A Child's History of England

by Dickens, Charles

  pass through his lines, and even fed them, and dismissed them with

  money; but, later in the siege, he was not so merciful - five

  hundred more, who were afterwards driven out, dying of starvation

  and misery. The garrison were so hard-pressed at last, that they

  sent a letter to King Philip, telling him that they had eaten all

  the horses, all the dogs, and all the rats and mice that could be

  found in the place; and, that if he did not relieve them, they must

  either surrender to the English, or eat one another. Philip made

  one effort to give them relief; but they were so hemmed in by the

  English power, that he could not succeed, and was fain to leave the

  place. Upon this they hoisted the English flag, and surrendered to

  King Edward. 'Tell your general,' said he to the humble messengers

  who came out of the town, 'that I require to have sent here, six of

  the most distinguished citizens, bare-legged, and in their shirts,

  with ropes about their necks; and let those six men bring with them

  the keys of the castle and the town.'

  When the Governor of Calais related this to the people in the

  Market-place, there was great weeping and distress; in the midst of

  which, one worthy citizen, named Eustace de Saint Pierre, rose up

  and said, that if the six men required were not sacrificed, the

  whole population would be; therefore, he offered himself as the

  first. Encouraged by this bright example, five other worthy

  citizens rose up one after another, and offered themselves to save

  the rest. The Governor, who was too badly wounded to be able to

  walk, mounted a poor old horse that had not been eaten, and

  conducted these good men to the gate, while all the people cried

  and mourned.

  Edward received them wrathfully, and ordered the heads of the whole

  six to be struck off. However, the good Queen fell upon her knees,

  and besought the King to give them up to her. The King replied, 'I

  wish you had been somewhere else; but I cannot refuse you.' So she

  had them properly dressed, made a feast for them, and sent them

  back with a handsome present, to the great rejoicing of the whole

  camp. I hope the people of Calais loved the daughter to whom she

  gave birth soon afterwards, for her gentle mother's sake.

  Now came that terrible disease, the Plague, into Europe, hurrying

  from the heart of China; and killed the wretched people -

  especially the poor - in such enormous numbers, that one-half of

  the inhabitants of England are related to have died of it. It

  killed the cattle, in great numbers, too; and so few working men

  remained alive, that there were not enough left to till the ground.

  After eight years of differing and quarrelling, the Prince of Wales

  again invaded France with an army of sixty thousand men. He went

  through the south of the country, burning and plundering

  wheresoever he went; while his father, who had still the Scottish

  war upon his hands, did the like in Scotland, but was harassed and

  worried in his retreat from that country by the Scottish men, who

  repaid his cruelties with interest.

  The French King, Philip, was now dead, and was succeeded by his son

  John. The Black Prince, called by that name from the colour of the

  armour he wore to set off his fair complexion, continuing to burn

  and destroy in France, roused John into determined opposition; and

  so cruel had the Black Prince been in his campaign, and so severely

  had the French peasants suffered, that he could not find one who,

  for love, or money, or the fear of death, would tell him what the

  French King was doing, or where he was. Thus it happened that he

  came upon the French King's forces, all of a sudden, near the town

  of Poitiers, and found that the whole neighbouring country was

  occupied by a vast French army. 'God help us!' said the Black

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  Prince, 'we must make the best of it.'

  So, on a Sunday morning, the eighteenth of September, the Prince

  whose army was now reduced to ten thousand men in all - prepared to

  give battle to the French King, who had sixty thousand horse alone.

  While he was so engaged, there came riding from the French camp, a

  Cardinal, who had persuaded John to let him offer terms, and try to

  save the shedding of Christian blood. 'Save my honour,' said the

  Prince to this good priest, 'and save the honour of my army, and I

  will make any reasonable terms.' He offered to give up all the

  towns, castles, and prisoners, he had taken, and to swear to make

  no war in France for seven years; but, as John would hear of

  nothing but his surrender, with a hundred of his chief knights, the

  treaty was broken off, and the Prince said quietly - 'God defend

  the right; we shall fight to-morrow.'

