“Bertrand du Guesclin gave ear to the king, and ‘Sir King,’ said he, ‘it is my heart’s desire to cross over the seas and go fight the heathen with the edge of the sword; but if I could come nigh this folk which Both anger you, I would deliver the kingdom from them.’ ‘I should like it well,’ said the king. ‘Say no more,’ said Bertrand to him; ‘I will learn their pleasure; give it no further thought.’
“Bertrand du Guesclin summoned his herald, and said to him, ‘Go thou to the Grand Company and have all the captains assembled; thou wilt go and demand for me a safe-conduct, for I have a great desire to parley with them.’ The herald mounted his horse, and went a-seeking these folk toward Chalon-sur-la-Saone. They were seated together at dinner, and were drinking good wine from the cask they had pierced. ‘Sirs,’ said the herald, ‘the blessing of Jesus be on you! Bertrand du Guesclin prayeth you to let him parley with all in company.’ ‘By my faith, gentle herald,’ said Hugh de Calverley, who was master of the English, ‘I will readily see Bertrand here, and will give him good wine; I can well give it him, in sooth, I do assure you, for it costs me nothing.’ Then the herald departed, and returned to his lord, and told the news of this company.
“So away rode Bertrand, and halted not; and he rode so far that he came to the Grand Company, and then did greet them. ‘God keep,’ said he, ‘the companions I see yonder!’ Then they bowed down; each abased himself. ‘I vow to God,’ said Bertrand, ‘whosoever will be pleased to believe me; I will make you all rich.’ And they answered, ‘Right welcome here sir, we will all do whatsoever is your pleasure.’ ‘Sirs,’ said Bertrand, ‘be pleased to listen to me; wherefore I am come I will tell unto you. I come by order of the king in whose keeping is France, and who would be right glad, to save his people, that ye should come with me whither I should be glad to go into good company I fain would bring ye. If we would all of us look into our hearts, we might full truly consider that we have done enough to damn our souls; think we but how we have dealt with life, outraged ladies and burned houses, slain men, children, and everybody set to ransom, how we have eaten up cows, oxen, and sheep, drunk good wines, and done worse than robbers do. Let us do honor to God and forsake the devil. Ask, if it may please you, all the companions, all the knights, and all the barons; if you be of accord, we will go to the king, and I will have the gold got ready which we do promise you I would fain get together all my friends to make the journey we so strongly desire.’”
Du Guesclin then explained, in broad terms which left the choice to the Grand Company, what this journey was which was so much desired. He spoke of the King of Cyprus, of the Saracens of Granada, of the Pope of Avignon, and especially of Spain and the King of Castile, Pedro the Cruel, “scoundrel-murderer of his wife (Blanche of Bourbon),” on whom, above all, Du Gueselin wished to draw down the wrath of his hearers. “In Spain,” he said to them, “we might largely profit, for the country is a good one for leading a good life, and there are good wines which are neat and clear.” Nearly all present, whereof were twenty-five famous captains, “confirmed what was said by Bertrand.” “Sirs,” said he to them at last, “listen to me: I will go my way and speak to the King of the Franks; I will get for you those two hundred thousand francs; you shall come and dine with me at Paris, according to my desire, when the time shall have come for it; and you shall see the king, who will be rejoiced thereat. We will have no evil suspicion in anything, for I never was inclined to treason, and never shall be as long as I live.” Then said the valiant knights and esquires to him, “Never was more valiant man seen on earth; and in you we have more belief and faith than in all the prelates and great clerics who dwell at Avignon or in France.”
When Du Gueselin returned to Paris, “Sir,” said he to the king, “I have accomplished your wish; I will put out of your kingdom all the worst folk of this Grand Company, and I will so work it that everything shall be saved.” “Bertrand,” said the king to him, “may the Holy Trinity be pleased to have you in their keeping, and may I see you a long while in joy and health!” “Noble king,” said Bertrand, “the captains have a very great desire to come to Paris, your good city.” “I am heartily willing,” said the king; “if they come, let them assemble at the Temple; elsewhere there is too much people and too much abundance; there might be too much alarm. Since they have reconciled themselves to us, I would have nought but friendship with them.”
The poet concludes the negotiation thus: “At the bidding of Bertrand, when he understood the pleasure of the noble King of France, all the captains came to Paris in perfect safety; they were conducted straight to the Temple; there they were feasted and dined nobly, and received many a gift, and all was sealed.”
