was so much affected by it that he required a whole year before he could
resume with any confidence his projects of war; and it was not until the
2d of July, 1346, that he embarked at Southampton, taking with him,
besides his son, the Prince of Wales, hardly sixteen years of age, an
army which comprised, according to Froissart, seven earls, more than
thirty-five barons, a great number of knights, four thousand men-at-arms,
ten thousand English archers, six thousand Irish, and twelve thousand
Welsh infantry, in all something more than thirty-two thousand men,
troops even more formidable for their discipline and experience of war
than for their numbers.  When they were out at sea none knew, not even
the king himself, for what point of the Continent they were to make, for
the south or the north, for Aquitaine or Normandy.  "Sir," said Godfrey
d'Harcourt, who had become one of the king's most trusted counsellors,
"the country of Normandy is one of the fattest in the world, and I
promise you, at the risk of my head, that if you put in there you shall
take possession of land at your good pleasure, for the folk there never
were armed, and all the flower of their chivalry is now at Aiguillon with
their duke; for certain, we shall find there gold, silver, victual, and
all other good things in great abundance."  Edward adopted this advice;
and on the 12th of July, 1346, his fleet anchored before the peninsula of
Cotentin, at Cape La Hogue.  Whilst disembarking, at the very first step
he made on shore, the king fell "so roughly," says Froissart, "that blood
spurted from his nose.  'Sir,' said his knights to him, 'go back to your
ship, and come not now to land, for here is an ill sign for you.'  'Nay,
verily,' quoth the king, full roundly, 'it is a right good sign for me,
since the land doth desire me.'"  Caesar did and said much the same on
disembarking in Africa, and William the Conqueror on landing in England.
In spite of contemporary accounts, there is a doubt about the
authenticity of these striking expressions, which become favorites,
and crop up again on all similar occasions.

For a month Edward marched his army over Normandy, "finding on his road,"
says Froissart, "the country fat and plenteous in everything, the garners
full of corn, the houses full of all manner of riches, carriages, wagons
and horses, swine, ewes, wethers, and the finest oxen in the world."  He
took and plundered on his way Barfleur, Cherbourg, Valognes, Carentan,
and St. Lo.  When, on the 26th of July, he arrived before Caen, "a city
bigger than any in England save London, and full of all kinds of
merchandise, of rich burghers, of noble dames, and of fine churches," the
population attempted to resist.  Philip had sent to them the constable,
Raoul d'Eu, and the Count of Tancarville; but, after three days of petty
fighting around the city and even in the streets themselves, Edward
became master of it, and on the entreaty, it is said, of Godfrey
d'Hareourt, exempted it from pillage.  Continuing his march, he occupied
Louviers, Vernon, Verneuil, Mantes, Meulan, and Poissy, where he took up
his quarters in the old residence of King Robert; and thence his troops
advanced and spread themselves as far as Ruel, Neuilly, Boulogne, St.
Cloud, Bourg-la-Reine, and almost to the gates of Paris, whence could be
seen "the fire and smoke from burning villages."  "We ourselves," says a
contemporary chronicler, "saw these things; and it was a great dishonor
that in the midst of the kingdom of France the King of England should
squander, spoil, and consume the king's wines and other goods."  Great
was the consternation at Paris.  And it was redoubled when Philip gave
orders for the demolition of the houses built along by the walls of
circumvallation, on the ground that they embarrassed the defence.  The
people believed that they were on the eve of a siege.  The order was
revoked; but the feeling became even more intense when it was known that
the king was getting ready to start for St. Denis, where his principal
allies, the King of Bohemia, the Dukes of Hainault and of Lorraine, the
Counts of Flanders and of Blois, "and a very great array of baronry and
chivalry," were already assembled.  "Ah! dear sir and noble king," cried
the burghers of Paris as they came to Philip and threw themselves on
their knees before him, "what would you do?  Would you thus leave your
good city of Paris?  Your enemies are already within two leagues, and
will soon be in our city when they know that you are gone; and we have
and shall have none to defend us against them.  Sir, may it please you to
remain and watch over your good city."  "My good people," answered the
king, "have ye no fear; the English shall come no nigher to you; I am
away to St. Denis to my men-at-arms, for I mean to ride against these
English, and fight them, in such fashion as I may."  Philip recalled in
all haste his troops from Aquitaine, commanded the burgher-forces to
assemble, and gave them, as he had given all his allies, St. Denis for
the rallying-point.  At sight of so many great lords and all sorts of men
of war flocking together from all points, the Parisians took fresh
courage.  "For many a long day there had not been seen at St. Denis a
king of France in arms and fully prepared for battle."

