All these allies promised him assistance. But they knew that the whole force of Philip's attack would first fall on them, and on being challenged to give the assistance which they had promised, replied that they saw no reason why they should attack France. They suggested that there was an old ordinance that no king of France should keep anything belonging to the Empire, that France had possession of Cambray and certain castles of the Empire, and that if Edward could persuade the Emperor to challenge Philip, they as the Emperor's feudal vassals would join him at the Emperor's orders. Edward took up the suggestion.

The Emperor Lewis of Bavaria, who had married Philippa's sister, made Edward the Vicar-General of the Empire, giving him the power to call on the lords of the Empire for assistance. But it may be imagined that the allies, most of whom were as closely connected with France as with England and much more open to attack, were very lukewarm in the quarrel. Still, in 1337 Edward declared war against Philip, and in 1338 he entered into a treaty with the Flemings, under their democratic leader Jacob van Arta velde, the head of the revolution of the townsmen against the Count of Flanders.

Here again there was a difficulty to be overcome. The Flemings explained that they were pledged on oath, under a penalty of two million florins, to the Pope not to act against the king of France, on pain of excommunication; but if Edward would take the title of King of France, and as such release them from the money penalty, they would risk the excommunication and join him. To which Edward agreed.

The Flemings did not propose to give him active assistance, but they were to be very benevolent neutrals, allowing him to invade France through their country, and selling him supplies for wool. This alliance, however inevitable, seems to have been a source of weakness to Edward, as an alliance with the revolted burghers tended to weaken the sympathy with England of all the absolute rulers of the countries neighbouring on Flanders.

Sporadic hostilities went on on both sides for some time. Bodies of the allies invaded France, burning and looting the towns and destroying the country, and the Normans at sea

attacked Southampton and the south coast towns and talked of another Norman invasion. Then as now the rôle of England lay in keeping open the waterway, which she was hardly able to do in the face of the mercenary fleets of Genoese, Bretons, Picards, Normans, and Spaniards in Philip's pay.

Waging Feudal War.-At last, in 1339, the war appeared as about to open in reality. Edward with such of his allies as stood by him advanced with a great army into France, burning and destroying all the French towns which were undefended with solid walls and moats, and looting them. Very many towns, "large, rich, and full of draperies," appear from the pages of Froissart to have been enclosed, if at all, only by a wooden palisade often much out of repair. If pots of lime and logs of wood and stones did not beat off the enemy, the town fell. If it had given much trouble and had delayed the advance long, every living creature in it was killed; to take instances from Froissart: " Origny St Benoit, a tolerably good town but weakly enclosed; so that it was soon taken by assault, robbed and pillaged, an abbey of nuns violated, and the whole town burnt." Later on : "Lord Lewis of Spain takes Guerrande in Brittany. It was so ill fortified that it could not make any defence; it therefore was soon taken by storm and pillaged without mercy. Men, women, and children were put to the sword (Froissart, ch. 83). It is always safe to deduct 75 per cent. from any such statements. Charles of Blois, besieging Nantes, has the heads of thirty knights, whom he has seized, shot from catapults over the walls. When he takes Quimper he allows the troops to massacre fourteen hundred men, and he beheads his prisoners.

When Edward reached the borders of France, he experienced the futility of feudal tenancy. The young Earl of Hainault, nephew of Philip and Philippa's brother, who as a vassal of the Empire had followed Edward to the boundary, took his leave, saying that as he had been sent to and his aid requested by his uncle Philip of Valois, whose ill will he wished not to incur, he would go serve him in France as he had served the king of England in the Empire, a change hardly surprising, as in the event of Edward's retirement his

territories would be the first on which Philip would revenge himself. Kings meaning real warfare employed mercenaries.

Edward then sent a message to Philip asking him to appoint a day for battle, which was done. The two armies advanced to meet one another, and Edward took up with his much smaller force a strong position to await the attack.

Philip was advised not to attack; Edward was too weak to leave his position. So after looking at one another for some time, both armies turned back, Philip to France, and Edward to Brabant, and then to England. The Earl of Hainault then left Philip and joined Edward.

After this both sides contented themselves with burning and with plundering the unarmed people. But Philip stationed a large fleet at Sluys in order to prevent Edward from landing. Edward sailed over, and with a force barely a fourth of the enemy, his ships so arranged that between every two vessels with archers there was one with men-at-arms, with the assistance at the end of the day of a number of ships from Bruges, completely defeated and destroyed Philip's fleet. The French dead were computed by someone at 30,000 men.

