A Child's History of England

by Dickens, Charles

  was buried in the old abbey of that ancient city, at forty-three

  years old, after being for nineteen years and a half a perfectly

  incapable King.

  CHAPTER XVIII - ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE THIRD

  ROGER MORTIMER, the Queen's lover (who escaped to France in the

  last chapter), was far from profiting by the examples he had had of

  the fate of favourites. Having, through the Queen's influence,

  come into possession of the estates of the two Despensers, he

  became extremely proud and ambitious, and sought to be the real

  ruler of England. The young King, who was crowned at fourteen

  years of age with all the usual solemnities, resolved not to bear

  this, and soon pursued Mortimer to his ruin.

  The people themselves were not fond of Mortimer - first, because he

  was a Royal favourite; secondly, because he was supposed to have

  helped to make a peace with Scotland which now took place, and in

  virtue of which the young King's sister Joan, only seven years old,

  was promised in marriage to David, the son and heir of Robert

  Bruce, who was only five years old. The nobles hated Mortimer

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  because of his pride, riches, and power. They went so far as to

  take up arms against him; but were obliged to submit. The Earl of

  Kent, one of those who did so, but who afterwards went over to

  Mortimer and the Queen, was made an example of in the following

  cruel manner:

  He seems to have been anything but a wise old earl; and he was

  persuaded by the agents of the favourite and the Queen, that poor

  King Edward the Second was not really dead; and thus was betrayed

  into writing letters favouring his rightful claim to the throne.

  This was made out to be high treason, and he was tried, found

  guilty, and sentenced to be executed. They took the poor old lord

  outside the town of Winchester, and there kept him waiting some

  three or four hours until they could find somebody to cut off his

  head. At last, a convict said he would do it, if the government

  would pardon him in return; and they gave him the pardon; and at

  one blow he put the Earl of Kent out of his last suspense.

  While the Queen was in France, she had found a lovely and good

  young lady, named Philippa, who she thought would make an excellent

  wife for her son. The young King married this lady, soon after he

  came to the throne; and her first child, Edward, Prince of Wales,

  afterwards became celebrated, as we shall presently see, under the

  famous title of EDWARD THE BLACK PRINCE.

  The young King, thinking the time ripe for the downfall of

  Mortimer, took counsel with Lord Montacute how he should proceed.

  A Parliament was going to be held at Nottingham, and that lord

  recommended that the favourite should be seized by night in

  Nottingham Castle, where he was sure to be. Now, this, like many

  other things, was more easily said than done; because, to guard

  against treachery, the great gates of the Castle were locked every

  night, and the great keys were carried up-stairs to the Queen, who

  laid them under her own pillow. But the Castle had a governor, and

  the governor being Lord Montacute's friend, confided to him how he

  knew of a secret passage underground, hidden from observation by

  the weeds and brambles with which it was overgrown; and how,

  through that passage, the conspirators might enter in the dead of

  the night, and go straight to Mortimer's room. Accordingly, upon a

  certain dark night, at midnight, they made their way through this

  dismal place: startling the rats, and frightening the owls and

  bats: and came safely to the bottom of the main tower of the

  Castle, where the King met them, and took them up a profoundly-dark

  staircase in a deep silence. They soon heard the voice of Mortimer

  in council with some friends; and bursting into the room with a

  sudden noise, took him prisoner. The Queen cried out from her bedchamber,

  'Oh, my sweet son, my dear son, spare my gentle Mortimer!'

  They carried him off, however; and, before the next Parliament,

  accused him of having made differences between the young King and

  his mother, and of having brought about the death of the Earl of

  Kent, and even of the late King; for, as you know by this time,

  when they wanted to get rid of a man in those old days, they were

  not very particular of what they accused him. Mortimer was found

  guilty of all this, and was sentenced to be hanged at Tyburn. The

  King shut his mother up in genteel confinement, where she passed

  the rest of her life; and now he became King in earnest.

  The first effort he made was to conquer Scotland. The English

  lords who had lands in Scotland, finding that their rights were not

  respected under the late peace, made war on their own account:

  choosing for their general, Edward, the son of John Baliol, who

  made such a vigorous fight, that in less than two months he won the

  whole Scottish Kingdom. He was joined, when thus triumphant, by

  the King and Parliament; and he and the King in person besieged the

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  Scottish forces in Berwick. The whole Scottish army coming to the

  assistance of their countrymen, such a furious battle ensued, that

  thirty thousand men are said to have been killed in it. Baliol was

  then crowned King of Scotland, doing homage to the King of England;

  but little came of his successes after all, for the Scottish men

  rose against him, within no very long time, and David Bruce came

  back within ten years and took his kingdom.

