A reinforcement arrived at the same time under the command of Lord Morley; the victors thereupon assailed the three French divisions at the same time. The French sailors became alarmed; they could not manage their vessels nor disengage them to facilitate a retreat. After having fought during several hours, the French and Genoese sprang into the water, in order to escape by swimming. Many of them were drowned, and the defeat was so decisive that nobody was bold enough to communicate the news to King Philip. His court jester presented himself before the French monarch. "The English are cowards," he said. "Why so?" inquired the king. "Because they had not the courage to spring into the sea at Sluys as did the French and Normans." The king guessed the sad truth. Edward had landed on French soil, surrounded by the allies whom his victory had attracted toward him; he laid siege to Saint-Omer and Tournay, sending thence a challenge to Philip of Valois, proposing to arrange their quarrel by a singular contest. He suggested that the fate of the two kingdoms should be entrusted to a hundred combatants on each side, or that a day should be fixed on which a pitched battle should be fought. Philip answered with disdain; and, as in the preceding year, he left his enemy free to exhaust his strength and resources on insignificant places, without ever according him the opportunity of a general engagement The coffers of the King of England soon became empty, and his allies refused to fight; he was compelled to consent to the armistice which Pope Benedict XII. advised, and he returned to his kingdom infuriated by the ill-success of a campaign which had begun under brilliant auspices. He unexpectedly appeared in London, cast three judges into prison, deposed the chancellor and the treasurer, who had not been able, he said, to supply him with the subsidies necessary to his requirements, and immediately engaged in a contention with the Archbishop of Canterbury, president of the council. The archbishop exonerated himself before the Parliament, which, according to its wise custom, refused the subsidies until the king had promised to reform some existing abuses, and to give new guarantees against others in the future.
Meanwhile King David Bruce had returned to Scotland; he was eighteen years of age, was handsome, well shaped, and skilled in all athletic exercises. The joy of his subjects, therefore, was great at his arrival. Baliol had been driven back into England, and, notwithstanding several attempts of the young Scottish king upon the northern counties, Edward concluded an armistice with him in 1342, at the same time entrusting him with the task of defending the English frontier, so much was he absorbed in the war with France, and in thoughts of revenge for his past checks.
A new opening had presented itself to him upon the French territory. John III., duke of Brittany, had died without issue in 1341, and his brother, John de Montfort, had immediately seized the treasury, as well as several important towns. But Joan of Penthièvre, otherwise Joan the Lame, wife of Charles, Count of Blois, claimed the duchy as the daughter of Guy de Montfort, a younger brother of the deceased duke. The Count of Blois was the nephew of Philip of Valois, and he had invoked the aid of his uncle. Montfort had been summoned to Paris to render an account of his claims. After having appeared before the king, he had fled secretly, and his first care was to repair to London, there to do homage to the King of England in respect to Brittany. Edward had promised to support him, but already a French army had marched into Brittany. John de Montfort had been captured at Nantes, and his wife, Joan of Flanders, had with difficulty contrived to escape with her son to the castle of Hennebon, where she was besieged by the Duke of Normandy. The countess "had indeed the heart of a man and a lion," says Froissart, and she valiantly encouraged her partisans, while waiting the succor which she had demanded from England. The wind was unfavorable; the English vessels did not arrive, and treachery began to do its work in the town, when Joan, leaning on her casement, perceived sails in the horizon. "Behold there! behold there!" she cried, "the succor which I have so long desired." The rising tide brought to her Gautier de Manny, a valiant knight of Hainault, who had become a faithful servant to the King of England, and one of the most illustrious amongst his warriors. He was accompanied by a goodly number of knights and men-at-arms, and soon caused the siege to be raised. But the war continued in Lower Brittany. With singular inconsistency, the King of France, who owed his elevation to the throne to the Salic law, was maintaining in Brittany the cause of female succession, while Edward was defending the rights of the male sex, which he had refused to recognize in the case of Philip of Valois. An armistice enabled the Countess de Montfort to cross over to England to obtain reinforcements. When she returned to Brittany, she was accompanied by Robert of Artois, brother-in-law of King Philip and his mortal enemy. The town of Vannes was captured and recaptured. Robert of Artois, wounded, succeeded, although not without great difficulty, in escaping to England, there to die at the very moment when Edward was setting sail with the resolution of directing the war in Brittany in person. He landed in the month of October, 1343, at Hennebon, with twelve thousand men, and immediately laid siege to Vannes, Rennes, and Nantes, with no other result than the devastation of the country, already overrun by so many enemies, and the retreat of Charles of Blois, whose forces had been greatly reduced.
The arrival of the Duke of Normandy, the eldest son of King Philip, soon enabled the French troops to act once more upon the aggressive by besieging Edward, encamped before Vannes. The two armies were suffering severely from the inclemency of the weather. The Duke of Normandy dreaded the reinforcements which were expected by the English. Edward foresaw that his provisions would shortly be exhausted, when the legates of the Pope arrived, and, by dint of their exertions, a truce of three years was arranged; the siege of Vannes was then raised.
Notwithstanding the truce, the war still raged in Brittany. King Philip of Valois aroused a widespread feeling of indignation by arresting, at a tournament, several Breton nobleman, Oliver de Clisson, among others, and by causing them to be beheaded without trial, as guilty of relations with the English. The head of Clisson was sent to Nantes; but the king had created an implacable foe in the person of Joan of Belville, the widow of Clisson, who immediately armed all her vassals and soon vied with Joan de Montfort herself in courage and intrepidity. The Countess had recently had the satisfaction of seeing her husband, who had escaped from prison, where he had been incarcerated for six years. He brought with him, from England, a small body of troops, which he landed at Hennebon in the middle of September, 1345; but his health was impaired, and he died on the 26th of the same month, naming King Edward guardian of his son.
Van Artevelde At His Door.
Hostilities recommenced openly. During the truce the two kings had made preparations for a desperate struggle. Among the means which King Philip had devised for the purpose of filling his coffers, was the monopoly of salt. "It is indeed by the Salic law that Philip of Valois reigns," said Edward. "The King of England is but a wool merchant," was the reply at the court of France. The parliament had granted fresh subsidies, recommending merely to the king that he should put an end to the war promptly either by battle or by treaty.