CHAPTER XVIII--ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD
Roger Mortimer, the Queen's lover (who escaped to France in the lastchapter), was far from profiting by the examples he had had of the fateof favourites. Having, through the Queen's influence, come intopossession of the estates of the two Despensers, he became extremelyproud and ambitious, and sought to be the real ruler of England. Theyoung King, who was crowned at fourteen years of age with all the usualsolemnities, resolved not to bear this, and soon pursued Mortimer to hisruin.
The people themselves were not fond of Mortimer--first, because he was aRoyal favourite; secondly, because he was supposed to have helped to makea peace with Scotland which now took place, and in virtue of which theyoung King's sister Joan, only seven years old, was promised in marriageto David, the son and heir of Robert Bruce, who was only five years old.The nobles hated Mortimer because of his pride, riches, and power. Theywent so far as to take up arms against him; but were obliged to submit.The Earl of Kent, one of those who did so, but who afterwards went overto Mortimer and the Queen, was made an example of in the following cruelmanner:
He seems to have been anything but a wise old earl; and he was persuadedby the agents of the favourite and the Queen, that poor King Edward theSecond was not really dead; and thus was betrayed into writing lettersfavouring his rightful claim to the throne. This was made out to be hightreason, and he was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be executed.They took the poor old lord outside the town of Winchester, and therekept him waiting some three or four hours until they could find somebodyto cut off his head. At last, a convict said he would do it, if thegovernment would pardon him in return; and they gave him the pardon; andat one blow he put the Earl of Kent out of his last suspense.
While the Queen was in France, she had found a lovely and good younglady, named Philippa, who she thought would make an excellent wife forher son. The young King married this lady, soon after he came to thethrone; and her first child, Edward, Prince of Wales, afterwards becamecelebrated, as we shall presently see, under the famous title of EDWARDTHE BLACK PRINCE.
The young King, thinking the time ripe for the downfall of Mortimer, tookcounsel with Lord Montacute how he should proceed. A Parliament wasgoing to be held at Nottingham, and that lord recommended that thefavourite should be seized by night in Nottingham Castle, where he wassure to be. Now, this, like many other things, was more easily said thandone; because, to guard against treachery, the great gates of the Castlewere locked every night, and the great keys were carried up-stairs to theQueen, who laid them under her own pillow. But the Castle had agovernor, and the governor being Lord Montacute's friend, confided to himhow he knew of a secret passage underground, hidden from observation bythe weeds and brambles with which it was overgrown; and how, through thatpassage, the conspirators might enter in the dead of the night, and gostraight to Mortimer's room. Accordingly, upon a certain dark night, atmidnight, they made their way through this dismal place: startling therats, and frightening the owls and bats: and came safely to the bottom ofthe main tower of the Castle, where the King met them, and took them up aprofoundly-dark staircase in a deep silence. They soon heard the voiceof Mortimer in council with some friends; and bursting into the room witha sudden noise, took him prisoner. The Queen cried out from herbed-chamber, 'Oh, my sweet son, my dear son, spare my gentle Mortimer!'They carried him off, however; and, before the next Parliament, accusedhim of having made differences between the young King and his mother, andof having brought about the death of the Earl of Kent, and even of thelate King; for, as you know by this time, when they wanted to get rid ofa man in those old days, they were not very particular of what theyaccused him. Mortimer was found guilty of all this, and was sentenced tobe hanged at Tyburn. The King shut his mother up in genteel confinement,where she passed the rest of her life; and now he became King in earnest.
The first effort he made was to conquer Scotland. The English lords whohad lands in Scotland, finding that their rights were not respected underthe late peace, made war on their own account: choosing for theirgeneral, Edward, the son of John Baliol, who made such a vigorous fight,that in less than two months he won the whole Scottish Kingdom. He wasjoined, when thus triumphant, by the King and Parliament; and he and theKing in person besieged the Scottish forces in Berwick. The wholeScottish army coming to the assistance of their countrymen, such afurious battle ensued, that thirty thousand men are said to have beenkilled in it. Baliol was then crowned King of Scotland, doing homage tothe King of England; but little came of his successes after all, for theScottish men rose against him, within no very long time, and David Brucecame back within ten years and took his kingdom.
