At the first feast we read that all these founders, together with the King, were clothed in gowns of russet, powdered with blue garters, wearing like garters also on their right legs, and mantles of blue, with escutcheons of St. George. Bareheaded, and in this apparel, they heard mass, which was celebrated by Simon Islip, Archbishop of Canterbury, and afterwards went to the feast, setting themselves orderly at the table. Then followed splendid tournaments, at which there were two kinds of conflicts. In the tournaments proper the knights divided themselves into parties, and one party fought against another. There were alsojousts, or conflicts between two knights. These were generally held in honour of the ladies, who presided as judges over them. The combatants used spears without heads of iron; their object was to strike their opponent upon the front of his helmet, so as to beat him backwards upon his horse, or else to break his spear.
Though the tournaments were only looked upon as sport, they were often attended with great danger, and the knights engaged in the combat were not seldom severely wounded, and even killed. But no thought of this danger, incurred for no good reason, diminished in the least the enthusiasm for them. They were attended with every possible kind of magnificence. The lists within which the combatants were to fight were superbly decorated, and were surrounded by pavilions belonging to the champions, and ornamented with their arms and banners. Scaffolds were erected for the noble spectators, both lords and ladies; those upon which the royal family sat were hung with tapestry and embroideries of gold and silver. Every spectator was decked in the most sumptuous manner. Not only the knights themselves, but their horses, their pages, and the heralds, were clothed in costly and glittering apparel. The clanging of trumpets, the shouts of the beholders, the cries of the heralds increased the excitement of the fray. When the tournament was over, the combatants retired to their pavilions to refresh themselves after thefight and remove their heavy armour, the weight of which was almost unbearable. In the evening they met together with the nobles and ladies who had been spectators of the sport, and the time was passed in feasting, dancing, and singing. The heralds named those who had fought best on both sides. The ladies chose a name for each party, and the champions received the rewards of their merit from the hands of two young and noble maidens.
Children were taught from their earliest childhood to relish these spectacles; their very toys were made in imitation of knights jousting. The number of these tournaments led to very great extravagance in dress. Each person wished to excel his neighbour in the magnificence of his attire. The great desire was to appear in something new and astounding, and this led to the most fantastic fashions. Ladies of the first rank and greatest beauty might be seen on these occasions dressed in parti-coloured tunics, half one colour and half another, with handsomely ornamented girdles of gold and silver, in which were stuck short swords or daggers. In this masculine attire they appeared mounted on the finest horses they could procure, ornamented with the richest furniture. Parti-coloured garments were in great favour. Men would wear one stocking of one colour, the other of another. Most noticeable among the many extravagant fashions were the trailing dresses, which lay in heaps upon the ground, in front as well as behind;the long and fantastically shaped sleeves trailed also on the ground. A contemporary writer says: "The taylors must soon shape their garments in the open field, for want of room to cut them in their own houses; because that man is best respected who bears upon his back at one time the greatest quantity of cloth and of fur." Edward III. himself set the example in these extravagant fashions. In his wardrobe-rolls we find accounts of dresses which were to be worn at tournaments. One was a tunic and a cloak with a hood, on which were to be embroidered one hundred garters, with buckles, bars, and pendants of silver; also a doublet of linen, having round the skirts and about the sleeves a deep border of green cloth, worked with representations of clouds with vine branches of gold, and this motto, given by the King, "It is as it is." The festival of the Garter was celebrated with great splendour in 1351. The King wore a robe of cloth of gold furred, another of red velvet embroidered with clouds and eagles of pearl and gold, each eagle having in his beak a garter with the motto of the order. The Queen wore a similar robe, and the Princess Isabel wore a red velvet robe, embroidered with 119 circles of silk and pearls, with trees of silk and gold embroidered on a ground of green velvet, with flowers and leaves. On another occasion we read that a grant of £200 (equal to £3,000 of our money) was made to Queen Philippa for her attire at a festival of the Garter.
These gorgeous robes were of course exceedingly valuable, and were reckoned amongst the most important possessions of the great people. The Black Prince disposed by will of the chief of his robes, describing them each separately. Another way in which the Royal Family and the nobility displayed their grandeur was by their magnificent bedhangings. Of these again the Black Prince disposed by will. He seems to have possessed many different beds with gorgeous hangings: one set of hangings was embroidered with mermaids, another with swans, and so on. Gold and silver plate was another favourite article of luxury. The city of London made several very handsome presents of large quantities of plate both to the King and to the Prince.
But amidst all this apparent luxury we must not forget the other side of the picture, the squalor and discomfort in which even the greatest people lived in those days. Glazed windows were only just beginning to be used. The walls of the rooms were commonly bare, and only on grand occasions were covered with hangings. The Black Prince, we know, possessed some splendid hangings. One set was embroidered with swans having ladies' heads, and another was embroidered with eagles and griffins. These he used to carry about with him to ornament his hall on great occasions.
