In 1352 the French strove to carry on the Breton war on a grander scale, and a large army, commanded by Guy of Nesle, marshal of France, was sent to reinforce the partisans of Charles of Blois. They met Bentley at Mauron, a few miles north of Ploermel, where one of the most interesting battles of the war was fought Taught by the lesson of Crecy, Nesle had already, in obscure fights in Poitou, ordered the French knights and men-at-arms to fight on foot.[1] He here adopted the same plan for the first time in a battle of importance, but, after a severe struggle, Bentley won the day. In 1353 Edward III. made a treaty with his captive, Charles of Blois. In return for a huge ransom Charles was to obtain his liberty, be recognised as Duke of Brittany, marry one of Edward's daughters, and promise to remain neutral in the Anglo-French struggle. The treaty involved too great a dislocation of policy to be carried out. Charles, after visiting Brittany, renounced the compact and returned to his London prison. Thus the weary war of partisans still went on, and thenceforth the fortunes of Charles depended less upon negotiations than on the growing successes of Bertrand du Guesclin.
[1] See my paper on Some Neglected Fights between Crecy and Poitiers in Engl. Hist. Review, vol. xxi., Oct., 1905.
During these years Calais was the centre of much fighting. Eager to win back the town, the French bribed an Italian mercenary, then in Edward's service, to admit them into the castle. The plot was discovered, and Edward and the Prince of Wales crossed over in disguise to help in frustrating the French assault. The French were enticed into Calais and taken as in a trap. Edward then sallied out of the town, and rashly engaged in personal encounter with a more numerous enemy. He was unexpectedly successful, and made wonderful display of his prowess as a knight. In revenge, the English devastated the neighbouring country by raids like that led by the Duke of Lancaster in 1351, which spread desolation from Thérouanne to Etaples. Of more enduring importance were the gradual extensions of the English pale by the piecemeal conquest of the fortresses of the neighbourhood. The chief step in this direction was the capture of Guînes in 1352. An archer named John Dancaster, who escaped from French custody in Guînes, led his comrades to the assault of the town by a way which he learnt during his imprisonment. The attack succeeded, and Dancaster, to avoid involving his master in a formal breach of the truce, professed to hold the town on his own account and to be willing to sell it to the highest bidder. Of course the highest bidder was Edward III. himself, and thus Guînes became the southern outpost of the Calais march.
In Aquitaine and Languedoc there was no thought of repose. In 1349 Lancaster led a foray to the gates of Toulouse, which wrought immense damage but led to no permanent results. There was incessant border warfare. The Anglo-Gascon forces spread beyond the limits of Edward's duchy and captured outposts in Poitou, Périgord, Quercy, and the Agenais. In retaliation, the Count of Armagnac, a strong upholder of the French cause, did what mischief he could in those parts of Gascony adjacent to his own territories. On the whole the result of these struggles was a considerable extension of the English power.
The most famous episode of these years was a naval battle fought off Winchelsea on August 29, 1350, against a strong fleet of Spanish privateers commanded by Charles of La Cerda. The Spaniards having plundered English wine ships, Edward summoned a fleet to meet them, and himself went on board, along with the Prince of Wales, Lancaster, and many of his chief nobles. The fight that ensued was remarkable not more for the reckless valour of the king and his nobles than for the dexterity of the English tactics. The great busses of Spain towered above the little English vessels, like castles over cottages. Yet the English did not hesitate to grapple their adversaries' craft and swarm up their sides on to the decks. Edward captured one of the chief of the Spanish ships, though his own vessel, the Cog Thomas, was so severely damaged that it had to be hastily abandoned for its prize. The glory of the victory of the "Spaniards on the sea" kept up the fame first won at Sluys.
