They soon therefore evaded their obligation to obey the Bull, and paid their taxes, under the pretence that they were making presents to the king, on which Edward again opened his courts to them. In the days of Henry I. or Henry II. it would not have been possible to treat the clergy in this fashion. The fact was, that the ma.s.s of the people now looked to the king instead of to the Church for protection, and therefore respected the clergy less than they had done in earlier days.
14. =The "Confirmatio Cartarum." 1297.=--In =1297= Edward, having subdued the Scots in the preceding year, resolved to conduct one army to Flanders, and to send another to Gascony to maintain his rights against Philip IV. He therefore called on his barons to take part in these enterprises. Amongst those ordered to go to Gascony were Roger BiG.o.d, Earl of Norfolk, and Humfrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford. They declared that they were only bound to follow the king himself, and that as Edward was not going in person to Gascony they would not go.
"By G.o.d, Sir Earl," said the king to one of them, "you shall either go or hang." "By G.o.d," was the reply, "I will neither go nor hang." The two earls soon found support. The barons were sore because Edward"s reforms had diminished their authority. The clergy were sore because of their recent treatment. The merchants were sore because of the exactions to which they had been subjected. Archbishop Winchelsey bound the malcontents together by asking Edward to confirm _Magna Carta_ and other charters granted by his predecessors, and by adding other articles now proposed for the first time, so as to preclude him from demanding taxes not granted by Parliament. Edward found that the new articles restricted his action more than it had been restricted by the older charters. He was deeply vexed, as he thought that he deserved to be trusted, and that, though he had exacted illegal payments, he had only done so out of necessity. He saw, however, that he must yield, but he could not bring himself to yield in person, and he therefore crossed the sea to Flanders, leaving the Prince of Wales to make the required concession. On October 10, =1297=, the _Confirmatio Cartarum_, as it was called, was issued in the king"s name. It differed from _Magna Carta_ in this, that whereas John had only engaged not to exact feudal revenue from his va.s.sals without consent of Parliament, Edward I. also engaged not to exact customs duties without a Parliamentary grant. From that time no general revenue could be taken from the whole realm without a breach of the law, though the king still continued for some time to raise tallages, or special payments, from the tenants of his own demesne lands.
15. =Wallace"s Rising. 1297--1304.=--Whilst Edward was contending with his own people his officers had been oppressing the Scots. They had treated Scotland as a conquered land, not as a country joined to England by equal union. Resistance began in =1297=, and a rising was headed by Wallace, a gentleman of moderate fortune in the western lowlands. Wallace"s bold and vigorous attacks gained him the confidence of the lesser gentry and the people, though the n.o.bles, mostly of Norman descent, supported the English government, and only joined Wallace when it was dangerous to stand aloof. In the autumn, an English army advancing into Scotland reached the south bank of the Forth near Stirling. Wallace, who showed on that day that he was skilful as well as brave, drew up his army on the north bank at some little distance from the narrow bridge over which the English must come if they were to attack him. When half of them had crossed, he fell upon that half before the troops in the rear could advance to its succour. Wallace"s victory was complete, and he then invaded England, ravaging and slaughtering as far as Hexham.
16. =The Second Conquest of Scotland. 1298--1304.=--In =1298= Edward, who had been unsuccessful on the Continent, made a truce with Philip.
Returning to England, he marched against Wallace, and came up with him at Falkirk. The battle which ensued, like William"s victory at Senlac (see p. 96), was a triumph of inventive military skill over valour content to rest upon ancient methods. The Scots were hardy footmen, drawn up in three rings, and provided with long spears.
Against such a force so armed the cavalry of the feudal array would dash itself in vain. Edward, however, had marked in his Welsh wars the superiority of the long-bow drawn to the ear--not, as in the case of the shorter bows of older times, to the breast of the archer--and sending its cloth-yard shaft with a strength and swiftness. .h.i.therto unknown. He now brought with him a large force of bowmen equipped in this fashion. At Falkirk the long-bow was tried for the first time in any considerable battle. The effect was overwhelming: a shower of arrows poured upon a single point in the ring of the spearmen soon cleared a gap. Edward"s cavalry dashed in before the enemy had time to close, and the victory was won. Wallace had had scarcely one of the Scottish n.o.bles with him either at Stirling or at Falkirk, and unless all Scotland combined he could hardly be expected to succeed against such a warrior as Edward. Wallace"s merit was that he did not despair of his country, and that by his patriotic vigour he prepared the minds of Scotsmen for a happier day. He himself fled to France, but Scotland struggled on without him. Some of the n.o.bles, now that Wallace was no longer present to give them cause of jealousy, took part in the resistance, and only in =1304= did Edward after repeated campaigns complete his second conquest of the country.
