unexplained failure of the Flemings, was only accomplished by the consummate generalship of Edward, and the unassisted energy of his gallant soldiers. From La Hogue, where he debarked, he marched forward, ravaging the country along the line of his progress, as far as Evreux, where he turned northward to Rouen. Here he found the bridge broken, and the whole line of the Seine rendered impracticable by the removal or destruction of all the means of passage, and by the presence of the king of France, with an overpowering force which he was still increasing by every possible exertion. After various ineffectual manœuvres, Edward succeeded, by a well-executed feint, in passing the Seine at Poissy, and he was followed close by his mortified antagonist. The Somme now lay between him and the termination of his march, and of that river every bridge was broken, and every ford strongly guarded. Across one of these shallows below Abbeville, he forced his way in the face of 12,000 men, and having secured a vantage-ground, turned upon his pursuers. It was on the field of Crecy that he formed his army and awaited the assault. In the arrangement of his small, but well-disciplined band, he seems to have displayed the perfection of military science; every arm was disposed for mutual support, and every local advantage turned to account. He dismounted a part of his cavalry; and here we may permit ourselves to retrace for a moment the history of one of the greatest modern improvements in the art of war.

In the days of antiquity, the Greeks had conquered the Asiatics by the superiority of infantry over cavalry; and the Romans had subdued the Greeks in the fatal battle of Pydna, who had pushed the system of the phalanx to an absurd extreme, by a judicious employment of light troops in aid of the heavy armed. The Roman infantry conquered the world, and gave, at Pharsalia, the strongest illustration of the inefficiency of horse against thoroughly trained foot. Time passed on, and the Roman discipline first degenerated and then disappeared. The iron chivalry of the middle ages trampled under foot the irregular and ill-armed militia, that crowded within a given space, stood no longer than they were under the protection of their horse. The true character and value of the footsoldier was entirely forgotten, and armies were counted formidable in proportion to the number of their cavalry. The archers of England seem to have made the earliest approach to an efficient infantry, yet they seem to have required great skill on the part of the commander, to avail himself to the utmost of their terrible discharge, without exposing them to be cut up by a cavalry charge. Their Scottish campaigns appear to have taught the English the value of a regular and compact infantry. At the battle of Falkirk, Wallace adopted an admirable formation; masses of spearmen connected by lines of bowmen and supported by horse, and it is by no means improbable that he might have been at least able to hold his ground, but for the treachery of the Scottish chieftains, who rode off without striking a blow, leaving the Ettrick foresters to be sabred by the English knights, and the close columns to be overwhelmed by the missiles of the southern archers. At Bannockburn Bruce improved upon the plan of Wallace: he dismounted the larger portion of his cavalry, preserving at the same time greater mobility in his formation. At Halidon-Hill we find Edward apparently adopting the same principles; he awaited the asssault himself on foot, and when the attack had been repelled, urged on a vigor

ous pursuit. And in the present instance we find him acting on the same system with all such improvements as his own genius and experience might suggest. The archers were so posted as to give the utmost effect to their destructive aim, and at the same time to afford them the support of the heavy-armed foot; while the king kept the third line tight in hand, as a reserve in case of calamity.

It was on the 26th of August 1346, late in the day, that the French appeared in front of the English position. An eclipse of the sun intervened, and a fierce storm of thunder and lightning passed over the field; but at 5 o'clock in the evening all was clear, and the battle joined. It was fierce but brief; the French fought with impetuous courage, but without concert or combination; numbers failed before science, and a victory, splendid and decisive, rewarded the skill and discipline of Edward and his followers. His son, the Black Prince, fought in this his first battle, and nobly won his spurs. The triumph of Crecy saved Guienne, while John, duke of Normandy and heir of France, had led a hundred thousand men against the earl of Derby, who very wisely retired before the storm, and waited in Bourdeaux the issue of events. During more than three months was the French prince detained before the fortress of Aiguillon; in vain did his immense army, in four divisions, relieving each other every three hours, keep up the assault through six consecutive days; in vain were towers erected, and an unceasing shower of stones poured upon the place from every military engine then in use; vain were all the stratagems of war,-Walter Manny was in the fortress, and neither he nor his intrepid companions were men to yield while a wall was left them to defend. John swore never to raise the siege until the place was in his power; but necessity is greater than an oath, and his highness had to digest his perjury as he might, since he failed to take the place. He was compelled to reinforce his father, and Lord Derby rushed like a destroying torrent over Saintonge and Poitou, finishing his victorious course by the storm and sack of the wealthy and well-peopled city of Poitiers. In the meantime Edward laid siege to Calais, while Philip collected his troops for the purpose of raising the blockade. The English camp was unapproachable but by fortified defiles which intimidated the French generals, and the king sent Edward a challenge braving him to a ranged battle; the invitation was accepted and the guest presented himself at the appointed time and place, but Philip failed in courtesy and declined the meeting. The town yielded at discretion, and if we do not here recite the hundred times told romance of the surrender of Calais, and of the half-dozen heroes with halters round their necks, it is for the simple reason, that we doubt it altogether. Old Froissart, that immortal chronicler, is, we suspect, a better painter than historian; and we refuse, on his sole credit, to charge Edward with an act of ferocity when he appears to be innocent. That he was exceedingly irritated against the townsmen, who had grown rich by privateering and piracy at the expense of his people, we can readily suppose; and that he might assume a stern countenance and insist upon a humiliating submission, is also probable; but that he ever intended to put the delegates to death is clearly false. It was common in those days to require such an act of degradation, with the understanding that nothing more severe was intended; and the old ro mancer himself mentions that when Edward rejected their appeal of