  Therefore, on the Monday morning, at break of day, the two armies

  prepared for battle. The English were posted in a strong place,

  which could only be approached by one narrow lane, skirted by

  hedges on both sides. The French attacked them by this lane; but

  were so galled and slain by English arrows from behind the hedges,

  that they were forced to retreat. Then went six hundred English

  bowmen round about, and, coming upon the rear of the French army,

  rained arrows on them thick and fast. The French knights, thrown

  into confusion, quitted their banners and dispersed in all

  directions. Said Sir John Chandos to the Prince, 'Ride forward,

  noble Prince, and the day is yours. The King of France is so

  valiant a gentleman, that I know he will never fly, and may be

  taken prisoner.' Said the Prince to this, 'Advance, English

  banners, in the name of God and St. George!' and on they pressed

  until they came up with the French King, fighting fiercely with his

  battle-axe, and, when all his nobles had forsaken him, attended

  faithfully to the last by his youngest son Philip, only sixteen

  years of age. Father and son fought well, and the King had already

  two wounds in his face, and had been beaten down, when he at last

  delivered himself to a banished French knight, and gave him his

  right-hand glove in token that he had done so.

  The Black Prince was generous as well as brave, and he invited his

  royal prisoner to supper in his tent, and waited upon him at table,

  and, when they afterwards rode into London in a gorgeous

  procession, mounted the French King on a fine cream-coloured horse,

  and rode at his side on a little pony. This was all very kind, but

  I think it was, perhaps, a little theatrical too, and has been made

  more meritorious than it deserved to be; especially as I am

  inclined to think that the greatest kindness to the King of France

  would have been not to have shown him to the people at all.

  However, it must be said, for these acts of politeness, that, in

  course of time, they did much to soften the horrors of war and the

  passions of conquerors. It was a long, long time before the common

  soldiers began to have the benefit of such courtly deeds; but they

  did at last; and thus it is possible that a poor soldier who a
sked

  for quarter at the battle of Waterloo, or any other such great

  fight, may have owed his life indirectly to Edward the Black

  Prince.

  At this time there stood in the Strand, in London, a palace called

  the Savoy, which was given up to the captive King of France and his

  son for their residence. As the King of Scotland had now been King

  Edward's captive for eleven years too, his success was, at this

  time, tolerably complete. The Scottish business was settled by the

  prisoner being released under the title of Sir David, King of

  Scotland, and by his engaging to pay a large ransom. The state of

  France encouraged England to propose harder terms to that country,

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  where the people rose against the unspeakable cruelty and barbarity

  of its nobles; where the nobles rose in turn against the people;

  where the most frightful outrages were committed on all sides; and

  where the insurrection of the peasants, called the insurrection of

  the Jacquerie, from Jacques, a common Christian name among the

  country people of France, awakened terrors and hatreds that have

  scarcely yet passed away. A treaty called the Great Peace, was at

  last signed, under which King Edward agreed to give up the greater

  part of his conquests, and King John to pay, within six years, a

  ransom of three million crowns of gold. He was so beset by his own

  nobles and courtiers for having yielded to these conditions -

  though they could help him to no better - that he came back of his

  own will to his old palace-prison of the Savoy, and there died.

  There was a Sovereign of Castile at that time, called PEDRO THE

  CRUEL, who deserved the name remarkably well: having committed,

  among other cruelties, a variety of murders. This amiable monarch

  being driven from his throne for his crimes, went to the province

  of Bordeaux, where the Black Prince - now married to his cousin

  JOAN, a pretty widow - was residing, and besought his help. The

  Prince, who took to him much more kindly than a prince of such fame

  ought to have taken to such a ruffian, readily listened to his fair

  promises, and agreeing to help him, sent secret orders to some

  troublesome disbanded soldiers of his and his father's, who called

  themselves the Free Companions, and who had been a pest to the

  French people, for some time, to aid this Pedro. The Prince,

  himself, going into Spain to head the army of relief, soon set

  Pedro on his throne again - where he no sooner found himself, than,

  of course, he behaved like the villain he was, broke his word

  without the least shame, and abandoned all the promises he had made

  to the Black Prince.

  Now, it had cost the Prince a good deal of money to pay soldiers to

  support this murderous King; and finding himself, when he came back

  disgusted to Bordeaux, not only in bad health, but deeply in debt,

  he began to tax his French subjects to pay his creditors. They

  appealed to the French King, CHARLES; war again broke out; and the

  French town of Limoges, which the Prince had greatly benefited,

  went over to the French King. Upon this he ravaged the province of

  which it was the capital; burnt, and plundered, and killed in the

  old sickening way; and refused mercy to the prisoners, men, women,

  and children taken in the offending town, though he was so ill and

  so much in need of pity himself from Heaven, that he was carried in

  a litter. He lived to come home and make himself popular with the

  people and Parliament, and he died on Trinity Sunday, the eighth of

  June, one thousand three hundred and seventy-six, at forty-six

  years old.

