right of Philip, and that which Joan of Arc urged for his successor one hundred years later, was that the French people should be ruled by a French king.

Victory was at first on the side of England. Having a pros- Bright, I, perous realm and a well-filled treasury, Edward could com- 224-236. mand a loyal army. His troops were liberally paid for their service on foreign soil. Philip could bring against him only a feudal force. The bulk of his men were mounted knights, the unruly retainers of the great vassals. Discipline, generalship, were impossible. The battlefield' of Crecy (1346) proved the weakness of a feudal array when brought face to face with national troops. The English army was made up in great part of foot-soldiers, stout yeoman archers, who

Crecy, 1346

Source-Book, pp. 93-97.

steadily stood their ground, while the French chivalry pushed to the front in defiance of orders, ruthlessly treading down the Genoese mercenaries in their path.

The Black Prince. -The hero of the French wars was the eldest son of the king, "the Black Prince." Nothing more clearly indicates how distorted were the moral ideals of the age than the universal admiration of Prince Edward. That he was a brilliant and daring warrior was abundantly proved at Crecy and Poitiers; but personal courage was off- Poitiers, set by a cruelty and greed that rendered him the prince of 1356.

1 The statement that the English used cannon at Crecy is probably a mis- Traill, II, They were used in sieges only at this date.

take.

179-181.

plunderers. Rich booty was wrung from the unhappy people only to be spent in wasteful revel. The fairest districts of France were devastated to no military end, and the country reduced to a state of famine. It was the vice of the times. Medieval chivalry imposed a high code of honor upon its devotees, but their superfine courtesy did not extend beyond their own class. Peasants and burghers were thought creatures of another clay. Froissart lauds the generosity of the Black Prince when, after Poitiers, he served the captured King John at a sumptuous supper, standing by his side with deferential solicitude. The aristocratic chronicler ignores the fact that the treasure dispensed in such royal fashion was wrested from a starving people.

Results of the War. - After years of this wasteful and inhuman warfare, Prince Edward returned home laden with booty, but broken in body and spirit. The best blood of England had been spilled on the fields of France, but the country was no nearer submission than when the war began. By the peace of Bretigny (1360) Edward surrendered his claim to the French crown, and in 1375 a truce was agreed upon which left the English in possession of no French territory but the seaports Calais, Cherbourg, Brest, Bordeaux, and Bayonne.

The long and costly war was not merely fruitless: it was demoralizing. It is true that bravery and knightly honor were fostered by these years of desperate adventure, but the same conditions bred brutality and avarice. Campaigning at an end, the soldiers returned to England to spend in reckless extravagance the wealth amassed abroad.

Disastrous as were the French wars, they yet served one useful purpose. They furnished the opportunity for constitutional progress. Great armies could not be maintained without frequent appeals for money, and the Parliaments of this period were not slow to utilize such occasions for extorting concessions. Grants were voted only in return for re- Bright, I, dress of grievances, and the king was forced to surrender, 219, 221. one after another, the most cherished prerogatives of the

Bright, I, 237, 238.

crown.

Exclusive right of taxation was accorded to Parliament, together with the power to specify the object to which the supply should be devoted. The royal accounts were examined by auditors appointed by Parliament, and the king's ministers were held responsible to the representatives of the people. These were great and important gains. They secured to the estates of the fourteenth century authority almost coextensive with that exercised by the House of Commons to-day.

Organization of the Two Houses. Forty-eight Parliaments were convened in the fifty years of Edward III's reign, and the mass of business considered rendered effective organization necessary. The methods of procedure then determined upon are still observed, curious and antiquated though many of them seem. By 1343 the representatives of the several estates had established the custom of meeting in two distinct assemblies, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. In the House of Lords, the lineal descendant of the Great Council, sat some fifty barons and as many great ecclesiastics, who together represented the interests of a small fraction of the English nation, the privileged orders. Knights and burgesses originally sat apart as reprepp. 231, 232. senting separate interests, but they gradually learned how much might be gained by alliance. The knight spoke for his shire and the burgess for his borough, but both stood for the interests of the middle classes as opposed to those of the barons and clergy. Their union in the House of Commons was an important step in the process of constitutional development. Jointly the two estates gathered courage to undertake reforms that neither would have ventured alone.

Green,

Misgovernment of the King's Ministers. The reign of Edward III, held to be so brilliant by contemporary annalists, drew to a close in grief and gloom. The last expedition to France had been a pitiful failure, and England was forced to sue for peace. The Prince of Wales was sick unto death. The old king was in his dotage. Ruled by his greedy, un

scrupulous mistress, Alice Perrers, he weakly yielded to the clamors of the cunning parasites who battened on the royal treasury. Bribery, peculation, fraud, every form of corruption, was rife at court. The ostentatious extravagance of the upper classes showed in startling contrast to the misery of the people.

The government had fallen into the hands of John of Gaunt, a younger son of Edward III, and the ablest of his house. He made but selfish use of his great power. Allying himself in political trickery with Alice Perrers, he winked at the malpractices of the court. When Parliament at last set about the work of reform, the Duke of Lancaster was recognized as a most dangerous opponent.

Impeach

ment of the king's officers, 1376.

The Good Parliament (1376). — The grievances of the peo- Green, ple were voiced by the House of Commons, now at last PP. 233-235. grown strong enough to act in advance of the Lords. Encouraged by the support of Prince Edward, they presented a Bright, I, remonstrance, boldly complaining of the extravagance and 239-241. corruption of the court and denouncing the king's ministers. as evil counsellors. At first the reformers carried everything before them. Lyons and Latimer, officers of the king, were accused of gigantic financial frauds, and solemnly impeached. Heavy fines were imposed on Alice Perrers and others convicted of receiving bribes. A Council of Government was chosen, composed of men who could be trusted to guard the interests of the nation. Petitions were presented, one hundred and forty in number, protesting against the maladministration of the kingdom. The old king bent his head before this storm of indignation and granted all that was asked of him, but Lancaster bided his time. The death of Prince Edward that same year struck the ground 1 The last of the Angevins: