During the negotiations for peace, the King of France had been very active in providing ships and galleys; the King of Spain had sent him his admiral, Sir Fernando Sausse, who, with Sir John de Vienne, Admiral of France, had sailed for the Port of Rye, which they burnt, five days after the decease of King Edward, the vigil of St. Peter, in June, and put to death the inhabitants, without sparing man or woman.
Upon news of this coming to London, the Earls of Cambridge and Buckingham were ordered to Dover with a large body of men-at-arms. The Earl of Salisbury and Sir John Montague, on the other hand, were sent to the country near Southampton.
After this exploit the French landed in the Isle of Wight. They afterwards burnt the following towns: Portsmouth, Dartmouth, Plymouth, and several others. When they had pillaged and burnt all in the Isle of Wight, they embarked and put to sea, coasting the shores until they came to a port called Poq (? Pool). The Earl of Salisbury and Sir John Montague defended the passage, but they burnt a part of the town of Poq. They again embarked and coasted towards Southampton, attempting every day to land; but the Earl of Salisbury and his forces, who followed them along the shore, prevented them from so doing.
The fleet then came before Southampton; but Sir John Arundel, with a large body of men-at-arms and archers, guarded well the town, otherwise it would have been taken. The French made sail from thence towards Dover, and landed near to the Abbey of Lewes, where there were great numbers of the people of the country assembled. They appointed the Abbot of Lewes, Sir Thomas Cheney, and Sir John Fuselée their leaders, who drew up in good array to dispute their landing, and to defend the country. The French had not the advantage, but lost several of their men, as well might happen. However, the better to maintain the fight, they made the land, when a great skirmish ensued, and the English, being forced to retreat, were finally put to flight. Two hundred at least were slain, and the two knights with the Abbot of Lewes made prisoners.
The French re-embarked and remained at anchor before the abbey all that night. They then heard for the first time, from their prisoners, the death of King Edward [June 20] and the coronation of King Richard, and also a part of the regulation of the kingdom, and that great numbers of men-at-arms were under orders to march to the coast.
CHARACTER OF EDWARD III.
Source.—Harleian MS. 2261, fol. 400a.
This noble and mighty King Edward, among all other men of nobility in the world, was a man of great goodness called gracious, excelling all his predecessors by virtue and grace given to him of God, a bold man in heart, dreading not sinister fortune in battles, having great fortune in them both by sea and land. Also he was meek, benign, and familiar to all manner of people, devout to God, honouring the church of God, and having his ministers in great reverence. Also he was moderate in cures temporal, provide in council, affable and eloquent, meek in behaviour, having compassion on men in tribulation. Also he was elegant and beauteous of body, having a comfortable and pleasant countenance, like to the sight of an angel, for God had endued him with such excellence of grace that a man would have thought as for a surety that he should have sped well in the day following after that he had dreamed of the said King. This noble King governed his reign gloriously unto his later days, large in gifts, excessive in expenses, endued with all honesty of manners. Whereof his fame was so increased among people of Barbary, insomuch that they said there was no land in the world that had so noble a prince, and that England should never have so noble again after his death. But the inordinate lust of the flesh used in his old age helped him much unto death. Also it is to be attended, as the acts afore express, that like as in his beginning all things enjoyed to him, and in the midst of his age glorious and fortunate, so the said King drawing to age and towards death, all things were as unfortunate to him, for his sins and many incommodities began to spring, having after him long continuation, which thing was to be sorrowed.
THE PEASANTS' REVOLT (1381).
Source.—Chronicle of Adam of Usk (translated and edited by Sir E. Maunde Thompson, 1904), 13.