Chapter XVI: Edward III (1)

{1349.} THE prudent conduct and great success of Edward in his foreign wars had excited a strong emulation and a military genius among the English nobility; and these turbulent barons, overawed by the crown, gave now a more useful direction to their ambition, and attached themselves to a prince who led them to the acquisition of riches and of glory. That he might further promote the spirit of emulation and obedience, the king instituted the order of the garter, in imitation of some orders of a like nature, religious as well as military, which had been established in different parts of Europe. The number received into this order consisted of twenty-five persons, besides the sovereign; and as it has never been enlarged, this badge of distinction continues as honorable as at its first institution, and is still a valuable though a cheap present, which the prince can confer on his greatest subjects. A vulgar story prevails, but is not supported by any ancient authority, that at a court ball, Edward’s mistress, commonly supposed to be the countess of Salisbury, dropped her garter; and the king, taking it up, observed some of the courtiers to smile, as if they thought that he had not obtained this favor merely by accident: upon which he called out, “Honi soit qui mal y pense,”--Evil to him that evil thinks; and as every incident of gallantry among those ancient warriors was magnified into a matter of great importance,[*] he instituted the order of the garter in memorial of this event, and gave these words as the motto of the order. [8] This origin, though frivolous, is not unsuitable to the manners of the times; and it is indeed difficult by any other means to account either for the seemingly unmeaning terms of the motto, or for the peculiar badge of the garter, which seems to have no reference to any purpose either of military use or ornament.

* See note H, at the end of the volume.

But a sudden damp was thrown over this festivity and triumph of the court of England, by a destructive pestilence, which invaded that kingdom as well as the rest of Europe; and is computed to have swept away near a third of the inhabitants in every country which it attacked. It was probably more fatal in great cities than in the country; and above fifty thousand souls are said to have perished by it in London alone.[*] This malady first discovered itself in the north of Asia, was spread over all that country, made its progress from one end of Europe to the other, and sensibly depopulated every state through which it passed. So grievous a calamity, more than the pacific disposition of the princes, served to maintain and prolong the truce between France and England.

* Stowe’s Survey, p. 478. There were buried fifty thousand
bodied in one churchyard, which Sir Walter Manny had bought
for the use of the poor. The same author says, that there
died above fifty thousand persons of the plague in Norwich,
which is quite incredible.

{1350.} During this truce, Philip de Valois died, without being able to reestablish the affairs of France, which his bad success against England had thrown into extreme disorder. This monarch, during the first years of his reign, had obtained the appellation of Fortunate, and acquired the character of prudent; but he ill maintained either the one or the other; less from his own fault, than because he was overmatched by the superior fortune and superior genius of Edward. But the incidents in the reign of his son John gave the French nation cause to regret even the calamitous times of his predecessor. John was distinguished by many virtues, particularly a scrupulous honor and fidelity: he was not deficient in personal courage: but as he wanted that masterly prudence and foresight, which his difficult situation required his kingdom was at the same time disturbed by intestine commotions, and oppressed with foreign wars.

{1354.} The chief source of its calamities, was Charles, king of Navarre who received the epithet of the Bad, or Wicked, and whose conduct fully entitled him to that appellation. This prince was descended from males of the blood royal of France; his mother was daughter of Lewis Hutin; he had himself espoused a daughter of King John: but all these ties, which ought to have connected him with the throne, gave him only greater power to shake and overthrow it. With regard to his personal qualities, he was courteous, affable, engaging eloquent; full of insinuation and address; inexhaustible in his resources; active and enterprising. But these splendid accomplishments were attended with such defects as rendered them pernicious to his country, and even ruinous to himself: he was volatile, inconstant, faithless, revengeful, malicious; restrained by no principle or duty; insatiable in his pretensions: and whether successful or unfortunate in one enterprise he immediately undertook another, in which he was never deterred from employing the most criminal and most dishonorable expedients.

The constable of Eu, who had been taken prisoner by Edward at Caen, recovered his liberty, on the promise of delivering, as his ransom, the town of Guisnes, near Calais of which he was superior lord: but as John was offended at this stipulation, which, if fulfilled, opened still farther that frontier to the enemy, and as he suspected the constable of more dangerous connections with the king of England, he ordered him to be seized, and without any legal or formal trial, put him to death, in prison. Charles de la Cerda was appointed constable in his place; and had a like fatal end: the king of Navarre ordered him to be assassinated; and such was the weakness of the crown, that this prince, instead of dreading punishment, would not even agree to ask pardon for his offence, but on condition that he should receive an accession of territory: and he had also John’s second son put into his hands, as a security for his person, when he came to court, and performed this act of mock penitence and humiliation before his sovereign.[*]

* Froissard, liv. i. chap. 144.