The allies then laid siege to Tournai. But they did not take it, for in September 1340, when it was reduced to great extremities, a truce was brought about by the efforts of Joan of Valois, the sister of Philip and the mother of Queen Philippa. It was renewed up to June 1342. During this siege of Tournai the Scots had taken Edinburgh by stratagem, and in 1341 David returned to Scotland, ready to strike at England whenever Edward was deeply engaged with France.

The War of the Three Joans.-The truce did not stop the war, but only changed the place of operations. John III., Duke of Brittany, who had followed Philip as his feudal vassal, died on his way home. He left no children. There were two claimants for the dukedom: Joan of Penthièvre (see pedigree, p. 363), who had married Charles of Blois, Philip's nephew, and John of Montfort, who had married Joan, daughter of the Earl of Flanders. Then began the war of the three Joans, which lasted intermittently until 1364. John of Montfort at once seized the most prominent towns of Brittany, and took possession of the duke's treasure. Then,

knowing probably that Philip would support the claim of his nephew Charles, he crossed to England and offered himself as feudal vassal to Edward, who promised to aid him as his liege man. An entry into France by way of Brittany was a very valuable advantage for Edward.

John is summoned by Philip to Paris to submit to the decision as to the succession of the Court of Peers. He goes, and is accused of treating with Edward; he lies, and denies it, but is not believed; he is ordered to remain in Paris; scenting danger, he flies to Brittany. The Peers at Paris, at Philip's order, ignoring any question of right to the succession, adjudge the duchy to Charles, on the double ground that John had offered fealty to Edward and that he had disobeyed Philip's order to stay in Paris. Philip supplies Charles with forces with which to fight John of Montfort.

So it comes to pass that Edward, the claimant as successor through the elder female, spends the truce in providing support for the younger male, while Philip, who reigns in France as the representative of the younger male, supports the elder female.

Charles of Blois entered Brittany with his forces, including three thousand Genoese under the command of knights from Genoa, and besieged Nantes. In a sally, John of Montfort was taken prisoner and confined in Paris. Under ordinary conditions the war would have been at an end. But the conditions were not ordinary. Women interposed, and women who did not feel themselves bound by the absurdities of feudal warfare, women who did not look upon war as a game, but who meant business. They were women as incomprehensible to the managers of the European gaming tables, as antagonistic to the methods of their game, as their militant sisters of the twentieth century have been to the croupiers of Westminster. The wife of John of Montfort, Joan of Flanders, a woman who, Froissart tells us, had the heart of a lion, takes his place as leader. Taking her little boy John, born in 1340, afterwards John IV. of Brittany, she throws herself into the fortress of Hennebon. Edward, occupied with the Scots, who were taking his border fortresses, and with their affairs, had not given much assistance to his liege man, but he now orders

Sir Walter Manny, a knight of Hainault who had entered his service, to collect mercenaries for an expedition, and to take with him two or three thousand of the best English archers. Little John of Montfort is to marry one of Edward's daughters.

Meanwhile the Countess Joan stoutly defends Hennebon. Froissart pictures her in full armour and mounted, the forerunner of another Joan some eighty years later, galloping through the streets of Hennebon organising the defence and encouraging the garrison. She makes a sally at an unguarded gate, while the besiegers are engaged elsewhere, and with three hundred horsemen attacks their camp and burns their tents and stores. Then, unable to re-enter the fortress, she rides off with her men to another town, to return a few days later with a larger force with which, in the dawn, she enters Hennebon:

When

The town was hard pressed and on the point of surrender when Sir Walter Manny's force, which had been detained at sea for forty days by storms, arrived to save it. But for the courage and will of the countess, countering the wiles of the Bishop of Leon, who wished in the interests of Charles of Blois that the town should surrender, it would have done so. the English succours arrived, Sir Walter, after having dinner, attacked and destroyed a machine which had been throwing stones into the town, and when, after a very smart action, he and his friends retired, the countess came down from the castle to meet them, and with a most cheerful countenance kissed Sir Walter Manny and all his companions, one after the other, like a noble and valiant dame," a very courageous act.

After this the war went on both by sea and land with varying success; in the autumn of 1342 a truce was arranged, and the Countess Joan went to England, taking with her her little son. She soon came back with a larger expedition of Count Robert d'Artois, who was assisting Edward, though he had married Philip's sister. Louis of Spain, in the pay of Philip, was stationed off Guernsey with a mercenary fleet to intercept them, and a hard-fought naval engagement followed, the combatants being finally separated by a violent storm. The Spaniards, in taller ships, threw down upon their enemies