17. =The Incorporation of Scotland with England. 1305.=--In =1305= Wallace, who had returned from France, but had taken no great part in the late resistance, was betrayed to the English. His barbarity in his raid on Northumberland in =1297= (see p. 221) had marked him out for vengeance, and he was executed at Tyburn as a traitor to the English king of Scotland, whose right he had never acknowledged. Edward then proceeded to incorporate Scotland with England. Scotland was to be treated very much as Wales had been treated before. There was to be as little harshness as possible. n.o.bles who had resisted Edward were to keep their estates on payment of fines, the Scottish law was to be observed, and Scots were to be chosen to represent the wishes of their fellow-countrymen in the Parliament at Westminster. On the other hand, the Scottish n.o.bles were to surrender their castles, and the country was to be governed by an English Lieutenant, who, together with his council, had power to amend the laws.
18. =Character of Edward"s Dealings with Scotland.=--Edward"s dealings with Scotland, mistaken as they were, were not those of a self-willed tyrant. If it be once admitted that he was really the lord paramount of Scotland, everything that he did may be justified upon feudal principles. First, Balliol forfeited his va.s.sal crown by breaking his obligations as a va.s.sal. Secondly, Edward, through the default of his va.s.sal, took possession of the fief which Balliol had forfeited, and thus became the immediate lord of Balliol"s va.s.sals.
Thirdly, those va.s.sals rebelled--so at least Edward would have said--against their new lord. Fourthly, they thereby forfeited their estates to him, and he was therefore, according to his own view, in the right in restoring their estates to them--if he restored them at all--under new conditions. Satisfactory as this argument must have seemed to Edward, it was weak in two places. The Scots might attack it at its basis by retorting that Edward had never truly been lord paramount of Scotland at all; or they might a.s.sert that it did not matter whether he was so or not, because the Scottish right to national independence was superior to all feudal claims. It is this latter argument which has the most weight at the present day, and it seems to us strange that Edward, who had done so much to encourage the national growth of England, should have entirely ignored the national growth of Scotland. All that can be said to palliate Edward"s mistake is that it was, at first, difficult to perceive that there was a Scottish nationality at all. Changes in the political aspect of affairs grow up un.o.bserved, and it was not till after his death that all cla.s.ses in Scotland were completely welded together in resistance to an English king. At all events, if he treated the claim of the Scots to national independence with contempt, he at least strove, according to his own notions, to benefit Scots and English alike. He hoped that one nation, justly ruled under one government, would grow up in the place of two divided peoples.
19. =Robert Bruce. 1306.=--It was better even for England that Edward"s hopes should fail. Scotland would have been of little worth to its more powerful neighbour if it had been cowed into subjection; whereas when, after struggling and suffering for her independence, she offered herself freely as the companion and ally of England to share in common duties and common efforts, the gift was priceless. That Scotland was able to shake off the English yoke was mainly the work of Robert Bruce, the grandson of the Robert Bruce who had been one of the claimants of the Scottish crown at Norham. The Bruces, like Balliol, were of Norman descent, and as Balliol"s rivals they had attached themselves to Edward. The time was now come when all chances of Balliol"s restoration were at an end, and thoughts of gaining the crown stirred in the mind of the younger Bruce. After Edward"s last settlement of Scotland it was plain that there was no longer room for a Scottish va.s.sal king, and Bruce was therefore driven to connect his own aspirations with those of the Scottish nation. He had, however, one powerful rival amongst the n.o.bles. John Comyn--the Red Comyn, as he was called--had been one of the many claimants of the throne who appeared before Edward at Norham, and he still looked with a jealous eye upon all who disputed his t.i.tle. He was, however, persuaded in =1306= to meet Bruce in the Grey Friars Church at Dumfries. As Bruce pleaded his own right to the crown, Comyn denounced him as a traitor to Edward. Bruce answered by driving his dagger into him. "I doubt,"
cried Bruce, as he rushed from the church, "that I have slain the Red Comyn." "I will mak sicker" (_make sure_), said Kirkpatrick, who was in attendance upon him, and, going in, completed the murder. Bruce made for Scone and was crowned king of Scotland in the presence of many of the chief n.o.bility.
