An Introduction to the History of Western Europe

by James Harvey Robinson

Contrast between the position of the Estates General and the English Parliament.

This unsuccessful attempt to reform the French government is interesting in two ways. In the first place, there was much in the aims of the reformers and in the conduct of the Paris mob that suggests the great successful French revolution of 1789, which at last fundamentally modified the organization of the state. In the second place, the history of the Estates forms a curious contrast to that of the English Parliament, which was laying the foundation of its later power during this very period. While the French king occasionally summoned the Estates when he needed money, he did so only in order that their approbation of new taxes might make it easier to collect them. He never admitted that he had not the right to levy taxes if he wished without consulting his subjects. In England, on the other hand, the kings ever since the time of Edward I had repeatedly agreed that no new taxes should be imposed without the consent of Parliament. Edward II had gone farther and accepted the representatives of the people as his advisers in all important matters touching the welfare of the realm. While the French Estates gradually sank into insignificance, the English Parliament soon learned to grant no money until the king had redressed the grievances which it pointed out, and thus it insured its influence over the king's policy.

Treaty of Bretigny, 1360.

Edward III found it impossible to conquer France in spite of the victories of the Black Prince and the capture of John. He was glad in 1360 to sign the treaty of Bretigny, in which he not only renounced his pretensions to the French crown but agreed to say no more of the old claims of his family to Normandy and the Plantagenet provinces north of the Loire. In return for these concessions he received, in full sovereignty and without any feudal obligations to the king of France, Poitou, Guienne, Gascony, and the town of Calais, amounting to about one third of the territory of France.

French Territory ceded to England by the Treaty of Bretigny, 1360

England loses most of its French territory before the death of Edward III, 1377.

The promising peace of Bretigny was however soon broken. The Black Prince, to whom the government of Guienne was delegated by his father, levied such heavy taxes that he quickly alienated the hearts of a people naturally drawn to France rather than to England. When the sagacious Charles V of France (1364–1380) undertook to reconquer the territory which his father had ceded to England, he met with no determined opposition; Edward III was getting old and his warlike son, the Black Prince, had fallen mortally ill. So when Edward died in 1377 nothing remained to the English king except Calais and a strip of land from Bordeaux southward.

Miserable condition of France.

For a generation after the death of Edward III the war with France was almost discontinued. France had suffered a great deal more than England. In the first place, all the fighting had been done on her side of the Channel, and in the second place, the soldiers who found themselves without occupation after the treaty of Bretigny had wandered about in bands maltreating and plundering the people. Petrarch, who visited France at this period, tells us that he could not believe that this was the same kingdom which he had once seen so rich and flourishing. "Nothing presented itself to my eyes but fearful solitude and extreme poverty, uncultivated land and houses in ruins. Even about Paris there were everywhere signs of fire and destruction. The streets were deserted; the roads overgrown with weeds."