Some of the courtiers came to them and advised them to withdraw. "It is useless," said they, "for you to attempt any thing more. You have delivered your message faithfully, and the prince has given his answer. It is the only answer that he will give, you may depend, and you may as well return with it to the king."
Indignation of the prince.
He wishes to arrest the commissioners.
So the messengers went back to the inn, and on the evening of the same day they set out on their return to Paris. In the mean time, Prince Edward continued to feel extremely indignant at the message which he had received. The more he reflected upon it, indeed, the more angry he became. He felt as if he had been insulted in having had such a summons from a foreign potentate served upon him by a lawyer in his own house. The knights and barons around him, sharing his anger, proposed that they should pursue and seize the commissioners, with a view of punishing them for their audacity in bringing such a message. At first the prince was unwilling to consent to this, as the persons of embassadors and messengers of all sorts sent from one sovereign to another were, in those days as now, considered sacred. At last, however, he said that he thought the men were hardly to be considered as the messengers of the King of France.
"They are virtually," said he, "the messengers of D'Albret and the other factious and rebellious barons among our own subjects, who complained to the King of France and incited him to interfere in our affairs, and, as such, I should not be sorry to have them taken and punished."
The commissioners seized and imprisoned.
This was sufficient. The knights who heard it immediately sent off a small troop of horsemen, who overtook the commissioners before they reached the frontier. In order not to compromise the prince, they said nothing about having been sent by him, but arrested the men on a charge of having taken a horse which did not belong to them from the inn. Under pretense of investigating this charge, they took the men to a neighboring town and shut them up in a castle there.
Some of the attendants of the commissioners, who had come with them from France, made their escape, and, returning to Paris, they reported to the King of France all that had occurred. It now came his turn to be angry, and both parties began to prepare for war.
Death of Richard's brother.
The King of England took sides with his son, and so was drawn at once into the quarrel. Various military expeditions were fitted out on both sides. Provinces were ravaged, and towns and castles were stormed. The Prince of Wales was overwhelmed with the troubles and perplexities which surrounded him. His people were discontented, his finances were low, and the fortune of war often turned against him. His health, too, began to fail him, and he sank into a state of great dejection and despondency. To complete the sum of his misfortunes, his oldest son, Richard's brother, fell sick and died. This was a fortunate event for Richard, for it advanced him to the position of the oldest surviving son, and made him thus his father's heir. It brought him, too, one step nearer to the English throne. Richard was, however, at this time only four years old, and thus was too young to understand these things, and probably, sympathizing with his father and mother, he mourned his brother's death. The parents, at any rate, were exceedingly grieved at the loss of their first-born child, and the despondency of the prince was greatly increased by the event.
The prince determines to go to England.