The floors were covered with rushes, and were the receptacles of all kinds of filth. Bones were thrown at dinner on the floor for the dogs, whowere beneath the table ready to devour them. Forks were not known, and the food was mostly torn in pieces with the fingers. Wooden platters were largely in use, or more often a large slice of bread, on which each man would lay his portion of meat. At banquets, a lady and knight used to eat off the same plate. There were only two meals in the course of the day—dinner, which took place between ten and eleven, and supper at five o'clock. The entire household dined together in the same hall. The chief ornament of the dinner-table was a massive saltcellar, and the places for the persons of the greatest dignity were always above the salt. Edward III. possessed among his royal jewels a silver ship, which was used to ornament the dinner-table and hold sweetmeats. Gold and silver ewers were used for washing before and after meat. The great hall, or dining-room, was also the sleeping room for the servants; there were private sleeping rooms for the chief members of the family.
Each great nobleman had around him a number of officers like a royal court—chamberlains, chancellors, and others. Besides these, he kept in his employ companies of minstrels, jugglers, tumblers, and players, who sang and displayed their tricks for the amusement of the company during their meals. Travelling companies of minstrels and jugglers wandered over the country, giving performances in the various noblemen's houses. Tregetours, or conjurers, were in high favour. There were both male and female tumblers, who wentabout together in companies, called gleman's companies; they also amused their audiences with buffoonery of all kinds. Other men made it their profession to train bears, apes, and horses to perform tricks. The spectators always connected these tricks with witchcraft, and supposed them to be done by means of magic.
Theatres did not exist in those days; but there were mysteries or miracle plays, which formed a great part of the amusement of the people during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Their origin was no doubt purely religious, and their object was to illustrate passages of Scripture and teach moral lessons. They were performed in churches, or on stages erected in the churchyards and the fields, and sometimes on movable stages in the streets. They were written by monks, and were performed sometimes by monks themselves, sometimes by the members of a trade-gild. They seem very soon to have lost most of their religious character, and to have become little more than a means of amusement for the people; to secure this better, they degenerated into rather coarse comedies.
Three complete sets of these old mysteries still exist, and in all we see the same desire for comic effect, which led the authors to take liberties with the text of Scripture, so as to be able to introduce comic incidents. Noah's wife is a favourite character, and is endowed with a very obstinate temper, so that Noah has great difficulty in gettingher into the ark. Devils played an important part, and were represented with horns, tails, claws, and terrible masks. Everything possible was done to make them awful in the eyes of the women and children. Masks were much used in the performance; the women's parts were acted by men or boys wearing masks. The play as a whole cannot have produced any very serious impression, though it was by no means entirely deficient in religious feeling. But the comic element predominated, and gave rise to the most boisterous merriment. We cannot wonder therefore that the preachers and moralists of the day regarded the miracle plays with disfavour, and spoke of them in the same way as the Puritans of later date did of the theatres.
These mysteries were exhibited on festivals and holidays. Another kind of play, called "Ludi," was exhibited at court during the Christmas holidays. These plays were really nothing more than mummeries—the appearance of a large number of persons in masks and various comic dresses, personifying certain characters, and performing dances.
In 1348 Edward III. kept his Christmas at Guildford. Orders were given to manufacture for the Christmas sports eighty tunics of buckram of different colours, and a large number of masks—some with faces of women, some with beards, some like angel heads of silver. There were to be mantles embroidered with heads of dragons,tunics wrought with heads and wings of peacocks, and embroidered in many other fantastic ways. The celebration of Christmas lasted from All-Hallows Eve, the 31st October, till the day after the Purification, the 3rd February. At the court a lord of misrule was appointed, who reigned during the whole of this period, and was called "the master of merry disports." He ruled over and organised all the games and sports, and during the period of his rule there was nothing but a succession of masques, disguisings, and dances of all kinds. All the nobles, even the mayor of London, had an officer of this kind chosen in their households. Dancing was a very favourite amusement. It was practised by the nobility of both sexes. The damsels of London spent their evenings in dancing before their masters' doors, and the country lasses danced upon the village green.
The favourite occupation of the nobility was hunting. In the reign of Edward II. hunting had been reduced to a science, and rules had been established for its practice. Edward III. was an ardent hunter, and all the nobility followed his example. Even bishops and abbots hunted. No more valuable present could be made than a harehound or deerhound. In hawking, ladies could also take part. The careful training of a falcon required great skill, and a well-trained bird was most highly prized. Embroidered gloves were worn on the hand upon which the falcon was tosit. When not flying at their game, the hawks used to be hoodwinked with elegant hoods. They had a bell on each leg, and there was a difference of a semitone between the two bells.