France was a far richer country than Scotland, and the King had a muchgreater mind to conquer it. So, he let Scotland alone, and pretendedthat he had a claim to the French throne in right of his mother. He had,in reality, no claim at all; but that mattered little in those times. Hebrought over to his cause many little princes and sovereigns, and evencourted the alliance of the people of Flanders--a busy, workingcommunity, who had very small respect for kings, and whose head man was abrewer. With such forces as he raised by these means, Edward invadedFrance; but he did little by that, except run into debt in carrying onthe war to the extent of three hundred thousand pounds. The next year hedid better; gaining a great sea-fight in the harbour of Sluys. Thissuccess, however, was very shortlived, for the Flemings took fright atthe siege of Saint Omer and ran away, leaving their weapons and baggagebehind them. Philip, the French King, coming up with his army, andEdward being very anxious to decide the war, proposed to settle thedifference by single combat with him, or by a fight of one hundredknights on each side. The French King said, he thanked him; but beingvery well as he was, he would rather not. So, after some skirmishing andtalking, a short peace was made.
It was soon broken by King Edward's favouring the cause of John, Earl ofMontford; a French nobleman, who asserted a claim of his own against theFrench King, and offered to do homage to England for the Crown of France,if he could obtain it through England's help. This French lord, himself,was soon defeated by the French King's son, and shut up in a tower inParis; but his wife, a courageous and beautiful woman, who is said tohave had the courage of a man, and the heart of a lion, assembled thepeople of Brittany, where she then was; and, showing them her infant son,made many pathetic entreaties to them not to desert her and their youngLord. They took fire at this appeal, and rallied round her in the strongcastle of Hennebon. Here she was not only besieged without by the Frenchunder Charles de Blois, but was endangered within by a dreary old bishop,who was always representing to the people what horrors they must undergoif they were faithful--first from famine, and afterwards from fire andsword. But this noble lady, whose heart never failed her, encouraged hersoldiers by her own example; went from post to post like a great general;even mounted on horseback fully armed, and, issuing from the castle by aby-path, fell upon the French camp, set fire to the tents, and threw thewhole force into disorder. This done, she got safely back to Hennebonagain, and was received with loud shouts of joy by the defenders of thecastle, who had given her up for lost. As they were now very short ofprovisions, however, and as they could not dine off enthusiasm, and asthe old bishop was always saying, 'I told you what it would come to!'they began to lose heart, and to talk of yielding the castle up. Thebrave Countess retiring to an upper room and looking with great grief outto sea, where she expected relief from England, saw, at this very time,the English ships in the distance, and was relieved and rescued! SirWalter Manning, the English commander, so admired her courage, that,being come into the castle with the English knights, and having made afeast there, he assaulted the French by way of dessert, and beat them offtriumphantly. Then he and the knights came back to the castle with greatjoy; and the Countess who had watched them from a high tower, thankedthem with all her heart, and kissed them every one.
This noble lady distinguished herself afterwards in a sea-fight with theFrench off Guernsey, when she was on her way to England to ask for moretroops. Her great spirit roused another lady, the wife of another Frenchlord (whom the French King very barbarously murdered), to distinguishherself scarcely less. The time was fast coming, however, when Edward,Prince of Wales, was to be the great star of this French and English war.
It was in the month of July, in the year one thousand three hundred andforty-six, when the King embarked at Southampton for France, with an armyof about thirty thousand men in all, attended by the Prince of Wales andby several of the chief nobles. He landed at La Hogue in Normandy; and,burning and destroying as he went, according to custom, advanced up theleft bank of the River Seine, and fired the small towns even close toParis; but, being watched from the right bank of the river by the FrenchKing and all his army, it came to this at last, that Edward foundhimself, on Saturday the twenty-sixth of August, one thousand threehundred and forty-six, on a rising ground behind the little Frenchvillage of Crecy, face to face with the French King's force. And,although the French King had an enormous army--in number more than eighttimes his--he there resolved to beat him or be beaten.
The young Prince, assisted by the Earl of Oxford and the Earl of Warwick,led the first division of the English army; two other great Earls led thesecond; and the King, the third. When the morning dawned, the Kingreceived the sacrament, and heard prayers, and then, mounted on horsebackwith a white wand in his hand, rode from company to company, and rank torank, cheering and encouraging both officers and men. Then the wholearmy breakfasted, each man sitting on the ground where he had stood; andthen they remained quietly on the ground with their weapons ready.
Up came the French King with all his great force. It was dark and angryweather; there was an eclipse of the sun; there was a thunder-storm,accompanied with tremendous rain; the frightened birds flew screamingabove the soldiers' heads. A certain captain in the French army advisedthe French King, who was by no means cheerful, not to begin the battleuntil the morrow. The King, taking this advice, gave the word to halt.But, those behind not understanding it, or desiring to be foremost withthe rest, came pressing on. The roads for a great distance were coveredwith this immense army, and with the common people from the villages, whowere flourishing their rude weapons, and making a great noise. Owing tothese circumstances, the French army advanced in the greatest confusion;every French lord doing what he liked with his own men, and putting outthe men of every other French lord.