{1355.} The two French princes seemed entirely reconciled; but this dissimulation, to which John submitted from necessity, and Charles from habit, did not long continue; and the king of Navarre knew that he had reason to apprehend the most severe vengeance for the many crimes and treasons which he had already committed, and the still greater, which he was meditating. To insure himself of protection, he entered into a secret correspondence with England, by means of Henry, earl of Derby, now earl of Lancaster, who at that time was employed in fruitless negotiations for peace at Avignon, under the mediation of the pope. John detected this correspondence; and to prevent the dangerous effects of it, he sent forces into Normandy, the chief seat of the king of Navarre’s power, and attacked his castles and fortresses. But hearing that Edward had prepared an army to support his ally, he had the weakness to propose an accommodation with Charles, and even to give this traitorous subject the sum of a hundred thousand crowns, as the purchase of a feigned reconcilement, which rendered him still more dangerous. The king of Navarre, insolent from past impunity, and desperate from the dangers which he apprehended, continued his intrigues; and associating himself with Geoffrey d’Harcourt, who had received his pardon from Philip de Valois, but persevered still in his factious disposition, he increased the number of his partisans in every part of the kingdom. He even seduced, by his address, Charles, the king of France’s eldest son, a youth of seventeen years of age, who was the first that bore the appellation of “dauphin,” by the reunion of the province of Dauphiny to the crown. But this prince, being made sensible of the danger and folly of these connections, promised to make atonement for the offence by the sacrifice of his associates; and in concert with his father, he invited the king of Navarre, and other noblemen of the party, to a feast at Rouen, where they were betrayed into the hands of John. Some of the most obnoxious were immediately led to execution: the king of Navarre was thrown into prison;[*] but this stroke of severity in the king, and of treachery in the dauphin, was far from proving decisive in maintaining the royal authority. Philip of Navarre, brother to Charles, and Geoffrey d’Harcourt, put all the towns and castles belonging to that prince in a posture of defence; and had immediate recourse to the protection of England in this desperate extremity.

* Froissard. liv. i. chap. 146.

The truce between the two kingdoms, which had always been ill observed on both sides, was now expired; and Edward was entirely free to support the French malecontents. Well pleased that the factions in France had at length gained him some partisans in that kingdom, which his pretensions to the crown had never been able to accomplish, he purposed to attack his enemy both on the side of Guienne, under the command of the prince of Wales, and on that of Calais, in his own person.

Young Edward arrived in the Garronne with his army, on board a fleet of three hundred sail, attended by the earls of Avesbury, p. 243. Warwick, Salisbury, Oxford, Suffolk, and other English noblemen. Being joined by the vassals of Gascony, he took the field; and as the present disorders in France prevented every proper plan of defence, he carried on with impunity his ravages and devastations, according to the mode of war in that age. He reduced all the villages and several towns in Languedoc to ashes: he presented himself before Toulouse; passed the Garronne, and burned the suburbs of Carcassonne; advanced even to Narbonne, laying every place waste around him; and after an incursion of six weeks, returned with a vast booty and many prisoners to the Guienne, where he took up his winter quarters.[*] The constable of Bourbon, who commanded in those provinces, received orders, though at the head of a superior army, on no account to run the hazard of a battle.

The king of England’s incursion from Calais was of the samme nature, and attended with the same issue. He broke into France at the head of a numerous army; to which he gave a full license of plundering and ravaging the open country. He advanced to St. Omer, where the king of France was posted; and on the retreat of that prince, followed him to Hesdin.[**] John still kept at a distance, and declined an engagement: but in order to save his reputation, he sent Edward a challenge to fight a pitched battle with him; a usual bravado in that age, derived from the practice of single combat, and ridiculous in the art of war. The king, finding no sincerity in this defiance, retired to Calais, and thence went over to England, in order to defend that kingdom against a threatened invasion of the Scots.

The Scots, taking advantage of the king’s absence, and that of the military power of England, had surprised Berwick; and had collected an army with a view of committing ravages upon the northern provinces: but on the approach of Edward, they abandoned that place, which was not tenable, while the castle was in the hands of the English; and retiring to their mountains, gave the enemy full liberty of burning and destroying the whole country from Berwick to Edinburgh.[***]

* Froissard, liv. i. chap. 144, 146.

** Froissard, liv. i. chap. 144. Avesbury, p. 206. Walsing.
p. 171.

*** Walsing. p. 171.

Baliol attended Edward on this expedition; but finding that his constant adherence to the English had given his countrymen an unconquerable aversion to his title, and that he himself was declining through age and infirmities, he finally resigned into the king’s hands his pretensions to the crown of Scotland,[*] and received in lieu of them an annual pension of two thousand pounds, with which he passed the remainder of his life in privacy and retirement.

During these military operations, Edward received information of the increasing disorders in France, arising from the imprisonment of the king of Navarre; and he sent Lancaster at the head of a small army, to support the partisans of that prince in Normandy. The war was conducted with various success, but chiefly to the disadvantage of the French malecontents; till an important event happened in the other quarter of the kingdom, which had well nigh proved fatal to the monarchy of France, and threw every thing into the utmost confusion.