20. =Edward"s Last March on Scotland and Death. 1306--1307.= Edward, to whom Bruce was but a rebel and a murderer, despatched against him the Earl of Pembroke who routed his forces at Methven. The revolt was suppressed and Bruce"s supporters were carried off to English prisons, and their lands divided amongst English n.o.blemen. The Countess of Buchan, who had taken a prominent part in Bruce"s coronation, was subjected to an imprisonment of great severity in the castle of Berwick. Bruce almost alone escaped. He knew now that he had the greater part of the n.o.bility as well as the people at his side, and even in his lonely wanderings and hairbreadth escapes he was, what neither Balliol nor Wallace had been, the true head of the Scottish nation. Before the end of =1306= he reappeared in Carrick, where his own possessions lay, and where the whole population was on his side, and inflicted heavy losses on the English garrisons. Early in July =1307= Edward, who himself had tarried in c.u.mberland, once more set out to take the field in person; but he was now old and worn out, and he died at Burgh on Sands, a few miles on the English side of the border.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Edward II.; from his monument in Gloucester Cathedral.]
21. =Edward II. and Piers Gaveston. 1307--1312.=--The new king, Edward II., was as different as possible from his father. He was not wicked, like William II. and John, but he detested the trouble of public business, and thought that the only advantage of being a king was that he would have leisure to amuse himself. During his father"s life he devoted himself to Piers Gaveston, a Gascon, who encouraged him in his pleasures and taught him to mistrust his father. Edward I.
banished Gaveston; Edward II., immediately on his accession, not only recalled him, but made him regent when he himself crossed to France to be married to Isabella, the daughter of Philip IV. The barons, who were already inclined to win back some of the authority of which Edward I. had deprived them, were very angry at the place taken over their heads by an upstart favourite, especially as Gaveston was ill-bred enough to make jests at their expense. The barons found a leader in Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, the son of that Edmund, the brother of Edward I., who had received the t.i.tle of king of Sicily from the Pope (see p. 197). Thomas of Lancaster had very large estates. He was an ambitious man, who tried to play the part which had been played by Earl Simon without any of Simon"s qualifications for the position. In =1308= the king yielded to the barons so far as to send Gaveston out of the country to Ireland as his Lieutenant. In =1309= he recalled him. The barons were exasperated, and in the Parliament of =1310= they brought forward a plan for taking the king"s government out of his hands, very much after the fashion of the Provisions of Oxford. Twenty-one barons were appointed Lords Ordainers, to draw up ordinances for the government of the country. In =1311= they produced the ordinances. Gaveston was to be banished for life. The king was to appoint officers only with the consent of the barons, without which he was not to go to war nor leave the kingdom.
The ordinances may have been justified in so far as they restrained the authority of a king so incapable as Edward II. Const.i.tutionally their acceptance was a retrograde step, as, like the Provisions of Oxford, they placed power in the hands of the barons, pa.s.sing over Parliament as a whole. Edward agreed to the ordinances, but refused to surrender Gaveston. The barons took arms to enforce their will, and in =1312=, having captured Gaveston, they beheaded him near Warwick without the semblance of a trial.
22. =Success of Robert Bruce. 1307--1314.=--Whilst Edward and the barons were disputing Bruce gained ground rapidly. In =1313= Stirling was the only fortress of importance in Scotland still garrisoned by the English, and the English garrison bound itself to surrender on June 24, =1314=, if it had not been previously relieved. Even Edward II. was stirred by this doleful news, and in =1314= he put himself at the head of an army to relieve Stirling. Lancaster, however, and all whom he could influence refused to follow him, on the ground that the king had not, in accordance with the ordinances, received permission from the barons to go to war. On June 24 Edward reached Bannockburn, within sight of Stirling. Like his father, he brought with him English archers as well as English hors.e.m.e.n, but he foolishly sent his archers far in advance of his hors.e.m.e.n, where they would be entirely unprotected. Bruce, on the other hand, not only had a small body of horse, which rode down the archers, but he strengthened the defensive position of his spearmen by digging pits in front of his line and covering them with turf. Into these pits the foremost horses of the English cavalry plunged. Edward"s whole array was soon one ma.s.s of confusion, and before it could recover itself a body of gillies, or camp-followers, appearing over a hill was taken for a fresh Scottish army. The vast English host turned and fled. Stirling at once surrendered, and all Scotland was lost to Edward. Materially, both England and Scotland suffered grievously from the result of the battle of Bannockburn. English invasions of southern Scotland and Scottish invasions of northern England spread desolation far and wide, stifling the germs of nascent civilisation. Morally, both nations were in the end the gainers. The hardihood and self-reliance of the Scottish character is distinctly to be traced to those years of struggle against a powerful neighbour. England, too, was the better for being balked of its prey. No nation can suppress the liberty of another without endangering its own.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Lincoln Cathedral--the central tower; built about 1310.]
