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A.D. 1356.

THE BLACK PRINCE AT POITIERS.

111

bushes. He lined the hedges and banks with archers, by a road on which four horsemen only could ride. On the Monday morning, the 19th of September, the French marshals approached with their battalions, and their horsemen entered this road. At the first flight of the deadly shafts of the English archers, the horses rushed back, and flung out, and fell upon their riders. Then the Gascon men-at-arms went in amongst the press, and slew the knights and squires. The French also, who were behind, recoiled back, and came on the division of the duke of Normandy; and the men took their horses and fled, when they saw the dreaded archers coming down a little hill, on their flank and rear. Leaping on their horses, the reserve of men-at-arms of England now advanced. Onward the little army went into the thick of their enemies. The French fled from those fields of Beauvoir and Maupertuis, even to the gates of Poitiers. The king, and his young son, Philip, yielded to sir Dennis of Morbecque. That night the prince of Wales made a supper in his lodging to the French king, and to the great lords that were prisoners; and himself served the king "as humbly as he could." On the day after the battle, the prince of Wales marched with his royal prisoner to Bordeaux, the great bulk of captive knights having been admitted to easy ransom. On the 24th of May, 1357, the Black Prince returned to London in a triumphal procession, with his royal prisoner. In the pageant the captive was shown to the people as an honoured guest; whilst the winner of the great field of Poitiers rode humbly beside him. King John was lodged in the Savoy, a pleasant palace belonging to the duke of Lancaster, king Edward's son; and in the winter following was removed to Windsor with his son Philip.

During the captivity of John, the government of the dauphin, Charles, was harassed by contending factions; and the kingdom was in a condition little short of anarchy. On the 21st of May, 1358, commenced that insurrection of the peasants, which was called the Jacquerie, from the nickname which the poor French villan bore of Jacques Bonhomme. About a hundred villagers assembled in Beauvoisin, and, without any leader, marched forward, vowing destruction on the nobles and knights of France. Their numbers were soon increased to a hundred thousand. All the peaceful population, whether of the towns or hamlets, and the women and children of the châteaux and the farms, fled before them. The highways were covered with the bodies of their victims; and the wolves came out from the woods to follow their murderous track. At last a body of knights who were returning from a crusade against the pagans of Prussia, attacked the insurgent peasantry, who, to the number of nine thousand, had been admitted into the city of Meaux, and slew them till they were weary. Seven thousand perished on that day, and they never rallied again.

John settled with Edward the conditions of a peace, to take place upon the expiration of the truce. But the regency of France rejected the hard terms which their captive monarch had agreed to. Edward again invaded France in the autumn of 1359, with a more powerful army than he had ever before assembled; and at the end of March he was encamped before Paris. The fatigues of his winter campaign had greatly reduced his num

bers; and now, beleaguering a city which was too strong for assault, he was in want of provisions, and was compelled to retire. Negotiations were set on foot, and the great peace of Bretigny was concluded on the 8th of May. The king of England resigned his pretensions to the crown of France, and to the territories of Normandy, Anjou, and Maine. He restored all the conquered places, with the exception of Guisnes and Calais. He was content to be lord of Aquitaine, retaining Gascony, Poitou, and other dependencies, in full sovereignty. The prince of Wales, with the title of prince of Aquitaine, was appointed to the possession and government of these provinces. Three million crowns of gold were to be paid in six years for the ransom of king John. The captive king was set at liberty before the end of the year. But peace with England brought no tranquillity to France. The country was now ravaged by bands of discharged soldiers, the Free Companions, who during a twenty years' war had been fighting in separate bands under their own captains. Amidst these distractions, king John went back to his wasted country. But in 1363, when the treaty of Bretigny was not faithfully kept by the French, the chivalrous John voluntarily returned to England, leaving France under the government of the dauphin. He died in 1364, at the Savoy; and the dauphin became king of France, as Charles V.

In 1366, Peter I., king of Castile and Leon, was driven from his throne by his half-brother, Henry, assisted by a strong band of Free Companions under the command of the great adventurer, Du Guesclin. The imprisonment and supposed murder of his wife, Blanche of Bourbon, provoked the hostility of Charles of France against Peter. The dethroned king had previously made an alliance with Edward III., and he now fled to the court of the prince of Wales at Bourdeaux. In 1367, the Black Prince led a great army of English, Gascons, and Normans from Bordeaux ; and entering Navarre, by the pass of Roncesvalles, met the army of Henry in Castile, near the right bank of the Ebro. The battle of Najara was a complete victory, in which the Black Prince displayed the resources of a great commander even more remarkably than in his previous successes. The faithless Peter, when he had been restored, refused to abide by his promise of paying the cost of the war. Edward's army was reduced to the utmost misery by the want of provisions; and the prince had contracted a fatal malady which in a few years terminated his career of glory. He hastily returned to Gascony. The ingrate king was in six months hurled from his throne, and murdered by his half-brother. The greatest trophy of this campaign was the capture of Du Guesclin.