Edward began to be afraid of having pushed too far forward, and of
finding himself endangered in the heart of France, confronted by an army
which would soon be stronger than his own.  Some chronicles say that
Philip, in his turn, sent a challenge either for single combat or for a
battle on a fixed day, in a place assigned, and that Edward, in his turn
also, declined the proposition he had but lately made to his rival.  It
appears, further, that at the moment of commencing his retreat away from
Paris, he tried ringing the changes on Philip with respect to the line he
intended to take, and that Philip was led to believe that the English
army would fall back in a westerly direction, by Orleans and Tours,
whereas it marched northward, where Edward flattered himself he would
find partisans, counting especially on the help of the Flemings, who, in
fulfilment of their promise, had already advanced as far as Bethune to
support him.  Philip was soon better informed, and moved with all his
army into Picardy in pursuit of the English army, which was in a hurry to
reach and cross the Somme, and so continue its march northward.  It was
more than once forced to fight on its march with the people of the towns
and country through which it was passing; provisions were beginning to
fall short; and Edward sent his two marshals, the Earl of Warwick and
Godfrey d'Harcourt, to discover where it was practicable to cross the
river, which, at this season of the year and so near its mouth, was both
broad and deep.  They returned without having any satisfactory
information to report; "whereupon," says Froissart, "the king was not
more joyous or less pensive, and began to fall into a great melancholy."
He had halted three or four days at Airaines, some few leagues from
Amiens, whither the King of France had arrived in pursuit with an army,
it is said, more than a hundred thousand strong.  Philip learned through
his scouts that the King of England would evacuate Airaines the next
morning, and ride to Abbeville in hopes of finding some means of getting
over the Somme.  Philip immediately ordered a Norman baron, Godemar du
Fay, to go with a body of troops and guard the ford of Blanche-Tache,
below Abbeville, the only point at which, it was said, the English could
cross the river; and on the same day he himself moved with the bulk of
his army from Amiens on Airaines.  There he arrived about midday, some
few hours after that the King of England had departed with such
precipitation that the French found in it "great store of provisions,
meat ready spitted, bread and pastry in the oven, wines in barrel, and
many tables which the English had left ready set and laid out."  "Sir,"
said Philip's officers to him, as soon as he was at Airaines, "rest you
here and wait for your barons and their folk, for the English cannot
escape you."  It was concluded, in point of fact, that Edward and his
troops, not being able to cross the Somme, would find themselves hemmed
in between the French army and the strong places of Abbeville, St.
Valery, and Le Crotoi, in the most evil case and perilous position
possible.  But Edward, on arriving at the little town of Oisemont, hard
by the Somme, set out in person in quest of the ford he was so anxious to
discover.  He sent for some prisoners he had made in the country, and
said to them, "right courteously," according to Froissart, "'Is there
here any man who knows of a passage below Abbeville, where-by we and our
army might cross the river without peril?'  And a varlet from a
neighboring mill, whose name history has preserved as that of a traitor,
Gobin Agace, said to the king, 'Sir, I do promise you, at the risk of my
head, that I will guide you to such a spot, where you shall cross the
River Somme without peril, you and your army.'  'Comrade,' said the king
to him, 'if I find true that which thou tellest us, I will set thee free
from thy prison, thee and all thy fellows for love of thee, and I will
cause to be given to thee a hundred golden nobles and a good stallion.'"
The varlet had told the truth; the ford was found at the spot called
Blanche-Tache, whither Philip had sent Godemar du Fay with a few thousand
men to guard it.  A battle took place; but the two marshals of England,
"unfurling their banners in the name of God and St. George, and having
with them the most valiant and best mounted, threw themselves into the
water at full gallop, and there, in the river, was done many a deed of
battle, and many a man was laid low on one side and the other, for Sir
Godemar and his comrades did valiantly defend the passage; but at last
the English got across, and moved forward into the fields as fast as ever
they landed.  When Sir Godemar saw the mishap, he made off as quickly as
he could, and so did a many of his comrades."  The King of France, when
he heard the news, was very wroth, "for he had good hope of finding the
English on the Somme and fighting them there.  'What is it right to do
now?' asked Philip of his marshals.  'Sir,' answered they, 'you cannot
now cross in pursuit of the English, for the tide is already up.'"
Philip went disconsolate to lie at Abbeville, whither all his men
followed him.  Had he been as watchful as Edward was, and had he, instead
of halting at Airaines "by the ready-set tables which the English had
left," marched at once in pursuit of them, perhaps he would have caught
and beaten them on the left bank of the Somme, before they could cross
and take up position on the other side.  This was the first striking
instance of that extreme inequality between the two kings in point of
ability and energy which was before long to produce results so fatal for
Philip.

When Edward, after passing the Somme, had arrived near Crecy, five
leagues from Abbeville, in the countship of Ponthieu which had formed
part of his mother Isabel's dowry, "'Halt we here,' said he to his
marshals; 'I will go no farther till I have seen the enemy; I am on my
mother's rightful inheritance which was given her on her marriage; I will
defend it against mine adversary, Philip of Valois;' and he rested in the
open fields, he and all his men, and made his marshals mark well the
ground where they would set their battle in array."  Philip, on his side,
had moved to Abbeville, where all his men came and joined him, and whence
he sent out scouts "to learn the truth about the English.  When he knew
that they were resting in the open fields near Crecy and showed that they
were awaiting their enemies, the King of France was very joyful, and said
that, please God, they should fight him on the morrow [the day after
Friday, August 25, 1346].  He that day bade to supper all the high-born
princes who were at Abbeville.  They were all in great spirits and had
great talk of arms, and after supper the king prayed all the lords to be
all of them, one toward another, friendly and courteous, without envy,
hatred, and pride, and every one made him a promise thereof.  On the same
day of Friday the King of England also gave a supper to the earls and
barons of his army, made them great cheer, and then sent them away to
rest, which they did.  When all the company had gone, he entered into his
oratory, and fell on his knees before the altar, praying devoutly that
God would permit him on the morrow, if he should fight, to come out of
the business with honor; after which, about midnight, he went and lay
down.  On the morrow he rose pretty early, for good reason, heard mass
with the Prince of Wales, his son, and both of them communicated.  The
majority of his men confessed and put themselves in good ease.  After
mass the king commanded all to get on their arms and take their places in
the field according as he had assigned them the day before."  Edward had
divided his army into three bodies; he had put the first, forming the
van, under the orders of the young Prince of Wales, having about him the
best and most tried warriors; the second had for commanders earls and
barons in whom the king had confidence; and the third, the reserve, he
commanded in person.  Having thus made his arrangements, Edward, mounted
on a little palfrey, with a white staff in his hand and his marshals in
his train, rode at a foot-pace from rank to rank, exhorting all his men,
officers and privates, to stoutly defend his right and do their duty; and
"he said these words to them," says Froissart, "with so bright a smile
and so joyous a mien that whoso had before been disheartened felt
reheartened on seeing and hearing him."  Having finished his ride, Edward
went back to his own division, giving orders for all his folk to eat
their fill and drink one draught: which they did.  "And then they sat
down all of them on the ground, with their head-pieces and their bows in
front of them, resting themselves in order to be more fresh and cool when
the enemy should come."

