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evidently preferred the The day after the action

and infantry, to which they rabble of foreign mercenaries. large bodies of the militia of neighbouring municipalities arrived, and were slaughtered by the English. Edward, on the contrary, relied upon his country's yeomen, and compelled his knights to dismount and fight on foot with them.

After his victory Edward laid siege to Calais. The tide of fortune was turned every where against the French by the tidings of Crecy. John, the son of Philip, besieged Walter de Manny in the town of Aiguillon; he was now obliged to raise the siege. De Manny asked John for permission and safe conduct to traverse France in order to reach his master's army: John granted the safe conduct; but his father Philip broke it, and arrested De Manny in his passage through Orleans. John, an honourable prince, was shocked at his father's want of faith, and vowed no longer to bear arms unless De Manny was released; and Philip, despite his choler and feelings of petty vengeance, was obliged to liberate him. Charles of Blois was about the same time taken prisoner in Britany. The circumstances attending the siege of Calais, its distress, the devotedness of its six burgesses, and its final surrender, are known to every English reader.* Edward seemed contented with this fruit of his victory, for a truce of ten months was soon after agreed on between the monarchs. The remaining years of the French king's reign are marked chiefly by the plague which devastated Europe, and which compelled a prolongation of the truce. Philip of Valois died in August, 1350.

John was upwards of thirty when he succeeded his father Philip. The new king was feebler in character than his predecessor, less choleric and astute. He was at the same time more valiant, more amiable, more the preux chevalier, for already romance reading had created a peculiar morality and ideal perfection at which gentle and noble aimed. The same neglect of * See Cab. Cyc. Hist. Eng. vol. i. p. 300,

justice reigned, however, and was observable even in John, whose first steps were to adulterate the coin, and, in imitation of his father, to decapitate, without trial, a nobleman, the count de Guines. The states-general were called together, and they voted a pernicious mode of levying money on every sale that took place. In their assembly of the year 1355, when the necessities of the monarch had increased, the states established receivers-general, who should give them an account of the levy. They ordered, moreover, that nobles and prelates should pay it as well as the commons, and that they should reassemble at the end of a year to vote new taxes. This was a bold attempt to acquire the same privileges which were possessed by the English commons.

In

The court was in the mean time agitated by the turbulence of Charles the Bad, king of Navarre. imitation of the sovereign's custom of putting his enemies to death without trial or accusation, Charles assassinated his rival, Louis of Spain, a favourite with John, and constable of the realm. He was powerful enough to obtain pardon ; nevertheless his intrigues continued. The kingdom was in a state of the greatest discontent against the new taxes, especially against the gabelle. The king of Navarre, the count of Harcourt, and others, fomented these disturbances. Charles, eldest son of John, called the dauphin, as lord of Dauphiny, which Philip of Valois had purchased for him, was at that time governor of Normandy. He entertained the king of Navarre and the lord of Harcourt at dinner. John arriving in the midst of the feast, armed and well attended, ordered none to stir on pain of death. He seized the king of Navarre "by the skin," dragging him towards him, and exclaimed- 66 Out, traitor! thou art not worthy to dine at my son's table. By my father's soul! I have a mind never to eat or drink while thou livest." John then ordered the king of Navarre and his followers to be led out and imprisoned, despite the supplications of the dauphin, who said he should be dishonoured if people suspected him of such treachery. King John then

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seized a mace, struck count Harcourt with it between the shoulders, and told him to " get to prison in the devil's name;" whereupon calling the "king of the ribalds," as the captain of the royal guards was then characteristically denominated, John gave him orders. Those orders were to behead Harcourt and his followers: they were executed in the king's presence, after he finished the dinner at which his son's unfortunate guests had been sitting. The family of Harcourt, that of the king of Navarre, and many obles, renounced their allegiance on learning this act of violence. The people were equally enraged against John; but their murmurs and commotions were hushed by the tidings, that the Black Prince had ravaged Auvergne and the Limousin, and had entered into the central province of Berri. John had a respectable army on foot against the partisans of the king of Navarre. He summoned his barons and knights to reinforce it. All crowded under the banners of the new monarch to avenge the defeat of Crecy. Prince Edward had left Bordeaux with no more than 2000 men at arms, and 6000 archers and infantry. With this small force he thought it prudent to retreat; but John had already intercepted him, and the English, instead of having left their enemies behind, found them in advance of the town of Poitiers, blocking their

retreat.

