XXX. THE REIGN OF EDWARD III…

XXX. THE REIGN OF EDWARD III

The Regency--War with Scotland--Edward is Baffled--Peace with Scotland, and Death of Bruce--Kent's Conspiracy--Overthrow of Mortimer--Edward assumes Authority--Relations with Scotland--Balliol invades Scotland--Battle of Dupplin Moor--Edward supports Balliol--Battle of Halidon Hill--Scottish Heroines--Preparations for War with France--The Claims of Edward--Real Causes of the Quarrel--Alliances and Counter-Alliances--Edward Lands in Flanders--Is Deserted by his Allies and Returns to England--Battle of Sluys--Dispute with Stratford--The Breton Succession Question--Renewal of the War--Derby in Guienne--Edward Lands in Normandy--Battle of Creçy.

The sceptre of England, taken by the indignant nation from the feeble grasp of Edward of Carnarvon, was once more in the hand of a strong man. Edward III., sprung immediately from a feeble parent, was, however, of the stock of mighty kings, and the grandson of the first of his name, the stern "Hammer of Scotland," and conqueror of Wales. In the youthful monarch all the vigour and ability of Edward I. revived; and in his reign the fame of England rose far higher than it had ever yet reached, bringing the two words of martial glory, "Creçy" and "Poitiers," into the language, and making them to sound like a trumpet in the ears of Englishmen in every age. True, the conquests which they marked soon faded away; but the prestige of British valour which they created was created for all time. In no period of our history did the spirit of chivalry show more in the ascendant than in this reign, nor leave names of more knightly lustre on the page of our history; including not only the monarch and his illustrious son, but a numerous list of leaders in the field. Whether the practical utility or the political wisdom of the great deeds done, exclusive of the renown conferred on the nation, was equal to their éclat, remains for us to determine after our record of them. But at the commencement of his reign the future conqueror of Creçy was but a boy of fourteen. The lion of England was yet but the ungrown and playful cub, and was under the guardianship of a mother of tarnished reputation, and in the real power of her bold paramour, Roger Mortimer.

For appearance' sake, indeed, a council of regency was appointed during the minority of the young king; and this council was composed of twelve of the most influential noblemen and prelates of the realm. Having named this regency, the Parliament then passed an act of indemnity, including all those engaged in the deposition of the late king; reversed the attainders against the late Earl of Lancaster and his adherents; confiscated the immense and ill-gotten estates of the Despensers; and granted to the queen-mother a large sum of money to discharge her debts, and a jointure of £20,000 a year--a sum quite equal in value to £100,000 now. This last enactment, in fact, established the supremacy of the queen and her paramour Mortimer: the council became, as they meant it to be, a mere empty figure of State policy; Mortimer--who had taken care not even to have his name placed on the council, as affecting the modesty of a private man--now that all appeared secure, assumed the state and establishment of a king.

Boy, however, as the king was, his spirit was too active and inquiring to leave him with safety unemployed about the court: there he would be sure to be soon making observations, which, ere long, might bring trouble to the usurpers. Mortimer tried to keep him entertained by various frivolous amusements; but some employment more active and engrossing was needed, which would lead him to a distance from the court; and this was speedily furnished by the Scots. Their successes over Edward II. and especially their grand triumph at Bannockburn, had greatly elated them; and the present crisis, when a king had been deposed, and a mere boy was on the throne, appeared too tempting an opportunity for a profitable incursion into England. Robert Bruce was now growing, if not old, yet infirm; but he was as full as ever of martial daring.

At this distance of time it seems equally impolitic and ungenerous in the Scots to make this attack. There was a truce between the kingdoms, and it might appear as if it would have been in every way more prudent for the Scots to strengthen and consolidate their internal forces than thus wantonly to provoke their old and potent enemies. But the state of rancour between the two countries no doubt impelled them to this course. Probably, too, the hope of regaining at such a period the northern provinces of England, which had formerly belonged to Scotland, was an actuating cause.

Bruce appointed to this service his two great generals, the good Lord James Douglas and his nephew, Thomas Randolph, now Earl of Moray. They were to lay waste the counties of Durham and Northumberland, and do all the injury to England that they could. They made an attempt on the castle of Norham, but were repulsed, with heavy loss. They then increased their army to 25,000, summoning the vassals of the Scottish crown from every quarter--Highlands, Lowlands, and isles.

This army of Scots has been most graphically described by Froissart. He represents them as lightly armed, nimble, and hardy, and, from their simple mode of living, capable of making rapid marches or retreats, being totally unencumbered with baggage. There were 4,000 cavalry, well-mounted and well-armed; the rest were mounted on ponies, active, but strong, which could pick up a subsistence anywhere. The men carried no provisions, except a small bag of oatmeal, and, says the chronicler, "they had no need of pots or pans, for they cooked the beasts, when they had skinned them, in a simple manner." That is, they killed the cattle of the English, of which they found plenty on their march, and roasted the flesh on wooden spits, or boiled it in the skins of the animals themselves, putting in a little water with the beef, to prevent the hides from being burnt. They also cut up the hides for their shoes, fitting them to their feet and ankles while raw, with the hair outwards; so that from this cause the English called them the rough-footed Scots, and red-shanks, from the colour of the hides.

Every man carried at his saddle an iron plate, called a girdle, on which, whenever they halted, they could bake cakes of thin oatmeal. Thus armed and thus provisioned, the Scots could speed from mountain to mountain and from glen to glen with amazing rapidity, advancing to pillage, or disappearing at the approach of an enemy, as if they were nowhere at hand. With such forces Douglas and Randolph crossed the Tweed, ravaged Durham and Northumberland, and advanced into the county of York.

To oppose these invaders the English raised rapidly an army said to amount to 60,000 men. They had recalled John of Hainault and some cavalry which they had dismissed; and the young king of fourteen, burning with impatience to chastise the Scots, marched hastily towards the north. His progress, however, suffered some delay at York, from a violent quarrel which broke out between the English archers, and the foreign troops under John of Hainault. The archers, and especially those of Lincolnshire, who probably had an old feud with the natives of Flanders, displayed a dogged dislike to these troops, and in the streets of York they came actually to downright battle, and many men were killed on both sides. This difference quelled, if not settled, the English army moved on. Very soon they came in sight of burning farms and villages, which marked the track of the Scots. These Scots, however, themselves were nowhere visible, for they retreated with double the celerity with which the English, heavily loaded with baggage, could follow them. The Scots did not retreat directly north, but took, according to Froissart, their way westward amongst the savage deserts and "bad mountains and valleys," as he calls them, of Cumberland and Westmoreland. The English crossed the Tyne, trusting to cut off the homeward route of the enemy; but the utterly desolated condition of the country compelled them to recross that river, for no sustenance could be procured for the troops. After thus vainly pursuing this light-footed foe for some time, Edward, excessively chagrined in not being able to come up with them, or even to find them, offered a freehold worth £100 a year, and the honours of knighthood to any one who would bring him intelligence of the enemy. After the soldiers had undergone severe hardships and enormous fatigue wading through waters and swamps, a man, one Thomas of Rokeby, came riding hard to the camp and claimed the reward offered by the king. He said he had been made prisoner by the Scots, and that they had said they should be as glad to see the English king as he would be to see them. This was not very probable, as they might have waited for the king, which they had taken care not to do. They lay, however, at not more than three leagues distant.

The reason why the Scots had halted was visible enough when the English came up. They found them posted on the right bank of the Wear, where the river was deep and rapid, and there was no possibility of getting at them. Even could they cross the river, they must climb a steep hill in face of the enemy to attack them. Under these circumstances, Edward sent a challenge to the Scottish generals to meet him on a fair and open field, either by drawing back and allowing him to cross the river to attack them, or giving them the same option to cross over to his side. Douglas, annoyed at this proposal, advised to accept the challenge; but the more politic Moray refused, and replied to Edward that he never took the advice of an enemy in any of his movements. He reminded the king, as if to pique him to dare the unequal attempt of crossing in their faces, how long they had been in his country, spoiling and wasting at their pleasure. If the king did not like their proceedings, he added, insultingly, he might get over to them the best way he could.

Edward kept his ground opposite to them for three days; the Scots at night making huge fires along their lines, and all night long, according to the chronicler, "horning with their horns, and making such a noise as if all the great devils from hell had come there." In the daytime some of the most adventurous knights from the English army swam their strong horses across the river, and skirmished with the Scots--rather to show their gallantry than for any real effect. On the fourth morning it was found that the Scots had entirely decamped, and were discovered after awhile posted in a still stronger position higher up the river. Here Edward again sat down facing them, confidently hoping that they must be forced, from want of provisions, to come out and fight. As, however, they did not do this, the young king's patience became exhausted, and he desired to pass the river at all hazards, and come to blows with the Scots. This Mortimer would not assent to; and while lying, highly discontented with this restraint, on the bank of the river, Edward had a narrow escape of being taken prisoner.

The brave Douglas, being held back by Moray, as Edward was by Mortimer, from a general engagement, planned one of those heroic exploits in which he so much delighted. Making himself acquainted with the English password for the night, and taking an accurate survey of the English camp, he advanced, when it was nearly night, with 200 picked horsemen, silently crossed the river, at some distance above the English position, and then, as silently turning, made for the English camp. He found it carelessly guarded, and, seeing this, he rode past the English sentinels, as if he had been an English officer, saying, "Ha, St. George! you keep bad watch here!" Presently, he heard an English soldier say to his comrades, as they lay by a fire, "I cannot tell what is to happen here, but somehow I have a great fear of the Black Douglas playing us some trick."

"You shall have cause to say so," said Douglas to himself. When he had got fairly into the English camp, he cut the ropes of a tent with his sword, calling out his usual war-cry, "A Douglas! a Douglas! English thieves, ye are all dead men." His followers immediately fell upon the camp, cutting down the tents, overturning them, and killing the men as they started up to grasp their arms. Douglas, meanwhile, had reached the royal pavilion, and was as near as possible seizing the young king, but the chaplain, the chamberlain, and some of the king's household, being alarmed, stood boldly in his defence, and enabled him to escape under the canvas of the tent, though they lost their own lives. Douglas, being now separated from his followers, many of whom were killed, endeavoured to make good his retreat, but was in danger of being killed by a man who attacked him with a huge club. This man, however, he slew, and escaped in safety to his own camp; his party having, it is said, killed about 300 men.

Soon after this the Scots made an effectual retreat in the night by having beforehand cut a pathway through a great bog which lay behind them, and filling it with faggots; the road may still be seen in Weardale, and called from this cause the "Shorn Moss." The young king, on entering the evacuated place of encampment the next day, found nothing but six Englishmen tied to trees, with their legs broken, to prevent them from carrying any intelligence to their countrymen.

Edward, disgusted with his want of success, returned southward, and the Scots arrived in safety in their own country. On reaching York the English king disbanded his army. He then returned to London, highly dissatisfied, young as he was, with the state of things. Mortimer had usurped all power. Edward believed that from cowardice, or from some hidden motive, he had prevented him from taking ample vengeance on the Scots. At court he had set aside the whole of the royal council; consulted neither prince of the blood nor the nobles on any public measure, concentrating in himself, as it were, all the sovereign authority. He endowed the queen with nearly the whole of the royal revenues, and enjoyed them in her name. He himself was so besieged with his own party and parasites, that no one else could approach him, and all sorts and conditions of men now hated him as cordially as they had once done Gaveston.

Sensible of this public odium, Mortimer sought to make a peace with Scotland, to secure himself from attack on that side; and perhaps the king was not so far wrong in attributing his backwardness to attack the Scots to some private motive. Certain it is that in the following year, 1328, he made peace with Robert Bruce on terms which astonished and deeply incensed the whole nation. To give the greatest firmness to the treaty he proposed a marriage between Joan, or Joanna, the sister of Edward, then only seven years of age, and David, the son of Robert Bruce, then only five. That the Scots might accede promptly to this offer, he agreed to renounce the great principle for which the English nation had been so long contending--its claim of right to the crown of Scotland. These terms were, of course, eagerly accepted, and the treaty, to make all sure, was at once carried into effect. About Whitsuntide a Parliament was called together at Northampton which ratified the treaty, thus acknowledging the full independence of Scotland, and on the 22nd of July, the marriage was solemnised at Berwick, where Isabella had brought her daughter. This young bride was significantly called by the Scots "Joan Makepeace," and with her were delivered up many jewels, charters, &c., which had been carried away from Scotland by Edward I.

In return for these unlooked-for advantages, Bruce agreed to pay the King of England 30,000 marks as compensation for damages done in his kingdom.

Edward himself, a few months previous to this marriage of his sister, had received his long-affianced wife, Philippa of Hainault, who had been brought to this country by Isabella's champion, John of Hainault, the young queen's uncle. Philippa proved one of the best wives and queens the annals of England can boast.

We may here notice the death of Robert Bruce, which took place in the following year, 1329. He was by no means old, being only fifty-four, but he was worn down by disease and infirmities contracted through the severe exertions, hardships, and exposures endured in his stupendous endeavours for the liberation of Scotland. He entered into contest with an enemy who appeared to most men too powerful for any hope of success, and left his country at peace and independent.

With some exceptions, even in that hard and iron age, his character was marked by great tenderness and amiability. His destruction of the Red Comyn was an act which, though dictated by policy, his conscience never approved. On his death-bed he reverted to it, declaring that he had always meant to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in expiation of the crime, but, as he could not do that, he commissioned his dearest friend and bravest warrior to carry his heart thither. In contrast to and palliation of the slaughter of the Red Comyn, we may place such actions as that in which he stopped his army in retreat in Ireland, because a poor woman, who had just given birth to a child, had no means of being conveyed on with the troops, and was heard by him lamenting that she should be left to the cruelties of the Irish. No sooner did Bruce understand her complaint than he looked round on his officers with eyes which kindled like fire, and exclaimed, "Gentlemen, never let it be said that a man, who was born of a woman and nursed by a woman's tenderness, could leave a mother and an infant to the mercy of barbarians. In the name of God, let the odds and the risk be what they will, let us fight rather than leave these poor creatures behind us." The army halted and drew up in order of battle, and Edmund Butler, the English general, believing that Bruce had received reinforcements, hesitated to attack him; so that Bruce had opportunity to send on the woman and child, and retreat at his leisure.

Robert Bruce died at his castle of Cardross on the 7th of June, 1329; and Douglas, some time after, setting out with several brave knights to carry the heart of the king to Jerusalem, enclosed in a silver case, and hung from his neck, stopped to fight the infidels in Spain, where he was killed; but his remains were brought back to Scotland, as well as the heart of Bruce, which was buried behind the high altar in the abbey of Melrose. The body of Bruce was interred in the church of Dunfermline, where some years ago the tomb was opened, and the remains of his bones were found, and clearly identified, after a rest of more than 500 years, by the breastbone having been sawn through to take out the heart, and by fragments of the cloth of gold in which he was known to have been wrapped.

The peace thus concluded with Scotland did not make Mortimer feel as secure as he had hoped. Indeed, it added much to the popular resentment against him. His having so readily yielded up the claims of the nation on Scotland wounded the public feeling; whilst his arbitrary and ambitious conduct in domestic affairs drew upon him the hatred of the people and the jealousy of the nobles. He assumed a splendour even outvying royalty. He grasped, like all favourites, at riches and honours insatiably. At the Parliament held in October at Salisbury he caused himself to be created Earl of March, or Lord of the Marches of Wales. He grossly abused the prerogative of purveyance, thus robbing the people extensively. Amongst the barons who beheld this haughty career of Mortimer with disgust, were the Earls of Lancaster, Kent, and Norfolk, all princes of the blood. Lancaster was guardian of the king, yet he was kept carefully in the hands of Mortimer and the queen-mother. Lancaster therefore determined to assert the authority of his office, and put some check on Mortimer: but coming to a contest at Winchester, he was obliged to retreat, and Mortimer then fell on his estates, and ravaged them as he would an enemy's country. When the three earls were summoned to Parliament at Salisbury, he strictly forbade them to come attended by an armed body; a common, though an illegal, practice in those times They complied with the command, but found, on approaching the city, that Mortimer himself was attended by his party and their followers all strongly armed. Alarmed for their personal safety, they made a hasty retreat, and were returning with their forces, when, from some cause unknown, the Earls of Kent and Norfolk suddenly deserted Lancaster, who was compelled to make a humiliating submission, and pay a heavy fine. Through the intercession of the prelates, the peace was apparently restored amongst these powerful men.

Probably Kent and Norfolk had been tampered with to induce them to desert Lancaster; certain it is that soon after, the weak but well-meaning Kent was made the victim of a gross stratagem by Mortimer. He surrounded Kent by his creatures, who asserted that his brother, Edward II., was still alive. The earl's remorse for the share he had in his brother's ruin made him eagerly listen to a story of this kind. They represented to him that it was a fact well and widely known amongst the people, that the body said to be the king's, which was exhibited at Berkeley Castle, and afterwards buried at Gloucester, was not his, but that he was now actually a prisoner in Corfe Castle. Some monks lent themselves to the base scheme; and exhorted the Earl of Kent to rise to the rescue of his unfortunate brother, assuring him that his fate excited the deepest feeling, and that various nobles and prelates, from whom they professed to come, would at once join in the generous enterprise. No means were spared to lead their victim into the snare. Letters were forged, as coming from the Pope, stimulating him to this course, as one required of him as a brother. The earl, wholly deceived by this infamous conspiracy, wrote letters to his supposed captive brother, which were handed to Sir John Maltravers, believed by the earl to be cognisant of the poor king's incarceration, but in reality one of his murderers. These letters were duly conveyed to Mortimer and the queen-mother, and were speedily treated as ample proofs of the earl's treasonable designs. The earl was invited to come to Winchester, where a Parliament, consisting solely of the faction of the wicked queen and Mortimer, arrested him on the charge of conspiring against the government, and condemned him to death and loss of his estate. Lest the young king should take compassion on his uncle, the queen and Mortimer hastened his execution. But now was seen a singular thing. Not a man could be found who would take the office of executioner; and the son of the great Edward I. stood on the scaffold before the castle gate for many hours, waiting for a headsman. Such was the detestation of that lascivious woman and of her base and murderous paramour, and such the veneration for that worthy nobleman, that not a man, of any degree whatever, either of the city or neighbourhood, could be induced by rewards or menaces to take up the axe, till a mean wretch from the Marshalsea prison, to save his own life, at length consented to take the life of Edmund of Woodstock, Earl of Kent. This was the more remarkable because complaints had been made by the public of the insolence and rapacity of the earl's retainers, who, on the plea of the royal right of purveyance, would take anything as they rode abroad without thinking of paying the parties to whom it belonged. This was, indeed, a great complaint, which was frequently brought to Parliament against all the princes of the blood of those times, who used the privilege of purveyance to plunder the defenceless people at will. Personally, however, the Earl of Kent was much beloved; and though the king, his nephew, had signed the sentence, the guilt of it was charged on the queen-mother and Mortimer. The alleged accomplices of the earl were allowed to escape, except Robert de Teuton and a poor prior, who had told the earl that he had raised a spirit to inquire whether Edward II. was really still living. This poor man was imprisoned for life.

The wickedness and rapacity of the queen and Mortimer did not cease there. Lancaster was thrown into prison. Numbers of the nobility and prelates were implicated, and Mortimer used this fear of treason to crush his enemies and aggrandise himself by their property. The estate of the Earl of Kent he gave to his younger son Geoffrey; the vast demesnes of the Spensers he seized for himself. His power became most ominous, and his deeds of arbitrary injustice were more and more complained of, till all parties forgot their mutual feuds and united against him.

It is the fate of overgrown upstarts never to foresee their ruin. Had not this blind fatality attached to Mortimer in common with his class, he must have been sensible that the young king was of a character and arriving at an age which would bring his destruction. There were not wanting rumours at the time that Mortimer did not overlook this probable issue, and had thoughts of destroying the king and assuming the crown. His own time, however, was come. Edward, long galled by the restraint in which he was held, now approached his eighteenth year, and his queen, Philippa, had already brought him a son, afterwards the famous Black Prince, who was born at Woodstock about three months after the execution of the Earl of Kent. The conduct of the queen and Mortimer was become more openly scandalous, and it was generally said that Isabella was about to become a mother. Edward resolved to act; but he was aware that he was closely surrounded by the spies of Mortimer, and he went to work with all the caution of a man conspiring against his sovereign. He fixed on the Lord Montacute as the nobleman in whose prudence and fidelity he had the most confidence. Lord Montacute entered cordially into his plans, and soon engaged some trusty and influential friends in the enterprise.

The queen dowager and Mortimer were residing in the castle of Nottingham. The king and his coadjutors determined to make that fortress the scene of their undertaking. A Parliament was summoned to meet there in October of the year 1330. In order, however, as is supposed, to prevent suspicion of the king being bent on any high designs, he held a tournament in Cheapside, which continued three days, and in which he and twelve others jousted with all knights that appeared in the lists. The young queen presided, and was regarded with extreme favour by the people; an interest which was much heightened by an accident--the breaking down of the platform on which she sat with many other ladies of the court, but from which they escaped without injury.

The time being arrived for the opening of Parliament, Edward, with his barons, prelates, and retainers, repaired to the ancient town of Nottingham. The young king took up his quarters in the castle with his mother and Mortimer, a convenient arrangement, as gaining him access to, and exact knowledge of, the lodging of the earl, and also as preserving him from any suspicion. The barons, bishops, and knights took up their quarters in the town. Mortimer appeared in high state, accompanied wherever he went by a strong body of his devoted followers. The plans of Edward and his coadjutors were settled; and Lord Montacute was seen riding away into the country with a numerous body of his friends and attendants, as if going on a visit to some neighbouring baron. This, undoubtedly, was intended to divert suspicion; but the plot had not been so closely kept as to escape the quick ears of the emissaries of Mortimer. On the afternoon of that day he entered the council with a face inflamed with rage. He declared to the council that a base attempt was in agitation against the queen and himself, and charged Edward bluntly with being concerned in it. Edward as stoutly denied the charge, but Mortimer pronounced his denial false. The council broke up in confusion. The castle, standing on a lofty precipice overlooking the lovely valley of the Trent, was strongly fortified on the side of the town. A numerous guard was placed around it under these alarming circumstances, and Mortimer and his adherents were all on the alert to watch against surprise, and to devise schemes of defeat and vengeance on their enemies. It did not appear a very easy matter to secure the usurper in that stronghold.

