Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 29.djvu/426

 the Spaniards and totally defeated. Du Guesclin and other French leaders overran Poitou and Saintogne. Many important places fell, and Rochelle and Thouars, wherein the supporters of the English cause had taken refuge, were closely invested. This alarming condition of things roused Edward to strain every effort to perfect the preparations which were being made to invade France, He hastily collected a large fleet of four hundred vessels, in which he himself embarked with the Black Prince, ill as he was, and Lancaster, and set sail on 30 Aug. for Rochelle. But the city surrendered only a few days later. The winds proved contrary, and, after beating about for weeks without being able to effect a landing, the expedition returned to England in October. Reduced to despair, the defenders of Thouars opened their gates to the enemy.

The course of the French conquests continued unchecked. Poitou and Saintogne passed completely under the dominion of the king of France. With the new year (1373) Brittany was also attacked, and the duke fled to England to seek for help. The Earl of Salisbury, however, succeeded in holding his own against Du Guesclin in that province until a well-equipped army could be assembled in England for the invasion of France. This new expedition was entrusted to Lancaster, who on 12 June was appointed captain-general in France and Aquitaine. At the end of July he landed with the Duke of Brittany at Calais, in command of three thousand men-at-arms and some eight thousand archers and other troops. With such a force, well appointed in every way, a commander of genius would have struck some decisive blow. But Lancaster had no capacity as a general and failed disastrously. He appears to have had no plan beyond accomplishing a march across a hostile country from Calais to Bordeaux; and, further than harrying and levying contributions in the early days of his progress, he did the enemy little or no harm. Setting out from Calais on 4 Aug., he passed leisurely through the well-cultivated districts of Artois, Picardy, and Champagne, but he failed in all his attempts upon the strongholds and towns which he assaulted. By the end of September he reached Troyes, where the papal legates essayed mediation. All the while his rear was closely followed and harassed by a body of the enemy, who continually increased in numbers as his own troops diminished, but who were forbidden to risk a general engagement. Thus he passed on through Burgundy, Nivernois, and Bourbonnois, and approached the mountains and sterile districts of Auvergne as winter was drawing on. Here his losses were enormous; the greater number of his horses perished, and his baggage had to be abandoned. With the shattered remains of his starving army he struggled on through Limousin and Perigord, and only reached Bordeaux at the end of the year or the beginning of 1374. He was thus in no condition to attempt a reconquest of any part of Aquitaine, and the rest of the winter months were passed in inaction. But, in accordance with a common custom of the time, an arrangement was made for an encounter between his forces and those of the Duke of Anjou, to come off at Moissac in the following April. In the meantime, however, a truce was entered into, to last till August; and on this Lancaster sailed for England in April, without giving further thought to his engagement with Anjou. But the French chose to regard this retreat as a wilful breach of faith, and recommenced hostilities even before the expiration of the truce, and, when actually released from its conditions, easily reduced the rest of Aquitaine, which practically, with the exception of Bordeaux and Bayonne, was lost to England before the end of the year.

Meanwhile, through the persistent efforts of the pope, negotiations had been set on foot for peace between the two countries, and in the course of 1374 meetings were arranged at Bruges to further this object. Froissart is the authority for the statement that Lancaster was one of the envoys; but it is very doubtful whether he joined at all in the conference until the next year. On 20 Feb. 1375 he was appointed ambassador, together with the Bishop of London, the Earl of Salisbury, and others. The plenipotentiaries met first at Ghent and thence removed to Bruges, where they sat during the months of May and June, and where, on 26 May, preliminaries were arranged and on 27 June a truce was agreed to for a year. Negotiations to extend the truce into a peace were still continued, and on 10 Oct. 1375 Lancaster and his companions received fresh powers with this view. They only succeeded, however, in obtaining a prolongation of the truce to April 1377. Lancaster remained at Bruges till the spring of 1376.

In the closing years of his father's reign John of Gaunt became one of the principal figures in domestic politics. Edward's second surviving son, Lionel, duke of Clarence, had died in 1368; the failing health of the Black Prince incapacitated him from taking part in acts of a public nature; and the king himself was sinking into premature old age. Lancaster thus practically stepped