The English ladies led a quiet and secluded life, and were celebrated for their skill in needlework and embroidery. They used also to amuse themselves with playing at dice and chess, and with music. They were allowed, it is true, to appear as spectators at the tournaments; and at the time of the foundation of the Order of the Garter, the Queen and the wives of the knights-founders were received, as far as their sex allowed, as members of the Order.
The famous Order of the Garter had been established. Men were feasting and carousing, and were spending their days in brilliant festivals, while the shadow of a great calamity was creeping over the land. A terrible plague had broken out in the interior of Asia. It spread rapidly to Europe, devastated Greece and Italy, and passed on through France to England. Its coming is said to have been heralded by the most frightful signs. A stinking mist seemed to advance from the East and spread over Europe. Numerous earthquakes shook the Continent, and meteors of great size were seen. It was in August, 1348, that the plague first reached the shores of England. Three months afterwards it reached London.
We can hardly imagine the terror which the plague must have spread over the country. No one could feel himself safe from its ravages. Before the plague the population of England is supposed to have been 5,000,000; it is calculated that at least 2,500,000 persons perished of it.
The disease seemed to be a poisoning of the blood. It began with shivering, which was followed by a burning internal fever, and then boils of a black colour appeared upon the skin, whence it gained its name the "Black Death." Death often ensued after a few hours' illness. The terror of death only increased the danger, and gave rise to utter selfishness and recklessness. Men deserted those dearest to them when they were stricken by the plague; brothers deserted their sisters, husbands their wives, mothers their children. Some shut themselves up in utter solitude, and hoped, by living moderately and avoiding all contact with men, to escape the danger. Others indulged in the wildest dissipation, and strove to drown their anxiety by reckless drinking, and excitement of all kinds. The mere sight of a stricken person was supposed to be sufficient to communicate infection. No one ventured to walk abroad without bearing in their hands some pungent herb, the smell of which was believed to disinfect the pestilential air.
The rich shut themselves up in their castles, and in many cases succeeded in escaping infection. It was amongst the poor that the mortality was greatest. From the large number of parish priests who are known to have died of the plague, we are led to hope that they at least did not shun the danger, but went boldly amongst the sick and dying to administer the last comforts of religion. We know that seventeen out of twenty-one of theYork clergy died during the pestilence. It was in the eastern counties that the mortality was the greatest. They were at that time the most thickly populated part of England. For many years there had been a slow and constant immigration of Flemings, who had been encouraged by the English kings to settle in England, that they might there establish their industries. From them the English had learnt weaving and commercial enterprise. The east, not the west, of England was then the centre of manufactures and industry. Norwich was a thriving manufacturing city, possessing sixty parish churches and sixteen chapels. There exists a record, stating that 57,374 persons died there of the plague. Norwich never recovered its prosperity. At the present day it has only thirty-six parish churches, in place of sixty before 1348. Yarmouth was of great importance as a station for the herring fishery; out of 10,000 inhabitants, it lost 7,000 by the plague. In Bristol, then one of the chief towns in England, the plague raged to such an extent that the living were scarcely able to bury the dead, and grass grew several inches high in the principal streets.
In London its ravages were terrible. The churchyards were filled to overflowing, and no longer sufficed. Sir Walter Manny bought a piece of land in West Smithfield to bury the dead, and built a chapel where masses should be said for the souls of the departed. This was theorigin of the Charterhouse. Other persons also bought pieces of land for the same purpose, and fields were set apart where the dead were buried in large pits. Two successive Archbishops of Canterbury died of the plague, John de Ufford, and Thomas Bradwardine, one of the most learned men of his time. One of the king's daughters, the Princess Joan, died of it at Bordeaux, on her way to marry Don Pedro of Castile.
By many people the Black Death was looked upon as a scourge sent by God for the sins of mankind. A sect of fanatics, called the Flagellants, arose and wandered over all parts of Europe. There appeared in London, in 1349, a band of men and women, 120 in number, whose object was to expiate in their own persons the sins of the world. They wandered from town to town clad in sackcloth, with red crosses on their caps, chanting penitential hymns. From time to time they prostrated themselves upon the ground in the form of a cross, and took it in turns for one of their number to scourge their naked backs and shoulders. This process was repeated every morning for thirty-three days, the number of the years of Christ's life upon earth. Then the fanatics, having fulfilled the appointed penance, returned to their own homes, having in many cases inspired others to follow their example. So great was their enthusiasm that they seemed not to feel the stroke of the scourge, and sang their wild hymns only with greater exultation as the blood streamed fromtheir shoulders. The following is a translation of a verse of one of their hymns:
"Through love of man the Saviour came,Through love of man He died;He suffered want, reproach, and shame,Was scourged and crucified.Oh think, then, on thy Saviour's pain,And lash the sinner, lash again!"
"Through love of man the Saviour came,Through love of man He died;He suffered want, reproach, and shame,Was scourged and crucified.Oh think, then, on thy Saviour's pain,And lash the sinner, lash again!"
