A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

Barons appeal to Charles. 1368.

Renewal of war.

Gradual defeat of the English.

Black Prince takes Limoges.

His final return to England.

Loss of Aquitaine. 1374.

But Pedro, again upon the throne, forgot his engagements to his protector, and the Black Prince returned to his duchy, broken in health by the hardships of the campaign, and ruined by its expenses. It became necessary to lay heavy taxes upon his subjects. Those subjects were already discontented; the barons of Poitou objected to the English supremacy, and had applied to Charles as their suzerain. Charles had been fomenting their discontent, and had sent secret envoys to raise a similar feeling among the barons of Ponthieu in the north. To these malcontents were now added the Counts of Armagnac, and other barons of the northern slope of the Pyrenees, who regarded the infliction of the tax as a breach of their privileges; and after keeping the matter in abeyance for a year, till he was ready to strike, King Charles, taking advantage of the non-completion of the renunciations, proceeded to treat the Black Prince as a vassal, and summoned him before his court. The Prince answered he would appear at the head of 60,000 men-at-arms. The threat was idle. Before, in his distressed position, he could make any vigorous preparation, the French troops had begun to conquer the outlying parts of his province, and a declaration of war was at once issued. But several years of peace, during which the exhausted country had begun to recover itself, had disinclined the English to renew the war. The King appears to have grown old before his time, and to have thought only of enjoying in pleasure the fruits of his successful youth. Preparations went on but slowly, while insurrections among the nobles, and the pressure of the French army, continually increased around Guienne. There the Black Prince was so ill that he could not himself take the field. His brother Edmund of Cambridge, Chandos and Knowles, were indeed with him, but could scarcely make head against the insurgents. An attack upon Poitou failed, and Chandos lost his life. None of the English plans met with success. Knowles indeed, placed in command of Calais, marched again successfully to Paris, but the long wars had given birth to a new race of French generals, and Du Guesclin, now Constable, prevented any great success. At length the Black Prince roused himself, and took the field. At his mere name the French armies began to dissolve, and he advanced triumphantly to Limoges, a town he had much favoured, and on which he intended to wreak his vengeance. The wall was mined, and the town taken. Men, women, and children, to the number of 3000, were pitilessly murdered. In the midst of this cruel slaughter, the Prince could show his knighthood by sparing and honouring some French gentlemen who made an unusually gallant resistance. It was his last triumph. Early in 1371 he returned to England, broken and dying. There is no need to trace the progress of the war further. The gradual advance of the French could not be checked. The English armies might march far into the country, as one under Lancaster did in 1373, but the French invariably avoided a general action; and thus, by 1374, England had lost all her possessions in France, with the exception of Calais, Bordeaux and Bayonne, and a few towns upon the Dordogne.

Naval victory of the Spaniards. 1372.

The sequel of the Black Prince’s friendship for Pedro of Castile deserves to be noticed. Upon the withdrawal of the English, Henry of Trastamare again conquered Pedro, and the brothers having met in Henry’s tent, a quarrel ensued, terminating in a personal struggle and the death of Pedro. Henry thus regained the throne; and subsequently two daughters of Pedro married two of Edward’s sons, Lancaster and Cambridge. Upon the Duke of Lancaster’s assuming the title of King of Castile, Henry entered actively into the war, and at a great naval battle off Rochelle in June 1372, completely destroyed the English fleet under the Earl of Pembroke. At length a truce was agreed on, which, though it never ripened into a peace, continued from time to time during the rest of the reign.

Discontent in England.