Philip also set himself in motion on Saturday, the 26th of August, and,
after having heard mass, marched out from Abbeville with all his barons.
"There was so great a throng of men-at-arms there," says Froissart, "that
it were a marvel to think on, and the king rode mighty gently to wait for
all his folk."  When they were two leagues from Abbeville, one of them
that were with him said, "Sir, it were well to put your lines in order of
battle, and to send three or four of your knights to ride forward and
observe the enemy and in what condition they be."  So four knights pushed
forward to within sight of the English, and, returning immediately to the
king, whom they could not approach without breaking the host that
encompassed him, they said by the mouth of one of them, "Know, sir, that
the English be halted, well and regularly, in three lines of battle, and
show no sign of meaning to fly, but await your coming.  For my part, my
counsel is that you halt all your men, and rest them in the fields
throughout this day.  Before the hindermost can come up, and before your
lines of battle are set in order, it will be late; your men will be tired
and in disarray; and you will find the enemy cool and fresh.  To-morrow
morning you will be better able to dispose your men and determine in what
quarter it will be expedient to attack the enemy.  Sure may you be that
they will await you."  This counsel was well pleasing to the King of
France, and he commanded that thus it should be.  "The two marshals rode
one to the front and the other to the rear with orders to the bannerets,
'Halt, banners, by command of the king, in the name of God and St.
Denis!'  At this order those who were foremost halted, but not those who
were hindermost, continuing to ride forward and saying that they would
not halt until they were as much to the front as the foremost were.
Neither the king nor his marshals could get the mastery of their men, for
there was so goodly a number of great lords that each was minded to show
his own might.  There was, besides, in the fields, so goodly a number of
common people that all the roads between Abbeville and Crecy were covered
with them; and when these folk thought themselves near the enemy, they
drew their swords, shouting, 'Death! death!'  And not a soul did they
see."

"When the English saw the French approaching, they rose up in fine order
and ranged themselves in their lines of battle, that of the Prince of
Wales right in front, and the Earls of Northampton and Arundel, who
commanded the second, took up their place on the wing, right orderly and
all ready to support the prince, if need should be.  Well, the lords,
kings, dukes, counts, and barons of the French came not up all together,
but one in front and another behind, without plan or orderliness.  When
King Philip arrived at the spot where the English were thus halted, and
saw them, the blood boiled within him, for he hated them, and he said to
his marshals, 'Let our Genoese pass to the front and begin the battle, in
the name of God and St. Denis.'  There were there fifteen thousand of
these said Genoese bowmen; but they were sore tired with going a-foot
that day more than six leagues and fully armed, and they said to their
commanders that they were not prepared to do any great feat of battle.
'To be saddled with such a scum as this that fails you in the hour of
need!' said the Duke d'Alencon on hearing those words.  Whilst the
Genoese were holding back, there fell from heaven a rain, heavy and
thick, with thunder and lightning very mighty and terrible.  Before long,
however, the air began to clear and the sun to shine.  The French had it
right in their eyes and the English at their backs.  When the Genoese had
recovered themselves and got together, they advanced upon the English
with loud shouts, so as to strike dismay; but the English kept quite
quiet, and showed no sign of it.  Then the Genoese bent their cross-bows
and began to shoot.  The English, making one step forward, let fly their
arrows, which came down so thick upon the Genoese that it looked like a
fall of snow.  The Genoese, galled and discomfited, began to fall back.
Between them and the main body of the French was a great hedge of
men-at-arms who were watching their proceedings.  When the King of France
saw his bowmen thus in disorder he shouted to the men-at-arms, 'Up now
and slay all this scum, for it blocks our way and hinders us from getting
forward.'"  Then the French, on every side, struck out at the Genoese, at
whom the English archers continued to shoot.

