The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (133 page)

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opportunity for exerting his military talents, by which he had already acquired so much renown.

He promised his assistance to the dethroned monarch; and

1367. Expedition into

having obtained the consent of his father, he levied a great army, Castile.

and set out upon his enterprize. He was accompanied by his

younger brother, John of Gaunt, created duke of Lancaster, in the room of the good prince of that name, who had died without any male issue, and whose daughter he had espoused. Chandos also, who bore among the English the same character, which du Guesclin had acquired among the French, commanded under him in this expedition.

The first blow, which the prince of Wales gave to Henry of Transtamare, was the recalling of all the
companies
from his service; and so much reverence did they bear to the name of Edward, that great numbers of them immediately withdrew from Spain, and inlisted under his banners. Henry however, beloved by his new subjects, and supported by the king of Arragon and others of his neighbours, was able to meet the enemy with an army of 100,000 men; forces three times more numerous than those which were commanded by Edward. Du Guesclin, and all his experienced officers, advised him to delay any decisive action, to cut off the prince of Wales’s provisions, and to avoid every engagement with a general, whose enterprizes had hitherto been always conducted with prudence, and crowned with success. Henry trusted too much to his numbers; and ventured to encounter the English prince at

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Historians of that age are commonly very copious in describing 3d April.

the shock of armies in battle, the valour of the combatants, the slaughter and various successes of the day: But though small rencounters in those times were often well disputed, military discipline was always too imperfect to preserve order in great armies; and such actions deserve more the name of routs than of battles. Henry was chaced off the field, with the loss of above 20,000 men: There perished only four knights and forty private men on the side of the English.

Peter, who so well merited the infamous epithet which he bore, purposed to murder all his prisoners in cool blood; but was restrained from this barbarity by the remonstrances of the prince of Wales. All Castile now submitted to the victor: Peter was restored to the throne: And Edward finished this perilous enterprize with his usual glory. But he had soon reason to repent his connexions with a man like Peter, abandoned to all sense of virtue and honour. The ungrateful tyrant refused the stipulated pay to the English forces; and Edward, finding his soldiers daily perish by sickness, and even his own health impaired by the climate, was obliged, without receiving any satisfaction on this head, to return into Guienne.
y

The barbarities, exercised by Peter over his helpless subjects, whom he now regarded as vanquished rebels, revived all the animosity of the Castilians against him; and on the return of Henry of Transtamare, together with du Guesclin, and some forces levied anew in France, the tyrant was again dethroned, and was taken prisoner. His brother, in resentment of his cruelties, murdered him with his own hand; and was placed on the throne of Castile, which he transmitted to his posterity. The duke of Lancaster, who espoused in second marriage the eldest daughter of Peter, inherited only the PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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empty title of that sovereignty, and, by claiming the succession, encreased the animosity of the new king of Castile against England.

But the prejudice, which the affairs of prince Edward received 1368. Rupture with

from this splendid, though imprudent expedition, ended not with France.

it. He had involved himself in so much debt by his preparations and the pay of his troops, that he found it necessary, on his return, to impose on his principality a new tax, to which some of the nobility consented with extreme reluctance, and to which others absolutely refused to submit.
z
This incident revived the animosity which the inhabitants bore to the English, and which all the amiable qualities of the prince of Wales were not able to mitigate or assuage. They complained, that they were considered as a conquered people, that their privileges were disregarded, that all trust was given to the English alone, that every office of honour and profit was conferred on these foreigners, and that the extreme reluctance, which most of them had expressed, to receive the new yoke, was likely to be long remembered against them. They cast, therefore, their eyes towards their ancient sovereign, whose prudence, they found, had now brought the affairs of his kingdom into excellent order; and the counts of Armagnac, Comminge, and Perigord, and Lord d’Albret, with other nobles, went to Paris, and were encouraged to carry their complaints to Charles, as to their lord paramount, against these oppressions of the English government.
a

In the treaty of Bretigni it had been stipulated, that the two kings should make renunciations; Edward of his claim to the crown of France and to the provinces of Normandy, Maine, and Anjou; John of the homage and fealty due for Guienne and the other provinces ceded to the English. But when that treaty was confirmed and renewed at Calais, it was found necessary, as Edward was not yet in possession of all the territories, that the mutual renunciations should for some time be deferred; and it was agreed, that the parties, mean-while, should make no use of their respective claims against each other.
b
Though the failure in exchanging these renunciations had still proceeded from France,
c
Edward appears to have taken no umbrage at it; both because this clause seemed to give him entire security, and because some reasonable apology had probably been made to him for each delay. It was, however, on this pretence, though directly contrary to treaty, that Charles resolved to ground his claim, of still considering himself as superior lord of those provinces, and of receiving the appeals of his sub-vassals.
d

But as views of policy, more than those of justice, enter into the 1369.

deliberations of princes; and as the mortal injuries received from the English, the pride of their triumphs, the severe terms imposed by the treaty of peace, seemed to render every prudent means of revenge honourable against them; Charles was determined to take this measure, less by the reasonings of his civilians and lawyers, than by the present situation of the two monarchies. He considered the declining years of Edward, the languishing state of the prince of Wales’s health, the affection which the inhabitants of all these provinces bore to their ancient master, their distance from England, their vicinity to France, the extreme animosity expressed by his own subjects against these invaders, and their ardent thirst of vengeance; and having silently made all the necessary preparations, he sent to the prince of Wales a PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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summons to appear in his court at Paris, and there to justify his conduct towards his vassals. The prince replied, that he would come to Paris; but it should be at the head of sixty thousand men.
e

The unwarlike character of Charles kept prince Edward, even 1370.

yet, from thinking, that the monarch was in earnest, in this bold and hazardous attempt.

It soon appeared what a poor return the king had received by his distant conquests for all the blood and treasure expended in the quarrel, and how impossible it was to retain acquisitions, in an age when no regular force could be maintained sufficient to defend them against the revolt of the inhabitants, especially if that danger was joined with the invasion of a foreign enemy.

Charles fell first upon Ponthieu, which gave the English an inlet Ill success of the into the heart of France: The citizens of Abbeville opened their English.

gates to him:
f
Those of St. Valori, Rue, and Crotoy imitated the example, and the whole country was in a little time reduced to submission. The dukes of Berri and Anjou, brothers to Charles, being assisted by du Guesclin, who was recalled from Spain, invaded the southern provinces; and by means of their good conduct, the favourable dispositions of the people, and the ardour of the French nobility, they made every day considerable progress against the English. The state of the prince of Wales’s health did not permit him to mount on horseback, or exert his usual activity: Chandos, the constable of Guienne, was slain in one action:
g
The Captal de Buche, who succeeded him in that office, was taken prisoner in another:
h

And when young Edward himself was obliged by his encreasing infirmities to throw up the command, and return to his native country, the affairs of the English in the south of France seemed to be menaced with total ruin.

The king, incensed at these injuries, threatened to put to death all the French hostages, who remained in his hands; but on reflection abstained from that ungenerous revenge.

After resuming, by advice of parliament, the vain title of king of France,
i
he endeavoured to send succours into Gascony; but all his attempts, both by sea and land, proved unsuccessful. The earl of Pembroke was intercepted at sea, and taken prisoner with his whole army near Rochelle by a fleet, which the king of Castile had fitted out for that purpose:
k
Edward himself embarked for Bourdeaux with another army; but was so long detained by contrary winds, that he was obliged to lay aside the

enterprize.l
Sir Robert Knolles, at the head of 30,000 men, marched out of Calais, and continued his ravages to the gates of Paris, without being able to provoke the enemy to an engagement: He proceeded in his march to the provinces of Maine and Anjou, which he laid waste; but part of his army being there defeated by the conduct of du Guesclin, who was now created constable of France, and who seems to have been the first consummate general that had yet appeared in Europe, the rest were scattered and dispersed, and the small remains of the English forces, instead of reaching Guienne, took shelter in Britanny, whose sovereign had embraced the alliance of England.
m

The duke of Lancaster, some time after, made a like attempt with an army of 25,000

men; and marched the whole length of France from Calais to Bourdeaux; but was so much harassed by the flying parties which attended him, that he brought not the half of his army to the place of their destination. Edward, from the necessity of his affairs, was at last obliged to conclude a truce with the enemy;
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after almost all his ancient PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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possessions in France had been ravished from him, except Bourdeaux and Bayonne, and all his conquests, except Calais.

The decline of the king’s life was exposed to many mortifications, and corresponded not to the splendid and noisy scenes, which had filled the beginning and the middle of it. Besides seeing the loss of his foreign dominions, and being baffled in every attempt to defend them; he felt the decay of his authority at home, and experienced, from the sharpness of some parliamentary remonstrances, the great inconstancy of the people, and the influence of present fortune over all their judgments.
o
This prince, who, during the vigour of his age, had been chiefly occupied in the pursuits of war and ambition, began, at an unseasonable period, to indulge himself in pleasure; and being now a widower, he attached himself to a lady of sense and spirit, one Alice Pierce, who acquired a great ascendant over him, and by her influence gave such general disgust, that, in order to satisfy the parliament, he was obliged to remove her from

court.p
The indolence also, naturally attending old age and infirmities, had made him, in a great measure, resign the administration into the hands of his son, the duke of Lancaster, who, as he was far from being popular, weakened extremely the affection, which the English bore to the person and government of the king. Men carried their jealousies very far against the duke; and as they saw with much regret, the death of the prince of Wales every day approaching, they apprehended, lest the succession of his son, Richard, now a minor, should be defeated by the intrigues of Lancaster, and by the weak indulgence of the old king. But Edward, in order to satisfy both the people and the prince on this head, declared in parliament his grandson heir and successor to the crown; and thereby cut off all the hopes of the duke of Lancaster, if he ever had the temerity to entertain any.

The prince of Wales, after a lingering illness, died in the forty-1376. 8th June. Death

sixth year of his age; and left a character, illustrious for every of the prince of

eminent virtue, and from his earliest youth till the hour he Wales.

expired, unstained by any blemish.

His valour and military talents formed the smallest part of his 1377. 21st June.

merit: His generosity, humanity, affability, moderation, gained Death and character

him the affections of all men; and he was qualified to throw a of the king.

lustre, not only on that rude age, in which he lived, and which nowise infected him with its vices, but on the most shining period of ancient or modern history. The king survived about a year this melancholy incident: England was deprived at once of both these princes, its chief ornament and support: He expired in the sixty-fifth year of his age and the fifty-first of his reign; and the people were then sensible, though too late, of the irreparable loss, which they had sustained.

The English are apt to consider with peculiar fondness the history of Edward III. and to esteem his reign, as it was one of the longest, and most glorious also, that occurs in the annals of their nation. The ascendant which they then began to acquire over France, their rival and supposed national enemy, makes them cast their eyes on this period with great complacency, and sanctifies every measure, which Edward embraced for that end. But the domestic government of this prince is really more admirable than his foreign victories; and England enjoyed, by the prudence and vigour of his administration, a longer interval of domestic peace and tranquillity than PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)