Matters went, at the outset at least, as Du Guesclin had promised to the king on the one side, and on the other to the captains of the Grand Company. There was, in point of fact, a civil war raging in Spain between Don Pedro the Cruel, King of Castile, and his natural brother, Henry of Transtamare, and that was the theatre on which Du Guesclin had first proposed to launch the vagabond army which he desired to get out of France. It does not appear, however, that at their departure from Burgundy at the end of November, 1365, this army and its chiefs had in this respect any well-considered resolution, or any well-defined aim in their movements. They made first for Avignon, and Pope Urban V., on hearing of their approach, was somewhat disquieted, and sent to them one of his cardinals to ask them what was their will. If we may believe the poet-chronicler, Cuvelier, the mission was anything but pleasing to the cardinal, who said to one of his confidants, “I am grieved to be set to this business, for I am sent to a pack of madmen who have not an hour’s, nay, not even half-an-hour’s conscience.” The captains replied that they were going to fight the heathen either in Cyprus or in the kingdom of Granada, and that they demanded of the pope absolution of their sins and two hundred thousand livres, which Du Guesclin had promised them in his name. The pope cried out against this. “Here,” said he, “at Avignon, we have money given us for absolution, and we must give it gratis to yonder folks, and give them money also: it is quite against reason.” Du Guesclin insisted. “Know you,” said he to the cardinal, “that there are in this army many folks who care not a whit for absolution, and who would much rather have money; we are making them proper men in spite of themselves, and are leading them abroad that they may do no mischief to Christians. Tell that to the pope; for else we could not take them away.” The pope yielded, and gave them the two hundred thousand livres. He obtained the money by levies upon the population of Avignon. They, no doubt, complained loudly, for the chiefs of the Grand Company were informed thereof, and Du Guesclin said, “By the faith that I owe to the Holy Trinity, I will not take a denier of that which these poor folks have given; let the pope and the clerics give us of their own; we desire that all they who have paid the tax do recover their money without losing a doit;” and, according to contemporary chronicles, the vagabond army did not withdraw until they had obtained this satisfaction. The piety of the middle ages, though sincere, was often less disinterested and more rough than it is commonly represented.
On arriving at Toulouse from Avignon, Du Guesclin and his bands, with a strength, it is said, of thirty thousand men, took the decided resolution of going into Spain to support the cause of Prince Henry of Transtamare against the King of Castile his brother, Don Pedro the Cruel. The Duke of Anjou, governor of Languedoc, gave them encouragement, by agreement, no doubt with King Charles V., and from anxiety on his own part to rid his province of such inconvenient visitors. On the 1st of January, 1366, Du Guesclin entered Barcelona, whither Henry of Transtamare came to join him. There is no occasion to give a detailed account here of that expedition, which appertains much more to the history of Spain than to that of France. There was a brief or almost no struggle. Henry of Transtamare was crowned king, first at Calahorra, and afterwards at Burgos. Don Pedro, as much despised before long as he was already detested, fled from Castile to Andalusia, and from Andalusia to Portugal, whose king would not grant him an asylum in his dominions, and he ended by embarking at Coronna for Bordeaux, to implore the assistance of the Prince of Wales, who gave him a warm and a magnificent reception. Edward III., King of England, had been disquieted by the march of the Grand Company into Spain, and had given John Chandos and the rest of his chief commanders in Guienne orders to be vigilant in preventing the English from taking part in the expedition against his cousin the King of Castile; but several of the English chieftains, serving in the bands and with Du Guesclin, set at nought this prohibition, and contributed materially to the fall of Don Pedro. Edward III. did not consider that the matter was any infraction, on the part of France, of the treaty of Bretigne, and continued to live at peace with Charles V., testifying his displeasure, however, all the same. But when Don Pedro had reached Bordeaux, and had told the Prince of Wales that, if he obtained the support of England, he would make the prince’s eldest son, Edward, king of Galicia, and share amongst the prince’s warriors the treasure he had left in Castile, so well concealed that he alone knew where, “the knights of the Prince of Wales,” says Froissart, “gave ready heed to his words, for English and Gascons are by nature covetous.” The Prince of Wales immediately summoned the barons of Aquitaine, and on the advice they gave him sent four knights to London to ask for instructions from the king his father. Edward III. assembled his chief councillors at Westminster, and finally “it seemed to all course due and reasonable on the part of the Prince of Wales to restore and conduct the King of Spain to his kingdom; to which end they wrote official letters from the King and the council of England to the prince and the barons of Aquitaine. When the said barons heard the letters read they said to the prince, ‘My lord, we will obey the command of the king our master and your father; it is but reason, and we will serve you on this journey and King Pedro also; but we would know who shall pay us and deliver us our wages, for one does not take men-at-arms away from their homes to go a warfare in a foreign land, without they be paid and delivered. If it were a matter touching our dear lord your father’s affairs, or your own, or your honor or our country’s, we would not speak thereof so much beforehand as we do.’ Then the Prince of Wales looked towards the Prince Don Pedro, and said to him, ‘Sir King, you hear what these gentlemen say; to answer is for you, who have to employ them.’ Then the King Don Pedro answered the prince, ‘My dear cousin, so far as my gold, my silver, and all my treasure which I have brought with me hither, and which is not a thirtieth part so great as that which there is yonder, will go, I am ready to give it and share it amongst your gentry.’ ‘You say well,’ said the prince, ‘and for the residue I will be debtor to them, and I will lend you all you shall have need of until we be in Castile.’ ‘By my head,’ answered the King Don Pedro, you will do me great grace and great courtesy.’”
When the English and Gascon chieftains who had followed Du Guesclin into Spain heard of the resolutions of their king, Edward III., and the preparations made by the Prince of Wales for going and restoring Don Pedro to the throne of Castile, they withdrew from the cause which they had just brought to an issue to the advantage of Henry of Transtamare, separated from the French captain who had been their leader, and marched back into Aquitaine, quite ready to adopt the contrary cause, and follow the Prince of Wales in the service of Don Pedro. The greater part of the adventurers, Burgundian, Picard, Champagnese, Norman, and others who had enlisted in the bands which Du Guesclin had marched out of France, likewise quitted him, after reaping the fruits of their raid, and recrossed the Pyrenees to go and resume in France their life of roving and pillage. There remained in Spain about fifteen hundred men-at-arms faithful to Du Guesclin, himself faithful to Henry of Transtamare, who had made him Constable of Castile.