{1356.} The prince of Wales, encouraged by the success of the preceding campaign, took the field with an army, which no historian makes amount to above twelve thousand men, and of which not a third were English; and with this small body, he ventured to penetrate into the heart of France. After ravaging the Agenois, Quercy, and the Limousin, he entered the province of Berry; and made some attacks, though without success, on the towns of Bourges and Issoudun. It appeared that his intentions were to march into Normandy, and to join his forces with those of the earl of Lancaster, and the partisans of the king of Navarre; but finding all the bridges on the Loire broken down, and every pass carefully guarded, he was obliged to think of making his retreat into Guienne.[**] He found this resolution the more necessary, from the intelligence which he received of the king of France’s motions. That monarch, provoked at the insult offered him by this incursion, and entertaining hopes of success from the young prince’s temerity, collected a great army of above sixty thousand men, and advanced by hasty marches to intercept his enemy. The prince, not aware of John’s near approach, lost some days, on his retreat, before the castle of Remorantin;[***] and thereby gave the French an opportunity of overtaking him. They came within sight at Maupertuis, near Poiotiers; and Edward, sensible that his retreat was now become impracticable, prepared for battle with all the courage of a young hero, and with all the prudence of the oldest and most experienced commander.

* Rymer, vol. v. p. 863. [** My copy has 823] Ypod. Neust.
p. 521.

** Walsing. p. 171.

*** Froissard, liv. i. chap. 158. Walsing. p. 171

But the utmost prudence and courage would have proved insufficient to save him in this extremity, had the king of France known how to make use of his present advantages. His great superiority in numbers enabled him to surround the enemy; and by intercepting all provisions, which were already become scarce in the English camp, to reduce this small army, without a blow, to the necessity of surrendering at discretion. But such was the impatient ardor of the French nobility, and so much had their thoughts been bent on overtaking the English as their sole object, that this idea never struck any of the commanders; and they immediately took measures for the assault, as for a certain victory. While the French army was drawn up in order of battle, they were stopped by the appearance of the cardinal of Perigord; who, having learned the approach of the two armies to each other, had hastened, by interposing his good offices, to prevent any further effusion of Christian blood. By John’s permission, he carried proposals to the prince of Wales; and found him so sensible of the bad posture of his affairs, that an accommodation seemed not impracticable. Edward told him, that he would agree to any terms consistent with his own honor and that of England; and he offered to purchase a retreat, by ceding all the conquests which he had made during this and the former campaign, and by stipulating not to serve against France during the course of seven years. But John, imagining that he had now got into his hands a sufficient pledge for the restitution of Calais, required that Edward should surrender himself prisoner with a hundred of his attendants; and offered, on these terms, a safe retreat to the English army. The prince rejected the proposal with disdain; and declared that, whatever fortune might attend him, England should never be obliged to pay the price of his ransom. This resolute answer cut off all hopes of accommodation; but as the day was already spent in negotiating, the battle was delayed till the next morning.[*]

* Froissard, liv. i. chap. 161.

The cardinal of Perigord, as did all the prelates of the court of Rome, bore a great attachment to the French interest; but the most determined enemy could not, by any expedient, have done a greater prejudice to John’s affairs, than he did them by this delay. The prince of Wales had leisure, daring the night, to strengthen, by new intrenchments, the post which he had before so judiciously chosen; and he contrived an ambush of three hundred men at arms, and as many archers, whom he put under the command of the Captal de Buche, and ordered to make a circuit, that they might fall on the flank or rear of the French army during the engagement. The van of his army was commanded by the earl of Warwick, the rear by the earls of Salisbury and Suffolk, the main body by the prince himself. The Lords Chandos, Audeley, and many other brave and experienced commanders, were at the head of different corps of his army.

John also arranged his forces in three divisions, nearly equal: the first was commanded by the duke of Orleans, the king’s brother; the second by the dauphin, attended by his two younger brothers; the third by the king himself, who had by his side Philip, his fourth son and favorite, then about fourteen years of age. There was no reaching the English army but through a narrow lane, covered on each side by hedges and in order to open this passage, the mareschals, Andrehen and Clermont, were ordered to advance with a separate detachment of men at arms. While they marched along the lane, a body of English archers, who lined the hedges, plied them on each side with their arrows; and being very near them, yet placed in perfect safety, they coolly took their aim against the enemy, and slaughtered them with impunity. The French detachment, much discouraged by the unequal combat, and diminished in their number, arrived at the end of the lane, where they met on the open ground the prince of Wales himself, at the head of a chosen body, ready for their reception. They were discomfited and overthrown: one of the mareschals was slain; the other taken prisoner: and the remainder of the detachment, who were still in the lane, and exposed to the shot of the enemy, without being able to make resistance, recoiled upon their own army, and put every thing into disorder.[*]

* Froissard, liv. i. chap. 162.

In that critical moment the Captal de Buche unexpectedly appeared, and attacked in flank the dauphin’s line, which fell into some confusion. Landas, Bodenai, and St. Venant, to whom the care of that young prince and his brothers had been committed, too anxious for their charge, or for their own safety, carried them off the field, and set the example of flight, which was followed by that whole division. The duke of Orleans, seized with alike panic, and imagining all was lost, thought no longer of fighting, but carried off his division by a retreat, which soon turned into a flight. Lord Chandos called out to the prince, that the day was won; and encouraged him to attack the division under King John, which, though more numerous than the whole English army, were somewhat dismayed with the precipitate flight of their companions. John here made the utmost efforts to retrieve by his valor what his imprudence had betrayed; and the only resistance made that day was by his line of battle. The prince of Wales fell with impetuosity on some German cavalry placed in the front, and commanded by the counts of Sallebruche, Nydo, and Nosto; a fierce battle ensued: one side were encouraged by the near prospect of so great a victory; the other were stimulated by the shame of quitting the field to an enemy so much inferior: but the three German generals, together with the duke of Athens, constable of France, falling in battle, that body of cavalry gave way, and left the king himself exposed to the whole fury of the enemy. The ranks were every moment thinned around him: the nobles fell by his side one after another: his son, scarce fourteen years of age, received a wound, while he was fighting valiantly in defence of his father: the king himself, spent with fatigue and overwhelmed by numbers, might easily have been slain; but every English gentleman, ambitious of taking alive the royal prisoner, spared him in the action, exhorted him to surrender, and offered him quarter: several, who attempted to seize him, suffered for their temerity. He still cried out, “Where is my cousin, the prince of Wales?” and seemed unwilling to become prisoner to any person of inferior rank. But being told that the prince was at a distance on the field, he threw down his gauntlet, and yielded himself to Dennis de Morbec, a knight of Arras, who had been obliged to fly his country for murder. His son was taken with him.[*]

* Rymer, vol vi. p. 72, 154. Froissard, liv. i. chap. 164.

The prince of Wales, who had been carried away in pursuit of the flying enemy, finding the field entirely clear, had ordered a tent to be pitched, and was reposing himself after the toils of battle; inquiring still with great anxiety concerning the fate of the French monarch. He despatched the earl of Warwick to bring him intelligence; and that nobleman came happily in time to save the life of the captive prince which was exposed to greater danger than it had been during the heat of the action. The English had taken him by violence from Morbec: the Gascons claimed the honor of detaining the royal prisoner; and some brutal soldiers, rather than yield the prize to their rivals, had threatened to put him to death.[*] Warwick overawed both parties, and approaching the king with great demonstrations of respect, offered to conduct him to the prince’s tent.

Here commences the real and truly admirable heroism of Edward; for victories are vulgar things in comparison of that moderation and humanity displayed by a young prince of twenty-seven years of age, not yet cooled from the fury of battle, and elated by as extraordinary and as unexpected success as had ever crowned the arms of any commander. He came forth to meet the captive king with all the marks of regard and sympathy; administered comfort to him amidst his misfortunes; paid him the tribute of praise due to his valor; and ascribed his own victory merely to the blind chance of war, or to a superior providence, which controls all the efforts of human force and prudence.[**] The behavior of John showed him not unworthy of this courteous treatment; his present abject fortune never made him forget a moment that he was a king: more touched by Edward’s generosity than by his own calamities, he confessed that, notwithstanding his defeat and captivity, his honor was still unimpaired; and that if he yielded the victory, it was at least gained by a prince of such consummate valor and humanity.

* Froissard, liv. i. chap. 164.

** Poul. Cemil, p. 197.

Edward ordered a repast to be prepared in his tent for the prisoner; and he himself served at the royal captive’s table, as if he had been one of his retinue: he stood at the king’s back during the meal; constantly refused to take a place at table; and declared that, being a subject, he was too well acquainted with the distance between his own rank and that of royal majesty, to assume such freedom. All his father’s pretensions to the crown of France were now buried in oblivion: John in captivity received the honors of a king, which were refused him when seated on the throne: his misfortunes, not his title, were respected; and the French prisoners, conquered by this elevation of mind, more than by their late discomfiture, burst into tears of admiration; which were only checked by the reflection, that such genuine and unaltered heroism in an enemy must certainly in the issue prove but the more dangerous to their native country.[*]

All the English and Gascon knights imitated the generous example set them by their prince. The captives were every where treated with humanity, and were soon after dismissed, on paying moderate ransoms to the persons into whose hands they had fallen. The extent of their fortunes was considered; and an attention was given that they should still have sufficient means left to perform their military service in a manner suitable to their rank and quality. Yet so numerous were the noble prisoners, that these ransoms, added to the spoils gained in the field, were sufficient to enrich the prince’s army; and as they had suffered very little in the action, their joy and exultation were complete.

The prince of Wales conducted his prisoner to Bordeaux; and not being provided with forces so numerous as might enable him to push his present advantages, he concluded a two years’ truce with France,[**] which was also become requisite, that he might conduct the captive king with safety into England. He landed at Southwark, and was met by a great concourse of people, of all ranks and stations. {1357.} The prisoner was clad in royal apparel, and mounted on a white steed, distinguished by its size and beauty, and by the richness of its furniture. The conqueror rode by his side in a meaner attire, and carried by a black palfrey. In this situation, more glorious than all the insolent parade of a Roman triumph, he passed through the streets of London, and presented the king of France to his father, who advanced to meet him, and received him with the same courtesy as if he had been a neighboring potentate that had voluntarily come to pay him a friendly visit.[***] It is impossible, in reflecting on this noble conduct, not to perceive the advantages which resulted from the otherwise whimsical principles of chivalry, and which gave men in those rude times some superiority even over people of a more cultivated age and nation.

* Froissard, liv. i. chap. 168.

** Rymer, vol. vi p. 3.

*** Froissard, liv i. chap. 173.

The king of France, besides the generous treatment which he met with in England, had the melancholy consolation of the wretched, to see companions in affliction. The king of Scots had been eleven years a captive in Edward’s hands; and the good fortune of this latter monarch had reduced at once the two neighboring potentates, with whom he was engaged in war, to be prisoners in his capital.

{1357.}But Edward finding that the conquest of Scotland was nowise advanced by the captivity of its sovereign, and that the government conducted by Robert Stuart, his nephew and heir, was still able to defend itself, consented to restore David Bruce to his liberty, for the ransom of one hundred thousand marks sterling; and that prince delivered the sons of all his principal nobility, as hostages for the payment.[*]

* Rymer, vol. vi. p. 45, 46, 52, 56. Froissard, liv. i.
chap, 154 Walsing, p. 73.

{1358.} Meanwhile, the captivity of John, joined to the preceding disorders of the French government, had produced in that country a dissolution, almost total, of civil authority, and had occasioned confusions the most horrible and destructive that had ever been experienced in any age or in any nation. The dauphin, now about eighteen years of age, naturally assumed the royal power during his father’s captivity; but though endowed with an excellent capacity, even in such early years, he possessed neither experience nor authority sufficient to defend a state, assailed at once by foreign power and shaken by intestine faction. In order to obtain supply, he assembled the states of the kingdom: that assembly, instead of supporting his administration, were themselves seized with the spirit of confusion; and laid hold of the present opportunity to demand limitations of the prince’s power, the punishment of past malversations, and the liberty of the king of Navarre. Marcel, provost of the merchants and first magistrate of Paris, put himself at the head of the unruly populace; and from the violence and temerity of his character, pushed them to commit the most criminal outrages against the royal authority. They detained the dauphin in a sort of captivity; they murdered in his presence Robert de Clermont and John de Conflans, mareschals, the one of Normandy, the other of Burgundy; they threatened all the other ministers with a like fate; and when Charles, who was obliged to temporize and dissemble, made his escape from their hands, they levied war against him, and openly erected the standard of rebellion, The other cities of the kingdom, in imitation of the capital, shook off the dauphin’s authority, took the government into their own hands, and spread the disorder into every province. The nobles, whose inclinations led them to adhere to the crown, and were naturally disposed to check these tumults, had lost all their influence; and being reproached with cowardice on account of the base desertion of their sovereign in the battle of Poiotiers, were treated with universal contempt by the inferior orders. The troops, who, from the deficiency of pay, were no longer retained in discipline, threw off all regard to their officers, sought the means of subsistence by plunder and robbery, and associating to them all the disorderly people with whom that age abounded, formed numerous bands, which infested all parts of the kingdom. They desolated the open country; burned and plundered the villages; and by cutting off all means of communication or subsistence, reduced even the inhabitants of the walled towns to the most extreme necessity. The peasants, formerly oppressed, and now left unprotected by their masters, became desperate from their present misery; and rising every where in arms, carried to the last extremity those disorders which were derived from the sedition of the citizens and disbanded soldiers.[*]

* Froissard, liv. i. chap. 182,183, 184.

The gentry, hated for their tyranny, were every where exposed to the violence of popular rage; and instead of meeting with the regard due to their past dignity, became only, on that account, the object of more wanton insult to the mutinous peasants. They were hunted like wild beasts, and put to the sword without mercy: their castles were consumed with fire, and levelled to the ground: their wives and daughters were first ravished, then murdered: the savages proceeded so far as to impale some gentlemen, and roast them alive before a slow fire: a body of nine thousand of them broke into Meaux, where the wife of the dauphin, with above three hundred ladies, had taken shelter: the most brutal treatment and most atrocious cruelty were justly dreaded by this helpless company: but the Captal de Buche, though in the service of Edward, yet moved by generosity and by the gallantry of a true knight, flew to their rescue, and beat off the peasants with great slaughter. In other civil wars, the opposite factions, falling under the government of their several leaders, commonly preserve still the vestige of some rule and order: but here the wild state of nature seemed to be renewed: every man was thrown loose and independent of his fellows: and the populousness of the country, derived from the preceding police of civil society, served only to increase the horror and confusion of the scene.

Amidst these disorders, the king of Navarre made his escape from prison, and presented a dangerous leader to the furious malecontents.[*] But the splendid talents of this prince qualified him only to do mischief, and to increase the public distractions: he wanted the steadiness and prudence requisite for making his intrigues subservient to his ambition, and forming his numerous partisans into a regular faction. He revived his pretensions, somewhat obsolete, to the crown of France: but while he advanced this claim, he relied entirely on his alliance with the English, who were concerned in interest to disappoint his pretensions; and who, being public and inveterate enemies to the state, served only, by the friendship which they seemingly bore him, to render his cause the more odious. And in all his operations, he acted more like a leader of banditti, than one who aspired to be the head of a regular government, and who was engaged by his station to endeavor the reëstablishment of order in the community.

The eyes, therefore, of all the French, who wished to restore peace to their miserable and desolated country, were turned towards the dauphin; and that young prince, though not remarkable for his military talents, possessed so much prudence and spirit, that he daily gained the ascendant over all his enemies. Marcel, the seditious provost of Paris, was slain, while he was attempting to deliver the city to the king of Navarre and the English; and the capital immediately returned to its duty.[**] The most considerable bodies of the mutinous peasants were dispersed, and put to the sword: some bands of military robbers underwent the same fate: and though many grievous disorders still remained, France began gradually to assume the face of a regular civil government, and to form some plan for its defence and security.