23. =Lancaster"s Government. 1314--1322.=--Edward was thrown by his defeat entirely under the power of Lancaster, who took the whole authority into his hands and placed and displaced ministers at his pleasure. Lancaster, however, was a selfish and incompetent ruler. He allowed the Scots to ravage the north of England without venturing to oppose them, and as he could not even keep order at home, private wars broke out amongst the barons. In =1318= Bruce took Berwick, the great border fortress against Scotland. It was rather by good luck than by good management that Edward was at last able to resist Lancaster.
Edward could not exist without a personal favourite, and he found one in Hugh le Despenser. Despenser was at least an Englishman, which Gaveston had not been, and his father, Hugh le Despenser the elder, did his best to raise up a party to support the king. In =1321=, however, Parliament, under Lancaster"s influence, declared against them and sentenced them to exile. Edward took arms for his favourites, and in =1322= defeated Lancaster at Boroughbridge, and then had him tried and beheaded at Pontefract.
24. =A Const.i.tutional Settlement. 1322.=--Favourites as they were, the Despensers had at least the merit of seeing that the king could not overpower the barons by the mere a.s.sertion of his personal authority.
At a Parliament held at York in =1322=, the king obtained the revocation of the ordinances, and a declaration that "matters to be established for the estate of our lord the king and of his heirs, and for the estate of the realm and of the people, shall be treated, accorded, and established in Parliaments by our lord the king, and by the consent of the prelates, earls and barons, and commonalty of the realm, according as hath been hitherto accustomed." Edward I. had in =1295= gathered a full Parliament, including the commons. But there was no law to prevent him or his successors excluding the commons on some future occasion. Edward II. by this declaration, issued with consent of Parliament, confirmed his father"s practice by a legislative act. Unless the law were broken or repealed, no future statute could come into existence without the consent of the commons.
25. =The Rule of the Despensers. 1322--1326.=--For some years after the execution of Lancaster, Edward, or rather the Despensers, retained power, but it was power which did not work for good. In =1323= Edward made a truce with Scotland, but the cessation of foreign war did not bring with it a cessation of troubles at home. Edward was entirely unable to control his favourites. The elder Despenser was covetous and the younger Despenser haughty, and they both made enemies for themselves and the king. Queen Isabella was alienated from her husband, partly by his exclusive devotion to the Despensers and partly by the contempt which an active woman is apt to feel for a husband without a will of his own. In =1325= she went to France, and was soon followed by her eldest son, named Edward after his father. From that moment she conspired against her husband. In =1326= she landed, accompanied by her paramour, Robert Mortimer, and bringing with her foreign troops. The barons rose in her favour. London joined them, and all resistance was speedily beaten down. The elder Despenser was hanged by the queen at Bristol. The younger was hanged, after a form of trial, at Hereford.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Sir John de Creke; from his bra.s.s at Westley Waterless, Cambridgeshire: showing armour worn between 1300 and 1335 or 1340.
Date, about 1325.]
26. =The Deposition and Murder of Edward II. 1327.=--Early in =1327= a Parliament met at Westminster. It was filled with the king"s enemies, and under pressure from the queen and Mortimer Edward II. was compelled to sign a declaration of his own wrong-doing and incompetency, after which he formally resigned the crown. He was allowed to live for eight months, at the end of which he was brutally murdered in Berkeley Castle. The deposition of Edward II.--for his enforced resignation was practically nothing less than that--was the work of a faithless wife and of unscrupulous partisans, but at least they clothed their vengeance in the forms of Parliamentary action. It was by the action of Parliament in loosing the feudal ties by which va.s.sals were bound to an unworthy king, that it rose to the full position of being the representative of the nation, and at the same time virtually proclaimed that the wants of the nation must be satisfied at the expense of the feudal claims of the king. The national headship of the king would from henceforward be the distinguishing feature of his office, whilst his feudal right to personal service would grow less and less important every year.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Howden Church, Yorkshire--the west front; built about 1310-1320. The tower was built between 1390 and 1407.]