mercy, he winked aside upon his attendants, evidently as a signal for their interference. The English monarch was by no means remarkable for tender-heartedness, but it is not to be forgotten that he suffered, at an early period of the siege, nearly two thousand of the inhabitants to leave the town, giving each of them an ample meal and a liberal largess: and, if his humanity stopped there,―if, at a more advanced period of the blockade he refused to give passage to a second emigration, and sternly saw five hundred individuals perish between his camp and the walls,-it may also be remembered that, politically and militarily speaking, the attempt to pass them forward was an encroachment on his former concession; the people had been detained so long as they could be of use, and it was an imprudent attempt to dismiss as non-combatants, persons who had become an incumbrance. Such, however, is war, systematically ferocious, and if, in the present instance, we cannot wholly acquit the king of England, the guilt must be at least shared by the governor of Calais. The fall of this fortress was followed by a truce between the contending monarchs, which was irregularly kept for several years.

Edward, not content with his successes as a general, seems to have had a strange love of fighting for its own sake. A treacherous attempt to seize Calais, notwithstanding the armistice, was defeated by a counterplot; and a select band, of which the king was one, under Sir Walter Manny, encountered the body of French troops which was waiting for the opening of the gates. Edward engaged hand to hand Eustace de Ribeaumont, a gallant knight, by whom he was twice beaten on his knees, but whom he ultimately compelled to surrender. The French party became prisoners and were admitted to ransom, but de Ribeaumont, crowned by his conqueror with a chaplet of pearls, was dismissed freely and with generous praise.3 On another occasion did this warriorking gratuitously expose himself to extreme danger. The mercantile navigators of Biscay were little better than a set of pirates, and lost no opportunity of doing an ill turn to their great rivals, the mariners of England. Aware that this conduct was likely to be sharply visited by a monarch like Edward, the Biscayans, who traded extensively with Flanders, collected and armed their ships, committing many acts of piracy as they sailed up the channel. Expostulation was answered by insult, redress refused, and aware that reprisals were probably at hand, La Cerda, the admiral of these older buccaneers, had strengthened his armament and increased the number of his fighting men. Not content with committing the business to his naval commanders, Edward resolved to command in person, and after a desperate action, in which both himself and his son were in extreme danger, defeated the enemy with severe loss. Victory is an animating thing, but in the end even the victor may find it dearly bought. In the recent conflicts much of England's best blood had been poured out freely but unprofitably. Taxation pressed hard upon the victorious people, and plague, travelling as it is wont from the pestilential East, traversed Europe, wasting as it passed. In London the cemeteries were gorged, and Sir Walter Manny purchased a field of thirteen acres, the present site of the Charter House, where, during several weeks, two hundred corpses per diem were deposited. So dire was the contagion that the very cattle died in the

Froissard, 140.

field and in the stall; labour became costly to a mischievous extent; and though the landlord waived his claim for rent, the food of man was at a price that severely enhanced the sufferings of the poor whom the plague had spared.