  The whole nation mourned for him as one of the most renowned and

  beloved princes it had ever had; and he was buried with great

  lamentations in Canterbury Cathedral. Near to the tomb of Edward

  the Confessor, his monument, with his figure, carved in stone, and

  represented in the old black armour, lying on its back, may be seen

  at this day, with an ancient coat of mail, a helmet, and a pair of

  gauntlets hanging from a beam above it, which most people like to

  believe were once worn by the Black Prince.

  King Edward did not outlive his renowned son, long. He was old,

  and one Alice Perrers, a beautiful lady, had contrived to make him

  so fond of her in his old age, that he could refuse her nothing,

  and made himself ridiculous. She little deserved his love, or -

  what I dare say she valued a great deal more - the jewels of the

  late Queen, which he gave her among other rich presents. She took

  the very ring from his finger on the morning of the day when he

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  died, and left him to be pillaged by his faithless servants. Only

  one good priest was true to him, and attended him to the last.

  Besides being famous for the great victories I have related, the

  reign of King Edward the Third was rendered memorable in better

  ways, by the growth of architecture and the erection of Windsor

  Castle. In better ways still, by the rising up of WICKLIFFE,

  originally a poor parish priest: who devoted himself to exposing,

  with wonderful power and success, the ambition and corruption of

  the Pope, and of the whole church of which he was the head.

  Some of those Flemings were induced to come to England in this

  reign too, and to settle in Norfolk, where they made better woollen

  cloths than the English had ever had before. The Order of the

  Garter (a very fine thing in its way, but hardly so important as

  good clothes for the nation) also dates from this period. The King

  is said to have picked 'up a lady's garter at a ball, and to have

  said, HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE - in English, 'Evil be to him who

  evil thinks of it.' The courtiers were usually glad to imitate

  what the King said or did, and hence from a slight incident the

  Order of the Garter was instituted, and became a great dignity. So

  the story goes.

  CHAPTER XIX - ENGLAND UNDER RICHARD THE SECOND

  RICHARD, son of the Black Prince, a boy eleven years of age,

  succeeded to the Crown under the title of King Richard the Second.

  The whole English nation were ready to admire him for the sake of

  his brave father. As to the lords and ladies about the Court, they

  declared him to be the most beautiful, the wisest, and the best -

  even of princes - whom the lords and ladies about the Court,

  generally declare to be the most beautiful, the wisest, and the

  best of mankind. To flatter a poor boy in this base manner was not

  a very likely way to develop whatever good was in him; and it

  brought him to anything but a good or happy end.

  The Duke of Lancaster, the young King's uncle - commonly called

  John of Gaunt, from having been born at Ghent, which the common

  people so pronounced - was supposed to have some thoughts of the

  throne himself; but, as he was not popular, and the memory of the

  Black Prince was, he submitted to his nephew.

  The war with France being still unsettled, the Government
of

  England wanted money to provide for the expenses that might arise

  out of it; accordingly a certain tax, called the Poll-tax, which

  had originated in the last reign, was ordered to be levied on the

  people. This was a tax on every person in the kingdom, male and

  female, above the age of fourteen, of three groats (or three fourpenny

  pieces) a year; clergymen were charged more, and only beggars

  were exempt.

  I have no need to repeat that the common people of England had long

  been suffering under great oppression. They were still the mere

  slaves of the lords of the land on which they lived, and were on

  most occasions harshly and unjustly treated. But, they had begun

  by this time to think very seriously of not bearing quite so much;

  and, probably, were emboldened by that French insurrection I

  mentioned in the last chapter.

  The people of Essex rose against the Poll-tax, and being severely

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  handled by the government officers, killed some of them. At this

  very time one of the tax-collectors, going his rounds from house to

  house, at Dartford in Kent came to the cottage of one WAT, a tiler

  by trade, and claimed the tax upon his daughter. Her mother, who

  was at home, declared that she was under the age of fourteen; upon

  that, the collector (as other collectors had already done in

  different parts of England) behaved in a savage way, and brutally

  insulted Wat Tyler's daughter. The daughter screamed, the mother

  screamed. Wat the Tiler, who was at work not far off, ran to the

  spot, and did what any honest father under such provocation might

  have done - struck the collector dead at a blow.

  Instantly the people of that town uprose as one man. They made Wat

  Tyler their leader; they joined with the people of Essex, who were

  in arms under a priest called JACK STRAW; they took out of prison

  another priest named JOHN BALL; and gathering in numbers as they

  went along, advanced, in a great confused army of poor men, to

  Blackheath. It is said that they wanted to abolish all property,

  and to declare all men equal. I do not think this very likely;

  because they stopped the travellers on the roads and made them

  swear to be true to King Richard and the people. Nor were they at

  all disposed to injure those who had done them no harm, merely