Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/63

Edward III them and ravaged the country. The Duke of Normandy, Philip's son, advanced against him with a much larger force, but did not dare to attack him, for he posted his troops well. Still John kept the king shut in a corner near Vannes while the Genoese and Spanish fleets intercepted ships bringing provisions from England, and both armies suffered considerably. On 19 Jan. 1343 a truce for three years was made at Ste.-Madeleine, near Vannes, by the intervention of Pope Clement VI, and Edward re-embarked. After a tempestuous voyage, which is said to have lasted five weeks (ib. c. 2583), he landed at Weymouth on 2 March (Fœdera, ii. 1222). In the parliament of 28 April the commons petitioned, among other articles, that the merchants should not grant the tax of 40s, on the sack of wool without their consent, and that statutes might not be annulled, as after the last parliament held in 1341. In conjunction with the lords they also petitioned against the papal usurpation of appointing to benefices by provision. On 10 Sept. the king wrote to the pope against reservations and provisions, complaining that by their means the revenues of the church were given to foreigners, that the rights of patrons were defeated, and that the authority of the royal courts was diminished (, i 255). Moreover on 30 Jan. 1344 he ordered that all persons bringing bulls of provision into the Kingdom should be arrested (Fœdera, iii. 2). In this month the king held a 'Round Table,' or tournament and feast, at Windsor with extraordinary magnificence, and vowed at the altar of the castle chapel that he would restore the 'Round Table' of Arthur. With this intention he built the round tower of the castle, and he afterwards fulfilled his vow by instituting the order of the Garter ({{sc|Murimuth, p. 154; {{sc|Walsingham}}, i. 263; Fœdera, iii. 6). Great preparations were made for renewing the war; for messengers came to him from Gascony representing the rapid increase of the French power there, and he was further moved by the news of the fate of the Breton lords who were put to death in Paris. Nevertheless on 6 Aug. he gave authority to ambassadors to treat for peace before Clement, as a private person, not as pope (Fœdera, iii. 18, 19). In April 1345 he appointed Derby to command in Gascony; on 20 May he received at Lambeth the homage of John of Montfort, and on the 26th wrote to the pope that Philip had notoriously broken truce in Brittany, Gascony, and elsewhere, and that he declared war upon him (ib, pp. 36-41). Having sent the Earl of Northampton with a force to Brittany, he embarked at Sandwich with the Prince of Wales on 3 July (ib. p. 50), and crossed to Sluys; for affairs in Flanders threatened the loss of the Flemish alliance. A scheme was arranged between him and Van Artevelde for persuading the people of Flanders to accept the prince as their lord. Van Artevelde, however, was murdered at Ghent, and Edward returned home on the 26th. In this year the Bardi of Florence, the most powerful bankers in Italy, failed, chiefly through Edward's debts to them, for he owed them nine hundred thousand gold florins; the Peruzzi, to whom he owed six hundred thousand florins, also failed, and the stoppage of these two houses ruined many smaller ones, so that the king's default brought widespread misery on Florence ({{sc|Gio. Villani}}, xii. c. 54). In the summer of 1346 Edward intended to lead an army to help Derby in Guyenne, but shortly before he set out he was persuaded by Sir Geoffrey Harcourt, who had entered his service, to strike at the north of France, which was then unprepared to meet attack, for the Duke of Normandy and his army were engaged in the south (on the mistake of Froissart and Avesbury about this see {{sc|Nicolas}}, Royal Navy, ii. 88). He sailed on 11 July from the Isle of Wight (Fœdera iii. 85; not the 7th as Cont. {{sc|Murimuth}}, p. 175), with, it is said, one thousand ships, tour thousand men-at-arms, ten thousand bowmen, and a considerable force of Welsh and Irish badly armed foot-soldiers, and landed the next day at La Hogue ({{sc|Avesbury}},p. 123); the French vessels in the harbour were taken, the larger part of his fleet was dismissed, and the rest sent to ravage the coast. The army marched in three columns, the king commanding the centre; the wings diverged during the day, so that each ravaged a different tract, and united with the centre at night. Barfleur was taken on the 14th, and Valonges on the 18th, then Carentan and St. Lo, where the army was refreshed by finding a thousand tuns of wine, and on the 26th Edward came to Caen. He took the town easily by assault the next day, and sacked it thoroughly. Here he is said to have found a paper containing a plan for a second Norman conquest of England in 1337; this he sent home to be read in all churches (ib. p. 130); it is not unlikely that it was a forgery designed to rouse the popular spirit. At Caen he dismissed the remainder of the fleet, which had done much harm to the French shipping along the Norman coast. In spite of a remark attributed by Froissart (iii. 145) to Harcourt, that Edward intended to march to Calais, his only idea as yet was to do as much mischief as he could in northern France, and then retire into Flanders