* Froissard, liv. i. chap. 181.

** Froissard, liv. i. chap. 187

During the confusion in the dauphin’s affairs, Edward seemed to have a favorable opportunity for pushing his conquests: but besides that his hands were tied by the truce, and he could only assist underhand the faction of Navarre, the state of the English finances and military power, during those ages, rendered the kingdom incapable of making any regular or steady effort, and obliged it to exert its force at very distant intervals, by which all the projected ends were commonly disappointed. Edward employed himself, during a conjuncture so inviting, chiefly in negotiations with his prisoner; and John had the weakness to sign terms of peace, which, had they taken effect, must have totally ruined and dismembered his kingdom. He agreed to restore all the provinces which had been possessed by Henry II. and his two sons, and to annex them forever to England, without any obligation of homage or fealty on the part of the English monarch. But the dauphin and the states of France rejected this treaty, so dishonorable and pernicious to the kingdom;[*] and Edward on the expiration of the truce, having now, by subsidies and frugality, collected some treasure, prepared himself for a new invasion of France.

The great authority and renown of the king and the prince of Wales, the splendid success of their former enterprises, and the certain prospect of plunder from the defenceless provinces of France, soon brought together the whole military power of England; and the same motives invited to Edward’s standard all the hardy adventurers of the different countries of Europe.[**] He passed over to Calais, where he assembled an army of near a hundred thousand men; a force which the dauphin could not pretend to withstand in the open field: that prince, therefore, prepared himself to elude a blow, which it was impossible for him to resist. He put all the considerable towns in a posture of defence; ordered them to be supplied with magazines and provisions; distributed proper garrisons in all places; secured every thing valuable in the fortified cities; and chose his own station at Paris, with a view of allowing the enemy to vent their fury on the open country.

{1359.} The king, aware of this plan of defence, was obliged to carry along with him six thousand wagons, loaded with the provisions necessary for the subsistence of his army. After ravaging the province of Picardy, he advanced into Champagne; and having a strong desire of being crowned king of France at Rheims, the usual place in which this ceremony is performed, he laid siege to that city, and carried on his attacks, though without success, for the space of seven weeks.[***]

* Froissard. liv. i. chap. 201.

** Froissard, liv. i. chap. 205.

*** Froissard, liv. i. chap. 208. Walsing. p. 174.

{1360.} The place was bravely defended by the inhabitants, encouraged by the exhortations of the archbishop, John de Craon; till the advanced season (for this expedition was entered upon in the beginning of winter) obliged the king to raise the siege. The province of Champagne, meanwhile, was desolated by his incursions; and he thence conducted his army, with a like intent, into Burgundy. He took and pillaged Tonnerre, Gaillon, Avalon, and other small places; but the duke of Burgundy, that he might preserve his country from further ravages, consented to pay him the sum of one hundred thousand nobles.[*] Edward then bent his march towards the Nivernois, which saved itself by a like composition: he laid waste Brie and the Gatinois; and after a long march, very destructive to France, and somewhat ruinous to his own troops, he appeared before the gates of Paris, and taking up his quarters at Bourg-la-Reine, extended his army to Longjumeau, Montrouge, and Vaugirard. He tried to provoke the dauphin to hazard a battle, by sending him a defiance; but could not make that prudent prince change his plan of operations. Paris was safe from the danger of an assault by its numerous garrison; from that of a blockade by its well-supplied magazines: and as Edward himself could not subsist his army in a country wasted by foreign and domestic enemies, and left also empty by the precaution of the dauphin, he was obliged to remove his quarters; and he spread his troops into the provinces of Maine, Beausse, and the Chartraine, which were abandoned to the fury of their devastations.[**] The only repose which France experienced was during the festival of Easter, when the king stopped the course of his ravages. For superstition can sometimes restrain the rage of men, which neither justice nor humanity is able to control.

* Rymer, vol. vi. p. 161. Walsing. p. 174.

** Walsing. p. 175.

While the war was carried on in this ruinous manner, the negotiations for peace were never interrupted: but as the king still insisted on the full execution of the treaty which he had made with his prisoner at London, and which was strenuously rejected by the dauphin, there appeared no likelihood of an accommodation. The earl, now duke of Lancaster, (for this, title was introduced into England during the present reign,) endeavored to soften the rigor of these terms, and to finish the war on more equal and reasonable conditions. He insisted with Edward, that, notwithstanding his great and surprising successes, the object of the war, if such were to be esteemed the acquisition of the crown of France, was not become any nearer than at the commencement of it; or rather, was set at a greater distance by those very victories and advantages which seemed to lead to it. That his claim of succession had not from the first procured him one partisan in the kingdom; and the continuance of these destructive hostilities had united every Frenchman in the most implacable animosity against him. That though intestine faction had crept into the government of France, it was abating every moment; and no party, even during the greatest heat of the contest, when subjection under a foreign enemy usually appears preferable to the dominion of fellow-citizens, had ever adopted the pretensions of the king of England. That the king of Navarre himself, who alone was allied with the English, instead of being a cordial friend, was Edward’s most dangerous rival, and, in the opinion of his partisans, possessed a much preferable title to the crown of France. That the prolongation of the war, however it might enrich the English soldiers, was ruinous to the king himself, who bore all the charges of the armament, without reaping any solid or durable advantage from it. That if the present disorders of France continued, that kingdom would soon be reduced to such a state of desolation, that it would afford no spoils to its ravagers, if it could establish a more steady government, it might turn the chance of war in its favor, and by its superior force and advantages be able to repel the present victors. That the dauphin, even during his greatest distresses, had yet conducted himself with so much prudence, as to prevent the English from acquiring one foot of land in the kingdom; and it were better for the king to accept by a peace what he had in vain attempted to acquire by hostilities, which, however hitherto successful, had been extremely expensive, and might prove very dangerous. And that Edward having acquired so much glory by his arms, the praise of moderation was the only honor to which he could now aspire; an honor so much the greater, as it was durable, was united with that of prudence, and might be attended with the most real advantages.[*]

