardinal Talleyrand endeavored 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 command of 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, Andreghen and Clermont, were ordered to advance and take possession of the lane leading to the English position, and disperse the archers who lined the hedges; but as fast as they entered the lane they were shot down. Marshal Andreghen was speedily wounded and made prisoner, and Clermont was killed. 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 Buche, 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 wore escorted from the spot by 800 lances, under the knights Landas, Bodenai, and St. Venant; and the army of the Black Prince seeing this, and that the Duke of Orleans was in full retreat with his van-guard, 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. The Prince of Wales attacked a body of German cavalry, under the Count Sallebruche and two other generals, 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 sunk 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 knight replied, "I am Denis de Morbeque, 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 Poictiers, 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 formidable 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 dauntless son, who thence-forward, from his stoical heroism, bore the name of Philip the Hardy. 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 600 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 Morbeque.
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 to Westminster, vast crowds attending them the whole 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.
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," in 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.
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 Cambridge, 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 Poietiers filled up the measure of the calamities of France. Crecy 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 or by land France had suffered defeat and heavy loss of men, ships, and property. At Shays, 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 Companions," 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 in the 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 public, Charles the Bad.
He was still in prison, but he found means through stone walls to exercise his pre-eminent 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 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, above all, 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, who put himself at the head of the mob, and endeavoured to terrify the dauphin into submission to his demands. The states, influenced by the same spirit, demanded the entire change of the king's ministers, 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 from the states some supplies, with which he proposed to put down disorders in the provinces, and then he dissolved the states, spite of the citizens of Paris, headed by Marcel and Ronsac the sheriff".
Freed from this millstone about his neck, Charles dispatched Sir Robert de Clermont, a brave commander, into Normandy, against Sir 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.
Sir Robert de Clermont came up with Sir 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 escaped from his prison at Creave-cœur, and was received with raptures 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 blue hats, 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 France, went to execute this command, the Bishop of Paris protested against it as a violation of the sanctuary of the church; and Marcel, the provost, 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 rudely snatched from the dauphin's head the embroidered hat of a pale rose colour, put it on his own head, and clapped his own blue hat on that of the dauphin. The bodies of the murdered marshals were dragged through the streets, where, during the day, Marcel went about in the dauphin's hat.
​Thus the capital of France was reduced to the utmost anarchy. The dauphin returned into Picardy and Champagne, where he assembled the states 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 Companions, many of whom, or at least their leaders, were English, were engaged by the King of Navarre to carry out his projected republic. 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 Bauem Krieg, or War of the Peasantry, and France now was doomed to drink deeply of its demon horrors, under the name of the Jaquerie, from the gentry being used to call the peasants Jaques 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 was 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 rim to seed in unbridled license, and in every species of infuriating wrong. Ignorant and outraged, the people, once broke loose, placed no limits to their cruelties and revenge. They despised the nobles, who, while they had oppressed there, had, in base cowardice, deserted their sovereign at Poietiers. 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 their 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 Jaquerie, 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 Buche, who made the successful rear assault at the battle of Poietiers, hearing of the alarming situation of these high ladies, forgot their hostility, united their forces, and falling on the Jaquerie, 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 Sire de Couci, in Picardy and Artois, mowed them down like grass, and soon cleared that part of the country of them. Everywhere the knight and gentry, roused by the ferocious deeds of the Jaquerie towards their families, collected, and easily overcoming their undisciplined mobs, slaughtered them in heaps like beasts without mercy. At the same time, Marcel, endeavoring 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 Jaquerie pest lasted nearly two years.
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, and pillaged Tonnerre, Gaillon, and Avalon, marched into the Nivernois, and laid waste Brie and the Gatinois, and sat down before Paris, where, not being able to draw the dauphin into a battle, he proceeded to devastate the provinces of Maine, Beausse, and the Chartraine. 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 awe-struck 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 Britigni, near that city."
Here the peace was concluded; and on these conditions: that the King of France should pay three millions of gold crowns for his ransom—about a million and a half of our money; that he should yield up to Edward in full sovereignty, the province of Gascony and other dependencies in Aquitaine, and in the north of France, Calais, Guisnes, Montreuil, and the country of Ponthieu; and Edward, on the other hand, should 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 this peace of Britigni, signed the 24th of October, 1360, John returned to France; but finding that his Government was unwilling to keep faith with England, and his son the Duke of Anjou having; 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.
Combat between English and French Knights in a Square at Limoges. (See page 401)
​his companion at the battle of Poictiers 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. But miseries were the order of the day. France was overrun with them as with weeds.