In England they found no response to their enthusiasm. The people only gazed and wondered, and they departed without having gained any followers. In Germany their success was much greater.
The result of the Black Death in England was a social revolution, which changed the whole course of English history. It disturbed the existing relations of land and labour, by increasing suddenly the value of labour whilst it diminished the value of land. We cannot follow in detail the course of this revolution, but we can trace some of the causes which produced it. So large a number of the labourers had died of the plague, that there were none left to till the land. Flocks and herds wandered over the country with no one to tend them. The labourers, being few in number, demanded wages which the farmers were not able to pay and make a profit. Land consequently fell in value, and it became possible for one man to hold a large quantity of it. The small farms were broken up, as it was easier for a small farmer to gain his livelihood by working for another manthan by attempting to get others to work for him, and make a profit out of his own land. Arable land was largely converted into pasture land, because pasture land required fewer labourers.
The immediate consequence of the plague was the outbreak of the first great conflict in the history of England between capital and labour. The free labourer at that time can hardly be said to have had a position recognised by law. According to the system of land tenure which had prevailed in England since its colonization by German tribes, the serf was bound to the land. He was not a slave in the sense that he could be bought or sold; but he was his lord's property, for he could not move from the soil on which he had been born: he was an outlaw if he attempted to leave it without his lord's permission. As time went on the serf had gained certain rights. The amount of service due by him to his lord had been limited by custom; he had a legal right to the piece of land on which his hut was built; the labour which he owed to his lord was, as it were, the rent he paid for his land.
In the twelfth century the custom began to be common for the lord, who was frequently for long periods absent on the Crusades or at war, to lease some of his land to tenants, instead of farming it all through bailiffs. This was found to be both easier and more profitable; and thus arose the farmer class. A still greater change was thegradual rise of the free labourer. The Church had long used its influence to urge men to give freedom to their serfs. It was possible also for a serf to gain freedom by living a year and a day within the walls of a chartered town. The tenants, as they increased in wealth and social importance, found the labour-rent more and more burdensome. On the other hand, the lords, owing to the increasing luxury of the time and to the expenses of chivalry and war, were continually in want of money. It became, therefore, the custom for the serfs to buy their freedom from their lords. Edward III. himself used to raise money by selling manumissions to his serfs. In time the labourer became detached from the soil, and could pass from one farm to another.
The scarcity of labour after the Black Death made the landholders feel how disadvantageous this system was to them. Formerly they could compel their serfs to work. Now they had to pay the labourers the wages which they asked, or allow their land to remain untilled, and the harvests to rot upon the fields. Government was, of course, in those days entirely in the interests of the landlords. To remedy the evil of high wages, the King assembled his council on the 14th June, 1349. The country was not yet sufficiently recovered from the plague to allow of Parliament being summoned. The council issued a royal ordinance, which was afterwards embodied in the Statute of Labourers.
The preamble of this statute gives us in a few words a vivid picture of the times. It states that "a great part of the people, and especially of workmen and servants, late died of the pestilence. Many, seeing the necessity of masters and the great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they may receive excessive wages; and some are rather willing to beg in idleness than by labour to get their living." It then proceeds to ordain that all men and women who do not live by merchandise or by the exercise of any craft are to work for the same wages as they had received before the plague. They were to work first for their own lord, though he was not to retain more than he wanted. The statute went on to say that, "seeing that many sturdy beggars, as long as they can live by begging and charity, refuse to labour, no one, under pain of imprisonment, shall presume to nourish them in their idleness." Thus the law ordered that all men were to work; giving alms to beggars was forbidden; the scale of wages was fixed, and men were once more bound, at least in the first place, to work for their lord.
The fixing of the scale of wages by law could have no permanent effect. With the high price of provisions, which had resulted from the Black Death, it was impossible for men to live on the same wages as before the plague. We see by the repeated reinforcements of the statute during the reign of Edward III. how unsuccessful it was in obtaining the desired result. Still more gallingto the labourer was the attempt made by this statute to bind him once more to the soil, and thus to rob him of his newly-acquired freedom. We cannot wonder that the Statute of Labourers produced a growing discontent amongst the labour class, which at last broke out in the peasants' revolt under Richard II.
The horrors of the Black Death had rudely disturbed the joy and prosperity of the English people. No greater contrast can be imagined than that between the condition of England in 1347, when the people revelled in the enjoyment of peace and of a luxury unknown before, and England in the beginning of 1350. More than half the people had died of the plague; even amongst the cattle the mortality had been very great. The looms stood silent for want of weavers; the harvests lay rotting on the fields for want of labourers; sheep and oxen wandered half wild over the country because there was no one to tend them. The country pulpits remained silent. The people as well as their sheep were without shepherds. All suits and pleadings in the King's Bench, and all sessions of Parliament, ceased for two years. War was impossible. France was decimated by the plague as much as England, and a truce for two years was concluded between the two countries.