Now, their King relied strongly upon a great body of cross-bowmen fromGenoa; and these he ordered to the front to begin the battle, on findingthat he could not stop it. They shouted once, they shouted twice, theyshouted three times, to alarm the English archers; but, the English wouldhave heard them shout three thousand times and would have never moved. Atlast the cross-bowmen went forward a little, and began to discharge theirbolts; upon which, the English let fly such a hail of arrows, that theGenoese speedily made off--for their cross-bows, besides being heavy tocarry, required to be wound up with a handle, and consequently took timeto re-load; the English, on the other hand, could discharge their arrowsalmost as fast as the arrows could fly.
When the French King saw the Genoese turning, he cried out to his men tokill those scoundrels, who were doing harm instead of service. Thisincreased the confusion. Meanwhile the English archers, continuing toshoot as fast as ever, shot down great numbers of the French soldiers andknights; whom certain sly Cornish-men and Welshmen, from the Englisharmy, creeping along the ground, despatched with great knives.
The Prince and his division were at this time so hard-pressed, that theEarl of Warwick sent a message to the King, who was overlooking thebattle from a windmill, beseeching him to send more aid.
'Is my son killed?' said the King.
'No, sire, please God,' returned the messenger.
'Is he wounded?' said the King.
'No, sire.'
'Is he thrown to the ground?' said the King.
'No, sire, not so; but, he is very hard-pressed.'
'Then,' said the King, 'go back to those who sent you, and tell them Ishall send no aid; because I set my heart upon my son proving himselfthis day a brave knight, and because I am resolved, please God, that thehonour of a great victory shall be his!'
These bold words, being reported to the Prince and his division, soraised their spirits, that they fought better than ever. The King ofFrance charged gallantly with his men many times; but it was of no use.Night closing in, his horse was killed under him by an English arrow, andthe knights and nobles who had clustered thick about him early in theday, were now completely scattered. At last, some of his few remainingfollowers led him off the field by force since he would not retire ofhimself, and they journeyed away to Amiens. The victorious English,lighting their watch-fires, made merry on the field, and the King, ridingto meet his gallant son, took him in his arms, kissed him, and told himthat he had acted nobly, and proved himself worthy of the day and of thecrown. While it was yet night, King Edward was hardly aware of the greatvictory he had gained; but, next day, it was discovered that elevenprinces, twelve hundred knights, and thirty thousand common men lay deadupon the French side. Among these was the King of Bohemia, an old blindman; who, having been told that his son was wounded in the battle, andthat no force could stand against the Black Prince, called to him twoknights, put himself on horse-back between them, fastened the threebridles together, and dashed in among the English, where he was presentlyslain. He bore as his crest three white ostrich feathers, with the motto_Ich dien_, signifying in English 'I serve.' This crest and motto weretaken by the Prince of Wales in remembrance of that famous day, and havebeen borne by the Prince of Wales ever since.
Five days after this great battle, the King laid siege to Calais. Thissiege--ever afterwards memorable--lasted nearly a year. In order tostarve the inhabitants out, King Edward built so many wooden houses forthe lodgings of his troops, that it is said their quarters looked like asecond Calais suddenly sprung around the first. Early in the siege, thegovernor of the town drove out what he called the useless mouths, to thenumber of seventeen hundred persons, men and women, young and old. KingEdward allowed them to pass through his lines, and even fed them, anddismissed them with money; but, later in the siege, he was not somerciful--five hundred more, who were afterwards driven out, dying ofstarvation and misery. The garrison were so hard-pressed at last, thatthey sent a letter to King Philip, telling him that they had eaten allthe horses, all the dogs, and all the rats and mice that could be foundin the place; and, that if he did not relieve them, they must eithersurrender to the English, or eat one another. Philip made one effort togive them relief; but they were so hemmed in by the English power, thathe could not succeed, and was fain to leave the place. Upon this theyhoisted the English flag, and surrendered to King Edward. 'Tell yourgeneral,' said he to the humble messengers who came out of the town,'that I require to have sent here, six of the most distinguishedcitizens, bare-legged, and in their shirts, with ropes about their necks;and let those six men bring with them the keys of the castle and thetown.'
When the Governor of Calais related this to the people in theMarket-place, there was great weeping and distress; in the midst ofwhich, one worthy citizen, named Eustace de Saint Pierre, rose up andsaid, that if the six men required were not sacrificed, the wholepopulation would be; therefore, he offered himself as the first.Encouraged by this bright example, five other worthy citizens rose up oneafter another, and offered themselves to save the rest. The Governor,who was too badly wounded to be able to walk, mounted a poor old horsethat had not been eaten, and conducted these good men to the gate, whileall the people cried and mourned.