But the town and castle of Nottingham are built on a soft sandstone rock, in which the ancient inhabitants had sunk many caves, deep cells, and passages. One of these descended from the castle court to the foot of the precipice near the small river Leen, where the entrance was at that time concealed by a wild growth of bushes. Probably the existence of this passage was wholly unknown to Mortimer and the queen; and the criminal couple, having the strong military guard placed at the gates at evening, and the keys conveyed to the queen, who laid them by her bedside, deemed themselves perfectly secure. But Lord Montacute had sounded Sir William Eland, the governor, who entered at once most zealously into the design. By him Montacute and his friends were admitted through this passage, still called "Mortimer's Hole," and on arriving in the court they were joined by the king, who led the way in profound silence and in darkness to an apartment adjoining the hall, in which they could hear the voices of Mortimer, the Bishop of Lincoln, and others of his friends, in anxious discussion. Suddenly the concealed party burst open the door, and killed two of Mortimer's friends who attempted to make a defence. Queen Isabella, who lay in an adjoining apartment, rushed in terror from her bed, imploring her "sweet son" to spare her "gentle Mortimer." Her tears and entreaties for "her worthy knight, her dearest friend, her beloved cousin," were in vain; the Lord of the Marches and dictator of the kingdom was led away in safe custody, and on the morrow brought before Parliament, and condemned to death on the charges of having usurped the royal power vested in the council of regency; of having procured the death of the late king; of having beguiled the Earl of Kent into a conspiracy to restore that prince--that is, to restore a dead man; of having compassed exorbitant grants of the Crown lands; of having dissipated the public treasures; of having embezzled 20,000 marks of the money paid by the King of Scots; besides many other high crimes and misdemeanors. A more general parliament, summoned at Westminster on the 26th of November, confirmed this sentence, that he should be hanged and drawn as a traitor. In the informality of the times, Mortimer was not allowed to make any defence; nor were witnesses produced for or against him. He was at once declared guilty from the notoriety of his crimes. On this ground, nearly twenty years afterwards, the sentence was reversed by Parliament in favour of his son; the plea being the illegality of the proceedings.

Mortimer was hanged at the Elms, near London, on the 29th of November, and with him Sir Simon Beresford, as an accomplice. Three others, who were likewise included in the sentence, one of them being the infamous Maltravers, escaped.

Edward now made proclamation that he had taken the government of the realm into his own hands. He shut up his mother in Castle Rising, abolished her extravagant jointure, but allowed her £3,000, and afterwards £4,000, a year. There she passed twenty-seven years, her son paying her a visit once or twice annually, but taking care that she never again regained any public influence or authority.

Having disposed of his shameless mother, Edward found ample employment in restoring rule and order to his kingdom. As in all times when lawless power prevails at court, robbers, murderers, and criminals had increased to an enormous extent; public justice was grossly perverted, and abuses and wrongs everywhere abounded. He issued writs to the judges, commanding them to administer justice firmly, promptly, and without fear or favour, paying no regard whatever to any injunctions from the ministers of the Crown or any other power. He sought out and severely punished the abuses in the administration of the State, and exacted from the peers a solemn pledge that they should break off all connection with malefactors--a circumstance which gives us a curious insight into the times, the great barons keeping the robbers and outlaws in pay against each other, and even against the king. This done, Edward turned his attention to what appeared the grand hereditary object of the English crown of that day, the subjugation of Scotland.

The great Robert Bruce, as we have seen, had left his son David, a mere boy, on the throne. He could not but be anxious for the stability of his position with such a powerful kingdom and martial young king in his immediate neighbourhood, and with the long-pursued claims and attempts of England on Scotland. Bruce had, indeed, taken a strong precaution against the invasion of his son's peace by marrying him to the sister of Edward of England. But the temptation of ambition in princes has almost always proved far stronger than the ties of blood, and so it proved in Edward's case. We might have expected that he would maintain rather than attempt to destroy the happiness and fair establishment of his sister on the throne of Scotland. But the spirit of military domination was as powerful in Edward as in his grandfather. He could not forget that Scotland had nearly been secured by England, and that the English had lost prestige at Bannockburn. He burned, therefore, to restore the reputation of the English arms, and complete the design of uniting the whole of the island of Great Britain into one kingdom--the life-long aim and dying command of Edward I.

When princes are desirous of pleas of aggression it is never difficult to find them, and in this case they were abundant and plausible. In the treaty of peace and alliance concluded between Bruce and Edward at Northampton, when Joan was affianced to the heir of Scotland, just before Bruce's death, it was stipulated that both the Scottish families who had lost their estates in Scotland by taking part with the English in the late wars, and the English nobles who had claims on estates there by marriage or heirship, should all be restored to them. The Scottish estates were restored; but Bruce, perceiving that those of the English were much more valuable than the others, had been unwilling to allow so many dangerous subjects of the English king to establish themselves in the heart of his realm, where they might become formidable enemies. He had therefore put off their urgent demands of fulfilment of this stipulation, on the plea that it required time and caution to dispossess the potent Scottish barons now holding them. The claim of Lord Henry Percy was conceded; those of the Lords Wake and Beaumont, the latter of whom claimed the earldom of Buchan in right of his wife, were disregarded. Beaumont, a man of great power, and of a determined character, resolved by some means to conquer his right. He urged it upon Edward to redress the wrongs of his subjects; but Edward, now freed from the ascendency of Mortimer, though nothing loath, pleaded the impossibility of his armed interference in the face of the late solemn treaty and alliance, and he had used persuasions in vain. Probably, however, he gave the malcontents to understand that he would not prevent them from trying to help themselves. Not only was Bruce dead, but his two great warriors and statesmen, Moray and Douglas, were dead also. Moray had been left regent and guardian of the young King David, still only about nine years of age; but to his vigorous administration had succeeded that of the Earl of Mar, another nephew of Robert Bruce, and a much inferior man.

At this favourable crisis Beaumont turned his attention upon Edward Balliol, the son of John Balliol, who had been in vain placed on the Scottish throne by Edward I. John Balliol had retired to his patrimonial estate in Normandy, where he had died, and where his son Edward had continued to reside in privacy. His pretensions to the Scottish crown had been so decidedly repelled by the Scots, that he had given up all idea of ever reviving them; and for some private offence he had been thrown into prison. There Beaumont found him; and selecting him as the very instrument which he needed to authorise a descent on Scotland immediately, on the ground of his sufferings as a private person, obtained his release, and took him away with him to England, the French king suspecting nothing of the real design. There he represented to Edward the splendid opportunity which thus presented itself of regaining the ascendency over Scotland by putting forward Balliol as claimant of the crown. Edward could not do this openly for many reasons. In the first place, nothing could be more injurious to his character for justice and natural affection, were he with a preponderating force to attack the throne of a minor, and that minor his brother-in-law. In the next place he was bound by a solemn treaty not to assault or prejudice the kingdom of Scotland for four years, and the penalty for the violation of this engagement was £20,000.

The Regent of Scotland, however, as well as the late king, had always admitted the justice of the claims of the disinherited nobles, yet had always evaded all demands for restoration. Edward's plan, therefore, was to meet artifice with artifice; and accordingly he connived at the assembling of Balliol's forces in the north of England, and at the active preparations of the nobles who intended to join him. Anticipating that the Borders would be strongly armed, they took their way by sea in a small fleet, which set sail from Ravenspur, an obscure port, and soon landed at Kinghorn, in Fifeshire. The Scots, who detested the Balliols as pretenders under the patronage and for the ultimate purposes of England, flocked in thousands to the national standard against him. The Earl of Fife, too precipitately attacking Balliol's forces, was at once defeated, and the invaders marched northward towards Dupplin. Near this place the Regent Mar lay with an army said to number 40,000 men. The river Earn lay between the hostile hosts, and it was evidently the policy of the Scots to delay a general engagement till the Earl of March, who was rapidly advancing from the south of Scotland, came up, when the handful of English must have been surrounded and overpowered. But Balliol, or his allies the English barons, perceived this danger clearly enough, and they suddenly crossed the river in the night, before they could be taken in the rear by March. They found the Scots, confident in their numbers, carelessly sleeping without sentries or outposts, and falling upon them in the dark, made terrible slaughter amongst them. In the morning the Scots, who had fled in confusion, perceiving the insignificant force to which they had yielded, returned with fury to retrieve their character, but they again committed the blunder of over-confidence, came on in disorder, engaged without regard to the nature of the ground--which was much in favour of the enemy--and were once more defeated with huge slaughter. Many thousands of the Scots were driven into the river and drowned, while some were actually smothered by tumbling over each other in the chaotic flight, and others were cut to pieces. The regent himself, the Earl of Carrick, a natural son of Robert Bruce, the Earls of Atholl and Monteith, and the Lords Hay of Erroll, Keith, and Lindsay were slain. With them fell from 12,000 to 13,000 men, while Balliol lost only about thirty; a sufficient proof of the rawness of the Scottish forces, and the frightful panic amongst them. The battle of Dupplin Moor was one of the most sanguinary and complete defeats which the Scots ever suffered, and appeared to obliterate all the glories and benefits of Bannockburn.

The victorious army marched direct on Perth, which it quickly reduced. Balliol was rapidly pursued by the Earl of March and Sir Archibald Douglas, whose united armies still amounted to near 40,000 men. They blockaded Perth both by land and water, and proposed to reduce it by famine. But Balliol's ships attacked the Scottish ones, gained a complete victory, and thus opened the communication with Perth from the sea. This compelled the Scots to disband for want of provisions to maintain a long siege. The adherents of Balliol's family, and all those who in any such crisis are ready to fall to the winning side, now came flocking in; the nation was actually conquered by this handful of men, and Balliol, on the 24th of September, 1332, was crowned King of Scotland at Scone. David and his young betrothed queen were sent off for security to the castle of Dumbarton; the Bruce party solicited a truce, which was granted; and thus in little more than a month Balliol had won a kingdom.

But the success of Edward Balliol was as unreal as a dream; he was a mere phantom king. The Scottish patriots were in possession of many of the strongest places in the kingdom, while the adherents of Edward Balliol, each hastening to secure the property he was in search of, the forces of the new monarch were rapidly reduced in number, and he saw plainly that he could maintain his position on the throne of Scotland only by the support of the King of England. He hastened, therefore, to do homage to him for the Scottish crown, and proposed to marry Joan, the sister of the king, the affianced bride of the dethroned David, if the Pope's consent to the dissolution of that marriage could be obtained. Edward listened to this but the prompt removal of the royal pair from Dumbarton Castle to France, and the defeat of Balliol, which as promptly followed, ruined the unprincipled scheme. No sooner were these scandalous proposals known in Scotland, than a spirit of intense indignation fired the minds of the patriotic nobles. The successors of those great men who had achieved the freedom of Scotland under Robert Bruce, John Randolph, second son of the regent; Sir Archibald Douglas, the younger brother of the good Lord James; Sir William Douglas, a natural son of the Lord James, possessor of the castle of Hermitage, in Liddesdale, and thence called the Knight of Liddesdale, a valiant and wealthy man, but fierce, cruel, and treacherous; and Sir Andrew Murray, of Bothwell (who had married Christiana, the sister of Robert Bruce, and aunt of the young King David), were the chiefs and leaders of the nation. They suddenly assembled a force, and attacked Balliol, who was feasting at Annan, in Dumfriesshire, where he had gone to keep his Christmas. On the night of the 16th of December, a body of horse under Sir Archibald, the young Earl of Moray, and Sir Simon Fraser, made a dash into the town to surprise him; and he escaped only by springing upon a horse without any saddle, and himself nearly without clothes, leaving behind him his brother Henry slain. His reign had lasted only about three months. He escaped to England and to Edward, who received him kindly. The Scottish borderers, elated with this success, rushed in numbers into England, there committing their usual excesses, and thus furnishing Edward with a valid plea for attacking Scotland, and inducing the Parliament to support him in it, which it had hesitated to do before. Edward marched northward with an army not numerous but well armed and disciplined, and in the month of May, 1333, invested Berwick, which was defended by Sir William Keith and a strong garrison.

Sir Andrew Murray, the regent, and the Knight of Liddesdale were taken prisoners in some of the skirmishes, and Sir Archibald (who became regent in the place of Murray) advanced with a large army to relieve Sir William Keith, who had engaged to surrender Berwick if not succoured by the 20th of July at sunrise. On the 19th, Douglas, after a severe march, arrived at an eminence called Halidon Hill, a mile or so north of Berwick. It had been the plan of Douglas to avoid a pitched battle with so powerful an enemy, and to endeavour to wear him out by a system of skirmishes and surprises, but the impatience of his soldiers overruled his caution. His army was drawn up on the slope of the hill, and Edward moved with all his force from Berwick to attack it. The ground, now fine, solid, and cultivated land, is represented then to have been extremely boggy. The Scots, however, dashed through the bogs, and then up the hill at the English, whose archers received them with a steady and murderous discharge of arrows. Douglas dismounted his heavy-armed cavalry to give firmness and impetus to the charge. The Earl of Ross led on the infantry, and King Edward at his side fought on foot in front of the battle. The Scots, though they fought desperately, yet, as, from the marshy ground, they could not come near the archers, and were out of breath with running up the hill, were thrown into confusion and gave way. The English cavalry under the king, but still more a body of Irish auxiliaries under Lord Darcy, pursued fiercely, giving little quarter. The slaughter was terrible, amounting to 30,000 Scots, and--if the accounts are to be believed--only one knight, one esquire, and thirteen private soldiers of the English fell. Nearly the whole of the Scottish nobles and officers were killed or made prisoners. Amongst the slain were Douglas, the regent himself, the Earls of Ross, Sutherland, and Monteith. Berwick surrendered, and Edward once more overran the country. He again seized and garrisoned the castles, again exacted public homage from Balliol, and compelled him to cede Berwick, Dunbar, Roxburgh, Edinburgh, and all the south-east counties of Scotland--the best and most fertile portion of the kingdom--which were declared to be made part and parcel of England. Such were the consequences of the fateful battle of Halidon Hill.

Edward left an army of Irish and English to support his wretched vassal in his fragment of a kingdom; but no sooner did he turn homewards than the indignant Scots drove Balliol from even that, and compelled him to seek refuge amongst the English garrisons of the south of Scotland. In the following years, 1335 and 1336, Edward was again obliged to make fresh expeditions into Scotland to support Balliol. Whenever the English king appeared the Scots retired to their mountain fastnesses, while Edward and his army overran the country with little opposition, burnt the houses, and laid waste the lands of those whom he styled rebels; but whenever he returned to England they came forth again, only the more embittered against the contemptible minion of the English king, the more determined against the tyranny of England. The regent, Sir Andrew Murray, pursued with untiring activity Balliol and his adherents. When Edward marched homeward to spend in London the Christmas of 1336, he left Scotland to all appearance perfectly prostrate, and flattered himself that it was completely subdued. Never was it further from such a condition. Only one spirit animated the Scottish nation--that of eternal resistance to the monarch who had inflicted on it such calamities, and set a slave on its throne. The Scots sought and obtained assistance from France.

The diversion from this country, indeed, proved the salvation of Scotland; for now began to work the seeds that had been sown, the elements which had been infused into the English monarchy by Edward I.'s unprincipled abandonment of his engagement with Count Guy of Flanders for the marriage of his daughter Philippa with Edward of Carnarvon, and his alliance, for political purposes, with France. Edward now claimed the throne of France in right of his mother, and prepared to enforce that claim by arms. Hence came those long and bloody wars with France which produced hereditary enmity between the two nations, and the division of resources of England, in the vain attempt to subjugate France and Scotland, to which was due the ultimate loss of both countries. The ambition of Edward overshot itself. Had he confined his efforts to either of these great objects, he might have succeeded. By far the more important was the annexation of Scotland. It was a truly statesmanlike aim to make one consolidated kingdom of the island; but Edward, with all his talents, had no conception of the manner in which this was to be effected. If Scotland were to be won by arms, the whole of his forces should have been concentrated on that object alone. But this purpose never could be achieved by that means; it required a higher development of political wisdom and respect for international rights than had then been arrived at. Before we enter, however, on the narrative of the great French contest, we must mention a few facts which show the state to which Scotland was reduced at this time, and the invincible courage of the people, which called out singular displays of it, even by the women.

After the battle of Halidon Hill, throughout all Scotland only four castles and one small tower held out for David Bruce. The castles of Lochleven, Kildrummie, and Dunbar, three out of the four, were distinguished by sieges which deserve notice. Lochleven Castle stood on an island, in the loch (or lake) of that name, at Kinross, in Fifeshire. It was held by Alan Vipont, and was besieged by Sir John Stirling with an English army. As the island is low, Stirling thought he could draw out the garrison by blocking up the outlet to the loch. This was effected by throwing stones and earth into the small river Leven till a huge mound was raised. But Vipont, aware of the whole scheme, sent in the night a boat with four men, who cut through the mound, so that the confined waters broke forth with fury, and swept away the tents, baggage, and troops of the besiegers. The remains of this mound are pointed out to this day.

The castle of Kildrummie, which played so conspicuous a part in the war of Edward I., was now defended by Christiana Bruce, who, as we have said, was married to Sir Andrew Murray, now regent. It was one of the chief places of refuge for the patriots, and therefore was besieged by David Hastings, Earl of Atholl, one of the disinherited lords. Sir Andrew Murray determined to march to the relief of his wife. He called to his assistance the knight of Liddesdale, who had been in captivity with him in England, Sir Alexander Ramsay, of Dalwolsy, and the Earl of March. They could only raise 1,000 men, and Atholl had 3,000. But while on the march they were joined by one John Craig, a royalist of Scotland, who had been released by Atholl from confinement on promise of a large ransom. This ransom was due on the morrow, and Craig was unable or unwilling to pay it. He was glad to get rid of Atholl, and therefore undertook to lead them through the forest of Braemar, so as to take Atholl by surprise. On the way the people of the neighbourhood also joined them. Atholl was startled by suddenly perceiving the enemy upon him, but he disdained to fly. There was a small brook between him and the Scots, and the knight of Liddesdale keeping his men from crossing it, Atholl rushed over to attack them, when Liddesdale cried out, "Now is our time!" charged down the hill, bore Atholl and his forces back into the brook, and slew the earl and dispersed his force, thus entirely relieving the castle. This was called the Battle of Kiblene, and much noticed by the Scots as being fought on St. Andrew's Day, 1335.

Another of the most remarkable defences of these castles was that of Dunbar by the Countess of March. She was the daughter of the renowned Thomas Randolph, first Earl of Moray, of that family so gloriously associated with Scottish history, and from her complexion was called Black Agnes. The castle of Dunbar was built on a chain of rocks running into the sea, and its only connection with the mainland was well fortified. Montague, Earl of Salisbury, besieged it, and brought forward engines to throw stones, such as were used to batter down walls before the invention of cannon. One of these, with a strong roof to defend the assailants, standing up like a hog's back, was called the sow. When Black Agnes saw this engine advancing, she called out to the Earl of Salisbury, in derision--

"Beware Montagow, For farrow shall thy sow."

She had ordered a huge stone to be set on the wall over the castle gate, and as soon as the sow came under this was let fall, by which means the roof of the machine was crushed in, and as the English soldiers ran out, they were shot down by a flight of arrows; whereupon the Black Agnes shouted out to Salisbury, "Behold the litter of English pigs!"

As the earl brought up fresh engines, and sent ponderous stones against her battlements, Black Agnes stood there, and wiped disdainfully the fragments of the broken battlements away with her handkerchief, as a matter of no moment. The earl riding near to reconnoitre, an arrow meant for him shot down a man at his side. "That," said the earl, "is one of my lady's love tokens. Black Agnes's love shafts pierce to the heart."

The countess next tried to inveigle the earl into her power. She sent a fellow into the English camp who pretended to betray the castle. The earl was caught by the trick, and came at midnight to the gates, which were to be opened to him by the traitor. Opened they were; but one John Copland, the earl's esquire, riding in before him, the guards were too quick; they dropped the portcullis, thinking the earl had entered, and so shut him out and betrayed their stratagem.

Black Agnes was at length relieved by Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalwolsy, who brought up forces both by sea and land; and the Scots, delighted with the spirit of the undaunted defender of the castle, celebrated her far and wide in their minstrel songs. One of these sufficiently portrays the character of this Scottish amazon:--

"That brawling, boisterous, Scottish wench, Kept such a stir in towers and trench, That, came I early or came I late, I found Black Agnes in the gate."

The brave Sir Andrew Murray, the regent, died in 1338, while this contest was raging on all sides. He had discharged his office with the greatest spirit, patriotism, and wisdom, and his death was a severe loss to the country.

We are now arrived at a crisis in our history which marks at once the valour and the unscrupulous ambition of the English kings. There is no period of our annals in which the bravery of our countrymen assumed a more marvellous character, or in which it was displayed in a more unjust cause. Whenever we would boast of the military ascendency of the nation, we are sure to pronounce the words Creçy and Poitiers, but we are quite as certainly silent as to the political merits of the contest in which those names became celebrated. The invasions of France by Edward III. raised the martial glory of England to the highest pitch. There is nothing in the miracles of bravery done at Leuctra, Marathon, or Thermopylæ which can surpass those performed at Creçy, Poitiers, and on other occasions; but there the splendour of the parallel ends. The Greek battle-fields are sanctified by the imperishable renown of patriotism; those of England, at that period, are distinguished only by empty ambition and unwarrantable aggression. The Greeks fought and conquered for the very existence of their country and their liberties; the English, to crush those of an independent people. The wars commenced by Edward III. inflicted the most direful miseries on France, were continued for generations, and perpetuated a spirit of hostility between two great neighbour countries, which has been prolific of bloodshed, and most injurious to the progress of liberty and civilisation. The contest, as far as Edward III. was concerned, ended with a formal renunciation of his pretensions on the French crown, and, in the acquisition of nothing but the town and district of Calais and Guisnes, destined to be lost, at a future day, with every other English fief and freehold in France.

The impolicy of Edward III. was equal to his spirit of aggression. He was not content to attempt the complete subjugation of Scotland, which his grandfather had invaded on pleas as empty as his own regarding France, and where, during the wars of three reigns, all the power and wealth of England had been put forth, only to prove that you may exterminate a brave people, but you cannot conquer them. While he was no nearer the real annexation of Scotland than his grandfather was the first day that he advanced beyond Berwick, he aspired to coerce a still more extensive empire. The real source of this great movement was merely military ambition.

Edward claimed to be the rightful heir to the crown of France through his mother. But it had always been held in that country that no female could succeed to the throne: no such occurrence had ever taken place. It was declared that this succession was prohibited by a clause in the Salic code--the code of an ancient tribe among the Franks. It is extremely doubtful if this code ever existed. On this presumption, however, the French nation had uniformly acted for nearly 1,000 years. The ancient Franks were too barbarous and turbulent to submit to a female ruler, and those who succeeded them steadily pursued the same practice, passing over female heirs, and placing on the throne men in their stead. The third race of French kings had transmitted the crown in this manner from Hugh Capet to Louis Hutin, for eleven generations; during which period no female, nor any male, even, who founded his title on a female, had been suffered to mount the throne.