* Froissard, liv. i. chap. 211.

These reasons induced Edward to accept of more moderate terms of peace; and it is probable that, in order to palliate this change of resolution, he ascribed it to a vow made during a dreadful tempest, which attacked his army on their march, and which ancient historians represent as the cause of this sudden accommodation.[*] The conferences between the English and French commissioners were carried on during a few days at Bretigni, in the Chartraine, and the peace was at last concluded on the following conditions:[**] it was stipulated that King John should be restored to his liberty, and should pay as his ransom three millions of crowns of gold, about one million five hundred thousand pounds of our present money;[***] [9] which was to be discharged at different payments: that Edward should forever renounce all claim to the crown of France, and to the provinces of Normandy, Maine, Touraine, and Anjou, possessed by his ancestors; and should receive in exchange the provinces of Poictou, Xaintonge, l’Agenois, Perigord, the Limousin, Quercy, Rovergue, l’Angoumois, and other districts in that quarter, together with Calais, Guisnes, Montreuil, and the county of Ponthieu, on the other side of France: that the full sovereignty of all these provinces, as well as that of Guienne, should be vested in the crown of England, and that France should renounce all title to feudal jurisdiction, homage, or appeal from them: that the king of Navarre should be restored to all his honors and possessions: that Edward should renounce his confederacy with the Flemings, John his connections with the Scots: that the disputes concerning the succession of Brittany, between the families of Blois and Mountfort, should be decided by arbiters appointed by the two kings; and if the competitors refused to submit to the award, the dispute should no longer be a ground of war between the kingdoms; and that forty hostages, such as should be agreed on, should be sent to England as a security for the execution of all these conditions.[****]

* Froissard, liv. i. chap. 211.

** Rymer, vol. vi. p. 178. Froissard, liv. i. chap. 212.

*** See note I, at the end of the volume.

**** The hostages were the two sons of the French king, John
and Lewis; his brother Philip, duke of Orleans, the duke of
Bourbon, James de Bourbon count de Ponthieu, the counts
d’Eu, de Longueville, de St. Pol, de Harcourt, de Vendome,
de Couci, de Craon, de Montmorenci, and many of the chief
nobility of France. The princes were mostly released on the
fulfilling of certain articles: others of the hostages, and
the duke of Berry among the rest, were permitted to return
upon their parole, which they did not keep. Rymer, vol. vi.
p. 278, 285, 287.

In consequence of this treaty, the king of France was brought over to Calais; whither Edward also soon after repaired; and there both princes solemnly ratified the treaty.

John was sent to Boulogne; the king accompanied him a mile on his journey; and the two monarchs parted with many professions, probably cordial and sincere, of mutual amity.[*] The good disposition of John made him fully sensible of the generous treatment which he had received in England, and obliterated all memory of the ascendant gained over him by his rival. There seldom has been a treaty of so great importance so faithfully executed by both parties. Edward had scarcely from the beginning entertained any hopes of acquiring the crown of France: by restoring John to his liberty, and making peace at a juncture so favorable to his arms, he had now plainly renounced all pretensions of this nature; he had sold at a very high price that chimerical claim; and had at present no other interest than to retain those acquisitions which he had made with such singular prudence and good fortune. John, on the other hand, though the terms were severe, possessed such fidelity and honor, that he was determined at all hazards to execute them, and to use every expedient for satisfying a monarch who had indeed been his greatest political enemy, but had treated him personally with singular humanity and regard. But, notwithstanding his endeavors, there occurred many difficulties in fulfilling his purpose; chiefly from the extreme reluctance which many towns and vassals in the neighborhood of Guienne expressed against submitting to the English dominion;[**] and John, in order to adjust these differences, took a resolution of coming over himself to England.

* Froissard, liv. i. chap. 213.

** Froissard, liv. i. chap. 214.

{1363.} His council endeavored to dissuade him from this rash design; and probably would have been pleased to see him employ more chicanes for eluding the execution of so disadvantageous a treaty: but John replied to them, that though good faith were banished from the rest of the earth, she ought still to retain her habitation in the breasts of princes. Some historians would detract from the merit of this honorable conduct, by representing John as enamored of an English lady, to whom he was glad on this pretence to pay a visit; but besides that this surmise is not founded on any good authority, it appears somewhat unlikely on account of the advanced age of that prince, who was now in his fifty-sixth year.