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 rendering 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 heading his armies, deeming it more befitting a monarch to head his kingdom, and place at the head of his armies the ablest commanders that 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 Buche, the hero of Poictiers, 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 Crecy, and not only routed De Buche, 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 Do 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 wore 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 Companions which preyed on the very vitals of the kingdom. At the peace of Britigni, 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 license under the English king and prince, and they determined to continue it. They associated together for mutual defence, in such combination calling themselves the "Great Companies." Both English and Gascon officers now took the command of these free-booters, 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 Jaques 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 Franco, 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 persuasions to engage them in foreign wars. He represented to them 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 for the troublesome Free Companions. 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, whom 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 Padilia, his mistress, he poisoned his wife, the sister of the queen of Charles of France. At this, Enrique, Count of Transtamara, and Tello, Count of Biscay, his natural brothers, who had taken arms against him in vain, fled to the court of Franco, 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, set him to bring over the chiefs of the Companions, and 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 Chalons, 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 there was none so flagrantly outraging 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; who had oppressed and plundered his subjects till they hated him with a mortal hatred, and had joined in chasing him from the country. Edward, as a professed champion of chivalry, was bound to defend and redress the grievances of ladies; yet here did he at once undertake 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 percoption 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 blood-stained 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 Companions, 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 ascendancy 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 Najara, 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 a righteous Providence. The tyrant, once restored, gave him 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 fouage, as they called it, excessively. It was the climax to a host of grievances of which they began vehemently to complain—as, of all offices and honours being conferred on foreigners; of harsh treatment, like that of a conquered people; and, as the Black Prince did not pay any attention to their complaints, the Counts of Armagnac, Comminge, Perigord, and d'Albret 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 Transtamara to expel the despot. He defended himself with desperate ​valour, but he was eventually defeated, and blockaded in the castle of Moutiel. As he had only about a dozen men with him, and the castle was destitute of provisions, Don Pedro attempted to steal out 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 Britigni, 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 Britigni 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.
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 war to regain the territories he had lost; and avenge the mortal injuries which his country had suffered from the English, attended by a host of advantageous circumstances: these were, discontent in the English provinces, and disunion amongst the commanders of the forces. On his own side he had with him the spirit and 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 Companions, who had served under the Black Prince, were dismissed from the want of that very pay which the tyrant Pedro bad refused, and wore 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 Poietiers, 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 Boomed 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 fouage which, imposed in Gasçony, 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 Companions, 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 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 St, Valeri, Rue, and Orotoy followed their example, and in a very little time the whole country was regained by the French.
In Poietou 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 Poietiers, 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 Poietiers, 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 near the village of Puyrenon, 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 Poictiers 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. Make ready, sirs, for Puyrenon!"
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 amongst 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 Buche, 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 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 Crecy and Poictiers should once more overtake him. The duke posted himself between St. Omer and Tournehan, 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 Companion leader, with an army of 30,000 men, took his way by Terouenne and through Artois, burning and destroying all before him. He nest 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. Sir John Menstreworth, 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, and Menstreworth the traitor, falling into the hands of the English, was put to death.
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 ho ordered out 1,200 lancers and 2,000 archers, and being borne in an open litter at the head of his troops, he 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 Crecy. 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—a striking proof how war can petrify a heart very noble by nature—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, says an historian, 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 gay and brilliant as 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 Duke 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 Rochelle by a powerful navy belonging to King Enrique. The battle was fiercely contested; but the Spanish ships wore not only much larger than those of the English, but provided with cannon, now for the first time employed at sea, The English wore 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 could demonstrate more strongly the degree to which the English had made themselves detested in France than the eagerness with which the people of 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 Benon, Surgere, Saint Jean d'Angely, and other towns. 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 endeavour's 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 from about the person of the king his creatures. The Commons, as is supposed, by direct encouragement of the prince, impeached nearly all the ministers. They removed 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 carried their censures to the king's mistress, one Alice Pierce or Perrars. The excellent Philippa had been dead several years, and this Alice Perrars, 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.
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 unrivaled; 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 á Becket.
The Death of Edward III. (See page 404.)
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 legation 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 holding the theological chair of Oxford, had ample opportunity of making public his ideas. His denunciations 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 Courtney, 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 both 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 the great Wykeham of Winchester. He was now fast failing, and passed his time between Eltham Palace and his manor of Shene, near Richmond. The last days of this groat monarch were like those of many others who during their lives ruled men with a high hand. It was desolate and deserted. The great nobles and courtiers were looking out for the rising sun, and paying it their assiduous adoration. By some this was held to be the Duke of Lancaster, against whoso designs on the throne the people had culled 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 ascendancy of their race; and unquestionably it is an era of great military glory. But, beyond the glory, what was the genuine advantage won by Edward III. and his heroic son? Neither in France nor 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 had lost much territory which he inherited. Of all the time—a great and invaluable lifetime—spent, of all the human Lives destroyed, and the taxes wrung from his people, consumed, there remained no fruits but the little district of Calais, destined to furnish fresh cause of feud, and a heritage of eternal hate towards this country in France. Truly, we cannot wonder at the hereditary repugnance of Frenchmen towards the English, were this only grounded on the wars of this and succeeding reigns, in which we marched our armies like destroying demons time after time over the whole country, burning towns and villages, laying waste the country, plundering and murdering, as if the object were not conquest but extermination. With us the name of Dane has come down as a fierce and sanguinary savage—the scourge of our ancestors; to the French the English of these ages must stand in their history in the same characters of savagery and wanton cruelty. As we have said, nothing could be so insane as this wholesale carnage and ruin inflicted on the French and Scotch if conquest were the object. But the ideas so plain and prominent to us do not seem to have entered the conception of men of those times, that to win a land you must win the people, and to win a people you must conciliate them; offering them even greater advantages than they possess under the dynasty you would displace, and releasing them from old oppressions. None of these things revealed themselves to the warriors of those feudal ages. Indeed, the true and sound policy of the Edwards was to annex Scotland, combining the island into one noble kingdom; and to have achieved this they should, of all things, have kept their attention and their resources undivided, and have made the name of England an attraction to their northern brethren, not a horror.