"Thus began the battle between Broye and Crecy, at the hour of vespers."
The French, as they came up, were already tired and in great disorder:
"howbeit so many valiant men and good knights kept ever riding forward
for their honor's sake, and preferred rather to die than that a base
flight should be cast in their teeth."  A fierce combat took place
between them and the division of the Prince of Wales.  Thither penetrated
the Count d'Alenccon and the Count of Flanders with their followers,
round the flank of the English archers; and the King of France, who was
foaming with displeasure and wrath, rode forward to join his brother
D'Alencon, but there was so great a hedge of archers and men-at-arms
mingled together that he could never get past.  Thomas of Norwich, a
knight serving under the Prince of Wales, was sent to the King of England
to ask him for help.  "'Sir Thomas,' said the king, 'is my son dead or
unhorsed, or so wounded that he cannot help himself?'  'Not so, my lord,
please God; but he is fighting against great odds, and is like to have
need of your help.'  'Sir Thomas,' replied the king, 'return to them who
sent you, and tell them from me not to send for me, whatever chance
befall them, so long as my son is alive, and tell them that I bid them
let the lad win his spurs; for I wish, if God so deem, that the day
should be his, and the honor thereof remain to him and to those to whom I
have given him in charge.'  The knight returned with this answer to his
chiefs; and it encouraged them greatly, and they repented within
themselves for that they had sent him to the king."  Warlike ardor, if
not ability and prudence, was the same on both sides.  Philip's faithful
ally, John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia, had come thither, blind as he
was, with his son Charles and his knights; and when he knew that the
battle had begun he asked those who were near him how it was going on.
"'My lord,' they said, 'the Genoese are discomfited, and the king has
given orders to slay them all; and all the while between our folk and
them there is so great disorder that they stumble one over another and
hinder us greatly.'  'Ha!' said the king, 'that is an ill sign for us;
where is Sir Charles, my son?'  'My lord, we know not; we have reason to
believe that he is elsewhere in the fight.'  'Sirs,' replied the old
king, 'ye are my liegemen, my friends, and my comrades; I pray you and
require you to lead me so far to the front in the work of this day that I
may strike a blow with my sword; it shall not be said that I came hither
to do nought.'  So his train, who loved his honor and their own
advancement," says Froissart, "did his bidding.  For to acquit themselves
of their duty, and that they might not lose him in the throng, they tied
themselves all together by the reins of their horses, and set the king,
their lord, right in front, that he might the better accomplish his
desire, and thus they bore down on the enemy.  And the king went so far
forward that he struck a good blow, yea, three and four; and so did all
those who were with him.  And they served him so well and charged so well
forward upon the English, that all fell there and were found next day on
the spot around their lord, and their horses tied together."

"The King of France," continues Froissart, "had great anguish at heart
when he saw his men thus discomfited and falling one after another before
a handful of folk as the English were.  He asked counsel of Sir John of
Hainault, who was near him and who said to him, 'Truly, sir, I can give
you no better counsel than that you should withdraw and place yourself in
safety, for I see no remedy here.  It will soon be late; and then you
would be as likely to ride upon your enemies as amongst your friends, and
so be lost.'  Late in the evening, at nightfall, King Philip left the
field with a heavy heart--and for good cause; he had just five barons
with him, and no more!  He rode, quite broken-hearted, to the castle of
Broye.  When he came to the gate, he found it shut and the bridge drawn
up, for it was fully night, and was very dark and thick.  The king had
the castellan summoned, who came forward on the battlements and cried
aloud, 'Who's there? who knocks at such an hour?'  'Open, castellan,'
said Philip; 'it is the unhappy King of France.'  The castellan went out
as soon as he recognized the voice of the King of France; and he well
knew already that they had been discomfited, from some fugitives who had
passed at the foot of the castle.  He let down the bridge and opened the
gate.  Then the king, with his following, went in, and remained there up
to midnight, for the king did not care to stay and shut himself up
therein.  He drank a draught, and so did they who were with him; then
they mounted to horse, took guides to conduct them, and rode in such wise
that at break of day they entered the good city of Amiens.  There the
king halted, took up his quarters in an abbey, and said that he would go
no farther until he knew the truth about his men, which of them were left
on the field and which had escaped."

Whilst Philip, with all speed, was on the road back to Paris with his
army as disheartened as its king, and more disorderly in retreat than it
had been in battle, Edward was hastening, with ardor and intelligence, to
reap the fruits of his victory.  In the difficult war of conquest he had
undertaken, what was clearly of most importance to him was to possess on
the coast of France, as near as possible to England, a place which he
might make, in his operations by land and sea, a point of arrival and
departure, of occupancy, of provisioning, and of secure refuge.  Calais
exactly fulfilled these conditions.  It was a natural harbor, protected,
for many centuries past, by two huge towers, of which one, it is said,
was built by the Emperor Caligula and the other by Charlemagne; it had
been deepened and improved, at the end of the tenth century, by Baldwin
IV., Count of Flanders, and in the thirteenth by Philip of France, called
Toughskin (Hurepel), Count of Boulogne; and, in the fourteenth, it had
become an important city, surrounded by a strong wall of circumvallation,
and having erected in its midst a huge keep, furnished with bastions and
towers, which was called the Castle.  On arriving before the place,
September 3, 1346, Edward "immediately had built all round it," says
Froissart, "houses and dwelling-places of solid carpentry, and arranged
in streets as if he were to remain there for ten or twelve years, for his
intention was not to leave it winter or summer, whatever time and
whatever trouble he must spend and take.  He called this new town
Villeneuve la Hardie; and he had therein all things necessary for an
army, and more too, as a place appointed for the holding of a market on
Wednesday and Saturday; and therein were mercers' shops, and butchers'
shops, and stores for the sale of cloth, and bread, and all other
necessaries.  King Edward did not have the city of Calais assaulted by
his men, well knowing that he would lose his pains, but said he would
starve it out, however long a time it might cost him, if King Philip of
France did not come to fight him again, and raise the siege."