Edward asserted that in England and in other countries such claim was always considered valid; that a son could and would succeed to his mother as well as to his father, if he had been born in the lifetime of his grandfather; and this view of the case was supported by the Government lawyers of England and some jurists abroad in English pay; but then the succession was not to take place in England, but in France, whose whole history and practice were opposed to it. The French maintained, and truly, that it was a fundamental law that no foreigner could reign in France; and that it was a chief object of this law to exclude the husbands and children of those princesses of France who married foreigners. To put the matter still further beyond question, the States General of France, in the time of Philip the Long, had passed a solemn and deliberate decree, declaring expressly that all females were for ever incapable of succeeding to the crown of France.

What right, then, had Edward to dictate to the French nation his own views in opposition to theirs? None whatever. By custom (the usage of nearly 1,000 years), and by express recent law, the principle of the French nation was clearly established. True, Edward was nearer in blood to the throne than Philip of Valois, who had now succeeded. He claimed from his mother, who was daughter of the fourth preceding king, Philip the Fair, and sister of the three preceding kings; while Philip of Valois was only cousin-german to the deceased king, Charles the Fair. But all this the laws and practice of France pronounced to amount to nothing. There was no passing legally over the fact that no female could succeed, or could transmit succession to her offspring; and, even if Edward had been able to prove a valid claim from the female side, he would only have proved his own exclusion; for the last three kings had all left daughters who were still alive, and who all stood before him in the order of succession.

In a legal point of view, then, Edward had not a leg to stand upon in this question, whether as a king of French or of English descent. Besides this, Edward, according to all the laws of honour and of nations then prevailing, had practically renounced any claims of the kind which he might pretend to. The French king had succeeded to the throne in 1329. The peers of the realm had declared the crown his. The Parliament of Paris, and after that the States General of the kingdom had confirmed their judgment; and not only all France, but all Europe had recognised him as rightful possessor of the throne. In 1331 the King of France called upon Edward to come over and do homage for his province of Guienne. Philip, who was an able man, and of years of experience, was too prudent to allow any one to retain the shadow of a claim against him. He lost no time in summoning so powerful a rival as the King of England to do that homage which would at once cut off any real claim, had it existed; and, on Edward seeming to hang back, was preparing to seize his fief by force of arms as forfeited. To have refused to yield this feudal homage would have been virtually to renounce his right to the province, or to involve him in a war with this monarch. Edward therefore went over to France, having first, as if that could have any legal effect, secretly in his council entered a protest against this act prejudicing his own claims on the French crown through his mother.

Edward was at that time about eighteen years of age, brave and ambitious. He was attended by a splendid retinue of peers and knights, and was met by the King of France with a similarly imposing train. The act of homage was publicly performed in the cathedral of Amiens. Edward appeared in a robe of crimson velvet, embroidered with leopards of gold. He came wearing his armour, girt with his sword, and with his golden spurs of knighthood on his heels. Philip of France received him seated in a chair of state, before which was placed a cushion for the king of England to kneel upon. No doubt, as this act implied vassalage, so far as any lands in France were concerned, every precaution was taken that so powerful a monarch of a neighbouring nation, and a suspected rival, should make no equivocal submission. Edward, on his part, was careful to give none but the smallest and most indispensable tokens of dependence, and refused to kneel. On this the Grand Chamberlain of France insisted that he should kneel, and that he should perform his homage by laying aside his regal ornaments, his sword, girdle, and spurs. Edward's anger at this humiliating demand before the assembled chivalry and high-born ladies of France was excessive; but no remonstrance could move the Grand Chamberlain, and he was obliged to kneel bare-headed and stripped of all the marks of his royal rank. His indignation at this proceeding whetted his enmity against Philip of Valois, and led in no trifling degree to his future terrible invasions of his kingdom. Yet it was not till 1336, five years afterwards, and seven after Philip had sat quietly on his throne, that he openly declared the superiority of his own claims to it, and his determination to assert them.

The King of England had just cause of quarrel with the King of France. The latter had repeatedly sent money and men to the aid of the Scots, and to pave the way for the return of the young king and queen, who were exiles in France. But the immediate instigator of Edward's enterprise was the brother-in-law of Philip, Robert of Artois, who had incurred the king's anger, and had fled the country in disguise. This Robert, Count of Artois, was a man of fiery temper, and unprincipled. He had married the king's sister; and, being in high favour with him, hoped to prevail upon him to reverse the acts of Philip the Fair, which had prevented his succession to the earldom of Artois. Robert was undoubtedly the male heir; but his aunt Matilda being married to Otho, Duke of Burgundy, and his two daughters to two sons of Philip the Fair, that monarch adjudged the county of Artois to the heir female, and this judgment was confirmed by Philip the Long. The count had clearly just cause of complaint, and on the death of Charles the Fair he zealously supported the claims of Philip of Valois, and hoped, from the services which he then rendered, as well as from his alliance by marriage, that the king would now reverse this settlement of the county of Artois in his favour. Philip, however, though he held the count in the highest esteem, and consulted him on all occasions of state, yet declined to reverse the decisions of his two predecessors.

But this by no means contented Robert of Artois. He forged a will, as that of his grandfather, settling the county upon him, and presented it to the king. Philip, who instantly recognised the forgery, denounced so mean and criminal an act in no measured terms; and the count retired, muttering that he who placed the crown on Philip's head knew how to take it off again. These words being reported to Philip, he appeared to have lost all command of himself: he condemned the count for forgery, degraded him from all honours and offices, confiscated his property, and banished him from France. His rage did not stop there. He seized and imprisoned the count's wife, though his own sister, on pretence of her cognizance of the fraud; burnt at the stake a woman of the house of Bethune, as the actual framer of the deed, and as having practised by sorcery against the king's life. He still pursued the fugitive count, by interfering to prevent his stay in Brabant, where he had taken refuge.

However righteous might be this indignation, it was far from politic, for Robert of Artois was thus driven into the arms of Edward of England. He exerted all his art and persuasion with Edward to assert his title to the crown of France. The king and Robert were united by no common principle, except that of professed resentment against the King of France, and of having just claims in his country; though one was excluded by male heirship and the other by female. The King of France, sensible of the mischief the count might create in the English court against him, called upon Edward to expel him from the country, and threatened, in case of refusal, to fall upon Guienne. This only added to the anger of Edward and to the ostensible motives of invasion. The King of France issued a sentence of felony and attainder against the count and against every vassal of his crown who harboured him. Edward retorted the protection which he had given to his enemy, the King of Scots, and commenced active measures for invading France. He made alliances with various princes of the Netherlands and Germany; his father-in-law, the Count of Hainault, was his active agent, and very soon were engaged the Duke of Brabant, the Duke of Gueldres, the Archbishop of Cologne, the Marquis of Juliers, the Count of Namur, and the people of Flanders. The Count of Flanders adhered to Philip, who also engaged the Kings of Navarre and Bohemia, the Dukes of Brittany, Austria, and Louvain, the Palatine of the Rhine, and some other princes of Germany.

Edward expected more efficient aid from the Flemings than from any other of his allies; they had grown rich and considerable through trade, and had dealings with England, whence they received wool, and where they found good customers for their manufactures. They were the first people in the northern countries of Europe who had made progress in the arts and in manufactures, and their self-earned affluence had the usual effect of inspiring them with a spirit of independence. They had resisted and thrown off the oppression of their nobles, and expelled the Count, who was not disposed to consent to their bold assumptions. A wealthy brewer, Jacob van Artevelde, a sort of Cromwell of the Netherlands, had, by the force of his character, not only led them on, but placed himself at their head, and now exercised a power equal to that of any sovereign. He entered heartily into Edward's views, and inspired his countrymen with them, who had a great dislike to Philip of France, because he had supported their Count against them. He invited Edward to Flanders, and promised him vigorous aid.

Edward, before embarking in this serious undertaking, called for the advice of his Parliament, and solicited its support, which was promptly given. It voted him 20,000 sacks of wool, the very commodity of all others acceptable to the Flemings, and of the supposed value of £100,000. With the price of this wool he could also pay his German allies. Besides this grant, he levied a heavy contribution on the tin of Cornwall, pawned the jewels of the crown, and raised money by all possible means--amongst others, seizing on the property of the Lombards, who now exercised the trade of money-lending, formerly carried on by the Jews. With a numerous fleet, he set sail from Orwell, in Suffolk, on the 15th of July, 1338, attended by a considerable body of English troops and some of his nobility.

On landing at Antwerp he found it difficult to move his various allies, who, like Continental allies in all ages, were much fonder of receiving their subsidies than of fighting. The Germans demurred to advance against France except by authority of the Emperor of Germany, who, therefore, conferred on Edward the title of vicar of the empire. The Flemings, who were vassals of France, had like scruples to combat, which were eventually overcome by Edward assuming, at the instigation of Van Artevelde, the style of King of France, and, under plea of the right it conferred, claiming their aid in deposing Philip of Valois as the usurper of his realm.

By this act Edward effected that breach between England and France which took so many ages to heal, and which was the spring of incalculable miseries to both countries. Till then, the nobility, coming originally from Normandy, were to be found almost as frequently at the English court as at that of France, and the two countries seemed little different from the wide empire of one people under two or more sovereigns. This step was not taken by Edward without misgivings and reluctance; and no sooner was it made than his allies began to show symptoms of backwardness. The Duke of Brabant, the most powerful amongst the princes, seemed inclined to withdraw from his alliance, and was only held to his engagements by fresh privileges of trade being granted to his subjects, and a marriage contracted between the Black Prince and his daughter. To move the Germans, Edward promised an attack on Cambray, a city of the empire which Philip had seized upon, or, in other words, to pay them for allowing him to fight their own battles. Finding that the attempt was useless, he then led his allies to the frontiers of France, where many of them threw off all pretence of doing that for which they had been so liberally paid, and refused to fight against France. Amongst these were the Count of Namur and the Count of Hainault, Edward's own brother-in-law (the old count being dead), who now discovered that they were vassals of France, and could not possibly direct their arms against it. We do not read that on this discovery they refunded the money they had pocketed for this very purpose.

Deserted by these mercenaries, Edward, however, still advanced, and entered France, encamping at Vironfosse, near Capelle, with 50,000 men, chiefly foreigners. Philip came against him with an army of nearly twice that number, consisting of his own subjects, and having the advantage of being accompanied, blessed, and encouraged by the Pope--a most inspiriting circumstance in that age. Benedict XII. lived then at Avignon, and was a dependent on France, besides being incensed at Edward making an alliance with the Emperor Louis of Bavaria, who lay under the ban of his excommunication. Edward marched as far as Péronne and St. Quentin, burning the villages and laying waste the country. The French king, however, avoided hazarding an engagement, and Edward, having made a detour by the Ardennes, found his armies exhausted, and returned to Ghent. There Benedict endeavoured to negotiate a peace between the two monarchs; but Edward, despite the utter failure of his campaign, refused to listen to it. Yet his situation was pitiable, and his feelings could be by no means enviable. He had consumed and, indeed, anticipated, his whole year's revenue; he had seized largely on the substance of his subjects, had pawned everything belonging to himself and his queen, and was now in a manner in pawn himself, for he had incurred debts to his miserable, useless allies to the amount of £300,000. They would not allow him to return to England even to raise fresh resources, without leaving his queen behind, as a pledge of his return. Thus all his grand undertaking had ended in complete failure; nothing had been done, and only formidable engagements had been incurred.

In February, 1340, he managed to get across to England, where nothing but difficulties and mortifications awaited him. He had sent over during the campaign to obtain fresh supplies from Parliament through his son, whom he had left guardian. Parliament offered to grant him 30,000 more sacks of wool, but then they demanded in return that the king should make considerable abatements both of royal licence and prerogative. The king had caused sheriffs and other placemen to be elected into Parliament to increase his facility of obtaining grants. This stretch of power the Parliament very properly insisted should cease, and to that the king consented; but they went on next to demand that the ancient privileges of purveyance and levying of feudal aids, for knighting the king's eldest son and marrying his eldest daughter, should be abolished. There the king demurred; these were his ancient rights, and not all his necessities, and the temptation of the 30,000 sacks of wool, could induce him to sacrifice them. When he appeared in person, he obtained better terms, but not without a struggle. Parliament now called for a confirmation of the two charters, which the kings of those ages were always breaking, and which Edward had to confirm fifteen times in the course of his reign. This, therefore, he probably considered no great matter; but Parliament also asked for a confirmation of the privileges of boroughs, a pardon for old debts and offences, and some reforms in the administration of the common law. In return for these concessions, it offered him the liberal supplies of a ninth fleece, lamb, and sheep, and the same of the movables of the burgesses; as well as a duty of forty shillings on each last of leather, on each sack of wool, and on each 300 sheep-skins exported, for two years; and because these would come in too slowly, they gave him 20,000 sacks of wool at once, to be deducted from these taxes. Parliament also took a very prudent precaution, in affording him the sinews of war, to protest against the assumption of the title of King of France, declaring that they owed him no obeisance as King of France, and that the kingdoms must for ever remain separate and independent of each other.

While the king was making these preparations for the renewal of the war, Philip of France was using strenuous exertions to collect a fleet powerful enough to prevent his landing. He had sought this aid from the Genoese, at that time the great maritime power; as we shall soon find that he had also employed them, to a large extent, as archers in his army. The fleet numbered 400 sail, manned by Genoese sailors, and containing an army of 40,000 men; that is, about 100 men on an average to a vessel; from which we may form some idea of the smallness of the ships of those times. Edward, informed of this, collected also a fleet, with which, though consisting of only 240 sail, he was impatient to set out and engage that of his rival. His council advised him to wait till he had a force more equal; but Edward set out on the 22nd of June, many English ladies going over in other vessels to pay their respects to the queen. On the 24th the English fleet was off the harbour of Sluys, in Flanders, and there found the French fleet lying to prevent their disembarkation. Their masts and streamers, says Froissart, appeared like a wood. When Edward saw them, he exclaimed, "Ha! I have long desired to fight the French, and now I will do it, by the grace of God and St. George!"

The next morning, having placed the vessels bearing the ladies at such a distance that they might see the battle in safety, Edward, with the instinctive address of a British naval captain, manoeuvred so as to get the wind of the enemy. This movement, being mistaken by the French for a sign of fear in the king, induced them to come pouring out of the harbour; by which Edward gained another object which he sought, that of having them more in his power of attack. The battle commenced at ten in the morning, and lasted nine hours. During the fight the Genoese showered in upon the English their arrows from their deadly crossbows; but they were briskly answered by the long bows of the English; and when all the arrows were spent, they seized each others' ships with grappling irons and chains, and the men-at-arms fought hand to hand with swords and axes, as if on land. The English, fighting in the presence and under the daring example of their king, displayed the utmost courage, and finally victory decided for them. They took or destroyed nearly the whole of the French fleet. Fifteen thousand of the enemy--some authors say more--were killed, or perished in the sea. To make the catastrophe the more complete, the Flemings, seeing the battle incline for the English, rushed down to the shore in great numbers, and cut off the retreat of the French, making terrible slaughter amongst them. Edward then accomplished his landing with the utmost éclat, inspiring his allies with some temporary spirit. So terrible was the defeat of the French that none durst breathe a syllable of it in the hearing of Philip; and it was made known to him only by the Court jester. Some one speaking of the English, "Bah!" said the fool, "the English are but cowards." "Why so?" said the king. "Because," added the fool, "they did not dare the other day at Sluys to leap into the sea from their ships like the French and Normans."

Edward had lost about 4,000 men himself in the battle, but still he had no lack of followers. The splendour of this victory, and the fame of the large sums which he had brought with him, gathered his allies about him like swarms of locusts. Nearly 200,000 men advanced with him towards the French frontiers, but achieved nothing of consequence. Of these, 50,000, under Robert of Artois, laid siege to St. Omer. A single sally of the governor was enough to squander these untutored forces, and, notwithstanding the abilities of Robert of Artois, they could never again be collected. Edward invested Tournay, which was defended by a strong garrison; and when reduced to distress, Philip appeared with a large army, but avoided coming to action. Edward, provoked at this caution, sent him a challenge to single combat, which he declined. While the armies lay in this position, and Edward had wasted ten weeks, effecting nothing, and paying his numerous army of useless allies, Jane, Countess of Hainault, sister to Philip and mother-in-law of Edward, came forward, as a mediatrix between them. She had retired from the world to a convent, but this destructive quarrel between persons so near to her called her forth to endeavour to reconcile them. Her exertions were seconded by the Pope and cardinals; but all that they could effect was a truce for one year.

Philip managed soon after to win over the Emperor of Germany, who revoked Edward's title of imperial vicar, and his other allies rapidly withdrew as his money failed. He was now harassed by them as most importunate creditors, and was glad to steal away to England, where he arrived in the worst of humours. He had involved himself deeply in debt, and had achieved nothing but his naval victory. The anger which was excited by his foreign creditors fell on his subjects at home. Landing unexpectedly, he found the Tower very negligently guarded, and he immediately committed the constable and all in charge of it to prison. He then let his vengeance fall on the officers of the revenue, and collectors of the taxes, who had so greatly failed him in his need. Sir John St. Paul, keeper of the privy seal, Sir John Stonore, chief justice, and Andrew Aubrey, Mayor of London, were displaced and imprisoned, as were also the Bishops of Chichester and Lichfield, the Chancellor and Treasurer. Stratford, Archbishop of Canterbury, to whom the charge of collecting the new taxes had chiefly been entrusted, also fell under his displeasure; but he assumed an attitude of defiance, threatening excommunication against any one daring to execute these illegal arrests, as he termed them, and appealed to Magna Charta in behalf of himself and brethren. The king appointed Commissioners to inquire into the guilt of all concerned. He issued a proclamation, accusing the archbishop of having embezzled or misapplied the taxes intended for the king's use. The archbishop denied the charge, and supported by the clergy in a regular combination against the king, accused him of arbitrary acts and infringements of the constitution, telling him that the favour of the Church was higher than that of the state, inasmuch as the priests had to answer at the Divine tribunal for the conduct of kings themselves, and reminding him that prelates before then had cited emperors to their seats of judgment. This dispute was carried on with great heat on both sides; but the king, driven by the clamours of his creditors, was obliged to call a Parliament; and though he omitted to summon Stratford and the other bishops, the archbishop appeared before the gates arrayed in full pontificals, with crozier in hand, and attended by an imposing train of bishops and priests. He demanded admittance as the highest peer in the realm; but it was not till Edward had kept him there two days that he admitted him, and even became reconciled to him.

The king's necessities, no doubt, made him give way, for he had difficulties sufficient without the opposition of the clergy. He was overwhelmed with debts, for which he was paying ruinous interest, and was worried both by his foreign and domestic creditors. His attempts on France, which had brought him into this humiliating condition, had proved utter failures. Parliament declined to assist him, except on its usual conditions of fresh restrictions on his power. The barons claimed that peers should only be tried by peers; they called for a new subscription of the Great Charter; they demanded that no offices should be filled, except by the advice of his Council; and that at the commencement of every session he should resume all offices, in order to inquire into their faithful discharge. Edward, as was his wont, signed all these and other demands, obtained his grant of 20,000 more sacks of wool, and then declared that the conditions to which he had agreed were void, because they had been extorted.

It was hoped that the truce which had been entered into between France and England might be succeeded by a peace. Edward's total want of success might naturally have been expected to incline him to it; but he claimed exemption from rendering homage for Guienne, and demanded that Philip should cease to support the King of Scots against him. Neither of these points would Philip yield, when an event took place which renewed the war with fresh spirit, and with the most wonderful change of fortune.

This event was the disputed succession to the dukedom of Brittany. John III., duke of that province, died in April, 1341. He had no children, but desiring that his niece Jane, the daughter of his younger but deceased brother Guy, Count of Penthièvre, should succeed him, he had married her to Charles of Blois, nephew of the King of France. Before doing this, he had assembled the states of Brittany, which had fully assented; all his vassals, and amongst them John de Montfort, the son of his also deceased brother Arthur. But, though John de Montfort had not dared to oppose the will of his uncle during his lifetime, no sooner was he dead than he asserted his own higher claim to the duchy. He was, in fact, the true heir male. While Charles of Blois was at the court of France, soliciting the investiture of the duchy, John de Montfort rode at once to Nantes, took possession of the late duke's house and treasures, prevailed on the chief barons and bishops to recognise his right, and made himself master of Brest, Rennes, Hennebont, and other towns and fortresses.

De Montfort, convinced that Philip would take part with his own kinsman, Charles of Blois, hastened to England, where he did homage to Edward, as the rightful king of France, for the duchy of Brittany, and proposed an alliance for the mutual maintenance of their claims in France. Edward instantly perceived the immense advantages which this new connection would give to his designs on that kingdom. All his enthusiasm for its conquest revived; and this feeling was fanned into flame by Robert of Artois. Edward closed with the offer, and De Montfort returned to Brittany to put it into a state of complete defence. He was speedily summoned to Paris to appear before the peers of France, called by the king to decide this great cause. De Montfort boldly went; but, finding himself charged with the offence of doing homage to Edward of England as his superior, he took just alarm, and made his escape from the city.

The Peers, as might have been expected, adjudged the duchy to Charles of Blois, declaring that John de Montfort had forfeited whatever claim he might have by his treasonable homage to the King of England. Philip ordered his eldest son to march into Brittany at the head of an army, to assist Charles of Blois to expel John de Montfort. Under him, but the actual commander of the forces, was a celebrated warrior, Louis de la Cerda, commonly called Don Louis of Spain; and by his able conduct Nantes was speedily recovered, and De Montfort taken prisoner, sent to Paris, and confined in the Louvre, where he long remained. By this event the claims of De Montfort, and the new hopes of Edward, appeared to be extinguished. Charles of Blois considered the war at an end, took possession of Nantes and other towns, and seemed to have before him a very easy business to establish himself in the duchy. But all parties were surprised by a new incident, which soon gave a more determined character to the contest. Jane, the wife of De Montfort, sister to the Count of Flanders, was in Rennes when her husband was made prisoner at Nantes. She instantly displayed the spirit of a great woman, and instead of weakly yielding to grief or fear, she immediately assembled the people of Rennes, presented her infant son to them, recommending him to their protection as the last remaining hope of their country, and declared her resolve to defend the duchy to the last against the usurper. She reminded them of the alliance of England, and promised them certain success. The audience, struck with wonder at her courage, and moved to tears by her appeal, vowed to stand by her to the death, and the same spirit animated all the other towns of Brittany. The brave lady--who, according to Froissart "had the courage of a man and the heart of a lion"--went from place to place rousing the people, encouraging the garrisons, and seeing that they were well provisioned and placed in a condition of the greatest strength. Finding that she could not hold Rennes against Charles of Blois and the French army, she shut herself up in Hennebont, and awaited succour from England. She despatched to Edward fresh information of her situation, and with it her son, to be there in a place of safety, and, as it were, a pledge to the King of England of her fixed determination to defend her cause to the last.

