as natural to these two great nations does not yet appear to have sprung up, and they now seemed to be far more desirous for repose than swayed by mutual animosity or ardor for martial enterprise.

Disturbances in Britany meanwhile implicated the monarchs in fresh quarrels. John duke of Britany died in April, 1341, without children: his second brother had left a daugh ter married to Charles of Blois, Philip's nephew: another brother, the count de Montfort, was living and in the flower of his age. The uncle and niece disputed the succession; and the uncertain validity or extent of the salic law, which each party interpreted in the manner favorable to themselves, produced another domestic quarrel. The count de Montfort was first in the field, and took possession of the chief towns of the province. Charles of Blois remained in Paris to plead his cause. De Montfort was summoned, and the court of peers decided in favor of the king's nephew, Charles. It was necessary to vindicate this right by arms. Philip supported Charles of Blois; De Montfort had recourse to England, and did homage to Edward as king of France for his duchy of Britany. The scene of war between the nations was thus transferred to this province. The commencement proved unfortunate to De Montfort; he was surprised in the town of Nantes by his rival, taken prisoner, and conveyed to the Louvre. But the countess de Montfort, who, in the words of Froissart, "had the courage of a man and the heart of a lion," presented her infant son to her followers, and promised that he would prove a generous prince to them, and an avenger of his sire. She shut herself up in Hennebon, and was besieged by her enemies. She made a valiant defence; and, in a sortie which she headed in person, burnt the camp of her enemies. The English fleet arrived to her assistance under Walter de Manny, and compelled the French to retire: Robert d'Artois soon after landed in Britany and took the town of Vannes; but it was retaken by De Clisson, and Robert received such severe wounds that he did not long survive. A truce concluded, in 1343, between Philip and Edward, partly caused hostilities to cease; it was ill observed by the Bretons of either party.

The internal administration of Philip in the mean time re sembled that of his predecessors, both in good and in evil: he resisted the usurpations of the clergy, confirmed the authority of parliament over inferior courts, and consulted the true interests of the monarchy by the purchase of Dauphiny. But he oppressed his subjects by debasing the coin, and by every means of raising money. It was he who established the gabelle, that most odious regulation, which reserved to the

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king the sole right of making and selling salt throughout the realm, forcing each family to take a certain quantity at an exorbitant price. This too he established by an ordonnance, without having recourse to an assembly of the states-general. The deference which Edward III. always manifested to his own subjects, as well as his respect for their liberties, is contrasted with the contempt shown by Philip for the body of the nation and its privileges. During the present truce, the French king decoyed a number of Breton knights to a tournament, seized upon them, and executed them without ever the form of a trial, disdaining to assign reason or plea for his conduct. It was presumed that they had entered into communication with England.

In 1345 the war again broke out. The earl of Derby fought in Gascony against the count of Lille-Jourdain; the latter besieged Auberoche. The garrison sent a page to summon the English to their aid; the poor envoy was taken, placed in one of the besiegers' huge engines, and literally shot back into the town. Derby, however, came unawares on the French, defeated them, and made prisoners of the greater part of the nobility of Languedoc. The death of De Montfort relaxed the fury of the war in Britany. Edward turned his arms first to Flanders; but his ally Artaveldt had lost his influence over his fellow-citizens, and being soon after slain by them in a tumult, the English king left that part of the country. The following year Edward mustered his best forces; resolving no more to harass the frontiers of the enemy, but to penetrate boldly into his land, and strike, if possible, a decisive blow. He landed at La Hogue, took Caen, and was almost incited to massacre the inhabitants on finding that an engagement had lately been entered into betwixt the Normans and Philip to reconquer England. He allowed himself to be dissuaded. Edward, from Caen, marched along the left bank of the Seine to Paris; he stopped at Poissy to find means for passing the river, and burnt all the towns in the vicinity of the capital, St. Germain and St. Cloud amongst others. A body of German auxiliaries having reinforced Philip, Edward thought it best to retreat northwards through an unravaged country. The expedition was one of hazard. Philip now pursued his enemies with a far superior army; numbers were in advance to intercept the English king, more especially to prevent his passage of the Somme. Edward, however, crossed a ford below Abbeville, notwithstanding the resistance of one of Philip's lieutenants, and the following day established his camp at Crecy, where he resolved to await the enemy.

On the morning of the 26th of August, 1346, Edward drew

up his army in three lines on a gentle slope, with a wood behind, where he placed baggage and horses. His cavaliers were to fight on foot; as, from the smallness of the English numbers," one eighth of the French," says Froissart, but at most one third,—it was requisite they should keep together and fight on the defensive. Edward, after riding through the ranks and exhorting his soldiers, cheerfully commanded them to sit down, to take ample refreshment, and in repose await the enemy. *Philip in the mean time was leading forth his numerous host from Abbeville: it was an army lately gathered, obeying many chiefs, some. Genoese, some Germans; undisciplined, weak, and disorderly, from its very numbers. From Abbeville to Crecy was a march of three or four leagues. The hour was late, and the French were tired ere they approached the English line. Philip was advised to halt and await the following day: he gave orders for so doing; but such was the rivalry of the chiefs, that each would have his banner next the enemy, and in the disorder they approached too near the English to retreat or defer the action. The choleric Philip, too, when he saw the English array, and its small extent, became anxious to annihilate his enemies. He ordered the Genoese cross-bowmen to begin the action; they were reluctant, and pleaded fatigue. "Kill the lazy ribalds!" said the count d'Alençon; and the Genoese were compelled to attack: they did so with a loud clamor, which was increased by a storm of rain and thunder, and by an immense flock of crows which hovered over the armies, and was regarded as an evil presage. The English archers advanced each one step in silence, and by one volley slaughtered and discomfited the Genoese. The French knights, enraged, drew their swords on the unfortunate auxiliaries, and cut their way through to arrive at the enemy. They encountered the first line of the English under the prince of Wales; and here was the heat of the battle. Edward was sent to for aid; but he, who saw the strife and knew the mettle of his men, refused. Let my son win his spurs !" said the monarch; and bravely did young Edward, afterwards the Black Prince, earn these symbols of knighthood. The French were beaten, despite their immense numbers; and as darkness soon came on to increase the confusion and render it impossible to recognize knight or noble, the slaughter was great. Eleven princes fell in the field; also nearly a hundred nobles bearing banners, twelve hundred chevaliers, and thirty thousand sol diers. Amongst them were the kings of Bohemia and Majorca, the dukes of Lorraine and Bourbon, the counts of Flanders and Alençon. Godfrey of Harcourt, who was in Edward's ariny, saw his brother the count of Harcourt and his two sons

