The King of France was most joyfully welcomed by his subjects on his return. When he reached Paris, all the clergy came out to meet him, and conducted him to the palace, where he and his nobles partook of a magnificent dinner. So overjoyed were both people and nobles to see him, that they all made him rich gifts and entertained him at sumptuous feasts.
There was a good deal of difficulty in carrying out the articles of the treaty of Bretigny. Many of the French towns and strongholds which had to be given over to the English objected very strongly, and the King of France had to use much persuasion before they would consent to yield. The town of La Rochelle only yielded with difficulty, the principal inhabitants of the town saying, "We will honour and obey the English, but our hearts shall never change." On the other hand there were many small towns and fortresses in France which were held by English and Gascon nobles. These had to be given up to the King of France, and the soldiers who were turned out thought they could not better employ themselves than by forming themselves into robber bands, and pillaging the country. More than ever was France overrun by the free companies. The King of France was at last obliged to send an army against the largest of these companies, called the "Great Company;" but they defeated his army, and proceeded to threaten the Pope in Avignon, who was obliged to hire soldiers to oppose them.
Edward had appointed Sir John Chandos as regent and lieutenant of his possessions in France; and in the name of the King of England, Chandos received the homage of the nobles of Poitou, and the Duchy of Aquitaine. He made Niort his head-quarters, and kept a great establishment there. He was a brave and accomplished knight, amiable and sweet-tempered, and was beloved and esteemed by the king, and all who knew him.
[CHAPTER XI.]
Edward III.'s Jubilee.
The Christmas after the treaty of Bretigny was spent by Edward and his court with great splendour at Woodstock. When the holidays were over, the king went to Winchester, where he had summoned his Parliament to meet him on the 24th of January, 1361. He told them all the articles of the peace concluded between him and the King of France, with which they expressed themselves entirely satisfied. On the last day of January the Archbishop of Canterbury celebrated the mass of the Holy Trinity in the presence of the Court and Parliament, returning thanks for the peace. After the mass, torches were lighted and crosses held up over the Eucharist, the King and his sons standing up in the presence of the French hostages. Then all those lords who had not yet sworn to keep the peace took their oath, and signed a solemn declaration that they would observe all the conditions.
The Black Prince was now thirty-one years of age, and still unmarried. Struck, it is said, by the beauty of his cousin, Joan of Kent, he obtained the consent of his father to marry her. Joan was of the blood royal of England, being daughter of Edmund, Earl of Kent, son of Edward I. She had already been twice married, and was now a widow, and thirty-three years of age, somewhat older than the Black Prince. Her great beauty had won for her the name of the Fair Maid of Kent, and there is no reason to suppose that she had lost any of her charms at the time of her marriage to the Black Prince. The marriage took place on the 10th October, 1361, and in the following year, on the 14th July, Edward III. solemnly invested the Black Prince with the principality of Aquitaine and Gascony, giving him the title of Duke of Aquitaine.
The peace and prosperity of England was disturbed in 1362 by a second outbreak of the plague, which lasted from August till May. It was not so destructive as it had been the first time; but it seems to have been more fatal amongst the higher ranks of society. Amongst others, the king's cousin, the Duke of Lancaster, died of it. He left behind him only two daughters; the elder had been married to the Earl of Hainault, and the younger, Blanche, had married, in 1359, Edward's third son, John of Gaunt. Blanche, on the death of her elder sister, became heiress of all her father's great wealth, and it is in her right that John of Gaunt became Duke of Lancaster.