Charles of Blois speedily sat down before Hennebont, with a great army of French, Bretons, Spaniards, and Genoese, and trusted to take the countess prisoner, and so put a finish to the war. But the countess, inspiriting everybody by her words and example, made a stout defence. She herself put on armour, and rode through the streets on a noble charger, exhorting the citizens to show themselves valiant. She was at every post of danger, at the gates or on the walls, where the enemy's arrows fell thickest. The very women, fired by her bravery, cut short their gowns, that they might be the more active, and, tearing up the pavement of the streets, carried the stones to the walls, or prepared pots of quicklime and other missiles to discharge on the besiegers. Women of all ranks were seen engaged in these labours without distinction, and the countess continually headed sorties on the enemy. One day, during a long and desperate assault, watching its progress from the walls, she perceived that Charles of Blois had directed such a force against the city that a part of his camp was quite deserted. She instantly dismounted, called together a body of 300 brave knights and esquires, and, issuing from a gate opposite to that where the French were so intently engaged, she led them, under cover of some woods and hills, to the unguarded camp, upon which they fell, setting fire to the tents, baggage, and magazines, and doing immense mischief. When the besiegers saw their own quarters in flames, they cried "Treason! treason!" and rushed to the defence. The brave countess, seeing that her retreat was cut off, instantly adapted her plan, bidding her followers to disband and make their way as they could to Brest. The countess herself galloped off, but was hotly pursued by Don Louis of Spain, as vindictive as he was brave, who came so near her as to kill several of her followers. The countess however, made good her rendezvous with her followers, and speedily was on her way back, at the head, not of 300, but of 500 men. Taking refuge in the castle of Auray, and watching their opportunity, they left the castle at midnight, reached the neighbourhood of Hennebont at sunrise, and, darting past the astonished besiegers, effected an entrance into the city on the sixth day after they had left it. This gallant and successful action on the part of the countess greatly amazed Charles of Blois and his army, and encouraged her own people, who received her with trumpets sounding an every demonstration of triumph.

Still the French pressed on, and the English succours, daily and hourly looked for, did not arrive. The besiegers had already made several breaches in the walls; provisions were growing scarce; the garrison was overwhelmed with fatigue and watching; and, still worse, the Bishop of Laon, a friend of Charles of Blois, was in the city, under the double character of an ecclesiastic and an ambassador, and was using all his endeavours to induce the countess to yield. His words had the worst effect on the inhabitants. He was continually going about describing the horrors attending a city given up to pillage, and recommending a capitulation. It was surprising that the countess, so quick to perceive her interests in other respects, should have tolerated his mischievous presence there. At length, however, he prevailed on her followers to propose a surrender. The brave countess implored them to wait, assuring them that the English succours must arrive; but the bishop now pressed his advantage; he called the Breton lords together again the next day, and, keeping up his communications with the besiegers without, they drew nearer, with Charles of Blois at their head, in readiness to take possession. The countess, in the greatest anxiety, kept a constant look-out from a tower commanding a view of the sea, and at the very moment when the traitorous Bishop of Laon was about to make over the city, she descried a large squadron steering towards Hennebont. She immediately shouted--"Behold the Red Cross! the English succours! No capitulation!" The people of the town all rushed to the ramparts to see the joyful sight. It was, indeed, the English fleet, which had been detained at sea forty days by contrary winds, but now was coming on with full sail.

All thoughts of surrender, of course, were abandoned; the disappointed bishop was dismissed to his equally disappointed master; and the English forces, consisting of 6,000 archers, and a body of heavy-armed cavalry, under Sir Walter Manny, a Flemish knight, one of the greatest captains of the age, in Edward's service, landing, drove the besiegers back, and entered the town amid the joyful acclamations of the inhabitants. The delighted countess received her deliverers with every courtesy. She admitted the knights and captains into her own castle, decorated with her finest tapestry, and dined herself at table with them. The next day, after dinner, Sir Walter Manny proposed to make a sally, and break down the battering rams of the French. The challenge was enthusiastically answered by all the knights and warriors present. They united and rushed forth with 300 archers, charged the French furiously, took and broke to pieces the engines of the siege, drove back the besiegers, and, following up their advantage, fell on the camp, and set fire to it, killing many of the enemy. The countess was so overjoyed at this signal triumph that, on the return of Sir Walter to the city, she hastened to receive him, and, says Froissart, kissed him and his companions twice or thrice, "like a valiant lady."

The siege was raised, and the French removed the war to Lower Brittany. Don Louis of Spain went along the coast attended by a strong force of Spaniards and Genoese, and indulged his disposition for cruelty by burning Guérande, and sacking the whole country as far as Quimperlé. Sir Walter, informed of this, pursued Don Louis with all speed, taking ship with 3,000 archers, and a sufficient proportion of men-at-arms. He came up with him at Quimperlé, seized his fleet and all his booty in the harbour, fell upon Don Louis's force, killed his brother Don Alphonso, severely wounded Don Louis himself, who hurriedly escaped in a skiff, and totally destroyed or dispersed his followers.

Brilliant as these actions were, the forces sent to support the countess were far too inadequate to this object. Don Louis, smarting under this defeat, had again joined Charles of Blois, and together they returned to invest Hennebont, against which they reared sixteen engines of the largest size, with which they dreadfully battered and shook the walls. The undaunted countess, however, defended the ramparts with woolsacks, and jeered the assailants by asking them why they did not bring up their army from Quimperlé. Don Louis, against whom this was aimed, burned for revenge, and endeavoured to obtain it in a most dastardly and unknightly manner. Amongst the prisoners of Charles of Blois were two gallant Englishmen, Sir John Butler and Sir Matthew Trelawny. These brave men, out of spite to the English, who had so signally defeated him, Don Louis demanded to be delivered up to him, that he might put them to death in sight of the whole army and city. Charles, who revolted at so dishonourable a proposal, refused; but on Don Louis declaring that he would renounce the cause of Charles for ever, they were given up Don Louis had them bound ready, and declared that after dinner he would strike off their heads under the city walls. No persuasions of his knights could divert him from his savage purpose. But Sir Walter Manny hearing of it, made a sally, in which Sir Aimery of Clisson, a Breton knight, attacking the French in front, and Sir Walter, issuing from a private postern, and falling on the camp, found the two condemned knights, and rescued them. The French were soon after compelled to raise the siege, and concluded a truce with the countess till the following May, 1343.

This interval the Countess of Montfort employed in a voyage to England, soliciting fresh forces, which were despatched in forty-six vessels, under Robert of Artois. The countess sailed with them; and off Guernsey they encountered a French fleet of thirty-two ships, much larger and better than the English ones, commanded by the redoubtable Don Louis of Spain, and manned by 1,000 men-at-arms, and 3,000 Genoese crossbowmen. The engagement was very fierce, the countess in full armour taking the deck, and fighting sword in hand. The battle was interrupted by night, accompanied by a terrible tempest. The English fleet, however, escaped into Hennebont. Soon after landing they took Vannes by surprise, and then they divided their forces; Sir Walter Manny and the countess defending Hennebont, and the Earls of Salisbury and Pembroke attacked Rennes, leaving Robert of Artois in Vannes. Here he was suddenly surrounded by 12,000 French troops under Oliver de Clisson and De Beaumanoir, who took the city by storm. Robert of Artois narrowly escaped, but so severely wounded that he took shipping for England, where he soon died. So perished a man who more than any other had caused this bloody war. Edward III. was so affected by his loss, for he was greatly attached to him, that he vowed to avenge his death; and accordingly he crossed the sea to Morbihan, near Vannes, with an army of 12,000 men, in October of that year.

Edward marched to Rennes and Nantes, destroying the country as he went, and laying siege to Vannes, Rennes, and Nantes all at once. By dividing his forces he failed in all his attempts, for Charles of Blois had obtained an army from the King of France of 40,000 men under the Duke of Normandy. His eldest son Edward, on the approach of this formidable force, entrenched himself before Vannes, and the Duke of Normandy sat down at a short distance from him, and entrenched himself likewise in his camp. Here the two forces lay for some weeks, neither venturing to strike the first blow; and the Pope now stepped in by his legates, and persuaded them to sign a truce for three years and eight months. Edward having secured honourable terms for himself and allies, returned home.

But the truce was by no means observed by either side. The different parties were become so exasperated against each other that they went on fighting as though there were no truce at all. Philip of France was bound by one of its conditions to liberate John de Montfort; but he still kept him in prison, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the Pope, and persevered in his attacks on Brittany, which the countess defended with her accustomed spirit. Several knights of distinction were in treaty to pass over to the side of De Montfort, and Philip making the discovery, lured them to a grand tournament, and had their heads struck off in the centre of the Halles, or market-place at Pons. Amongst these were the brave knight Oliver de Clisson, already mentioned, John de Montauban and many others there and in Normandy were as ruthlessly dealt with. This perfidious and sanguinary conduct produced a feeling of horror everywhere, and such of the Breton knights as had fought for Charles of Blois went over to the Countess de Montfort. Foremost amongst the malcontents thus created was Jane de Belville, the widow of the murdered Oliver de Clisson, who became a determined enemy, and who, carrying her son to the Countess de Montfort to be brought up with hers, became indefatigable in her pursuit of vengeance on the French. It was a remarkable circumstance that these wars produced three women, all named Jane, the wives of Charles of Blois, of De Montfort, and of De Clisson, who displayed the most extraordinary spirit, each rivalling the other in their heroic actions.

This contempt of the truce roused the English nation to support the king in the continuance of the war. The Parliament granted him liberal supplies, and he sent over his near kinsman, the Earl of Derby, son of the Earl of Lancaster, with an army to protect Guienne, and give assistance to the Countess de Montfort. The Earl of Derby was a nobleman of great ability and integrity of character, distinguished both for humanity and bravery. He very soon placed Guienne in a posture of strong defence, and then made a bold advance into the enemy's country. He attacked and defeated the Count de l'Isle at Bergerac, reduced a great part of Périgord, and took the strong castle of Auberoche in Gascony. This castle was again attempted by De l'Isle, being left only with a weak garrison; but a spy whom Derby had in the French camp apprised the earl of its situation. He advanced into the neighbourhood with 1,000 cavalry, and found the castle invested by 10,000 or 12,000 men. The earl had sent to the Earl of Pembroke at Bergerac to meet him with a large force, but he had not come up. To ordinary men the idea of attacking the French army of 10,000 or more with his 1,000 would have appeared insane; but the earl had with him the able commanders, Sir Walter Manny, Lord Ferrars, Sir Richard Hastings, and others, and, taking advantage of a wood, they came suddenly on the French camp as the soldiers were cooking their suppers. Darting amongst them with loud shouts of "A Derby! a Derby!" the sudden apparition of the enemy threw the whole French host into such confusion that a total rout took place, and the Count de l'Isle, with nine earls and viscounts, and nearly all the barons, knights, and squires of the army were taken.

This terminated the campaign of Lord Derby for 1345; and the next year, when he became Earl of Lancaster through the death of his father, he pursued his victories, and took strong towns and fortresses. His successes were favoured by the state of France at that time, where the exhausted finances led Philip to debase the coin and lay a heavy impost on salt, both of which circumstances excited great disaffection and disorder in the kingdom. At length the Duke of Normandy, Philip's eldest son, attended by the Duke of Burgundy and other powerful nobles, led a large army to the frontiers of Guienne, and compelled Lancaster to stand on the defensive, his forces being much inferior in number.

While these events were taking place, Edward III. was earnestly at work at home, endeavouring to organise an efficient scheme for achieving something more than the defence of Guienne or the aid of Brittany: namely, his grand dream of the total conquest of France. His first attempt was to secure the co-operation of his old friend Jacob van Artevelde, the brewer of Ghent. He had the daring to propose that his son, the Black Prince, should be offered to the people of Flanders in lieu of their old Count, who had gone over to the French interest. But this scheme cost the stout old Artevelde his life. No sooner was the overture made than the burgesses took alarm at it, and lost their faith in Van Artevelde as a patriot. Bruges and Ypres were brought over by the promised advantages of trade with England, but his own town of Ghent broke out into open insurrection. When he rode into the city, attended by a body of Welsh, whom Edward had sent, he was received with the most hostile looks and expressions. He hastened to his house, and endeavoured by a speech from an upper window to appease the incensed people; but it was in vain. They broke into his house, and murdered him on the spot (July 9th, 1345). The man who had reigned like a king, on the strength of his reputed patriotism, now fell by the hand of a saddler, and amid the execrations of the mob, as a traitor. Hope of assistance was gone for Edward in that quarter.

He was equally unfortunate in Hainault. His brother-in-law, the young Count of Hainault, was killed also in a revolt of the Frieslanders; and his uncle, the well-known John of Hainault, so long allied with England, went over to the French on the plea that Edward had not duly estimated or rewarded his services. About the same time, too, John de Montfort, so long a captive in Paris, was liberated, but died of a fever before Quimperlé. All hope appeared closed on the side of the Netherlands and of Brittany; but a new light sprang up in an unexpected quarter, giving an entirely new turn to his enterprise.

Sir Godfrey de Harcourt, Lord of Saint Sauveur, and brother of John, Count of Harcourt, long in the service of England, had stood high in the favour of Philip of France; but having offended him by resisting one of his arbitrary acts, he had a narrow escape of sharing the fate of Oliver de Clisson. He fled to England, and, like his predecessor, Robert of Artois, he exerted all his talent to persuade the king to invade France on the side of Normandy, Sir Godfrey's own country, and where, of course, lay his forfeited estates. He represented to Edward that it was one of the most fertile and beautiful provinces of France--abounded with wealth, for it had not been the scene of war for two centuries; that the numerous and opulent towns had scarcely any fortifications, and were now deserted by the nobility and their vassals, who were with the Duke of Normandy in Gascony. He reminded Edward that it was an ancient possession of England, lay near the English coast, might be secured almost without a blow, and would strike the French king dumb with consternation, for it would bring his capital within easy reach of attack.

It is surprising that these facts had not presented themselves to Edward before; but, once offered to his mind, he embraced them with avidity. He assembled a fine army of 30,000 men, consisting of 4,000 men-at-arms, 10,000 archers, 10,000 Welsh infantry, and 6,000 Irish. Circumstances, rather than his own wishes, had brought him to depend no longer on mercenary and treacherous allies, but upon his own subjects; and from this moment he began to perform those prodigies of arms which raised the name of Englishmen above all others for steady and transcendent valour. He set sail from Southampton in a fleet of near 1,000 sail of all dimensions, carrying with him the principal nobility of the realm, and his son, the Black Prince, now fifteen years of age. He landed his army at La Hogue, on the coast of Normandy, and there divided it into three bodies, one of which he placed under the command of the Earl of Warwick, another under Sir Godfrey de Harcourt, whom he created marshal, and the third under the Earl of Arundel, whom he made constable; he himself was generalissimo, and before setting out on his march he knighted the Prince of Wales and a number of the young nobility. He next caused the French ships in La Hogue, Harfleur, and Cherbourg to be destroyed. This work was committed to the English fleet, and the plunder of these seaports was given up to those who manned it. Advancing into the country, Edward found it almost wholly defenceless, as Harcourt had represented. Montebourg, Carentan, St. Lo, Valognes, and other places in the Cotentin, were taken and pillaged.

One of the king's objects was to create an alarm, and thus draw off the French forces from Guienne; and in this he succeeded. The King of France, startled by this unexpected invasion, hastened to assemble troops from all quarters. He was soon at the head of a numerous army, which, from the sounding titles of many of the allies and generals, appeared extremely formidable. Amongst them were the Kings of Bohemia and Majorca, the Emperor elect of Germany, the Duke of Lorraine, John of Hainault, and the Count of Flanders. He despatched the Count of Eu, Constable of France, and the Count of Tankerville to defend the populous and commercial city of Caen; but they were speedily overthrown by Edward, who took the two counts prisoners, and, entering the city, massacred the inhabitants without distinction of age, sex, or rank. The scenes perpetrated in Caen are frightful to record, and present a revolting picture of the savage spirit of the age. The wretched people, driven to desperation, barricaded their doors against the ruffianly invaders. They, in turn, set fire to the houses, till Edward, at the earnest entreaty of Sir Godfrey Harcourt, put a stop to the burning, but gave up the town to three days' pillage, reserving for his own share the jewels, plate, silks, fine cloths, and linen. These he shipped for England, with 300 of the richest citizens, for whom he meant to demand heavy ransoms. Two cardinal legates, who had come with the benevolent hope of negotiating a peace, beheld instead this fearful butchery. The Church at this period was the only power which endeavoured to bring to men's remembrance the benign influence of Christianity, and, in exerting itself to check the spirit of military carnage and devastation, certainly discharged its sublime duty well. As for these martial monarchs, they seemed to forget in the fury of war all compassion; and both Edward and his youthful son displayed a hard and sanguinary disposition in their campaigns, in melancholy contrast with the high professions of chivalrous courtesy.

Edward, having inflicted this terrible chastisement on Caen, then advanced towards Rouen, intending to treat it the same; but on arriving opposite to that city, he found the bridge of boats was taken away, and Philip of Valois occupying the right bank of the Seine, with an army far superior to his own. Edward then continued his march up the left bank of the river towards Paris, destroying all the towns and country as he went along. The French king marched along the right bank, breaking down all the bridges, and taking every means to prevent his crossing. After sacking Vernon and Mantes, the English king arrived at Poissy, within nine miles of Paris. Here finding the bridge only partially destroyed, he resorted to this stratagem in order to cross the Seine:--He still ascended the river, as if intending to march on Paris; while his advanced lines scoured the country up to its very gates, burning St. Germain, St. Cloud, Bourg-la-Reine, Nanterre, and Neuilly. Having thus drawn the French king to Paris, he suddenly made a reverse march, reached Poissy, hastily repaired the bridge, and passed his troops over. Once across the Seine, he proceeded by hasty marches towards the river Somme. His vanguard, commanded by Harcourt, met with reinforcements proceeding from Amiens to the king's camp, and defeated them with great slaughter. Reaching Beauvais, he burnt its suburbs, and plundered Pois. As he drew near the Somme, he found himself in the same difficulties as at the Seine. All the bridges were destroyed, and he endeavoured, but unsuccessfully, to pass at Pont St. Remi, Long, and Pequiny. He was now fast being enclosed by the enemy. The Somme was a deep, and, so far as they could find, impassable river; on its right bank showed a strong force under Godemar de Faye, a powerful baron of Normandy, supported by the gentlemen of Artois and Picardy. Approaching the sea, near Oisement, he was thus cooped up between it and the Somme, with Philip and an army of 100,000 men pressing on his rear. In this urgent extremity, the marshals of the army were sent out to see whether they could not possibly discover a ford, but in vain. Edward now appeared to be placed in a very serious dilemma; but, assembling all the prisoners belonging to that part of the country, he offered to any one who would point out a ford his own liberty, and that of thirty of his companions.

On this, a peasant said, "Know, sir, that during the ebb-tide the Somme is so low at a place which I can show you, that it may be passed either by horse or foot with ease. The bottom is plain to see, for it is of chalk, quite white, and so is called Blanchetaque, that is, white water."

On hearing this agreeable news, Edward ordered the trumpets to sound at midnight, and set out from Oisement for the ford. There he arrived some hours before the ebb, and was compelled to wait, seeing Godemar de Faye ready with 12,000 men on the other side prepared to oppose his passage, and every minute expecting the arrival of Philip. As soon as the ford was passable he ordered the marshals to dash into the river, and to drive back the enemy in the name of God and St. George! So great was his impatience that he himself led the way, crying, "Let those who love me follow me." The French forces met them half way, and valiantly disputed the passage; but they were driven back. The English, however, found the main body strongly posted on the right bank at a narrow pass, through which they were compelled to force their way by hard fighting. The Genoese crossbowmen here galled them severely with their arrows; but the English archers replied so vigorously that they drove the enemy from the ground and landed in safety. The passage was effected just in time, for Philip came galloping up before the rear-guard had reached the other side, and did some damage amongst them. But the tide was now too high to permit him to follow; he therefore took his way up the river to Abbeville, and crossed at the bridge there.

Meantime, Edward, having made this admirable passage, resolved to march no farther. He had hoped to receive reinforcements promised him by the repentant Flemings, but they did not appear, and he considered it hazardous to attempt to cross the open plains of Picardy in the presence of so preponderating a force, especially of French cavalry. He resolved to make a stand. He selected a strong position in the forest of Cressy, or Creçy, and near a village of that name. "Here," said he, "I am on the rightful heritage of my lady-mother, upon the lands of Ponthieu, given to her as her marriage dower. I now challenge them as my own; and may God defend the right!" He took his station on a gentle ascent, having in his rear a wood, where he placed all his baggage, and defended it with an entrenchment. He also threw up entrenchments on his flanks to secure them, and divided his army into three divisions. The first he put under the command of Edward, the Prince of Wales, now in his sixteenth year, to fight his first battle. Under him were the Earls of Warwick and Oxford, Sir Godfrey Harcourt, the Lord Holland, and Sir John Chandos; but the king confided the especial care of the prince to Sir John and to the Earl of Warwick, who were to assist him by their counsel, and defend him in difficulty. The second line was commanded by the Lords Willoughby, Bassett, and others. The king himself took charge of the third, to hold it in readiness to support either of the other two, or secure their retreat, as circumstances might decide. The number of the English army has been variously stated at from 10,000 to 30,000; but the most authentic accounts state it to be about one-fourth of the French, who were estimated at 120,000. The King of England, having made his arrangements, ordered the troops to take up their ground on the spot where they were to fight, and to await the next morning with confidence of victory. The soldiers set about vigorously polishing their arms, and repairing and burnishing their armour. They were well fed, and refreshed by abundant wine and provisions, which had been seized in the port of Crotoy. The king gave a supper to his barons in his tent, where he made good cheer. When it was concluded he entered into the tent set apart as an oratory, and, falling on his knees, prayed God to bring him "out of the morrow with honour."

The night was warm; and the soldiers, having well supped, slept on the grass in their arms. With the early dawn the king and prince were up and amongst their forces.

Edward, mounted on a white palfrey, and attended on each hand by a marshal, rode through the ranks, spoke to the different officers, and exhorted the men to remember that they had that day to fight against superior numbers, and must therefore do their best for the honour of their country. He reminded them of the decided advantage which they had hitherto shown over the enemy; and he had such an air of confidence and cheerfulness that every one augured nothing but victory. Thus they sat, each in his place, with his helm and bow before him, and so awaited the foe. When they had thus continued till three in the afternoon, and no enemy was yet come up, the king ordered that every man should eat and take a little wine, which they did in great satisfaction.

Meantime, the King of France, having passed the night at Abbeville, set out, reinforced by 1,000 lancers under Amadeus, Count of Savoy. He deemed that he had nothing to do but to overtake the English army in order to annihilate it. For weeks it seemed to have been flying before him, and by hastily crossing the Seine and the Somme it had borne every appearance of wishing, at all costs, to avoid a conflict. He therefore pushed on hastily, and in great confusion. By the time that his advanced guard came in sight of the English lines his forces were tired, and his rear-guard far behind. A veteran Bohemian officer, being sent forward to reconnoitre the English army, rode back to Philip, and strongly recommended him to put off the battle till the next day. He assured him that the English were fresh and well posted, and would undoubtedly make a desperate defence. The French, depressed and exhausted by the haste of their march from Abbeville, must fight at vast disadvantage.