The prince of Wales had imposed a heavy tax upon the people of Gascony, to meet the expenses of the Spanish campaign. The great lords carried their complaints to the throne of Charles V. The French king summoned the prince of Aquitaine to answer the complaint, assuming the position of his feudal lord. The prince said he would come with sixty thousand lances. The great war was now renewed. Edward III. reassumed the title of king of France. But the government of the English was a yoke of which the Gascon nobles and people were impatient. Many of the fighting men went over to the banner of France. The French king adopted a bold policy, and assembled a fleet at Harfleur for the

A.D. 1370.

DEATH OF EDWARD III.

113

invasion of England; and Philip of Burgundy was to be its commander. The duke of Lancaster landed with a great army, and marched through the northern provinces. In 1370, the French entered Gascony. The Black Prince took the field, and the royal princes of Anjou and Berri retired before him. Limoges had been betrayed to these dukes by the inhabitants; and during a month's siege Edward, sick almost to death, was carried in a litter from one point to another of the attack. The capital of Limousin was at length taken by storm. Three thousand men, women, and children were butchered in cold blood. A few knights, resolved to battle to the last, placed their backs against a wall, and long fought against superior numbers. These prince Edward ordered to be received

to ransom.

The Black Prince, in broken health, came back to England; and by opposing his father's government regained the popularity which he had lost in Gascony. After the death, in 1369, of king Edward's queen, Philippa, the expiring passions of dotage had thrown the conqueror of France under the dominion of a mistress, Alice Ferrars. To her influence, and that of her creatures, the eldest son of the king was naturally opposed. John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, succeeded his brother in the government of Gascony. Du Guesclin was now at the head of a daring band, which harassed the English in every possible way, and one by one took many of their strong places. A truce was concluded in 1374, which lasted till 1377. The possessions which had been surrendered by the treaty of Bretigny were all lost, with the exception of Bordeaux, Bayonne, and Calais. In 1376 the great prince of Wales died. His son, Richard of Bordeaux, then ten years of age, was presented to the houses of parliament as the successor to all the rights of his father. But the influence of the duke of Lancaster was all-powerful.

Edward III. died on the 21st of June, 1377. He had completed the fiftieth or jubilee year of his reign in February of that year, when he published a general amnesty for all offences.

CHAPTER IX.

DURING the half-century in which Edward III. sate upon the throne, the ecclesiastical hierarchy had reached its height. But amidst external indications of a power which it might be supposed would never die, there was a growing conviction that this house was built upon the sand. In 1356, Wycliffe began his career as an ecclesiastical reformer. In 1365, he strenuously supported the resistance of parliament to the pope's demand for the arrears of the tribute known as "Peter's Pence." In the last year of Edward III., Wycliffe was cited for heresy. His cause was taken up by John of Gaunt. This great duke of Lancaster was suspected of designs on the crown, and there was ill-concealed jealousy of him. When Edward III. was within a few hours of his last mortal agony, a deputation of the citizens of London came to his grandson, Richard, and, offering their

support of his right to the crown, invited him to take up his residence in the Tower. On the 22nd of June the boy-king made his triumphal entry into London, and, on the 16th of July, was crowned at Westminster. The duke of Lancaster probably expected to be sole regent; but a temporary council was appointed, in which he took no part. A parliament met in October, when, at the request of the Commons, the Lords, in the royal name, appointed nine persons to be a permanent council of the king; and it was resolved that, during Richard's minority, the appointment of all the chief officers of the crown should be with the parliament.