CHAPTER XV.
FROM THE ACCESSION OF EDWARD III. TO THE TREATY OF BRETIGNI.
1327--1360.
LEADING DATES
Reign of Edward III., 1327--1377
Accession of Edward III. 1327 Beginning of the War with France 1337 Battle of Crecy 1346 The Black Death 1348 Battle of Poitiers 1356 Treaty of Bretigni 1360
1. =Mortimer"s Government. 1327--1330.=--Edward III. was only fifteen at his accession. For three years power was in the hands of his mother"s paramour, Mortimer. Robert Bruce, though old and smitten with leprosy, was still anxious to wring from England an acknowledgment of Scottish independence, and, in spite of the existing truce, sent an army to ravage the northern counties of England. Edward led in person against it an English force far superior in numbers and equipment; but the English soldier needed many things, whilst the Scot contented himself with a little oatmeal carried on the back of his hardy pony.
If he grew tired of that he had but to seize an English sheep or cow and to boil the flesh in the hide. Such an army was difficult to come up with. Fighting there was none, except once when the Scots broke into the English camp at night and almost succeeded in carrying off the young king. Mortimer was at his wits" end, and in =1328= agreed to a treaty acknowledging the complete independence of Scotland. It was a wise thing to do, but no nation likes to acknowledge failure, and Mortimer became widely unpopular. He succeeded indeed in breaking up a conspiracy against himself, and in =1330= even executed Edmund, Earl of Kent, a brother of Edward II. The discontented barons found another leader in the king, who, young as he was, had been married at fifteen to Philippa of Hainault. Though he was already a father, he was still treated by Mortimer as a child, and was virtually kept a prisoner. At Nottingham he introduced a body of Mortimer"s enemies into the castle through a secret pa.s.sage in the rock on which it stood. His mother pleaded in vain for her favourite: "Fair son, have pity on the gentle Mortimer." Mortimer was hanged, and Queen Isabella was never again allowed to take part in public affairs.
2. =The French Succession. 1328--1331.=--Isabella"s three brothers, Louis X., Philip V., and Charles IV., had successively reigned in France. Louis X. died in =1316=, leaving behind him a daughter and a posthumous son, who died a week after his birth. Then Philip V. seized the crown, his lawyers a.s.serting that, according to the Salic law, "no part of the heritage of Salic land can fall to a woman," and that therefore no woman could rule in France. As a matter of fact this was a mere quibble of the lawyers. The Salic law had been the law of the Salian Franks in the fifth century, and had to do with the inheritance of estates, not with the inheritance of the throne of France, which was not at that time in existence. The quibble, however, was used on the right side. What Frenchmen wanted was that France should remain an independent nation, which it was not likely to do under a queen who might marry the king of another country. The rule thus laid down was permanently adopted in France. When Philip V. died in =1322= the throne pa.s.sed, not to his daughter, but to his brother, Charles IV., and when Charles died in =1328=, to his cousin, Philip of Valois, who reigned as Philip VI. At that time England was still under the control of Mortimer and Isabella, and though Isabella, being the sister of Charles IV., thought of claiming the crown, not for herself, but for her son, Mortimer did not press the claim. In =1329= he sent Edward to do homage to Philip VI. for his French possessions, but Edward only did it with certain reservations, and in =1330= preparations for war were made in England. In =1331=, after Mortimer"s fall, when Edward was his own master, he again visited France, and a treaty was concluded between the two kings in which he abandoned the reservations on his homage.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Effigies of Edward III. and Queen Philippa; from their tombs in Westminster Abbey.]