The king commanded a halt; but the ill-disciplined troops still pressed on, the van brandishing their swords, and crying, in their over-confidence, "Attack, take, slay!" and those behind, hurrying forward, declaring they would not stop till they were as forward as the foremost. So they rushed on pell-mell. Froissart says no one, except he had been present, could form any idea of the confusion of the scene. Philip had divided his army into three divisions: the first commanded by the King of Bohemia, supported by his son, Charles of Luxembourg, Emperor-elect of Germany, and Charles, Duke of Alençon, the brother of King Philip, a brave but haughty and rash youth. In this division were 15,000 Genoese crossbowmen, headed by Anthony Doria and Carolo Grimaldi. These bowmen were looked upon as the great strength of the army--an overmatch for the English archers, whom they were quickly to drive from the field. They were backed by 20,000 infantry. The second division was led by Philip himself, consisting of 6,000 men-at-arms and 40,000 foot. The broad banner of France was displayed before the king, and at his side rode the titular King of Majorca. The rear division followed, conducted by the Count of Savoy, with 5,000 lances and 20,000 foot. The last was most formidable in numbers; but all superiority was lost in the disorder of the march. The kings and dukes and great lords were hurried along, without power to exert any command, and Philip himself, in striving to enforce a halt, was borne onward as by a torrent. Finding himself face to face with the enemy, he cried, "Bring up the Genoese; begin the battle, in the name of God and St. Denis!"

But these Italians, who were brave and famous men, very reasonably complained of thus being hurried into battle, worn out as they were with carrying their heavy crossbows in the hasty march of six leagues, and said they had more need of rest than to fight that day. On hearing this, the Duke of Alençon cried out, "See! that is the help we get by employing these fellows, who thus fail us at the pinch." The sensitive Italians heard these words with deep anger, and moved on to battle. At this moment the heavens seemed to announce that a great and terrible conflict was about to take place. A thunderstorm, making it almost as dark as night, burst over the opposing hosts, and before it went a flight of crows and ravens, sweeping over the armies. When the sun broke out again it flashed in the faces of the Genoese, and the strings of their crossbows had become relaxed with the wet. On the other hand, the sun was on the backs of the English, and they had kept their longbows dry in their cases. They were drawn up by the king in ranks, crossed in the manner of a herse, or harrow, so that the discharges of the different ranks might support each other, like the discharges of combined squares of musketry in these times. No sooner, therefore, did the Genoese crossbowmen, after giving three leaps and three loud shouts to intimidate the English, let fly a shower of arrows, than the English archers stepped each of them one pace forward, and shot their arrows so thickly that, as the chronicler describes it, it seemed to snow. The Genoese, confounded by the perpetual hail of the English arrows, which pierced their armour, fell back on the men-at-arms, and the confusion then became fearful. The Genoese cut their bowstrings or threw away their bows, and endeavoured to make their escape amongst the horses of the cavalry. The King of France, seeing this, cried out, "Slay me these cowards, for they stop our way, without doing any good!" The men-at-arms advanced at full gallop right over the wretched Genoese, cutting them down right and left, and numbers were trodden under foot; while the cavalry itself was thrown into disorder by thus riding over their own bowmen to come at the enemy.

All this time the English archers kept pouring in their deadly shafts, dropping the knights and soldiers of Alençon's fine cavalry rapidly from their saddles; while the Cornish men and Welsh, armed with large knives, stole amongst the ranks and despatched those knights as they lay.

Edward had given strict orders to take no prisoners, because the enemy was so much more numerous, that it would encumber his fighting men, and keep them from the battle in looking after their captives.

In spite of the confusion, the Duke of Alençon and the Count of Flanders broke at length through it, and, charging past the line of English archers, took the cavalry of the Prince of Wales in flank. Both sides now fought desperately; but the English men-at-arms handled the French cavalry so roughly that the greater part of them were slain. Notwithstanding, three other squadrons of French and Germans, rushing forward impetuously, broke through the archers, and pushed their way into the very place where the young prince was performing prodigies of valour. The second division, under the Earls of Arundel and Northampton, advanced to support the prince, and the contest became furious. Alençon displayed the most fiery courage, and, amid a crowd of French, Germans, Savoyards, and Bohemians, pressed upon the prince with a vigour which threatened to carry all before it. The French king, eager to support Alençon, charged nobly on the archers, but could not penetrate their line, or the event might have been doubtful. The Earl of Warwick, alarmed by the dangerous position of the prince, despatched Sir Thomas Norwich to Edward, entreating him to send aid to his son.

Edward, who was watching the progress of the battle from a windmill on the hill-top, demanded of the messenger whether the prince were dead, wounded, or felled to the ground. "Not so, thank God," answered the messenger; "but he needs assistance." "Nay, then," said the king, "he has no aid from me. Tell him from me that I know he will bear him like a man, and show himself worthy of the knighthood I have so lately conferred on him. In this battle he must win his own spurs."

This being reported to the prince, gave new courage and strength to both him and his attendants. The force thrown in by Arundel and Northampton bore down the enemy slew the gallant Alençon, and dispersed his battalions; the Welsh, with their long knives, destroying all left alive on the ground.

The King of France, still struggling to come up to the rescue of his brother, arrived only to find him killed and his forces scattered. The flying cavalry communicated their panic to the king's own followers; but the king himself scorned to fly, and fought most bravely. His horse was killed under him; he mounted another, and still fought on till only about sixty of his bravest attendants remained around him. Repeatedly wounded, he would probably have lost his life; but John of Hainault, having in vain urged him to quit the field, forcibly seized the bridle of his horse, and led him away. The whole French army was in flight, the English pursuing, and putting to the sword without mercy all whom they could reach.

The King of France rode away till he came to the castle of Broye, where, summoning the warder to open the gates, that officer demanded who was there, for it was a dark night. "It is the fortune of France," said the king, probably in bitter recollection of the flatteries which had styled him "the Fortunate." On entering, the king had only five of his barons with him. They refreshed themselves with wine, and then continued their flight, with the help of guides, to Amiens.

Such was the memorable battle of Creçy, one of the greatest and most surprising victories which ever was gained by any king. It was fought on Saturday, the 26th of August, 1346. On that fatal field lay slain two kings, eleven great princes, eighty bannerets, 1,200 knights, and 30,000 men. It began after three o'clock in the afternoon, and continued till darkness ended the conflict.

Amongst the chief men killed, besides the Duke of Alençon, were the Dukes of Lorraine and Bourbon, the Counts of Blois, Vaudemont, Aumale, and Philip's old ally, the Earl of Flanders. Of the two slain Kings of Majorca and Bohemia, the death of John of Bohemia was very remarkable. He was old, and nearly blind. When all seemed lost, inquiring after his son, and hearing that he was wounded and compelled to fly, and that the Black Prince showed himself irresistible, he said, "Sirs, ye are my knights and good liegemen; will ye conduct me so far into the battle that I may strike one good stroke with my sword?" His faithful knights regarding these as the words of sad despair, four of them agreed to sacrifice their lives with him, and tying his bridle rein on each side to their own, they thus charged into the thickest of the fight, and were found the next day lying dead together, the reins of their horses still unsevered.

The rejoicing on the part of the English may be imagined. The soldiers lit up huge fires and torches to disperse the darkness, and by that light King Edward descended from his eminence, and, taking his valiant son in his arms before the whole army, he kissed him, and, according to Froissart, said, "Sweet son, God gave you good perseverance. You are my true son, for valiantly have you acquitted yourself to-day, and shown yourself worthy of a crown." The prince bowed lowly, and declared that the victory was owing to the king.

The next day it proved foggy, and the king sending out a detachment of 500 lancers and 2,000 archers to scour the fields and discover whether any bodies of French were yet keeping their ground, they met with two numerous detachments hastening to the assistance of the King of France, one of them headed by the Archbishop of Rouen and Grand Prior of France. They were coming from Beauvais and Rouen, and made a vigorous resistance; but were all cut to pieces, in accordance with the barbarous policy of Edward on that occasion. Some historians have asserted that the English raised a number of French standards, which they took, on an eminence; which thus attracting stragglers of the French army, they were butchered as they arrived. These are blots on the glory of that famous victory which it is painful to record.

The king sent out the Lords Cobham and Suffolk, with attendant heralds, to recognise the arms, and secretaries to write down the names of the fallen, and they returned an account of the numbers we have given; but of the English only three knights, one esquire, and a few of inferior rank.

Edward having attended mass on Sunday, and returned solemn thanks to Heaven for this great victory, on the Monday morning ordered the bodies of the kings, nobles, and knights to be borne to the monastery of Montenay for burial, and proclaimed three days' truce, that the people of the country might come in and bury their dead. Having discharged this duty, he marched north, taking the way by the coast, through Montreuil-sur-mer, towards Calais, which he had resolved to take possession of, as a secure and necessary entrance into the kingdom of France for the prosecution of his grand design on it.

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XXXI. EDWARD III. (concluded)

Siege of Calais--Battle of Neville's Cross--Capture of the Scottish King--Institution of the Garter--The Black Death--Disturbances in France excited by the King of Navarre--Battle of Poitiers--The King of France taken Prisoner and brought to England--Disorders in France--Affairs in Scotland--Fresh Invasion of France--The Peace of Bretigny--Return of King John to France--Disorders of that Kingdom--The Free Companies--Expedition of the Black Prince into Castile--Fresh Campaign in France--Decline of the English Power there--Death of the Black Prince--Death of Edward III.--Character of his Reign and State of the Kingdom.

Within six days of the victory of Creçy, Edward had sat down before the city of Calais. He had now fully adopted Sir Godfrey de Harcourt's plan of conquering France through Normandy; and the only remarkable thing is, that, having once entertained the idea of that conquest, he should have overlooked for a moment its unparalleled advantages. Guienne was distant, and only to be reached by a voyage which, at that time, must often be formidable, across the stormy Bay of Biscay. Even in sending succours to the much nearer parts of Brittany, we have just seen that they were detained by contrary winds forty days. Once there, he was surrounded in a great measure by hostile provinces; while, on the other hand, Calais lay within twenty-four miles of his own coast, which gave him most easy access to Normandy, Picardy, and Artois. Seeking the alliance of the Flemings, this province lay near to their own, and no doubt he would have found that people much more disposed for an invasion of a rich and proximate country than for that of the remote Guienne. Rouen, the capital of the province, could be approached direct by the Seine, and placed the king on the very highway to Paris, and only eighty miles distant from it.

In investing Calais with his victorious army, Edward calculated on the effect which his destructive overthrow of the French must produce on the inhabitants. Moreover, to secure his capital and northern provinces, Philip was compelled to recall his son, the Duke of Normandy, with his army. No sooner did he retreat than the Earl of Lancaster, formerly Earl of Derby--who had been much pressed by the French, and enabled to hold his ground only by assistance which Sir Walter Manny brought up from Brittany--leaving Bordeaux, crossed the Garonne and the Dordogne, took Mirabel, Lusignan, Taillebourg, St. Jean d'Angély, and laid waste the country as far as Poitiers, which he also took by storm, and plundered. He thence extended his incursions to the Loire, and ranged through the southern provinces of the kingdom, carrying terror and devastation everywhere.

All this time the war was raging in Brittany, where the Countess de Montfort was creating a powerful diversion in favour of her ally, the King of England, and against her enemy, the King of France. Uniting her forces with those of the English under Sir Thomas Dagworth, they raised the siege of Roche Derrien, which her rival, Charles of Blois, was investing with 15,000 men, and took Charles of Blois prisoner. The countess sent him to London for safe keeping, where he was confined for nine years in the Tower, as her husband had been in the Louvre. On the captivity of Charles, his countess, Jane the Lame, took on herself the conduct of affairs, and for some time maintained valiantly the cause of her house; though neither she nor her husband, on his restoration to liberty, could ever overcome the brave-hearted Countess of Montfort, who transmitted her province to her descendants.

In this, truly called the age of great women, another of still higher rank, Queen Philippa of England, was at the same time showing herself equally courageous, and capable of transacting public affairs. Philip of France, alarmed at the vast success and the military genius of Edward III., exerted his influence with David II., King of the Scots, to make a diversion on his behalf by invading England during Edward's absence. David Bruce had passed many years with his young queen in France, and was, therefore, under many obligations to the king. He was recalled by the Scots to his throne in 1342, and had kept up a friendly correspondence with his old host. Though David was a brave young prince, he did not possess the sagacity, or his years did not give him the experience, of his father. He was equally impelled by resentment to his brother-in-law, the King of England, who had driven him from his throne, and by the instigations of the French king, to make occasional raids into England. In the four years since he had been reinstated he had made no less than three successful expeditions of this kind, and now that his old benefactor was so sorely worsted, he prepared for a still more decisive invasion. He placed himself at the head of 3,000 cavalry and 30,000 other troops, mounted on galloways. Marching from Perth, he reached the borders, his forces then numbering, it is said, 50,000 men. He took the castle of Liddel, burnt Lanercost, sacked the priory of Hexham, advanced into the diocese of Durham, and encamped at Beaurepaire, or Bearpark, near the city of Durham. David calculated on an easy triumph over the English, nearly the whole of the nobility being absent at the siege of Calais. But Philippa, Edward's queen, assembled a body of 12,000 men, and, advancing rapidly northward, came up with the Scots as they were laying waste the country round Durham, and pitched her camp in Auckland Park. She gave the command of her army to Lord Percy, but, according to Froissart, she herself mounted her horse, and rode through the ranks, exhorting the men to remember that their king was absent, that the honour and safety of England were in their hands, and appealing to them to defend the realm and punish the Scots for their barbarous ravages. She could not be persuaded to quit the field for a place of safety till the armies were on the point of engaging. It has been doubted how far this proceeding of the queen is strictly true, not being mentioned by the old English chroniclers; but, besides the testimony of Froissart, it is unquestionable that Philippa's bold and able management did much to ensure the victory which followed.

The Scots, who appear to have been thrown off their guard by over-confidence, and who were thinking more of plunder than of the enemy, were taken by surprise. Douglas, the famous knight of Liddesdale, was intercepted at Sunderland Bridge on his return from a raid as far as Ferry-on-the-Hill, and narrowly escaped being caught, 500 of his followers being cut to pieces. David, also, taken by surprise, still mustered his troops, and took his stand at Neville's Cross, near the city of Durham. The English archers, securing themselves under the hedges, shot down the horses of the Scots, threw them, crowded as they were together, into confusion, and laid their riders prostrate in the dust. David fought undauntedly; but Edward Balliol, who commanded the reserve, made a skilful attack of cavalry on his flank, and his troops giving way on all sides, he was forcibly taken prisoner by one John Copeland, a Northumberland squire--a man of huge stature and strength--but not before he had received two arrow wounds, and, refusing to listen to calls to surrender, had knocked out two of the front teeth of his captor by a blow of his gauntlet. Copeland conveyed his royal prize to his castle of Ogle, and was careful not to give him up except to properly authorised royal commissioners, when he received the title of banneret and an estate of £500 a year--equal to as many thousands now--and was made sheriff of Northumberland and governor of Berwick.

The joy of the people of Durham was unbounded, for their nobles and dignitaries of the Church fought in the foremost ranks, having the deepest hereditary hatred to the Scots, from their numerous spoilings by them. The Bishop of Durham led off the first division with Lord Percy; the Archbishop of York led the second with Lord Neville; and the Bishop of Lincoln the third with Lord Mowbray. The Prior of Durham, it was said, had been commanded the night before, in a dream by St. Cuthbert, "to raise the corporax cloth with which St. Cuthbert, during mass, did cover the chalice," as a banner on a spear point; and accordingly he and a body of monks, at a spot called the Red Hills, in sight of both armies, knelt round it in prayer, while another body of the brethren on the top of the great campanile, or bell-tower of the cathedral, sang hymns of praise, which, says Knighton, were distinctly heard by both armies. A third body of the clergy were engaged in the very hottest of the battle.

The third division of the Scots, under the Earl of Moray, was actually cut to pieces on the field, only eighty of them being left at the time of the king's surrender. With the king were taken the Earls of Sutherland, Monteith, Fife, Carrick, Moray, and Strathearn; Sir William Douglas, John, and Alan Stuart, and a long list of nobles and knights. Monteith was beheaded as a traitor, having accepted office under Edward.

Never did the Scots receive a more fatal overthrow; some historians say they had 15,000, others 20,000, slain, amongst whom were the Earl Marshal Keith and Sir Thomas Charteris. Of the English leaders, only Lord Hastings fell. King David was conveyed to London and lodged in the Tower. This memorable battle of Neville's Cross took place on the 17th of October, 1346.

Having secured her royal prisoner, Queen Philippa went over to Calais, where she was received with all the triumph and honour which her meritorious conduct deserved. She found Edward in the midst of the siege, which continued obstinate. John of Vienne, the governor, supported by a strong garrison, and well provisioned, maintained a spirited defence. The place, lying in a flat, swampy situation, was trying to the health of the English army, and was immensely strong, with its ditches, ramparts, and impassable morasses. The king, therefore, quite aware that it was not to be taken in a hurry, fixed his camp in the most eligible spot he could find, drew entrenchments round the city, built huts for his soldiers, which he thatched with straw or broom, and prepared by various means to render their winter campaign tolerable. His huts presented the appearance of a second town, called by the French chroniclers the Ville du Bois, or town of wood, and the harbour was blockaded to prevent the entrance of relief of any kind.

John of Vienne, perceiving the king's intention to starve them out, collected all the inhabitants of both sexes who were not necessary to the defence, and sent 1,700 of them out of the city. Edward not only allowed the poor creatures to pass, but gave them a good refreshment, and each a small piece of money. But as the siege continued, and John of Vienne again put out 500 more of what he considered useless mouths, Edward lost patience and is said to have refused them a passage; and the governor of Calais declining to allow them to re-enter the city, they are reported to have perished of starvation between the town walls and the English lines.

As the siege grew desperate, violent efforts were made to relieve the city. The King of France sent ships to force a passage, but in vain. The English fleet had gradually grown to upwards of 700 sail, carrying more than 14,000 men, and of these, eighty of the largest ships, under the Earl of Warwick, constantly swept the Channel. The King of France was meantime making the most strenuous exertions to raise a force sufficient to expel the invader. He succeeded in winning over the young Count of Flanders, as he had done his father. This young nobleman appears to have been capable of playing a very mean part. The Free Towns proposed to him to marry Isabella of England, a princess of great beauty, and the young man, pretending to fall in with their wishes, came to the English camp, and paid his addresses to the princess as if with the most serious intentions; but having carried on his dissimulation to a disgraceful length, he seized the opportunity afforded by a hawking excursion to slip away, and made off to the French camp.

Philip levied everywhere men and money, and compelled the clergy, as well as the laity, to yield their treasure, and even their church plate; a massive cross of gold belonging to the Abbey of St. Denis being carried off. He at length appeared before Calais with an army which the writers of the age assert to have amounted to 200,000 men. The governor of Calais had, indeed, sent letters to him, announcing that the inhabitants had eaten their horses, dogs, and rats, and, unless relieved, must soon eat each other. These letters were intercepted. The King of England, however, sent them on, tauntingly asking Philip why he did not come and relieve his people. But Philip found Edward so entrenched amongst marshes and fortifications that he could not force a passage anywhere. Two roads only were left to the town--one along the sea-shore, and the other by a causeway through the marshes; but the coastway was completely raked by the English ships and boats, crowded with archers, drawn up on the strand, and the causeway was defended by towers and drawbridges, occupied by a great force of the most daring men in the army, under the command of the Earl of Lancaster and Sir Walter Manny, who had come hither from their victorious demonstration in Gascony, Guienne, and Poitou.

The King of France looked on this densely armed position with despair, and after vainly challenging King Edward to come out and fight in the open field, he withdrew. The starving people of Calais, who, on seeing the approach of the vast royal host, had hung out their banners on the walls, lighted large bonfires, and sounded all their instruments of martial music, now changed their joyous acclamations into shrieks and groans of despair. They lowered all their banners but the great banner of France, which floated on the loftiest tower of the city, in their dejection, and the next day they pulled that down in desperation, and displayed the banner of England in its place, in token of surrender.

To Sir Walter Manny, who was sent to speak with John of Vienne over the wall, that brave commander declared that they were literally perishing with hunger, and asked the lives and liberties of the citizens as the sole condition of surrender. Sir Walter told the governor that he knew well his royal master's mind, and that he could not promise them the acceptance of that proposal, the king being incensed at their obstinate resistance, and determined to punish them for it. It was in vain that the governor represented that it was this very conduct that a gallant prince like Edward ought to honour--that it was what he would have expected from an English knight. Sir Walter Manny acknowledged the justice of the sentiment, and returned to soften the king's resolution; but he could obtain only this mitigation, that six of the principal citizens should be sacrificed instead of the whole people; and they were required to come to the camp in their shirts, bare-headed and bare-footed, carrying the keys of the city and castle in their hands, and with halters about their necks.

When this ultimatum was made known to the people of Calais, they were struck with horror. John of Vienne, despairing of fulfilling the demand of the stern English king, caused the church bells to be rung, and, collecting the people in the market-place, laid the matter before them. There was much weeping and lamenting, but all shrank from the dreadful sacrifice. At length, Eustace de St. Pierre, one of the most eminent men of the place, arose and said, "Gentlemen, great and small, he who shall save the people of this fair town at the price of his own blood shall doubtless deserve well of God and man. I will be one who will offer my head to the King of England as a ransom for the town of Calais." At this noble resolve the assembly was moved to tears, and very soon other great burgesses, Jehan d'Aire, Jacque Wisant, and Peter Wisant, his brother, and two others, offered themselves.

They presently took off their ordinary dress, reduced themselves to the condition dictated by the conqueror, and thus they were conducted by the brave John of Vienne, very sorrowfully, and mounted on a small palfrey, for he was too weak to walk from wounds and fasting. Thus they came, followed by the sad people, men, women, and children, to the gates. The six voluntary victims were admitted into the English camp, and thus conducted before Edward, when they knelt before him, and presenting him the keys, implored his mercy. But Edward, looking on them with much displeasure, ordered them to instant execution. Then the noble barons and knights entreated that he would not refuse to listen to their petitions for their pardon, in which the Prince of Wales joined. Nothing, however, seemed to move the grim monarch. The brave Sir Walter Manny ventured to remind him of the greatness of his name, and of the stain this action would be upon it. At this the king made a stern grimace, and ordered the headsman to be summoned. Then the queen, falling on her knees, said, "Ah, gentle sire! since I have crossed the seas in great danger I have asked you nothing; but now I implore you, for the sake of the son of the Holy Mary, and for your love of me, you will have mercy on these six men."

