DU GUESCLIN: CONTEST IN SPAIN.—The provinces of France were overrun and plundered by soldiers of both parties, under the names of routiers (men of the road) and great companies. King John returned to England, because one of his sons, left as a hostage, had fled. There his captivity was made pleasant to him, but he died soon after.
Charles V., or Charles the Wise (1364-1380), undertook to restore prosperity to the French kingdom. He reformed the coin, the debasement of which was a dire grievance to the burghers. Against the free lances in the service of Charles of Navarre, the king sent bands of mercenary soldiers under Du Guesclin, a valiant gentleman of Brittany, who became one of the principal heroes of the time. The war lasted for a year, and the King of Navarre made peace. In Brittany, Du Guesclin was taken prisoner by the English party and the adventurers who fought with them. The king secured his release by paying his ransom; and he led the companies into Spain to help the cause of Henry of Transtamare, who had a dispute for the throne of Castile with Peter the Cruel. The Black Prince supported Peter, and, for a time, with success. In 1369 Henry was established on the throne, and with him the French party. The principal benefit of this Spanish contest was the deliverance of France from the companies of freebooters.
ADVANTAGES GAINED BY THE FRENCH.—King Charles reformed the internal administration of his kingdom, and at length felt himself ready to begin again the conflict with England. Edward III. was old. The Black Prince was ill and gloomy, and his Aquitanian subjects disliked the supercilious ways of the English. Charles declared war (1369). The English landed at Calais. But the cities were defended by their strong walls; and the French army, under the Duke of Burgundy, in pursuance of the settled policy of the king, refused to meet the enemy in a pitched battle. The next year (1370) they appeared again, and once more, in 1373, both times with the same result. The Duke of Anjou reconquered the larger part of Aquitaine. Du Guesclin was made constable of the French army, and thus placed above the nobles by birth. The English fleet was destroyed by the Castilian vessels before Rochelle (1372). Du Guesclin drove the Duke of Montfort, who was protected by the English, out of Brittany. In 1375 a truce was made, which continued until the death of Edward III. (1377). Then Charles renewed the war, and was successful on every side. Most of the English possessions in France were won back. The last exploit of the Black Prince had been the sacking of Limoges (1370). After this cruel proceeding, broken in health, he returned to England.
STATE OF ENGLAND.—The Black Prince, after his return, when his father was old and feeble, did much to save the country from misrule, so that his death was deplored. The Parliament at this time was called "the Good." It turned out of office friends of John of Gaunt,—or of Ghent (the place where he was born),—the third son of Edward. They were unworthy men, whom John had caused to be appointed. At this time occurred the first instance of impeachment of the king's ministers by the Commons. When the Black Prince died, his brother regained the chief power, and his influence was mischievous. During Edward's reign, Flemish weavers were brought over to England, and the manufacture of fine woolen cloths was thus introduced.
JOHN WICKLIFFE.—In this reign the English showed a strong disposition to curtail the power of the popes in England. When Pope Urban V., in 1366, called for the payment of the arrears of King John's tribute, Parliament refused to grant it, on the ground that no one had the right to subject the kingdom to a foreigner. It was in the reign of Edward III. that John Wickliffe became prominent. He took the side of the secular or the parish clergy in their conflict with the mendicant orders,—"the Begging Friars," as they were styled. He also advocated the cause of the king against the demands of the Pope. He contended that the clergy had too much wealth and power. He adopted doctrines, at that time new, which were not behind the later Protestant, or even Puritan, opinions. He translated the Bible into English. He was protected by Edward III. and by powerful nobles, and he died in peace in his parish at Lutterworth, in 1384; but, after his death, his bones were taken up, and burned. His followers bore the nickname of Lollards, which is probably derived from a word that means to sing, and thus was equivalent to psalm-singers.
RICHARD II. (1377-1399): THE PEASANT INSURRECTION: DEPOSITION OF RICHARD.—Richard, the young son of the Black Prince, had an unhappy reign. At first he was ruled by his uncles, especially by John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Four years after his accession, a great insurrection of the peasants broke out, from discontent under the yoke of villanage, and the pressure of taxes. The first leader in Essex was a priest, who took the name of Jack Straw. In the previous reign, the poor had found reason to complain bitterly of the landlords; but their lot was now even harder. When the insurgents reached Blackheath, they numbered a hundred thousand men. There a priest named John Ball harangued them on the equality of rights, from the text,—
When Adam delved, and Eve span,
Who was then a gentleman?
Young Richard managed them with so much tact, and gave them such fair promises, that they dispersed. One of their most fierce leaders, Wat Tyler, whose daughter had been insulted by a tax-gatherer, was stabbed during a parley which he was holding with the king.
There was a Gloucester party—a party led by his youngest uncle, the Duke of Gloucester—which gave Richard much trouble; but he became strong enough to send the duke to Calais, where, it was thought, he was put to death. In 1398 he banished two noblemen who had given him, at a former day, dire offense. One of them was Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk; the other was Henry of Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, afterwards called Duke of Lancaster, son of John of Gaunt. When John of Gaunt died, Richard seized his lands. In 1399, when Richard was in Ireland, Bolingbroke landed, with a few men-at-arms and with Archbishop Arundel; and, being joined by the great family of Percy in the North, he obliged Richard to resign the crown. He was deposed by Parliament for misgovernment. Not long after, he was murdered. Lancaster was made king under the name of Henry IV. It was under Richard that the statute of præmunire (of 1353) was renewed, and severe penalties were imposed on all who should procure excommunications or sentences against the king or the realm.
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.—In the course of the reign of Edward III., the French language, which had come in with the Normans, ceased to be the speech of fashion; and the English, as altered by the loss of inflections and by the introduction of foreign words, came into general use. The English ceased to speak the language of those who were now held to be national enemies. In 1362 the use of English was established in the courts of law. The Old English ceased to be written or spoken correctly. The Latin still continued to be familiar to the clergy and to the learned. William Langland wrote a poem entitled the Vision of Piers Plowman (1362). Pierce the Plowman's Crede is a poem by another author. The two principal poets are Chaucer and Gower, both of whom wrote the new English in use at the court. Chaucer's great poem, the Canterbury Tales, is the latest and most remarkable of his works.