  France was a far richer country than Scotland, and the King had a

  much greater mind to conquer it. So, he let Scotland alone, and

  pretended that he had a claim to the French throne in right of his

  mother. He had, in reality, no claim at all; but that mattered

  little in those times. He brought over to his cause many little

  princes and sovereigns, and even courted the alliance of the people

  of Flanders - a busy, working community, who had very small respect

  for kings, and whose head man was a brewer. With such forces as he

  raised by these means, Edward invaded France; but he did little by

  that, except run into debt in carrying on the war to the extent of

  three hundred thousand pounds. The next year he did better;

  gaining a great sea-fight in the harbour of Sluys. This success,

  however, was very shortlived, for the Flemings took fright at the

  siege of Saint Omer and ran away, leaving their weapons and baggage

  behind them. Philip, the French King, coming up with his army, and

  Edward being very anxious to decide the war, proposed to settle the

  difference by single combat with him, or by a fight of one hundred

  knights on each side. The French King said, he thanked him; but

  being very well as he was, he would rather not. So, after some

  skirmishing and talking, a short peace was made.

  It was soon broken by King Edward's favouring the cause of John,

  Earl of Montford; a French nobleman, who asserted a claim of his

  ow
n against the French King, and offered to do homage to England

  for the Crown of France, if he could obtain it through England's

  help. This French lord, himself, was soon defeated by the French

  King's son, and shut up in a tower in Paris; but his wife, a

  courageous and beautiful woman, who is said to have had the courage

  of a man, and the heart of a lion, assembled the people of

  Brittany, where she then was; and, showing them her infant son,

  made many pathetic entreaties to them not to desert her and their

  young Lord. They took fire at this appeal, and rallied round her

  in the strong castle of Hennebon. Here she was not only besieged

  without by the French under Charles de Blois, but was endangered

  within by a dreary old bishop, who was always representing to the

  people what horrors they must undergo if they were faithful - first

  from famine, and afterwards from fire and sword. But this noble

  lady, whose heart never failed her, encouraged her soldiers by her

  own example; went from post to post like a great general; even

  mounted on horseback fully armed, and, issuing from the castle by a

  by-path, fell upon the French camp, set fire to the tents, and

  threw the whole force into disorder. This done, she got safely

  back to Hennebon again, and was received with loud shouts of joy by

  the defenders of the castle, who had given her up for lost. As

  they were now very short of provisions, however, and as they could

  not dine off enthusiasm, and as the old bishop was always saying,

  'I told you what it would come to!' they began to lose heart, and

  to talk of yielding the castle up. The brave Countess retiring to

  an upper room and looking with great grief out to sea, where she

  expected relief from England, saw, at this very time, the English

  ships in the distance, and was relieved and rescued! Sir Walter

  Manning, the English commander, so admired her courage, that, being

  come into the castle with the English knights, and having made a

  feast there, he assaulted the French by way of dessert, and beat

  them off triumphantly. Then he and the knights came back to the

  castle with great joy; and the Countess who had watched them from a

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  high tower, thanked them with all her heart, and kissed them every

  one.

  This noble lady distinguished herself afterwards in a sea-fight

  with the French off Guernsey, when she was on her way to England to

  ask for more troops. Her great spirit roused another lady, the

  wife of another French lord (whom the French King very barbarously

  murdered), to distinguish herself scarcely less. The time was fast

  coming, however, when Edward, Prince of Wales, was to be the great

  star of this French and English war.

  It was in the month of July, in the year one thousand three hundred

  and forty-six, when the King embarked at Southampton for France,

  with an army of about thirty thousand men in all, attended by the

  Prince of Wales and by several of the chief nobles. He landed at

  La Hogue in Normandy; and, burning and destroying as he went,

  according to custom, advanced up the left bank of the River Seine,

  and fired the small towns even close to Paris; but, being watched

  from the right bank of the river by the French King and all his

  army, it came to this at last, that Edward found himself, on

  Saturday the twenty-sixth of August, one thousand three hundred and

  forty-six, on a rising ground behind the little French village of

  Crecy, face to face with the French King's force. And, although

  the French King had an enormous army - in number more than eight

  times his - he there resolved to beat him or be beaten.