In these years of truce first appeared the worst scourge of the war, bands of mercenary soldiers, fighting on their own account and recklessly devastating the regions which they chose to visit. The cry for peace rose higher than ever. Innocent VI., who succeeded Clement VI. in 1352, took up with great energy the papal policy of mediation. Thanks to his legates' good offices, preliminary articles of peace were actually agreed upon on April 6, 1354, at Guînes. By them Edward agreed to renounce his claim to the French throne if he were granted full sovereignly over Guienne, Ponthieu, Artois, and Guînes. When the chamberlain, Burghersh, laid before parliament, which was then sitting, the prospect of peace, "the commons with one accord replied that, whatever course the king and the magnates should take as regards the said treaty, was agreeable to them. On this reply the chamberlain said to the commons: 'Then you wish to agree to a perpetual treaty of peace, if one can be had?' And the said commons answered unanimously, 'Yea, yea'."[1] Vexatious delays, however, supervened, and at last the negotiations broke down hopelessly. The French refused to surrender their over-lordship over the ceded provinces, and the Easter parliament of 1355 agreed with the king that war must be renewed. Two years of war were to follow more fierce than even the struggles which had culminated in Crecy, La Roche, and Calais.
[1] Rot. Pad., ii., 262.
Two expeditions were organised to invade France in the summer of 1355, one for Aquitaine under the Prince of Wales,[1] and the other for Normandy under Lancaster. Westerly winds long prevented their despatch. It was not until September that the Prince of Wales reached Bordeaux. The change of wind, which bore the prince to Gascony, enabled the host, collected by the King and Lancaster on the Thames, to make its way to Normandy. But the special reason which brought the English thither was already gone. The expedition was planned to co-operate with the King of Navarre. Charles, surnamed the Bad, traced on his father's side his descent to that son of Philip the Bold who obtained the county of Evreux in upper Normandy for his appanage. From his mother, the daughter of Louis X., he derived his kingdom of Navarre and a claim on the French monarchy of the same type as that of Edward III. Cunning, plausible, unscrupulous, and violent, Charles had quarrelled fiercely with King John, whose daughter he had married. His vast estates in Normandy made him a valuable ally to Edward, and he had suggested joint action in that duchy against the French. Unluckily, while the west winds kept the English fleet beyond the Straits of Dover, John made terms with his son-in-law. Lancaster was compensated for his disappointment by the governorship of Brittany. The army equipped for the Norman expedition was diverted to Calais, whence in November, Edward and Lancaster led a purposeless foray in the direction of Hesdin, which hastily ended on the arrival of the news that the Scots had surprised the town of Berwick, and were threatening its castle. Thereupon Edward hastened back home. He had to keep the Scots quiet, before he could attack the French.
[1] For the Black Prince's career in Aquitaine, see Moisant, Le Prince Noir en Aquitaine (1894)
When the Black Prince reached Bordeaux, he received a warm welcome from the Gascons, and at once set out at the head of an army, partly English and partly Gascon, on a foray into the enemy's territory. He made his way from Bazas to the upper Adour through the county of Armagnac, whose lord had incurred his wrath by his devotion to the house of Valois and his invasions of the Gascon duchy. Thence he worked eastwards, avoiding the greater towns, and plundering and devastating wherever he could. The Count of Armagnac, the French commander in the south, watched his progress from Toulouse, and prudently avoided any open encounter. The prince approached within a few miles of the capital of Languedoc, but found an easier prey in the rich towns and fertile plains in the valley of the Aude. He captured the "town" of Carcassonne, though he failed to reduce the fortress-crowned height of the "city". At Narbonne also he took the "town" and left the "city". His progress spread terror throughout the south, and the clerks of the university of Montpellier and the papal curia at Avignon trembled lest he should continue his raid in their direction. But November came, and Edward found it prudent to retire, choosing on his westward journey a route parallel to that which he had previously adopted. He had achieved his real purpose in desolating the region from which the French had derived the chief resources for their attacks on Gascony. The raiders boasted that Carcassonne was larger than York, Limoux not less great than Carcassonne, and Narbonne nearly as populous as London. Over this fair region, where wine and oil were more abundant than water, the black band of desolation, which had already marked so many of the fairest provinces of France, was cruelly extended.