3. =Troubles in Scotland. 1329--1336.=--On his return, Edward looked in another direction. In =1329= Robert Bruce died, leaving his crown to his son, David II., a child five years old. Certain English n.o.blemen had in the late treaty (see p. 231) been promised restoration of the estates of their ancestors in Scotland, and in =1332= some of them, finding the promise unfulfilled, offered English forces to John Balliol"s son, Edward, to help him to the Scottish crown. Aided by his English allies, Edward Balliol landed in Scotland, defeated the Scottish army at Dupplin, and was crowned king. Before the end of the year he was surprised at Annan, and fled to England to appeal to Edward for help. Though Edward had all the love of enterprise of his grandfather, Edward I., yet there was a marked contrast between the deliberate calculation of Edward I. and the almost accidental way in which Edward III. involved himself in an attempt to regain the lordship of Scotland. In =1333= he laid siege to Berwick, then in the hands of the Scots. The Scots advanced into England, and their spearmen crossed a marsh to attack the English array of knights and archers posted on the slope of Halidon Hill. The arrows poured like rain on their struggling columns. The Scots were thrown into confusion, and their whole army was almost destroyed. Berwick was regained, and Bannockburn, it seemed, was avenged. Edward not only set up Balliol as his va.s.sal, but compelled him to yield all Scotland south of the Forth to be annexed to England. Such a settlement could not last. Balliol was as weak as his father had been, and the Scots, recovering courage, drove him out in =1334=. Edward invaded Scotland again and again. As long as he was in the country he was strong enough to keep his puppet on the throne, but whenever he returned to England David Bruce"s supporters regained strength. The struggle promised to be lengthy unless help came to the Scots.
4. =Dispute with France. 1336--1337.=--Philip VI., like Philip IV. in the days of Edward I. (see p. 218), had his own reasons for not allowing the Scots to be crushed. He pursued the settled policy of his predecessors in attempting to bring the great fiefs into his power, and especially that part of Aquitaine which was still held by the most powerful of his va.s.sals, the king of England. Whilst Edward was doing his best to bring Scotland into subjection by open war, Philip was doing his best to disturb Edward in his hold upon Aquitaine by secret intrigues and legal chicanery. Ill-feeling increased on both sides.
Philip welcomed David Bruce and gave him protection in France, and in =1336= French sailors attacked English shipping and landed plunderers in the Isle of Wight. In =1337= Edward determined to resist, and the long war roughly known as the Hundred Years" War began. It was in reality waged to discover by an appeal to arms whether the whole of Aquitaine was to be incorporated with France and whether Scotland was to be incorporated with England. That which gave it its peculiar bitterness was, however, not so much the claims of the kings, as the pa.s.sions of their subjects. The national antagonism aroused by the plunderings of French sea-rovers would be invigorated by the plunderings of Englishmen in the fields of France.
5. =Edward"s Allies. 1337--1338.=--To Edward it was merely a question of defending, first England, and then Aquitaine, against aggression.
He won over, with large offers of money, the alliance of the princes of the Empire whose lands lay round the French frontier to the north and east, and even gained the support of the Emperor Lewis the Bavarian. His relations with Flanders were even more important. In Flanders there had sprung up great manufacturing towns, such as Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres, which worked up into cloth the wool which was the produce of English sheep. These wealthy towns claimed political independence, and thus came into collision with their feudal lord, the Count of Flanders. Early in the reign of Philip VI., the Count, who held the greater part of his lands from the king of France, had appealed to Philip for support, and Philip, who, unlike his wiser predecessors, despised the strength which he might gain from the goodwill of citizens in a struggle against their lords, took the part of the Count, and for a time crushed the citizens at the battle of Ca.s.sel. After a while the cities recovered themselves, and formed an alliance under the leadership of Jacob van Arteveldt, a Flemish n.o.bleman, who had ingratiated himself with them by enrolling himself amongst the brewers of Ghent, and who was now successful in urging his countrymen to enter into friendship with Edward.
6. =Chivalry and War.=--In the long run Edward"s cause would be found a losing one, but there were circ.u.mstances which made it prevail for a time. In France there was a broad distinction between gentlemen on the one side and citizens and peasants on the other. The gentlemen despised all who were not of their own cla.s.s. In earlier days there had sprung up a view of life known as chivalry, which taught that the knight was bound to observe the laws of honour, to fight fairly, to treat with courtesy a defeated enemy, and to protect women and all who were unable to help themselves. Enn.o.bling as the idea was, it had been narrowed by the refusal of the gentlemen to extend the rules of chivalry beyond their own order, and they were, therefore, ready to exercise cruelty upon those who were not gentlemen, whilst proffering the most high-flown compliments to those who were. In France, too, this broad distinction of ranks told upon the military strength of the crown. The fighting force of the French king was his feudal array of armour-protected cavalry, composed entirely of gentlemen, and aiming at deciding battles in the old fashion by the rush of hors.e.m.e.n. If foot soldiers were brought at all into the field they were, for the most part, ill armed and ill trained peasants, exposed to be helplessly slaughtered by the hors.e.m.e.n.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A knight--Sir Geoffrey Luttrell, who died 1345--receiving his helm and pennon from his wife. Another lady holds his shield.]
