The Duke was much pleased with his boldness and resolution, and offered him a high rank in his army if he would consent to enter his service; but Bertrand replied that nothing should ever shake him in his fidelity to Charles de Blois.
Lancaster now received orders from his father to raise the siege: yet he could not depart, in remembrance of the oath he had taken, and Du Guesclin proposed that he should enter the city with ten of his knights, and plant his standard on its walls. When this was done, Du Guesclin politely asked him where the war was to be carried on in future. "Bertrand, my fair friend," replied the duke, "you shall soon know." He had scarcely gone past the barrier when he saw his standard thrown down into the moat; nevertheless he had kept his oath, and having raised the siege, he decamped with all his host, and went to pass the winter at Auray.
Du Guesclin was quick to resent an affront offered to any member of his family. The Duke of Lancaster with the brave Sir John Chandos was before Dinan, which town Bertrand, his brother Olivier, and the governor who had defended Rennes, had hastened to enter before the enemy could invest it. One day when all was quiet, Olivier Du Guesclin had gone out of the town unarmed for the purpose of amusing himself in the open country, when he met with an English knight, who asked him his name, and behaved in a very haughty manner towards him, and made him walk on first, vowing that he should not escape until he had given him a thousand good florins. A Breton knight, however, who had seen Olivier made prisoner, hastened to tell Du Guesclin what had happened. Bertrand instantly mounted his horse and rode off to the English camp, where he found the Duke of Lancaster in his tent playing at chess with Sir John Chandos, whilst several of the chief nobles were standing around looking on. They were all glad to see Bertrand because they had a great respect for his valour, and it is true that he had many qualities which endeared him to his fellow-men, and gained for him friendships which lasted as long as life.
Du Guesclin would not drink the wine they poured out for him until justice had been done to his brother. Henry of Lancaster was an upright man, and promised to settle the matter fairly. He summoned the offending knight to his presence, and ordered him to release Olivier at once. But the knight, who was called Thomas of Canterbury, would not allow that the complaint made against him by Bertrand was just, and threw down his iron glove in defiance. It was soon known in Dinan that a terrible combat would take place between the two knights, and the people feared that Du Guesclin would fall, because the Englishman was possessed of such extraordinary strength and skill. But a very beautiful young lady of noble family in Dinan, named Tiphaine de Raguenel, whom Bertrand married soon after the siege was raised, predicted that he would triumph over his foe. Tiphaine was called an astrologer, because she professed to foretell by observing the stars in the heavens, whether people were to be prosperous in their lives or unfortunate; happy or miserable. This was very foolish, and we know better in our own times than to put faith in such a science; and even in Dinan, when by chance Tiphaine's predictions came true, the people looked upon her with distrust and called her a witch. The Duke of Lancaster with all his nobles came into the town to witness the combat, which ended to the great joy of the inhabitants of Dinan in the triumph of Bertrand, and the offending knight was ordered by Lancaster to retire from his service.
The siege of Dinan was raised by our King Edward, who had King John of France at this time a prisoner in the palace of the Savoy. Du Guesclin went on fighting for Charles de Blois, until at last the younger Jean de Montfort got weary of the war, and proposed to his rival that the Duchy of Bretagne should be halved between them; and that Rennes should be the capital of Charles's dominions, and Nantes the capital of his own. Charles de Blois was a man who loved peace; he agreed solemnly to divide the duchy as Jean had proposed, and would have kept faith with him, had not his wife broken out into a violent passion as soon as she heard what he had done, and overruled him by saying that she would never consent to so shameful a settlement, and that she had married him to defend the whole of her duchy, and not the half of it. The war must have broken out again at once if the good offices of Lancaster had not effected a truce for a time.
When King John came back to France he invited Du Guesclin to enter his service, and gave him the command of a hundred lances. Each lance, or man-at-arms, was attended by three archers, a man armed with a cutlass, and a page, so that a company of a hundred lances really included six hundred men. Du Guesclin had the permission to form his troop of the gentlemen of Bretagne, of whom many were his relations and friends; and with these he set out hopefully to take part in a war which King John was carrying on in Normandy against the wicked King of Navarre.
Bertrand did the king good service in Normandy, and captured the towns of Mantes and Meulan. At the latter place he lost all patience with the tardiness of the besiegers, and seizing a ladder, began to mount it with his sword in his hand, and his shield on his breast. He was just mounting the last steps and boasting to the Baron of Mereuil who was on the other side of the wall, that he would soon make him feel the strength of his arm, when the baron threw some heavy stones on the ladder, which dashed it to pieces, and Bertrand fell with his head downwards into the ditch around the city wall. The ditch was full of water, and Bertrand was taken out by his comrades half dead, but he scarcely waited for his injuries to be healed, before he began to fight with greater vigour than before, and a little while later gained the battle of Cocherel over the Captal de Buche, who was fighting for the King of Navarre, and took the Captal prisoner.
King John was now dead, and Charles the Wise was on the throne of France. The victory at Cocherel had served to raise the spirits of the French, who had been much cast down by their defeats during the two last sieges, and the fame of Du Guesclin was spoken all over the country.
But the war unhappily broke out in Bretagne once more. Jean de Montfort, angry with his rival for his breach of faith, came with his army to invest the town of Auray. The people there were in great need and misery, and lighted fires every night on the summits of their towers in token of their distress. Charles de Blois set off at once to assist them in their danger, but his wife at parting, charged him on no account whatever to agree to any division of the duchy. Du Guesclin and many brave nobles and knights hastened to join his army; and when they arrived in sight of Auray, De Montfort sent a herald to them to propose peace on the terms that had already been made, or to demand an immediate battle.
Charles de Blois, weakly dreading the anger of his wife if he gave way, sent the herald back without an answer, although in his heart he was longing more than ever to be at peace.