Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/403

A.D. 1350] eastern Asia—and to sweep over the earth in every direction, as in radiation from that centre, carrying wholesale destruction into every place where the inhabitants were not careful to observe sanitary regulations. By medical men the disease has been regarded as a virulent species of typhus fever, which in modern times has assumed the character of cholera, which issues periodically from the same regions, and travels the earth, fixing on every spot where there is a crowded population living in dirty dwellings, ill-drained streets, swampy hollows, and amid any vapours of putridity. Like the cholera, the plague had its cold succeeded by its hot fits, attended by vomiting, diarrhœa, and great depression of the vital powers. The cholera now issues from India; the plague of the time of Edward III. was traced to China, and visited on its way India, Egypt, Greece, and most of the western nations of Europe. Stowe says that in one churchyard in London, purchased by Sir Walter Manny for the poor, 50,000 bodies were buried. In fact, it fell, like the cholera, most severely on the poorer and worst lodged and fed people; is said to have half depopulated England; and so many of the inferior clergy perished that very many churches were left without any one to perform the service.

The mass of wealth brought from France by the victorious army did not prevent the finances of Edward from being in a very exhausted and unsatisfactory state. Those of the King of France were worse; and these causes tended to prolong the truce. Edward several times proposed to Philip to make a permanent peace, on condition that the sovereignty of Guienne, Calais, and other lands held in fief by the English in France should be acknowledged on Edward's renouncing all claim to the crown of that country. Philip steadfastly refused to listen to such terms. He died during this truce, and Edward renewed his offer to his successor, John, but with like effect. About this time Edward and his son, the Black Prince, put to sea with a good fleet to chastise the Spaniards of the ports on the Bay of Biscay, who had repeatedly joined the French in intercepting and seizing his merchant vessels. The battle was fought within view of the English coast, and was watched by the queen's attendants from the hills behind Winchelsea. The engagement was contested with great valour on both sides; and in it both the king and prince had very nearly terminated their lives, for their ship was sinking, and they were only just saved by the Earl of Lancaster coming to their assistance. The result was a great victory to the English, and the capture of fourteen of the Spanish vessels, though with great loss of life on our side.

Amongst the minor mortifications of Edward about this time, we may mention that his knight, Sir Emeric de Pavia, who be nearly sold Calais, but who afterwards fought bravely, and took the fortress of Guisnes, was captured by his old acquaintance, Charni, whom he so bitterly deceived at the feigned surrender of Calais. Charni, therefore, took summary vengeance on him, causing his spurs to be hacked from his heels, as one unworthy of knighthood, and then having him torn to pieces by wild horses pulling in different directions.

His great friend and counsellor, Sir Godfrey de Harcourt, who had led him to seize Calais, also went back and made his humble submission to Philip before his death, throwing himself at the monarch's feet with a towel twisted round his neck like a halter, and expressing his remorse for having gone over to the English.

But circumstances were ripening, destined to involve England and France again in war. John, the son of Philip, whom we have often met under the name of the Duke of Normandy, commanding the armies against the English and Bretons, succeeded his father in 1350. He was then about thirty-one years of age, courageous, of great integrity of mind, possessing much experience for his age, and altogether a far more honourable prince than his father, whom his subjects hated for his avarice, and for his reckless invasion of their rights. He had, in his youth, been termed the Fortunate, but proved eventually more entitled to the cognomen of the Unlucky. John was now, by contrast, styled the Good; but John, however well-meaning, was evidently destitute of real sagacity, and his very sense of honour hurried him into the commission of deeds which early shook his popularity. The Count de Brienne, Count of Eu and Guisnes, and Constable of France, was accused of an intention to betray his county of Guisnes, adjacent to the town of Calais, to the English monarch. John caused him to be seized at a festival at Paris immediately after his coronation, and threw him into a dungeon, whence, three days afterwards, he brought him out before the lords of his council, and, without any form of trial or permission of defence, had his head struck off. This arbitrary act excited great fears of the future proceedings of the king amongst his nobility.

But John's authority was very soon invaded and disturbed by his near kinsman, Charles, King of Navarre. This young prince was of the blood royal of France. His mother was daughter of Louis X., called Louis Hutin, and came to court and sought to render himself highly popular with both king and people. He succeeded so well, that he obtained the king's daughter, Joan, who must have been a mere girl at that time. It was soon found, however, that he was a mixture of the most shining talents and the most diabolical qualities. He was handsome, bold, eloquent, affable in his manners, and most insinuating in his address, but, at the same time, intriguing, ambitious, unprincipled, and revengeful. He had always some daring scheme on foot, and, if he failed, abandoned it without care, and plunged into another. He demanded of the king the post of Constable of Normandy, vacated by the execution of De Brienne; and when the king, fearing his possession of that important command, bestowed it upon his favourite, Charles de la Corda, the King of Navarre assassinated him in his castle of De l'Aigle, in Normandy. He then boldly avowed the deed, put himself at the head of an armed force, called around him all the hot and disaffected young nobility of France, declared himself independent of the French crown, and made offers of alliance with the English. John called upon him to lay down his arms, and resume his place as a good subject; but he refused, except on condition of an absolute pardon for the murder of the constable, largo grants of money and lands, and, above all, the delivery of the second son of John as a hostage for the faithful maintenance of the contract.

The French king was weak enough to comply; and then Charles of Navarre, in March, 1355, went to court, where John sat imposingly on his throne, and Navarre