The population soon recovered its losses. The nobles had suffered comparatively little by the plague, and soon returned to their luxurious amusements. Preachers and moralists might declaim against the extravagances of fashion and dress, and say that the plague had been sent as a scourge from God, but the nobles clung to their fashions all the same. It was the people who had suffered by the plague, and felt its effects. Wheat was scarce, the price of provisions was exorbitantly high, and yet the law was striving to diminish wages. The life of the agricultural labourer in those days was at best very wretched. The articles of diet were few. The people lived on salt meat half the year. They had neither potatoes, carrots, nor parsnips; their only vegetables were onions, cabbages, and nettles. Spices were quite out of the reach of the common people. Sugar was a costly luxury. We can hardly realize the dreariness of the long winter nights in the dark and ill-ventilated huts, from which the smoke escaped as best it could. The people must have spent much of their time in darkness, as candles were too dear for them to buy.
But wretched as his surroundings might be, the labourer was not without intelligence. It was his ambition to send one of his sons to the university, that he might become a priest. So general was this custom that Parliament petitioned Edward III. to prohibit it, because the landlords feared that thus they might lose useful labourers. The distress of the peasantry under the Statute of Labourers, and the tyranny and oppression of their landlords, soon led them to form combinationsamong themselves for the defence of their own rights. These combinations were maintained by subscriptions of money. We learn that the labourers gathered themselves together in "great routs, and agreed by such confederacy to resist their lords." These combinations paved the way for the revolt under Richard II. The agricultural labourers throughout the country could communicate with one another by means of preachers who wandered over the country, and who, being men of the people themselves, shared the interests of their class.
In attempting to form any true idea of the condition of the lower orders of society in those times, of their hardships and grievances, we are much aided by the poem of William Langland, called theVision of Piers the Plowman. Langland himself was an obscure man, of whom little certain is known. He seems to have been born about 1332, and to have been a secular priest. Three versions of his poem exist, the first written in 1362, the last about 1380. It is a long poem written in the old alliterative metre, that is, the rhyme is at the beginning, not at the end of the words. From a literary point of view the poem possesses little charm; its great interest lies in the light it throws on the social condition of the times.
Langland is an austere reformer. He is not like Chaucer, who likes to look on the bright side of things, and to take a genial view even of men'sfailings and sins, and make fun of them. He wishes to make men better by showing them their sin in its darkest colours, and pointing out the contrast between it and the virtue they ought to attain to. The poem is one long testimony against the sins of the rich, against the sins of all who do notwork. If Chaucer has any distinct wish at all to make men better, he only tries to do it by making their sins ludicrous. In Langland's poem we never lose sight of the moral; the poet has no other purpose in writing than moral teaching. What he wishes to teach is simply this, that all men must work, though the work must differ in kind according to the rank of the worker. The knight's duty is to guard the Church from "wasters," and help the farmer by killing the hares, foxes, and wild birds. The ladies are to sew chasubles, to spin wool and flax, to clothe the naked, and to help all those who work worthily. If men will not work otherwise, hunger must make them do so. There are to be no beggars; even hermits must seize their spades and dig.
The dinner provided for the labourers after they have worked, shows us what the peasants had to live on in those days. Piers says he had no geese nor pigs, only cheese, curds, cream, oatcake, and loaves of beans and bran; and for vegetables, parsley, leeks, and cabbages. Besides these the poor people bought peascods, beans, apples and cherries, to feed hunger with. These were the things on which they must subsist till harvesttime; then they would have better food, and good ale too.
Langland tells us that the people were beginning to be discontented with this kind of food. The beggars would eat only the finest bread; the labourers grew dainty, and were not content even with penny ale and a piece of bacon, but wanted fresh flesh and fried fish, and grumbled about their low wages.
Langland is very bitter against the indulgences granted by the priests for men's sins. A man can only obtain pardon by good works. The merchants must trade fairly, must repair hospitals and broken bridges, must dower maidens and aid poor scholars. He is more severe upon the lawyers than upon almost any other class; they take bribes, and will never speak unless you give them money first; only those who plead the cause of the poor, and do not need to be bought, can be saved. With crushing severity he dwells continually upon the sins of the clergy, and, like Wiclif, wishes for the return of the apostolical purity of the Church. The pestilence, he says, came simply as a punishment for men's sins. The whole poem is full of allusions to the questions of the day, and the severity of its criticisms is relieved by no playfulness, hardly by a single touch of humour.
In the form of his poem, Langland has followed the fashionable poets of his day, and has adopted the machinery of a dream. All that he tells uspassed before him in a vision. Some few touches show that he too was not wanting in some growing sense of the beauties of nature, particularly in the opening of the poem, when he tells us that he wandered on the Malvern Hills on a May morning. When weary of wandering, he laid himself down
"Under a broad bank, by a burn's side;And as I lay, and leaned, and looked in the waters,I slumbered in a sleeping, it sounded so merrily."