{1364.} He was lodged in the Savoy; the palace where he had resided during his captivity, and where he soon after sickened and died. Nothing can be a stronger proof of the great dominion of fortune over men, than the calamities which pursued a monarch of such eminent valor, goodness, and honor, and which he incurred merely by reason of some slight imprudences, which, in other situations, would have been of no importance. But though both his reign and that of his father proved extremely unfortunate to their kingdom, the French crown acquired, during their time, very considerable accessions--those of Dauphiny and Burgundy. This latter province, however, John had the imprudence again to dismember by bestowing it on Philip, his fourth son, the object of his most tender affections;[*] a deed which was afterwards the source of many calamities to the kingdom.

John was succeeded in the throne by Charles the dauphin, a prince educated in the school of adversity, and well qualified, by his consummate prudence and experience, to repair all the losses which the kingdom had sustained from the errors of his two predecessors. Contrary to the practice of all the great princes of those times, which held nothing in estimation but military courage, he seems to have fixed it as a maxim never to appear at the head of his armies; and he was the first king in Europe that showed the advantage of policy, foresight, and judgment, above a rash and precipitate valor. The events of his reign, compared with those of the preceding, are a proof how little reason kingdoms have to value themselves on their victories, or to be humbled by their defeats; which in reality ought to be ascribed chiefly to the good or bad conduct of their rulers, and are of little moment towards determining national characters and manners.

Before Charles could think of counterbalancing so great a power as England, it was necessary for him to remedy the many disorders to which his own kingdom was exposed. He turned his arms against the king of Navarre, the great disturber of France during that age; he defeated this prince by the conduct of Bertrand du Guesclin, a gentleman of Brittany, one of the most accomplished characters of the age, whom he had the discernment to choose as the instrument of all his victories:[**] and he obliged his enemy to accept of moderate terms of peace.

* Rymer, vol. vi. p. 421.

** Froissard, liv. i. chap. 119, 120.

Du Guesclin was less fortunate in the wars of Brittany, which still continued, notwithstanding the mediation of France and England: he was defeated and taken prisoner at Auray by Chandos: Charles of Blois was there slain, and the young count of Mountfort soon after got entire possession of that duchy.[*] But the prudence of Charles broke the force of this blow: he submitted to the decision of fortune: he acknowledged the title of Mountfort, though a zealous partisan of England; and received the proffered homage for his dominions. But the chief obstacle which the French king met with in the settlement of the state, proceeded from obscure enemies, whom their crimes alone rendered eminent, and their number dangerous.

On the conclusion of the treaty of Bretigni, the many military adventurers who had followed the standard of Edward being dispersed into the several provinces, and possessed of strongholds, refused to lay down their arms, or relinquish a course of life to which they were now accustomed, and by which alone they could gain a subsistence.[**] They associated themselves with the banditti, who were already inured to the habits of rapine and violence; and under the name of the “companies” and “companions,” became a terror to all the peaceable inhabitants. Some English and Gascon gentlemen of character, particularly Sir Matthew Gournay, Sir Hugh Calverly, the chevalier Verte, and others, were not ashamed to take the command of these ruffians, whose numbers amounted on the whole to near forty thousand, and who bore the appearance of regular armies, rather than bands of robbers. These leaders fought pitched battles with the troops of France, and gained victories; in one of which Jaques de Bourbon, a prince of the blood, was slain:[***] and they proceeded to such a height, that they wanted little but regular establishments to become princes, and thereby sanctify, by the maxims of the world, their infamous profession. The greater spoil they committed on the country, the more easy they found it to recruit their number: all those who were reduced to misery and despair, flocked to their standard: the evil was every day increasing; and though the pope declared them excommunicated, these military plunderers, however deeply affected with the sentence, to which they paid a much greater regard than to any principles of morality, could not be induced by it to betake themselves to peaceable or lawful professions.

* Froissard, liv. i. chap. 227, 228, etc. Walsing, p. 180.

** Froissard, liv. i. chap. 214.

*** Froissard, liv. i. chap, 214, 215.

{1366.} As Charles was not able by power to redress so enormous a grievance, he was led by necessity, and by the turn of his character, to correct it by policy, and to contrive some method of discharging into foreign countries this dangerous and intestine evil.

Peter, king of Castile, stigmatized by his contemporaries and by posterity with the epithet of Cruel, had filled with blood and murder his kingdom and his own family; and having incurred the universal hatred of his subjects, he kept from present terror alone, an anxious and precarious possession of the throne. His nobles fell every day the victims of his severity: he put to death several of his natural brothers, from groundless jealousy: each murder, by multiplying his enemies, became the occasion of fresh barbarities; and as he was not destitute of talents, his neighbors, no less than his own subjects, were alarmed at the progress of his violence and injustice. The ferocity of his temper, instead of being softened by his strong propensity to love, was rather inflamed by that passion, and took thence new occasion to exert itself. Instigated by Mary de Padilla, who had acquired the ascendant over him, he threw into prison Blanche de Bourbon, his wife, Bister to the queen of France; and soon after made way by poison for the espousing of his mistress.