  The young Prince, assisted by the Earl of Oxford and the Earl of

  Warwick, led the first division of the English army; two other

  great Earls led the second; and the King, the third. When the

  morning dawned, the King received the sacrament, and heard prayers,

  and then, mounted on horseback with a white wand in his hand, rode

  from company to company, and rank to rank, cheering and encouraging

  both officers and men. Then the whole army breakfasted, each man

  sitting on the ground where he had stood; and then they remained

  quietly on the ground with their weapons ready.

  Up came the French King with all his great force. It was dark and

  angry weather; there was an eclipse of the sun; there was a

  thunder-storm, accompanied with tremendous rain; the frightened

  birds flew screaming above the soldiers' heads. A certain captain

  in the French army advised the French King, who was by no means

  cheerful, not to begin the battle until the morrow. The King,

  taking this advice, gave the word to halt. But, those behind not

  understanding it, or desiring to be foremost with the rest, came

  pressing on. The roads for a great distance were covered with this

  immense army, and with the common people from the villages, who

  were flourishing their rude weapons, and making a great noise.

  Owing to these circumstances, the French army advanced in the

  greatest confusion; every French lord doing what he liked with his

  own men, and putting out the men of every other French lord.

  Now, their King relied strongly upon a great body of cross-bowmen

  from Genoa; and these he ordered to the front to begin the battle,

  on finding that he could not stop it. They shouted once, they

  shouted twice, they shouted three times, to alarm the English

  archers; but, the English would have heard them shout three

  thousand times and would have never moved. At last the crossbowmen

  went forward a little, and began to discharge their bolts;

  upon which, the English let fly such a hail of arrows, that the

  Genoese speedily made off - for their cross-bows, besides being

  heavy to carry, required to be wound up with a handle, and

  consequently took time to re-load; the English, on the other hand,

  could discharge their arrows almost as fast as the arrows could

  fly.

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  When the French King saw the Genoese turning, he cried out to his

  men to kill those scoundrels, who were doing harm instead of

  service. This increased the confusion. Meanwhile the English

  archers, continuing to shoot as fast as ever, shot down great

  numbers of the French soldiers and knights; whom certain sly

  Cornish-men and Welshmen, from the English army, creeping along the

  ground, despatched with great knives.

  The Prince and his division were at this time so hard-pressed, that

  the Earl of Warwick sent a message to the King, who was overlooking

  the battle from a windmill, beseeching him to send more aid.

  'Is my son killed?' said the King.

  'No, sire, please God,' returned the messenger.

  'Is he wounded?' said the King.

  'No, sire.'

  'Is he thrown to the ground?' said the King.

  'No, sire, not so; but, he is very hard-pressed.'

  'Then,' said the King, 'go back to those who sent you, and tell

  them I shall send no aid; because I set my heart u
pon my son

  proving himself this day a brave knight, and because I am resolved,

  please God, that the honour of a great victory shall be his!'

  These bold words, being reported to the Prince and his division, so

  raised their spirits, that they fought better than ever. The King

  of France charged gallantly with his men many times; but it was of

  no use. Night closing in, his horse was killed under him by an

  English arrow, and the knights and nobles who had clustered thick

  about him early in the day, were now completely scattered. At

  last, some of his few remaining followers led him off the field by

  force since he would not retire of himself, and they journeyed away

  to Amiens. The victorious English, lighting their watch-fires,

  made merry on the field, and the King, riding to meet his gallant

  son, took him in his arms, kissed him, and told him that he had

  acted nobly, and proved himself worthy of the day and of the crown.

  While it was yet night, King Edward was hardly aware of the great

  victory he had gained; but, next day, it was discovered that eleven

  princes, twelve hundred knights, and thirty thousand common men lay

  dead upon the French side. Among these was the King of Bohemia, an

  old blind man; who, having been told that his son was wounded in

  the battle, and that no force could stand against the Black Prince,

  called to him two knights, put himself on horse-back between them,

  fastened the three bridles together, and dashed in among the

  English, where he was presently slain. He bore as his crest three

  white ostrich feathers, with the motto ICH DIEN, signifying in

  English 'I serve.' This crest and motto were taken by the Prince

  of Wales in remembrance of that famous day, and have been borne by

  the Prince of Wales ever since.

  Five days after this great battle, the King laid siege to Calais.

  This siege - ever afterwards memorable - lasted nearly a year. In

  order to starve the inhabitants out, King Edward built so many

  wooden houses for the lodgings of his troops, that it is said their

  quarters looked like a second Calais suddenly sprung around the

  first. Early in the siege, the governor of the town drove out what

  he called the useless mouths, to the number of seventeen hundred

  persons, men and women, young and old. King Edward allowed them to

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