The French army, composed of the flower of the nation, mustered 60,000 strong. The prince of Wales, to compensate for his inferiority of numbers, took post on a rising ground, which was surrounded with vineyards and enclosures, and was only approachable through narrow roads flanked with hedgerows. Talleyrand cardinal of Perigord endeavoured to bring about an accommodation. The Black Prince was not reluctant to escape from an enemy ten times exceeding his own force. He offered to restore all his conquests, and bind himself not to serve against France for seven years. John insisted that Edward should surrender himself his prisoner; and the proposal was rejected by the prince

as disgraceful. He gained a day's delay by these negotiations, which he failed not to employ in casting up entrenchments and fortifying the sides of his position.

On the 19th of September, a corps of French knights was ordered to clear the road leading to Edward's camp. They were commanded by D'Andrehen and De Clermont, the two marshals of France. They spurred on, not more than four being able to go abreast. The English archers, who lined the inside of the hedge, soon stopped the career of the cavalry by their arrows; and the footmen, creeping through, stabbed knights and horses with their knives in the confusion. The troop was routed, and fell back upon the dauphin's corps; a body of English cavalry and archers, which Edward had placed in ambuscade, then charged upon the French flank those commanded by the dauphin were seized with a panic and fled. The English knights, who were hitherto on foot to receive the enemy, now mounted their horses, and abandoning their position, charged down the narrow road upon the enemy, whom they put to the rout and drove before them; the young princes and many of the French nobles taking flight. The reserve or hindmost line, however, commanded by king John in person, still remained unbroken. Its numbers doubled those of the English army. John, imitating his enemy's mode of fighting, and desirous to cut off from himself and followers all possibility of flight, gave orders to dismount and combat on foot. The fresh division of the French charged the English under their marshals lords Suffolk and Warwick, the French monarch striking down enemies with his mace, while his youngest son Philip, afterwards duke of Burgundy, piously kept eye and arm busied to defend his sire. Here the battle raged with the greatest fury and slaughter, the English striving to make the king of France prisoner. At length, when most of his nobles were either slain around him or taken, John called out, "Where is my cousin the prince of Wales?" Edward

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was not near, and the king was obliged to give his right glove, in token of surrender, to Morbec, a knight of Arras. Others crowded to claim and dispute so rich a prize, not without danger to the person of the monarch, until lords Warwick and Cobham arrived to defend him. The battle of Poitiers, according to Froissart, was better fought than that of Crecy, though not so bloody. The duke of Bourbon was the only prince slain, though many nobles perished. The number of prisoners was immense, more than doubling that of the English army; amongst them, thirteen counts, and seventy barons, besides the king and his son. The conflict lasted from morn till noon. That of Crecy began at the time of vespers. The Black Prince earned more honour by his treatment of the captive king than even by his victory. John was treated in every way as a sovereign: he was cheered, praised, and even waited on at table, by Edward. The entry of the royal captive into London was marked by the same deference. Nor was this mere empty politeness. The king of England and his son did not take the utmost advantage of their victory. The right to the crown of France, which they denied to John at the head of his armies, they no longer disputed with John,

captive. A truce was concluded for two years. The English were content with their booty, their rich prize, and their ample renown.

Charles, the dauphin, who had escaped from the field of Poitiers, now took upon him the government of the kingdom. His first act was to summon the states-general, which met in two assemblies; those of the south at Toulouse, those of the north at Paris. The southern states voted levies of men and money: the northern proved more refractory, and demanded, as the price of a subsidy, that the ministers should be tried; that a committee of their own body should be permanent, to aid the dauphin with its counsel; and, finally, that the king of Navarre should be released. The king of Navarre was the first noble who sought in popularity a counterpoise against the royal authority. The popular