Calais had for its governor John de Vienne, a valiant and faithful
Burgundian knight, "the which, seeing," says Froissart, "that the King of
England was making every sacrifice to keep up the siege, ordered that all
sorts of small folk, who had no provisions, should quit the city without
further notice.  They went forth on a Wednesday morning, men, women, and
children, more than seventeen hundred of them, and passed through King
Edward's army.  They were asked why they were leaving; and they answered,
because they had no means of living.  Then the king permitted them to
pass, and caused to be given to all of them, male and female, a hearty
dinner, and after dinner two shillings apiece, the which grace was
commended as very handsome; and so indeed it was."  Edward probably hoped
that his generosity would produce, in the town itself which remained in a
state of siege, a favorable impression; but he had to do with a
population ardently warlike and patriotic, burghers as well as knights.
They endured for eleven months all the sufferings arising from isolation
and famine; though, from time to time, fishermen and seamen in their
neighborhood, and amongst others two seamen of Abbeville, the names of
whom have been preserved in history, Marant and Mestriel, succeeded in
getting victuals in to them.  The King of France made two attempts to
relieve them.  On the 20th of May, 1347, he assembled his troops at
Amiens; but they were not ready to march till about the middle of July,
and as long before as the 23d of June a French fleet of ten galleys and
thirty-five trans-ports had been driven off by the English.  John de
Vienne wrote to Philip, "Everything has been eaten, cats, dogs, and
horses, and we can no longer find victual in the town unless we eat human
flesh.  .  .  .  If we have not speedy succor, we will issue forth from
the town to fight, whether to live or die, for we would rather die
honorably in the field than eat one another.  .  .  .  If a remedy be not
soon applied, you will never more have letter from me, and the town will
be lost as well as we who are in it.  May our Lord grant you a happy life
and a long, and put you in such a disposition that, if we die for your
sake, you may settle the account therefor with our heirs!"  On the 27th
of July Philip arrived in person before Calais.  If Froissart can be
trusted, "he had with him full two hundred thousand men, and these French
rode up with banners flying as if to fight, and it was a fine sight to
see such puissant array; and so, when they of Calais who were on the
walls saw them appear and their banners floating on the breeze, they had
great joy, and believed that they were going to be soon delivered!  But
when they saw camping and tenting going forward they were more angered
than before, for it seemed to them an evil sign."  The marshals of France
went about everywhere looking for a passage, and they reported that it
was nowhere possible to open a road without exposing the army to loss,
so well all the approaches to the place, by sea and land, were guarded by
the English.  The pope's two legates, who had accompanied King Philip,
tried in vain to open negotiations.  Philip sent four knights to the King
of England to urge him to appoint a place where a battle might be fought
without advantage on either side; but, "Sirs," answered Edward, "I have
been here nigh upon a year, and have been at heavy charges by it; and
having done so much that before long I shall be master of Calais.  I will
by no means retard my conquest which I have so much desired.  Let mine
adversary and his people find out a way, as they please, to fight me."

Other testimony would have us believe that Edward accepted Philip's
challenge, and that it was the King of France who raised fresh
difficulties in consequence of which the proposed battle did not take
place.  Froissart's account, however, seems the more truth-like in
itself, and more in accordance with the totality of facts.  However that
may be, whether it were actual powerlessness or want of spirit both on
the part of the French army and of the king, Philip, on the 2d of August,
1347, took the road back to Amiens, and dismissed all those who had gone
with him, men-at-arms and common folk.