Edward received them wrathfully, and ordered the heads of the whole sixto be struck off. However, the good Queen fell upon her knees, andbesought the King to give them up to her. The King replied, 'I wish youhad been somewhere else; but I cannot refuse you.' So she had themproperly dressed, made a feast for them, and sent them back with ahandsome present, to the great rejoicing of the whole camp. I hope thepeople of Calais loved the daughter to whom she gave birth soonafterwards, for her gentle mother's sake.
Now came that terrible disease, the Plague, into Europe, hurrying fromthe heart of China; and killed the wretched people--especially thepoor--in such enormous numbers, that one-half of the inhabitants ofEngland are related to have died of it. It killed the cattle, in greatnumbers, too; and so few working men remained alive, that there were notenough left to till the ground.
After eight years of differing and quarrelling, the Prince of Wales againinvaded France with an army of sixty thousand men. He went through thesouth of the country, burning and plundering wheresoever he went; whilehis father, who had still the Scottish war upon his hands, did the likein Scotland, but was harassed and worried in his retreat from thatcountry by the Scottish men, who repaid his cruelties with interest.
The French King, Philip, was now dead, and was succeeded by his son John.The Black Prince, called by that name from the colour of the armour hewore to set off his fair complexion, continuing to burn and destroy inFrance, roused John into determined opposition; and so cruel had theBlack Prince been in his campaign, and so severely had the Frenchpeasants suffered, that he could not find one who, for love, or money, orthe fear of death, would tell him what the French King was doing, orwhere he was. Thus it happened that he came upon the French King'sforces, all of a sudden, near the town of Poitiers, and found that thewhole neighbouring country was occupied by a vast French army. 'God helpus!' said the Black Prince, 'we must make the best of it.'
So, on a Sunday morning, the eighteenth of September, the Prince whosearmy was now reduced to ten thousand men in all--prepared to give battleto the French King, who had sixty thousand horse alone. While he was soengaged, there came riding from the French camp, a Cardinal, who hadpersuaded John to let him offer terms, and try to save the shedding ofChristian blood. 'Save my honour,' said the Prince to this good priest,'and save the honour of my army, and I will make any reasonable terms.'He offered to give up all the towns, castles, and prisoners, he hadtaken, and to swear to make no war in France for seven years; but, asJohn would hear of nothing but his surrender, with a hundred of his chiefknights, the treaty was broken off, and the Prince said quietly--'Goddefend the right; we shall fight to-morrow.'
Therefore, on the Monday morning, at break of day, the two armiesprepared for battle. The English were posted in a strong place, whichcould only be approached by one narrow lane, skirted by hedges on bothsides. The French attacked them by this lane; but were so galled andslain by English arrows from behind the hedges, that they were forced toretreat. Then went six hundred English bowmen round about, and, comingupon the rear of the French army, rained arrows on them thick and fast.The French knights, thrown into confusion, quitted their banners anddispersed in all directions. Said Sir John Chandos to the Prince, 'Rideforward, noble Prince, and the day is yours. The King of France is sovaliant a gentleman, that I know he will never fly, and may be takenprisoner.' Said the Prince to this, 'Advance, English banners, in thename of God and St. George!' and on they pressed until they came up withthe French King, fighting fiercely with his battle-axe, and, when all hisnobles had forsaken him, attended faithfully to the last by his youngestson Philip, only sixteen years of age. Father and son fought well, andthe King had already two wounds in his face, and had been beaten down,when he at last delivered himself to a banished French knight, and gavehim his right-hand glove in token that he had done so.
The Black Prince was generous as well as brave, and he invited his royalprisoner to supper in his tent, and waited upon him at table, and, whenthey afterwards rode into London in a gorgeous procession, mounted theFrench King on a fine cream-coloured horse, and rode at his side on alittle pony. This was all very kind, but I think it was, perhaps, alittle theatrical too, and has been made more meritorious than itdeserved to be; especially as I am inclined to think that the greatestkindness to the King of France would have been not to have shown him tothe people at all. However, it must be said, for these acts ofpoliteness, that, in course of time, they did much to soften the horrorsof war and the passions of conquerors. It was a long, long time beforethe common soldiers began to have the benefit of such courtly deeds; butthey did at last; and thus it is possible that a poor soldier who askedfor quarter at the battle of Waterloo, or any other such great fight, mayhave owed his life indirectly to Edward the Black Prince.