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perish in the opposite ranks. Philip was compelled to take flight. Such was the battle of Crecy, remarkable for the noble blood shed in it, and for the brief space in which it was decided. Though the defeat was owing in a great measure to the want of discipline and ill assortment of Philip's army, the chief cause in this, as in other instances, was the contempt of the French princes and nobles for the present levies and infantry, to which they evidently preferred the rabble of foreign mercenaries. The day after the action large bodies of the militia of neighboring municipalities arrived, and were slaughtered by the English. Edward, on the contrary, relied upon his country's yeomen, and compelled his knights to dismount and fight on foot with them.

After his victory Edward laid siege to Calais. The tide of fortune was turned everywhere against the French, by the tidings of Crecy. John, the son of Philip, besieged Walter de Manny in the town of Aiguillon; he was now obliged to raise the siege. De Manny asked John for permission and safe-conduct to traverse France in order to reach his master's army: John granted the safe-conduct; but his father Philip broke it, and arrested De Manny in his passage through Orleans. John, an honorable prince, was shocked at his father's want of faith, and vowed no longer to bear arms unless De Manny was released; and Philip, despite his choler and feelings of petty vengeance, was obliged to liberate him. Charles of Blois was about the same time taken prisoner in Britany. The circumstances attending the siege of Calais, its distress, the devotedness of its six burgesses, and its final surrender, are known to every English reader.* Edward seemed contented with this fruit of his victory, for a truce of ten months was soon after agreed on between the monarchs. The remaining years of the French king's reign are marked chiefly by the plague which devastated Europe, and which compelled a prolongation of the truce. Philip of Valois died in August, 1350.

John was upwards of thirty when he succeeded his father Philip. The new king was feebler in character than his predecessor, less choleric and astute. He was at the same time more valiant, more amiable, more the preux chevalier, for already romance-reading had created a peculiar morality and ideal perfection at which gentle and noble aimed. The same neglect of justice reigned, however, and was observable even in John, whose first steps were to adulterate the coin, and, in imitation of his father, to decapitate, without trial, a nobleman, the count de Guines. The states-general were

* See Cab. Cyc. Hist. Eng. vol. i. p. 250.

called together, and they voted a pernicious mode of levving money on every sale that took place. In their assembly of the year 1355, when the necessities of the monarch had increased, the states established receivers-general, who should give them an account of the levy. They ordered, moreover, that nobles and prelates should pay it as well as the commons, and that they should reassemble at the end of a year to vote new taxes. This was a bold attempt to acquire the same privileges which were possessed by the English commons.

The court was in the mean time agitated by the turbulence of Charles the Bad, king of Navarre. In imitation of the sovereign's custom of putting his enemies to death without trial or accusation, Charles assassinated his rival, Louis of Spain, a favorite with John, and constable of the realm. He was powerful enough to obtain pardon; nevertheless his intrigues continued. The kingdom was in a state of the greatest discontent against the new taxes, especially against the gabelle. The king of Navarre, the count of Harcourt, and others, fomented these disturbances. Charles, eldest son of John, called the dauphin, as lord of Dauphiny, which Philip of Valois had purchased for him, was at that time governor of Normandy. ́ He entertained the king of Navarre and the lord of Harcourt at dinner. John arriving in the midst of the feast, armed and well attended, ordered none to stir on pain of death. He seized the king of Navarre "by the skin," dragging him towards him, and exclaimed-"Out, traitor! thou art not worthy to dine at my son's table. By my father's soul! I have a mind never to eat or drink while thou livest." John then ordered the king of Navarre and his followers to be led out and imprisoned, despite the supplications of the dauphin, who said he should be dishonored if people suspected him of such treachery. King John then seized a mace, struck count Harcourt with it between the shoulders, and told him to "get to prison in the devil's name;" whereupon calling the king of the ribalds," as the captain of the royal guards was then characteristically denominated, John gave him orders. Those orders were to behead Harcourt and his followers: they were executed in the king's presence, after he finished the dinner at which his son's unfortunate guests had been sitting. The family of Harcourt, that of the king of Navarre, and many nobles, renounced their allegiance on learning this act of violence. The people were equally enraged against John; but their murmurs and commotions were hushed by the tidings, that the Black Prince had ravaged Auvergne and the Limousin, and had entered into the central province of Berri. John had a respectable army on foot against the partisans of the king of Navarre. He summoned his barons and