The Leading Facts of English History Part 21

240. Edward III takes Calais, 1347.

King Edward now marched against Calais. He was particularly anxious to take the place: first, because it was a favorite resort of desperate pirates; secondly, because such a fortified port on the Strait of Dover, within sight of the chalk cliffs of England, would give him at all times "an open doorway into France."

After besieging it for nearly a year, the garrison was starved into submission and prepared to open the gates. Edward was so exasperated with the stubborn resistance the town had made, that he resolved to put the entire population to the sword. But at last he consented to spare them, on condition that six of the chief men should give themselves up to be hanged. A meeting was called, and St. Pierre, the wealthiest citizen of the place, volunteered, with five others, to go forth and die. Bareheaded, barefooted, with halters round their necks, they silently went out, carrying the keys of the city. When they appeared before the English King, he ordered the executioner, who was standing by, to seize them and carry out the sentence forthwith.

But Queen Philippa (S236), who had accompanied her husband, now fell on her knees before him, and with tears begged that they might be forgiven. For a long time Edward was inexorable, but finally, unable to resist her entreaties, he granted her request, and the men who had dared to face death for others found life both for themselves and their fellow citizens.[1] Calais now became an English town and the English kept it for more than two hundred years (S373). This gave them the power to invade France whenever it seemed for their interest to do so.

[1] Froissart's "Chronicles."

241. Victory of Poitiers (1356).

After a long truce, war again broke out. Philip VI had died, and his son, John II, now sat on the French throne. Edward, during this campaign, ravaged northern France. The next year his son, the Black Prince (S238), marched from Bordeaux into the heart of the country.

Reaching Poitiers with a force of ten thousand men, he found himself nearly surrounded by a French army of sixty thousand. The Prince so placed his troops amidst the narrow lanes and vineyards, that the enemy could not attack him with their full strength. Again the English archers gained the day (S238), and King John himself was taken prisoner and carried in triumph to England. (See map facing p. 128.)

242. Peace of Bre'tigny, 1360.

The victory of Poitiers was followed by another truce; then war began again. Edward intended besieging Paris, but was forced to retire to obtain provisions for his troops. Negotiations were now opened by the French. While these great negotiations were going on, a terrible thunderstorm destroyed great numbers of men and horses in Edward's camp.

Edward, believing it a sign of the displeasure of Heaven against his expedition, fell on his knees, and within sight of the Cathedral of Chartres vowed to make peace. A treaty was accordingly signed at Bre'tigny near by. By it, Edward renounced his claim to Normandy and the French crown. But notwithstanding that fact, all English sovereigns insisted on retaining the t.i.tle of "King of France" down to a late period of the reign of George III. France, on the other hand, acknowledged the right of England, in full sovereignty, to the country south of the Loire, together with Calais, and agreed to pay an enormous ransom in pure gold for the restoration of King John.

243. Effects of the French Wars in England.

The great gain to England from these wars was not in the territory conquered, but in the new feeling of unity they aroused among all cla.s.ses. The memory of the brave deeds achieved in those fierce contests on a foreign soil never faded out. The glory of the Black Prince (SS238, 241), whose rusted helmet and dented shield still hang above his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral,[1] became one with the glory of the plain bowmen, whose names are found only in country churchyards.

[1] This is probably the oldest armor of the king in Great Britain.

See Stothard's "Monumental Effigies."

Henceforth, whatever lingering feeling of jealousy and hatred had remained in England, between the Norman and the Englishman (S192), now gradually melted away. An honest, patriotic pride made both feel that at last they had become a united and h.o.m.ogeneous people.

The second effect of the wars was political. In order to carry them on, the King had to apply constantly to Parliament for money (SS217, 220). Each time that body granted a supply, they insisted on some reform which increased their strength, and brought the Crown more and more under the influence of the nation. (See Summary of Const.i.tutional History in the Appendix, p. xii, S13.)

The it came to be clearly understood that though the King held the sword, the people held the purse; and that the ruler who made the greatest concessions got the largest grants.

It was also in this reign that the House of Commons (SS213, 217, 262), which now sat as a separate body, obtained the important power of impeaching, or bringing to trial before the upper House, any of the King's ministers or council who should be accused of misgovernment (1376). (See S247, and Summary of Const.i.tutional History in the Appendix, p. xii, S13.)

About this time, also, statutes were pa.s.sed which forbade appeals from the King's courts of justice to that of the Pope,[1] who was then a Frenchman, and was believed to be under French political influence.

Furthermore, all foreign Church officials were prohibited from asking or taking money from the English Church, or interfering in any way with its management.[2]

[1] First Statute of Provisors (1351) and of Praemunire (1353) (S265). The first Statute of Praemunire did not mention the Pope or the Court of Rome by name; the second, or Great Statute of Praemunire of 1393, expressly mentioned them in the strongest terms. See Const.i.tutionals Doc.u.ments in the Appendix, p. x.x.xii.

[2] Statute of Provisors (1351), and see S265.

244. The Black Death, or Plague, 1349.

Shortly after the first campaign in France, a frightful pestilence broke out in London, which swept over the country, destroying upwards of half the population. The disease, which was known as the Black Death, had already traversed Europe, where it had proved equally fatal.

