Little Arthur's history of England

by Lady Maria Callcott

His wife’s name was Philippa of Hainault. She was one of the best and cleverest and most beautiful women in the world.

She was very fond of England, and did a great deal of good to the people. A great many beautiful churches were built in Edward’s reign, but it was Queen Philippa who encouraged the men who built them. She paid for building a college and new schools in Oxford and other places. She invited a French clergyman, named Sir John Froissart, to England, that he might see everything, and write about it in the book he called his Chronicles, which is the most amusing book of history I ever read. Queen Philippa and her son, John of Gaunt, who was called the Duke of Lancaster, loved and encouraged Chaucer, the first great English poet. By and by, when you are a little older, you will like to read the stories he wrote. Besides all this, there were some good men who wished to translate the Bible into English, so that all the people might read and understand it. The leader of these good men was John Wiclif, the first great reformer of religion in England. In this reign the great people began to leave off talking Norman French and to talk English, almost like our English now. And the king ordered the lawyers to conduct their business in English instead of French.

Queen Philippa had a great many children, all of whom she brought up wisely and carefully. Her eldest son Edward was called the Black Prince, it is said because he used to wear black armour. He was the bravest and politest prince at that time in the world; and Queen Philippa’s other sons and her daughters were all thought better than any family of princes at that time.

We must now speak of the king and his wars. These wars made him leave England, and go to foreign countries very often; but as he left Queen Philippa to take care of the country while he was away, everything went on as well as if he had been at home.

Soon after Edward became King of England, Charles, King of France, who was Edward’s uncle, died. And as Charles had no children, Edward thought he had a right to be King of France, rather than his cousin Philip, who had made himself king on Charles’s death. The two cousins disputed a good while as to who should be king. At last, as they could not agree, they went to war, and this was the beginning of the long wars which lasted for many kings’ reigns between France and England.

In that time, a great many kings and princes, and barons, or, as they began to be commonly called, nobles, did many brave and generous deeds, and gained a great deal of honour for themselves, and glory for their country; but the poor people, both in England and France, suffered a great deal. The English parliament was so pleased that our kings should overcome the French, that they allowed the king to have such great taxes to pay the soldiers with, that the people could hardly keep enough to live upon. And the French people suffered more, because, besides paying taxes, the armies used to fight in their land, and the soldiers trampled down the corn in the fields, and burned their towns and villages, and often robbed the people themselves. And so it must always be in a country where there is war. If the captains and officers are ever so kind, and the soldiers ever so good, they cannot help doing mischief where they fight.

In the next chapter I will tell you of two or three of the chief things that happened while King Edward was at war with France.

CHAPTER XXVII.
EDWARD III.—Continued.
How the English gained a sea-fight; how King Edward and his son the Black Prince won the battle of Crecy; how Calais was taken, and how Queen Philippa saved the lives of six of the citizens; how the Black Prince won the battle of Poitiers, and took the King of France prisoner, and brought him to London.

You have heard, I am sure, that the English are famous for being the best sailors in the world, and for gaining the greatest victories when they fight at sea. At the beginning of Edward’s French war he gained the first very great battle that had been fought at sea by the English, since the times when they had to drive away the Danes: it was fought very near a town called Sluys, on the coast of Flanders. Instead of guns to fire from the ships, they had great stones for the men to throw at one another when they were near enough, and bows and arrows to shoot with from a distance. This was indeed a very great battle; the English and the French never before fought by sea with so many men and so many and such big ships; and so I have told you of it.