"Under a broad bank, by a burn's side;And as I lay, and leaned, and looked in the waters,I slumbered in a sleeping, it sounded so merrily."
It is only the form, however, that Langland has taken from the fashionable poets of his day; of their spirit he has nothing. The beautiful side of chivalry was quite lost to him. He saw only its dark side, the luxury and selfish idleness to which it had led. He is a voice from the people, and as such is doubly interesting to us, since most of the chroniclers and writers of those times entirely disregarded the people, and spoke only of the upper ranks of society.
In 1350 the English were again troubled by rumours of war. The seamen of the Spanish ports on the Bay of Biscay had always been animated by hostility to the English, in whom they found formidable opponents to their commercial enterprises. They were full of zeal for mercantile adventure, and side by side with their commerce they committed many acts of piracy. They now assembled a large fleet, primarily with the object of trading with Flanders; but on their way to the Flemish ports they behaved more like pirates than merchants, and by claiming the dominion of the seas seemed to challenge the English to attack them.
At the Flemish ports the Spaniards loaded their ships with all kinds of rich merchandise, and prepared to return home, having no fear of the English; for the fleet was strong, and their admiral, De la Cerda, by promising liberal pay, had succeeded in enlisting a large number of volunteers at Sluys.
Froissart tells us that the King of Englandhated these Spaniards greatly, and said publicly, "We have for a long time spared these people, for which they have done us much harm, without amending their conduct. On the contrary, they grow more arrogant; for which reason they must be chastised as they pass our coasts." His son and his lords were only too ready to engage upon a warlike expedition. Edward summoned all gentlemen who at that time might be in England to meet him at Sandwich. Hither the Queen too came to see them off.
The English fleet consisted of fifty sail; but the ships were far inferior to those of the Spaniards. Edward III. and the Black Prince each commanded a ship in person. For three days they cruised between Dover and Calais waiting the coming of the Spaniards. On the third day, when they hoped to engage, the king sat in the fore part of his ship, dressed in a black velvet jacket, and wearing on his head a small hat of beaver, which became him much. He was in most joyous spirits, and ordered his minstrels to play before him a German dance which Sir John Chandos had lately introduced. For his amusement he made Chandos sing with his minstrels, which delighted him greatly. From time to time he would ask his watch whether the Spaniards were in sight. At last, whilst the King was thus amusing himself with his knights, the watch cried out, "I spy a ship; and it appears to me to be a Spaniard." At once the minstrels weresilenced, and the King asked whether there was more than one ship. Soon the answer was shouted out, "Yes, I see two, three, four, and so many that, God help me, I cannot count them." Then the King and his knights knew that it was the Spanish fleet.
The trumpets sounded, and the ships were ordered to form in line of battle. It was already late; but the King was determined to engage. He called for wine, which he and his knights drank, and then stood ready to fight. The Spaniards might easily have avoided the battle, but hoping to crush their enemies, they sailed down upon them. Then Edward said to the captain of his ship, "Lay me alongside the Spaniard who is bearing down on us, for I will have a tilt with him." The shock of the meeting of the two ships was like the crash of a tempest. The King's ship stood firm; but the Spaniard was much disabled, and lost her masts, so that the English knights cried to the King, "Let her go away; you shall have better than that." Then another large ship bore down, and grappled with chains and irons to that of the King, and the fight began in earnest. Many gallant deeds were done; but the Spanish ship proved hard to conquer. The King's ship was leaking, and in danger of sinking, only just in time was the Spanish ship boarded. The English threw all the men they found on it overboard; and leaving their own ship, continued the fight on board the Spaniard.
Meanwhile, the Prince of Wales was in great difficulty. His ship was grappled by an immense Spaniard, and was so full of holes that it was in great danger of sinking. The crew were employed in baling out water, and could not make head against the Spaniards. But the Duke of Lancaster, the Prince's cousin, formerly Earl of Derby, seeing the danger, drew near, and fell on the other side of the enemy, grappling his ship to the Spaniard, with shouts of "Derby to the rescue." The ship was soon taken, and the crew were thrown overboard. The Prince and his men, deserting their own ship, embarked on board the Spaniard.
It was a hard battle for the English, as the Spanish ships were very big and strong, and the Spaniards fought with extreme bravery, and knew no fear. At last victory declared itself for the English. The Spaniards lost fourteen ships, and the others saved themselves by flight. When it was over Edward sounded his trumpets for retreat, and the fleet sailed back to the English coast, anchoring off Rye and Winchelsea. The King and the Prince landed, and the same night rode to the house where the Queen was—just two leagues distant. She was most joyful at seeing them return safely, for she had been in great anxiety all day. Her servants had watched the battle from the hills on the coast, whence they could see it well, as the weather was fine and clear, and they had seen the great strength of their enemy, and their fine large ships. So greatwere the rejoicings that, instead of resting after the battle, the King and his knights spent the night in revelry with the ladies, talking of arms and love. The next morning the King thanked his knights for their services, and dismissed them.