"How many amiable young persons," said a noted writer of that period, "breakfasted with their friends in the morning, who, when evening came, supped with their ancestors!" In Bristol and some other English cities, the mortality was so great that the living were hardly able to bury the dead; so that all business, and for a time even war, came to a standstill.

245. Effect of the Plague on Labor, 1349.

After the pestilence had subsided, it was impossible to find laborers enough to till the soil and shear the sheep. Those who were free now demanded higher wages, while the villeins, or serfs (S113), and slaves left their masters and roamed about the country asking for pay for their work, like freemen.

It was a general agricultural strike, which lasted over thirty years.

It marks the beginning of that contest between capital and labor which had such an important influence on the next reign, and which, after a lapse of more than five hundred years, is not yet satisfactorily adjusted.

Parliament endeavored to restore order. It pa.s.sed laws forbidding any freeman to ask more for a day's work than before the plague. It gave the master the right to punish a serf who persisted in running away, by branding him on the forehead with the letter F, for "fugitive."

But legislation was in vain; the movement had begun, and statutes of Parliament could no more stop it than they could stop the rolling of the ocean tide. It continued to go on until it reached its climax in the peasant insurrection led by Wat Tyler, under Edward's successor, Richard II (S251).

246. Beginning of English Literature, 1369-1377.

During Edward's reign the first work in English prose may have been written. It was a volume of travels by Sir John Mandeville, who had journeyed in the East for over thirty years. On his return he wrote an account of what he had heard and seen, first in Latin, that the learned might read it; next in French, that the n.o.bles might read it; and lastly he, or some unknown person, translated it into English for the common people. He dedicated the work to the King.

Perhaps the most interesting and wonderful thing in it was the statement of his belief that the world is a globe, and that a ship may sail round it "above and beneath,"--an a.s.sertion which probably seemed to many who read it then as less credible than any of the marvelous stories in which his book abounds.

William Langland was writing rude verses (1369) about his "vision of Piers the Plowman," contrasting "the wealth and woe" of the world, and so helping forward that democratic outbreak which was soon to take place among those who knew the woe and wanted the wealth. John Wycliffe (S254), a lecturer at Oxford, attacked the rich and indolent churchmen in a series of tracts and sermons, while Chaucer, who had fought on the fields of France, was preparing to bring forth the first great poem in our language (S253).

247. The "Good Parliament" (1376); Edward's Death.

The "Good Parliament" (1376) attempted to carry through important reforms. It impeached (for the first time in English history)[1]

certain prominent men for fraud (S243). But in the end its work failed for want of a leader. The King's last days were far from happy. His son, the Black Prince (S238), had died, and Edward fell entirely into the hands of selfish favorites and ambitious schemers like John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Perhaps the worst one of this corrupt "ring" was a woman named Alice Perrers, who, after Queen Philippa was no more (S240), got almost absolute control of the King.

She stayed with him until his last sickness. When his eyes began to glaze in death, she plucked the rings from his unresisting hands, and fled from the palace.

248. Summary.

During this reign the following events deserve especial notice:

1. The acknowledgment of the independence of Scotland.

2. The establishment of the manufacture of fine woolens in England.

3. The beginning of the Hundred Years' War, with the victories of Cre'cy and Poitiers, the Peace of Bre'tigny, and their social and political results in England.

4. The Black Death and its results on labor.

5. Parliament enacts important laws for securing greater independence to the English Church.

6. The rise of modern literature, represented by the works of Mandeville, Langland, and the early writings of Wycliffe and Chaucer.

Richard II--1377-1399

249. England at Richard's Accession.

The death of the Black Prince (SS238, 241, 247) left his son Richard heir to the crown. As he was but eleven years old, Parliament provided that the government during his minority should be carried on by a council; but John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster (S247), speedily got the control of affairs.

He was an unprincipled man, who wasted the nation's money, opposed reform, and was especially hated by the laboring cla.s.ses. The times were critical. War had again broken out with both Scotland and France, the French fleet was raiding the English coast, the national treasury had no money to pay its troops, and the government debt was rapidly acc.u.mulating.

250. The New Tax; the Tyler and Ball Insurrection (1381).

In order to raise money, the government resolved to levy a new form of tax,--a poll or head tax,--which had been tried on a small scale during the last year of the previous reign. The apttempt had been made to a.s.sess it on all cla.s.ses, from laborers to lords.

The imposition was now renewed in a much more oppressive form. Not only every laborer, but every member of a laborer's family above the age of fifteen, was required to pay what twould be eequal to the wages of an able-bodied man for at least several days' work.[1]

[1] The tax on laborers and their families varied from four to twelve pence each, the a.s.sessor having instructions to collect the latter sum, if possible. The wages of a day laborer were then about a penny, so that the smallest tax for a family of three would represent the entire pay for nearly a fortnight's labor. See Pearson's "England in the Fourteenth Century."

We have already seen that, owing to the ravages of the Black Death, and the strikes which followed, the country was on the verge of revolt (SS244, 245). This new tax was the spark that caused the explosion.