When the people of Calais saw that all hope of a rescue had slipped from
them, they held a council, resigned themselves to offer submission to the
King of England rather than die of hunger, and begged their governor,
John de Vienne, to enter into negotiations for that purpose with the
besiegers.  Walter de Manny, instructed by Edward to reply to these
overtures, said to John de Vienne, "The king's intent is, that ye put
yourselves at his free will to ransom or put to death such as it shall
please him; the people of Calais have caused him so great displeasure,
cost him so much money, and lost him so many men, that it is not
astonishing if that weighs heavily upon him."  "Sir Walter," answered
John de Vienne, "it would be too hard a matter for us if we were to
consent to what you say.  There are within here but a small number of us
knights and squires who have loyally served our lord the King of France
even as you would serve yours in like case; but we would suffer greater
evils than ever men have had to endure rather than consent that the
meanest 'prentice-boy or varlet of the town should have other evil than
the greatest of us.  We pray you be pleased to return to the King of
England, and pray him to have pity upon us; and you will do us courtesy."
"By my faith," answered Walter de Manny, "I will do it willingly, Sir
John; and I would that, by God's help, the king might be pleased to
listen unto me."  And the brave English knight reported to the king the
prayer of the French knights in Calais, saying, "My lord, Sir John de
Vienne told me that they were in very sore extremity and famine, but
that, rather than surrender all to your will, to live or die as it might
please you, they would sell themselves so dearly as never did men-at-
arms."  "I will not do otherwise than I have said," answered the king.
"My lord," replied Walter, "you will perchance be wrong, for you will
give us a bad example; if you should be pleased to send us to defend any
of your fortresses, we should of a surety not go willingly if you have
these people put to death, for thus would they do to us in like case."
These words caused Edward to reflect; and the greater part of the English
barons came to the aid of Walter de Manny.  "Sirs," said the king, "I
would not be all alone against you all.  Go, Walter, to them of Calais,
and say to the governor that the greatest grace they can find in my sight
is that six of the most notable burghers come forth from their town,
bare-headed, bare-footed, with ropes round their necks, and with the keys
of the town and castle in their hands.  With them I will do according to
my will, and the rest I will receive to mercy."  "My lord," said Walter,
"I will do it willingly."  He returned to Calais, where John de Vienne
was awaiting him, and reported the king's decision.  The governor
immediately left the ramparts, went to the market-place, and had the bell
rung to assemble the people.  At sound of the bell men and women came
hurrying up hungering for news, as was natural for people so hard-pressed
by famine that they could not hold out any longer.  John de Vienne then
repeated to them what he had just been told, adding that there was no
other way, and that they would have to make short answer.  On this they
all fell a-weeping and crying out so bitterly that no heart in the world,
however hard, could have seen and heard them without pity.  Even John de
Vienne shed tears.  Then rose up to his feet the richest burgher of the
town, Eustace de St. Pierre, who, at the former council, had been for
capitulation.  "Sir," said he, "it would be great pity to leave this
people to die, by famine or otherwise, when any remedy can be found
against it; and he who should keep them from such a mishap would find
great favor in the eyes of our Lord.  I have great hope to find favor in
the eyes of our Lord if I die to save this people; I would fain be the
first herein, and I will willingly place myself in my shirt and
bare-headed and with a rope round my neck, at the mercy of the King of
England."  At this speech, men and women cast themselves at the feet of
Eustace de St. Pierre, weeping piteously.  Another right-honorable
burgher, who had great possessions and two beautiful damsels for
daughters, rose up and said that he would act comrade to Eustace de St.
Pierre: his name was John d'Aire.  Then, for the third, James de Vissant,
a rich man in personalty and realty; then his brother Peter de Vissant;
and then the fifth and sixth, of whom none has told the names.  On the
5th of August, 1347, these six burghers, thus apparelled, with cords
round their necks and each with a bunch of the keys of the city and of
the castle, were conducted outside the gates by John de Vienne, who rode
a small hackney, for he was in such ill plight that he could not go
a-foot.  He gave them up to Sir Walter, who was awaiting him, and said to
him, "As captain of Calais I deliver to you, with the consent of the poor
people of the town, these six burghers, who are, I swear to you, the most
honorable and notable in person, in fortune, and in ancestry, in the town
of Calais.  I pray you be pleased to pray the King of England that these
good folks be not put to death."  "I know not," answered De Manny, "what
my lord the king may mean to do with them; but I promise you that I will
do mine ability."  When Sir Walter brought in the six burghers in this
condition, King Edward was in his chamber with a great company of earls,
barons, and knights.  As soon as he heard that the folks of Calais were
there as he had ordered, he went out and stood in the open space before
his hostel and all those lords with him; and even Queen Philippa of
England, who was with child, followed the king her lord.  He gazed most
cruelly on those six poor men, for he had his heart possessed with so
much rage that at first he could not speak.  When he spoke, he commanded
them to be straightway beheaded, All the barons and knights who were
there prayed him to show them mercy.  "Gentle sir," said Walter de Manny,
"restrain your wrath; you have renown for gentleness and nobleness; be
pleased to do nought whereby it may be diminished; if you have not pity
on yonder folk, all others will say that it was great cruelty on your
part to put to death these six honorable burghers, who of their own free
will have put themselves at your mercy to save the others."  The king
gnashed his teeth, saying, "Sir Walter, hold your peace; let them fetch
hither my headsman; the people of Calais have been the death of so many
of my men that it is but meet that yon fellows die also."  Then, with
great humility, the noble queen, who was very nigh her delivery, threw
herself on her knees at the feet of the king, saying, "Ah gentle sir, if,
as you know, I have asked nothing of you from the time that I crossed the
sea in great peril, I pray you humbly that as a special boon, for the
sake of Holy Mary's Son and for the love of me, you will please to have
mercy on these six men."

[Illustration: Queen Philippa at the Feet of the King----314]

The king did not speak at once, and fixed his eyes on the good dame his
wife, who was weeping piteously on her knees.  She softened his stern
heart, for he would have been loath to vex her in the state in which she
was; and he said to her, "Ha! dame, I had much rather you had been
elsewhere than here; but you pray me such prayers that I dare not refuse
you, and though it irks me much to do so, there!  I give them up to you;
do with them as you will."  "Thanks, hearty thanks, my lord," said the
good queen.  Then she rose up and raised up the six burghers, had the
ropes taken off their necks, and took them with her to her chamber, where
she had fresh clothes and dinner brought to them.  Afterwards she gave
them six nobles apiece, and had them led out of the host in all safety.

Edward was choleric and stern in his choler, but judicious and politic.
He had sense enough to comprehend the impressions exhibited around him
and to take them into account.  He had yielded to the free-spoken
representations of Walter de Manny and to the soft entreaties of his
royal wife.  When he was master of Calais he did not suffer himself to be
under any illusion as to the sentiments of the population he had
conquered, and, without excluding the French from the town, he took great
care to mingle with them an English population.  He had allowed a free
passage to the poor Calaisians driven out by famine; he now fetched from
London thirty-six burghers of position and three hundred others of
inferior condition, with their wives and children, and he granted to the
town thus depeopled and repeopled all such municipal and commercial
privileges as were likely to attract new inhabitants thither.  But, at
the same time, he felt what renown and importance a devotion like that of
the six burghers of Calais could not fail to confer upon such men, and
not only did he trouble himself to get them back to their own hearths,
but on the 8th of October, 1347, two months after the surrender of
Calais, he gave Eustace de St. Pierre a considerable pension "on account
of the good services he was to render in the town by maintaining good
order there," and he re-instated him, him and his heirs, in possession of
the properties that had belonged to him.  Eustace, more concerned for the
interests of his own town than for those of France, and being more of a
Calaisian burgher than a national patriot, showed no hesitation, for all
that appears, in accepting this new fashion of serving his native city,
for which he had shown himself so ready to die.  He lived four years as a
subject of the King of England.  At his death, which happened in 1351,
his heirs declared themselves faithful subjects of the King of France,
and Edward confiscated away from them the possessions he had restored to
their predecessor.  Eustace de St. Pierre's cousin and comrade in
devotion to their native town, John d'Aire, would not enter Calais again;
his property was confiscated, and his house, the finest, it is said, in
the town, was given by King Edward to Queen Philippa, who showed no more
hesitation in accepting it than Eustace in serving his new king.
Long-lived delicacy of sentiment and conduct was rarer in those rough and
rude times than heroic bursts of courage and devotion.