The queen had every right to ask such a boon. She had come to announce to the king that she had been able to defend his kingdom in his absence from the Scots, to win a great victory at Neville's Cross, and to take the King of Scots captive. She was, moreover, far advanced in pregnancy, and yet had run every hazard to bring him such tidings.

"Ah, dame," he said, "I could well wish that you had been elsewhere this day; but how can I deny you anything? Take these men, and dispose of them as you will."

The delighted queen thanked the king heartily, had befitting attire brought for these worthy citizens, gave them in her tent a good repast, and presenting them each with six nobles, sent them away, giving orders that they should be guarded safely through the host to the town gates.

This scene, which is related on the testimony of Froissart, who dedicated his history to the queen herself, has been questioned by some historians as doubtful, particularly as Avesbury, who is minute in his relation of the surrender of Calais, is silent about it; and as it seems too derogatory to the magnanimity of Edward III., after suffering so many of the inhabitants to pass out of the city, and even relieving their wants. But we must remember what was the king's conduct at Caen, and also what is asserted of his immovable disregard to the perishing cries of the second crowd sent out of the city; and that Froissart was a contemporary. Under all these circumstances, the transaction appears highly probable, and mankind will not readily give up a passage of human life, so full of noble sacrifice and sympathy, and which has held its place firmly in history and tradition for five hundred years.

The day following the surrender, August 4th, 1347, the king and queen rode into the town amid the sound of martial music, and followed by all their great lords and many men-at-arms. There they took up their quarters, and remained till the queen was delivered of a daughter, thence named Margaret of Calais. Immediately on taking possession, he ordered every inhabitant to quit the city, dispossessing them of their houses and property within the town, and substituting a thoroughly English population. The new inhabitants of the town were substantial citizens of London, and large numbers of agricultural people from the adjoining county of Kent, to whom he gave the surrounding lands. From that day to the reign of Queen Mary, Calais became altogether an English colony. He made it the mart of wool, leather, lead, and tin, the four principal articles which England furnished to the Continent, and where the foreign merchants could come to procure them. Having strengthened the defences of the town, Edward concluded a truce with Philip, which was by degrees extended to six years. Neither of these monarchs, however, would have listened to terms of peace but for the constant and meritorious entreaties of the Pope.

At this period originated the celebrated Order of the Garter, which still retains its value in the eyes of aspirants to royal rewards. This Order was instituted to excite emulation amongst the aristocratic warriors of the time, in imitation of orders of a similar nature, both religious and military, which had been created by different monarchs of Europe. The number was, and is still, confined to twenty-five persons, besides the sovereign, except princes of the blood and illustrious foreigners, who have been admitted since the reign of George III., and hence the high value attached to this badge of distinction. The traditionary story of its origin is, that at a State ball the king's mistress, a Countess of Salisbury, dropped her garter, which the king picked up, and, observing some of the courtiers smile at the action, as if they thought he had not obtained that favour merely by accident, he exclaimed, "Honi soit qui mal y pense!" ("Evil be to him who evil thinks"), which became the motto of the Order. Historians have chosen to doubt on this subject as on many others, and antiquarians have puzzled themselves to discover some other origin; but still the story is a very probable one, and the tradition retains its full hold on public belief. The Order was founded, according to the statutes, in 1350, and, even to the time of Edward IV., ladies were admitted, and wore the badge of the Order. The wives of the knights companions and other great ladies had robes, the gift of the sovereign, ornamented with small garters. Our queens generally wear the Garter, set with diamonds, on the left arm.

But in the midst of the gaieties, giving of honours, and festivities which succeeded the conquest of Calais and the glory of Creçy, there came one of those terrible visitations which from time to time have swept over Europe under the general name of plague or pestilence--awful messengers of Providence to men, warning them to observe cleanly and healthy habits of life. It was known as the "Black Death." These fatal epidemics have always appeared to originate in the same quarter--eastern Asia--and to sweep over the earth in every direction, as in radiation from that centre, carrying wholesale destruction into every place where the inhabitants were not careful to observe sanitary regulations. By medical men the disease has been regarded as a virulent species of typhus fever, which in modern times has assumed the character of cholera, which issues periodically from the same regions, and travels the earth, fixing on every spot where there is a crowded population living in dirty dwellings, ill-drained streets, swampy hollows, and amid any vapours of putridity. Like the cholera, the plague had its cold, succeeded by its hot, fits, attended by vomiting, diarrhoea, and great depression of the vital powers. The cholera now issues from India; the plague of the time of Edward III. was traced to China, and visited on its way India, Egypt, Greece, and most of the western nations of Europe. Stowe says that in one churchyard in London, purchased by Sir Walter Manny for the poor 50,000 bodies were buried. In fact, it fell, like the cholera, most severely on the poorer and worst lodged and fed people; it is said to have half depopulated England; and so many of the inferior clergy perished, that very many churches were left without any one to perform the service.

The mass of wealth brought from France by the victorious army did not prevent the finances of Edward from being in a very exhausted and unsatisfactory state. Those of the King of France were worse; and these causes tended to prolong the truce. Edward several times proposed to Philip to make a permanent peace, on condition that the sovereignty of Guienne, Calais, and other lands held in fief by the English in France should be acknowledged on Edward's renouncing all claim to the crown of that country. Philip steadfastly refused to listen to such terms. He died during this truce, and Edward renewed his offer to his successor, John, but with like effect.

About this time Edward and his son, the Black Prince, put to sea with a good fleet to chastise the Spaniards of the ports on the Bay of Biscay, who had repeatedly joined the French in intercepting and seizing his merchant vessels. The battle was fought within view of the English coast, and was watched by the queen's attendants from the hills behind Winchelsea. The engagement was contested with much valour on both sides; and in it both the king and prince had very nearly terminated their lives, for their ship was sinking, and they were only just saved by the Earl of Lancaster coming to their assistance. The result was a victory to the English, and the capture of fourteen of the Spanish vessels, though with great loss of life on our side.

But circumstances were ripening, destined to involve England and France again in war. John, the son of Philip, whom we have often met under the name of the Duke of Normandy, commanding the armies against the English and Bretons, succeeded his father in 1350. He was then about thirty-one years of age, courageous, of great integrity of mind, possessing much experience for his age, and altogether a far more honourable prince than his father, whom his subjects hated for his avarice and for his reckless invasion of their rights. Philip had, in his youth, been termed the Fortunate, but proved eventually more entitled to the name of the Unlucky. John was now, by contrast, styled the Good; but John, however well-meaning, was evidently destitute of real sagacity, and his very sense of honour hurried him into the commission of deeds which early shook his popularity. The Count de Brienne, Count of Eu and Guisnes, and Constable of France, was accused of an intention to betray his county of Guisnes, adjacent to the town of Calais, to the English monarch. John caused him to be seized at a festival at Paris immediately after his coronation, and threw him into a dungeon, whence, three days afterwards, he brought him out before the lords of his council, and, without any form of trial or permission of defence, had his head struck off. This arbitrary act excited great fears of the future proceedings of the king amongst his nobility.

But John's authority was very soon invaded and disturbed by his near kinsman, Charles, King of Navarre. This young prince was of the blood royal of France, his mother being daughter of Louis X. Charles of Navarre came to court, and sought to render himself highly popular with both king and people. He succeeded so well, that he obtained the king's daughter, Joan, who must have been a mere girl at that time. It was soon found, however, that he was a mixture of the most shining talents and the most diabolical qualities. He was handsome, bold, eloquent, affable in his manners, and most insinuating in his address, but, at the same time, intriguing, ambitious, unprincipled, and revengeful. He had always some daring scheme on foot, and, if he failed, abandoned it without care, and plunged into another. He demanded of the king the post of Constable of Normandy, vacated by the execution of De Brienne; and when the king, fearing his possession of that important command, bestowed it upon his favourite, Charles de la Cerda, the King of Navarre assassinated him in his castle of L'Aigle, in Normandy. He then boldly avowed the deed, put himself at the head of an armed force, called around him all the hot and disaffected young nobility of France, declared himself independent of the French crown, and made offers of alliance with the English. John called upon him to lay down his arms, and resume his place as a good subject; but he refused, except on condition of an absolute pardon for the murder of the Constable, large grants of money and lands, and, above all, the delivery of the second son of John as a hostage for the faithful maintenance of the contract.

The French king was weak enough to comply; and then Charles of Navarre, in March, 1355, went to court, where John sat imposingly on his throne, and Navarre went through a farce of submission. The King of England, believing that it would not be long before the intrigues of the King of Navarre would produce civil discord in France, and expose it to his own plans of invasion, sent the Prince of Wales, now universally called the Black Prince, from the colour of his armour, into Gascony and Aquitaine, as his lieutenant, with an army which soon grew there to 60,000 men. From thence he entered the country of Toulouse, and took Carcassonne, Narbonne, and several other towns, committing great ravages.

Edward, at the same time, attacked France on the side of Normandy. He advanced to St. Omer, where the King of France had posted himself in expectation of this attack, but John took care not to come to open battle. The state of the internal affairs of his kingdom probably inspired John with caution, for his treacherous cousin of Navarre had resumed his seditious courses. He had united himself with the factious Sir Godfrey de Harcourt, and had succeeded in even winning over for awhile Charles, the king's eldest son, only seventeen years of age, to his party. But the young prince--the first Prince Royal of France who ever bore the title of dauphin, from his father having purchased that duchy for 100,000 florins, and conferred its feudal title on him--was soon repentant of his unfilial conduct, and betrayed Charles of Navarre, and a number of his noble associates, into his father's hands. The most guilty of the nobles were at once executed, and the King of Navarre thrown into prison. But this did not mend matters. The brother of Charles, Philip of Navarre, assumed the management of affairs, put all his towns and castles into a state of defence, and renewed the alliance with the English. Thus situated, John avoided an engagement which might be followed by an overthrow, and leave France exposed to the united efforts of his internal and foreign enemies. He contented himself with sending a challenge to fight a battle with Edward, for which he made no disposition whatever, so that Edward treated the offer with contempt, and retired to Calais.

From Calais he was speedily recalled to England by an incursion of the Scots, the usual diversion now of the French kings. Edward appeared before Berwick in the middle of winter, January, 1356, and, as usual, at his appearance the Scots withdrew. Edward, determined this time, if possible, to finish the subjugation of Scotland, made a contract at Roxburgh, on the 20th of January, with Edward Balliol, by which he purchased all the rights of Balliol to the Scottish throne for 5,000 marks and an annuity of £2,000. These rights were about as real as the rights of Edward to the crown of France. The Scots had expelled Balliol in 1341, and renounced him and his claims for ever. But with this pretension Edward once more marched through the Lothians with fire and sword, burnt Edinburgh and Haddington, and then retreated for want of provisions, pursued by the Scots, who now advanced from their hiding-places, and dreadfully harassed the rear of his army. After this Edward Balliol, freed from any pretence on the crown of Scotland, lived in retirement, and died without heirs in 1367.

Affairs in France were now approaching a crisis which well nigh proved fatal to the independence of that country. Edward III., learning that the internal disorders of France increased in consequence of the imprisonment of Charles of Navarre, sent out a small army under the Earl of Lancaster, to co-operate with the party of that prince in Normandy. At the same time the Black Prince, who had returned from his Toulouse expedition to Bordeaux, set out once more with an army not exceeding 12,000 men, and few of them English except a body of archers. He now directed his marauding expedition northwards, and went on laying waste the country, and burning and plundering towns, in a style which this young prince, celebrated by the historians for every virtue, appeared especially to delight in. He ravaged the Agenois and Limousin, Auvergne, Marche, and Berri. He attacked Bourges, but without success; and it then appeared that his intention was to advance to Normandy, and join his forces to those under Lancaster. But he found all the bridges on the Loire broken down, and the news which reached him of the motions of the King of France inclined him to retreat. John, exasperated at the devastations of the prince, and thinking that he had every chance of defeating him in his rash advance into the heart of the kingdom with so small a force, set out to intercept his return with an army of upwards of 60,000 men.

John marched for Blois, and, crossing the Loire, advanced for Poitiers; and the country people, naturally enraged at the prince's wanton destruction of every place he approached, kept him in ignorance of the king's approach. Edward, therefore, unconsciously advanced on Poitiers, and on the 17th of September came, all unawares, on the rear of the French army at the village of Maupertuis, only two leagues from Poitiers. His scouts came galloping in, announcing that the whole country was filled by the great army. And, in fact, never did a King of France command a more promising force. Consisting of 60,000 men, there were in it 20,000 men-at-arms, including 2,000 men-at-arms, or cavalry, sent by the Scots. Most of the princes of the blood were with him and the greater part of the nobility. On the other hand, the Prince of Wales's troops had decreased to about 10,000, of whom the bulk were Gascons; but he had 4,000 archers, and on them was the grand dependence.

The circumstances were such as to confound the bravest and most experienced commander; but the prince, though sensible of the seriousness of his situation, did not for a moment lose heart. With consummate ability he took up his position on the summit of a gentle declivity, planted with vineyards, approachable only by one narrow road, flanked with hedges and thickets. This ground, so strong by nature, he employed the whole army to make stronger by trenches and embankments. Sir Eustace de Ribeaumont, a stalwart knight, who had fought with his father at Calais, went out with three other knights to reconnoitre the English army, and brought this word to the King of France:--"Sire, we have seen the enemy. By our guess they amount to 2,000 men-at-arms, 4,000 archers, and 1,500 or 2,000 other men; and appear to form one division. They are strongly posted, wisely ordered, and their position is well nigh inaccessible. In order to attack them, there is but one passage, where four horsemen may ride abreast, which leads to the centre of their line. The hedges that flank this passage are lined with archers, and the English main body itself consists of dismounted men-at-arms, arranged in the form of a herse or harrow. By this difficult passage alone can you approach the English position; consider, therefore, what is best to be done."

King John hearing this, determined to charge the English on foot, ordering all his men-at-arms to dismount, take off their spurs, and cut their spears to the length of five feet. Three hundred horsemen only were to remain mounted, in order to break the line of archers by a violent charge, and make way for the infantry.

Edward, on his part, drew up his forces, not in one division, as when seen by De Ribeaumont, but in three, with a detachment of cavalry apart, under the celebrated Captal de Buch, who was to take a compass round the hill during the fight, and fall on the rear of the French.

When about to engage, however, two legates from the Pope, Cardinals Talleyrand de Périgord and Capoccio, came into both the French and English camps, and used every endeavour to incline the two princes to peace. The Prince of Wales was so sensible of his critical situation that he made the most liberal offers. "Save my honour," he said, "and that of my army, and I will listen to anything." He proposed, indeed, to give up all the towns and castles which he had taken both in this and the former campaign, give up all his prisoners without ransom, and swear never again for seven years to bear arms against the King of France.

Never was a finer opportunity for securing a splendid triumph, in the surrender of so renowned an enemy; but John the Good again showed that he was not John the Wise. He was elated with the persuasion that he had the prince wholly in his power; and the very liberality of his offer only confirmed the fatal idea. He therefore insisted on the surrender of the prince and a hundred of his best knights, flattering himself that in holding them he held the restitution of Calais. The prince at once and indignantly rejected the proposal. The Christian efforts of the humane cardinals were abortive; the greater part of the day, which was Sunday, had been wasted in these negotiations. The prince's army was badly off for provisions for either man or horse; but they cheerfully spent the remainder of the day in strengthening their defences, and arranging their baggage behind them, as at Creçy.

The next morning, Monday, the 19th of September, the French army was again drawn out; and again Cardinal Talleyrand endeavoured to move the mind of the French king; but he repulsed him rudely. John had arranged his army in three divisions: the first commanded by his brother, the Duke of Orleans; the second by the dauphin, and two of his younger brothers; the third by the king himself, who had at his side his fourth and favourite son Philip, then about fourteen years of age. Edward, on the other hand, commanded the main body of his army, and placed the van under the Earl of Warwick. Just before the battle, Sir James Audley came before the prince and begged that he might begin the battle, in accordance with a vow he had made to do so in every battle of the prince's or of his father. The prince consented, and Sir James took his place with four stout esquires in the van; and thus the battle began.

The Marshals of France were ordered to advance and take possession of the lane leading to the English position, and scatter the archers who lined the hedges; but as fast as they entered the lane they were shot down. The horsemen, rapidly thinned, reached the end of the lane only to encounter the main body of the Black Prince's army. There Sir James Audley led on the charge, beating down all who approached. At the same instant the detachment of Captal de Buch, attended by 600 bowmen, made their attack on the flank of the dauphin's division. This movement threw the whole division into confusion. The archers shot so well and thickly that the dauphin's second division dispersed in haste. The knights, alarmed for their horses left in the rear, were the first to run from their banners, and all was instantly one scene of flight. The dauphin and his brother were escorted from the spot by 800 lances, and the army of the Black Prince seeing this, and that the Duke of Orleans was in full retreat with his vanguard, sprang to their saddles, shouting, "St. George for Guienne!" and Sir John Chandos exclaimed to the Prince, "Sire, ride forward; the day is won! Let us charge on the King of France, for well I know that he is too bold to flee, and there only will the battle be; and we shall take him, please God and St. George!" "Advance banners, in the name of God and St. George!" cried the prince, and they dashed down the lane, bearing all before them, riding over dead and wounded, till they came out on the plain where the king yet stood with his division, and they burst upon them with a fearful shock. But the king stood his ground, fighting manfully, leading up his division on foot, and hewing his way with his battle-axe; so that, says Froissart, had the knights of King John fought as well, the issue of the day might have been different. The Constable of France stood firmly by his sovereign with his squadron of horse, shouting "Mountjoy, St. Denis!" but before the impetuous onset of the English men-at-arms, his troops were cut down and himself was slain. Then the Prince of Wales attacked a body of German cavalry, and there was a desperate conflict; but the German generals were all killed, and then the cavalry gave way and left the king almost alone. Still the king fought on, and refused to surrender, though his few remaining followers were fast falling, and his nobles one after another sank around him. His son, the boy of fourteen, fighting bravely in defence of his father, was wounded, and the king might easily have been slain, but every one was anxious to take him alive. Several who attempted to seize him he felled to the ground. When called upon to yield, he still cried out, "Where is my cousin, the Prince of Wales?" unwilling to surrender to any one of less rank. A knight from St. Omer, who had been banished for homicide, said, "Sire, the prince is not here; but I will conduct you to him." "But who are you?" demanded the king; and the answer came, "I am Denis de Morbecque, a knight of Artois, but serving the King of England because I cannot belong to France, having been banished thence." "I surrender to you," said the king, giving his glove to Sir Denis. But there was violent struggling for possession of the king, every one saying, "I took him," and some of the rude soldiers declaring that they would kill him if not surrendered to them. At this moment arrived the Earl of Warwick, sent by the Black Prince to discover what was become of the king, and he conducted John and his son with great respect to the prince's tent.

Thus terminated the battle of Poitiers, one of the most wonderful victories ever achieved, being won by an army numerically only one-sixth of that which it defeated, and fighting under the disadvantage of being surrounded in the enemy's country, and against the King of France in person, with all his chivalry. Thus stood King John, a captive, at the end of the fight, where, without striking a single blow, he might have expelled the English army from his soil, and bound the Prince of Wales to a peace of seven years.

The true glory, therefore, of the Black Prince was that, so far from taunting John with this, he received him with the utmost courtesy. He advanced from his tent to meet the captive king with every mark of respect and regard. He bade him not think too much of the fortune of war, but to bear in mind that he had won the admiration of both armies, and the fame of the bravest man who had fought on that side. He caused a banquet to be spread in his tent for the king and his son. Edward refused to sit down at the table, as being only a vassal of the King of France. He said, "You shall find my father ready to show you all honour and friendship, and you shall, if you will, become such friends as you have never yet been." The king was so much touched by the respect and kindness of Edward, that he declared, though defeated, it was no loss of honour to yield to a prince of such consummate valour and generosity.

The attendants of the king are said to have been affected to tears by the noble conduct and consoling words of the prince to their royal master, and the spirit spread through the army towards all the prisoners. Edward also showed the same spirit of justice and liberality towards others. He presented to Sir James Audley 500 marks of yearly revenue for his services in the action; and when he found that he had transferred the whole of it to his four squires, he again settled £400 yearly upon him. He also heard all the eager and conflicting claims respecting the capture of the king, the distinction and the ransom being alluring objects; and finally adjudged it impartially, not to any of his own great barons, but to the poor French exile Sir Denis de Morbecque.

The prince conducted his royal prisoner to Bordeaux, whence, in the following April, he set sail with him and his son for London. They made their entrance into the English capital on the 24th of that month, 1357, landing at Southwark, whence they rode in procession through the city of Westminster, vast crowds attending them all the way to satiate their wonder at the novel spectacle of the monarch of France riding there as a captive. He was clad in his royal robes, and mounted on a white steed of remarkable size and beauty; while the Prince of Wales rode by his side, clad in a much plainer dress, and on a black palfrey. This might, to our present ideas, have appeared an aping of humility; but it was doubtless dictated to the prince by a chivalrous courtesy, and presented a fine contrast to the savage pomp of a Roman triumph, in which great kings and queens, amid all the spoils of their ravaged realms, were made to walk in chains, while the proud conqueror rode in his chariot blazing with gold.

It was, indeed, a time of singular triumph to the English people, for there were now two captive kings, those of France and Scotland, in their metropolis. Edward III. advanced to meet King John at the gates of his palace with the greatest courtesy, and received him, not as a prisoner, but as a neighbouring potentate arrived on a social visit.

The King of Scots had now been a captive in England eleven years. There had been no want of endeavours on the part of the Scots or of the King of England to effect his liberation. During the early portion of David's captivity this was not so much the case, because there was a strong leaning in him towards the French alliance--a natural result of his nine years' kind entertainment in that kingdom in his early youth. But his sojourn in England produced as decided an attachment to the English; and Edward, perceiving this, was willing to have on the throne of Scotland a friend who might counteract the hostile tendency of the nobles. During the last six years various negotiations had been entered into with the Scots for the release of David, but the ransom was considered by them too high. In 1351 this cause broke off the treaty: in 1354 the Scots agreed to give a ransom of 90,000 marks, payable in nine years. But their French allies, dreading an amicable state of things between Scotland and England, having lately lost Calais, and being then threatened with a fresh invasion by the English, induced the Scots to break the agreement. The effect of this measure was speedily seen in an invasion of England by the Scots, which compelled Edward to return from Normandy, and was followed by his celebrated raid, called the "Burnt Candlemas," into Scotland. Now, however, a treaty was concluded, in which the Scots consented to pay 100,000 marks in ten years, giving hostages for the due fulfilment of this compact. In November of this year, 1357, David was restored to liberty, and returned to his kingdom; and, before reverting to the prosecution of the war with France, we may briefly state what were the consequences of this transaction.