7. =Commerce and War.=--In England, on the other hand, the various orders of society had been welded together into a united people. The king and his va.s.sals indeed still talked the language of chivalry, but they were wise enough to seek strength elsewhere. War had become in England the affair of the nation, and no longer the affair of a cla.s.s.
It must be waged with efficient archers as well as with efficient hors.e.m.e.n, the archers being drawn from the cla.s.s of yeomen or free landed proprietors of small plots of land, which was entirely wanting in France. Such an army needed pay, and the large sums required for the purpose could only be extracted from a nation which, like the English, had grown comparatively rich because it was at peace within its own borders. Edward was compelled, if he wanted to fight, to encourage trade, though it is only fair to remember that he showed himself ready to encourage trade without any such ulterior object. He brought Flemish weavers into England, and did his best to improve the feeble woollen manufacture of the Eastern counties. His great resource, however, for purposes of taxation, was the export of wool to the Flemish manufacturing towns. Sometimes he persuaded Parliament to raise the duties upon exported wool; sometimes he raised them, by an evasion of the law, after making a private compact with the merchants without consulting Parliament at all; sometimes he turned merchant himself and bought wool cheaply in England to sell it dear in Flanders. It was said of a great minister of later times that he made trade flourish by means of war.[17] It might be said with greater truth of Edward III. that he made war flourish by means of trade.
[Footnote 17: See the inscription on the monument to the elder Pitt in the Guildhall, in the City of London.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: William of Hatfield, second son of Edward III.; from his tomb in York Minster: showing rich costume worn by the youth of the upper cla.s.ses about 1340. The embroidery on the tunic has been partly worn off on the effigy.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: York Minster:--The nave, looking west, built during the first half of the fourteenth century. The west window was completed and glazed in 1338.]
8. =Attacks on the North of France. 1338--1340.=--Great as was Edward"s advantage in having a united nation at his back, it hardly seemed in the first years of the war as though he knew how to use it.
Though he had declared war against Philip in =1337=, he did not begin hostilities till the following year. In =1338=, after landing at Antwerp, he obtained from the Emperor Lewis the t.i.tle of Imperial Vicar, which gave him a right to the military services of the va.s.sals of the Empire. Crowds of German and Low Country lords pressed into his ranks, but they all wanted high pay, and his resources, great as they were, were soon exhausted, and he had to p.a.w.n his crowns to satisfy their needs. These lords proved as useless as they were expensive. In =1339= Edward crossed the French frontier, but he could not induce Philip to fight, and being deserted by his German allies, he was obliged to return to England. He then attempted to fall back on the support of the Flemings, but was told by them that unless he formally took the t.i.tle of king of France, which he had only occasionally done before, they could not fight for him, as the king of France, whoever he might be, was their superior lord, and as such had a claim to their services. After some hesitation, in the beginning of =1340=, Edward satisfied their scruples by reviving the claim which he had formerly abandoned, declaring himself to be, in right of his mother, the lawful king of France; and quartering the French arms with his own. A third territorial question was thus added to the other two.
Practically Edward"s answer to Philip"s effort to absorb all Aquitaine in France was a counter-demand that all France should be absorbed in England.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Royal arms of Edward III., adopted in 1340 and used till about 1405. From the tomb of Edward III.]
9. =Battle of Sluys. 1340.=--Edward had not yet learnt to place confidence in those English archers who had served him so well at Halidon Hill. In =1340=, however, he found himself engaged in a conflict which should have taught him where his true strength lay. The French navy held the Channel, and had burnt Southampton. The fleet of the Cinque Ports was no longer sufficient to cope with the enemy.
Edward proudly announced that he, like his progenitors, was the lord of the English sea on every side, and called out every vessel upon which he could lay hands. The result was a naval victory at Sluys, in which well-nigh the whole French fleet was absolutely destroyed. It was by the English archers that the day was won. So complete was the victory that no one dared to tell the ill news to Philip, till his jester called out to him, "What cowards those English are!" "Because,"
he explained, "they did not dare to leap into the sea as our brave Frenchmen did."