Philip of Valois tried to afford some consolation and supply some remedy
for the misfortune of the Calaisians banished from their town.  He
secured to them exemption from certain imposts, no matter whither they
removed, and the possession of all property and inheritances that might
fall to them, and he promised to confer upon them all vacant offices
which it might suit them to fill.  But it was not in his gift to repair.
even superficially and in appearance, the evils he had not known how to
prevent or combat to any purpose.  The outset of his reign had been
brilliant and prosperous; but his victory at Cassel over the Flemings
brought more cry than wool.  He had vanity enough to flaunt it rather
than wit enough to turn it to account.  He was a prince of courts, and
tournaments, and trips, and galas, whether regal or plebeian; he was
volatile, imprudent, haughty, and yet frivolous, brave without ability,
and despotic without anything to show for it.  The battle of Crecy and
the loss of Calais were reverses from which he never even made a serious
attempt to recover; he hastily concluded with Edward a truce, twice
renewed, which served only to consolidate the victor's successes.  A
calamity of European extent came as an addition to the distresses of
France.  From 1347 to 1349 a frightful disease, brought from Egypt and
Syria through the ports of Italy, and called the black plague or the
plague of Florence, ravaged Western Europe, especially Provence and
Languedoc, where it carried off, they say, two thirds of the inhabitants.
Machiavelli and Boccaccio have described with all the force of their
genius the material and moral effects of this terrible plague.  The court
of France suffered particularly from it, and the famous object of
Petrarch's tender sonnets, Laura de Noves, married to Hugh de Sade, fell
a victim to it at Avignon.  When the epidemic had well nigh disappeared,
the survivors, men and women, princes and subjects, returned passionately
to their pleasures and their galas; to mortality, says a contemporary
chronicler, succeeded a rage for marriage; and Philip of Valois himself,
now fifty-eight years of age, took for his second wife Blanche of
Navarre, who was only eighteen.  She was a sister of that young King of
Navarre, Charles II., who was soon to get the name of Charles the Bad,
and to become so dangerous an enemy for Philip's successors.  Seven
months after his marriage, and on the 22d of August, 1350, Philip died at
Nogent-le-Roi in the Haute-Marne, strictly enjoining his son John to
maintain with vigor his well-ascertained right to the crown he wore, and
leaving his people bowed down beneath a weight "of extortions so heavy
that the like had never been seen in the kingdom of France."

Only one happy event distinguished the close of this reign.  As early as
1343 Philip had treated, on a monetary basis, with Humbert II., Count and
Dauphin of Vienness, for the cession of that beautiful province to the
crown of France after the death of the then possessor.  Humbert, an
adventurous and fantastic prince, plunged, in 1346, into a crusade
against the Turks, from which he returned in the following year without
having obtained any success.  Tired of seeking adventures as well as of
reigning, he, on the 16th of July, 1349, before a solemn assembly held at
Lyons, abdicated his principality in favor of Prince Charles of France,
grandson of Philip of Valois, and afterwards Charles V.  The new dauphin
took the oath, between the hands of the Bishop of Grenoble, to maintain
the liberties, franchises, and privileges of the Dauphiny; and the
ex-dauphin, after having taken holy orders and passed successively
through the Archbishopric of Rheims and the Bishopric of Paris, both of
which he found equally unpalatable, went to die at Clermont in Auvergne,
in a convent belonging to the order of Dominicans, whose habit he had
donned.

In the same year, on the 18th of April, 1349, Philip of Valois bought of
Jayme of Arragon, the last king of Majorca, for one hundred and twenty
thousand golden crowns, the lordship and town of Montpellier, thus trying
to repair to some extent, for the kingdom of France, the losses he had
caused it.

[Illustration: John II., called the Good----318]

