"Fear not such a repulse," said the stranger. "Ask for me; and, if you so do, trust me you will be admitted with all courtesy."
"And, pray thee, by what name are you known?" added my grandsire.
The cavalier looked puzzled, but took from his hand a ring.
"Ask for Jack Fletcher," he said; "and if that suffices not," added he, presenting the ring, "show this, and, at the sight of it, gates and doors will open to admit you."
My grandsire bowed low as he received the ring; and the stranger rising to depart, took leave of me kindly, sallied forth, mounted his horse, and with my grandsire showing the way through the forest, and talking of deer and wild cattle, rode towards Windsor, as he had come, with his hawk on his wrist, his bugle at his girdle, and his hounds running at his side.
"Now," soliloquised I, as I watched his departure, "I will wager that the visit of this stranger is to exercise some important influence on my destiny."
[CHAPTER VI]
WAR WITH FRANCE
At the time when the cavalier who called himself Jack Fletcher lost his way in Windsor Forest, and accepted such hospitality as my grandsire's tenement could afford, King Edward, as Thomelin of Winchester had predicted, was preparing to renew that war which made Englishmen for a time almost masters of France. In order to render my narrative the more intelligible, it is necessary to refer to the origin of that war, to the events by which it had been distinguished, and to the stage at which it had arrived.
It was on the 1st of February, 1328—the year in the course of which I drew my first breath—that Charles, King of France, the youngest of the three sons of Philip the Fair, and brother of Isabel, wife of our second Edward, died without male heirs. For the vacant throne—from which, centuries earlier, Hugh Capet pushed the descendant of Charlemagne, and to which subsequently St. Louis gave dignity—several candidates appeared, the chief of whom were Philip of Valois and Edward of England. Philip, relying on the fact that the Salic law excluded females from reigning, claimed the crown of France as heir male of the old king. Edward, without denying the validity of the Salic law, pleaded that, so far as succession was concerned, it did not bar the sons of a king's daughter. The Parliament of Paris, however, was appealed to; and, being much under the influence of Robert, Lord of Artois, who was Philip's brother-in-law, the Parliament decided in favour of Philip; and Edward, then young and governed by his mother, Queen Isabel, and Roger de Mortimer, so far bent his pride as to visit France, and do homage at Amiens for Guienne and Ponthieu. But he privately protested beforehand against the homage he was about to perform; and perhaps he felt little regret when Philip's interference in Scottish affairs gave him a fair excuse for a rupture, and for not only renewing his claim, but submitting it to the arbitrament of the sword.