Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/384

370 Greeks fought and conquered for the very existence of their country and their liberties; the English, to crush those of an independent people. The wars commenced by Edward III. inflicted the most direful miseries on France, were continued for generations, and perpetuated a spirit of hostility between the two great neighbour countries, which has been prolific of bloodshed, and most injurious to the progress of liberty and civilisation. The contest, as far as Edward III. was concerned, ended with a formal renunciation of his pretensions on the French crown, and in the acquisition of nothing but the town and district of Calais and Guisnes, destined to be lost, at a future day, with every other English fief and freehold in France.

The impolicy of Edward III. was equal to his spirit of aggression. He was not content to attempt the complete subjugation of Scotland, which his grandfather had invaded on pleas as empty as his own regarding France, and where, during the wars of three reigns, all the power and wealth of England had been put forth, only to prove that you may exterminate a brave people, but you cannot conquer it. While he was no nearer the real annexation of Scotland than his grandfather was the first day that he advanced beyond Berwick, he aspired to coerce a still more extensive empire. The real source of this great movement was merely military ambition.

Edward claimed to be the rightful heir to the crown of France through his mother. But it had always been held in that country that no female could succeed to the throne: no such occurrence had ever taken place. It was declared that this succession was prohibited by a clause in the Salic code—the code of an ancient tribe among the Franks. This clause, when carefully examined by the highest legal antiquaries, has been asserted not to bear out this principle of exclusion positively, but only to favour such exclusion. On this presumption, however, the French nation had uniformly acted for nearly 1,000 years. The ancient Franks were too barbarous and turbulent to submit to a female ruler, and those who succeeded them steadily pursued the same practice, passing over female heirs, and placing on the throne men in their stead. The third race of French kings had transmitted the crown in this manner from Hugh Capet to Louis Hutin, for eleven generations; during which period no female, nor any male, even, who founded his title on a female, had been suffered to mount the throne.

Edward asserted that in England and in other countries such claim was always considered valid; that a son could and would succeed to his mother as well as to his father; and this view of the case was supported by the Government lawyers of England and some jurists abroad in English pay; but then the succession was not to take place in England, but in France, whose whole history and practice wore opposed to it. The French maintained, and truly, that it was a fundamental law that no foreigner could reign in France; and that it was a chief object of this law to exclude the husbands and children of those princesses of France who married foreigners. To put the matter still further beyond question, the Parliament of France, in the time of Philip the Long, had passed a solemn and deliberate decree, declaring expressly that all females were for over incapable of succeeding to the crown of France.

What right, then, had Edward to dictate to the French nation his own views in opposition to theirs? None whatever. By custom, the usage of nearly 1,000 years, and by express recent law, the principle of the French nation was clearly established. True, Edward was nearer in blood to the throne than Philip of Valois, who had now succeeded. He claimed from his mother, who was daughter of the fourth preceding king, Philip the Fair, and sister of the three preceding kings; while Philip de Valois was only cousin-german to the deceased king, Charles le Bel. But all this the laws and practice of Franco pronounced to amount to nothing. That no female could succeed, or could transmit succession to her offspring, over that there was no passing legally; and if Edward had succeeded in proving a valid claim from the female side, he would only have proved his own exclusion; for the last three kings had all left daughters who were still alive, and who all stood before him in the order of succession.

In a legal point of view, then, Edward had not a leg to stand upon in this question, whether as a king of French or of English descent; for no race of monarchs had made such arbitrary work with succession as the kings of England, from the Conqueror downwards. Besides this, Edward, according to all the laws of honour and of nations then prevailing, had practically renounced any claims of the kind which he might pretend to. The French king had succeeded to the throne in 1329. The peers of the realm had declared the crown his. The Parliament of Paris, and after that the states general of the kingdom had confirmed their judgment; and not only all France, but all Europe had recognised him as rightful possessor of the throne. In 1331 the King of France called upon Edward to come over and do homage for his province of Guienne. Philip, who was an able man, and of years of experience, was too prudent to allow any one to retain the shadow of a claim against him. He lost no time in summoning so powerful a rival as the King of England to do that homage which would at once cut off any real claim, had it existed; and, on Edward seeming to hang back, was preparing to seize his fief by force of arms as forfeited. To have refused to yield this feudal homage would have been virtually to renounce his right to the province, or to involve him in a war with this powerful monarch. He therefore went over to France, having first, as if that would have any legal or rightful effect, secretly in his own council entered a protest against this act prejudicing his own claims on the French crown through his mother. Such have often been the private reservations by which kings and other men have sought to give a plea to their own consciences for the violation of the most public and binding acts.

Edward was at that time about eighteen years of ago, brave and ambitious. Ho was attended by a splendid retinue of peers and knights, and was met by the King of France with a similarly imposing train. The act of homage was publicly performed in the cathedral of Amiens. Edward appeared in a robe of crimson velvet, embroidered with leopards of gold. He came wearing his armour, girt with his sword, and with his golden spurs of knighthood on his heels. Philip of France received him seated in a chair of state, before which was placed a cushion for the King of England to kneel upon. No