In this and immediately succeeding parliaments, the state of the nation was declared to be alarming. The truce with France had recently expired: and not an hour was lost by Charles V. to renew hostilities in the way most offensive to the English. Commerce was interrupted; the sea-ports were burnt and ravaged; the Isle of Wight was plundered. To meet the expenses of a foreign armament, and of naval and land forces to protect the kingdom, a subsidy was granted. But two citizens of London, William Walworth and John Philpot, were sworn in parliament to be treasurers of the same, and strictly to apply the produce of the taxes to the support of the war. All the foreign enterprises of the English were futile and disastrous; and their cost produced general discontent. In addition to heavy duties on wool and leather, a capitation tax was granted in 1379. In principle this was an income tax, touching every person. The next year a poll tax was granted, mainly for the support of a fruitless expedition to assist De Montfort, the duke of Brittany, against France. The pressure of the poll tax upon the humblest portion of the community, and the brutal manner in which it was enforced by the king's collector at Dartford, were the main causes, according to the chroniclers, of the revolt headed by Wat the Tyler. But the materials for this revolt had been long accumulating. The old feudal relations of society might be deemed nearly at an end, and the system of villanage was tottering to its

fall.

This revolt was no sudden tumult of an isolated body of men, for it extended from the coast of Kent to the Humber, and was organised in a remarkable manner by correspondence in letters which bore the signatures of Jack Milner, Jack Carter, Jack Trueman, and John Ball. Gathering large numbers of adherents from various parts, a large body, under the leadership of Wat the Tyler, at length reached Blackheath. Some of the band had compelled the mayor and aldermen of Canterbury to swear fidelity to their cause, and many of the citizens had joined them in their march. As this rude army of a hundred thousand men approached London, there was, necessarily, universal consternation. On the night of the 12th of June, Southwark and Lambeth witnessed the demolition of the houses of the Marshalsea and of the King's Bench, and the sack of the palace of the archbishop of Canterbury. Out of Southwark they passed over London Bridge into the city on the following morning. They demolished Newgate, and burnt the duke of Lancaster's palace of the Savoy, and also the Temple. With the usual prejudice against foreigners, they butchered the Flemish artisans, wherever they were found. On the 14th

A.D. 1381.

WAT TYLER'S INSURRECTION.

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of June, when Tower-hill was filled with this multitude, a herald made proclamation that the king would meet them at Mile-end. They moved off; and young Richard rode out of the Tower gates with a few followers, who were unarmed. He received the petition which the insurgents had drawn up. They demanded the abolition of slavery; the reduction of the rent of land to fourpence an acre; free liberty to buy and sell in all markets and fairs; and a general pardon for offences. These demands were agreed to by the king. Charters were drawn up to the effect of the petition, for every parish and township. They were sealed the next morning; and the great body, chiefly the men of Essex and Hertfordshire, retired, bearing the king's banner. But the Kentish Tyler remained in arms, with a body of the insurgents. He led his men into the Tower. They murdered the archbishop and other dignified persons, and drove the king's mother out of her lodgings. On the 17th, the king rode into Smithfield. The leader of the Kentish men refused the charters which were offered to him. When he saw the king coming he halted his followers, and rode up to meet the youth. During their parley, Tyler put his hand upon his dagger, and touched the king's bridle. Walworth, the Lord Mayor of London, immediately stabbed him. The insurgents, when they saw their leader fall, bent their bows; but Richard galloped up to the astonished band, and exclaimed, "Tyler was a traitor—I will be your leader." They followed him to the fields of Islington, where a considerable force of citizens and others hastened to protect their king. There, the insurgents fell on their knees and implored his mercy. Richard commanded them to return to their homes; but would allow no attack to be made upon them by the forces which were gathering around him. In the eastern counties the insurrection was put down by Henry Spenser, known as the fighting bishop of Norwich. In a fortnight the charters were revoked by the king, and then followed, in every county, trials and executions to an enormous

extent.

After the insurrection had been quelled, the king submitted to the parliament whether it would not be expedient to abolish the state of slavery altogether. With one accord, the interested lords of the soil replied, that they never would consent to be deprived of the services of their bondmen. At the same period, a synod of divines was called, in which many of Wycliffe's opinions were censured as heretical, erroneous, and of dangerous tendency. The prelates then procured an Act to be passed by the Lords for the imprisonment of Wycliffe's followers. The great reformer petitioned against this Act; and the Commons represented that it had been passed without their consent. It was immediately repealed. Wycliffe died in 1384, but his preaching never died. He had translated the Scriptures into the English language; and the texts of the Bible were in every mouth, as they were re-echoed in the sermons of his preachers, in churches and open places. It has been said that, of this generation, one-third of the English people became Lollards, as the followers of Wycliffe were now termed. In the reign of Edward III. there had been a legislative resistance to the claim of the pope to appoint to English benefices. Under Richard II. the court of Rome came to an open rupture with England upon the ques

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