War again-war with France, and for trifles light as air: for titles and homages, for parchments and genuflexions! The Black Prince, with sixty thousand men, plundered and devastated the south of France, from the Pyrenees to Thoulouse. Carcassone, not inferior to York in extent,-Narbonne, large as London,—were given to the flames. Edward himself advanced from Calais. The French system was defensive; they drained the country, and left the English to extract, as they could, sustenance from the waste. The Scots, at the instigation of their allies, invaded the English border; but Edward, returning from France, took such deep vengeance for the foray, that the Burnt Candlemas' was long remembered as a by-word and vindictive slogan. In 1356, the Prince of Wales renewed his inroad with a smaller army, varying the scene by ravaging in the direction of Auvergne and Berri. But he had advanced too far; his communications were cut off, and he knew nothing of the movements of his opponents, until his outposts fell in with the enemy near Poitiers, between him and his own frontier Seven to one is the lowest odds assigned by the annalists of the time, and the prince listened not unwillingly to proposals of mediation from the cardinal de Perigord, nor was he niggardly in concession:-" My honour and the honour of my army excepted, I will consent to any sacrifice." King John of France, however, confident in a superiority which seemed to make resistance madness, would accept nothing short of personal surrender, and the parties prepared for battle. Every precaution was taken on both sides, but the English commander omitted nothing that a consummate knowledge of the art of war could suggest: trenches and barricades added strength to a position already strong and inaccessible except by a road of which the hedges were lined with archers. On the 19th of September, the battle was fought. The French men-at-arms entered the defile, where they were suffered to advance until irretrievably engaged in its long and narrow windings: then began the rout, the terrible archery of England poured its incessant storm, the generals of the first division were killed or taken,— and the second line, assailed by the archers in front, and turned by a body of cavalry which suddenly appeared on its flank, gave way. Then the English prince gave the word, 'In the name of God and St George, banners! advance.' The fight now became terrible. John brought up his reserves, and made a noble effort to wrest victory from his conquerors. All was in vain: slaughter wrought her perfect work, and the gallant king of France remained in the hands of the English. Historians and bards have vied with each other in lauding the courtesy of the Black Prince to his enforced guest. On the field and in his father's capital, that gentil seigneur honoured himself by honouring his prisoner. In truth, both father and son were a brilliant pair; mirrors of knighthood,-gentle in hall,-lions in fight; and their valour now had its ample reward in the exhibition of two sovereign princes, captives to England's sword. Ten years and more had David, king of

Froissard, 164.

Scots, remained in England, since he was compelled to surrender at the battle of Neuil's Cross, and shortly after this he was released on

ransom.

• com

In 1360, the English king, with a brilliant army, attended for the first time by an extensive commissariat, advanced to the walls of Paris, but the season was adverse, and he retired with great loss, occasioned by one of the most tremendous tempests recorded in European history. In no long time after these events, peace was concluded, but the French derived little benefit from the cessation of arms. The panies,' as they were called, consisting of the soldiers of fortune who had been employed during the war, refused to disband, and setting military interference at defiance, maintained themselves by violence in the heart of France, until they were led by Bertrand du Guesclin into Spain, to the assistance of the bastard Don Enrique, Count Trastamara, against his half-brother, the legitimate Pedro, king of Castile. The latter craved the aid of the Black Prince. The battle of Najara, where Du Guesclin was beaten and made prisoner, replaced Pedro on his throne for a season; but the climate of Spain ruined the health of Edward, who lingered the remaining years of his life through a long and depressing malady.

In the meantime, Charles V. of France was steadily pursuing a cautious but effective system of policy, ostensibly pacific at first, but terminating in a war, not of battles, but of sieges and manœuvres, exhausting the means of the English by constant pressure upon their resources, and allowing them no opportunity of retrieving their losses by a decisive blow. At length the Black Prince, notwithstanding his debility, took the field, and his antagonists retired. But his last act was a bloody deed,-a massacre of the helpless,-the women, children, and unwarlike burghers of Limoges, who had provoked him by what may have been treachery, but was probably mere cowardice, in delivering up their city to the king of France. After this, his standard was no more unfurled: he returned to England, and lingered during six years, condemning, but unable to restrain, the mal-administration of the kingdom, and seconding, to the utmost of his power, the efforts of the 'good parliament' to reform the government. His death, June 8, 1376, threw the power of the state into the hands of his brother, John of Gaunt (Ghent), duke of Lancaster, and the work of state-reformation was roughly checked. The king seems to have been, for some time past, lapsing into dotage. His excellent queen, Philippa of Hainault, was dead, and a rapacious mistress tyrannised over his closing He died, June 21, 1377.

years.

Roger, Lord Mortimer.

DIED A. D. 1330.

AMONG the partisans of the unfortunate earl of Lancaster, none acted so conspicuous a part in the transactions which disgraced the close of the second Edward's reign as Roger, Lord Mortimer of Wigmore, one of the most potent barons of the Welsh marches. After the battle of Boroughbridge, he had been condemned for participating in