At this time there stood in the Strand, in London, a palace called theSavoy, which was given up to the captive King of France and his son fortheir residence. As the King of Scotland had now been King Edward'scaptive for eleven years too, his success was, at this time, tolerablycomplete. The Scottish business was settled by the prisoner beingreleased under the title of Sir David, King of Scotland, and by hisengaging to pay a large ransom. The state of France encouraged Englandto propose harder terms to that country, where the people rose againstthe unspeakable cruelty and barbarity of its nobles; where the noblesrose in turn against the people; where the most frightful outrages werecommitted on all sides; and where the insurrection of the peasants,called the insurrection of the Jacquerie, from Jacques, a commonChristian name among the country people of France, awakened terrors andhatreds that have scarcely yet passed away. A treaty called the GreatPeace, was at last signed, under which King Edward agreed to give up thegreater part of his conquests, and King John to pay, within six years, aransom of three million crowns of gold. He was so beset by his ownnobles and courtiers for having yielded to these conditions--though theycould help him to no better--that he came back of his own will to his oldpalace-prison of the Savoy, and there died.
There was a Sovereign of Castile at that time, called PEDRO THE CRUEL,who deserved the name remarkably well: having committed, among othercruelties, a variety of murders. This amiable monarch being driven fromhis throne for his crimes, went to the province of Bordeaux, where theBlack Prince--now married to his cousin JOAN, a pretty widow--wasresiding, and besought his help. The Prince, who took to him much morekindly than a prince of such fame ought to have taken to such a ruffian,readily listened to his fair promises, and agreeing to help him, sentsecret orders to some troublesome disbanded soldiers of his and hisfather's, who called themselves the Free Companions, and who had been apest to the French people, for some time, to aid this Pedro. The Prince,himself, going into Spain to head the army of relief, soon set Pedro onhis throne again--where he no sooner found himself, than, of course, hebehaved like the villain he was, broke his word without the least shame,and abandoned all the promises he had made to the Black Prince.
Now, it had cost the Prince a good deal of money to pay soldiers tosupport this murderous King; and finding himself, when he came backdisgusted to Bordeaux, not only in bad health, but deeply in debt, hebegan to tax his French subjects to pay his creditors. They appealed tothe French King, CHARLES; war again broke out; and the French town ofLimoges, which the Prince had greatly benefited, went over to the FrenchKing. Upon this he ravaged the province of which it was the capital;burnt, and plundered, and killed in the old sickening way; and refusedmercy to the prisoners, men, women, and children taken in the offendingtown, though he was so ill and so much in need of pity himself fromHeaven, that he was carried in a litter. He lived to come home and makehimself popular with the people and Parliament, and he died on TrinitySunday, the eighth of June, one thousand three hundred and seventy-six,at forty-six years old.
The whole nation mourned for him as one of the most renowned and belovedprinces it had ever had; and he was buried with great lamentations inCanterbury Cathedral. Near to the tomb of Edward the Confessor, hismonument, with his figure, carved in stone, and represented in the oldblack armour, lying on its back, may be seen at this day, with an ancientcoat of mail, a helmet, and a pair of gauntlets hanging from a beam aboveit, which most people like to believe were once worn by the Black Prince.
King Edward did not outlive his renowned son, long. He was old, and oneAlice Perrers, a beautiful lady, had contrived to make him so fond of herin his old age, that he could refuse her nothing, and made himselfridiculous. She little deserved his love, or--what I dare say she valueda great deal more--the jewels of the late Queen, which he gave her amongother rich presents. She took the very ring from his finger on themorning of the day when he died, and left him to be pillaged by hisfaithless servants. Only one good priest was true to him, and attendedhim to the last.
Besides being famous for the great victories I have related, the reign ofKing Edward the Third was rendered memorable in better ways, by thegrowth of architecture and the erection of Windsor Castle. In betterways still, by the rising up of WICKLIFFE, originally a poor parishpriest: who devoted himself to exposing, with wonderful power andsuccess, the ambition and corruption of the Pope, and of the whole churchof which he was the head.
Some of those Flemings were induced to come to England in this reign too,and to settle in Norfolk, where they made better woollen cloths than theEnglish had ever had before. The Order of the Garter (a very fine thingin its way, but hardly so important as good clothes for the nation) alsodates from this period. The King is said to have picked 'up a lady'sgarter at a ball, and to have said, _Honi soit qui mal y pense_--inEnglish, 'Evil be to him who evil thinks of it.' The courtiers wereusually glad to imitate what the King said or did, and hence from aslight incident the Order of the Garter was instituted, and became agreat dignity. So the story goes.