It soon became evident that the abode of David at the English court had produced the same effect as that formerly made upon him by his residence in the court of France. His facile and amiable but weak mind had been completely won over by Edward, who now saw, as he imagined, a quieter and more effectual mode of securing the crown of Scotland than by war. David had lost his wife, the sister of Edward, but had no children. He had grown fonder of the more polished and luxurious court of England than of his own ruder country and turbulent nobles. He did not, therefore, hesitate, after the death of his wife, to propose to the Scottish Parliament that, in case of his dying without issue, Edward's third son, the Duke of Clarence, should succeed him. The Scots, of course, rejected the proposal without ceremony. Still it was well known that a secret treaty existed between David and Edward III. for this object. In 1371 David died, and Robert Stewart, the grandson of Robert Bruce, by David's eldest sister, Marjory, succeeded to the throne, by the full consent of the Scottish Parliament, under the title of Robert II. Though Edward menaced, he never asserted his new claim to the crown, for his hands were full with the French war, and soon after, the death of his son, the Black Prince, put an end to all such ideas. From that time to the reign of James VI., a period of 232 years, the Stewarts continued to reign, when they also succeeded to the crown of England, and thus prepared the way for the ultimate and entire union of the kingdoms.

The battle of Poitiers filled up the measure of the calamities of France. Creçy was a decisive blow; the loss of Calais was another. But these were still only a minor portion of the losses and miseries which had been crowding upon her through ten years of invasion. Normandy, Artois, Picardy, and the southern provinces of France had been repeatedly traversed by hostile armies, their fields laid waste, their cattle driven off or destroyed, their crops trodden under foot, their cities, towns, and villages burnt or pillaged. By sea and by land France had suffered defeat and heavy loss of men, ships, and property. At Sluys, in mid-Channel, and on various parts of the coast, the English had destroyed her fleets. In defending her ally of Brittany, Charles of Blois, her treasures had been largely drawn upon; and now came this desolating overthrow, in which the flower of her nobility was crushed or made captive with their king.

That captivity let loose all the elements of disorder which had been accumulating through these terrible years. The people were impoverished, and numbers of them utterly ruined; all were wretched and discontented. The nobles were grown arrogant with the weakness of the state, and the country was overrun with bands of armed marauders, calling themselves "Free Companies," who preyed at will on the already sorely fleeced people, committing every species of outrage, and thus aggravating awfully the miseries of the nation.

The dauphin was only a youth of eighteen, and, though possessed of superior talents, and unusual prudence and spirit for his age, was necessarily destitute of that authority and that experience which such a crisis required, and his two younger brothers could afford him no assistance in so difficult a position. Besides the want of support from members of his own family, he had a most dangerous and indefatigable enemy in his relative, the King of Navarre, who possessed that determined disposition to mischief which most truly entitled him to the name given him by the people, Charles the Bad.

The latter was still in prison, but he found means through stone walls to exercise his talents for intrigue, treachery, and malicious machinations. Pretending even to the crown, he had all the seditious arts and fiery recklessness of the demagogue; and he stooped to ally himself with any malcontent class, or to work with any dirty tool. Accordingly, when the dauphin called together the States-General of the kingdom, to enable him to obtain supplies, and reasonably imagining that he should find all classes, under the calamitous condition of the country, ready to unite with him for the restoration of the king and the re-establishment of order, he was met by demands for the limitation of the royal prerogative, the punishment of past offenders, and, especially, for the release of the King of Navarre.

Undoubtedly there were many evils to redress, and abuses of the royal power to complain of; but this was not the time when honourable men would have sought to enforce these objects. It was taking a cowardly advantage of the unfortunate position of a mere youth, to wrest from him what he had no legal authority to yield. Brave and upright men would have brought back the monarch, and from him demanded those measures which justice and the circumstances of the kingdom required. But what should have been reform was dastardly and lawless faction, and the very naming of the King of Navarre, the evil genius of France, betrayed its real origin. Marcel, the provost of the merchants, was the determined tool of Charles of Navarre; he put himself at the head of the mob, and endeavoured to terrify the dauphin into submission to his demands. The States-General, influenced by the same spirit, demanded the entire change of the king's ministers, and the punishment of several of them; and, dividing itself into separate committees, attempted to usurp the different departments of the executive. The dauphin was only to act under the control of a council of thirty-six members of the States-General, in which were to reside the powers of the whole body, and the King of Navarre was at once to be liberated. The dauphin temporised with the art of a much older man, till he had obtained some supplies, with which he proposed to put down disorders in the provinces, and then he dissolved the States, in spite of the citizens of Paris, headed by Marcel.

Freed from this millstone about his neck, Charles despatched Robert de Clermont, a brave commander, into Normandy against Godfrey de Harcourt, who was again gone over to the English, in resentment for the execution of his brother, Count Harcourt, as one of the adherents of the factious King of Navarre.

Robert de Clermont came up with Godfrey near Coutances, in November, 1356, and not only routed his forces, but slew him. Soon after this a truce was made with the English in Normandy; but still the captains of Edward pursued their predatory career in Brittany and Gascony. To complete the mischief, the King of Navarre was released from his prison, and received with rapture by the disaffected people of Amiens and Paris. He harangued the people in those cities, and seemed, by the drift of his speeches, to aim at a republic. His brother, Philip of Navarre, remained in the English camp, and denounced the idea of a republic as pregnant with disorder, mutability, and bloodshed.

Charles, the dauphin, was compelled to call the States-General together again, to demand fresh taxes for the prosecution of the war; but Marcel, the democratic provost, uniting with the King of Navarre, opposed all his measures, and excited the people to violence. He caused them to assume red caps, as a badge of their adherence to his party, which, from its co-operation with Charles of Navarre, was also called the Navarrese party.

Matters now ripened apace from anarchy into civil war. In February, 1358, a man of the name of Macé, having murdered the treasurer of France, took refuge in a church. The dauphin ordered him to be fetched thence, and put to death. But when Robert de Clermont and John de Conflans, the marshals of Champagne and Normandy went to execute this command, the Bishop of Paris protested against it as a violation of the sanctuary of the church; and Marcel, seizing so admirable an opportunity for bearding the dauphin, marched with the whole mob of Paris to his palace, then called the Palais de Justice. Entering without any regard to the person of the dauphin, he seized the two marshals and put them to death so close to the prince that his dress was sprinkled with their blood. "How now," cried the dauphin; "will you shed the blood royal of France?" Marcel replied, "No;" and, to show his pacific intentions, he clapped his own red cap on the head of the dauphin. The bodies of the murdered marshals were dragged through the streets.

Thus the capital of France was reduced to the utmost anarchy. The dauphin returned into Picardy and Champagne, where he assembled the estates of those provinces, and was aided by them to the best of their ability. But all France was one scene of discord, insurrection, violence, and crime. The mercenary and predatory bands of the Companies, many of whom, or, at least, their leaders, were English, were engaged by the King of Navarre to carry out his projected revolution. The dauphin, on the other side, assembled forces to oppose him; and now broke out one of the most frightful calamities which can afflict a nation--that of a peasants' war. In the reign of Richard II. in England, some few years after this time, our own country was on the verge of such a horrible state of things, under Wat Tyler and Jack Straw. At the time of the Reformation, Germany experienced its unspeakable atrocities, under the name of the Bauern Krieg, or War of the Peasantry, and France now was doomed to drink deeply of its demon horrors, under the name of the Jacquerie, from the gentry being used to call the peasant Jacques Bonhomme, or Goodman James.

The country people, ground by a long course of exaction, oppression, and insult, treated more as beasts than men by their feudal lords, now seized the moment when the Government were beset with difficulties and enemies to take a blind, sweeping, and tremendous vengeance. The nobility and the petty gentry holding fiefs under them had all been accustomed to plunder, tread on, and abuse the peasantry as a race of inferior creatures. The feudal system had run to seed in unbridled licence, and in every species of infuriating wrong. Ignorant and outraged, the people, once broken loose, placed no limits to their cruelties and revenge. They despised the nobles who, while they had oppressed them, had, in base cowardice, deserted their sovereign at Poitiers. Formerly crushed down into slaves, they were now terrible masters. They burnt and laid waste the country everywhere, plundered the villages, and cut off the supplies of the terrified towns.

They attacked the castles of the nobles, burnt them to the ground, chased the once proud owners, like wild beasts, into the woods, committed horrors, which cannot be named, on the helpless women, murdered them and the children without mercy, and, as in Germany afterwards, actually roasted some of their former harsh lords before slow fires.

Of the frightful situation to which the highest ladies of the country were reduced, Froissart gives a striking example. The Duchess of Normandy, the Duchess of Orleans, and nearly 300 ladies, young girls, and children, had fled for refuge to the strong town of Meaux, and were besieged by 9,000 or 10,000 of the furious Jacquerie, when they were threatened with every horror that human nature could endure. Fortunately, two famous knights of the directly opposite parties, the Count of Foix and the brave Captal de Buch, who made the successful rear assault at the battle of Poitiers, hearing of the alarming situation of these high ladies, forgot their hostility, united their forces, and, falling on the Jacquerie, put them to the sword, killing 7,000 of them, and rescuing the terrified women.

The dauphin, on his part, did not spare the insurgents. He cut them down like sheep wherever he could meet with them. In one case he is said to have killed more than 20,000 of them. The nobles, in Picardy and Artois, mowed them down like grass, and soon cleared that part of the country of them. Everywhere the knights and gentry, roused by the ferocious deeds of the Jacquerie towards their families, collected and, easily overcoming the undisciplined mobs, slaughtered them in heaps, like beasts. At the same time, Marcel, endeavouring to complete his crime by betraying Paris to the King of Navarre and the English, was killed by the exasperated people, and thus the land was eventually reduced to quiet. But it was a quiet like that described by the Roman historian:--"Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant." ("They make a solitude, and call it peace.") No country was ever reduced to a more awful condition of ruin and wide-spread desolation; this frightful Jacquerie pest lasted nearly two years.

Meantime Edward had worked on his captive, King John of France, to make a peace, restoring to England all the provinces which had belonged to Henry II. and his two sons, for ever; but the dauphin and the States rejected the treaty, which would have totally ruined the kingdom. On this Edward once more invaded that devoted country, assembled an army of 100,000 men, with which he overran Picardy and Champagne, besieged Rheims, but without success, advanced into Burgundy, marched into Nivernais, and laid waste Brie and Gatinais, and sat down before Paris, where, not being able to draw the dauphin into a battle, he proceeded to devastate the province of Maine. It is said that his desolating career was at length closed by a terrible thunderstorm by which he was overtaken near Chartres, in which the terrors of heaven seemed to his awestruck imagination to be arrayed against him. "Looking towards the church of Notre Dame at Chartres," says Froissart, "he made a vow to grant peace, which he afterwards humbly repeated in confession in the cathedral of Chartres, and thus took up his lodging in the village of Bretigny, near that city."

Here the peace was concluded on these conditions: the King of France was to pay three millions of gold crowns for his ransom--about a million and a half of our money; he was also to yield up to Edward in full sovereignty the province of Gascony, Guienne, the whole of Poitou, and other dependencies in Aquitaine, and in the north of France, Calais, Guisnes, Montreuil, and the country of Ponthieu. Edward, on the other hand, was to renounce all other French territory, and all claim to the crown and kingdom of France. The King of Navarre was to be restored to all his honours and possessions, and the alliances of Edward with the Flemings and of John with the Scots were to close. In consequence of the peace of Bretigny, signed the 24th of October, 1360, John returned to France; but finding that his government was unwilling to keep faith with England, and that his son, the Duke of Anjou, had broken his parole as a hostage, John, with a noble sense of honour, refused to be a party to such dishonesty and, returning voluntarily to his captivity in London, died there on the 8th of April, 1364.

Charles V., the fifty-first monarch of France, succeeded his father John to a kingdom, desolate but not dismembered. John had, indeed, added to the realm the provinces of Dauphiné and Burgundy; but the latter he again dissevered from the crown and settled on his favourite son, Philip, his companion at the battle of Poitiers and in his captivity. This unwise act, the result, not of prudence--in which John was singularly deficient--but of affection, became the source of much contention and many miseries.

Charles had been early taught in the school of adversity, and he soon displayed proofs that he had profited by its lessons. He was cautious, thoughtful how to retrieve the condition of France, and eventually won the name of the Wise. Had his designation been the Worldly Wise it would have been still more correct, for he was not too strict in interpreting the code of honour where it interfered with his plans. He was the first of his race and his times who renounced the practice of leading his armies, deeming it more befitting a monarch to head his kingdom, and place over his armies the ablest commanders whom he could obtain, as he would place the ablest ministers over the different departments of his Government. This very circumstance marks Charles as a sagacious prince. The practice was a step onward in governmental science.

Charles deemed it necessary to reduce the disorders of his own kingdom before he commenced his intended operations against the English. It was necessary to put down Charles of Navarre, and to settle the affairs of Brittany. To do this, he first sent the young Breton knight, Bertrand du Guesclin, destined to acquire a great renown in this reign, into Normandy, where the brave Captal de Buch, the hero of Poitiers, commanded the King of Navarre's forces. These two commanders met near Cocherel, where Du Guesclin turned the tide of war in favour of France, gaining the first complete victory for it since the days of Creçy, and not only routed De Buch, but took him prisoner.

Du Guesclin then marched into Brittany, where Lord Chandos and Sir Hugh Calverley were in command of the English forces. Here Du Guesclin's good fortune deserted him; he was defeated and taken prisoner. Here, also, Charles of Blois was slain, and the young De Montfort secured in his possessions. The prudence of Charles V. was now seen conspicuously; instead of resuming the war, he acknowledged De Montfort as rightful lord of the duchy, though a strong partisan of England, admitted him to do homage for the fief, and thus bound him in a certain degree to him by kindness--a display of political philosophy too much neglected by Edward III. of England and his son, the Black Prince.

Finding the estates of the crown greatly reduced by weak grants made by his father and former monarchs to the princes and nobles about them, he set himself to reclaim them, and thus restore the national finances--an undertaking which would have ruined a weak or imprudent king. But he prosecuted this design with such consummate address and persuasive mildness--showing its absolute necessity if France were to enable herself to shake off the incubus of the English, and beginning with his own uncle, the Duke of Orleans--that he carried it through triumphantly. This done, he proceeded to rid the nation of the bands of Free Companies which preyed on the very vitals of the kingdom. At the peace of Bretigny the disbanded soldiery of Edward, men from almost every European country, being scattered over the land, and being in possession of many of the strongholds, refused to lay down their arms. They were accustomed to a life of the utmost licence under the English king and prince, and they determined to continue it. Both English and Gascon officers now took the command of these freebooters, who became the scourge of the provinces. Sir Hugh Calverley, Sir Matthew Gournay, and the Chevalier Verte, were their most distinguished leaders. These troops amounted to 40,000, and did not fear to encounter the armies of France. They fought with them and beat them, and killed Jacques de Bourbon, a prince of the blood. The more they spoiled and ravaged, the more their numbers grew, for they were increased by those who sought for booty, and by those who were left without any other resource. People flocked to them precisely as they did in ancient times to David, in the cave of Adullam: "Every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him." The Pope excommunicated them; but though that ban, so awful in that age, alarmed, it did not disperse them.

Charles at first complained to Edward warmly that his forces were not disbanded according to the treaty, and called upon him to see them dispersed; but when Edward, finding proclamations for the purpose unheeded, declared that he would himself march against them, Charles took alarm at the prospect of seeing an English army again on the soil of France, and hastened to request him to spare himself that trouble--he would deal with them in his own way. His mode of ridding himself of them was worthy of his enlightened mind. He used all his persuasion to engage them in foreign wars. He represented to them what a rich field the wars of Italy presented to them; and a large body, under one Hawkwood, an Englishman, proceeded thither, and won great wealth and distinction. Fortune favoured the plans of the king, and opened a still wider field of action to the troublesome Free Companies. Pedro, the king of Castile at that time, was one of the most bloody monsters who ever disgraced a throne. He indulged his savage disposition by the murder of his own near relations and the nobles about the court. He had put to death several of his natural brothers for fear of their conspiring against him. The murder of one noble led him to that of others, who he dreaded might attempt retaliation. His court was become a perfect hell of blood and terror, and that terror alone prevented his dethronement. But, instigated by Mary de Padilla, his mistress, he poisoned his wife, the sister of the queen of Charles of France.

At this Enrique, Count of Trastamare, and Tello, Count of Biscay, his natural brothers, who had taken arms against him in vain, fled to the court of France, and implored Charles to avenge the sister of his queen, and rid the country of this modern Nero.

Charles embraced the proposal as the evident beckoning hand of a good Providence. He procured the liberty of Du Guesclin, who was still a prisoner to Lord Chandos, and set him to bring over the chiefs of the Companies to take command under him for a feigned expedition against the Moors in Spain, which was regarded as a crusade against the infidels. The Pope, who had his cause of quarrel with the monster Pedro, gave his blessing to the scheme, and Du Guesclin speedily found himself at the head of 30,000 of these desperadoes. The King of France gave them 200,000 francs; and, assembling at Châlons, on the river Marne, they marched towards Avignon. The Pope, who then resided there, alarmed at the approach of such a force, sent a cardinal to learn their object in coming that way. Du Guesclin answered that as they were bound on a crusade against the enemies of the Church, they sought the Pope's blessing, and the small sum of 200,000 florins to help them on their way. His holiness readily promised the blessing and absolution of all their sins--an awful score! But Du Guesclin replied that his followers were of that description that they would, if necessary, dispense with the absolution, but not with the money. The Pope then proposed to levy the sum of 100,000 florins on the inhabitants, but Du Guesclin said they were not come to oppress the innocent people, but would expect the money out of the Pope's own coffers. His holiness thought it well to comply with a request backed by such arguments as 30,000 notorious banditti, and the bold beggars marched on. They very soon drove the tyrant from his throne and kingdom, who fled, with his two daughters, into Guienne, and put himself under the protection of the Black Prince.

In all the wars of Edward III. against Scotland and France he had shown an utter disregard of right; and in this respect he was fully seconded by the Black Prince; but of all their undertakings none so flagrantly outraged every principle of justice, humanity, and chivalry as their abetting this demon in human shape, Don Pedro of Castile. Here was a man steeped in the blood of his own family and of his own wife; a man who had oppressed and plundered his subjects till they hated him with a mortal hatred, and had joined in chasing him from the country; yet Edward--though a professed champion of chivalry, and as such bound to defend and redress the grievances of women--at once undertook to restore the murderer of his wife to his ensanguined throne, and to force him again on a people whom he had driven to desperation by his ferocious tyrannies. It has been attempted to vindicate this action by representing Don Pedro as the legitimate sovereign, whom, therefore, the prince, as an upholder of legitimate authority, was bound to support. But the fact is that Edward and his father had all their lives been engaged in endeavouring, by all the force of their talents and the resources of their kingdom, to destroy legitimacy in the person of the King of France. It has been again urged that the King of France sanctioning the expedition to dethrone Don Pedro naturally aroused the rivalry of the Black Prince, who would probably, say these authors, never have succoured the infamous Pedro had not the King of France taken the other side. But the worst of it is, that the King of France was on the right side, the just and honourable one--that of punishing a murderer of his own relative, and of assisting an oppressed people. The Prince of Wales was on the wrong side--the odious one of abetting as foul a monster as ever disgraced humanity; and his proceeding was as impolitic as it was unjust, for it raised a new enemy, the reigning King of Castile, Don Enrique, and threw him into the alliance of France. The conduct of the Black Prince in this affair proved that, with all his personal virtues, he was destitute of that high moral sense--that perception of what is intrinsically great and noble--which stamps the true hero; and the hand of Providence appears speedily and unequivocally to have displayed itself against him and his father, who sanctioned his fatal enterprise. All his wisest and most faithful counsellors urged him to reflect on the crimes and bloodstained character of Don Pedro; to remember that such men were as ungrateful as they were base; and also that the expedition must be attended by severe charges on the province of Gascony, already loudly complaining of its burthens.

These just admonitions were all lost on the prince. He assembled a force, recalling his officers from the bands of the Companies, 12,000 of whom, on learning that he was about to take the field, left Du Guesclin, headed by Sir Hugh Calverley, and Sir Robert Knowles, and followed his banners, believing in the ascendency of his fortune, and careless of every other motive. The Prince of Wales came into action with the troops of Don Enrique and Du Guesclin at Navarrete, routed them with a loss of 20,000 men, and easily reinstated the tyrant upon the throne. But there the success of the Black Prince ceased. He could not make the monster Pedro anything but a monster; and Pedro immediately displayed his diabolical disposition by proposing to the prince to murder all their prisoners in cold blood, which the prince indignantly refused.

And now the punishment of the Prince of Wales for this unhappy deed--a foul blot for ever on his brilliant escutcheon--came fast and heavily upon him; so fast, so heavily, so palpably, that the writers of the time plainly ascribed it to the displeasure of Providence. The tyrant, once restored, gave Prince Edward immediate proof of the miserable work he had done, by refusing to fulfil a single stipulation that he had made. He left the prince's army without the pay so liberally promised, and without provisions. The prince was exposed to the murmurs of his deluded soldiers. The heat of the climate and strange and unwholesome food began to sweep them off in great numbers, whilst his own health gave way, never to be restored. He made his way back to Bordeaux as well as he could, where he arrived in July, 1367, with a ruined constitution, and covered with debts, incurred on behalf of the ungrateful tyrant. To discharge the debt due to his troops, he laid a tax on hearths, not unknown in England, but new to the Gascons, which was calculated to produce 1,200,000 francs a year. But the inhabitants resented this tax on their chimneys, or feuage, as they called it, excessively. It was the climax to a host of grievances of which they began vehemently to clamour--as, for example, that all offices and honours were conferred on foreigners; and that their treatment was harsh, like that of a conquered people. As the Black Prince paid no attention to their complaints, the nobles of the district carried them to the King of France, as their ancient lord paramount.

While the Prince of Wales was thus about to be embroiled with France, on account of his ill-fated restoration of Don Pedro, he had the mortification to learn that that savage had only regained his throne to wreak the most diabolical cruelties on his subjects, whom he now regarded as rebels. Du Guesclin, having obtained his ransom, once more joined Enrique de Trastamare to expel the despot. He defended himself with desperate valour, but he was eventually defeated. As he had only about a dozen men with him, Don Pedro attempted to steal away at night, but he was seized by a French officer; and such was the implacable fury of the two brothers against each other, that, as soon as Don Enrique heard of his capture, he flew to the tent where he was in custody. There, after insulting and irritating each other, the two proceeded to a deadly struggle, in which Don Enrique stabbed Pedro to the heart with his dagger.