This battle was the beginning of the rivalry between the English and the Spaniards for the dominion of the seas. The hardy Spanish seamen were not in the least depressed by their defeat. Both sides, however, soon saw that the quarrel was to the interests of neither, and a truce for twenty years was concluded in London between the King of England and the maritime cities of Castile. It must be remembered that the quarrel was not at all between the King of Castile and the King of England, but only between these maritime cities and the English naval power.
Attempts had been again made at a conference at Guisnes between the envoys of France and England to change the armistice between the two countries into a permanent peace. Edward III. offered to give up his claim to the French crown, if the French king would give up his claim of homage for the English provinces in France. When the French king refused to do this, Edward determined to begin the war again.
Philip of Valois, King of France, had died in 1350, and was succeeded by his son John. John found the treasury of France already impoverished by the expenses of the war, and did not make matters better by his unwise and prodigal liberality. His easy-going temper earned for him the name of the Good, though he brought his kingdom to the very verge of ruin. He wanted money for his favourites and his pleasures, and when he had taxed the people till they could give no more, he tried to get money by debasing the coinage, that is, he caused money containing a large quantity of alloy to be made, and obliged the people to take this bad money in exchange for their good money. This and his heavy taxes brought great misery and poverty upon the people, who were still suffering from the effects of the Black Death.
The country also suffered greatly from the Free Companies who roamed about in all directions, committing robberies and every kind of crime. These Free Companies were the plague of the Middle Ages. They were bands of mercenary soldiers ready to fight for any one who would pay them, and when in intervals of peace they were dismissed from service they spent the time in plunder, in defiance of all laws and government. Froissart tells us that, in the year 1351, there was the greatest scarcity of provisions ever known in the memory of man, all over the kingdom of France. But in spite of the sufferings of his people, King John was eager for war and anxious to wash out the stain left on the French arms by the battle of Cressy. Edward was equally ready; even during the years when negotiations for peace had been going on, the truce had not really been observed, and both Frenchand English had made many aggressions upon the enemy's country.
When in 1354 the Congress at Guisnes broke up, having accomplished nothing, Edward began to hasten his preparations for a new invasion of France. He had gained a new and important ally against John in the person of Charles, King of Navarre. This man was the evil genius of France during the years that followed. His crimes and unscrupulous ambition gained for him the surname of the Bad. He was one of the most powerful vassals of France, as he had inherited the earldom of Normandy and Evreux. To secure his friendship, King John had given him his daughter in marriage. But Charles soon incurred the hatred of John by murdering the king's favourite and chief counsellor. He had to fly from court, and in his absence John invaded Normandy and took some of his fortresses. Charles determined to revenge this injury by aiding Edward III. against the King of France. He promised to give the English king possession of several strong fortresses in Normandy, so that he might land his troops there, and be able to advance to Paris in safety. At the same time Edward received a visit from some of the Gascon nobles, who came to ask him to send his son to lead them against the French. A great invasion of France by three separate armies was therefore planned. One, under the Black Prince, was to land at Bordeaux; a second, under the Duke of Lancaster,was to go and aid the Countess de Montfort in Britany; and a third, under Edward himself, was to invade Normandy.
Edward III. took a proud army with him to France; but he did not do much. His ally, Charles of Navarre, made peace with John, so that Edward was obliged to change his plans and land at Calais instead of Cherbourg. John was wise enough to give Edward no chance of a battle, whilst he urged upon the Scots to invade England in the absence of its king. News was brought to Edward in France that the Scots had crossed the border and re-taken Berwick. He was obliged to return to resist them, and punished their inroad by invading Scotland, and spreading such destruction wherever he went, that the Scots long spoke of the time of this invasion as "Burnt Candlemas."
The Black Prince had sailed from Plymouth on September 8th, 1355, with a large band of nobles. He was received at Bordeaux with great joy by all the nobles of the country. The Gascon lords were eager to fight under the banner of so brave a prince, and to distinguish themselves by feats of arms. They had long been annoyed by the inroads of the French, and they now begged the prince to lead them on a foraging expedition into France. They formed no plan for a campaign. The expedition was simply undertaken from love of plunder, and of fighting for its own sake. The Prince had the absolute command, and had been appointed the king's lieutenant in Aquitaine. The expedition which he now undertook shows us the dark side of chivalry. We see him and his young knights, in wanton love of adventure, spreading ruin and destruction over the fairest provinces of France.