But, so far as Edward III.'s foreign expeditions led abroad his great and fictions nobles, they ensured a long and settled quiet at home. That quiet, it is true, was not free from oppressions and from great 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 baronea minorea, 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 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 memorandums of what they took, at what rate they pleased; the price to be obtained as best it might, or stopped in 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 three principal heads; namely, conspiring the death of the king, levying war against him, and making alliance with his enemies; 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 the statute of previsors, making it penal for bishops or clergy to receive investment from Rome, and menacing with, outlawry any who appealed to Rome against judgments passed hero. 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 commenced the Reformation. Altogether, therefore, the reign of Edward III. is as remarkable for the growth of popular power as for that of military fame.
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 second son, who left one daughter, married to Edmund Mortimer, Earl of Marche, 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 fourth son was Edmund, Earl of Cambridge, afterwards created Duke of York by Richard II.; and the fifth 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.
The daughters of Edward were Isabella, Joan, Mary, and Margaret; of whom Joan died unmarried, though affianced to Alphonso, King of Castile; 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.
The end of three of the most remarkable characters who figured in France during the campaigns there of Edward III.—two of them his most successful opponents; and one occasionally his ally—ought to be noticed in the history of this reign, though they survived Edward a little, and a very little, for they had all passed away within three years of his decease.
The first was the constable Du Guesclin, who had raised himself from a small beginning to become the most celebrated man of France, and almost of his age. No man of those times, indeed, bore a higher character for valour, ability as a general, probity, and honour. He had the failing of his age, and sometimes gave way to the perpetration of severe deeds; but, on the whole, he was a fine specimen of the feudal knight. No man rendered more solid services to his country, and he continued labouring for it to the last, and died in arms. He was laying siege to the fortress of Randun, and was so ill, that when the commandant declared that he would only deliver the keys into the hands of Du Guesclin, he sent him word that he must, then, bring them to him, and make haste, or it would be too late. When the commandant arrived he was dead, and he laid his keys at the feet of the deceased hero, who had departed in the very act of completing the re-conquest of the alienated lands of France.
Very different was the end of Charles, King of Navarre—Charles, emphatically the Bad, the demon and evil genius of France. We have seen something of his wicked career—his conspiracies against the King of France, his alliance with his enemies the English, his continual designs on the crown of France, his pretended democracy and advocacy of a republic. He went still further, and was accused by Charles V. of having given him a dose of poison so strong that it caused him to lose his nails and his hair, and to feel the effects to the day of his death, which it was said to have hastened. He was deprived by the estates of the kingdom of all his possessions in France. Still he retained his kingdom of Navarre; but his continual intrigues against the crown, and his criminal life as a man, involved him in difficulties; he therefore laid on taxes so heavy that at length his subjects declared they could not pay them. To compel them, he caused the deputies from the different bodies and towns ​of Navarre to be enclosed in a high walled garden. Here he tried to reason them into obedience, and that failing, to terrify them into it, he kept them shut up there, with only food and drink enough simply to retain them alive. This not succeeding, he had the heads of three of their leaders struck off, with a promise of a continuation of the process.
But the measure of his crimes was complete. He was now sixty years of age, and a mass of disease, from the viciousness of his habits. To maintain his warmth, his physician ordered him to be swathed in linen steeped in spirits of wine, and his bed to be warmed by a pan of hot coals. He had enjoyed the benefit of this singular prescription some time in safety, but now, as he was perpetrating his barbarities on the representatives of his kingdom, "by the pleasure of God, or of the devil," says Froissart, "the fire caught to his sheets, and from that to his person, swathed as it was in matter highly inflammable." He was fearfully burnt, but lingered nearly a fortnight in the most terrible agonies. Such was the end of this wicked man, as terrible as his life had been mischievous.
Charles V. did not long survive this troubler of his peace, dying in September, 1380, and leaving a very different character, having regained to his country by his wise policy all that his predecessors Philip and John had lost at Crecy and Poictiers.