Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/394

380 of Burgundy and other powerful nobles, led a large army to the frontiers of Guienne, and compelled Lancaster to stand on the defensive, his forces being greatly inferior in number.

While those events were taking place, Edward III. was earnestly at work at home, endeavouring to organise an efficient scheme for achieving something more than the defence of Guienne, or the aid of Brittany; namely, his great dream of the total conquest of France. His first attempt was to secure the co-operation of his old friend, Jacob van Artavelde, the brewer of Ghent. He had the daring to propose that his son, the Black Prince, should be offered to the people of Flanders in lieu of their old earl, who had gone over to the French interest. But this scheme cost the stout old Artavelde his life. No sooner was the overture made than the burgesses took alarm at it, and lost their faith in Van Artavelde as a patriot. Bruges and Ypres were brought over by the promised advantages of trade with England, but his own town of Ghent broke out into open insurrection. When he rode into the city attended by a body of Welsh, whom Edward had sent, he was received with the most hostile looks and expressions. He hastened to his house, and endeavoured by a speech from an upper window to appease the incensed people; but it was ill vain. They broke into his house and murdered him on the spot. The man who had reigned like a king, from the opinion of his patriotism, now fell by the hand of a saddler, and amid the execrations of the mob, as a traitor. Hope of assistance was gone for Edward in that quarter.

He was equally unfortunate in Hainault. His brother-in-law, the young Count of Hainault, was killed also in a revolt of the Frieslauders; and his uncle, the well-known John of Hainault, so long allied with England, wont over to the French on the plea that Edward had not duly estimated or rewarded his services. About the same time, too, John do Montfort, so long a captive in Paris, was liberated, but died of a fever before Quimperlé. All hope appeared closed on the side of the Netherlands and of Brittany; but a new light sprung up in an unexpected quarter, giving an entirely new turn to his enterprise.

Sir Godfrey de Harcourt, Lord of Saint Sauveur le Vicompte, and brother of John, Earl of Harcourt, long in the service of England, had stood high in the favour of Philip of France; but having offended him by resisting one of his arbitrary acts, he had a narrow escape of sharing the fate of Olivier de Clisson. He fled to England, and, like his predecessor, Robert of Artois, he exerted all his talent to persuade the king to invade France on the side of Normandy, Sir Godfrey's own country, and where, of course, lay his forfeited estates. He represented to Edward that it was one of the most fertile and beautiful provinces of France—abounded with wealth, for it had not been the scene of war for two centuries; that the numerous and opulent towns had scarcely any fortifications, and were now deserted by the nobility and their vassals, who were with the Duke of Normandy in Gascony. He reminded Edward that it was an ancient possession of England, lay near the English coast, might be secured almost without a blow, and would strike the French king dumb with consternation, for it would bring his capital within easy reach of attack.

It is surprising that those facts had not presented themselves to Edward before; but, once offered to his mind, he embraced them with avidity. He assembled a fine army of 30,000 men, consisting of 4,000 men-at-arms, 10,000 archers, 10,000 Welsh infantry, and 6,000 Irish. Circumstances, rather than his own wishes, had brought him to depend no longer on mercenary and treacherous allies, but upon his own subjects; and from this moment he began to perform those prodigies of arms which raised the name of Englishmen above all others for steady and transcendent valour. He set sail from Southampton in a fleet of near 1,000 sail of all dimensions, carrying with him all the principal nobility of the realm, and his son, the Black Prince, now fifteen years of age. He landed his army at La Hogue, on the coast of Normandy, and there divided it into three bodies, one of which he placed under the command of the Earl of Warwick, another under Sir Godfrey de Harcourt, whom he created marshal, and the third under the Earl of Arundel, whom he made constable; he himself was generalissimo, and before setting out on his march he knighted the Prince of Wales and a number of the young nobility. He next caused the French ships in La Hogue, Barfleur, and Cherbourg to be destroyed. This work was committed to the English fleet, and the plunder of these seaports was given up to those who manned it. Advancing into the country, Edward found it almost wholly defenceless, as Harcourt had represented. Montebourg, Carentan, St. Lo, Valognes, and other places in the Cotentin were taken and pillaged.

One of the king's objects was to create an alarm and thus draw off the French forces from Guienne; and in this he succeeded. The King of France, startled by this unexpected invasion, hastened to assemble troops from all quarters. He was soon at the head of a numerous army, which, from the sounding titles of many of the allies and generals, appeared extremely formidable. Amongst them were the Kings of Bohemia and Majorca, the Emperor elect of Germany, the Duke of Lorraine, John of Hainault, and the Earl of Flanders. He dispatched the Count of Eu, Constable of France, and the Count of Tankerville to defend the populous and commercial city of Caen; but they were speedily overthrown by Edward, who took the two counts prisoners, and, entering the city, massacred the inhabitants without distinction of age, sex, or rank. The scenes perpetrated in Caen are frightful to record, and present a revolting picture of the savage spirit of the age in war. It never seems to have entered the heads of these feudal conquerors that the wealth of the inhabitants, in case of success, would become national wealth, or that to massacre and ill-treat those inhabitants was the certain way to render them for ever hostile. Plunder and destruction were the only ideas of Edward's soldiers. The wretched people of Caen, driven to desperation, barricaded their doors against the ruffianly invaders. They, in turn, set fire to the houses, till Edward, at the earnest entreaty of Sir Godfrey Harcourt, put a stop to the burning, but gave up the town to three days' pillage, reserving for his own share the jewels, plate, silks, fine cloths, and linen. These he shipped for England, with 300 of the richest citizens, for whom ho meant to demand heavy ransoms. Two cardinal legates, who had come with the benevolent hope of negotiating a peace, beheld instead this fearful butchery. The Church at this