Such were the fruits for which the Prince of Wales had sacrificed his honour--his life, as it proved--and the peace of his provinces. The wary Charles V. had long been eagerly watching the proceedings of the English. He had on various pretences deferred the fulfilment of the conditions of the treaty of Bretigny, and now, on the plea that it was void, he summoned the Black Prince to Paris, as his vassal, to answer the complaints of his subjects. The treaty of Bretigny liberated the English provinces from all feudal subjection, and made them independent. When the heralds conveyed the summons to the Black Prince, his eyes flamed with indignation at this breach of faith; he looked furiously on the messengers, and exclaimed, "Is it even so? Does our fair cousin desire to see us at Paris? Gladly will we go thither; but I assure you, sirs, that it shall be with our basnets on our heads, and at the head of 60,000 men."

The messengers dropped on their knees in terror, begging him to remember that they only did the message of him who sent them. But the prince, deigning them no word, left them in wrath, and the courtiers ordered them to get away as fast as they could; but the prince, hearing of their departure, sent after them and brought them back, but did them no injury.

Thus were England and France once more plunged into war through the ill-timed restoration of a base tyrant; with general discontent in the English provinces in the south of France, and the health of the prince fast failing. The French king had carefully calculated the declining vigour of Edward III., as well as the health of his son; and now he advanced to regain the territories he had lost, and to avenge the mortal injuries which his country had suffered from the English. Circumstances were highly favourable to Charles. Discontent prevailed in the English provinces, and there was disunion amongst the commanders of the forces. On his own side he had with him the wishes of the whole country. Many of the great commanders who had assisted to win the proud laurels of Edward and the Black Prince were dead, or sunk into old age. The Free Companies who had served under the Black Prince were dismissed from the want of that very pay which the tyrant Pedro had refused, and were now eagerly engaged by the French king. The feudal troops and the archery of England, the very soul of the army, had returned home at the end of the war, and it would now require much time and expenditure of money to collect them again.

On the other hand, a new generation had sprung up in France, who had not known the terrors of Creçy or Poitiers, but only had heard of the defeat of France and the death of their fathers, and burned to avenge them. The terrible King of England was old; his lion-hearted son was known to be sinking into the grave. It seemed as if the doom of heaven was pronounced on the power of the English. They had overrun and destroyed, but taken no pains to conciliate, and the hatred which flamed in the hearts of the people was fanned and made holy by the universal voice of the clergy, producing everywhere revolt from the English, and adhesion to the French monarch. Charles had prepared for this crisis for years, husbanding his income till he was called not only the Wise, but the Wealthy; and the people, now kindled with the spirit of patriotism, submitted cheerfully to new taxes for reconquering the independence of their country, even to that same feuage which, imposed in Gascony, had cost the Prince of Wales his popularity; so much does the payment of a tax depend on the person who imposes it, and the purpose for which it is demanded.

Still the Black Prince, though ill, was not cast down. Some of the Free Companies, in spite of the defection of their fellows, joined him to the number of 6,000 lances, under the brave Sir Hugh Calverley; and Edward III. sent from England a considerable army, under the command of the Earl of Cambridge, the prince's fourth brother, and Sir John Hastings, the Earl of Pembroke, his brother-in-law.

The King of France fell on the province of Ponthieu, which gave the English admittance into the heart of France. The people everywhere received him with open arms, showing how completely all the efforts of England to conquer France had been thrown away. The citizens of Abbeville opened their gates to him. Those of the neighbouring towns followed their example, and in a very little time the whole country was regained by the French.

In Poitou the brothers of Charles, the Dukes of Berri and Anjou, assisted by the gallant Du Guesclin, were equally successful. Lord Audley, the son of that Sir James Audley who distinguished himself so greatly at the battle of Poitiers, who was seneschal of the province, fell sick and died in the very commencement of the war, to the extreme grief of the prince, who made the celebrated Sir John Chandos his successor. But jealousies amongst the commanders, now the Prince of Wales was unable to be at the head of his armies, produced disastrous consequences, and worse very soon followed in the death of the brave Chandos. That enterprising leader proposed to the Earl of Pembroke to join him in an expedition against Louis de Sancerre, the Marshal of France. But Pembroke, jealous of the fame of Sir John, and instigated by his flatterers, who insinuated that with such a renowned general the earl would come off with very little of the glory of the undertaking, declined the proposal. Sir John Chandos, disgusted by the refusal, retired into the city of Poitiers, and dismissed such troops as were not necessary for its defence.

No sooner had he done this, than the Earl of Pembroke issued forth with 200 spears to win distinction for himself, and waste the lands of the nobles who were opposed to the Black Prince's taxation. This was good news for the Marshal Sancerre, who had little fear when he learned that Chandos had retired in displeasure. He came suddenly with an overwhelming force on Pembroke, killed a considerable number of his knights, and compelled him to take refuge in an old church of the abolished Knights Templars. Pembroke, now awake to his folly, dispatched a messenger to Sir John Chandos for help. The messenger did not reach Poitiers till the next morning, when Sir John was at breakfast. On hearing Pembroke's appeal, he coolly went to mass, glad, no doubt, to let the envious nobleman feel the effects of his foolish conduct. Meantime the battle at the church was going on vigorously, the English stoutly defending their retreat, but feeling, from the thinness of the walls and want of provisions, that they could not hold out long. Another messenger was dispatched to Sir John, accompanied by a most earnest entreaty, and a valuable ring from the finger of the earl himself. Sir John was at dinner when the messenger arrived, describing in earnest words the imminent danger of the earl and his followers. Sir John had not yet forgiven the young nobleman. He went on with his dinner, saying, "If it be as you say, nothing can save him." But anon, lifting up his head, he said to his knights and esquires around him, "Hear me, sirs! the Earl of Pembroke is a noble person, and of high lineage, son-in-law to our natural lord, the King of England. Foul shame were it to see him lost, if we can save him. I will go, by the grace of God."

Two hundred men-at-arms mounted in haste, and, Sir John at their head, galloped off to surprise the Marshal of Sancerre while besieging Pembroke in the Temple-house. But the wary French, apprised of the approach of Sir John, speedily drew off and escaped.

In December of the same year, 1370, Sir John Chandos lost his life in a confused skirmish, owing to want of proper co-operation among the English commanders; and his loss was soon obvious in a greater lack of spirit and success in the English army in the south of France; the gallant Captal de Buch, who preceded Sir John as seneschal of Guienne, being taken prisoner, and lost to the English service.

Meantime Edward III. had sent fresh forces to Calais, under his son, the Duke of Lancaster, commonly called John of Ghent, or Gaunt, in alliance with the Count of Namur. The King of France sent a still larger army to oppose the inroads of these forces under his brother Philip, the Duke of Burgundy, but commanded him on no account to come to a general engagement with the English, lest the fate of Creçy and Poitiers should once more overtake him. The duke posted himself between St. Omer and Tournay, where the Duke of Lancaster came out against him, but could not induce the French to fight. The Duke of Burgundy, impatient of this inglorious position, desired to be recalled, and the king ordered him to fall back on Paris. Then John of Gaunt advanced, pillaging and laying waste the country in the old English manner from Calais to Bordeaux, while Sir Robert Knowles, the Free Companies' leader, with an army of 30,000 men, took his way by Terouenne and through Artois, burning and destroying all before him. He next advanced to the very gates of Paris, up to which one of his knights rode, and struck a blow with his spear, having made a vow that he would strike his lance on the gate of Paris. The daring warrior, however, lost his life returning through the suburbs, being cut down by a gigantic butcher with his cleaver. After that Knowles marched into Brittany for winter quarters. On their march that fatal disunion which now infected the English army, once more showed itself. Lord Grandison, Lord Fitzwalter, and other English nobles, refused to follow Knowles into Brittany. They declared that it did not become noblemen like themselves to serve under a man of mean birth, as Sir Robert Knowles was, and they drew off their forces to Anjou and Touraine.

Bertrand du Guesclin, now made Constable of France, hearing of this disunion from an English traitor, pursued Knowles to cut him off. Knowles sent information of this pursuit to Lord Grandison, and his disdainful aristocratic companions; but too late, for Du Guesclin overtook them at Pont Volant, defeated them, and slew the greater part of these proud exclusives. Knowles made good his retreat into Brittany.

About this time the Black Prince performed his last military exploit; and it was one calculated to become an additional brand on his name in France. Limoges, the capital of Limousin, had been betrayed to the Dukes of Anjou and Berri by the bishop and the chief inhabitants. The prince was greatly enraged, both because the bishop had been his personal friend, and because he had conferred many privileges on the citizens. He was now too weak to mount a horse, but he ordered out 1,200 lancers and 2,000 archers and, being borne in an open litter at the head of his troops, advanced to take vengeance on Limoges. The garrison treated with scorn his summons to surrender. But his sappers soon undermined the wall, though Du Guesclin did all he could by a flying force to draw off his attention. Some authors say that he there used gunpowder, lately introduced, to blow up the mine, as they contend that his father used cannon in the battle of Creçy. Others say that he threw down the wall by burning the props which supported the excavation while in progress. Whatever was now the mode, he made a breach, and his troops, rushing in, perpetrated the most ruthless and indiscriminate slaughter. The poor people, men, women, and children, knelt in the streets, and threw themselves down before the prince, crying, "Mercy! mercy, for God's sake!" But the inexorable prince turned a deaf ear to these moving prayers from the innocent people who had nothing whatever to do with the surrender of the city, and 4,000 were put to death. The only pity which he showed was to the bishop who gave up the place, and to a knot of brave knights whom he found standing with their backs to a wall, engaged in mortal combat with his brothers the Dukes of Lancaster and Cambridge, and Pembroke, his brother-in-law. After watching their gallant defence some time in high admiration, he consented to accept their submission, and dismissed them with praises. This extraordinary man could still feel delight in the spectacle of a brave feat of arms, though his soul was become utterly callous to every sentiment of pity for his fellow men in general. He gave up the city to be sacked, and it was burnt to the ground.

In the early part of the following year he lost his eldest son, and his own health being now completely broken, he returned to England, quitting for ever the country where he had gained so much glory, and on which he had inflicted such extensive calamities. He left the Duke of Lancaster, his lieutenant, who maintained a court at Bordeaux as brilliant as that of the prince himself. At this court were residing the two daughters of the late Don Pedro the Cruel; and John of Gaunt, now a widower, but in the prime of his life, married Donna Constance, the eldest, and in her right assumed the title of King of Castile and Leon; and his brother, the Earl of Cambridge, married, at the same time, the second sister. This, as we have said of the Black Prince's expedition into Castile to reinstate the tyrant Don Pedro, was a most false and calamitous policy, for it made a firm ally of Enrique, now reigning king of Castile, to Charles of France; and of this the effect was speedily felt.

John of Gaunt went over to England to introduce his royal bride at court there; and the Earl of Pembroke going out to supply his place in June, 1372, with a fleet of forty ships, was encountered off the port of La Rochelle by a powerful navy belonging to King Enrique. The battle was fiercely contested; but the Spanish ships were not only much larger than those of the English, but provided with cannon, now for the first time employed at sea. The English were completely defeated; the greater part of their ships were taken, burnt, or sunk, including one carrying the military chest, with £20,000. The Earl of Pembroke, with many other men of rank, remained prisoners.

Such was the immediate effect of the English alliance with the family of such a monster as Don Pedro; and nothing showed more completely the degree to which the English had made themselves detested in France than the eagerness with which the people of La Rochelle and its neighbourhood, though still English subjects, aided the Spaniards by every means in their power.

This defeat and loss laid open the country to the attacks of the King of France, through his valiant and wise constable, Du Guesclin, who took town after town. The Duke of Lancaster set sail from England with a fresh army, accompanied by the Earls of Suffolk, Warwick, Stafford, and Lord Edward Spencer, to repel the French forces. But these forces, divided into three hosts, under the Dukes of Burgundy and Bourbon, and Du Guesclin, still avoided any engagement, but watched the English army, harassed its rear, and cut off its foraging parties everywhere. In vain the Duke of Lancaster marched from Bordeaux to Calais and back; everywhere the enemy fled before him, and yet everywhere he suffered loss; so that the king, his father, declared, with irrepressible vexation "that there never was a monarch at once so little of a soldier and who contrived to give so much trouble." The last town possessed by the English in Gascony was Thouars, then a considerable place. The constable invested it, and the English lords shut up in it--the best of those whom the long series of skirmishes and sieges had left--agreed to surrender it at the next Michaelmas, if the King of England or one of his sons did not relieve them within that period. Edward, on hearing this, put to sea with a considerable army; but winds and waves were steadily opposed to him, and he was compelled to put back and leave Thouars to its fate. The last ally of Edward, the Count de Montfort, was driven from his duchy by Du Guesclin and Oliver de Clisson, and compelled to take refuge in England. The Duke of Lancaster marched to and fro, but gained no signal advantage; and Charles V., thinking that Edward's fortunes were too low again to reinstate the Count of Brittany, proposed to the estates of France to confiscate his territory, and annex it to the French crown; but this the nobles of Brittany opposed, and recalled John de Montfort from his exile in England.

In 1374, but two years previous to the death of the Black Prince, and three to the death of Edward himself, a truce was signed at Bruges between France and England for one year. The Pope, by his legates, who followed both armies, and attended both courts, had never remitted his Christian endeavours to put a stop to the barbarities of the war; but it was not till France had won almost all that it had lost that he could succeed. The truce was concluded, and was maintained till the death of the King of England; at which time all that was left of his French possessions were Bordeaux, Bayonne, a few towns on the Dordogne, and Calais in the north. Such were the miserable fruits of all the human blood and lives expended, and all the miseries inflicted in these unjust and impolitic wars of more than forty years' duration.

When the Black Prince returned to England, broken down in constitution, he found things far from agreeable. The king was become feeble, and ruled by favourites. Great abuses had sprung up and were carried on in the king's name. The Duke of Lancaster had created a strong party for himself, and exercised the principal power. The prince, still growing weaker, yet roused himself to restrain the domination of Lancaster, and remove his creatures from about the person of the king. The Commons, as is supposed, by direct encouragement of the prince, impeached nearly all the ministers. They removed the chamberlain, Lord Latimer, from the king's council, and put him in prison. They deprived Lord Neville of the offices which he held, and arrested several farmers of the customs. They even censured Alice Perrers, the King's mistress. The excellent Philippa had been dead several years, and this Alice Perrers, who had been a lady of the bedchamber to the queen, had acquired the most complete influence over the old king. She was now banished from court. This Parliament was known as "The Good Parliament," but its efforts were, for the most part, fruitless.

Such were the unhappy affairs which clouded the last days of the celebrated Black Prince, and even tended to sow dissension between him and his father. He died on Trinity Sunday, the 8th of June, 1376, in the forty-sixth year of his age, to the immense regret of the people, who regarded his military achievements, though of no solid advantage to the nation, with a deep national pride, and, from his opposition to corruptions at home, esteemed him as a most patriotic prince. It is clear that he must have been of a naturally noble nature, and possessed of personal qualities as engaging as his courage and military genius were unrivalled; but his warlike education had blunted many of the finest feelings of the heart, and led him to become the scourge of France, and in a great measure useless to his own country. His body was drawn by twelve horses from London to Canterbury, the whole court and Parliament following through the city; and he was buried in the cathedral, near the shrine of Thomas Becket.

After his death the Duke of Lancaster recovered his ascendency in the state and over the king, who, grown indolent, and devoted only to the society of his artful mistress, paid little attention to State affairs. John of Gaunt hastened to undo all that the Black Prince had effected. He caused his own Steward, Sir Thomas Hungerford, to be made Speaker of the House of Commons. He restored his faction there, and soon had Sir Peter de la Mare, the late Speaker, arrested, and the celebrated William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, deprived of his temporalities, on charges of embezzlement which could not be proved, and dismissed from court. The duke went so far as not only to implore that the Lord Latimer, but Alice Perrers, should be freed from the censures passed upon them by the late Parliament in the name of the king, and restored to their former condition and privileges. The present Parliament, however, was not so completely packed by John of Gaunt but that it possessed a spirit of opposition, which insisted that the accused should be put upon their trial; and the bishops demanded the same justice towards William of Wykeham, one of the greatest men of the age, the architect of Windsor Castle, the founder of St. Mary's College at Winchester and of New College at Oxford.

It is said that we owe it to the resentment of John of Gaunt against the bishops that he took up so earnestly the cause of Wycliffe, the great English reformer, and thus became a most effectual champion and guardian of the Reformation. Wycliffe, who was a parish priest at this time, living at Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, and the prebendary of Aust, in the collegiate church of Westbury, in the diocese of Worcester, had been a member of a commission sent by Edward to Pope Gregory XI., which met at Bruges; and it is remarkable that this glimpse of the papal court is said to have had the same effect on him as the visit of Luther afterwards to Rome. He became a decided Church reformer, and being a teacher at Oxford, had ample opportunity of making public his ideas. His denunciation of Church abuses, and opposition to many of its doctrines, had caused him to be cited by a convocation of the clergy to appear at St. Paul's on the 3rd of February, 1377, to answer to the charges against him. Here he was attended by John of Gaunt and the Earl Marshal, Lord Percy. These noblemen and the bishops became mutually very hot on the question, and the Duke of Lancaster is reported to have threatened to drag Courtenay, the Bishop of London, who presided, by the hair of the head out of the church. A riot was the consequence, the Duke of Lancaster protecting Wycliffe; and the people, who were very jealous of Lancaster's overgrown power, resenting his insult to the bishop, broke into his house and that of Lord Percy, killing Lord Percy's chaplain, and doing immense damage to the duke's palace. The two noblemen escaped across the water to Kennington, where the widow of the Black Prince, the "Fair maid of Kent," and her son Richard, the heir apparent, resided. The riot ran so high that the debates of Parliament were interrupted, and the mob reversed the duke's arms as a traitor.

The king, completing the fiftieth year of his reign and the sixty-fourth of his life, published a general amnesty for all minor offences; still however, through the influence of Lancaster, excluding Wykeham of Winchester. He was now fast failing, and passed his time between Eltham Palace and his manor of Shene (or Sheen), near Richmond. The last days of this great monarch were like those of many others who during their lives ruled men with a high hand. They were desolate and deserted. Nobles and courtiers were now looking out for the rising sun, and paying it their assiduous adoration. By some this was held to be the Duke of Lancaster, against whose designs on the throne the people had called on the king, before the death of the Black Prince, to guard; and he had named his grandson Richard, then not six years old, his successor. By others Richard was deemed the true fountain of future favour, and all deserted the dying king, except his deeply interested mistress, who, after securing everything else of value that she could, drew the diamond ring from the finger of the dying monarch, and departed. The servants had gone before to plunder the house, and only a solitary, faithful priest, preferring his duty to the things of this world, hastened to the bedside of the departing monarch, held aloft his crucifix, and remained in that position till the once mighty king had breathed his last.

Englishmen look with pride to the reign of Edward III., as one of those which stamped the martial ascendency of their race; and unquestionably it was an era of high military glory. But, beyond the glory, what was the genuine advantage won by Edward III. and his heroic son? Neither in France nor in Scotland, the scenes of his feats of arms, did he retain a foot of the land which he conquered, except Calais and its little circle of environs. In fact, in France, he lost much territory which he inherited. Of all the time--a great and invaluable lifetime--spent, of all the human lives destroyed, of all the taxes wrung from his people, there remained no fruits but the small district of Calais, destined to furnish fresh cause of feud, and a heritage of eternal hate on the part of France towards England. But, so far as Edward III.'s foreign expeditions led his great and factious nobles abroad, they ensured a long and settled quiet at home. That quiet, it is true, was not free from oppressions and from plunderings of the people by the practice of purveyance. Edward ruled with a high hand, and kept both his nobles and people in subjection; but the exactions of the Crown were, at their worst, far more tolerable than those of a crowd of barons and their vassals, and the horrors which civil dissensions inflicted on the people. With all the drain of men and barones minores, or lesser nobility, to the wars, there were constant complaints of robberies, murders, and other outrages committed under protection of the great; but in no degree so extensive as at the times when the restless and quarrelsome nobles were all at home. The king, too, driven to straits by the constant want of money for his wars, always made very free in levying taxes without consent of Parliament, and in procuring provisions by what was styled purveyance. When the king had no money his family must subsist, and therefore he was obliged to send out his servants as purveyors, who seized provisions wherever they could find them, and gave tallies, or wooden memoranda, of what they took, at what rate they pleased; the price to be obtained as best it might, or stopped out of the next taxes.

But for all these things the king was called to account on each fresh application to Parliament for supplies. By this means the Parliament during his reign acquired a great amount of influence, as it had done under Edward I. from the same cause, and began to feel its power; so that, as we have seen, the king was obliged to renew the Great Charter fifteen times during his reign. So also we see, in the last years of his reign, the Parliament impeached his ministers, and drove Lord Neville and Lord Latimer from his service. The power of the barons was thus considerably depressed; and, at the same time, that of the Crown was restrained, and by nothing more than by a statute passed in the twenty-fifth year of Edward's reign, limiting the charge of high treason--before very loose and expandable, at the royal pleasure--to four principal heads: namely, conspiring the death of the king, queen, or his eldest son; levying war against him in his kingdom, or adhering to his enemies; counterfeiting the Great Seal, or bringing false money into the land; slaying the royal officers while in discharge of their duty; and even on these grounds no penalty was to be inflicted without the sanction of Parliament.

Trade in this reign was at a low ebb, the natural result of war: yet Edward made efforts to introduce woollen manufactures, having observed their value amongst the Flemings, at the same time that he injured commerce by seizing so many of its ships to convey his troops and stores. Altogether, it was a reign, during which, owing to the necessities of the king and the nobles, the people were slowly advancing, and in which they were considerably relieved from the encroachments and exactions of the Church by the firm conduct of the king. He passed a statute of provisors, making it penal for bishops or clergy to receive bulls from Rome, and menacing with outlawry any who appealed to Rome against judgments passed in England. Parliament, encouraged by this, went further, declaring that the Pope levied five times more taxes in England than the king; adding that they would no longer endure it, and even plainly talking of throwing off all papal authority. In fact, in this reign really began the Reformation. Altogether, therefore, the reign of Edward III. is as remarkable for the growth of popular power as for that of military fame.

Edward had a large family by his queen Philippa--namely, five sons and four daughters, who grew up. Besides the Black Prince and John of Gaunt, so well known to history, there was Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third son, who left one daughter, married to Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, the son of the notorious Mortimer of the last reign. He married, as second wife, a daughter of the Duke of Milan, and died in Italy. He is said to have greatly resembled his father and the Black Prince in his character. The fifth son was Edmund, Earl of Cambridge, afterwards created Duke of York by Richard II.; and the sixth was Thomas, Earl of Buckingham, also created by Richard II. Duke of Gloucester. In this reign the title of Duke was first adopted from France, and that of Marquis was introduced into England about the same time.

The daughters of Edward were Isabella, Joan, Mary, and Margaret; of whom Joan died unmarried, though affianced to Pedro the Cruel; Mary was married to John de Montfort, Duke of Brittany; and Margaret to John Hastings, Earl of Pembroke, so conspicuous in the wars of France.

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