On leaving Bordeaux he divided his army into several "battles." These were to march at somedistance from one another, that they might devastate a larger extent of country. In this way they went through Armagnac to the foot of the Pyrenees. Then the Prince turned northwards to Toulouse, where he waited, hoping in vain that the French might be provoked to battle. He next crossed the Garonne, and went to Carcassone, a rich and populous city, as large as York. The inhabitants fled in terror, leaving the city gates open. The town was plundered and burnt, but the citadel stood firm, and the Prince passed on without troubling to take it. To save themselves from a like fate, the inhabitants of Montpelier destroyed their own suburbs, and the members of the ancient university fled to Avignon, to seek shelter with the Pope. Narbonne was one of the richest towns in France, and almost as large as London; it also was burnt and plundered. In eight weeks the Black Prince succeeded in ruining the richest district of France, from which the kings of France drew the chief part of their revenue. Peace had reigned there for more than a century, so that the inhabitants were ignorant of war and its horrors. Now five hundred towns and villages were smoking in ruins; the harvests were destroyed; everywhere there was devastation and ruin. The name of the Black Prince had become a terror, not only to the people whose peaceful homes he had destroyed, but to the whole of France.
Laden with booty, he and his knights returned to Bordeaux. Here the Gascon soldiers were dismissed till the spring, when an expedition into Poitou was talked of. The winter was spent by the Black Prince with his knights in great joy and festivity. There, the herald Chandos tells us, was "beauty and nobleness, sincerity, bounty and liberality." But neither were they quite idle; for in the course of the winter they succeeded in retaking such fortresses in Gascony as had been taken by the French.
It was not till the middle of the following summer that the Black Prince gathered his men together to start on a second campaign. He left Bordeaux on the 8th July with only a small force—2,000 men-at-arms and 6,000 archers—partly Gascons and partly English. His object was to make another foraging expedition, and, if possible, proceed onwards to join his cousin the Duke of Lancaster in Normandy. He went through Auvergne northward as far as Berry. Froissart tells us that they found the province of Auvergne very rich, and all things in great abundance. They burnt and destroyed all the country they passed through, and when they entered any town which was well provisioned, they rested there some days to refresh themselves, and on leaving destroyed what remained, staving the heads of wine casks and burning the wheat and oats, so that their enemies should not save anything. Everywhere they found plenty as they advanced, for the country was very rich and full of forage for men-at-arms.
At Vierzon, a town in Berry, they learnt that the King of France was at Chartres with a large army, and that all the passes and towns on the Loire were secured and so well guarded that no one could cross the river. The Prince then held a council with his knights, and they resolved to return to Bordeaux through Touraine and Poitou, destroying all the country on their way. Near Romorantin some of the Prince's men had a skirmish with some French soldiers, whom they routed. The castle of Romorantin refused to yield to the Prince. As he was assailing it one of his squires was killed at his side by a stone thrown from the castle. The Prince was so furious that he swore he would not leave that place till he had the castle and all in it in his power. Cannons were brought forward, and Greek-fire was shot upon the town, till a large tower of the castle, covered with thatch, caught fire and was all in a blaze. Then the garrison had to yield; but the Prince treated them nobly, and set many knights and squires at liberty, whilst he made the lords, who had commanded the castle, ride by his side and attend him as his prisoners.
When the King of France heard that the Prince was hastening back to Bordeaux, he determined to pursue him, thinking that he could not escape. He left Chartres, and marched south, to intercept him on his way back. John was marching almost in a direct line south, whilst the Black Prince was marching from Romorantin in a south-westerly direction. It was therefore impossible but that they should meet. The English, however, were ignorant of their danger, till they accidentally discovered, when near Charigny, on September 17, by coming upon a French reconnoitring party, that the great French army was between them and Bordeaux. Escape was impossible. The Prince had only 8,000 men, while John had a mighty army of 50,000. But Prince Edward would rather fight even against such odds than yield to an enemy. All that remained for him was to choose his position well and fight his best. The skilful tactics displayed by the Prince in disposing of his small force, show us that he was something more than merely a brave soldier.
King John sent Sir Eustace de Ribeaumont to reconnoitre the English. He brought back an account of the way in which they were posted, which has been preserved to us.
There were 2,000 men-at-arms, 6,000 archers, and about 1,000 camp followers quartered on a small hill which did not contain 2,000 square feet of ground. This hill was surrounded by very thick hedges, and was divided in the middle by a road, a little crooked and so narrow that hardly three men could go up it abreast. The road was covered on both sides with high hedges, behind which were encamped the archers, who were still at work making a new ditch. At the end of these hedges were the men-at-arms on foot, each holding his horse by his bridle; they were standingamidst vines and thorns, where it was impossible to march in any regular order. Before them were drawn up the archers, arranged in the manner of a harrow. On the left, where the hedges and the avenue were not so thick, the waggons were piled one upon another to make a barrier. Some cavalry were collected on a little eminence to the right, that they might attack the enemy on the flanks.