His successor, John II., called the Good, on no other ground than that he
was gay, prodigal, credulous, and devoted to his favorites, did nothing
but reproduce, with aggravations, the faults and reverses of his father.
He had hardly become king when he witnessed the arrival in Paris of the
Constable of France, Raoul, Count of Eu and of Guines, whom Edward III.
had made prisoner at Caen, and who, after five years' captivity, had just
obtained, that is, purchased, his liberty.  Raoul lost no time in
hurrying to the side of the new king, by whom he believed himself to be
greatly beloved.  John, as soon as he perceived him, gave him a look,
saying, "Count, come this way with me; I have to speak with you aside."
"Right willingly, my lord."  The king took him into an apartment, and
showing him a letter, asked, "Have you ever, count, seen this letter
anywhere but here?"  The constable appeared astounded and troubled.
"Ah! wicked traitor," said the king, "you have well deserved death, and,
by my father's soul, it shall assuredly not miss you;" and he sent him
forthwith to prison in the tower of the Louvre.  "The lords and barons of
France were sadly astonished," says Froissart, "for they held the count
to be a good man and true, and they humbly prayed the king that he would
be pleased to say wherefore he had imprisoned their cousin, so gentle a
knight, who had toiled so much and so much lost for him and for the
kingdom.  But the king would not say anything, save that he would never
sleep so long as the Count of Guines was living; and he had him secretly
beheaded in the castle of the Louvre, whether rightly or wrongly; for
which the king was greatly blamed, behind his back, by many of the barons
of high estate in the kingdom of France, and the dukes and counts of the
border."  Two months after this execution, John gave the office of
constable and a large portion of Count Raoul's property to his favorite,
Charles of Spain, a descendant of King Alphonso of Castille and
naturalized in France; and he added thereto before long some lands
claimed by the King of Navarre, Charles the Bad, a nickname which at
eighteen years of age he had already received from his Navarrese
subjects, but which had not prevented King John from giving him in
marriage his own daughter, Joan of France.  From that moment a deep
hatred sprang up between the King of Navarre and the favorite.  The
latter was sometimes disquieted thereby.  "Fear nought from my son of
Navarre," said John; "he durst not vex you, for, if he did, he would have
no greater enemy than myself."  John did not yet know his son-in-law.
Two years later, in 1354, his favorite, Charles of Spain, arrived at
Laigle in Normandy.  The King of Navarre, having notice thereof,
instructed one of his agents, the Bastard de Mareuil, to go with a troop
of men-at-arms and surprise him in that town; and he himself remained
outside the walls, awaiting the result of his design.  At break of day,
he saw galloping up the Bastard de Mareuil, who shouted to him from afar,
"'Tis done."  "What is done?"  asked Charles.  "He is dead," answered
Mareuil.  King John's favorite had been surprised and massacred in his
bed.  John burst out into threats; he swore he would have vengeance, and
made preparations for war against his son-in-law.  But the King of
England promised his support to the King of Navarre.  Charles the Bad was
a bold and able intriguer; he levied troops and won over allies amongst
the lords; dread of seeing the recommencement of a war with England
gained ground; and amongst the people, and even in the king's council,
there was a cry of "Peace with the King of Navarre!"  John took fright
and pretended to give up his ideas of vengeance; he received his son-in-
law, who thanked him on bended knee.  But the king gave him never a word.
The King of Navarre, uneasy but bold as ever, continued his intrigues for
obtaining partisans and for exciting troubles and enmities against the
king.  "I will have no master in France but myself," said John to his
confidant: "I shall have no joy so long as he is living."  His eldest
son, the young Duke of Normandy, who was at a later period Charles V.,
had contracted friendly relations with the King of Navarre.  On the 16th
of April, 1356, the two princes were together at a banquet in the castle
of Rouen, as well as the Count d'Harcourt and some other lords.  All on a
sudden King John, who had entered the castle by a postern with a troop of
men-at-arms, strode abruptly into the hall, preceded by the Marshal
Arnoul d'Audenham, who held a naked sword in his hand, and said, "Let
none stir, whatever he may see, unless he wish to fall by this sword."
The king went up to the table; and all rose as if to do him reverence.
John seized the King of Navarre roughly by the arm, and drew him towards
him, saying, "Get up, traitor; thou art not worthy to sit at my son's
table; by my father's soul I cannot think of meat or drink so long as
thou art living."  A servant of the King of Navarre, to defend his
master, drew his cutlass, and pointed it at the breast of the King of
France, who thrust him back, saying to his sergeants, "Take me this
fellow and his master too."  The King of Navarre dissolved in humble
protestations and repentant speeches over the assassination of the
Constable Charles of Spain.  "Go, traitor, go," answered John: "you will
need to learn good rede or some infamous trick to escape from me."  The
young Duke of Normandy had thrown himself at the feet of the king his
father, crying, "Ah! my lord, for God's sake have mercy; you do me
dishonor; for what will be said of me, having prayed King Charles and his
barons to dine with me, if you do treat me thus?  It will be said that I
betrayed them."  "Hold your peace, Charles," answered his father: "you
know not all I know."  He gave orders for the instant removal of the King
of Navarre, and afterwards of the Count d'Harcourt and three others of
those present under arrest.  "Rid us of these men," said he to the
captain of the Ribalds, forming the soldiers of his guard; and the four
prisoners were actually beheaded in the king's presence outside Rouen, in
a field called the Field of Pardon.  John was with great difficulty
prevailed upon not to mete out the same measure to the King of Navarre,
who was conducted first of all to Gaillard Castle, then to the tower of
the Louvre, and then to the prison of the Chatelet: "and there," says
Froissart, "they put him to all sorts of discomforts and fears, for every
day and every night they gave him to understand that his head would be
cut off at such and such an hour, or at such and such another he would be
thrown into the Seine .  .  .  whereupon he spoke so finely and so softly
to his keepers that they who were so entreating him by the command of the
King of France had great pity on him."

With such violence, such absence of all legal procedure, such a mixture
of deceptive indulgence and thoughtless brutality, did King John treat
his son-in-law, his own daughter, some of his principal barons, their
relations, their friends, and the people with whom they were in good
credit.  He compromised more and more seriously every day his own safety
and that of his successor, by vexing more and more, without destroying,
his most dangerous enemy.  He showed no greater prudence or ability in
the government of his kingdom.  Always in want of money, because he spent
it foolishly on galas or presents to his favorites, he had recourse, for
the purpose of procuring it, at one time to the very worst of all
financial expedients, debasement of the coinage; at another, to
disreputable imposts, such as the tax upon salt, and upon the sale of all
kinds of merchandise.  In the single year of 1352 the value of a silver
mark varied sixteen times, from four livres ten sous to eighteen livres.
To meet the requirements of his government and the greediness of his
courtiers, John twice, in 1355 and 1356, convoked the states-general, to
the consideration of which we shall soon recur in detail, and which did
not refuse him their support; but John had not the wit either to make
good use of the powers with which he was furnished, or to inspire the
states-general with that confidence which alone could decide them upon
continuing their gifts.  And, nevertheless, King John's necessities were
more evident and more urgent than ever: war with England had begun again.

The truth is that, in spite of the truce still existing, the English,
since the accession of King John, had at several points resumed
hostilities.  The disorders and dissensions to which France was a prey,